Map of Fates (2 page)

“I can hear you,” Stellan called.

Jack pushed past him without a hello and punched in the door code to our building. The now-familiar scent of old wood followed me up the stairs. Jack held the apartment door open for me, then frowned. “We forgot the coffee.”

“I can go out later—”

“I'll just go. You all right?” His eyes cut to Stellan, who stepped inside the apartment. I nodded. “I'll be back in a minute,” Jack said, closing the door behind him.

“This
playing house
you two are doing is adorable.” Stellan flopped onto the couch, stretching his arms along the back. The apartment had only two rooms—a closet-sized bedroom and this one, which contained an efficiency kitchen, one small table, and a couch that backed up to windows overlooking a sunny courtyard.

I tossed my hat and sunglasses on the table and glanced at our wall of clues, where we'd pinned Xeroxes of pages from Napoleon's diary—which we'd also found from Mr. Emerson's clues—the wording of the inscription on the bracelet, photos of the gargoyle that had pointed us to the diary, and a map of the world. I'd marked the cities we might want to visit with colorful pins, and tacked up museum brochures and notes. All in all, it looked like crazy conspiracy theorists lived here. I guess that wasn't far from the truth.

“Do you actually need something, or are you just here to bother us?” I said over my shoulder.

“Have you actually made any progress, or did your fake passport idea not go as intended?” he retorted.

My chest squeezed painfully. “I guess I missed the part where you had a better idea. Or where you were willing to search the continent for the second bracelet on your own.”

Stellan drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “You know very well that I
do
have a better idea . . .”

I shook my head and retrieved a newspaper article we'd found earlier from my bag. Another item for the crazy clue wall.

“Just tell me one thing,” Stellan said after a minute. I could feel him watching me as I tacked up the article. “Is it because of him?”

“What?” I knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I mean,
kuklachka,
do you refuse to fulfill the mandate because of your feelings for someone you've only just met?”

I rubbed my face. “I think the real question is, why do
you
want to marry
me
? The tomb of Alexander the Great has been lost for centuries. I'm not denying that us getting married might mean something in the world of the Circle, but a church and a white dress isn't magic.” He started to protest, but I cut him off. “‘Union'
could
mean something besides marriage—something that would actually help us find the tomb—but until we figure out if that's true and what it is, we have a better chance of finding it by following actual clues left by someone who's been there than by pledging our eternal love. And we
have
those clues. There's a second bracelet out there that we need to find. And then we'll find the password, and it'll tell us how to get to the tomb. I hope,” I finished under my breath.

That was another thing. It wasn't just the twin bracelet we had to find. I slipped a thumb between the bracelet and my wrist. The outside of it just had the inscription and decorations. But once we'd inspected it more, we'd realized the
inside
was a whole separate layer. Its width was divided into five equal bands I could spin around my wrist independently, each with a long string of letters etched into it. We assumed it would work like a combination lock: if we rotated the rings so the letters were arranged in the correct password along the indicated line, something would happen. We hoped the rest of the letters might line up to form more words—like, for instance, the location of the tomb.

Stellan sat forward, fingers steepled under his chin. The backlight from the window made him look like he was glowing at the edges. “First off, let me remind you that I've got fireproof skin.”

His hand drifted to the translucent scars that showed above his collar. It was true. When he'd held a lighter to his skin in the
Dauphins' basement, his skin hadn't even singed.
The One who walks through fire and does not burn,
the mandate said. The Circle didn't realize it was so literal.

“I'm not going to say the word
magic
, because if it is a trait in my bloodline, there must be a scientific explanation,” he went on, “but there's more going on here than we understand.”

I pressed my lips together and turned back to the clue wall.

“And second,” he went on, “if anyone in the Circle finds out about the thirteenth bloodline—which
you
uncovered, by the way, so thank you for that—and you don't back me, I'm dead. They'll assume I'm planning a coup. If I did manage to get away, I'd be running my whole life, and so would my sister.”

Stellan's accent got a little thicker on the last words. I pictured the little blond girl he'd showed me a picture of. Anya. Just after we'd escaped the wedding, he arranged for someone in Russia to hide her away, just in case, but I knew he still worried.

“But if I did have you on my side,” he continued, “if I was bound to the girl they believe to be their savior? The Circle might not have a single leader, but the closest to it is
you.
And if we were together,
us.
Then I could sleep at night no more worried someone was going to kill me than I am right now.
That's
why I want to do it.”

Somehow, through all of this, I hadn't thought of it that way. The
leader
of the Circle? I twisted a pushpin deeper into the wall. “You think someone's planning to kill you?”

Stellan sank back into the stiff green couch, and it creaked in the quiet. “In this world, there's always someone planning to kill you.”

At that, we both glanced out the window, then at the door. “And besides,” he said, “how do you know the union is
not
marriage?”

“Napoleon's diary—”

“Didn't say specifically that it's not.”

“I know what the Circle believes, but why would Napoleon have left clues if marrying two people created some kind of North Star that pointed the way?” I repeated, gesturing to the wall.

“I am only saying.” Stellan stood up from the couch. “You claim you'll do anything to help your mother, but even with this new
very
short time line, you're not willing to consider the union. Or going to the Saxons, for that matter.”

I stiffened. “You too? They're
my
family. I should be the one to decide what I want to do or not do with them.”

He raised a finger to stop me. “They're your
blood.
They don't have to be your
family
unless you want them to be. Maybe you don't.”

I shivered. It was warm outside, but these old stone buildings retained the cold. “What does that even mean? Of course I want them to be my family.” I only wished it was as easy as that; that wanting made things true. My fingers tightened around my locket, which contained the only picture I had of the person who had always been my family. The person who had to be my first priority now.

