by Maggie Hall
And then there was the fact that I knew perfectly well who was destined to fulfill the mandate with me, and it was not a son of the twelve. That was the second thing we weren’t telling them.
Lydia and my father were watching me intently, but Cole had procured a pen and started sketching on his cloth napkin.
I shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in the hard chair. Next they’d forbid me to leave the house. I thought of the Order’s text. 13 days. “It’s a lot to think about,” I said. Even if they did actually care about me, to them, this wasn’t strange or wrong. Was coming here a huge mistake after all?
My father must have seen my hesitation, because for just a second, the business look dropped off his face, and his small, sympathetic smile was very father. I tried my best not to let it sway me. “I have a proposition,” he said gently. “I know this is odd for you, and I don’t want you to feel forced into a union with someone you don’t care for. But there are loads of good candidates. I’m confident you could find one you wouldn’t be opposed to.”
Spoken from a place where forcing your daughter to marry someone she doesn’t know is normal.
“There are ten heirs, from ten families,” my father continued.
That made me look up from my plate. “Only ten?”
“The Dauphins had their chance, and they’ve proven they’re not worthy of our trust.”
Oh. Right.
“Order-killing death ray,” Cole interjected, holding up his napkin like it was a canvas in a fine museum. I had to admit, he had talent. The sheer number of dismembered bodies he’d drawn in the past few minutes was impressive.
Lydia batted the napkin down, and Cole smirked. I felt a little bad thinking of my brother as creepy, but there it was.
My father ignored him and went on. The more he talked, the more I realized this was not a plan he’d made up on the spot. “We’ll try to meet one family every day, but some of the traveling will take longer.”
“Traveling? So we’ll go to each family’s city?” That was the first spark of good news I’d heard. I glanced up at Jack and remembered the conversation we’d had last night. Napoleon would have hidden clues in places important to the Circle.
My father nodded. “If we start tomorrow, visiting all ten families should take somewhere around—”
“Two weeks,” I said. The same amount of time the Order had given us.
“Around two weeks,” my father agreed. He’d been ignoring his dinner, but now he dug in. “That sounds about right. During that time, you’re welcome to keep researching your bracelet. I would be thrilled if your theory were true, so feel free to use our databases, our history books, whatever you need.” Like an afterthought, he added, “And I’ll assign troops to search any leads you have in the field.”
“Wait,” I said. “No. I have to look myself—”
He stopped me. “The Order may claim they’re leaving you to find the tomb, but I will never believe they’re not dangerous to any Circle member, let alone a very important one.”
I looked down at my untouched food. That was inconvenient. I wondered whether he cared about my safety because I was his daughter or because I was a new possession. The thought stung more than I wanted it to.
“While you’re under our protection,” my father went on, “you’ll stay under guard, and we’ll do the searching. If we find the tomb before we’ve decided on a family to unite with, we can reevaluate the union. But in the absence of that, you’ll agree that it makes the most sense for our family, for the Circle, and for your mother, for you to marry.”
I pressed my lips together. It did make sense, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, but I was sure it wouldn’t come to that. “Okay. But you have to promise me you’ll make saving my mom a first priority.”
My father inclined his head in agreement.
“She has demands.” Lydia smiled at me, almost proudly. “Sister’s learning to be one of us.”
I glanced up at Jack, who studiously avoided my eyes. “Where are we going first?” I said, like it was a vacation and not an arranged marriage.
My father looked pleased. “How would you like to visit India?”
Now Jack did look up, catching my eye ever so briefly. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” I said, and the smile that spread across my father’s face was so genuine, I felt guilty again.
• • •
After dinner, my father had Jack escort me to my room. No doubt the family wanted to be alone to discuss my future. Jack walked a little farther than a respectable distance ahead of me as we padded down the hall. He glanced up at a camera on the ceiling, its little red light following our progress. We continued past it, and suddenly, Jack grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“Are you really going to let them do all the work while you’re wined and dined by a bunch of Circle suitors?” he whispered.
I looked back down the hall toward the dining room, where the door was firmly shut. “Of course not,” I whispered back.
The camera down the hall was swinging toward us. We sprang apart and continued walking, like we’d never stopped.
CHAPTER 4
The next afternoon, I was in another massive house, on the other side of the world.
The Rajesh family lived near the center of Kolkata. Their compound’s high walls sheltered a secret garden of palms and orange trees and overgrown ivy and moss-covered fountains that looked like they’d been running for centuries. The home itself was white marble, with columns all across its front, grand enough that I would call it more palace than house. We’d been ushered straight to our suites, and I was perched on a tall stool, with Lydia and two Rajesh servant girls flitting around me.
“There,” Lydia said, putting the finishing touches on my eyes. My sister had done my makeup while telling me about the Rajesh family—the names and ages of all their kids, even how far their territory stretched, making it seem like us sitting here in a bedroom in India was the most normal thing in the world.
She had hardly left my side since the moment I woke up this morning back in London. I’d thought there might be a little tension after I didn’t immediately agree to their plans last night, but Lydia just seemed excited for the adventure, and it was making me feel a little better about it, too.
