Map of Fates (26 page)

“We have to get everyone out of here,” I said.

I opened my mouth to scream, but Lydia silenced me. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

The scream died on my lips. They still had my mom, and I couldn't be sure Lydia was on the same page as Alistair.

Stellan muttered something into the phone in French, urgent.

“Lydia, these people will
die,
” I pleaded.

“It wasn't meant to go off until later,” she answered, glancing back at the building. “When everyone was out. We'd grab the bracelet and no one would know.”

Of course they knew the bracelet was here. It had probably been the last thing Jack told them before he found out what they were really doing. “I don't care,” I said. “We have to evacuate—”

“No! We can't say anything or it'll be obvious we knew about it.” Lydia looked surprisingly panicked.

I shook my hand out of hers. I'd let too many innocent people die already. If my mom was here, I'm sure she would agree it was worth the risk.

I took a deep breath and screamed, “Fire!” It was obvious there was no fire, but I kept yelling. Murmurs went up through the crowd. “Everybody get away from the building!” I screamed. Someone else in the crowd caught the panic and screamed, too, and that was it. A couple people started running, and then the crowd stampeded toward us. I yanked Stellan and Colette to the side, behind a car, away from the crush of bodies. The lights above the red carpet flicked back on.

The screams grew louder for a second as the crowd blinked away the brightness—and then they were drowned out by an explosion that rocked the red carpet.

I
flung my hands over my head. Stellan threw himself across me and Colette, and the explosion blasted out with a roar and the smell of unnaturally chemical smoke and heat condensed into one gust, like an industrial oven had just been opened. Bits of debris pelted my exposed skin. Overhead, there were mini explosions as the spotlights shattered, and I pulled my head from Stellan's chest in time to see tiny shards of glass fall in a rain of glitter.

Stellan had my shoulders. He was mouthing something I couldn't hear. “What?” I said, and I couldn't hear myself, either. The only sound in my ears was a ringing like a low bell. “Are you okay?” he mouthed. I nodded. “Are you?” Bits of glass made his hair sparkle, and he had a scrape across his left cheek. “I'm fine,” he said, and I heard it this time, as if from far away. Colette sat up slowly, and nodded when I asked her the same question.

I stood up. There was a beat of complete stillness, the whole red carpet frozen in place, like we'd been turned to stone. Beat. Mr. Frederick, slumped against a wall, glasses askew, holding his head. Beat. Miranda Cruz, the actress, blood running down her face and onto her white dress. Beat. A photographer crouched over his camera
shattered on the ground, staring at the smoke from inside the building. Beat. I searched for Lydia—and she was gone. So was Cole.

And then everyone was running. Stellan and I fought the tide toward the building.

The closer we got to the theater, the more people we saw stumbling away or collapsed on the carpet, bloodied but alive. Thank God the event wasn't inside. Stellan shoved open the door we'd seen Elodie go through, and thick dark smoke billowed out.

I choked, coughing into my elbow. “Elodie!” I screamed through the coughs.

A man in a tuxedo staggered out, his face in his elbow, followed by a security guard helping a woman walk.

“Is there anyone else?” I yelled. They didn't even seem to hear me.

The smoke cleared enough to see flames licking up a wall inside. Stellan shuddered—I knew he didn't like fire—but he said, “I'm going in. Stay here.”

Before I could protest, he took a deep breath and darted inside, and even though praying wasn't usually my thing, I prayed that the fire-retardant skin we thought he had would keep him safe. And then I ran to another door and yanked at it until I was convinced it was locked. Around the far side was an unlocked door, but it was too dangerous to contemplate going inside. I screamed for Elodie and then propped it open with a loose brick just in case and ran back around the front.

Colette was waiting at the top of the stairs, people starting to gather around her. “Stellan!” I screamed in the open door. “Elodie!”

There was a flash of movement from behind the wall of smoke.

Figures appeared. As I watched, one of them fell.

I couldn't just watch anymore. I pulled the neckline of my dress up to my face and darted inside. Stellan had his arm under Elodie,
pulling her along, both of them stumbling. I grabbed Elodie from him. “Come on!” I screamed, and it sent me into a coughing fit.

From nowhere, arms reached over me, pulling Elodie to her feet. I stood up, wracked with coughs.

Jack?

He pulled off his jacket and threw it to me. “Put it over your face,” he said, then picked Elodie up and pushed me along in front of him, shoving me into a set of arms it took me a second to realize were Luc's. Luc grabbed Stellan around the waist, too, and the three of us burst through the door.

