by Maggie Hall
“What am I going to do to you, you ask? Well, I barely know you,” he said, freeing the last of my curls and softly tousling my hair for any remaining pins. He looked me up and down in the mirror. “But I’m sure I could think of something. I do appreciate your enthusiasm.”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of rolling my eyes, but my inconveniently active blushing mechanism gave away that the innuendo wasn’t lost on me. He gave a short laugh, and adjusted an earpiece in his right ear.
We broke through a layer of clouds, and a vast city spread out below. I pushed by Stellan and stared out the window.
If this was real, I was about to meet my family. People who had known my father. For the first time in my life, people who wanted to know me. But I couldn’t help thinking about Stellan’s scars, and the tattoos, and about what kind of people would practically kidnap a girl from her prom to bring her to France, and my heart skipped painfully.
“Please take your seats,” the pilot’s voice said from the speakers in the cabin. “We’ll be on the ground in twelve minutes. Bienvenue à Paris.”
CHAPTER 9
Paris looked like a movie of Paris.
Most places don’t. All of New York isn’t Times Square, and you can’t see the Hollywood sign from the beach in L.A. The only place I’d ever been that could have played its movie self was the Las Vegas Strip, which we drove through on our move from Texas to Oregon.
But Paris wasn’t just the white dome of the Sacré-Coeur on a hillside in the distance, or the Eiffel Tower—the Eiffel Tower!—growing larger every second. It was the details.
The entire city seemed to have been color coordinated long ago, so the gray roofs and cream buildings and wrought-iron balconies all worked in perfect harmony. The bridge we trundled over featured rows of dark streetlamps that looked straight off a movie set, and golden statues at both ends of it kept watch over the Seine. It felt unreal, like a camera crew would show up at any moment and remind me that this wasn’t my life.
The car rolled to a stop.
Stellan climbed out and came around to my side. He stood straight now, hair smoothed, suit jacket buttoned, very official. I couldn’t help but yank on the hem of my dress. I suddenly felt very small and very out of place and very nervous. I rubbed the gold filigree on my locket as the driver opened my door, marveling that there was a driver opening my door. I felt like Dorothy stepping out the door of her little house into Oz.
A tour bus that had been blocking my view pulled away—and I did a double take at the glass pyramid in a vast courtyard. “The Louvre?” I said, surprised. The building was easy to recognize from pictures.
But rather than walking toward the main entrance at the pyramid, Stellan’s boots crunched across the fine gravel toward one of the side arms of the complex. He murmured into the microphone attached to his earpiece and glanced back at me. “Coming?”
I hurried to catch up, the straps of my prom shoes digging into my heels. “Could we maybe go sightseeing later?”
Stellan stopped. “Do I look like I want to play tour guide? We’re not sightseeing. There’s an informal meeting going on, and I’ll have to take you through it. Unknown teenage family members are to be seen and not heard, understood? Or in this case,” he continued under his breath, “maybe not even seen until you’re cleaned up, but I guess it can’t be helped.”
I hugged the bag over the stain on my chest and followed him. It was a beautiful morning. Paris in springtime—the sayings about it were true. We walked down the side of the Louvre, past tourists taking pictures and eating ice cream on expanses of new-green grass. A group of kids giggled and played tag in what looked like a maze of hedges. I could still see the Eiffel Tower, far in the distance against a sky dotted with clouds.
Stellan stopped at an unassuming set of double doors with men standing at attention on either side. One of them spoke to him in French, then held the doors for us, and Stellan gestured ahead of him. I took a deep, centering breath and walked inside.
The first thing I saw was a machine gun.
I recoiled automatically, but it was just a security checkpoint. The guard holding the gun across his body ushered me through a metal detector, and a stern woman on the other side patted me down. The low hum of conversation and background piano music beckoned from a nearby entrance hall.
