The Ends of the World

by Maggie Hall

  I pulled away with a gasp. The first thing I saw was Mrs. Melech’s scowl, and I tried as fast as I could to put back on something nearing a smile. Tried to cover up how that kiss had, for some reason, just caused the most visceral flashback I’d had yet to the day my mom died.

  Stellan’s brows crooked down for a second at how rigid I’d gone, but I gave a tiny shake of my head. He looked back up, like he was annoyed to find everyone still standing there. “We’d very much like to be alone for a few minutes,” he repeated. “Do I need to make that an order? By blood?”

  He said it teasingly, but you could almost hear the atmosphere in the room shift.

  “By blood” was an order the families gave to Keepers. It wasn’t an ask. It wasn’t just a cute use of the Circle’s motto. It was a threat.

  “You can’t order us around until tomorrow,” said Daniel, his faux-joke and fake smile colder than Stellan’s had been. I knew that we, the thirteenth family, were technically the closest thing to leaders the Circle had—according to tradition, at least. What that would actually look like, after tomorrow, remained to be seen.

  I found myself holding my breath, the fear that this wouldn’t work and they’d toss us out before we got to see the box edging through the panic I’d felt a moment ago.

  Finally, Mrs. Melech reluctantly put her hands to her forehead in the Circle’s gesture of respect. Daniel curled his lip, but followed suit.

  Stellan’s hand tightened on my waist in a real way, not for show. I understood. No matter how much we didn’t want this, there was something heady about having the most powerful people in the world submit to us.

  They wanted us—the mandate, the union, the potential power we held—enough to give up their dignity. Enough to allow us to do what we wanted, knowing it might benefit them in the future.

  Every once in a while, in a moment like this—a moment that felt like control when nothing else in my life did—a tiny part of me wondered whether being part of the Circle wouldn’t be so bad.

  But I’d thought finding my family would fill the hole in my sad little heart, too. And instead, they’d killed my mother and unleashed a plague.

  The Melechs left the room, and Elodie made a pleading face as she and Jack followed. She hated being left out.

  “Are you okay?” Stellan said. “What was that?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” I lied, hurrying across the room without waiting for him to catch up. Even if I did want to stay with the Circle, this was one reason I never could. It would always mean memories I couldn’t handle. Until I could leave, though, I would ignore them, like I had been for weeks.

  The box was in a glass case. There was no lock. “Should we just—” I whispered.

  Stellan was already opening the door. We looked inside, on the lid, on the outside of the box. “It doesn’t even look very old,” he said. “There’s no way this is from Alexander’s time.”

  I sagged with disappointment. “It’s a copy at best. They probably already have the real one at the ceremony, if we’re even right about what we’re looking for. Does that mean—”

  Stellan set the box back down and dragged a hand over his face. “I think,” he said, “it means that tomorrow, we get initiated as the thirteenth family of the Circle of Twelve.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Stellan and I stood in a courtyard outside the Old City, waiting to be called in to the initiation ceremony. The plan was to watch for the box, and if it looked like what we needed, do something to pause this ceremony before it actually went through.

  Above, palm trees rustled against the cream stone. We’d been to Jerusalem once before, when the Saxons were considering marrying me off to Daniel Melech, but I hadn’t seen much of it that day.

  For some reason, I had expected the city to be stuck in time, all old stone and desert and prayer, but I was wrong. It was also modern and clean and bustling. As I looked out the window on our car ride here, people crowded around bus stops, and bikes and cars shared the streets. Blue-and-white Israeli flags waved against a cloudless sky, and a riot of multicolored flowers peeked over balconies.

  Jack had told me a little about the city’s history the last time we came here. Jerusalem was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. There had been so much devastation here—wars, natural disasters, being conquered over and over. And yet it had survived it all, on this same spot, a city of great importance to three major religions and to so many cultures through history. A melting pot and a highly contested land, a bustling modern metropolis and an ancient stronghold all in one. None of us were fans of the Melech family, but their city was a different story. If things were different, I’d want to spend time here.