One of the servant girls hovered in front of me, squinted at my face, and frowned. She took the eyeliner out of Lydia’s hand and nudged her out of the way—the girls didn’t seem to speak English, and neither of us spoke Bengali, so the girl gestured for me to look up and went at my eyes with small strokes of the pencil. Lydia gave a bemused smile and sat on the edge of the bed. “Like I was saying—”
There was a knock at the door, and she got up to answer it. I looked past the girl’s hands to see Cole peering inside. I waved, but he said something to Lydia and left without giving me a glance, so I let the hand fall back to my lap.
“He doesn’t mean any harm.” Lydia helped the second girl finish braiding thin strands of my hair. The one with the eyeliner gestured for me to close my eyes. “He’s just a little hurt by . . .” I could tell she was trying to phrase it diplomatically. “I get that you’re worried about your mum and that all this is overwhelming. If I were in your position, I might’ve sat in my closet and cried for a week. But Cole doesn’t understand anything other than doing what’s right for the family. He’ll come around. Especially when you fulfill the mandate.”
“Okay,” said the girl in front of me in heavily accented English, and I opened my eyes.
Lydia leaned around to peer at my face. “Ooh! Pretty!” She gestured at her face. “Me too, please!”
“If,” I corrected her as she sat on the bed and the girl began drawing lines of heavy kohl around her eyes, too. “If I fulfill the mandate. Marriage is still a last resort.”
She glanced up at me, one eye partially rimmed in black. “You know all Circle marriages are arr
anged, right?”
“All?”
“All in the direct line. Even when they don’t change the entire fate of the Circle.” She watched the other girl prepare what must be the sari they were about to dress me in. Lydia told me that I’d be wearing her clothes during some of the visits, but in some cases, it was a sign of goodwill to wear the traditional dress provided by the family. “Purple,” she said. “Fitting. I like it.”
I blinked. The sari was a deep plum color, with a pattern of red and gold metallic vines around the edges. The girl gestured for me to get undressed. “So when you get married,” I said to Lydia, “that’ll be arranged, too?”
Lydia nodded.
“Does that bother you?”
She shrugged. “I’m used to the idea.”
“Wait. Does that mean you’ll marry one of the guys we’re meeting on these trips?” The only thing more awkward than being paraded around in front of ten guys I didn’t care about would be if one of them had already been promised to my sister.
She stood up and inspected her makeup in the mirror, which I hadn’t been allowed to do yet. If it looked anything like hers, it was very dramatic. “No. Circle unions don’t usually cross families in that way. That’s one reason you are such an occasion.”
I’d been trying not to be nervous, but this wasn’t helping. I held my arms out to the side as the girls wrapped the sari around me, and the beaded tassels running along the edges swayed and clicked in the breeze from the overhead fan.
After a few seconds of silence, Lydia came in front of me and smoothed a stray strand of hair back from my face. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I keep forgetting how little you know, and how traumatic it all must be. If I’m being an insensitive arse, just smack me, all right?”
I let out a breathless laugh.
“I’m serious. And we should have a secret signal in case you need anything. Like—” She scratched her eyebrow with her pinky finger. “Yeah? Do that, and I’ll know to come help.” She paused. “I’ll try not to bother you too much about it, but it is fascinating to me. My marriage will never matter much. Cole’s the heir—or he was until you showed up. He’s twelve minutes older than me, you know.” Her confident smile looked momentarily brittle. “And now it’s you.”
I watched Lydia’s fingers—unmanicured, with bitten nails—pull at a thread at the hem of her skirt. All I’d been thinking about was how unfair this was to me. But what if you had to watch someone get all this attention you’d never have—and they didn’t even want it?
“I couldn’t do this without you, you know,” I said quietly. It was all I could think to say, and it was true. “So thank you.”
Lydia smiled.
There was another knock on the door. “Ten minutes,” Jack called, and I started but was careful to not react. I’d convinced my father to let him come with us to India, but it was getting harder and harder to pretend I didn’t care about him more than any member of the Circle cared about the help. Watching him in his element was fascinating. He was laser focused, intense, stern. It was the Jack I knew, magnified. And it didn’t help that I hadn’t been able to so much as talk to him since that moment in the hall last night.
I smoothed my sari. I couldn’t get distracted now, especially not by a guy I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that way, especially not just before meeting somebody who thought they might marry me. I put up walls in my brain. “Anything else I need to know?” I said.
The girls were dressing Lydia in a ruby-red sari, and when they finished, they adorned us both with heavy necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. “Even if you’re nervous, try to have a good time,” Lydia said. “Dev is actually . . . It could be a fun night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last year he attended a UN summit on agriculture dressed as a banana. As in, wearing a full-body banana suit.”
I laughed. “He did not.”
“Time to go,” came a voice at the door, and I got final prods and pins and then one of the girls set a sparkling golden chain on my head. Finally, they let me see myself in the mirror.
The silk of the sari shimmered, dark purple set off against my pale skin, and gold and jewels shone on my hands, at my throat, in my hair. The eyes were dramatic, but with the outfit, they worked. Lydia came up beside me, just as elegant and glittering.
