Map of Fates (17 page)

A
few hours later, we were on the ground, back in the city that felt more like home than anywhere had in a long time.

Since we couldn't let the Saxons know we were with Stellan and Elodie, Colette left me and Jack in Paris before continuing to Cannes, while Stellan and Elodie had taken a separate plane. During the flight, Jack and I studied one of the paper maps of Paris we'd picked up in an Athens bookstore. We'd isolated the area that could be in the gargoyle's line of sight, and now we were making a list of landmarks that fell within it. Churches, small museums. Anything that may have been important to Napoleon.

I got out my phone in the cab on the way from the airport. Six missed calls from my father. I listened to the first voice mail just as Jack's phone rang.

“Elodie?” he said, then sat forward in his seat. “What? Is he—thank God.”

In my ear, my father's voice said, “Avery, there's been another attack, in Paris. They tried to get to Luc Dauphin. Call me as soon as you can.”

I gasped out loud. Jack put down his phone.

“He's fine,” he said. “An attacker came at him in the Louvre courtyard, right in plain sight. Dauphin security fought him off and got Luc to safety. They're interrogating the attacker, but he's not talking. Elodie and Stellan wanted to go back immediately, but the Dauphins already have Luc secured. They're still meeting us.”

We got out of the cab, and I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see somebody coming at us with a gun at any moment, and if they did, I swear I was ready to kill them with my bare hands. I could have sworn a couple times I even saw somebody watching us, but whenever I looked twice, it was nothing.

A cab pulled up, and Elodie leaped out and started running to us before it came to a complete stop. “I just talked to Luc. The reason he was out alone was that he was coming to meet us. He figured out where the bracelet is.”

She thrust her phone into my hands.

It was zoomed in on what looked like the itinerary of the Cannes Film Festival. I looked up, confused, and Elodie pointed to one sentence.
Priceless antiques from around the globe will be on display at the opening gala of the Festival. 6–10 p.m., Main Lobby.

I looked up. “Does this mean . . .”

Elodie smiled triumphantly. “Luc talked to the collector's estate manager. The bracelet will be displayed in Cannes in two days.”

The bracelet on my arm gleamed in the sunlight, and my heart sped to a gallop. “We're going to have to steal it,” I breathed.

“Correction,” Elodie said, taking her phone back. “We're going to have to
heist
it. From the Cannes Film Festival.”

• • •

Jack wanted to go immediately, but Elodie disagreed. “First of all, even if we manage to get the other bracelet, we still need the password.
Secondly, right now, the bracelet is in transit on its way to the exhibition space.”

“But the festival will be crawling with security,” I said. We were sitting on the edge of a fountain in the Place de la Concorde. “What if we went after it while it was in a warehouse or something?”

Stellan nodded his assent. “Could I just jump a guard in a back alley?”

Elodie ran her fingers through the water. “At the party, there will be distractions. Drunk people leaning on the cases, celebrities wanting closer looks, beautiful women in evening gowns. Plus, everyone will be wondering if the Order is going to try to kill them. And also, we have no idea where the bracelet is right now. Trust me, the party is the best opportunity for a heist.”

Stellan looked up at the obelisk in the center of the square. “So we head down before the opening ceremony. Avery and Jack can't come on our plane, so maybe we'll take the overnight train tonight?”

We all nodded.

“Which means we have time to look around Paris today, then check on Lucien before we leave the city again,” said Elodie.

We pulled out our maps with renewed energy.

There was nothing at the Place de la Concorde. I'd started to get excited, since the obelisk at the center of the plaza was Egyptian, and so maybe had some connection to Alexander, but I felt like an idiot when we realized it hadn't been put in until after Napoleon's death. The surrounding buildings were old enough, but there was nothing to indicate an important inscription or anything to do with Napoleon.

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked around. “Moving on?”

A person in a blue hat disappeared behind a crepe stand, and I stopped talking.

“What?” Jack said, looking over his shoulder.

“I could swear someone's been following us,” I said quietly. “Did you see that?”

He shook his head.

I'm sure everyone thought I was crazy after my previous false accusations. I guess I
was
tired enough to hallucinate. I dropped it. “What's next?”

We had all flagged landmarks to check, and we made our way to the next ones. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be right. It didn't help that every monument in France wanted to tout their connection to Napoleon, so most of the connections were quite slim.

At the third small church on one of the map lines, I was looking at plaques on statues of saints at the entrance and Jack was crouched, inspecting the bases of another, when I realized he wasn't looking at the statue at all. He was looking past me, chewing his lip. He noticed me watching him and turned his attention to the floor, but his shoulders were drawn up to his ears.

“What is it?” I glanced behind me, immediately on guard.