  Now I brushed those thoughts aside. The last thing I needed was to get sentimental about another city, especially considering what else we’d seen on the way here.

  Just around the corner from where we’d stopped the car, I’d seen a group of girls about my age, wearing military uniforms and eating Popsicles in front of a coffee shop. They all held machine guns strapped across their chests as casually as I’d hold a backpack. Nearby, another group of girls in headscarves and jeans leaned against a 50% OFF SALE sign, looking at their phones. Down the street, a group of little boys played soccer.

  The worrisome part was that at least half of each group was wearing white surgical masks.

  When Cole had slipped the virus into champagne glasses in Paris, a dozen people had died. The world outside the Circle had quickly embraced various theories: it was a deadly new flu, or something in the air. Some even got it right and called it a biological weapon. What they didn’t know was that from this, at least, they were safe: the virus only affected Circle members.

  The fact that this meant my mother was somehow related to the Circle and hadn’t told me was something I hadn’t been able to think about yet. What we did have to think about was that, despite the fact that there had just been the one incident, the alarm was spreading all over the globe. We could only hope that if we prevented the Saxons from releasing it further, it would die down eventually.

  I realized I was clutching my phone hard enough that my fingers had gone white. I shook them out, then turned on the phone, looking at news sites. Mystery Virus Airborne? one said. Deaths in Paris Under Investigation.

  I flipped to another tab: the online version of Napoleon’s Oraculum. The Book of Fate.

  Napoleon had found the Oraculum in a different royal tomb in Egypt, and had consulted it to make important decisions. At first we’d thought he might have used it to hide a clue, but as far as we could tell, the book had nothing to do with Alexander or Olympias’s virus. I sometimes still looked at it anyway. In this online version, you chose one of the questions, selected one of the groups of stars below, read the answer. One of the questions caught my eye: Shall I be successful in my present undertaking?

  I brushed a fingertip over one of the star groups at random, and it took me to an answer:

  Choose not the path of fear, but that of love.

  “Cryptic,” Stellan said. I turned to find him looking over my shoulder. “If our political strategy consists of consulting an ancient Greek Magic 8 Ball, I think we need a new plan.”

  I clicked off the page and flipped him off.

  “That’s not very ladylike behavior for someone who’s about to become a Circle queen.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were looking forward to this,” I said. “I suppose you have gotten exactly what you wanted the whole time. Us together. The girl and the One. The only thing you’re not getting is the public marriage consummation. Sorry.”

  “Yes, that’s too bad,” he said wistfully. “I do prefer all my romantic encounters to be forced by awkward, tragic circumstance and witnessed by hostile strangers.” He plucked at the fabric over his chest. “Maybe I’m just here for the outfit.”

  Stellan and I
looked ready for a cult initiation. Our thin white shifts hung loosely from our shoulders to our bare feet. No matter how much attitude Stellan gave it, his bare ankles made him look uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot. I could see the two tattoos on his back through the thin fabric, and also the outlines of his scars. They snaked over his bare shoulders and partway down his arms.

  Stellan’s “magic skin” was what had allowed him to survive the fire that left those scars. (“Stop calling it magic,” Elodie would admonish every time we said the word. “It’s highly advanced science we don’t understand. Olympias was a genius.”) The scars were how we had discovered what Stellan really was. The Circle’s thirteenth bloodline—Alexander the Great’s own line. The part of the mandate that said The One walks through fire and isn’t burned was not metaphorical after all.

  If the Circle knew the virus came from our blood, they might capture or kill us—either because they were afraid we could be a weapon, or because they wanted to use us as one. So since we couldn’t tell them what the union really produced, Stellan’s scars were how we’d proven our identity.

