The Ends of the World

by Maggie Hall

  I wanted to pull away. I wanted my walls to snap up. But just this tiny bit of allowing myself to feel things had shattered those carefully built mechanisms into dust. “All that time, they’d been saying we were a miracle. The Circle’s salvation,” I breathed. “But we’re not salvation. We’re destruction. The two of us are the end of the world.”

  I waited for him to tell me everything would be okay.

  “I know,” he whispered instead. “And now so does the Circle.”

  I felt his lashes blink against my cheek. Neither of us moved.

  I don’t know whether I was trying to comfort him or myself. But I leaned into him, letting my cheek touch his. He sighed then, so softly. And he nuzzled his head into me, like a kitten wanting to snuggle.

  We sat like that, his face in the crook of my neck, listening to each other’s breathing, and I felt the hummingbird flutter of my heartbeat slowly calm.

  The guard’s walkie-talkie crackled to life, and as he answered, Stellan pulled away, avoiding my eyes. “We have to find some way to get the cuffs off,” he whispered, like that hadn’t just happened.

  I sat back, too, embarrassed at how much better I felt now. My head was suddenly clear enough to realize something. “I have a knife.”

  I glanced at the guard, who was still turned away, and scooted my chair even closer to Stellan, maneuvering my free leg behind him. “My thigh,” I breathed, nudging my leg against his cuffed hands.

  He understood immediately. Goose bumps rose on my legs as his cold hands worked my robe up until he could reach the knife. I kept an eye on the guard while his fingers fumbled with the strap. I felt when it came free. “Turn around,” he whispered. “Give me your hands.”

  The guard had started fidgeting, looking at his watch. I rolled away from Stellan with a loud cough, so the guard turned around and saw us both sitting quietly. When he turned back again, satisfied that we were being good prisoners, I rolled over quickly and offered Stellan my cuffs.

  There was a quiet scrabbling as he worked at the lock with the slim knife, and then a snick. The guard turned, and just in time, I swiveled and rested my head on Stellan’s shoulder, playing the tired, dejected tourist.

  The guard snapped something, and I sat up, pretending to be chagrined.

  As I did, I felt my unlocked cuff slip. I twisted my wrist to keep it on, but it kept falling. At the last second, I shoved my other hand under it before it could smack the chair with a clang.

  I held my breath, but the guard sneered and turned back around, none the wiser.

  After a second, Stellan turned his back to me, and I loosened my hands and took the knife. Elodie had taught me to pick the locks on handcuffs, but I wasn’t very good at it. My eyes flicked from the cuffs to the guard’s back, and I worked the tip of the knife back and forth.

  Finally—finally—I heard a click. Stellan immediately worked his hands free. In moments, he had his ankle cuff undone, then mine.

  He leaned across to me again. “We have to get him in here,” he whispered. “Pretend to be hurt again.”

  I nodded, and, my hands clasped behind me like I was still cuffed, I let my head droop forward. Stellan yelled something frantic. I heard the guard mutter into his walkie-talkie.

  I fell over, pulling the chair with me.

  Stellan yelled more. The guard said something gruff, and then keys jangled in the lock of our cell. I barely sensed him leaning over me before there was a thud, and Stellan was lowering him to the ground.

  CHAPTER 5

  I disentangled myself from my chair, rubbing my elbow. “He called someone. We need to go.”

  Down the hall, the elevator dinged. I cursed. “There.” I pointed to another elevator at the end of the hall. We ran to it, and I punched the button over and over.

  Shouts came up from where we had just been. Our elevator doors dinged open. Empty, thank God.

  We jumped inside just as a voice yelled something behind us. The doors slid shut. I started to press the Lobby button, but Stellan stopped me. “Too many people. We’ll find a back stairwell from another floor.”

  He ran a finger over the listings of the floors, and pressed the button for 3. “The ICU,” he said. “No one will be looking for us there.”

  We got off the elevator without anyone else getting on. The floor was quiet besides a nurses’ station, staffed by one woman with her back to us. We walked quickly in the other direction and ducked inside the first empty room we saw. “We won’t be able to get out of here wearing this,” I whispered.

  The rooms here were just glass boxes, some of which had dingy white curtains drawn across their fronts. Across the hall from the one we were in, something caught my eye. A pile of clothing sat perfectly folded on the chair by the window. It was the same uniform all the soldiers wore: a greenish khaki top and pants, with a wide brown belt. There were even boots. And farther across the room, I could see the room’s occupant. A woman. She was asleep, her long dark hair spilling over her pillow, her entire upper body bandaged.

  “Stay here,” I whispered.

  I glanced down the hall, then inched across and into the room. On the patient’s TV, a phone rang. I held my breath. She stirred, but didn’t wake up. I grabbed the pile of clothes and the boots.

  Down the hall, the click-clack of heels announced a group of doctors talking seriously and passing a clipboard back and forth. Across the hall, Stellan’s eyes got wide, and he pulled his curtains shut. I yanked the one in front of me closed, too, trapping myself in the woman’s room.

  The doctors’ steps went past at an efficient clip. I peeked out, then tiptoed back across the hall.

  When our curtain was shut again, I closed my eyes, adrenaline buzzing through me. “I’ll change; then I’ll find you clothes,” I whispered, and glanced at Stellan. “Turn around.”

