by Maggie Hall
And then, from down the hall, a loud boom. A flurry of exclamations and running footsteps, then Jack saying, “Go. I’ll watch her door.” A few seconds later, two knocks, a pause, two more. The signal we’d agreed on.
I grabbed my bag and opened the door a crack.
Jack stood, his back to me, looking down the hall. Plausible deniability. If this was caught on camera, he could pretend he hadn’t seen me sneak out.
“Three doors down on the left,” he murmured, not turning around. “Emergency exit. I turned off the alarm.”
“Okay,” I whispered, easing the door shut behind me and padding down the plushly carpeted hallway. I pushed open the door to the emergency stairs and hurried down, emerging into a narrow alley between buildings. I listened for a moment, then let the door shut behind me and shrank back into the shadows halfway down the block.
The door opened a few minutes later. I went as still as I could, just in case—and Jack stuck his head out and looked around. I waited to make sure he was alone, then ran to him.
Before I could say a word, he swept me up in his arms, and I let my guard down for the first time since dinner, the shock I’d been holding back finally washing over me in waves.
Jack hugged me tighter.
I disentangled myself just enough to pull him down and kiss him.
He broke away. “I—”
I just shook my head and kissed him again, and then we were kissing so fiercely, nothing else mattered.
That last time we’d slipped up, Jack had stopped it as quickly as it had started.
Not this time.
We pulled each other so close, I could feel the hard ropes of muscle in his arms as he wrapped them around me. Everywhere his skin touched mine felt like it was melting, in the best way.
This was so much better than I’d remembered. How had we possibly been able to not do this all the time? Kissing him felt safe. Kissing him made me forget.
It was only when we ran roughly into the damp stone wall of the next building over that we pulled away, gasping. I hadn’t even realized I had his shirt half off, my palms pressed to his ribs, just under those mysterious round scars.
Jack pushed my hair back from my face. “You were so close. He could have shot you.”
“He didn’t.” I slipped my hands out from under his shirt and around his back. “He could have, and he didn’t. That’s what I’ve been saying—the Order doesn’t actually want to kill me. But he could have shot you.”
“He didn’t.”
Another violent shudder ran through me. Jack pulled me to his chest again.
“We have to stop this.” It wasn’t just for my mom anymore. Dev Rajesh, then Eli and Takumi . . . I’d realized intellectually that the Order was killing people, but I didn’t know them.
If I did marry somebody, though, would that stop it? The Saxons thought so, but I’d never been sure. Maybe if it proved that the union didn’t lead to the tomb after all, they’d have no reason to kill any more boys . . . but that wouldn’t help my mom. Finding the tomb was the only thing that would solve both problems. After tonight, seven days. “We have to find it,” I said. “There has to be something here.”
“I know.”
I took a deep breath, and felt Jack’s chest expand with one of his own. Finally, I pulled away and smoothed my hair back from my face. “We should go.”
Jack’s hair was wild, his shirt askew. I saw his arm move, almost reach for my hand. Stop. Notice me notice the hesitation. Both of us frozen, waiting for the other to make a move. To acknowledge that the worse everything got, the more difficult it became not to have each other to fall back on.
“I—” Jack said. He stuffed both hands into his pockets.
I nodded, smoothed my skirt, and we ran out of the narrow alley without a word.
• • •
The fog that had settled since dinner made it impossible to see more than ten feet in any direction, but it seemed to amplify sounds echoing off the narrow alleys that served as streets for anyone not moving around by boat. I flinched at every slamming door or boat motor, and glanced over my shoulder at every set of footsteps.
Jack walked quietly beside me, lost in his own thoughts. I wondered suddenly what would happen if—when—I did get my mom back. If I stayed with the Circle, I might not have to be married off, but unless I had enough power to change the rules, Jack and I would never work, anyway. Maybe we’d leave, but then I’d be abandoning the family I’d just met, and he’d be leaving the only family he’d ever had. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The only certainty was that we had to find this bracelet.
• • •
Finally, after ten minutes of weaving quietly through the maze, a glimmer of light shone up ahead and the alley opened up onto a wide square. “Oh,” I breathed. Despite everything, the square ahead looked like magic.
The fog wasn’t as dense here—it must have had more space to dissipate. But the driver had told us earlier today about the acqua alta. “Just be glad it’s not August,” he’d said in broken English. “If the acqua alta comes in August, you can smell Venice from anywhere in Italia.”
Now I saw what he meant.
The Piazza San Marco was underwater. Tourists strolled along wooden walkways that stretched across it, but it looked like they were walking on the water’s surface. The lights from the basilica and the surrounding buildings shimmered in the ripples, creating gleaming pinstripes in the settling dusk. Around the edges of the square, locals went about their business as usual, ducking into stores and sitting at half-submerged cafe tables in knee-high galoshes.
I licked my lips. The air in Venice tasted a little like stagnant ocean and fish, but with an overtone of fresh breeze that made it not unpleasant.