The air was so cold and fresh, it burned my throat. Jack set Elodie down and rested his hands on his knees, breathing deep gulps of air. Elodie blinked her eyes open, choking, dazed. Stellan dropped to his knees, coughing.

I looked at Jack, my eyes burning so much, it was hard to see. “How did you know what was going on?”

Jack shook his head. “I didn't. I was bringing you something. I've been working on it since we first found out about the Saxons. I told her to wait in the car. It's too dangerous—”

A flash of blond hair flew through the crowd, and I really had to be hallucinating this time, because there was no way I was seeing this face here, now.

And then my mother swept me into her arms.

S
irens descended on the theater from all directions. Elodie, her whole body covered in a layer of dark soot, hauled herself up and gestured to the rest of us to follow her.

I barely noticed. My mom and I had sunk to the steps, where the red carpet was now ashy gray. I couldn't stop staring at her, like if I did, she might disappear. She was so thin and pale. She had a healing cut over one eye, and her hair was tangled and flat.

I was torn between wanting to kill Lydia and Cole for what they'd done, and wanting to throw myself into her arms and cry.

Like she'd read my mind, she pulled me to her. The stiff sleeves of my gown poked into her chest, but she just hugged me tighter. “We have to go,” she whispered. “While they're distracted.”

I could see it. Me and my mom, jumping in a cab, crossing a border or two before we slowed down. Doing our best to leave the Circle behind forever without a word of good-bye. Despite everything I'd said earlier—even though it had all been
true
—having my mom here in front of me and knowing I could get her to safety for good nearly changed my mind.

But then I saw Stellan, draping a handkerchief over an ugly, blistering burn that covered the back of his hand.

Jack, sweaty and smeared with ash, his jacket still around my shoulders.

Elodie, clutching a small black purse across her body like it contained a treasure. I had a feeling it did.

And Lydia and Cole, nowhere to be seen. They must have gotten away before anyone could link them to the bombing.

“I can't go yet,” I said to my mom.

She took my face in her hands. She looked resigned. “I had a feeling you might say that. Let's go do what needs to be done.”

I gestured to everyone else, and we slipped away through the crowd.

• • •

We looked for our car, but the driver must have taken off after the bomb exploded. Since we'd arrived late, he was probably one of the only ones to get out before gridlock shut down the street. Unfortunately, he'd taken all our weapons with him, and we had nowhere to go.

So now, we holed up in a tiny cafe on the beach a couple blocks away. Luc had shoved handfuls of euros at the girls at the counter and told them to get out.

I made my way to Jack, who was dead-bolting the cafe door. “Thank you,” I said to his back. “My mom. I—” There weren't enough words to say what I wanted to say. I'd broken up with him, stormed out, and spent the rest of the evening in the arms of his ex–best friend. And he—the guy who could never break the rules—had spent that time breaking ties with the only family he'd ever had, all to save the person who mattered most to
me.

He jiggled the doorknob—locked—and turned to me.

“Thank you so much,” I said again.

He nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm really so sorry.”

I pulled at the sooty hem of my gown. “I know.” I couldn't say I forgave him, because I didn't. I plucked my locket off my chest and squeezed it.

Jack's gaze dropped to my feet, and I could see him deflate, but he hid it quickly. “You should thank Rocco—Scarface—next time you see him. He's the one who actually broke her out and sent her here with Luc. I just told him what to do.”

I never, in a million years, would have thought I'd have the urge to hug Scarface. And he was more loyal than I'd expected. I'd have to remember that.

I turned back to my mom. Colette had wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, being just as much a mom to my mother as she was to the rest of us. I squeezed beside my mom in a large armchair, and she took my hand and didn't let go.

Jack glanced out the front window, then sat next to Colette on the couch beside us, their sooty clothes staining the worn taupe upholstery gray. Stellan and Elodie sat on our other side, and Luc was at a rickety cafe table across the circle.

“So?” I said.

Elodie held up the bracelet she'd found inside the theater. It
was
a twin, almost exactly. I took the original off my arm, and handed it to her, too.

“The password to the second one is Boyer,” I said. “We hope.”

Elodie twisted the rungs on the bracelet, and we heard the pop as a portion of it rose up, just like it had on the other one. We let out a collective sigh, but the relief was short-lived. “What now?” Elodie
said. “The clues said to unlock it, and we unlocked it. What are we missing?”

“I wonder if there's more to the riddles,” Colette said. “Can you say the clues again?”

