The palace looked even more war-torn than the statue. The north wing was engulfed in scaffolding, the stone still blackened from the fire set during Hollister’s uprising. Just looking at it gave me chills. The palace was full of so many dark memories, haunting it like ghosts. How could Mary live here, knowing our parents had been murdered in these very walls?
We cantered into the main courtyard to find Mary and Jamie waiting for us. Then I was sliding off Caligula’s back, tossing the reins over her neck and running to hug my sister. For a moment I could do nothing but stand there, enfolded in Mary’s arms. She felt thinner than I remembered. Her skin still smelled the way it had when we were little, like the rose petals she liked to add to her bathwater. I remembered with a sudden pang how close we used to be, back when we shared everything—our clothes, our toys, our secrets. We’d lie awake in the giant canopied bed in Mary’s room, holding hands and whispering until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. But ever since the Seventeen Days, there had been something of a distance between me and Mary, and I wasn’t sure how to bridge it. Especially now that she was queen.
Jamie ran over, throwing his arms around us both and laughing in delight, and I smiled. I would never, ever get enough of his laughter. Jamie had grown up sickly and weak—Cornelius Hollister poisoned our mother while she was pregnant with him, and though the doctors had been able to save Jamie, it was too late for her. But the poison had already infected Jamie’s blood. Only when Wesley stole the antidote from his father last year, an antidote that we hadn’t even known existed, did Jamie start to recover. Looking at him now, a healthy, normal ten-year-old, I thought he was a miracle.
Even though I missed Jamie, I was glad that he lived here at the palace with Mary. Eoghan’s sons Aiden and Liam were just a few years older; so for the first time, Jamie had boys his own age to play with. Like so many others, Eoghan’s wife had died during the Seventeen Days. I remembered how strong he’d been during the disaster, for his boys and for all of us, even while mourning her. Who could have guessed then that he would find happiness again, and with Mary?
I rustled Jamie’s mop of hair and whispered in my sister’s ear, “I need to talk to you in private.”
She eyed me curiously. “Aren’t you hungry? We have dinner ready for you.”
“This is important,” I said, and Mary nodded.
“Okay, then. Let’s go to the sitting room. Jamie, why don’t you run inside and tell them to hold dinner for a few minutes?”
“Eliza!” Eoghan exclaimed when I stepped in the door, Mary and Wesley right behind me. He gave me a quick hug, then turned to shake hands with Wes. Eoghan had been instrumental in the battle against Cornelius Hollister and the New Guard army. I would never forget what he said to me that last night before the final battle when I started to doubt myself. “You may have lost your faith, Princess, but I know we are doing the right thing,” he had said to me, his deep-set brown eyes boring into mine. He loved Mary with all his heart; and for that, I loved him with all of mine.
The moment that the four of us were inside the sitting room, I blurted out the words I’d been biting back since we arrived. “I saw a ship.”
Mary tilted her head sideways as though she didn’t understand. “A ship?”
“Yes.”
“Where?” Eoghan broke in eagerly.
“Off the coast. Just past the cottage.”
I explained what had happened: being woken by the dogs, the deer killed with a fisherman’s hook, the trail of footsteps leading into the sea—and finally the gunmetal-colored ship disappearing into the horizon.
Concern flooded Mary’s features. “Come with me.”
She took me by the hand, leading me out of the sitting room and to a dark wood-paneled door that I recognized as the entrance to the old guardroom. Wesley and Eoghan followed close behind. Two guards stood at attention in front of the doors, moving aside at Mary’s nod and letting us pass through.
Inside, seated at the head of a conference table, General Wallace was studying a stack of documents. He quickly stood up as Mary entered and bowed respectfully to both of us.
“Princess Eliza,” he said, grinning. “I’m so glad to have you back with us.”
As he walked toward me, I could see how much the general had aged in the past few months. His fingers trembled as he took my hands in his. His old, blue eyes seemed to have faded to a paler shade of gray, and he walked with a wooden cane. I moved forward to hug him, realizing how fragile and thin he’d become. I loved the general like a grandfather. He’d been one of my father’s most trusted friends, and had fought alongside me in the final battle against Hollister.