The music grew louder as we stepped through a high archway draped in red velvet curtains. People milled around a drawing room covered in more red velvet and gold than a PBS period drama. Even though it was before noon, I felt incredibly underdressed.
This didn’t look like a mafia gathering. I supposed government officials could take over the Louvre for a brunch party, though. A gray-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses spoke to Stellan as we walked by. Stellan just gave him a tight smile and gestured down a hallway, but I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder as we moved on. The man looked exactly like Edward Anders. As in, the vice president of the United States. This man was shorter than I would have imagined Anders, but the resemblance was uncanny.
I hurried to catch up with Stellan as he stepped into a smaller drawing room with the same gold-trimmed red velvet brocade on the walls and chandeliers dripping with crystal. I did my second double take of the morning when I saw Padraig Harrington on a bench, deep in conversation with a man wearing a white turban. This time, I was sure it was him. Padraig Harrington was the most famous golfer in the world, nearly as well known for his tabloid antics as he was for the distinctive scar on the side of his face, which was turned toward me right now.
Lara would die. She was obsessed with celebrity gossip. I was still staring when Padraig Harrington looked around the room and caught me. He grinned and gave me a wink. I felt my cheeks blaze.
“Are you going to tell me any more about the Circle?” I said to Stellan. If that was Padraig Harrington, maybe that other man really was the vice president. What would that mean? Was this a fund-raiser for a French politician? I never imagined being connected to anyone who attended events like this. “Which of these people am I related to?”
Stellan held up one finger until he was finished speaking into the small microphone on his lapel. Even though he’d combed it back, his blond hair fell into his face. “I’ve just been told the Saxons are arriving tomorrow. My orders are to keep you here until told otherwise.”
I deflated a little. If they cared enough to send a private plane, I’d hoped they’d have someone here to meet me.
Wait. “Did you say you’re keeping me here?” I wondered out loud. “For how long?”
Stellan was already walking away. “You’re not going to question everything I say, are you? It’s growing tiresome.”
I started to reply that keeping me in the dark was also growing tiresome, but I shut my mouth and watched him climb the stairs ahead of me. His slim dress shirt was tucked into still-wrinkled black pants, which, on him, looked like they were meant to be that way. Stellan was different from how he’d been on the plane. The teasing note to his voice was gone. I hadn’t gotten anything out of him before; I could tell I really wasn’t going to now that he was in work mode.
We wound our way past a series of small rooms off the main corridor. The whole party hummed with power and wealth, but if I hadn’t known better, I’d have said people also seemed . . . paranoid. The guests darted glances over their shoulders as they talked, and you didn’t have to be a body language expert to see all the strained smiles, the tension in gestures. I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly this meeting was about.
Stellan stopped in front of one room, where a line of people waited to talk to a hugely pregnant woman with a pale, striking face and a severe blond chignon.
A slim girl wearing black pants and a black jacket and holding a clipboard appeared from inside. She narrowed her eyes and eased the door partway shut behind her when she saw me. She was probably about my age, but at least six inches taller, and se
emed to be part Asian and part European, with wide almond-shaped eyes, a blunt blond bob that was obviously dyed but perfectly highlighted, and heavy bangs. Since I’d just seen Padraig Harrington, I assumed she was a French actress or model, so I was surprised when Stellan said, “I’m taking her to a room on the fourth floor. Are they made up?”
“Of course,” the girl said, her voice unexpectedly husky and bored. She made no show of pretending she wasn’t giving me a once-over, then frowned and switched to French.
“Avery’s a guest,” Stellan answered in English. “Distant family of the Saxons, waiting here until they arrive. What are you doing?”
The girl tapped her clipboard. “Keeping track of baby shower gifts. So far we’ve been promised artwork, highly trained military, next year’s Olympics . . .”
“Her assistant of all people shouldn’t joke about it,” Stellan said, glancing in at the blond woman. “It’s important for all of our futures.”
“Nothing I said was a joke.” The girl gave a saccharine-sweet fake smile. Stellan frowned in response, and she rolled her eyes and disappeared back through the door.
