Once An Eve Novel
families. As soon as the outbreak ended, as soon as I had the resources, I sent soldiers. I was setting up a new, temporary capital, and trying to assemble the survivors. I sent them to her house to find you both. You were already gone.”
“Was she there?” I asked, my hands folded over the photo. I remembered her standing in the doorway, blowing me a kiss. She had looked so fragile, her bones jutting out beneath her skin. Still, it didn’t stop me from imagining that things could’ve been different. That maybe—against all logic—she could’ve survived.
“They found her remains,” he said. He turned and came toward me. “That’s when I started searching for you, in the orphanages at first, and then, when the Schools were assembled, I looked at the rosters there. But there was no girl named Genevieve at any of them—you must’ve started going by Eve already. It wasn’t until they sent back the graduation photos and I saw your picture that I knew you were alive. You look so much like her.”
“I’m supposed to believe all of this based on this one picture?” I held it up.
“There are tests,” he said calmly.
“How am I supposed to trust anything you say? My friends are in those Schools still. They’re all there because of you.”
He walked around the table, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand it yet. You couldn’t possibly.”
I let out a tiny laugh. “What’s to understand? There doesn’t seem to be anything complicated about what you’re doing. They’re all there, against their will, because of you. You’re the one who started the labor camps and the Schools.” I shook my head, trying not to notice the way our noses both slanted to the left, or how we shared the same heavy-lidded eyes. I hated his thinning hair, the subtle cleft in his chin, the deep creases at the corners of his mouth. I couldn’t believe I was related to this man—that we shared history or blood.
His skin glistened with sweat. He covered his face but I watched him, refusing to look away. Finally he turned and pressed a button on the wall. “Beatrice, please come now,” he said, his voice low. He brushed a piece of lint off the front of his suit jacket. “You’ve had a trying day, to say the least. You must be tired. Your maid will see you to your room.”
The door opened. A short, middle-aged woman came in, clad in a red skirt and jacket, the New American crest on the lapel. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles. She smiled when she saw me and curtsied, a “Your Royal Highness” escaping her lips.
The King put his hand lightly on my arm. “Get a good night’s rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I started walking to the door, but he grabbed my hand and brought me into a hug, squeezing me close. When he pulled back his expression was soft, his eyes fixed on mine. He wanted me to believe him, that much was clear, but I steeled myself against it. I thought only of Arden’s bound ankles, her body writhing as she tried to free herself.
I was relieved when he finally dropped my hand. “Please show Princess Genevieve to her suite and help her out of those clothes.”
The woman looked at my tattered pants, the blood on my arm, the bits of dried leaves tangled in my hair. She smiled sweetly as he disappeared down the hall, his shoes snapping against the shiny wood floor. I stood frozen, my heart loud in my chest, until the room was silent, all traces of him gone.
twelve
“AND THIS IS WHERE YOU’LL HAVE YOUR AFTERNOON TEA,” Beatrice said, gesturing at the massive atrium. Three walls were all windows, and the glass ceiling exposed the starless sky. We had passed the formal dining room, the sitting area, the locked guest suites, and the maid’s kitchen. It had all gone by in a blur. He is your father , I repeated to myself, as if I were a stranger delivering the news. The King is your father .
No matter how many times I turned over the thought, it seemed impossible. I felt the hardwood floors beneath my feet. I smelled the sickeningly sweet cider boiling on the stove down the hall. I saw the sterile white walls, the polished wooden doors, heard the clack clack clack of Beatrice’s low heels. But I still couldn’t believe that I was here, in the King’s Palace, so far away from School, Califia, and the wild. So far from Arden, Pip, and Caleb.
Beatrice walked two steps ahead of me, telling me about the indoor pool, rattling off the thread count of the sheets. She
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