Map of Fates (18 page)

S
tellan shoved the bracelet in his pocket. Cole stepped into view, too, and then the twins were striding toward us. Lydia waved.

My heart was racing. It was too late. There was no way they hadn't spotted Stellan and Elodie.

And then, a flash of movement behind them, and this time I was sure. It was the same blue hat I'd seen earlier. The person turned so I could finally see his face—and my heart dropped to my feet.

The person wearing the blue baseball cap was Scarface.

Suddenly, explaining away Stellan and Elodie's presence didn't matter as much.

“Lydia!” I rushed toward my siblings, grabbing both of them by the wrists and dragging them around the corner. “Cole! We have to get out of here.”

Jack had already seen, and whispered to Stellan and Elodie, who both had hands on whatever weapons they had hidden.

For a second, I thought about confronting Scarface, even though we had the passwords and would soon have the second bracelet. This could be my chance—if I wasn't worried about him hurting my siblings.

I didn't have much time to consider it. Jack was shielding me and the twins, bundling us to the stairs under the traffic circle and to our waiting car on the other side.

“What are you doing?” Cole grumbled.

“Just go,” I urged him. “Trust me. I'll tell you in the car.”

I glanced back for Stellan and Elodie, who were now loping down the tunnel. “We lost him,” Stellan said.

“Just get in the car,” I answered.

We all piled inside. “Go,” I said to the driver. “Anywhere. Away.”

When the car started moving down the Champs-Élysées, I slumped back against the seat with a sigh. “Get off the main road,” I said, and the driver turned off. No one seemed to follow us. My heart was slamming against my rib cage.

“What were you two doing there?” Jack demanded.

“What were
you
doing there?” Lydia countered.

“Who are they?” Cole said, pointing to the passenger seat, where Elodie sat on Stellan's lap.

“Stellan Korolev,” Lydia said. “Dauphin Keeper. And”—she looked Elodie up and down—“Elodie Fontaine. Dauphin maid,” she said, like none of us were even here. She turned back to me. “Your friend Luc was nearly
killed
earlier. If none of the other attacks convinced you to help us stop the Order, that should. You need to come back with us right now.”

“I—what?” My head was swimming. Had the twins tracked me down because of what happened to Luc? “That guy at the Arc de Triomphe was Order. How did they track us?”

I pulled my shoulders out from between Jack and Lydia to swivel and peer behind us. We were skirting the river now, and seemed to be alone. “I think we lost him. Just drive us a little farther—”

“Unnecessary,” Cole said under his breath. He was crammed
against the door on the other side of the car, with Lydia next to me and Jack on my other side.

“What do you mean, unnecessary?” I said. “He was
right
behind you. He's been following us—we have to get out of here.”

Cole smirked out the window. “Yes. I'm very scared.”

Elodie swiveled to stare at him.

Stellan groaned. “
Merde,
El. That's your knee somewhere I don't want your knee.”

She ignored him. “What's your problem?” she said to Cole. “What do you mean by that?”

“Cole,” Lydia said under her breath.

“What do you think I mean?” Cole said, then to Lydia, “If we have to keep our
sister
around, I'm tired of her being so stupid. I know you want to tell her, too. We weren't even careful today. And the rest of them don't matter. Look, the Dauphin maid knows already.”

“She didn't, but now she does.” Lydia smacked him. “You idiot. I didn't want to have to clean this up.”

“Clean what up?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

And then I saw a look on Elodie's usually calm, bored face I'd never seen before. Pure, unadulterated terror.

“Stop the car,” she said to the driver. She was already pulling on the door handle, fumbling with the lock, even though we were still moving, her limbs tangled with Stellan's. “Get out.
Dépêchez-vous!
Avery, Jack, get
out
!”

I was so busy wondering if she'd lost her mind that I didn't see Cole pull a gun until it was pointed at the back of the driver's head. “No,” he said. “Don't stop. Lock the doors. You, girl. Hands in the air.”

The driver went white and sped back up, and Elodie's hands came up gradually.

“What's going on?” I scrambled away from the twins, onto Jack's lap, and I could feel his heart thudding against my back as he pulled me against him protectively. “Lydia? What's—”

“You too, Keeper,” Cole said. His gun was swinging lazily between all of us, so close in the car's small backseat, he could have pressed it to my forehead. “Hands up. Bishop, too.”

Jack slowly took his hands off my waist and put them in the air.

“What the hell, Cole?” I said.

“They didn't care that the Order was there.” Elodie's voice shook. “They showed up
at the same time.
”

I suddenly had the urge to put my hands over my ears.

“Put it together faster, sister,” Cole said, his voice mean and cold.

I felt Jack's chest tense against my back. “No,” he whispered. Stellan turned, the shock mirrored in his eyes. And Cole's smirk and Cole's gun and it all hit me like a tidal wave and I was drowning.

All the time we'd spent talking, Lydia teaching me about the Circle, acting like she'd understood.
We should have a secret signal in case you need anything. This one's hot; you'll like him.

“Yes,” Cole said, almost like he was bored, explaining something obvious to a child. “The person you call
Scarface
is ours. All of them are.”

I couldn't breathe.

Lydia had been quiet, but now she sat forward, pleading. “Avery, just listen. You were planning to give whatever you found to someone you thought was
Order.
Of course we had to watch you.”

“But that means—” I couldn't seem to finish a thought. Every bit of tension I'd interpreted as normal family drama. The Saxons' insistence that
they
would help find my mom. Their deadline for my marriage into the Circle, so conveniently aligned with the Order's deadline. My vision narrowed to just my sister's eyes, so much like mine.

