by Maggie Hall
“I thought you said you had a plan to get us access,” Jack said witheringly.
“This is the plan.” We followed Stellan through a propped-open iron gate into a wide courtyard. “Everyone here has a cousin or a brother-in-law or a barber who can make things happen. Trust me.”
I shook my head and looked around. The inner courtyard was impressive, with double rows of arches surrounding an immaculately manicured lawn and hedges. “Yeah, this place looks like a complete mess,” I said sarcastically.
“Just wait.” Stellan stubbed out his cigarette and held up a hand to wave at a different man, who’d just opened a door at the far end of the complex. “After you,” he said.
The guy let us in, and Stellan asked him something. He shrugged and answered, pointing down the hall, then left and shut the door behind him, plunging us into a dark, damp quiet.
“That was sudden,” Stellan said. “He said he has no idea if there are any Napoleon artifacts here, but that if there were, they’d probably be this way. He also said we shouldn’t get caught, because he’ll pretend he doesn’t know how we got in and then we’ll go to jail for breaking and entering.”
“Wonderful.” Jack clicked on a flashlight he must have stashed in his pocket and handed me another, and we made our way up a set of dingy steps. We emerged into an impressive gallery formed by arched wooden beams that loomed high overhead. Down the middle of the gallery marched—“Elephant skeletons?” I said.
They were bathed in moonlight from the windows above, and it wasn’t just elephants. Deer, giraffes, and smaller animals whose bones I couldn’t identify, all in a macabre parade. “I don’t think this is the gallery we’re looking for,” I whispered.
Just then, a door slammed shut at the opposite end of the gallery. I scrambled one way, pulling Jack after me, and Stellan ducked behind a cabinet in the other direction. Unfortunately, Jack and I had nothing to hide behind but the elephants themselves.
A flashlight beam swept toward us. Jack hit the floor flat on his stomach behind the elephant skeleton’s platform, and I started to do the same but it was too late. The guard was looking this way. I froze just behind the elephant’s rear leg.
The flashlight beam hovered for a moment. Then the sound of footsteps receded.
I let out a breath as Jack jumped up, and we tiptoed across the room. Stellan was already heading down a connecting hall, gesturing for us to follow. “Apparently there are night guards on patrol,” he whispered.
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.
We made our way into a long gallery with dim security lighting, and for the next hour, we scoured rows of glass cases, first in this room, then in a second, and I grudgingly admitted that Stellan had been right about the mess. It reminded me of the thrift store in Lakehaven where my friend Lara and I pawed through the cases for old jewelry. This was less fun—and took forever, especially since each of us only had one little flashlight. Even so, it felt amazing to finally be doing something after weeks of feeling powerless.
As far as I could tell, though, nothing we’d seen so far was connected to Napoleon. And none of the jewelry looked even a little like the bracelet we had.
Jack joined me at the end of the rows we were searching, and shook his head.
“Let’s try the next gallery—” I whispered, but stopped.
Over his shoulder, there was movement at the far end of the gallery. “Stellan,” I hissed under my breath, and yanked on Jack’s sleeve. We crouched behind a display case and I had to bite my lip to stay quiet when an unidentifiable insect scurried across my foot. But after a few seconds, no footsteps came into the gallery and there was no flashlight beam, so it couldn’t have been a security guard.
I stood up, shaking off thoughts of cockroaches, and Stellan emerged from behind a cabinet a few feet away. “I guess I’m seeing things,” I whispered. “Sorry. Do you know where the Alexander artifacts are?”
Stellan led us down another hall.
The next gallery was less crowded and easier to search. We split up again, and I made it through most of the art on my side of the room pretty quickly—it was all paintings of landscapes and statues of animals. I shone my flashlight on a vertical case containing some jewelry, but it was full of crowns and necklaces, pieces far older than our bracelet.