Mary wasted no time delivering the news. “Princess Eliza saw a ship off the coast of Southshore.”
A hush filled the room.
“What kind of ship?” the general asked me.
“It looked like a tanker,” I said, and did my best to describe the ship for him. “But the snow was falling so heavily …” I fumbled for words. “It was difficult to see exactly.”
“I’m sorry,” the general said, “but you must have been mistaken, my dear.”
“Excuse me, sir?” I turned to Mary for support, but her eyes were locked on the general’s.
“So it couldn’t be possible,” she said, her voice heavy with defeated hope.
General Wallace shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
Wesley’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the back of a wooden chair. “Eliza knows what she saw,” he said quietly.
Mary offered me a sympathetic look. “Please sit down, all of you, and I’ll explain.”
We quickly settled around the conference table. I drummed my fingers on the wooden surface, anxious to hear her explanation. Finally Mary sighed. “We’ve been sending out radio messages for a few months now,” she said. “With no response.”
“Radio signals?” I repeated, confused.
“From the palace broadcast room. We rebuilt the guard towers destroyed in the Seventeen Days, taller than before, and have been sending out a signal on a loop. But so far, no one has answered.” She sighed again. “I was just so hopeful that someone else had survived, that there were others out there.”
“We’ve been actively searching, Your Highness,” General Wallace cut in. “But no ship would approach without first trying to make contact.”
Wesley and Eoghan were looking at me with kindly concern.
“Maybe you just got confused about what you saw,” Eoghan said. “With all that snow.”
“What about the footprints?” I snapped. “Someone was there, at our cottage, close enough to see us through the window. I didn’t imagine that! Or the hook in the deer’s throat!”
“That could have been Roamers,” General Wallace said gently.
Wesley took my hand in solidarity. “I believe you, Eliza,” he said.
But I couldn’t help thinking what I had thought that night—that it could have been Portia. And I didn’t want Wesley’s mind working along those lines. Portia was a dangerous topic for us.
“Thank you,” I said instead, squeezing his hand. “But they may be right. I was half-frozen when I finally made it home; you remember. I guess my eyes were just playing tricks on me.”
4
Later that night, I stood in front of the vanity mirror in a guest room, brushing my hair. During my time in the New Guard, a furious Portia had hacked off my long chestnut hair close to my head, so close that I was almost bald. Now it was finally back to its normal length. Standing here in the palace, brushing my hair with a silver-handled brush that once belonged to my mother, I could almost pretend that I was a child again. That I would wake up, and this would all be one bad dream. “Eliza?” Mary said softly, opening the door. She’d tried to get me to take my old room back, but I refused. It was full of too many ghosts. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” She smiled, holding out a set of tarnished keys.
“Um … now?” I shrugged and pulled on a robe, intrigued. Mar
y wasn’t often spontaneous like this. “Okay.”
The moonlight lit up the hallways and staircases. Running across the polished wood floors in our bare feet, we began to giggle. A chambermaid looked up at us in surprise, and I realized that Mary probably didn’t laugh much, not anymore. The orphaned queen of a ravaged, war-torn country—what would she laugh about?
It wasn’t until we were almost there that I realized where we were going. I stopped in my tracks. “Mary … ,” I began uncertainly, but she knew what I meant.
“Yes,” she said, grinning. “The dress room.”
I drew back in disbelief. “I thought Hollister’s army burned that section of the palace.”
Mary shook her head. “The flames didn’t reach it.” She tugged at my hand, dragging me along after her. “Now come on! We have some gowns to choose.”
The dress room could barely be called a room. It was really an entire floor, just below the servants’ quarters, filled with all the dresses worn by past queens and princesses of England—and the crown jewels. Before the Seventeen Days, it had been highly guarded, with fingerprint scanners and electronic security. Now a simple padlock stretched across the door.