“Nothing.” He stood and moved down the line of statues.

All I could see where he'd been looking were Stellan and Elodie, searching the other side of the church. “Did you see something?”

“No.” Jack moved farther away. “It's nothing.”

“Okay . . .” I took a photo on my phone of each plaque, just in case I thought of something later. Jack was standing halfway to the altar now, and my footsteps echoed on the worn hardwood as I caught up with him. “No, seriously, what's going on?”

Jack had been tracing a raised metal plaque with one finger, but let his hand drop to his side. “I'm—this isn't the right time for this conversation.” He glanced over his shoulder again, to where Stellan
and Elodie were whispering in a pew. “It's just that—I have to know—is there something going on between you and Stellan?”

My nerves, already frayed, started firing overtime. I had to sit on the edge of the pew behind me. “What?” I said stupidly.

Jack's face dropped. He thought my reaction meant more than it did. But I was just surprised. And annoyed that he'd ask something like that. No, I didn't hate Stellan anymore. Yes, things were a little different between us now. But that was all.

Jack turned back to the plaque and rubbed his neck. “I know you and I aren't
together
, and I know this is bigger than that, but . . .”

I checked to make sure Elodie and Stellan weren't listening and lowered my voice. “Then why ask? Because the answer is obviously no, besides the supposed-to-get-married thing. I think you know that.”

“I thought I did.”

The words hit like he'd slapped me. “And what could possibly make you think otherwise?”

Jack glanced toward the front of the church again, then headed out the doors and pulled out the map. “You've been closer lately.”

I followed him and leaned over the map without really seeing it. “We've
all
been closer lately.” I sounded so defensive. I took a deep breath and slowed down. “We've been living on a boat. And in small apartments. And seeing each other every day. You don't see me asking if there's anything going on between you and Elodie.”

“I saw him coming out of the room you were in on the boat last night,” Jack said quietly.

My finger paused on the map. “No, I can guarantee you didn't.”

“I did. I was wide awake.”

“Then he was probably
visiting
one of the other two people sleeping in that same room.”

“Lettie and Elodie were out taking a walk,” Jack said. “I think . . . I saw him leave our room. Go to yours. Come back a couple minutes later. He was either hoping for something else, or checking on you.” Jack didn't sound angry. He just sounded . . . resigned.

“He was probably getting a sleeping pill from Elodie's bag,” I said. “I was asleep. Whatever you saw was nothing. Less than nothing.”

“You're probably right,” Jack said.

“Yeah. I am.” I leaned against one of the metal poles lining the sidewalk and held my hand out for the map. Part of me wondered why I was quite so bothered, and all of me really didn't want to think about it. I yanked the map out of Jack's hand a little more forcefully than necessary.

“You're considering it, though,” Jack said quietly. “Considering him, I mean.”

“If the bracelet doesn't come through, I'll have to do something. And yeah, Stellan's a better option than whoever Alistair chooses.” I was running a finger up the map when I suddenly heard the words that had just come out of my mouth. Really? When had I decided that?

“But right now I'm doing my best to figure out this next clue,” I said quickly, “and this is a distraction I don't need.”

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. “I just can't not think about it when I see how he looks at you.”

I glanced back at the church. The heavy wooden doors were still closed, Elodie and Stellan still inside. “He looks at me like I'm a gold-plated statue to put on his mantel. The same way everyone in the Circle looks at me.”

And that was true, usually. Except for last night, when he realized I wasn't dead. Except this morning, when he apparently wanted nothing to do with me.

Jack touched the back of my hand. “Forget I said anything, okay? It's just—it's everything, you know?”

I stared down at our hands. “Yeah.” I was getting tired of it all, too.

I pulled away and traced over the lines I'd made on the map. We'd been sticking inside the triangle formed by the outermost ones, but now I traced a little farther out with two fingers.

“Are we sure these angles are exactly right?” I said, changing the subject.

“No,” Jack said. “This is everything
approximately
within the gargoyle's sight line.”

I squinted at the map. “I wonder if the key word is
approximately
. I'm sure Napoleon was careful about the clues he planted, but maybe when the gargoyle was installed, he got moved a few millimeters. That could change the angle as you get farther away from Notre-Dame.”

“And to Fitz, the Louvre was the best bet, so he planted
his
clue there—”

“But it doesn't necessarily mean Napoleon's was on that same line,” I finished. We leaned over the map excitedly. “Maybe we could go a little outside this triangle.”

“You know what is really close . . .” Jack pointed.

The Arc de Triomphe. “Napoleon put it up, right?” I said.

“He commissioned it. It wasn't finished before his death, but it was on its way. He would certainly have been able to inscribe anything he wanted there.”

The church doors opened, and Stellan and Elodie came out. We explained our thoughts.