“The first clue was ‘One step closer to unlocking the secret through a union forged in blood.' And then there was the one about the priestesses at Delphi. Then what it says on that bracelet . . .” Luc trailed off and Elodie took over, reading from the bracelet in her hand.

“‘Only through the union will my twin and I reveal the dark secret we keep in our hearts.' And the other one talks about ‘My twin and I will reveal all, only to the true.'”

“Then there's the mandate,” Stellan reminded us. “‘Through their union, the birthright of the Diadochi is uncovered.'” He looked up at me. “‘Their fates mapped together become the fate of the Circle.'”

Elodie set the bracelets on the coffee table in front of her and rested her elbows on her knees. She'd wiped some of the soot off her face, and now it was eerily striped. “I keep coming back to fate mapping,” she said. “‘A union forged in blood.' ‘Their fates mapped together.' So . . . the union
creates
something that finishes unlocking these bracelets. It has something to do with blood, we're pretty sure. But
physically,
what—”

From behind me, there was an explosion. We all jumped out of our seats, and I realized the lock on the front door had just been shot out.

The door swung open, and in came my brother and sister.

I
threw myself in front of my mom. Jack had his gun out already. Stellan reached for where his would be, and cursed to himself when he remembered it was gone with the car. They both paused when they saw that Lydia and Cole had guns already trained on us.

“Don't look so shocked,” Lydia said, then turned to me. “I know Father trusts you, and I
want
to, but . . . That dress made it especially easy to plant a tracker.”

I stiffened and searched the beadwork frantically until I felt my mom pluck something off my back, near my shoulder blade. A tiny black disc. Lydia shrugged a nonapology, then pointed her gun at Jack. “Jack Bishop, put that gun on the floor.”

Jack hesitated, but set his gun down.

Cole gestured at my mom. “How did she get out? I told you we should have killed her.”

“If you
touch
her—” I said, but my mom squeezed my hand hard.

“Don't antagonize him,” she whispered. Cole didn't look amused.

“Why don't we all have a brainstorming session,” Lydia said. She stood a safe distance away so she could shoot anyone who tried to tackle her. “I heard a little, but let me be sure I have this right. Something
about these bracelets is still locked, the union is what will open them, and that union appears to have something to do with blood.”

I looked at the door and saw Stellan do the same. He gave a tiny shake of his head. We could try to make a run for it, but the twins would kill someone before we got there.

“We're not telling you anything,” I said.

“Hmm,” Cole mused. “Whose head do they least want to see a hole in?” He spun around lazily, pausing on me, then Colette, but stopping on Luc. “The Dauphin heir. Of course.”

Elodie drew a sharp breath, and Stellan got halfway off the couch.

“No no,” Cole said, pushing his gun against Luc's skull. Stellan sat back.

“Now,” Lydia said. Both bracelets sat on the coffee table between us. Lydia leaned in and picked one up.

Suddenly, there was a knife whipping through the air over her head.

Cole dodged, and the knife grazed his shoulder, then clattered to the ground with a strange hollow clunk. Plastic, and Elodie's. She must have had it strapped to her somewhere, able to get through the metal detector.

In the second it took me to process it, Elodie was already lunging off the couch toward Luc. And then there was a gunshot, and she was thrown back onto a cafe table.

I screamed. Stellan and Colette and Jack all jumped up.

“Sit!” Lydia yelled. “Or I'll hit something more vital next time.”

Elodie struggled to sit up, clutching the bleeding side of her torso. She was alive. Stellan started toward her.

“Stay,” Lydia said.

“She'll bleed out.” Stellan perched at the edge of his couch. “Let me bandage it.”

“She should have thought of that before trying to kill my brother,” Lydia spat. “If you tell us everything you know quickly, then I'll consider letting you help her.”

“No,” Elodie choked with a grimace. “Don't tell them.”

“As the maid has already determined,” Lydia continued, like nothing had happened. She was still holding a bracelet in one hand and her gun in the other. “Blood is the key to this lock. What we need to know is how that works.” None of us said anything. “First of all, how could there be a
union
of blood? There's the obvious, which I'm sure you've already discussed. A child.”

Jack shot Lydia a look so full of hatred, even I shivered. “There's no way that could work.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. Clearly he'd never talked back to her before. “It's true it's a little outside our time range, but let's run with it for now. If that did turn out to be correct, what would it mean, scientifically?”

Still, none of us said anything, even though we
had
had some ideas.

Elodie's face was turning pale, and she took an unsteady breath. Suddenly, Luc sat forward. “A baby's DNA is the combination of its parents',” he said.