Mary slipped a key in the lock, and we stepped inside. I wrinkled my nose; it smelled like sachets and cedar.
“Which one are you wearing?” I assumed she had selected her wedding dress months ago. I knew how much she loved pretty things.
“I was waiting for you,” she said simply. “You think I’d pick out my dress without the help of my maid of honor?”
I reached out to take her hand in mine, squeezing it softly.
We began to sift through the dresses that ran the length of the room, each of them marked with a little tag labeling who had worn it and to what occasion. I followed Mary to the section reserved for wedding dresses, letting my hand slide along the gowns as we passed—soft, creamy satin; thick netted tulle; heavy beaded skirts and light summer shifts. I’d never admit it to Mary, but this was all beautiful.
“You’ve always loved playing dress-up,” I said.
“And you’ve always been a good sport at humoring me.” Mary held up Princess Diana’s wedding dress with a raised eyebrow, and we both burst out laughing. The dress was stunning, with its full skirt and puffy sleeves, layers upon layers of silk and toile and rosettes. But it didn’t look like Mary at all.
“You’d drown in that,” I said giggling, trying to imagine such a dress on her tiny frame. “You’d literally have to come up for air.”
We caught sight of the next dress and both fell silent. It was a long strapless gown with tiny rosettes across the bodice—our mother’s. I brought it to my nose, breathed in deeply, but there was no trace left of her scent. Mary took it from my hand and gently placed it back on the rack, neither of us saying a word. We weren’t ready to face this ghost, not yet.
“Oh, Mary,” I gasped, as she pulled out the gown our grandmother Queen Kate had worn. With its lace overlay and narrow wrists, it was beautiful and classic.
Without a word, Mary slipped off her nightgown and shimmied into the antique dress. My hands trembled as I fastened the buttons up the back.
“This is it,” she whispered. I nodded, looking over her shoulder at her reflection. We had all seen the pictures of Grandma Kate at her wedding, like a dark-haired fairy princess, soft and lovely. But on Mary, with her white-blonde hair and porcelain skin, the dress turned into something almost dangerous, glittering and sharp-edged. For the first time, I wondered how history would remember my sister. She was the queen who’d defeated a dictator. Would they think of her as a warrior?
“Your turn!” Mary chirped, and I followed her back to the front of the room to look through all the other gowns, for cocktail parties and black tie events and summer garden parties—things we would never have again in this new world.
“Such a shame,” Mary murmured, looking at a dress that had belonged to Queen Elizabeth. “Look how damaged this is. The fabric is coming apart at the seams.” She sighed. “I guess it’s true that nothing lasts forever.”
“You and Eoghan will,” I said. More than anything, I wanted my sister to have a long, happy life with the man she loved. “I’ve missed you, Mary,” I went on. “I’m sorry if I haven’t said it before, but I’m so happy for both of you.”
“It’s strange,” she said, raising her eyes to meet mine. “This might be the only good thing that came out of the Seventeen Days—me and Eoghan, I mean.”
In the old world, a queen or princess could never have married someone who used to work in the stables. Of course, there hadn’t been arranged marriages for centuries. But all the women whose dresses we’d tried on tonight—Princess Diana, Grandma Kate, our mother—had come from wealthy and well-connected families. Those were the types of men who would have courted Mary if the Seventeen Days had never happened. It was only in the aftermath of the disaster that she even began to get to know Eoghan, let alone fall in love with him. Now, the fact that he used to take care of our horses seemed immaterial. Things like that didn’t matter anymore.
“Look at this!” Mary pulled an apple-green dress with a delicate gold neckline off the rack. “I know you’d never wear it, but maybe for Polly … ?” She stepped forward into a ray of moonlight, and I suddenly realized how dark the circles under her eyes were.
“Mary,” I proceeded carefully. “Do you think you might … slow down a little, after you’re married? Maybe take a vacation—a honeymoon?” Mary was doing her best to rebuild the government, but she was running the entire country essentially on her own.