If my mom were here, what would she do? Would she trust the Saxons? Would she try to find another way? My mom had never been the pro-and-con-list type. Whenever I was trying to make a decision, she'd tell me my heart knew what it wanted, and if I followed it, I wouldn't go wrong. And then I'd remind her that my heart would probably never want to take three AP classes in one semester, but that my college applications would. And it wasn't like that helped me now. All my heart wanted was to save her, but I didn't know how.

Stellan raised his eyebrows.

“I just think I should be the one to choose who I want to marry and when. And for all I know, the Saxons could marry me off to
someone who might—maybe—be even worse than you,” I said flippantly.

“Now, that is just rude.” Stellan crossed the room and pulled aside the heavy front drapes that we usually kept closed and peered into the street, letting in the soft glow of sunset.

I brushed a stray bread crumb off the counter. “If I went to the Saxons, they might help . . . or they might lock me up in their basement and force me to marry the highest bidder. Which means the safest thing for me to do is find the tomb on my own.”

“
If
you find it.”

I huffed out a breath. “Don't the Dauphins need you for . . . something? Anything?”

“That's code for she doesn't want you here.” Jack came inside, tossing a bag of espresso beans on the counter.

“Fine.” Stellan let the curtains fall, and the light in the room dimmed. “Lovely to see you both, as always. Talk tomorrow.”

He left, but everything he'd said had brought my worries rushing back even stronger. My plan—to figure out and follow these clues on our own—wasn't working. Something was going to have to change.

• • •

After dinner, I sat on the couch and Jack stood in front of the clue wall, reading over the new article I'd pinned up earlier. It was about a cache of Napoleon artifacts found at a site near New Delhi, India.

“So what this means is that Napoleon's been everywhere,” he said.

I shrugged. We knew we had to search places other than Paris—if we could ever get passports—but the list of
where
to search just kept growing.

I buried my face in my hands, and after a second, I felt the couch dip as Jack sat beside me.

“Yes, there are lots of possibilities,” he said. “But we've already determined that he'd likely have left the second bracelet, or any other clues, in places important to him or the Circle or Alexander, right?”

I nodded. If he wanted someone to find the clues, he wouldn't bury them in a random field somewhere.

“So we'll figure out how to get out of here, then we'll do a methodical search of Circle headquarters cities, Alexander monuments . . . every place we can in the time we have,” he said.

He always sounded so calm. So logical. He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder, then pulled back and hovered awkwardly. “I'm going to bed.”

Don't,
I almost said.
I don't want to be alone in my own head right now. I need somebody. I need you.

“Good night,” I said instead. At least pretending not to care—
forcing
myself not to care—was something I had plenty of practice with.

“It's like I said before,” Jack said after a second. “It'll be all right, yeah? We'll figure it out.”

I nodded and tried to believe him.

He disappeared into the bedroom, kicking off his shoes as he went. I sighed and pulled a history book from the stack on the coffee table. I read about Napoleon's campaign through France for the thousandth time. Alexander's time in Egypt. Napoleon's outposts in northern France. Alexander's conquests in India.

I grabbed my phone. India. Elephants. Bright colors. Bright colors painted
onto
elephants. The Napoleon treasure they found recently was in Delhi, not Kolkata, where the Circle family based in India lived. I looked up important monuments in Kolkata. Temples. The Indian Museum, which supposedly had both Alexander
artifacts and European art and jewelry. It was a pretty building, but too new-looking. Built—hmm. Built in 1814. The year Napoleon was exiled from France.

I scribbled a note about it on a piece of paper and tacked it to the board. Maybe India could be our first stop, if we ever figured out how to get out of Paris.

For just a second, I pictured allowing myself to trust the Saxons. With their resources, we could go anywhere. And, whispered a little voice in the back of my head, I'd really be part of their family.
My
family. I'd been trying not to think about how badly I wanted that, but it was like any craving—the more I denied it, the worse it got.

No matter what, it wasn't worth risking my mom's life, said my logical side. But would it really be
that
much of a risk?

I scrubbed my hands over my face. I couldn't do this anymore today. I had to at least try to sleep.

I took out the brown contacts disguising my purple eyes and snuck into the dark bedroom.

Jack had made up my slim, hard bed this morning, tucking the blankets in to form precise corners, the pillow fluffed and centered. Just as perfectly as he made our beds every day, like he washed every dish, like he patrolled the neighborhood for anything out of the ordinary on a down-to-the-minute schedule. Everything was tidy and in its place, including him, a dark lump under the covers in a sliver of moonlight, sleeping. Just like he was supposed to be, just like he was every night while I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Thinking, worrying, trying to shut off my brain long enough to close my eyes without seeing terrible things behind my eyelids.

I was mentally preparing myself for another long, restless night when Jack stirred. In the dim light, the whites of his eyes glowed as
he blinked once, twice. His covers lifted, and he moved to the edge of the mattress, leaving a me-sized space next to him on the bed that was barely big enough for one person.

I hesitated only a second before bypassing my own bed and crawling gratefully into his, my head on his chest and his arm tight around me. That night, I didn't have to stare at the ceiling long at all.

The next morning, on the first day of the third week, I woke up still in Jack's arms. He opened his eyes when I sat up. “G'morning,” he said sleepily, his hair matted down on one side. I fought the urge to pull my fingers through it.

“Good morning.” I don't know whether it was finally getting a little sleep or being reminded that, even if we weren't technically in a relationship, Jack really did care about me and would never suggest anything he thought was dangerous, but all of a sudden, I knew what I had to do. There was only one thing that made sense. “We have to go to the Saxons,” I said.