I looked around and got my bearings. We’d emerged at the corner of the piazza nearest the San Marco Basilica, with a small cafe on one side of us and a row of shuttered shops and outdoor bistros on the other. “La Serenissima doesn’t refer to any specific part of Venice, so that doesn’t give us a lot of direction,” I said, “but there’s this conspiracy theory about Alexander the Great’s bones being hidden at San Marco Basilica.” Stellan had found the book I’d asked for from the Dauphins’ library and told me the details.
“Napoleon might have heard that rumor, too. He was really interested in the church. And that over there”—I pointed across the piazza—“is called the Ala Napoleonica. The Napoleonic Wing. Though it seems to have only Venetian history these days, which is why I want to check the basilica first.”
Jack was nodding along. “Sounds like as good an idea as any.”
“Actually,” said a girl’s voice from behind us, in a light French accent, “I’ve got a better idea, but by all means continue to waste more time.”
We both spun around toward the cafe. There, leaning against a column, hundreds of miles away from Paris where she should be, was the Dauphins’ maid, Elodie.
CHAPTER 9
Jack pulled me behind his back, and I reached into my purse for my knife, like it would do much good against the throng of guards the Dauphins had probably sent to bring me back to the cell in their basement.
“Where are they?” I said, looking behind her. “Where are your guards?”
Elodie pushed off the wall, strolling a few feet out to nudge the water’s edge with her boot. The platinum highlights in her blond hair glinted in the dark. “I was beginning to think the earlier unpleasantness kept you inside for the night.”
“Unpleasantness?” I snapped. “Two people died.”
“How did you know we were here?” Jack said.
She rolled her eyes. “Can you really not guess?”
Jack tensed. “I’m going to kill Stellan—”
“He didn’t tell me. I just happened to remember the little threesome thing you all had going on, and what with his extended a
bsences to spy on the Saxons lately, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Found the hidden phone he’s been using to communicate with you, and here I am. You know,” she said, glancing appraisingly at the bracelet gleaming on my wrist, “you should really be more careful.”
In a second, Jack was behind her, his gun to her back. “What do you want, Elodie?”
“Jack!” I started, but before I could say any more, Elodie wheeled around and kneed him in the crotch. He stumbled backward.
She retreated a few feet. “Don’t touch me—”
She went quiet when Jack pointed his gun at her again. Luckily, the small cafe we stood at the edge of was empty enough that no one was watching us.
“I didn’t realize things were quite so murderous around here.” Elodie raised her hands to waist-height.
“Did you not notice what happened tonight?” I nearly shrieked, and made myself quiet down. “I don’t care if you are telling the truth. You picked the worst possible time to sneak up on us.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said, her palms still out, placating.
“Put the gun away,” I said to Jack.
“She could sound the alarm to the Dauphins at any second.” Jack’s eyes still roamed the piazza, but no one had approached us. “I don’t even know what they think they’d be able to do with you, but I guarantee she’s not just here to chat.”
“Just put the gun down,” I said. “Nobody else is getting shot tonight.”
He lowered it slowly, and I reached into my bag and swapped my knife for pepper spray. “It’s just mace,” I said to Elodie. “But you can’t expect us to trust you.”
“There,” Jack said, pointing to the cafe’s spindly bistro tables. “Sit.” While I held her at mace-point, he took a pair of handcuffs from an inside pocket of his jacket and cuffed her wrist to the chair.
“Are you serious?” Elodie huffed, flopping back dramatically.
“It’s just a precaution.” Once she was strapped in, I dropped the mace.
“I have to admit that after I helped you escape the wedding”—Elodie’s almond-shaped eyes got artificially wide, innocent—“I thought you’d be a little happier to see me.”
So it was on purpose. “Why did you do that, anyway?”
Elodie drummed her fingers—the only part of her able to move freely—on the arm of the chair. “I was bored. Thought I’d stir up some drama.”
“Be serious.”
“You seriously want to know why I’m here?” she said in her haughty French accent. “You could have asked before handcuffing me. As I said, I’ve been monitoring your conversations with Stellan. And I think I know things about your clues that you don’t.”
• • •
We left Elodie cuffed to the chair, her long, slim legs crossed casually like she was just out for an espresso on a foggy evening. I’d texted Stellan and changed our meeting place, and now I raked my free hand through my hair. I hadn’t had time to dry it after I showered earlier, and it was tangling in the breeze as it dried. Soon, I turned around to heavy footfalls on the wooden pathway.
“I heard what happened with Eli Abraham,” Stellan said. “Are you all right?” He looked over my shoulder and stopped short when he saw Elodie.
“If it isn’t the third wheel,” Elodie said, waving her fingers at him.
Stellan turned back to Jack and me. “I’m assuming the light bondage isn’t recreational, so who’s going to fill me in?”
I told him as much as we knew over the strains of a string quartet that had started playing at a nearby bistro. Stellan chewed his lower lip, then pulled up another chair and sat knee-to-knee with Elodie. “The Dauphins didn’t send you? You haven’t told them what we’re doing? If we untie you, are you going to hurt us or run?”