“What was that?” I hurried to keep up with Stellan’s long strides.
“Elodie wanted to know who you were. It’s uncommon to see strangers at a gathering like this.”
“She was joking, right?”
Stellan laughed once. “I have things to do, so I’m going to take you to your room. Please stay there until I retrieve you.”
To my surprise, he didn’t lead us out of the Louvre, but farther into the maze of hallways off the front sitting room. “I’m staying here?”
“The Dauphins live here, and for the moment, you are their guest. So yes.”
“They live here. In the Louvre.”
“That’s what I said.”
Maybe it was better I wasn’t meeting my family right now. I couldn’t seem to put together a coherent thought, much less a whole sentence. It didn’t help that I hadn’t slept for even a second last night. I was starting to wonder if this was all a very vivid dream.
With one last glance back at the party, I followed Stellan, keeping a close eye on everything we passed. Paintings and tapestries and bookshelves lined the walls all the way upstairs. I ran a finger over one of the shelves we passed, and my eyes caught a row of books, all a deep purple, each with a different symbol in gold filigree etched into its spine. On the book farthest to the left was that sun from the plane and from Stellan’s tattoo. Above it was another symbol, like a starburst with long rays emanating from a dark center, and a phrase in a few languages, including English: Rule by Blood. Below the sun, in smaller lettering, and just French and English: Light in the Dark.
I slowed and scanned the rest—an olive branch, some kind of wheel, and many others—including the compass from Jack’s tattoo, on the third book from the end. They all had the same Rule by Blood phrase and starburst, but below Jack’s compass, it said Know the Way. I did a quick count. Twelve books total.
The Circle of Twelve, Stellan had called them. The Saxons were one, the Dauphins were another, and I assumed other families made up the rest. At least that made a modicum of sense.
A dark-haired older man came out of a room at the end of the hall, nodding at us as he passed, and I slowed. He wasn’t famous, but I couldn’t stop staring at him anyway. His eyes.
His eyes could almost have been deep blue, but they weren’t, not quite. No, they were a dark violet.
They were exactly the color of my eyes.
I had never, ever seen another person with my real eye color. The guy disappeared back into the party. He must be related to me. I had to bite my lip to keep a smile from spreading across my face.
• • •
The suite of rooms Stellan showed me to was less flashy than the rest of the house, but the high bed covered in navy brocade and the crystal-and-gold chandelier looked antique and expensive. The air in the room was a little musty, but the pillows were silky and crisp under my fingertips.
Stellan gestured inside. “Rest, wash up. I’ll come for you later.”
He left, and I found myself all alone, in a suite three times the size of my bedroom in Lakehaven. Probably as big as our entire apartment had been in New York. I crossed to the window and drew back the navy velvet curtains to reveal a view of the Louvre courtyard. Below the window, a long balcony stretched as far as I could see to the left and right, and far in the distance, the Eiffel Tower reached above the Paris skyline.
I stared at it for a long minute, then rooted around in my bag, pushing aside an unopened package of Junior Mints, my least favorite pair of sunglasses, and a library book I’d meant to return on the way home yesterday. I finally found my cell phone. No signal, which I should have guessed, since this was a US cell phone and Dorothy, we weren’t in Minnesota anymore. After a quick search around the room, I found a discreet landline tucked away on a desk in the corner, with a card beside it listing country codes for international calls. I dialed my mom’s phone. I wouldn’t let her force me to come home, but I was starting to feel bad. She was probably worried that I hadn’t answered my phone all night. Maybe she thought I’d snuck out to prom and gotten in a car accident, or even that I’d spent the night with some guy.
Not that I meant to spend prom with Jack if the night had gone as planned. Even now that I knew all his interest in me was purely professional, the thought made me blush annoyingly.
No answer on my mom’s phone.
