Once An Eve Novel

It was strange that he’d said only those two words and nothing more. Now it all made sense.
    I looked at the small type that described the tea—four boxes had been recovered from an old warehouse in the Outlands. The ad listed the year, the date on which they had been acquired, the brand and city they were from, and a desired price. Perfect to celebrate the royal wedding , the last lines read. Enjoy with friends after watching the procession . I kept staring at it, studying the way the letters lined up on top of each other, trying to figure out the code, if it ran vertically or horizontally.
    Beatrice returned with two glasses of water, setting them down in front of me. “Do you have a pen?” I asked, counting every second letter, then every third, trying to find a pattern.
    She pulled one from her vest and sat down beside me, watching as I counted every fifth, then every sixth character, copying them down next to one another to see if they spelled anything. Line after line was complete nonsense. I finally found the code running straight down the second to last column. C, 1, N, P, R, $, N , I copied into the paper’s margins. K, L, 1, 3, D .
    “Caleb’s in prison,” I repeated, ripping the advertisement out of the paper. “The King lied.”
    “Who’s Caleb?” a voice asked.
    I turned around. Clara was standing in the hall, her hand resting on the doorframe. Before I could think she rushed toward me, reaching for the ad. In one swift motion she yanked it from my grasp. I jumped up, trying to pry it from her hands, but I couldn’t get a good hold on her. Then it was too late. She darted down the hall and into her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

thirty-four
     
    I STOOD OUTSIDE, KNOCKING UNTIL MY KNUCKLES HURT . “Open the door, Clara,” I yelled. “This isn’t a joke.” I glanced down the hallway. A soldier stationed by the parlor was watching me. Beatrice stood beside him, whispering something, trying to explain away the fight. I finally gave up, letting my forehead rest against the wood door. I could hear her pacing the length of her room, the muffled smacking of her bare feet against the floors.
    She paused on the other side of the door. There was the familiar electric sound of the keypad. She opened it a few inches, revealing a sliver of her face. She no longer had the scribbled note in her hands. “Wow, Princess,” she said, barely able to get the words out without laughing. “I never would’ve pegged you for a subversive.”
    I gave the door one big push, shoving my way inside. She rubbed her arm where the door had bumped her. “Where did you put that slip of paper?” I opened the top drawer of her desk, thumbing through a stack of thin notebooks. Beside them was a creased picture of a little boy and girl sitting in a wooden porch swing, a kitten curled up in the boy’s lap. It took me a moment to realize that the girl was Clara. The boy looked just a few years younger, with thick black hair and ivory skin.
    “Have you completely lost your mind?” she asked. She slammed the drawer shut, nearly closing my fingers inside. “Get out of my room.”
    “Not until you give that back to me,” I said, scanning the night tables beside the bed. The fluffy pink comforter was covered with pillows of all sizes. Some were lace, others embroidered with delicate white lilies. There was nothing on the top of her dressers. Nothing in the trashcan beside the desk. She’d probably hidden it away somewhere, waiting until she had the perfect opportunity to expose me.
    “What does it matter? I already read it.” Clara crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s that boy, isn’t it? The one you were seeing at night?”
    I shook my head. “Just leave it alone, Clara.”
    “I wonder what Charles would think about this. You sending messages through the paper.” Her cheeks were red and blotchy, her fingers still rubbing the tender spot on her arm. “At least this time you can’t call me a liar. Now I have proof.”
    I let out a long, rattling breath, unable to contain myself anymore. “Do you think I chose this? If it were up to me I never would’ve come to the City in the first place. I never wanted to be here.”
    Clara’s thin brows were knitted together. “Then why are you marrying him? I was standing right there when he asked you. No one made you say yes.”
    I stared at my shadow on the floor, debating what to tell her. She already had enough to turn me in. The truth couldn’t make