Page 16 of The Black Key

“Go on, then,” she says, rubbing her eyes and turning away. I join the line of people waiting to board. When I get on, I find a seat by a window. Turnip and Sil are already on their way back to the White Rose.

The train rolls forward and the first step of this journey begins. To get to the Bank, I’m going to have to transfer at one of the Farm’s main terminals.

Should I even be doing this? Is the danger to Hazel great enough for me to take such a risk?

But as the farmland flashes past me out the window, I think about waiting here over the next month, so far away from her, not knowing from one day to the next if she’s dead or alive, certain of only one thing: it’s my fault. I couldn’t live like that.

The main terminal is large and loud, packed with people. I find my train, a great gray monster, and take a seat opposite a worker reading the Lone City Herald. The headline reads: “Exetor and Electress Promise Spectacular Auction Festivities This Year.” At the bottom of the page, I see another article, only a paragraph and in much smaller print: “Five Dead in Bombing; Black Key Society Suspected.”

Nerves gnaw at my stomach for the rest of the ride. Especially for one moment in the Smoke, when we pass the ruined shell of a factory near the elevated tracks. One of the bombed buildings. Black keys are scrawled everywhere. A man is being beaten in the street by three Regimentals. Then the train chugs on, leaving the unsettling scene behind us.

But it stays in my mind for the rest of the ride. I haven’t seen much of the actual revolution. I’ve heard stories, from Lucien and Garnet, and read them in the papers, but I’ve never seen the results of Lucien’s efforts laid bare in front of me. It’s very different, reading a headline versus seeing the blackened ruin left behind.

When we arrive at the station in the Bank, we’re instructed to leave the train and transfer to a different one. My stomach is in so many knots I don’t think they’ll ever untangle. I’m sweating under my arms and on my lower back. Garnet said there would be a group of newly hired servants coming in, but all I see are men in bowler hats and women with parasols.

Just then a covered wagon pulls up. Girls file out of it, all of them wearing brown dresses. They range in age from a few years younger than me to nearly as old as Sil. A woman in charge is ushering them off the wagon.

Quickly, I slip through the crowd and fall in step behind a girl with curly brown hair. We wait patiently in a group as another train, the one going to the Jewel, pulls up.

Someone grabs my arm.

“Where is your hat?” A girl in her late twenties is glaring at me, furious.

“What? Oh, I . . . I lost it,” I say. The lie falls out of my mouth on its own.

She tsks. “Here, I have an extra one.” She hands me a white cap with lace fringe on it, identical to the one on her own head. “Take care not to lose this one.”

“Right, thanks,” I say.

“You’re lucky you didn’t arrive in the Jewel like that,” she says as we begin to board the train. I notice that all the servant girls are entering a smaller, front compartment, separate from the Bank patrons. “The ladies-in-waiting are sticklers about new girls. They might just send you back to the Bank, and you don’t want that, do you?”

I shake my head.

“Which House are you assigned to?”

“The Lake,” I say.

“Really?” The girl looks surprised. “I didn’t know they were looking for more help.”

“Garnet of the House of the Lake hired me,” I say, taking care to call him by his full title. “For his wife.”

“Oh, so he’s finally getting her a proper lady-in-waiting, is he? I’d have thought the Duchess would never let her get one.” She claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Don’t repeat that. I—I didn’t mean it.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, lowering my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I won’t say a thing.”

She grins. “Thanks.”

We climb into the compartment, which is standing room only. There are no chairs or benches to sit on. The train whistles and the doors bang shut. A second later, we lurch forward.

“You haven’t seen the Jewel before, have you?” the girl says.

“No,” I lie.

I must look genuinely frightened because her whole manner softens. “What’s your name?”

“Lily,” I say. Again, the word comes out on its own, but I’m glad I chose it. A tribute to my blond-haired friend from Southgate. Lily is pregnant and living in the Bank now.

“Well, Lily,” the girl says, looking out the window at the posh town houses passing by, “you’re in for a real treat.”