by Maggie Hall
“The UN was also formed to bring peace within the Circle,” Jack pointed out.
Fitz nodded. “In the same way, I believe the Saxons created this current crisis to seize power for themselves while assuring the Circle they’ll bring peace. Dictators throughout history have done the same thing to wrest power away from anyone weaker.”
I couldn’t argue with him. We knew that was exactly what they were doing.
Elodie filled them in on our search for the cure, and what we’d found. Nisha took over from there. “Since we last talked to you, we have discovered something more about Mr. Korolev’s blood.” She glanced at Stellan. “We believe it has to do with how the virus works.”
Stellan sat up straighter.
Nisha explained to the rest of the Order what had been in the report Stellan had told me about, about how his blood seemed to heal him like it did by replicating certain compounds far more rapidly than was normal. “After learning this and learning that Miss West’s blood is the cure,” she finished, “we believe that the basic mechanism could be that the virus itself is only in her blood, but in very small quantities, and that his makes it multiply out of control and become dangerous.”
Elodie was nodding along. It did make a lot of sense. The boat went under a bridge, and we were plunged into darkness for a moment before reemerging into the light. We were coming up on the Louvre in the distance.
“How does that help us?” Jack asked.
“We’re not sure yet,” Nisha conceded.
“What we’re afraid of,” Elodie clarified for the Order, “is that the Saxons will capture them for more of their blood. The attacks—though they’ve been devastating—have so far been small, but if they get more—”
“And they have the cure for themselves in case of disaster, negating that logical argument against releasing it,” said a man with a thick beard.
Elodie nodded. “Exactly. And now they know it infects more than direct Circle. If they release it on a larger scale, it could not only cause mass casualties, but throw the world into even more chaos. Of course, there’s always the possibility they’ll just kill the Circle directly, too.”
“We’d love to eliminate the virus,” Nisha said. “But since it is in their bodies, and there is therefore no way to destroy it directly, we’ve been attempting to find a way to make it inactive in their blood. Without success . . . so far.”
“And if it continues to be, these two will have to disappear, and hope they can stay out of the Circle’s clutches for the rest of their lives,” the Order man said. “Or to be even more safe—”
“Yes,” Fitz cut in sharply, not letting him so much as voice the other possibility. “One idea is that Avery and Stellan would stay on the run from the Circle. From the Saxons and their allies.”
Stellan’s foot pressed into mine again. I pressed back.
“I have to ask,” Hanna said, “is there a reason why there hasn’t been a targeted attack on the Saxon family to remove that threat?”
I glanced at Jack, who was looking at his hands folded on the table. Elodie reminded everyone that the Circle’s code was very clear on what happened to anyone who attacked a member of another family, and that’s why we had decided not to kill Lydia and Cole in Egypt. Jack squeezed his hands together so tightly that his knuckles went white. We still didn’t know what the Circle would do about his killing Cole. The anxious knots in my stomach tightened even more.
“If an Order member were the one to commit the assassination, you’d get around that,” Hanna was saying.
“The Saxons have not been easy to find,” Elodie said, “probably for that exact reason. Our contact inside their home hasn’t actually seen any of the family members for weeks.”
“And,” Fitz said, “we know they have allies. Evil has wide roots. Taking out Alistair and Lydia is no guarantee of safety.”
“So why not go wider?” Hanna asked. “The Order does not generally use violence, but I think we can all agree these are extreme circumstances.”
Across the table, Jack’s mouth pressed into a hard line. Any statement that started with We don’t usually, but was suspect.
“It’s certainly something to consider,” Fitz agreed. “Sacrifice a few for the good of the world.”
“With this virus,” Hanna said, “it could be a targeted strike. Cleaner than bombings or assassinations—the world is already afraid of the virus. A string of ‘accidental’ infections, and then we claim we found the cure and it’s all over.”
I leaned forward, cutting them off. “If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re suggesting we kill the whole Circle? That’s exactly the opposite of what we’ve been trying to do.”
“Sweetheart, no, of course it wouldn’t be the first choice,” Fitz said. “We’re simply running through our options.”
This was exactly what we’d been afraid of when we’d found out Elodie was Order. I glanced across the table at her. She was inspecting her hands, but the crease between her brows said she wasn’t behind this plan, either.
We weren’t just being naive, were we? Was this something we should be considering?
“Maybe we wouldn’t have to eliminate all of the Circle,” another man across the table said diplomatically. “I’m sure you have some allies you’d want to keep safe.”
“So we base our tactical engagements on who’s nice to these kids?” Hanna said. “That’s a slippery slope.”
I tried not to think about every fantasy I’d had about a knife in Cole’s chest. In Lydia’s heart. I felt no remorse about Cole’s death, and I was probably a terrible person for that. But as much as I wanted revenge, I couldn’t imagine playing God and doing a preemptive strike against anyone who could eventually be a problem.
I’d let myself hope the Order would have real solutions. Not just another set of evil schemes.
I pushed my chair back from the table with a scrape. “I’m sorry. I need a few minutes.”
