Page 70 of The Black Key

“This is it,” he echoes in reply. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever the day brings . . . at least we tried. We tried to do something bold and brave.”

“We tried to change the world,” I say.

He smiles gently. “Or our own little corner of it, at least.”

I smile back. He has meant so much to me, and I don’t know how to express my thanks for everything he has done. He seems to sense my feelings, though, and envelops me in a freesia-scented hug.

As we walk back out into the hall, a footman rushes up. “Lucien, come quick. Arabelle has burned the venison pot pies and Robert and Duncan are at each other’s throats again. The kitchen is a nightmare.”

Lucien pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of all the nights,” he mutters, and the two hurry down the hall, disappearing behind a tapestry.

I’m left alone. I turn to reenter the chamber where the food and ladies-in-waiting are, when a dancing glint of light catches my eye.

A door across the hall with a golden handle is slightly ajar. Curiosity gets the better of me and I push it open, slipping inside.

The room is larger than I expected. And full of . . . me.

Mirrors hang on every wall, reflecting my startled face back at me. Except that it’s not my face, not really. It’s the face of a blond girl with a high forehead and wide green eyes. It’s the face of a stranger.

I make a circuit of the room, my stranger’s face appearing in an oval mirror inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a square-shaped one with golden roses fixed on its four points, and a long rectangle with pearls dotting its edge.

I stop at one that sets my heart pounding. It’s a simple square mirror with a silver frame, but etched lightly in its center is a tree that looks exactly like the lemon tree that grows in the backyard of my house in the Marsh. The one that never produced a lemon until I used the third Augury, Growth, on it when I visited my family on Reckoning Day. I grew a lemon for Hazel, to remember me by.

And now she’s sitting in a glitzy dining room, on a leash, next to a woman who is planning to murder her tomorrow.

I take one step back from the golden tree. Then another, and another, until I’m standing in the center of the room. My reflection stares out at me with a hundred pairs of eyes.

This is not who I am, this blond-haired girl in lady-in-waiting garb. I am Violet Lasting. I am one of the Paladin and I could destroy this room if I wanted to.

And I do want to. Desperately.

I join with the element effortlessly, sweeping all the Air in here to me, calling on it to do as I command. I feel it swirl around me, restless, waiting and eager.

Break, I think, and my focus is so sharp, so intense, the image of what I desire strong and specific, like I’m conjuring an Augury. But the elements are stronger than any Augury. I shoot the air away from me, and it hits the center of each mirror perfectly. I feel as if I am flying in a hundred different directions, as if I am reaching out with my own hands to imprint the pattern on each and every mirror in this room.

All but one.

I release the hold on the element to the sound of tinkling bits of glass clattering to the floor. The lemon tree mirror is as it was, perfectly smooth and reflective.

In the center of every single other mirror, the glass has cracked to form a very well-known, very specific shape.

A skeleton key.

I look around the room in awe. Keys surround me, fragmenting my face in grotesque fashions. I’ve never been so proud of myself, so sure of the power I possess.

I have marked this room for the Society. And tomorrow, the royalty will feel the weight of our fury.

Twenty-Three

THE MORNING OF THE AUCTION IS CRISP AND CLEAR.

The sky is a perfect, robin’s-egg blue and the garden looks even lusher than usual. My fingers tremble as I lace up the back of Carnelian’s dress, careful not to hurt her shoulder or ribs. I have to remind myself to breathe.

“Are you all right?” she asks, when I fumble with the laces for the third time.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I just . . . I don’t like the Auction.”

“Right.” Carnelian grimaces. I finish getting her dressed in silence.