“And the other monument Napoleon used was a big one,” I finished. “He chose Notre-Dame, not one of these tiny churches. Maybe he assumed his own monument would achieve just as much
fame.” And he was right. Besides the Eiffel Tower, which was put in well after Napoleon's death, the Arc de Triomphe was probably the most famous monument in Paris.

Elodie suddenly looked up with a sharp intake of breath. “The Arc de Triomphe is a monument to soldiers who fought in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.”

Jack and Stellan both looked confused for a second, then their faces lit up, too, and finally, I got it.

“‘Those who gave all hold the key,'” I said. “Let's go.”

T
he car let us off in the center of a bustling traffic circle. The Arc de Triomphe loomed overhead, an embodiment of Paris itself: statuesque, historic, incredibly detailed. Surrounded by the modern Paris of stylish ladies on Vespas and tourists and slinking vendors selling Eiffel Tower key chains.

All around the grand arch were intricate carvings of battles and angels and soldiers. Jack split off to the opposite side without waiting for me, and Elodie followed, throwing me a curious look. I leaned against the carved stone and closed my eyes with a sigh.

Someone leaned beside me, and I wasn't surprised to hear Stellan's voice. “So your kind-of-but-not-really boyfriend thinks you and I are doing a little
something
on the side?”

“How do you know—never mind.” It didn't matter. I opened my eyes. Stellan's arms were tight, shoulders hunched to his ears, and his eyes darted over the throngs of tourists under the monument. He was trying to act normal, but the attack on Luc had put him on edge.

I thought about asking him if he'd come in to get a sleeping pill last night, or whether he was in my room to see if I was okay. I didn't. I pushed away from the wall and searched the area above my head.

“Was it Elodie?” I asked.

Stellan crossed his arms over his chest. “Was what Elodie?”

I took a break from squinting up at the bas-relief on the arch above. It didn't have the symbol from my locket on it and didn't seem to be of the Fates, which were the two clue markers we'd seen so far.

I motioned in the direction Jack had gone. “Whatever happened between the two of you to make you hate each other, when it's obvious you used to be close. It sounds like you both had a thing for her at some point, and now he thinks you're trying to steal
me.
”

Stellan's arms dropped to his side, and with that one gesture, he looked tired. “No,” he said. “We
all
used to be close. Me and Elodie—we liked each other, but it wasn't . . . We were young. Our bedrooms were on the same hallway.” He shrugged like,
what else do you expect?
“And she and Jack, after that . . . they dated for a while.”

I was momentarily distracted from the artwork.

“We worked more closely with the Saxons just a few years back. Jack and I were together a lot because of Fitz, and the two of us and Elodie . . . we were friends—us and Luc, too. Jack was practically my younger brother.”

I tried to picture what the two of them must have been like when they actually liked each other. And—Jack and Elodie,
together
? I knew from the truth-or-dare game that they'd kissed, but wow.

I'd been quiet long enough that Stellan left me behind. I followed him inside the arch, where there were carved lists of names that must have been soldiers. Column after column, with some of the names underlined.

“So what happened—” I cut off. Something the tour guide with a group next to us said had just sparked something. “Did she say the underlined names are the soldiers who died in battle?”

Stellan shrugged, and leaned over to the tour group and asked someone on the periphery. The lady nodded.

“‘Those who gave all hold the key,'” I said. “What if the password is one of the names?”

Stellan squinted up at the names, then down at the bracelet on my arm. I took it off and rotated the tarnished gold rungs inside it.

“I suppose we can try them all,” Stellan said.

I scanned the names. “Not all. Only the five-letter ones.” I pulled the bracelet off my arm and spun the five bands to spell the first underlined name. When nothing happened, we kept going down the column.
Damas. Binot. Penne.

Halfway down this side of the arch when my eyes were starting to cross, Stellan took the bracelet.

I read off the next name. Then I said, “So if he used to be like your brother, what happened?”

Stellan spun the bracelet to another password. “We were starting to cook up this crazy scheme where the three of us would work together under Fitz. Be some kind of special Circle-wide Keepers or something, and have Elodie do it, too.” He shrugged self-consciously when he saw me raise my eyebrows. “Before this new round of Order attacks, things were easier in the Circle. We were idealistic. But then Oliver Saxon happened.”

“The oldest Saxon brother.” The brother I'd never know. I remembered how Jack shut down when I asked about him.

Stellan nodded. “He was less than a year older than Lydia and Cole. You know how siblings born in the same year are called Irish twins? They called themselves Irish triplets.”

“So . . .” I did the math. “Just a few months younger than me.” I was starting to put the time line together. My father must have gotten married and started his family right after my mom left.

