Map of Fates

by Maggie Hall

  I glanced again at Colette and Elodie, now standing near the front doors. Colette gave me a small nod—and then approached the security guard patrolling the side of the building and pointed to me.

  The guard squinted, frowning.

  Behind them, Elodie slipped around to the back of the building.

  I squeezed Stellan’s arm, and he touched my hand in acknowledgment. Phase one complete. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “The only security I’ve seen are the ones standing at the front doors and a few more at the sides. They’ve let a couple people in, probably for the bathroom, so Elodie won’t seem too suspicious, but if the guards start to go inside, I’ll signal and we’ll make an even bigger scene. For now just keep on with this.”

  I nodded and tried my best to stay engaged in conversations as I waited nervously for the lights to go out. The security guards here probably didn’t have the authority to arrest me themselves, but they could have called the police, so I kept listening for sirens in the distance.

  And then a car did pull up at the end of the red carpet, but it wasn’t the cops. Lydia Saxon got out, followed by her brother.

  Stellan saw them at the same time I did, and grabbed my hand, pulling me away. It was too late. My sister’s gaze zoomed in on me the second she stepped out of the car, and a chill ran through me like lightning. “I thought they weren’t in town,” Stellan said.

  “Jack said he didn’t tell them we were here,” I replied. But they could have showed up of their own accord.

  “They can’t do anything to you in front of all these people,” Stellan said.

  I nodded. The twins were making a beeline for us, bypassing the photographers calling for them to take a photo. They were a striking pair: Lydia’s hair slicked back in a sleek, modern ponytail that grazed the top of her strapless red dress, and Cole’s matching dark hair and olive skin topped off with a red bow tie and his usual smirk.

  “Avery. So lovely to see you here.” Lydia leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, and raised an imperious eyebrow when she saw my hand still caught in Stellan’s. I pulled it away and took both her hands in mine, partly to make sure she wasn’t hiding any weapons.

  “I didn’t realize you’d be at the festival,” I said. I’d hoped that even if they realized I was here they’d leave me alone since I’d promised Alistair the tomb. They must not trust me at all.

  “Last-minute decision,” Cole cut in. The top of his head only reached Stellan’s shoulder, but he looked up at him with a sneer. “We didn’t realize you’d be here, either. With the help.”

  They didn’t realize I’d be here? The cameras flashed like a swarm of fireflies in the night.

  The Fredericks asked Cole a question, and he turned away to talk to them, but Lydia stayed right next to me. “I can’t wait to hear all about what you’ve been doing in Cannes,” she said with that sparkling smile that had tricked me into believing she cared.

  I glanced up at the theater. What was Elodie doing? Could she not find the electricity?

  “Avery.” Colette came up beside me, her gaze cutting to Lydia. “There’s a director I’d like you to meet. Come with me for a second?”

  I nodded, grateful. Maybe I could hide until—

  The lights cut off. Finally.

  There were stray giggles, like there always seemed to be when darkness fell unexpectedly. And one sharp intake of breath from close by.

  I felt Lydia clamp a surprisingly strong hand around my wrist. “Avery, get out of here,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “It’s not safe for us to be here right now.” Lydia’s whisper was no longer calm. “The electricity wasn’t supposed to—just go.”

  A chill came over me. “What did you do?” I pictured the milling crowds, and then the attack at the Emirs’. Lydia and Cole didn’t come to find me, and they didn’t come to walk the red carpet.

  Stellan was already pulling me and Colette away from the building and the crowd.

  Lydia followed us. “Take your Keeper boyfriend if you want. I won’t say anything. Just get out of here.”

  “Are these people going to get hurt?” Stellan said, low enough that no one else could hear us under the low hum of voices. My eyes had started to adjust to the dark, and I saw that he had Lydia’s wrist, just like she had mine.

  Lydia tried to pull away. Cole was headed toward us. “I can’t be sure it’ll go off when the power comes back, but it might. If anyone’s too close . . .”