“No, no, and no.” Elodie rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have shown up here alone and relatively unarmed if I wanted to hurt you or your precious purple-eyed girl, okay?”
“Relatively unarmed?” I said, but Stellan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and locked eyes with Elodie.
“Are you telling the truth, El?”
She didn’t flinch. “Yes.” Then she looked up at Jack with the same flat determination. “Jackie, you know I am. You have always been able to tell when I’m lying. And after tonight, I’d think you’d want as much help as you can get to stop the Order for good.”
Jackie?
Jack took the keys to the handcuffs out of his pocket. Elodie batted her eyelashes at him sarcastically, and I was struck by the feeling of being an outsider. I knew Jack and Stellan had history, but hadn’t really thought about how Jack would have known Elodie for half his life, too. And try as I might, I couldn’t picture him as ever having been a “Jackie.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what’s in this for you?”
Elodie flicked the bangs out of her eyes, and I wondered, stupidly, how she kept her hair so perfect. She was part Asian, and I didn’t think there was any way the platinum blond was natural, but it always looked freshly done.
“What’s in it for me is that they’ll go after Luc eventually,” she said. “They’re hitting every other person who could be the One, in every Circle family. Maybe they’ve given Luc a reprieve since they already killed the Dauphins’ baby girl, but I don’t know. I’d rather stop them before they try.”
I didn’t think she was lying.
“And, of course,” Elodie went on, “everything that would come with finding the tomb, which I’m sure these two care about, too. Fame, fortune, acclaim . . .” The sarcastic note in her voice was back.
Jack palmed the back of his neck and shrugged at me. He was willing to trust her.
“Fine,” I said. It was later than we’d realized, though, and it’d be a lot easier to search for clues while the basilica and the museum were open rather than sneaking in, so we put whatever Elodie had to say on hold for a few minutes. I wasn’t about to give up this chance just because she thought she had a better idea.
Inside San Marco Basilica, Elodie was pointing out something on a fresco to Jack, so I said, “Split up; meet back here in ten?” and grabbed Stellan’s arm, pulling him down the center aisle.
“Yes, I trust her,” he said before I could open my mouth.
I sucked in an indignant breath.
“You are blindingly obvious,” he said, cutting me off again. “That’s how I know exactly what you wanted to ask.”
I frowned and made my way toward the first few pieces of artwork down one side of the church. He inspected the ones higher on the wall. I thought of Elodie smiling at him earlier and flashed back to the club in Istanbul I’d visited with them, which seemed like a lifetime ago. I remembered the look on her face while she watched some girl hit on him. Everyone’s interested in him in that way, she’d said.
I glanced over my shoulder, searching Stellan’s fine-boned profile for any hint that he might be lying to me. “Is something going on between you two?”
Stellan regarded a statue of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. “Is that relevant?”
“I don’t know, is it?”
His mouth curved up at the corners. We moved toward the altar.
“You believed her immediately when she said she wasn’t trying to hurt us,” I said. “And maybe she’s not, but I think I have the right to know if it’s more than rational deduction that makes you want to hand her all our secrets.”
Stellan turned from a gilded cross. “Jealous, wifey?”
I bristled. “I’m just saying that you two obviously have a history of . . . something. At least friendship.”
Stellan’s grin grew. “Oh, more than friendship.”
“See!”
“Let me give you a life lesson. Just because two people have a history doesn’t mean they’ve pledged their eternal love and loyalty.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes a hookup is
just a hookup.”
“You’ve known each other forever. I don’t believe anything is just anything.”
“I believe Elodie because I’ve known her for that long. Trust me, kuklachka,” he said when I tried to interrupt. “I know what I’m doing. I’m smart enough not to put faith in a girl just because she’s pretty. I still question half of what you tell me, after all.”
I ignored the flirting. At least none of the potential Circle husbands had actually tried to hit on me. On the contrary, they were fairly businesslike about the whole arrangement, unlike Stellan. “I haven’t lied to you. At least not since the time I lied to you. But I didn’t know I could trust you then. I’d like to think I can trust you now.” Yes, it was trust with a healthy side of suspicion, but still.
He bumped my shoulder lightly with his. “If you can’t trust your future husband, who can you trust?” he said in my ear, and dodged my elbow to his ribs.
When it became clear we weren’t going to find anything here, we met back up with Jack and Elodie to do a quick recon of the front of the church together. While we finished looking, I started to interrogate Elodie.
“Before I tell you my thoughts,” she said, “let me make sure I have this straight. You have a bracelet that may lead to the location of Alexander’s tomb. You’re searching for a matching bracelet that would complete that clue. You’re looking for the tomb because the Circle wants the weapon against the Order, obviously, to stop the assassinations and get rid of them for good.”
I nodded.
“And something else?” she prodded, glancing between the three of us.
I scowled. Elodie had been sure I had a thing for Stellan since I first met her. “It’s not anything like that,” I said. “Stellan’s just helping.”
Elodie smirked. “I did not actually think you all were in some kind of three-way relationship, but nice to know that’s the first place your mind goes. I mean, I noticed that you mentioned your mother.”