Stellan nodded. “It was a routine event. One of Jack's first as a solo Keeper. It was just a freak accident, they said. A car plowed into the crowd. Killed four people. Oliver was one of them.”

I went cold all over. “Oh my God.”

“There was nothing Jack could have done. He saw it coming maybe half a second before everyone else and tried to push Oliver out of the way, but he only succeeded in landing himself in the hospital, too. He's never forgiven himself.”

I shook my head. “
Was
it an accident? Or was it the Order?”

“We never knew. There were rumors, but the Order never claimed responsibility.”

“What does that have to do with him being mad at you?”

“Elodie and I were there, too, with Luc. Some things happened, and Jack blamed himself for being distracted . . . When he got out of the hospital, nothing was ever the same.”

“That's why he's so overprotective,” I said to myself.

“The Saxons kept him on, when there was speculation he'd be . . . well. You can guess. Oliver was his responsibility that day. The firstborn son of the family, lost under his watch. But Saxon—your father—he didn't blame Jack.”

“And that's why Jack feels so indebted to them,” I said quietly.

I felt a surge of affection for my father, for forgiving the accident. And for Lydia for still accepting Jack.

“That, and—” Stellan said, but stopped abruptly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“What?” I snatched the bracelet out of his hand. “You have to tell me now.”

He actually looked uncomfortable. Stellan never looked uncomfortable. “It's not—it's going to seem like I'm trying to make
him sound bad, but I'm not. I don't think you really want to know.”

He reached for the bracelet again, and I held it away. “Tell me.”

He sighed. “The day Oliver was killed, Jack kissed Lydia Saxon. He said it was just the once. She initiated it—I think she's always liked him. But it was at that event, and I saw it happen, and so did Elodie, who he was with at the time. It was the kind of stupid drama that sometimes happened when we were younger and had less responsibility, but we were all upset and preoccupied . . . and then this terrible thing happened.”

I let Stellan take the bracelet back out of my hand. On the other side of the monument, I could see Jack and Elodie, pointing up at a fresco.

That
was
awful. But also . . . Jack was upset about me being friendly with Stellan, when he'd kissed everyone I knew? And
Lydia,
of all people?

I followed Stellan blindly around the other side of the arch. This was stupid. What Jack did in the past didn't matter. Yes, Lydia kind of looked like me. And okay, that meant when Jack had first realized I was a Saxon, he wasn't just seeing some girl. He was seeing a different version of a girl he'd already had a thing with.

“I told you you didn't want to know,” Stellan said, still turning the letters on the bracelet.

I snatched it out of his hand and looked up at the next column. “The next name is Gudin,” I said. “No wait, we've already tried that one.”

“No we haven't,” Stellan said.

I pointed. “Oh. I saw it over there, but it wasn't underlined.”

I twisted the bracelet into
Gudin.
The second I clicked the
N
into place, a
pop
sounded from the bracelet, so loud I nearly dropped it
and a couple elderly tourists shot us an alarmed glance. Where the inside of the bracelet had been smooth, the whole word—
Gudin
—was now raised half a centimeter above the rest.

I looked up at Stellan, and my shock was mirrored in his blue eyes. He pulled me out of the crowd and into a shaded corner, where we sat on the low ledge jutting out from the arch, hunched over the bracelet in my lap. “It actually did something.” I turned the bracelet over and over in my hands. “This is it. This is
right.
”

Stellan took the bracelet gingerly and inspected the now-raised portion. “What does it mean? The rest of the letters don't seem to spell anything, and I still can't see whether there's anything inside it.”

I grabbed his arm, and he held out the bracelet so I could see, too. Under the raised portion was a thin line of what looked like topaz, but he was right—we twisted and pulled on it, but this was as far as we could get it open.

“We can figure out what it means later, but it's something. We actually
found
something.”

“We actually found something.” Stellan's eyes were shining. I realized I was clinging to his arm like a life preserver, and let go. Jack and Elodie appeared at the far side of the arch, and I jumped up and waved to them, any animosity forgotten for a moment as we showed them what we'd found.

“Do you think it's the same password for both?” I said, breathless.

“No way of knowing,” Elodie said. “Maybe write down all the other underlined names?”

I immediately pulled out paper and started scribbling. “No,” I said. “Not underlined. Twins. The bracelets are twins, and that name, Gudin—there's another Gudin over there. Look for names that repeat.”

“Here,” Jack said after a few minutes. “This one has a first initial. Maybe that means there are two.”

I wrote the name down:
Boyer,
and glanced over the rest.

One second, Jack looked triumphant, and the next, he was staring over my shoulder and his smile blinked off like the power had gone out.

I turned, and my whole body went hot, then cold.

Standing behind us was my sister.