I went up the stairs from the lower deck to the open upper deck and found a bench along the railing. We went under a bridge, and the Eiffel Tower appeared, reaching high into the cloudy sky. I took deep breaths of the summer afternoon air, and I didn’t turn around when I heard footsteps behind me.
“So it appears the Order would like to either get rid of us or use our blood to murder people. That sounds oddly familiar . . .” Stellan settled beside me.
I propped my feet on the railing and watched the wake come off the boat. “So maybe we will have to leave all this behind. If we haven’t been able to do anything and this is the only alternative the Order can think of . . .”
I shuddered, but before I could even tense up too much, I felt Stellan’s fingers pull through the tips of my hair.
“We could all go,” I said. “Elodie and Jack, too.”
Stellan paused, working through a tangle. “The thing is . . . if we’re leaving the Circle to keep them from using our blood, we couldn’t be in the same place, could we? You and I couldn’t, at least. It would defeat the purpose.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t realized that. I wasn’t sure why it made me this much more tense. “Right.”
Our boat rocked in the wake of a passing, nearly empty tourist boat. I glanced downstairs, where the Order were still talking. Earlier, I’d been excited for this meeting. Now I didn’t want to go back down there.
Another set of footsteps came up the stairs, and Jack poked his head onto the upper deck. “Mind some company?”
Stellan dropped his hand from my hair. “Come on up. We’re discussing mass genocide.”
Jack cringed, but he came up behind our bench. “If the Order isn’t going to be much use, we’ll just have to figure it out ourselves, won’t we?” He squeezed my shoulder and then, after a short hesitation, clapped a hand on Stellan’s, too. “It’ll be all right.”
Stellan and I glanced at e
ach other, and I reached up to squeeze Jack’s fingers back. “So what do we do?”
“First order of business will be to keep the cure away from them, same as before. Knowing what the cure is changes the method, but the objective is the same,” Jack said. I scooted over and he sat on the other side of me. “I was thinking about it a lot on the plane, and I think the second thing for us to do will be to work on the Circle. Make them believe us. If the Circle turns on the Saxons, maybe they’ll stop them, or at least help us.”
“Not that I disagree,” Stellan said, “but Lucien has been trying to tell them the truth and he’s getting nowhere. It’s not that easy.”
I watched the boats moored to docks along the Seine.
“That’s why we need something more than our word against theirs,” Jack said. “I don’t know what that is yet, but I think that’s what we work toward.”
Fitz came onto the upper deck. His eyes looked tired, and his sweater looked two sizes too big. “Here you three are.” He turned to Jack, then to Stellan. “May I speak with Avery for a few minutes?”
Jack nodded and stood. Stellan nudged my knee. “Okay?” he mouthed. I nodded, wishing I could ask them both to stay. I moved to one of the smaller tables on the deck, and Fitz joined me. The boat was turning, heading back toward the Eiffel Tower in the other direction.
“I’m sorry that upset you. I understand how you feel,” Fitz said. “No one wants to see this end in more death and destruction—not even me, in spite of everything.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t really sure that was true for all the Order members. “Everything’s just a little . . .”
“Overwhelming?” Fitz sat across from me. “I’m so sorry we weren’t able to tell you earlier about who I was to you. It’s been one of my biggest regrets that I wasn’t able to be part of my granddaughter’s life.”
“Why weren’t you?” I said quietly. And then I amended it, to be fair. “You were. You were one of the only people who was ever part of my life for more than a few months. But why couldn’t you . . .”
“Your mother and I tried. That’s why I lived near you for as long as I did. It was an experiment. But with my own ties here—it was too dangerous.”
I realized I was nervous. I’d wondered for so long how my life got to be the way it was, and now that I was about to find out, I wasn’t sure I was ready. I nodded anyway. “Go on.”
He told me the story.
Like the Circle, the Order started their operatives young, he said, and membership often ran in families. My mom had been assigned to the Saxon household when she was fifteen years old. “I blame myself for what happened then,” Fitz said. “But here you are, so I can’t regret it.”
He hadn’t realized my mom was falling for Alistair Saxon until it was too late. The Circle took the prohibition against family members being romantically involved with the help seriously, as I knew, and he had never considered that my mom would get involved with a member of the Circle, either. But Alistair was different. Even Fitz saw it. He wasn’t like his older brother and his father. He was reasonable, and saw the Circle for what it was. He wanted more for them, and for the world. He was good. But then his brother and father were killed, and everything changed. He came into incredible responsibility overnight, and in such a way that he felt a threat to his family he’d never believed in before. They blamed the Order for the deaths, when in reality, it wasn’t true. But that incident changed the Circle, and it changed Alistair.
My mom would have ended the relationship at that point, Fitz said, but it was too late. She was pregnant with me. She confided in some Order members, and it was a mistake. Every one of them wanted her to end the pregnancy. She refused. But then she found out I was a girl.
“And because of what we knew about girls of the Circle, and what you’d mean if you did have the gene, it changed things. Still, your mother was determined to keep you,” Fitz said. “I helped her come up with a plan. She told everyone—both the Order and your father—that she’d lost the baby. And then she disappeared.”