  “You set a bomb? Here?” Stellan said just as I said, “Elodie. Call her. Now.”

  Stellan grabbed his phone with the hand not holding my sister.

  “We have to get everyone out of here,” I said.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but Lydia silenced me. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  The scream died on my lips. They still had my mom, and I couldn’t be sure Lydia was on the same page as Alistair.

  Stellan muttered something into the phone in French, urgent.

  “Lydia, these people will die,” I pleaded.

  “It wasn’t meant to go off until later,” she answered, glancing back at the building. “When everyone was out. We’d grab the bracelet and no one would know.”

  Of course they knew the bracelet was here. It had probably been the last thing Jack told them before he found out what they were really doing. “I don’t care,” I said. “We have to evacuate—”

  “No! We can’t say anything or it’ll be obvious we knew about it.” Lydia looked surprisingly panicked.

  I shook my hand out of hers. I’d let too many innocent people die already. If my mom was here, I’m sure she would agree it was worth the risk.

  I took a deep breath and screamed, “Fire!” It was obvious there was no fire, but I kept yelling. Murmurs went up through the crowd. “Everybody get away from the building!” I screamed. Someone else in the crowd caught the panic and screamed, too, and that was it. A couple people started running, and then the crowd stampeded toward us. I yanked Stellan and Colette to the side, behind a car, away from the crush of bodies. The lights above the red carpet flicked back on.

  The screams grew louder for a second as the crowd blinked away the brightness—and then they were drowned out by an explosion that rocked the red carpet.

  CHAPTER 31

  I flung my hands over my head. Stellan threw himself across me and Colette, and the explosion blasted out with a roar and the smell of unnaturally chemical smoke and heat condensed into one gust, like an industrial oven had just been opened. Bits of debris pelted my exposed skin. Overhead, there were mini explosions as the spotlights shattered, and I pulled my head from Stellan’s chest in time to see tiny shards of glass fall in a rain of glitter.

  Stellan had my shoulders. He was mouthing something I couldn’t hear. “What?” I said, and I couldn’t hear myself, either. The only sound in my ears was a ringing like a low bell. “Are you okay?” he mouthed. I nodded. “Are you?” Bits of glass made his hair sparkle, and he had a scrape across his left cheek. “I’m fine,” he said, and I heard it this time, as if from far away. Colette sat up slowly, and nodded when I asked her the same question.

  I stood up. There was a beat of complete stillness, the whole red carpet frozen in place, like we’d been turned to stone. Beat. Mr. Frederick, slumped against a wall, glasses askew, holding his head. Beat. Miranda Cruz, the actress, blood running down her face and onto her white dress. Beat. A photographer crouched over his camera shattered on the ground, staring at the smoke from inside the building. Beat. I searched for Lydia—and she was gone. So was Cole.

  And then everyone was running. Stellan and I fought the tide toward the building.

  The closer we got to the theater, the more people we saw stumbling away or collapsed on the carpet, bloodied but alive. Thank God the event wasn’t inside. Stellan shoved open the door we’d seen Elodie go th
rough, and thick dark smoke billowed out.

  I choked, coughing into my elbow. “Elodie!” I screamed through the coughs.

  A man in a tuxedo staggered out, his face in his elbow, followed by a security guard helping a woman walk.

  “Is there anyone else?” I yelled. They didn’t even seem to hear me.

  The smoke cleared enough to see flames licking up a wall inside. Stellan shuddered—I knew he didn’t like fire—but he said, “I’m going in. Stay here.”

  Before I could protest, he took a deep breath and darted inside, and even though praying wasn’t usually my thing, I prayed that the fire-retardant skin we thought he had would keep him safe. And then I ran to another door and yanked at it until I was convinced it was locked. Around the far side was an unlocked door, but it was too dangerous to contemplate going inside. I screamed for Elodie and then propped it open with a loose brick just in case and ran back around the front.