And then I shone the light on the art next to the case, and for a second, I was too startled to do anything but stare. There on the wall, above a bas-relief of three women with their heads bent together, was a carving of the thirteen-loop knotted symbol from the locket I wore around my neck: the same symbol that had led us on Mr. Emerson’s trail of clues. It wasn’t what we’d been looking for, but it wasn’t a coincidence, either. And just below it was an inscription in French. “Guys,” I whispered.
Jack reached me first and looked as surprised as I was. “Do you see the bracelet?” He looked at the surrounding artwork.
“No,” I whispered, and pointed to the inscription. “But look. What does it say?”
Stellan pushed past us, muttering to himself. “La Serenissima. One step closer to unlocking the secret through a union forged in blood,” he translated.
I grabbed Jack’s sleeve excitedly. The language was so similar to our current clues, we had to be on the right track.
“Unlocking. Maybe it’s about the password.” Jack snapped a picture of the inscription with his phone.
Stellan was squinting at the words. “The Serene One. That part’s not in French, it’s in Italian. La Serenissima, like it’s a name.”
“A statue? A painting?” I looked around for where it might be pointing.
A slam echoed through the museum, and all three of us jumped. Heavy footsteps sounded on the wood floor, and we scrambled behind the nearest statue’s base in a jumble of arms and legs.
The footsteps continued on.
“We should go. We can’t afford to be caught in here,” Jack whispered. I was half sitting on his leg, and I could feel Stellan’s pulse pounding where his back pressed into mine. “Even if La Serenissima is another piece of artwork, it’s probably not in this museum.”
We waited until the footsteps had faded to nothing, and then Jack hauled me to my feet and we hurried down the steps, out the door, and back out into the soupy air of Kolkata.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning—even though I’d crawled back onto my balcony after midnight and hadn’t fallen asleep for hours after that—I was up with the sun. I thought I might sleep better than usual knowing we were making progress, but I’d been wrong. I rubbed my shoulders, tired and stiff from the dancing and the lack of sleep, and sat down cross-legged on one of the low couches on the balcony, where the morning air was a little cooler than the temperature inside.
When I pulled out my phone to look at the photo of the carving Jack had sent me, I was surprised to see a text from just a few minutes ago.
Venice’s nickname is La Serenissima, it said. Stellan.
Why are you awake? I wrote back. He’d stayed elsewhere in the city, and had been up as late as I was. Does that mean the bracelet’s in Venice?
Maybe. Lots of Napoleonic history there. Would make sense.
The Mikado family would be visiting Venice in a few days. My father had mentioned that we’d probably meet them while they were there.
Venice is already on my itinerary, but not for a few days, I texted. Maybe by then we can figure out what “a union forged in blood” means.
By the afternoon, we were on a plane to the next family visit in Germany, and I was decidedly less apprehensive than I’d been on the way to India. Knowing that we were on the right track was a huge relief, and I’d even asked Lydia if we could add some museums to the schedule so I wouldn’t have to go behind the Saxons’ backs quite as much. We’d had a family meeting earlier to debrief the Rajesh visit, and sitting around with my dad and Lydia—and even Cole, though he wa
s playing on his phone the whole time—was weird, but nice. All those fantasies I’d had about family over the years didn’t involve planning my arranged marriage, but minus that part, laughing and chatting with my father and sister was kind of a dream come true. And if all the families we’d be meeting the next few days were like the Rajeshes, even that part wouldn’t be too bad.
Unfortunately, they weren’t all like the Rajeshes.
First was the Hersch family, in Frankfurt. We arrived ahead of schedule and took a tour. I loved the city—it was huge and bustling and a little gritty, with surprise pockets of old-world charm. I could picture myself living there if I had to. The family themselves were another story. Their only son, Jakob, was twenty-eight years old and already married. Lydia had prepared me for it—apparently a union with me would be advantageous enough that his wife would be okay giving him up. Which wasn’t awkward at all.
