Or at least that’s been Astrid’s plan all along. I’m not convinced it worked, and as the sun slowly rises on the day of the premiere, I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying not to picture an entire theater of people dead silent after the movie ends tonight.
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to watch two shiny starlets pretend to be me and Kit and act out every awful thing we went through together, taking razor blades to scars I might not evenknow are there. But tonight I have to sit through all of it, wearing a ball gown meant for a princess and pretending none of it bothers me. Because while the public may think we belong to them now, while they may try to cut Kit’s hair and hold on to me so hard that I can’t breathe, at least they don’t think we’re terrorists anymore.
Kit groans in bed beside me, his arm tightening around my waist as he stretches his legs. “All right?” he whispers.
“No,” I admit softly, turning to bury my face in his shoulder. “Do we really have to go?”
“ ’Fraid so. It’d be taken the wrong way if we didn’t.”
“Yeah, but—” I shake my head. It’s too late to chicken out. Months and months too late. “How are we supposed to take any of it seriously when we know what really happened? When welivedit?”
“Who says we have to take it seriously?” he says. “We can make a game of it. Start with a bucket of popcorn, and eat a kernel whenever something’s off.”
“There’s not enough popcorn in the world for that,” I grumble, and he chuckles.
“We’ll find a way to make it bearable, I promise.”
I want to believe him, but I can’t imagine ever being okay with sitting in a theater full of people all watching the movie unfold, believing every word, every movement, every action happened, like it’s a documentary instead of a piece of propaganda. Because that’s what it really is. Make them love us, make them pity us, and maybe they’ll forget they ever thought we were murderers.
“Wait until you see my dress,” I mutter. “I think they stole it from a costume shop. Some ostentatious number with so much fabric that I look like an unmade bed—”
“It’s not that bad, Evangeline,” says Tibby, striding through the door without knocking. I sit up straight, and the covers fall down, exposing the oversized T-shirt I’m wearing, but Kit is shirtless.
“Tibby!” I cry. “You need toknock.”
“Why?” she says as she draws the curtains open, and the pink sunrise spills inside. “I heard you speaking. You were awake.”
“We could’ve been—” I shake my head as Kit sits up, too, running his fingers through his messy hair. “Kit isn’t wearing a shirt!”
“Youare,” she says pointedly. “Are you wearing pants, Kit?”
He checks under the covers, even though we both know he is. “Seem to be,” he says mildly.
“Then I hardly see the problem,” she says. “Now, do you want the good news?”
I narrow my eyes as Kit climbs out of bed, his pajama bottoms long and perfectly acceptable as he grabs his robe. It may only be September, but it’s still freezing in the castle. “What good news?” I say suspiciously. “Your definition of ‘good,’ or mine?”
“You’ll like it, trust me. I had nothing to do with it,” says Tibby as she steps into the small room that acts as a closet. “Astrid says there’s no reason for the pair of you to stay for the film.”
“Really?” I climb onto my knees as the heaviness in my chest vanishes. “Do you actually mean that, or is this a trick to make sure we’re smiling on the red carpet?”
“Why on earth would you have to watch?” says Tibby, her voice distant as she riffles through my clothes. “Astrid has already written your comments for you, and there’s no need for either of you to ad-lib. Besides,” she adds, “I know you both far too well to let you run loose with something as dangerous as an actual opinion.”
I look at Kit, and he looks at me, and we share a grin so wide that my face actually hurts. “Thank you, Tibby,” I call, and I mean it. “Even if you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I’ll happily take the credit for this if you don’t blame me for what else I have to tell you,” she says, walking out with a soft gray sweater and a pair of black trousers.
“What?” I say, my amusement instantly fading, and she hesitates long enough that a pit forms in my stomach.
“Singh rang me first thing this morning, before I’d even had my coffee.” Which is clearly a cardinal sin, according to the look on her face. “Apparently John Phillip Michaels wants to speak to you, Evangeline.”
“No,” says Kit instantly. “Absolutely not.”
“John who?” I say before it clicks. “Wait—Guy Fawkes?He wants to talk to me?”
Tibby nods. “As soon as possible, which he seems to think translates into today, of all days. He claims it’s important, and he’s apparently gone on a hunger strike until—”
Before she can finish, my phone on the nightstand vibrates. Frowning, I glance at the caller ID. Lady Primrose Chesterfield-Bishop, who hasn’t written a word to me since accepting my thanks for Poppy’s collar seven months ago. And, as far as I know, is still at the top of Maisie’s shit list.
