Once An Eve Novel

charge up my arm. It spread out in my chest, shot down my legs, awakening feeling in every inch of me, electrifying even my toes. Until then I’d been half-alive, his touch the only thing that could wake me from that sleep.
    A guard led Caleb inside. They’d ruined his face. A bloody gash stretched from his right brow to his hairline, splitting his skin. His cheek was pink and swollen. He was hunched over, still in the same wrinkled shirt he’d put on that morning, buttoned all wrong, blood dried black around the collar.
    “Who did this?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. I pulled him close, hating that they hadn’t untied his hands, that he couldn’t touch my face or thread his fingers through my hair.
    “All of them,” he said, his words slow. He rested his chin on my shoulder. I ran my hand along his back, wincing as I felt the welts where the baton had landed. I touched each one, wishing we could go back to the night before, wishing we could undo everything that had happened since we awoke.
    “They told me they’re releasing me outside the walls,” he continued. “That I can’t come within five hundred miles of the City again. What did you say to them?”
    The King was just outside the door, his profile visible in the tiny window. I looked down at the concrete. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It was the only way I could get them to let you go.”
    Caleb lowered his head. “Eve—tell me. What did you say?” he asked, his face screwed up with worry.
    I leaned in, my arms wrapped around his sides. “I said I would marry Charles Harris,” I whispered. “That if they let you go I would …” I trailed off, my throat tight. Standing by the fountain that day, Charles had appeared harmless, sweet even. The moment had been a welcome respite from the Palace. But now every word he’d spoken seemed steeped in ulterior motives. I wondered how many conversations he’d had with the King—if he always knew we were both speeding inevitably toward this, a future that bound us together.
    Caleb shook his head no. “You can’t, Eve,” he said. “You can’t.”
    “We don’t have any other options,” I said. The guard’s eyes were on me, his stare boring into my skin.
    Caleb leaned down, trying to meet my gaze. “We can find some way. Once you marry him there is no more you and me—there’s no more us. You can’t.”
    “I don’t want this either,” I said, my voice threatening to break. “But what other choice do we have?”
    “I just need more time.” His voice was pleading, desperate. “There has to be a way.”
    The King rapped twice on the door. “Time’s up,” the guard called. He stepped forward, glancing outside at my father. I leaned in, trying to pull Caleb to me one last time, holding the back of his head to bring his chin to my shoulder. I kissed his cheek, felt the tender skin around the gash, let my fingers stroke his temple.
    “You have to stay away from here. Promise me you will,” I said, my eyes watering. I knew that if he had any chance he’d use the tunnels to come find me. “We can’t do this again.”
    The guard approached him, yanking his arm. Caleb leaned in, his lips right against my ear. He spoke so low I could barely make out what he said. “You’re not the only one in the paper, Eve.”
    I looked at him, trying to decipher the meaning behind his words, but the guard was already taking him away. As he dragged him by the arm, Caleb shuffled backward, trying to keep his balance, his eyes searching my face for understanding.

thirty
     
    CHARLES RESTED HIS HAND ON MY BACK. I COULD FEEL HIS fingers trembling through my thin satin dress. “Do you mind?” he asked, his voice tentative. He’d been like that for days, wanting to know if he could sit beside me, if I’d like to walk with him through the new Parisian storefronts or tour the upper floors of the Palace mall. It made me dislike him even more, his constantly asking permission, as if we were pursuing a real relationship. All of it would be tolerable if we didn’t bother pretending to one another, if we could just say the truth out loud: I’d never be with him by choice.
    “If you have to,” I whispered, turning to the small crowd who’d gathered around us. The restaurant was in the Eiffel Tower, a nearly five-hundred-foot replica of the Paris original, with lush red carpets and one wall of glass windows that overlooked the main road. A select few sat at tables covered in white linens,