  Colette was waiting at the top of the stairs, people starting to gather around her. “Stellan!” I screamed in the open door. “Elodie!”

  There was a flash of movement from behind the wall of smoke.

  Figures appeared. As I watched, one of them fell.

  I couldn’t just watch anymore. I pulled the neckline of my dress up to my face and darted inside. Stellan had his arm under Elodie, pulling her along, both of them stumbling. I grabbed Elodie from him. “Come on!” I screamed, and it sent me into a coughing fit.

  From nowhere, arms reached over me, pulling Elodie to her feet. I stood up, wracked with coughs.

  Jack?

  He pulled off his jacket and threw it to me. “Put it over your face,” he said, then picked Elodie up and pushed me along in front of him, shoving me into a set of arms it took me a second to realize were Luc’s. Luc grabbed Stellan around the waist, too, and the three of us burst through the door.

  The air was so cold and fresh, it burned my throat. Jack set Elodie down and rested his hands on his knees, breathing deep gulps of air. Elodie blinked her eyes open, choking, dazed. Stellan dropped to his knees, coughing.

  I looked at Jack, my eyes burning so much, it was hard to see. “How did you know what was going on?”

  Jack shook his head. “I didn’t. I was bringing you something. I’ve been working on it since we first found out about the Saxons. I told her to wait in the car. It’s too dangerous—”

  A flash of blond hair flew through the crowd, and I really had to be hallucinating this time, because there was no way I was seeing this face here, now.

  And then my mother swept me into her arms.

  CHAPTER 32

  Sirens descended on the theater from all directions. Elodie, her whole body covered in a layer of dark soot, hauled herself up and gestured to the rest of us to follow her.

  I barely noticed. My mom and I had sunk to the steps, where the red carpet was now ashy gray. I couldn’t stop staring at her, like if I did, she might disappear. She was so thin and pale. She had a healing cut over one eye, and her hair was tangled and flat.

  I was torn between wanting to kill Lydia and Cole for what they’d done, and wanting to throw myself into her arms and cry.

  Like she’d read my mind, she pulled me to her. The stiff sleeves of my gown poked into her chest, but she just hugged me tighter. “We have to go,” she whispered. “While they’re distracted.”

  I could see it. Me and my mom, jumping in a cab, crossing a border or two before we slowed down. Doing our best to leave the Circle behind forever without a word of good-bye. Despite everything I’d said earlier—even though it had all been true—having my mom here in front of me and knowing I could get her to safety for good nearly changed my mind.

  But then I saw Stellan, draping a handkerchief over an ugly, blistering burn that covered the back of his hand.

  Jack, sweaty and smeared with ash, his jacket still around my shoulders.

  Elodie, clutching a small black purse across her body like it contained a treasure. I had a feeling it did.

  And Lydia and Cole, nowhere to be seen. They must have gotten away before anyone could link them to the bombing.

  “I can’t go yet,” I said to my mom.

  She took my face in her hands. She looked resigned. “I had a feeling you might say that. Let’s go do what needs to be done.”

  I gestured to everyone else, and we slipped away through the crowd.

  • • •

  We looked for our car, but the driver must have taken off after the bomb exploded. Since we’d arrived late, he was probably one of the only ones to get out before gridlock shut down the street. Unfortunately, he’d taken all our weapons with him, and we had nowhere to go.

  So now, we holed up in a tiny cafe on the beach a couple blocks away. Luc had shoved handfuls of euros at the girls at the counter and told them to get out.

  I made my way to Jack, who was dead-bolting the cafe door. “Thank you,” I said to his back. “My mom. I—” There weren’t enough words to say what I wanted to say. I’d broken up with him, stormed out, and spent the rest of the evening in the arms of his ex–best friend. And he—the guy who could never break the rules—had spent that time breaking ties with the only family he’d ever had, all to save the person who mattered most to me.

  He jiggled the doorknob—locked—and turned to me.

  “Thank you so much,” I said again.