  “The Great modification,” the Circle had named it. It had long been rumored that Alexander was not a normal human, that something allowed him to never lose a battle, and to come back from injuries and illnesses that killed thousands of others.

  I shuffled my feet on the rough pavement under my own shift. “The virgin sacrifice robes are a little cliché.”

  “It’s cliché because every secret society in the world has taken their cues from the Circle for thousands of years, whether they realize it or not,” he said, peering over my head. “To answer your question, no. As you already know, I don’t want to become more of a Circle puppet than we already are. Maybe we get inside, see this box, and pull a fire alarm before we have to pledge ourselves to the world’s worst people forever. But if not,” he said, nudging me exaggeratedly with an elbow, “at least it’ll be some comfort that if you can’t put a bullet in the Saxons’ heads, you can take the Circle from them and ruin their lives, right?”

  He wasn’t entirely wrong. But he was doing it again: trying to draw me out, trying to be friends. “No one’s watching now,” I said coolly. “We don’t have to pretend to be a happy little couple. Save it for inside.”

  I wondered what was taking so long. We’d arrived half an hour ago and had been walked through the basics of the ceremony. They’d welcome us; we’d accept. We’d pledge our loyalty. We’d get the tattoos that signified our commitment to the Circle.

  Jack and Elodie were pacing at the gate, making sure no unsuspecting tourists wandered in. Occasionally, I saw Jack glance back at us with something besides a Keeper’s responsibility on his face.

  Despite the fact that he’d nearly gotten us killed reporting on me to the Saxons for what he thought was my own good, and despite the fact that I hadn’t forgotten how it felt to learn he’d been lying to me, I trusted that Jack was on our side now. He had promised his loyalty to us, and if nothing else, I knew he’d honor that. He didn’t know how not to.

  That didn’t mean it wasn’t awkward. Especially at times like now, or last night, when I could see him deliberately overlook Stellan’s hand resting on my back, how I reached up to whisper in his ear. With everything else going on, that unresolved tension was the last thing I wanted to deal with, which was why I hadn’t. The boy I’d cared so much about until he broke my trust and my heart. The one who was my “destiny,” who I’d had this purely chemical, completely unwanted attraction to until we’d finally given in to it after too many drinks.

  And then my mother had died. And then nothing mattered.

  I turned when Elodie’s boots clicked across the courtyard. She and Jack didn’t have to wear the ceremonial robes, so she was in her usual black top and black pants. Her platinum-blond hair was as sleek as usual, but at her hairline, there was an odd patch of what could have been darker hair. I’d never seen Elodie with even a hint of grown-out roots. These really were different times. “They’re ready for you. Give me your phones. They’ll go in the car with everything else.”

  There were no weapons allowed inside Circle ceremonies. Stellan had given his up easily enough to make me remember he was just about as deadly without them. I wasn’t. I could feel my little knife strapped to my thigh. I hadn’t gone anywhere without it since my mom died, and I wasn’t about to start now. Elodie was taking just one thing in: a slim bag strapped across her back with Alexander’s bone inside, just in case.

  When she’d stashed our things away, Elodie led us forward, and Stellan stiffly offered me his arm. I felt the rustling of the thin linen shift against my legs as I walked, the late afternoon breeze flapping its hem.

  Elodie took her place on one side of us, Jack on the other. I felt Stellan draw me just a little closer, the ropes of muscles in his forearm tight and tense under my palm. When the four of us were alone, there might be uncomfortable moments. But here, even I had to admit it was us against the world.

  With Stellan and me leading the way, we took the steps down into the darkened cave to candle flames flickering low, and a sea of people in black.

  A low chant started at the center of the group, and it moved outward until it filled the chamber. We stopped to acknowledge each person, both bowing low and raising our hands to our foreheads as if in prayer. Each person responded with a modified version of the gesture, their raised hands opening before us into a sign of acceptance. Arjun Rajesh smiled. The Fredericks and the Mikados nodded formally. When we reached Luc and his father, Hugo Dauphin, Luc bowed deeply, but Monsieur Dauphin hesitated. He used to have both of us under his thumb: Stellan had been his Keeper, and the Dauphins had once tried to kidnap me and marry me off to Luc. But finally, he raised his hands, too. I felt Stellan tense just a little, and then I felt him stand straighter.