I watched our reflections and was surprised when she took my hand. Hers was small and cool, and our bangle bracelets clinked together prettily. Her mouth curved up at the corners, like we were in on a secret together. “You look like a princess,” she said.
• • •
I’d expected my first meeting with another family of the Circle to be like meeting the Dauphins, complete with either thinly veiled scorn or obsequious praise, but the Rajesh family wasn’t like that at all. Lydia and I joined them, plus my father and Cole and Jack, in a room filled with dancing candlelight and brightly colored wall hangings and a human-sized statue of Ganesh, the elephant god.
Dev’s mother, Indra Rajesh, had a soft smile. She clasped my hand warmly in hers and asked me about my life and my family, assuring me how easily I’d fit into theirs. His father, Arjun, had a thick mustache and a thicker midsection, and must have had a dozen cups of coffee before dinner because he talked a mile a minute, about everything from the art in their home to the weather, all in a posh British accent.
Dev himself had dark purple eyes that crinkled when he smiled in a way that made me want to smile back. He’d poured me a steaming, fragrant cup of tea when we’d first entered the sitting room, and now he sat next to me as we listened to his father.
“And of course, we’ve implemented new security measures since the attacks began,” Mr. Rajesh went on. “Horrible. I spoke with George Frederick yesterday. They are, understandably, having a hard time recovering from Liam’s death . . .” They were talking about Liam Blackstone, who was a famous actor and member of the American Circle family, and Colette LeGrand’s late boyfriend. I’d hung out with both of them just before he was killed.
The conversation faded as my father and Mr. Rajesh moved toward the dining room. I stood to follow, and Dev offered me his arm. I took it.
“Well then,” Dev said, his voice low and smooth, “we’ve made the conversational jump from awkward to depressing, so I’d say the evening is on track so far, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh.” I tried to rearrange my face into a smile. “No. Everything’s great. I—”
Dev chuckled. I looked up, and his eyes were sparkling. He really was attractive—was anyone in the Circle not?—with longish, wavy dark hair, a smattering of stubble across his cheeks, and an easy smile.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to pretend the whole thing’s not wildly uncomfortable.” Dev gestured ahead of us. On the floor of the dining room, there was a tile mosaic in the shape of a wheel with twelve spokes. It must be the Rajesh symbol. “My parents are not usually like this. They’re nervous. About the attacks and about . . . well . . . you.”
I watched Mrs. Rajesh hover anxiously at the dinner table, her eyes darting over the place settings as if a mismatched napkin could ruin their chances at the union.
“They’re nice,” I said, actually relaxing for the first time. “I appreciate your family going to all this trouble for me.”
“We appreciate your visit, and I hope you’ll appreciate the paneer makhani masala we’re having with supper.” He guided me to a chair near the head of the table. “The tandoori lamb is meant to be the main dish, but the paneer is my favorite. It’s a recipe my mother made as a girl. She insisted on the best for you.”
I caught Mrs. Rajesh staring at us, then making a show of pretending she hadn’t been. I hid a smile.
By the third course, I was stuffed, but there was no way I was going to stop. The lamb had more flavor than I realized meat could have. The paneer—which looked like chunks of tofu, but wa
s actually cheese—was savory and sweet and buttery and spicy all at once.
“What’s in this?” I said to Dev as I wiped up every last bit of the sauce with a piece of soft flat bread called naan. “How can it possibly taste this good?”
“It’s a secret.” He winked. “And that secret is a massive spice cupboard and hours of simmering. But let’s pretend it’s magic.”
“It is magic.” I watched the candlelight play on the embroidered tablecloth, the china. Then I glanced at Dev, who still wore a hint of a mischievous smile. I had to ask: “Did you actually wear a banana costume to a UN summit?”
He shrugged. “I had to sneak it in. It sounds silly, but it made people actually pay attention to what I had to say.” He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “Besides, it was either a banana or a bunch of grapes, and I figured there’s got to be a meeting on the wine industry at some point. I’m saving my grapes. Don’t tell my father.”
I laughed loud enough that half the table turned to look at us. A radiant smile spread across Mrs. Rajesh’s face to see us getting along, and my father seemed to relax a little.
“Our fathers have been friends since childhood,” Dev said. He sat back to let a server take away his empty paneer plate. “But I don’t really know your brother and sister.”
He glanced down the table, where Lydia and Cole were chatting with the younger Rajesh children.
“I did know Oliver when we were children,” Dev continued. He bowed his head. “Such a tragedy.”
Oliver?
A voice chimed in from my other elbow before I could ask Dev what he meant. “How is it that we’ve met your lovely siblings, but we’re only just meeting you now?” Mrs. Rajesh asked.
“I grew up away from the Circle,” I said, giving the polite but vague answer to that inevitable question that we’d practiced, and then moving the conversation in a different direction as quickly as I could.
After a dessert of cinnamon cake and sweet, milky chai, I let myself glance up at Jack again. He stood stoically inside the door, like he had all through dinner. This whole night had felt like an odd, though pleasant-enough dream, but his presence reminded me it was time to get back to the real world.