The Black Key Read Online Free PDF

you and I set off the signal,” Sienna says to me, flicking her lighter open once more.
    I nod. “You and I set off the signal.”
    â€œAnd everything goes up in flames,” she says. The lighter’s flame glows in her dark eyes.
    The timing must be precise. In the days leading up to the Auction, bombs will be planted in the final, key locations that haven’t been attacked yet. As many Society members as possible will gather in the Bank. The day of the Auction, they will station themselves by the wall that separates the Bank and the Jewel, waiting for the Paladin to bring it crashing down. My job is to get as high up as I can, into one of the Auction House’s five spires. Sienna will use Fire while I use Air, to set off a flare of sorts, high enough that everyone in the city will be able to see it, indicating that the bombs should go off. I would do it myself if I could, but we can only use one element at a time.
    And after that, as Sienna so aptly put it, everything will go up in flames.
    I go over each sheet of blueprints meticulously. I trace my fingers over the various hallways, test the girls’ knowledge of what goes where, which staircase leads to what room, how many levels there are in the Auction House, what each one holds, where the safe rooms are, locating every exit and entrance until finally Sienna lets out a loud sigh.
    â€œViolet, we get it, all right? We’ve gone over this a million times. I could draw these blueprints in my sleep.”
    â€œWe need to be prepared,” I say. “The other girls won’t know anything. They won’t have seen these. We have to be the leaders. We have to know exactly where we’re going. Wecan’t bring them into this only to let them down.”
    Sienna looks slightly abashed. Indi’s brow creases and Olive stares down at her plate.
    Raven reaches out and grips my hand. “We won’t,” she says.
    I roll up the blueprints and map and put them away, a deep unease settling in the pit of my stomach. All this to help the surrogates, and yet my sister is still trapped in that palace. Memorizing all the blueprints in the world won’t help her where she is.
    It’s been months since the Duchess announced Hazel’s pregnancy. Is Hazel’s stomach a tiny bump, like Raven’s once was? Is the doctor using that horrible stimulant gun on her? I don’t even know if Hazel is a surrogate. She was taken before she could be tested at the Marsh clinics. But she must be, otherwise she would be of no use to the Duchess.
    If only there were some way I could see her, know she was all right, tell her to hold on . . .
    After dinner, Olive begs Sil to bring out The Book.
    The Book isn’t really a book. More like various fragments from lots of different books. Lucien compiled it for Sil over the years, stealing pieces of old texts from the Duchess’s library. All together, it tells the history of the Paladin, of this island before it became the Lone City. And all the girls in this house love reading it. Myself included.
    The island was called Excelsior, the Jewel of the Earth.
    Olive snuggles into my side as we read the yellowed, crumbling pages. It’s strange to me that Olive loves The Book so much—especially since it details how the royalty conquered this island by force and massacred most of thenative population. But it talks about a place called Bellstar and another called Ellaria and I think the idea of other places out there beyond the Great Wall appeals to her in the same way The Wishing Well story appealed to me as a child. She wants to believe in the magic and the mystery of it.
    She doesn’t seem to understand that we are part of that magic.
    The only sounds are the clink of dishes as Sienna washes and Indi’s soft hum as she dries. Sil sits in her rocking chair by the fire, nursing a glass of whiskey. Raven is on the floor at my feet, her head resting on my knees.
    â€œWhat do you