The House of the Stone

I’m muzzled so I can’t really smile, but my whole body is beaming. I slide into the motorcar awkwardly and don’t even flinch when the Countess’s arm brushes against mine.

I’m going to see Violet, I tell myself. Violet will make it okay.

We don’t drive in as many circles this time, and at some point, we start going up what feels like a very long, large hill. The motorcar slows and the visor is lifted. There’s a click and the muzzle is removed. I stretch out my jaw with relief.

We’re in front of a massive palace that looks like it’s made of liquid gold. It’s more opulent than anything I’ve seen, with towers and domes and other various appendages jutting out all around. The road we’re on is packed with motorcars. I see black-clothed royalty mixed with black-veiled surrogates and my heart lifts.

Oh, Emile, I think. You were right.

Somewhere in that crowd is Violet. I know it. I feel it.

The Countess yanks on my leash. “The same rules apply as last time,” she says. “Remember that.”

I give her my coldest stare. It feels lukewarm.

The driver opens the door for her and she pulls me out of the car. We enter the throng of women and almost immediately that unpopular Duchess is on top of us.

“Oh, Ebony, how awful,” she says.

Blondie is by her side, veiled and nervous, attached to her mistress by a leash like mine. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has to wear this thing. A couple of glances around tells me every surrogate is chained to her mistress.

The Countess shrugs. “I am not surprised.”

“Do you think it was her?”

“Of course it was her. We’ll never be able to prove it, though.”

I search the sea of veils, hoping to see Violet, but everyone looks the same.

Suddenly, there is a blaring of trumpets and the doors to the palace open. Silence falls as a man even I recognize steps forward, surrounded by Regimentals.

The Exetor. He looks older than in his pictures.

“Her Royal Grace thanks you for your support during this sad time,” he says. “But she will not allow any surrogate within these walls. If you wish to pay your respects, you must leave them here. Protected, of course, by my own personal guard.”

Blondie’s mistress gasps, like he’s just announced he’s going to remove her limbs or something.

The Countess sighs and shakes her head. “Amateur,” she says. She unclasps the chain that connects us from her wrist and fastens it on mine. Then, without a word or a glance in my direction, she strides off through the crowd toward the palace.

She is the only one who has this reaction. The other Duchess hurriedly follows her lead, though with a lot of reluctance, but many of the women are whispering and frowning. Eventually, though, they all give in and a steady stream of black flows into the palace as a file of red surrounds the surrogates. The Exetor’s guard carry rifles and seem bigger and more imposing than the other Regimentals I’ve seen. Though maybe I’m just imagining that.

They tighten the circle around us, and Blondie and I bump into each other. It occurs to me that she knows Violet, at least what she looks like.

“Have you seen the other girl from the dinner?” I ask. “The one with black hair and purple eyes?”

“Be quiet,” she hisses. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Are you kidding me? They’re not here. How will they know?”

She sniffs and makes a big show of folding her arms across her chest and turning away from me.

Coward.

I turn to another girl and am about to ask her the same thing when a thought occurs to me.

The royalty—our mistresses—are not here.

This is my chance. I’m not going to waste it asking stupid surrogates questions they don’t know or are unwilling to answer. If I want to see Violet, I have to find her myself.

I take a deep breath and as loud as I can shout, “Violet!”

A few girls shrink away from me like I’m diseased, but a couple brighten at my boldness.

“Violet!” I shout again.