“Luc, don't help them,” Elodie grunted.

“I'm not letting you die, El,” he said, then continued, “If the parents are some special thing themselves, the combination of their blood could be something else entirely.”

We were all gaping at him. It wasn't that I thought Luc was stupid, but I also hadn't thought he'd been paying much attention to the technical details, and here he was parroting theories Elodie had been putting together for days.

My siblings didn't seem as impressed. “So you're saying the DNA
in a baby's blood could
unlock
some kind of latch built into this bracelet? A human biological substance could change a nonhuman substance significantly enough to alter it?” Cole said skeptically. “So we have Avery make a baby with whoever the One is, wait nine months, extract its DNA, inject said DNA into these bracelets, and poof! We have four pieces of ugly jewelry instead of two?”

“Interesting theory,” Lydia said.

Cole curled his lip. “Let's just smash the things.”

“If we smash them, we damage whatever's inside,” Lydia said witheringly.

“Now you know as much as we do,” I said. Elodie was trying to keep pressure on her wound, but I could tell she was fading. Stellan was poised on the edge of the couch like it was killing him not to run to her. “Let us help her, please.”

Lydia shook her head. “Even if the baby hypothesis is true, it doesn't help our cause at the moment. You must have other theories.”

“We don't,” Jack said. “We're not lying, Lydia. We thought the passwords would unlock the bracelets, but they've only done it halfway.”

I wrapped my locket around my fingers nervously and frowned when my fingers came away bloody. One of the cuts on my chest from the explosion must still be bleeding.

I started to wipe it off on my dress—but then stared at the finger.

Wait.

Blood.
What if this were far simpler than we were making it?

I pressed my lips together.

“What?” Lydia demanded. Of course she'd seen that.

I let my hands fall by my sides. “Nothing.”

Lydia came behind me, keeping her gun moving between all of us. “How much longer do you think the maid can hold out?”

Stellan growled low in his throat, and Colette let out a tiny sob. Elodie's eyes were slipping closed.

“Or maybe I'll maim one of the Keepers,” Lydia continued. “You're far too fond of both of them, anyway.” She glanced at Jack, then at Stellan. I saw her eyes land on the burn on his hand. The handkerchief had slipped off it, and it was already far less red; almost healed. Lydia squinted at it, but there was no way she could realize what it meant.

I tasted bile in the back of my throat. “I was just going to say . . .” I stalled.

Lydia peered over my shoulder. “Blood,” she said, running her fingers across my collarbone. Damn. She must have seen me look at it. “Blood has DNA. That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Like combining blood instead of waiting for a baby.”

Elodie forced one eye open. “Not the same,” she said, her voice weak. “Mixing people's blood together like you're making a cocktail doesn't combine DNA.”

“We're guessing here,” Lydia said. “Who's to say this isn't the right guess?”

“So we take Avery's blood, and that of the One, mix them together, and inject
that
into the bracelet. I suppose that does cut nine months out of the equation, which is a plus, but it still sounds absurd,” Cole said.

“But easy enough to try,” Lydia countered. She pointed to Luc. “He's as likely to be the One as any of them.”

Cole grabbed Luc's forearm and dragged a knife across it, then passed it to Lydia. Luc sagged back against the couch, wide-eyed. Lydia leaned over me and swiped more blood from my chest. She wiped Luc's blood onto her thumb, rubbed her fingers together, and coated the raised part of the bracelet in her hand.

Even though the rest of us knew nothing that united Luc and me would work, we all watched the bracelet. I watched Cole and Lydia. Maybe while they were distracted, we could overpower them. But they didn't drop their guard.

After a few seconds, as the bracelet just sat there, doing nothing, we all relaxed again.

“It's not him,” Lydia said softly. “You all knew that wouldn't work.” She went perfectly still for a moment, then dragged the knife deeper across my chest. I gasped, clutching at the stinging cut, and felt hot blood ooze out through my fingers. My mom pulled me close.

Lydia whirled around. Stellan was still on the edge of the next couch over, just a couple feet away. Before I even understood what she was thinking, she slashed out at his forearm with the same knife and wiped the blade in her hand, mixing his blood with mine.

“No,” I choked, pulling out of my mom's grasp. Next to me, the rolled-up sleeve of Stellan's shirt was turning crimson. He watched Lydia, mesmerized, as she picked up the other bracelet. She slapped her bloody palm inside it, staining the gold red.

For a second, nothing happened.

And then Napoleon's twin bracelet started to smoke.