As I tried to stay in the moment, Marlee gazed dreamily out the window. I wondered what she was thinking about; but everything was so peaceful, I didn’t ask.
THE WIDE DOORS OF MY balcony were open, as well as the one to the hallway, and my room was filled with the warm, sweet air blowing in from the gardens. I had hoped the soft breezes would be a consolation for the fact that I had so much work to do. Instead they distracted me, making me ache to be anywhere but stuck at my desk.
I sighed and reclined in my seat, letting my head drape over the back of the chair. “Anne,” I called.
“Yes, miss?” my head maid answered from the corner where she was sewing. Without looking, I knew that Mary and Lucy, my other two maids, had perked up, waiting to see if they could serve me as well.
“I command you to figure out what this report means,” I said, pointing a lazy arm at the detailed account on military statistics that sat in front of me. It was a task that all the Elite would be tested on, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on it.
My three maids laughed, probably from both the ridiculousness of my demand and the fact that I’d issued one at all. I wouldn’t have called leadership one of my strong suits.
“I’m sorry, my lady, but I think that might be overstepping my boundaries,” Anne answered. Even though my request was a joke and her answer was, too, I could hear the genuine apology in her voice for not being able to help me.
“Fine.” I moaned, heaving myself into an upright position. “I’ll simply have to do it myself. The whole lot of you are worthless. I’m getting new maids tomorrow. This time I mean it.”
They all chuckled again, and I focused on the numbers one more time. I was getting the impression that this was a bad report, but I couldn’t be sure. I reread paragraphs and charts, furrowing my brow and biting the back of my pen as I tried to concentrate.
I heard Lucy laugh quietly, and I looked up to see what she was so amused by, following her eyes to the door. There, leaning against the frame, was Maxon.
“You gave me away!” he complained to Lucy, who continued to snicker.
I pushed back my chair in a rush and ran into his arms. “You read my mind!”
“Did I?”
“Please tell me we can go outside. Just for a little while?” He smiled. “I have twenty minutes before I have to be back.”
I pulled him down the hall, the excited chatter of my maids fading behind us.
There was no denying the gardens had become our place. Almost every chance we got to be alone, we came out here. It was such a stark contrast to how I used to spend my time with Aspen: holed up in the tiny tree house in my backyard, the only place we could be together safely.
Suddenly I wondered if Aspen was around somewhere, indistinguishable from the numerous guards in the palace, watching as Maxon held my hand.
“What are these?” Maxon asked, brushing across the tips of my fingers as we walked.
“Calluses. They’re from pressing down on violin strings four hours a day.”
“I’ve never noticed them before.”
“Do they bother you?” I was the lowest caste of the six girls left, and I doubted any of them had hands like mine.
Maxon stopped moving and lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing the tiny, worn tips.
“On the contrary. I find them rather beautiful.” I felt myself blush. “I’ve seen the world—admittedly mostly through bulletproof glass or from the tower of some ancient castle—but I’ve seen it. And I have access to the answers of a thousand questions at my disposal. But this small hand here?” He looked deeply into my eyes. “This hand makes sounds incomparable to anything I’ve ever heard. Sometimes I think I only dreamed that I heard you play the violin, it was so beautiful. These calluses are proof that it was real.”
At times the way he spoke to me was overwhelming, too romantic to believe. But though I cherished the words in my heart, I was never completely sure I could trust them. How did I know he wasn’t saying such sweet things to the other girls? I had to change the subject.
“Do you really have the answers to a thousand questions?”
“Absolutely. Ask me anything; and if I don’t know the answer, I know where we can find it.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
It was tough to come up with a question on the spot, much less one that would stump him, which was what I wanted. I took a moment to think of the things I’d been most curious about when I was growing up. How planes flew. What the United States used to be like. How the tiny music players that the upper castes had worked.
And then it hit me.
“What’s Halloween?” I asked.
“Halloween?” Clearly, he’d never heard of it. I wasn’t surprised. I’d only seen the word once myself in an old history book my parents had. Some parts of that book were tattered beyond recognition, with pages missing or mostly destroyed. Still, I was always fascinated by the mention of a holiday we knew nothing about.
“Not so certain now, Your Royal Smartness?” I teased.
He made a face at me though it was clear he was only playing at being annoyed. He checked his watch and sucked in a breath.
“Come with me. We have to hurry,” he said, grabbing my hand and launching himself into a run.
I stumbled a bit in my little heels, but I kept up pretty well as he led me back to the palace with a huge grin on his face. I loved when Maxon’s carefree side came through; too often he was so serious.
“Gentlemen,” he said as we raced past the guards by the door.
I made it halfway down the hall before my shoes got the better of me. “Maxon, stop!” I gasped. “I can’t keep up!”
“Come on, come on, you’re going to love this,” he complained, tugging my arm as I slowed. He finally eased back to my pace but was obviously itching to move faster.
We headed toward the north corridor, near the area where the Reports were filmed, but ducked into a stairwell before we got that far. We went up and up, and I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
“Where are we going exactly?”
He turned and faced me, immediately serious. “You have to swear never to reveal this little chamber. Only a few members of the family and a handful of the guards even know it exists.”
I was beyond intrigued. “Absolutely.”
We reached the top of the stairs, and Maxon held open the door for me. He took my hand again and pulled me down the hallway, finally stopping in front of a wall that was mostly covered by a magnificent painting. Maxon looked behind us to make sure no one was there, then reached behind the frame on the far side. I heard a faint click, and the painting swung toward us.
I gasped. Maxon grinned.
Behind the painting was a door that didn’t go all the way to the ground and had a small keypad on it, like the kind on a telephone. Maxon punched in a few numbers and then a tiny beep sounded. He turned the handle as he looked back to me.
“Let me help you. It’s quite a high step.” He gave me his hand and gestured for me to walk in first.
I was shocked.
The