Page 87 of The Black Key

I wonder if she knows where I’m going, or just that I need to go. Either way, I smile and embrace her, squeezing her tight. “We did it,” I whisper.

“We did,” she whispers back. Hazel has sunk down to the grass and is staring at a rosebush with a look of wonder on her face. A bud blossoms suddenly, a swirl of color unfolding as its petals grow. I leave her to the awe of nature and head inside.

Garnet and Cora have moved the Duchess’s and Exetor’s bodies aside and are stacking the rifles up in a pile in the center of the room. Carnelian sits on the edge of the dais beside Ash, still looking shell-shocked.

Ash stands as I enter.

I sway a little on my feet, suddenly overwhelmingly tired. But this day isn’t over yet.

“Hazel?” he says, coming over to grip my elbow.

“She’s fine.” I keep my eyes on his, not wanting to look at the bodies on the floor. “I have to . . . I have to go someplace. In this palace. A secret place. I have to . . .”

I don’t know what I have to do. All I know is that I want to go back to Lucien’s workshop. I don’t need to destroy it anymore, now that the Society has won. But I want to see that there is still some piece of him left in this world.

Ash’s arm snakes around my waist, as his lips press against my temple.

“Wherever you need to go,” he says. “I’ll be with you.”

We leave the throne room and walk back down the empty halls to the front doors, hand in hand. I take a right and am about to lead him to the antechamber when I stop.

“I want you to see,” I say to him, the guilt surging up in a hot wave inside my chest. “I want you to see the awful thing I did.”

I open the door to the room of mirrors. Ash gasps and steps inside, his face alight with astonishment, fractured in the broken mirrors. Some have been removed so there are blank spaces, as if servants stopped cleaning up halfway through. But there are still plenty of keys lining these walls.

“You did this?” he asks.

“The night before the Auction. There was a royal dinner and I came with Carnelian. I was . . . I was mad, frustrated, ready for this to be over. I didn’t think anyone would see it. There are hundreds of rooms in this palace. I thought I was being so clever.”

My throat swells up and I stop talking. I wasn’t being clever. I was being foolish and Lucien lost his life because of it.

Ash looks at me as though he can read my thoughts, my guilt printed clearly on my face. “So what should your punishment be?”

“I don’t know,” I murmur. I stare at myself in an oval mirror. One of my eyes is fractured, my mouth a diagonal slash.

Ash tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear and cups my face in his hands. “Do you really think Lucien would want you punished for this? Don’t you think he’d be proud? You made his mark on the place where he was enslaved for most of his life.”

“I killed him,” I croak.

“No,” Ash says firmly. “The royalty killed him.” I can see he knows I don’t believe him. “You made a choice, Violet, one that had consequences. Like saving me. Like saving Raven. Not all choices result in what we want, or even what we expect. But what you’ve done, what Lucien has done, what me and Raven and Garnet and everyone at the White Rose and everyone in the Society has been trying to do, is give everybody, no matter their station or their status, a chance at making choices for themselves. Some things are bigger than just one person.” He enfolds me in his arms and whispers into my ear. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. To lose him. To feel pain. And that’s okay. Just . . . don’t hate yourself for it.”

A fat tears drips down my cheek and bleeds into the fabric of his shirt.

“Come with me,” I whisper.

I open the picture of the dog in the antechamber and climb through the hole to the staircase. Ash doesn’t ask any questions, he just follows after me, and we climb the stairs. Lucien has left markings, as he said, white Xs that tell me where to turn and which halls to take. After what feels like an hour, we are standing outside the door to his room.

I open it with trembling hands. Lucien’s bedroom is a mess. This must have been where he was when he was arrested. Blankets and clothes are scattered about and the dresser has been knocked over. But the closet is untouched, hiding the workshop behind it.

It’s only a few feet away, but it may as well be a mile. It may as well be on another planet.

My legs have turned to stone and melted into the floor. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.

Ash has no idea what this place is, what it could mean, and yet he threads his fingers through mine, not hesitating to stand by my side. And in that moment, I know that while I may have lost Lucien, the effects he has had, on me, on my life, on my friends and the people I love, will last forever.

Keeping Ash’s hand firmly in my grasp, I take a step forward. Then another. Then I’m walking—no, almost running to the closet. I throw the doors open, push aside the lady-in-waiting gowns, and pull the arcana out of my hair. I press it into the indentation in the door’s center.

It opens with a click. I stand on the threshold, my skin tingling. The lights flicker on inside.