  Despite everything, goose bumps rose on my arms, just like they had when the Melechs had obeyed our order last night. We were standing at the center of a group more powerful and dangerous and ancient than I could have imagined existed until recently, and they were accepting us as equals and more. It’s seductive being wanted, Stellan had said once. He wasn’t wrong. We both felt it. We both liked the feeling it gave of being in charge of our lives.

  I could tell as both our heads swiveled, searching for the next clue, that we were both still hoping it wouldn’t be our fate.

  As we passed, the Circle members pulled up the necklines of their black robes into heavy hoods, forming a shadowy knot that enveloped us more and more thickly as we approached the center of the cavern.

  Above the crowd, on one of the walls, a symbol was etched. Our symbol—the symbol of the new thirteenth family. There had never been a question what it would be. I touched the locket around my neck that bore the same symbol. The thirteen-loop knot. I’d had this locket nearly my whole life, since I found it in my mom’s things when I was little. I wasn’t sure where the symbol had come from, but I knew it had been instrumental in the quest that had led to where we were now. Our mentor, Fitz, had used it to signify clues he wanted us to pay attention to, and before him, so had Napoleon. And now, if we did finish this ceremony, we would all be tattooed with it.

  “This ritual is one the Circle hasn’t performed in thousands of years,” said the man who must have been the master of ceremonies.

  I looked around the cave. It was so dark, I couldn’t see anything beyond the assembled Circle members. Did someone have the box, or could it be hidden in here?

  “. . . brings together the full Circle once again as we welcome back to the fold a line that has been lost for as long as we can remember,” the man was saying. “The acceptance of the new thirteenth family is an important step in our growth as a Circle. I now present to you the candidates for the new thirteenth family of the Circle of Twelve. The Korolev family.”

  I felt Stellan look down at me. We were taking my symbol, so we were taking his name
. It only seemed fair.

  Behind the mass of Circle members, I could see Keepers standing against the far wall. Jack and Elodie, though, were near us. I met Elodie’s eyes for a second, and she gave the smallest shake of her head. She hadn’t seen anything, either.

  “Repeat my words,” the moderator said, translating into English after a long speech I couldn’t understand. “I pledge fealty to my brothers, and may nothing come between us, to my death.” We repeated the words. “I pledge to do no harm to my own, or risk losing my life. My blood, my family, my brothers, stronger as one than apart. The thirteen as one, a world ruled by blood.”

  “By blood,” came a murmur from the group.

  From all corners of the room, bells tolled, their light tinging reverberating off the walls. The chanting started up again, low, the bass to the bells’ soprano, and then the crowd parted to reveal a fire that had just been lit. I was startled for a moment that they’d let smoke touch this ancient place, but this was the Circle. Of course they would.

  The moderator threw a handful of something into the fire and it flared high, blinding me and releasing the pungent scent of herbs. I felt Stellan wince. Fire was one of the only things in the world he was afraid of.

  The moderator called something in a language I didn’t know, and a smaller group of people stepped forward, holding knives.

  “A baptism by flame unites the lines,” the moderator said. This was the last part of the ceremony before the tattoos. I felt a tug in my gut. Were we really going through with this?

  “Rule by blood!” the moderator announced.

  “By blood,” the crowd murmured again.

  Sergei Vasilyev came forward. He sliced a line across his forearm and let the blood drip into the fire as the flames tried to lick at his skin. Then the moderator handed him something.

  It was a small box, its lid hinged open. “This same blood, combined as one, will make the Circle complete,” he proclaimed. Combining blood. That sounded as familiar as the box itself.