From up on the riverbank, a siren got closer, and I tensed, wondering what had happened now. It passed.
“Once you were born,” Fitz continued, “and you did have the violet eyes your mother and I were hoping you wouldn’t, we knew it was unlikely I’d be able to be a real part of your lives.”
I’d been mad at my mom for a long time for running from this, and it was all to keep me alive. And here I was, in the same position, considering doing the same thing. Doing the bare minimum to keep my own blood from being the end of the world, and then washing my hands of everything to do with the Circle. Disappearing, just like she did.
I rested my elbows on the white tablecloth and my head in my hands.
“And that was when I began my research,” Fitz said.
I glanced up. Jack, Stellan, and Elodie were by themselves on the lower deck now, talking in a tight knot. At this point, this was no longer just my story. And even if it had been, I wanted them here.
“Just a second,” I said, and called them upstairs. Stellan sat next to me again, and Jack and Elodie seated themselves on the other two sides of the table. I caught them up on the quick version of my mom’s story, and then Fitz went on.
My mom had been young, and naive, and optimistic, he said. She thought she’d be able to keep me from this world forever. Fitz, knowing that might not be true and that my life and freedom would be compromised, was determined to help. “So I began researching what might actually happen if Avery were discovered. All I knew at that point was what the Circle knew. The mandate would produce a weapon, supposedly against the Order. The girl with the violet eyes was the key, which was why we couldn’t let such a girl exist.”
“Wait,” Jack said. “What do you mean you couldn’t let a girl exist?”
Fitz studied his hands. They were cut up, his fingernails filthy. “It was one of the Order’s most important tasks inside Circle households. We’d keep watch on the families.”
“You mean spy on them,” Jack cut in.
Fitz inclined his head. “And advise in ways that led to the most favorable outcomes. Our people are high up in many households. Some of them are Keepers.”
Shock flitted across Jack’s face. Elodie shook her head at him.
“We couldn’t let any of the twelve families have a girl with violet eyes,” Fitz continued, “so we didn’t. The methods have changed over the years. Just this past century we were able to isolate the genetic marker and make sure no baby girls with violet eyes would be born at all if we kept up with our duties.”
“Genetic engineering? Like what Olympias did to Alexander,” Stellan said.
“Like how she created the healing properties of your body, yes,” Fitz said. “Impossible, but true.”
Elodie cut in. “Going all the way back to Olympias, the Order has been advanced scientifically. We’ve lost some of what she knew—she was remarkable. But yes, the lack of that modification on Avery’s mother is what allowed Avery to exist.”
“So you’re saying Alistair was the only person in the history of the Circle to sleep around with someone he wasn’t supposed to?” Stellan asked.
I kicked him under the table. He just shrugged.
“Of course not. The Order operative in the household tries to keep an eye on that. And it’s not guaranteed that any Circle child will have the purple eyes anyway—it depends on the mother’s genetics, too, which is why many Circle marriages are arranged. But between that and the fact that the Order member in the household does their best to prevent it . . .”
“But my mother was the Order operative in her household,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m sure there have been other slipups, but until relatively recently in history, the world was not so connected. No Internet. Much less travel. A girl like you could have lived out her whole life without anyone noticing or caring about
her eye color.”
I thought about the other girls through history who could have been in my position if things were different. How easily things could have been different for me.
“Finally, I discovered Napoleon’s research,” Fitz said. “It was the breakthrough I’d been waiting for. I learned about the thirteenth bloodline, but I still didn’t know how they’d be connected to Avery and her well-being. So it became about finding that bloodline. I’d just begun to come to a new hypothesis about it, from a different interpretation of Napoleon’s diary, when, on an off chance, I heard about Stellan and his sister.”
I saw Stellan’s throat bob with a hard swallow.
“I thought there was no way it could be true,” Fitz told him, “but you were the closest thing I’d had to a development in nearly a decade. I had the Dauphins take you in.”
For a few seconds, the only sounds were the boat’s motor and the distant sounds of traffic. “So it’s true. I was a science experiment,” Stellan said, his voice too even.
“Yes,” Fitz said matter-of-factly. “When I first brought you in, it was so I could study you. Elodie came to me around the same time, and I had her placed in a position not only to do the Order’s work in the Dauphin home, but to keep an eye on you.”
It was exactly what Elodie had told us.
Stellan sat forward, resting his arms on the table. “Do you know who killed my family?” he said, his voice so level that if I couldn’t feel his foot bouncing under the table right now, just inches from mine, I wouldn’t know it bothered him at all.
“I’m sorry,” Fitz said. “I wish I did.”
Stellan nodded tersely.
I crossed my legs and brushed his calf with my foot. He glanced at me, and I felt the bouncing of his foot slow.
I honestly wasn’t sure whether I was only offering moral support or whether it was more. The more anxious I got, the more I found myself longing to go back to last night, in my room in Egypt. For a few hours, we hadn’t thought about any of this. We hadn’t analyzed, we hadn’t planned, we hadn’t made decisions. It was the first time in a long time I’d felt anything but terrible.