I did a quick calculation and realized it was before dawn in the United States, and called two more times in case she was asleep. Maybe her phone was off. Or her battery had died.
Just in case she’d realized I was gone and was home already, I called our house, too, and when she didn’t answer there, I called her cell again.
“Hey,” I said when her voice mail picked up. “It’s me. I’m okay, don’t worry. I’m . . . in France. Sorry,” I said automatically, but then stopped. “No. I’m not sorry. I really want to meet my dad’s family, and I know you probably don’t want me to, but give me one day, okay? My phone doesn’t work here, so you won’t be able to reach me. I’ll call you back later. I have a lot of questions.”
I hung up, shaking a little, half shocked that I’d just said that, and half exhilarated. I’d made it. I was here. She’d get my message and be mad for a couple of days. I’d been lied to for sixteen years. Thinking I didn’t have anybody when, really, I had family.
I stared out over the Paris morning and thought the word to myself, over and over. Family.
CHAPTER 10
A pounding reverberated in my head and I bolted upright.
Where was I?
Warm afternoon light streamed through the window and lit the crushed-velvet comforter, still indented from my head, and I remembered. After I’d tried to call my mom, I’d taken a shower, and then I’d realized I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, so I was going to sit down for a minute before I went exploring . . .
The pounding came again. It was someone knocking at my door.
“Just a second,” I called, my voice thick with sleep.
I rubbed at my dried-out contact lenses and pulled the bedroom door open.
“If I’d known it was shower time, I would have brought a towel.” Stellan flicked his eyes over my suddenly too-small white bathrobe.
Heat crept across my skin. I drew the robe tighter and frowned at him to disguise the fact that I was now trying—unsuccessfully—not to think about him in the shower. He was doing this on purpose, I reminded myself. And it still wasn’t going to work. “Can I help you?”
His slow smile said he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I suppose I’ll take a rain check on the shower. Now I am taking you to get a gown for the ball. A welcome gift.”
I blinked. “For the what?”
“The ball.” He’d untucked his dress shirt and rolled up the
sleeves, and when he drummed his long fingers on the doorframe, I could see the muscles in his forearms twitch. “Tomorrow night. It’s a celebration for the Dauphins’ new babies.”
“Babies.” I remembered the pregnant woman downstairs, who got the Olympics as a baby shower gift.
“Madame Dauphin is giving birth to twins,” Stellan said, like it should be obvious.
“And there’s a ball that’s a baby shower. And I need a . . . gown.” Obviously my brain hadn’t woken up yet.
“Madame Dauphin likes her guests to reflect well on her.” He shot a disdainful glance at my prom dress, now balled up in the corner. I opened my mouth to protest, but honestly, he was right.
“Shouldn’t I wait here until Jack shows up? Or the Saxons?”
“Do I really have to tell you this again? Alistair Saxon is supposed to arrive tomorrow. You’ll see them soon enough. I have other errands to run, so unless you’re wearing that, I suggest you get dressed. You can find something in the closet.” He gestured to a door in the corner that I’d found earlier led to a huge, well-stocked walk-in.
He left, and I called my mom again. Still no answer, on either phone. With that on top of the shock of being here that was finally starting to hit me, nerves fluttered in my stomach. I kind of wanted to curl up under the covers and not leave the room until my family got here.
But it wasn’t like there was anything wrong with shopping. It could be fun. It was nice of the Dauphins to take me in, and I might as well enjoy the perks while I could, before my mom found out what I’d done and locked me up until I turned eighteen.
I searched the closet for an acceptable ball gown shopping outfit. Ball gown shopping. I smiled. There was a phrase I never thought would apply to me.
I slipped on a navy sundress with white stripes, grabbed a similarly striped piece of taffy from a candy bowl on the desk—I was starving—and headed toward the hall where I was meeting Stellan. I passed a library with the door open a crack. The pregnant blond lady, who I assumed was Madame Dauphin, sat at a conference table with four men. As I passed, a word jumped at me.