  He nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really so sorry.”

  I pulled at the sooty hem of my gown. “I know.” I couldn’t say I forgave him, because I didn’t. I plucked my locket off my chest and squeezed it.

  Jack’s gaze dropped to my feet, and I could see him deflate, but he hid it quickly. “You should thank Rocco—Scarface—next time you see him. He’s the one who actually broke her out and sent her here with Luc. I just told him what to do.”

  I never, in a million years, would have thought I’d have the urge to hug Scarface. And he was more loyal than I’d expected. I’d have to remember that.

  I turned back to my mom. Colette had wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, being just as much a mom to my mother as she was to the rest of us. I squeezed beside my mom in a large armchair, and she took my hand and didn’t let go.

  Jack glanced out the front window, then sat next to Colette on the couch beside us, their sooty clothes staining the worn taupe upholstery gray. Stellan and Elodie sat on our other side, and Luc was at a rickety cafe table across the circle.

  “So?” I said.

  Elodie held up the bracelet she’d found inside the theater. It was a twin, almost exactly. I took the original off my arm, and handed it to her, too.

  “The password to the second one is Boyer,” I said. “We hope.”

  Elodie twisted the rungs on the bracelet, and we heard the pop as a portion of it rose up, just like it had on the other one. We let out a collective sigh, but the relief was short-lived. “What now?” Elodie said. “The clues said to unlock it, and we unlocked it. What are we missing?”

  “I wonder if there’s more to the riddles,” Colette said. “Can you say the clues again?”

  “The first clue was ‘One step closer to unlocking the secret through a union forged in blood.’ And then there was the one about the priestesses at Delphi. Then what it says on that bracelet . . .” Luc trailed off and Elodie took over, reading from the bracelet in her hand.

  “‘Only through the union will my twin and I reveal the dark secret we keep in our hearts.’ And the other one talks about ‘My twin and I will reveal all, only to the true.’”

  “Then there’s the mandate,” Stellan reminded us. “‘Through their union, the birthright of the Diadochi is uncovered.’” He looked up at me. “‘Their fates mapped together become the fate of the Circle.’”

  Elodie set the bracelets on the coffee table in front of her and
rested her elbows on her knees. She’d wiped some of the soot off her face, and now it was eerily striped. “I keep coming back to fate mapping,” she said. “‘A union forged in blood.’ ‘Their fates mapped together.’ So . . . the union creates something that finishes unlocking these bracelets. It has something to do with blood, we’re pretty sure. But physically, what—”

  From behind me, there was an explosion. We all jumped out of our seats, and I realized the lock on the front door had just been shot out.

  The door swung open, and in came my brother and sister.

  CHAPTER 33

  I threw myself in front of my mom. Jack had his gun out already. Stellan reached for where his would be, and cursed to himself when he remembered it was gone with the car. They both paused when they saw that Lydia and Cole had guns already trained on us.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Lydia said, then turned to me. “I know Father trusts you, and I want to, but . . . That dress made it especially easy to plant a tracker.”

  I stiffened and searched the beadwork frantically until I felt my mom pluck something off my back, near my shoulder blade. A tiny black disc. Lydia shrugged a nonapology, then pointed her gun at Jack. “Jack Bishop, put that gun on the floor.”

  Jack hesitated, but set his gun down.

  Cole gestured at my mom. “How did she get out? I told you we should have killed her.”

  “If you touch her—” I said, but my mom squeezed my hand hard.

  “Don’t antagonize him,” she whispered. Cole didn’t look amused.

  “Why don’t we all have a brainstorming session,” Lydia said. She stood a safe distance away so she could shoot anyone who tried to tackle her. “I heard a little, but let me be sure I have this right. Something about these bracelets is still locked, the union is what will open them, and that union appears to have something to do with blood.”

  I looked at the door and saw Stellan do the same. He gave a tiny shake of his head. We could try to make a run for it, but the twins would kill someone before we got there.