“None of it was real,” I whispered.

“It was real,” Lydia insisted. “It
is
real. I
want
a sister. I'm the one who convinced Cole and father to give you the chance to do what's best for our family.”

“But you never wanted to be one of us,” Cole broke in.

I was choking on the words. “You're—you're the ‘Order,'” I stammered. “It's
all
been you?”

In the front seat, Elodie sucked in a strangled breath.

And then a new realization dawned. “You have my mom.” I lunged toward the twins, my voice shifting into a snarl. “Where is she?”

A gun, cold at my temple. Lydia swatted it away. “Cole,
no.
We're not shooting Avery. Pay attention to the rest of them, though, or they might do something they'll regret.” Lydia held me at arm's length, back against Jack. “Your mother is safe.”

“It's you killing all the Circle members, too?” Elodie demanded. “Did you attack Luc today?”

“We didn't
hurt
him,” Lydia said. “It was a little nudge to remind you who has the upper hand.”

Stellan and Elodie both surged forward, like they'd strangle her with their bare hands.

Cole waved his gun, and they stopped.

“You killed all those boys!” I yelled. “How could you do that? Why?”

How was it
possible
? I thought of the fear in the eyes of every Circle member I'd met recently. The hatred. That kind of reaction was for something truly horrifying. Not for little Lydia Saxon and the rest of my family.

“
You
made Eli Abraham kill himself.”

“It had to be done.” She shrugged, and in that tiny gesture, I saw exactly how it was possible. She'd
giggled
at Eli while he performed
for us. Flirted with him like she was just a normal girl. But that same
normal girl
had done all this.

“You did it all yourselves?” I asked. None of us had bothered to put on a seat belt, and Jack and I both grabbed a handhold when we turned sharply. “Or did my—our—” I shuddered. “Did Alistair help, too?”

Cole scowled. “Haven't you heard of plausible deniability? We have the same goals, but he's too soft for most of our plans—if it were up to him, we'd be as weak as the rest of them.”

“He's wanted you locked up and safe the whole time,” Lydia said, sounding exasperated. “He'll be happy for an excuse to do it now.”

I knew I sounded pathetic when I said, “You're supposed to be the good guys.”

Lydia shook her head. “There
are
no good guys, Avery. Did you not understand that the Dauphins—your little
friends
here—were trying to enslave you? And the Mikados and the Rajeshes—if you knew more about the Circle, you'd get why we couldn't let you marry into those families. It's for your own good. And ours.”

“Are you saying that you killed those guys so I wouldn't choose them?” My voice had gotten shrill. “Who
are
you?”

She frowned. “Who says killing a few people to get the whole Circle not only more powerful but
better
is wrong? We're more right than
anyone.
”

“It's got to be done,” Cole cut in. “Our oldest brother died. My father's older brother died. It was the Circle's fault, for being so soft. The only way for us to ensure our family's survival is to rule them all.”

“We have the purple-eyed girl,” Lydia took over. “It's
fate.
If the rest of them see that the killing spree stops once our family fulfills the mandate, there's no way they won't take us as their leaders. And maybe we'll have the tomb on top of it.”

Manifest Destiny, I remembered. Fate. Disgust ripped through me.

“We have no choice.” Lydia looked me in the eye, and I could see that she believed what she was saying with every ounce of her being. “Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to for the greater good. And it's not that I don't respect them.” She yanked up her shirt and pointed at the tattoo of the flower half-covered in petals. “I'll always remember them, just like the rest of the Circle will. Martyrs.”

Close up, I could tell that some of the petals were more raw and new than others. “Each petal is someone you killed,” I whispered.

Jack leaned over my shoulder, staring at Lydia's rib cage, shell-shocked.

“You—” Stellan broke off in a string of Russian.

“Just kill him,” Lydia commanded, pulling her shirt back down. “He's heard too much. Kill the maid, too.”

“No!” I cried. “I'll—” Oh God, what could I do? “I've heard it all, too.
I'll
tell someone. And you won't kill me. Just let them go and they won't say anything.”

Cole didn't lower the gun. I couldn't just sit back and watch more people I cared about get hurt. There was only one way this could end.

“I'll come with you,” I said, “if you let them go.”

“Avery, no.” Elodie's eyes were on Cole's gun, calculating.

“We're not leaving you,” Stellan growled.

“Yes, you are.” Stellan had pocketed the bracelet the second we saw Lydia and Cole at the Arc de Triomphe. They'd keep it safe and I'd go with the Saxons to look for my mom, then try to escape. “Go,” I said. “Cole, let them out.”

Cole's violet eyes flashed angrily. After what seemed like ages, Lydia pulled on his arm, dropping his gun. “We'll get to them later,” Lydia said, and told the driver to stop.

Stellan's eyes met mine, and he shook his head. I shifted my gaze to Elodie. “Go,” I mouthed. She reached behind them and opened the car door. “You too,” I urged Jack, trying to shift off his lap.

“You know I'm not leaving,” he said. I did know.

The second Elodie shut the door, we were driving away.

• • •

“Mom!” I screamed, for what must have been the hundredth time in the hours since we'd arrived at the Saxons' Paris residence. Guards had stashed me in a windowless room full of TVs, then locked the door behind me. It was unlikely my mom was here—they probably had her in London—but just in case, I'd screamed so much my voice sounded like I'd spent years chain-smoking.

Someone pounded at the door. “I told you she's not here. Shut up.”