So after a day of museums that yielded nothing Napoleon-connected, Jakob’s wife and daughter sat at the dinner table with us as Jakob and Mr. Hersch attempted to sell themselves to my father. Jakob kept staring at me—well, not at me, at my eyes—the way I imagined a vampire would look at a girl he was about to have for dinner. At least Lydia had told me on the plane earlier that Jakob wasn’t a serious contender—my father just had to be fair. When I asked her which of them was a real possibility, she said that was still to be determined. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself. We still had eleven days to find the tomb and get me out of this.
Then the Melech family, in Jerusalem. Daniel had a mop of thick dark hair and a slim, handsome face. I could tell from the way Lydia had talked about him that she liked him, so I was surprised when we met him and he looked me up and down so clinically I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or relieved when he nodded and shook my hand.
They, like many other families, adhered to certain local customs. There were candles, songs, blessings I didn’t understand. A sweet, soft bread shared between us, wine, more food than I could have eaten in a month. And then another hard sell. The Melechs could offer a population base the Saxons couldn’t reach from London. Historical significance. Military might unrivaled in any other small territory. They even outlined exactly what the ceremony would entail if we got married. It was so businesslike, they may as well have used a PowerPoint presentation.
We hadn’t had time to make it to any cultural sites during the day, so Jack and I snuck out that night, hopeful. Alexander the Great had visited Jerusalem. The two of us met Stellan and searched a few museums, but came up empty. Stellan was probably right when he said the area’s centuries of political unrest may have scattered any pieces Napoleon left here.
10 days, the Order texted that night. The optimism I’d been feeling before Germany was fading fast.
Next the Emir family, Saudi Arabia. I’d been sleeping worse and worse as the days wore on, and was so tired by that time that the whole visit felt like a series of hallucinations. Standing in the scorching heat, staring up at their Riyadh skyrise, a gleaming glass building in the desert sun. The terrible look on Samarah Emir’s face when they talked about their oldest son Malik, killed by the Order just before I found out the Circle existed. A Saudi prince killed by a car bomb, the news had said, back when I thought the news told the truth.
They had a full-grown Bengal tiger in a penthouse petting zoo. Cole pushed its fur the wrong way, earning a snap of teeth that were as long as my little finger. That meant one of Jack’s hands on his gun and the other on me—the only time he’d so much as acknowledged my presence in front of the Saxons during the visits. The tiger got a squirt with a spray bottle like it was a house cat scratching the sofa. The animals had been Malik’s, Lydia said. Maybe they’d turn them out on the street to entertain themselves now that he was dead, Cole whispered when no one was listening.
Earlier, we’d seen the Emirs’ oldest daughter, who was around my age, with big, sad eyes. I remembered Jack telling me she’d been caught having a relationship with a Keeper, and been forced to terminate him herself. I decided Cole might not be kidding about the animals.
At dinner, a parading of their younger son, the one who was supposed to marry me, even though he was twelve years old. The look in his eyes was too grown-up when he took my hand and pledged his eternal love and protection for me if we chose him.
I could never live here. Or with the Melechs. Or the Hersch family. I’d rather marry Stellan. During dessert, as I picked at sweet tea and sticky dates and thought about how days ten and nine had just been wasted and we weren’t even certain our next clue was right, I felt the door of this pretty cage closing faster and faster.
• • •
In the middle of the night, I woke up gasping for breath.
I’d been dreaming about falling from a high-rise building, my mom holding me by the hand. It took me a second to remember where I was, and when I did, I sank back against the pillow and stared up at the tapestry hanging over my head. The air-conditioning stirred the mustard-yellow tassels surrounding it, and I clutched a pillow to my chest. During the day, I was holding it together, but nighttime conspires against a person’s brain.
Eight days, a voice echoed in my head.
I switched on the lamp beside the bed. At least my insomnia gave me plenty of time for research, because over the past couple days, I’d been clinging to Venice like a life preserver. We had to be right about that clue. Right before I’d fallen asleep, I’d found a site that mentioned a conspiracy theory about San Marco Basilica in Venice and the bones of Alexander the Great. It was farfetched, but it at least gave us somewhere to start. Suddenly, I remembered when we’d been searching for Napoleon’s diaries in the library at the Dauphins.
