“When the king was shot, it became clear very quickly that he was never going to recover his mental faculties,” Gloria said, her shoulders tensing when she said the word shot. “A regent had to be found to replace him.” Gloria went on to tell me that, under normal circumstances, the heir apparent would automatically become regent, but at sixteen Juliana wasn’t of age. She had to be seventeen to take the crown. So Congress had convened out of session to choose a regent. On paper, the queen had been the natural choice, but Juliana ran a very aggressive campaign against her, backing the president of the Congress—Nathaniel Whitehall—for the spot, and she almost succeeded. The faction that supported the queen won by a very narrow margin. “The queen has always felt threatened by Juliana, and that only made it worse. They’re civil to each other in public, but in private … well, I suppose you’ll see for yourself very soon.”
“Comforting,” I muttered under my breath. The last thing I needed was a woman who had known Juliana for years watching my every move with a distrustful eye. I looked over at the window and once again caught my reflection in it. “I just don’t think I can do this. I can’t pretend to be somebody I’m not. They’ll know.”
Thomas shook his head vehemently. “They won’t. You look exactly like her, right down to the freckle on your left earlobe.” I touched my ear, wondering how in the world Thomas had managed to notice that. “Sasha, I watched you for a week before I—before we first talked, back on Earth. I did my research. You can do this. People want to think you’re her. What’s the alternative? That you’re a double from an alternate universe? I don’t think we could convince anyone of that if we tried.”
“Libertas has the real Juliana,” I reminded him. “They’ll know I’m not her. What if they go public with that information? Everything will be ruined. What’ll the General do to me then?”
“They won’t,” Thomas assured me. “Libertas is just as in the dark as everyone else about the multiverse. If anything, they’ll think we found a look-alike, someone who just happens to resemble Juliana. But who’s going to believe that, when Juliana is standing on the Grand Balcony, waving to thousands of people? No one.”
“You really think people are that stupid?”
“Not stupid,” he said. “Ignorant. And yeah, I do.”
THIRTEEN
“Oh my God,” I said as I stepped inside Juliana’s bedroom four hours later.
“Royalty does have its perks,” Thomas said, with a trace of irritation in his voice. He was trying to teach me how to use the security device on the door. All the doors in the Citadel—including the Tower, where we’d just been, and the Castle, where we were now—were controlled by panels with biometric scanners similar to the one I’d seen him use on the car door back in Chicago; they required a handprint and a six-number code to gain access if they were locked. Juliana and I didn’t have the same handprint; Thomas had replaced mine with Juliana’s in the security database. But ever since the door slid open to reveal the room beyond, I was having a hard time focusing on what he was saying.
It wasn’t because the room was opulent to near-Versailles proportions, although it was. In fact, Juliana’s bedroom was the most beautiful, luxurious, impeccably decorated room I’d ever stood in. An enormous four-poster canopy bed with a blue satin goose down comforter and mounds of pillows took up a portion of the right wall. All the furniture was made of beautifully carved mahogany wood. There was a sitting area with a sofa and two armchairs upholstered in bright, cheerful cornflower blue brocade and embroidered with tiny, perfect pink rose petals. The adjoining bathroom was done all in silver and marble, and the cavernous walk-in closet was filled with every item of clothing and accessory that a girl could possibly want. Floor-to-ceiling French doors opened on to a huge stone terrace that looked out onto the gorgeous landscaped garden over which the sun was rising, bathing everything in a butter-yellow glow.
But it wasn’t the suite’s beauty that had stunned me—it was the fact that I had seen it all before. I was just as comfortable in this room as I was in my own back at home, a bizarre sensation I wasn’t prepared for. It all felt like it belonged to me, and I had to remind myself very sternly that it didn’t, that it never would, and that in six days I would be gone. My eyes landed on a painting hanging on the wall; it depicted a country house, large and sprawling, set against a beautiful emerald wood, with a glittering lake in the foreground.
Someone had fastened back the curtains and opened a few of the doors; the smell of roses and lilacs wafted in on a breeze, and a fountain gurgled somewhere in the distance. I stepped onto the terrace and stood at the railing; the garden was filled with sculptured topiaries, painstakingly cultivated flower beds, and rows of trimmed rosebushes. A manicured lawn stretched out at my feet like a verdant carpet. Juliana’s bedroom—my new, very pretty prison—was situated in the northernmost point of the star-shaped Castle, on the third floor, facing inward toward the gardens—and the Tower. Taller than any of the surrounding buildings, the Tower was visible from practically every vantage point, a not-so-subtle reminder that wherever I went, whatever I did, the General was watching. I went back into the bedroom, letting the imposing Tower recede behind a filmy curtain.
Gloria started to say something, but was interrupted by a sweet chime emanating from the LCD panel on the inside of the door.
“Breakfast,” Thomas said. He pressed a button on the panel that slid the door open, and in came an attendant wheeling a cart. The smell of eggs and toast reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since prom night. It took a great deal of effort not to dive for the cart before the attendant even had time to lift the cover off the plate.
“You’re excused,” Gloria told the attendant. He nodded and left the way he came.
“That was rude,” I said, eyeing the plate. My stomach rumbled with hunger, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Could I just sit down at the little table in the corner and start eating, or was there some sort of rule I needed to follow?
“None of that,” Gloria said. “We have a system here, Sasha, protocol that must be adhered to. The domestics aren’t your friends; they’re your employees. You tell them if you need something and they get it for you. That’s it. No chatting. Juliana wouldn’t do that.”
“She doesn’t say thank you?” A thought struck me—if I were ever to meet Juliana in person, would I even like her?
“She thanks them with a paycheck,” Gloria said. “What are you waiting for? Tuck in, the food’s getting cold.”
I glanced over at Thomas, wondering where he stood in all this. Gloria was clearly more than just a secretary to Juliana; she was a protector, a caregiver, a confidante. But what about him? As Juliana’s bodyguard, it stood to reason that he would be considered an employee. But from the way he kept talking about her, I’d started to wonder if Juliana and Thomas were friends. Maybe even more than friends, although Thomas would never tell me if they were. I kept wishing I could figure him out, but whatever training he’d undergone to do this age-inappropriate job, it was damn good.
Gloria drew out her glass tablet and used it to pull up the schedule for the day. “It’s nearly nine o’clock now. Hair and makeup will arrive shortly, so we ought to get you showered. Then at ten you’re going to go visit the king.”
“The king? But I thought he was …”
Gloria nodded. “The king is ill. He was in the hospital for over a month after he was shot, but once his condition was declared stable, the queen moved him here to the Castle. His bedroom is down the hall. Juliana visits him every day. You must do the same. She usually sits with him for about an hour. After that, you have an eleven thirty interview with Eloise Dash from the CBN, and then—”