Mary laughed. “And where exactly would we go? It’s not like I can just hop over to Rome. Now come on, help me find your maid of honor dress.”
I sighed and followed my sister’s footsteps, knowing that she wouldn’t slow down anytime soon.
* * *
The next morning, Buckingham Palace was busier than it had been in years. Servants polished the silver and the brass doorknobs, waxed the wood floors, aired out all the oriental rugs. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner, and everyone wanted the palace spotless for Mary.
I was in the stables, brushing Caligula’s coat, when Mary ran up behind me, breathless.
“I have a surprise for you,” she exclaimed. “Come on!”
I gave Caligula one last pat and followed Mary out into the courtyard. Up the grand path, I saw a simple wooden carriage approaching the palace, pulled by four stout workhorses.
I stepped closer. There was something familiar about the horses and the carriage, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then I spotted a girl looking out from the window, and I took off running.
“Polly!” I yelled, hurrying through the front gates and up to the carriage. The driver pulled the horses to a halt as Polly opened the door and reached out to pull me inside. Laughing, we hugged each other so strongly that we fell backward on the seat.
I hadn’t seen Polly since Mary’s coronation last summer. It felt like years. With the brutal winter, travel to and from Scotland had become practically impossible. But somehow, Polly and her parents had made it here.
Mary greeted us just inside the palace gate. She was thrilled to see them all again, especially Polly’s mother and father, who were like parents to us in the wake of our own parents’ deaths. When I fell ill from infection after my time in the New Guard, Polly’s mother nursed me back to health, never leaving my side even when I was near death.
“Mr. McGregor,” Mary said, helping Polly’s father down the steps of the carriage. “Thank you so much for coming. I was wondering—” she hesitated, then blurted out the rest of her question. “Would you give me away at the altar?”
“Oh, Mary.” His voice broke. “I’d be honored.”
Mary led Mr. and Mrs. McGregor upstairs to settle in, but I pulled Polly off into the sitting room. I hadn’t seen my best friend in months, and I needed some time with her. We sat side by side on the red settee opposite a crackling fire. Polly leaned forward to warm her hands over its f
lames. She wore her red hair up, clipped back from her face with tiny barrettes. It made her look younger, more like the little girl Mary and I had grown up with, picking blackberries and playing tag every summer in Scotland.
“Tell me everything,” Polly said.
For a moment, I considered telling Polly the story about the ship. She would believe I’d seen it, maybe even more than I believed myself. Polly could always be counted on to have a vivid imagination.
“The snow last night was terrible, wasn’t it?” I said instead. “Did you find somewhere to stay on the road?”
Polly nodded. “It was like a solid sheet of white. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face.”
She was right, of course. How could I have thought I’d seen a ship miles out to sea?
“But we’re not really going to sit here and talk about the weather, are we?” Polly nudged me. “You’ve been living with a boy for the last six months and haven’t told me a thing! So, how are things with Wesley?”
I smiled at the thought of Wesley. There weren’t many certain things in this world, but I knew for sure how I felt about him. “Things are good,” I said. “But before I get all sappy romance on you, don’t you want to hear about the wedding first?”
“You can’t fool me,” she said, but she was laughing. “Okay then, I’ll bite. Tell me about the wedding.”
5
“There,” I said, adjusting Mary’s last curl beneath her tiara, trying not to tap my foot with impatience. I was helping her get ready for the rehearsal dinner, though I wasn’t sure I was much of a help. Still, Mary wanted me here, so here I was.
“You can go,” Mary said with a smile, seeing my restlessness. “And Eliza—” I paused, already at the door, about to head downstairs. “You look beautiful tonight,” she finished.
I glanced at my reflection. Mary was the beautiful one, with her soft silver gown and long white gloves, diamonds glittering at her ears. But perhaps some of her beauty was shining out like her happiness, to be reflected by others, because she was right—I did look pretty tonight. In my crushed velvet, midnight-blue gown, I looked older than my eighteen years.