Stellan would be leaving to meet us in Venice later today. I texted him, I think there’s a book in the Dauphins’ library about the secrets of San Marco or something like that. Bring it?
I was surprised when my phone buzzed a second later. Am I your errand boy now?
Don’t you sleep? I texted back.
Says the girl who just texted me at 4 a.m. her time. Dinner with the Emirs not go so well?
I made a face at the phone. Just bring the book.
After a couple minutes, the phone buzzed again. Admit it. The more potential husbands you meet, the more appealing I look.
You are even more obnoxious at 4 a.m., I responded, trying to forget that I’d already had that exact thought. Not that it mattered. It wouldn’t come to that. It wouldn’t.
I settled back against the pillows and waited for the sun to peek through the curtains before I texted Jack.
Want to train when you wake up?
Jack had been teaching me self-defense and a few fighting techniques while we were in Paris. We hadn’t had any lessons since we’d been on the road, but we’d mentioned it to the Saxons, and the tour of the Emirs’ home yesterday included a huge gym facility they’d encouraged me to use while I was here.
Jack texted back a few minutes later. Pick you up in ten.
• • •
The Emirs’ gym took up an entire floor, with a sparkling pool and steam room on one end and a set of mats on the other. All four walls were floor-to-ceiling windows, and I watched the sunrise glint off the city skyline while I tied my sneakers and took off my necklace and Napoleon’s bracelet and piled them on top of my sweatshirt in a corner.
“Ready?” Jack said.
“Whenever you are.” I pulled my hair into a ponytail, knowing what was coming, but not when. A few seconds later, Jack grabbed me hard around the waist.
I hooked a foot around his ankle and tried to knock him over, but he stepped away easily. It made him loosen his grip, though, and I snagged his arm and bent his wrist backward. Just as quickly, he wrenched my other arm behind me hard enough that I cried out and let go.
The second I made a noise, he released me, and I rested my hands on my knees, breathing hard. Being exh
austed was not helping my stamina. For the next half hour, Jack taught me how to break someone’s fingers and exactly where on the shin to kick so it’d hurt the most.
And then he pulled out a knife. I reached into the pocket of the sweatshirt I’d left lying on the floor and pulled out my own.
“Like we talked about last lesson, the knife should be your last resort,” Jack said. “It’s a risk.”
“A tactical risk,” I remembered. “Only do it if I have to, because bringing out a weapon escalates a fight.”
Jack nodded. “And it would be best for you to err on the side of caution.”
I looked down at the knife and nodded.
“Where did we leave off?” Jack said.
I held out my blade like he’d taught me and rotated my wrist inward.
“Good,” Jack said. “Now strike like I’m attacking you.”
When he came at me with his knife, I jumped back and my knife fell to the mat. “Sorry,” I said as I bent to pick it up. “Sorry. Again.”
Jack came at me again, and I held on to the knife this time, but still flinched.
“Everything okay?” he said. He reached for me, but paused, glancing up at a small glass dome in the ceiling that was probably a camera. His hand dropped to his side.
“It’s like I forgot how to do anything,” I said crossly. “Go again.”
We kept sparring, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. “Can we do something else?”
His eyes softened. “You really are doing well.”
“No I’m not. I never do well with the knife. If someone was actually trying to kill me, I’d be screwed.”
“No, you are.” He glanced up again, subtly, at the camera overhead. “It’s just . . . you could use a little help with your grip.”
He came behind me and wrapped both arms around me, taking my hand in his. “Like this,” he said, drawing me closer so I could feel the heat of his chest on my back, and I leaned into him, relaxing a little. I knew I was worried about more than the training, and so did he. “Your fingers go just here, like this. See, you’ve got it. It really is going fine, I promise.” He squeezed my hands, subtly enough for the cameras to miss. “All of it.”