  I wasted no time pulling the clothes on, then hurried back down the hall, slightly less nervous now that I was dressed like someone who was supposed to be here. I found a man sleeping a few rooms away, his uniform folded neatly on a cart in the back of the room.

  I looked Stellan over after he’d changed, too. His uniform was too baggy on him, but it would work. “Tuck in the back of your shirt.” I hesitated awkwardly but then said, “Come here.” While he got himself tucked and refastened his belt, I grabbed some tissues from a rolling cart to get streaks of dirt off his face and rubbed at a smear of blood at his hairline, careful not to get his blood on me, just in case. “How do I look?”

  The woman I’d taken my clothes from was definitely bigger than me, but the attached belt helped me cinch the pants tight. Stellan tipped my chin up and scrubbed at my face. “Your hair,” he whispered.

  I pulled the cap low over my eyes and tucked the pink ends of my hair inside.

  We made it to the bottom of the fire exit stairs without seeing another person. The second we got outside, though, we weren’t so lucky. I opened the door just as a trio of stern soldiers trooped by, their guns slung across their backs.

  My first thought was that I wished I’d thought to grab the guns that went with these uniforms. That was stupid of me. My second was that although it would feel safer to stand here quietly until they were gone, it would be smarter to blend in with a group who might be headed toward an exit. I signaled to Stellan, and we waited until the group was a few feet away before following them.

  It was working—no one gave us a second glance. The soldiers were headed for the exit and— I stopped still.

  They were headed for a group of a couple dozen soldiers just outside the exit, all carrying riot shields and wearing full face masks. The officer who looked to be in charge saw us and the group ahead of us, and barked something impatiently. The soldiers in front of us sped up. They were about to head out into a city that had just had a major terrorist attack.

  I glanced around frantically for an out. “We have to,” Stellan
said under his breath.

  I swallowed and nodded. A mask and a shield were thrust into my hands, and the whole regiment turned and walked out the gate, Stellan and me right in the center.

  We marched to a square a few blocks away that was bustling with people. It wasn’t quite a protest, and it wasn’t quite a mob, but a group of men were yelling at another group, and it was escalating even as we watched. It wasn’t hard to figure out why: this city was full of age-old conflict. Conflict over religion, conflict over land—conflict that could easily spark up into something ugly if, for instance, you thought your longtime enemies had just committed an atrocity.

  Turning the Circle against us wasn’t the Saxons’ only objective, I suddenly realized. The assassinations they’d been committing and blaming on the Order for so long had spread fear, oily and black. And now they’d set a match to it.

  “How could they do this?” I murmured to Stellan. Around us, soldiers were pulling their masks over their faces and raising their shields. We did the same, and fell into formation. “The Saxons, but the Melechs, too. This is their own city.”

  “Because all the Circle cares about is the Circle, and especially their family,” Stellan said, his voice echoing through his mask. “The Melechs live here and adopt parts of the culture to fit in, but you can’t say they have loyalty to this place any more than you can say every British person is a sociopath like your brother and sister.”

  “So they don’t care at all about their people?”

  “They care about how much power their territories have, certainly. You can be sure Britain will benefit from the Saxons’ actions, as will their allies. But a few lives lost to get what they want?” He shrugged. “It’s nothing. Knowing exactly how to use the world as a tool to get yourself ahead is how the Circle has always worked. Sometimes the families like when there’s conflict in their territories— it makes a place easier to manipulate.”

  From across the square, a flaming rag in the top of a bottle sailed toward us, smashing on the cobblestones just ahead of our group with a quick orange burst of flame.

  The officer in charge shouted orders, and a few soldiers took off in the direction it had come from. I watched them subdue both sides of a fight that had broken out, attempting to keep the peace without hurting anyone. Stellan grabbed my arm and I followed him, jogging to the far corner of the square with a guy not too much older than us, who had a shock of curly hair and blue eyes so light, they were almost eerie against his olive complexion.

  While we hurried along, Stellan talked to him in Hebrew and I prayed he wouldn’t say anything to me.

  Just then, though, Stellan pointed and said something, alarm in his voice. The guy answered and nodded toward a street behind us. Stellan and I started that way, and the guy jogged off in the opposite direction. The second his back disappeared around a corner, we ducked into a tiny alley and ditched our riot gear. I wished we could do more since this was so very much our fault, but what we really had to do was find the cure, and to do that, we had to get out of here.

  “Do you have any idea where we’re going?” I said.

  Stellan nodded. Our rendezvous point was a hotel near the Old City. We’d started choosing one everywhere we went, just in case we got separated and couldn’t return to where we’d been staying. “But I need to find a phone before we do anything else,” he said, looking up and down the alley and directing us to the far end.

  “Our phones are back in the car at the initiation site.” We emerged on a major street and waited in a crowd of pedestrians for the light to change.

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why I need to find one. Any phone. A pay phone. I need to call Anya’s nanny and tell her all of this. Tell her to lie low.”

  Oh. That was probably half of why he’d been so on edge this whole time. “I don’t know if pay phones even exist anymore. There will be a phone at the hotel. It’ll be okay. I doubt they’re even thinking about Anya right now.”

  He just nodded tightly and guided us down back streets, staying out of heavily trafficked areas. I watched the haunted faces of people going by. “If the Saxons did this here, they’ll do it elsewhere if they have enough of the virus left.”

  Stellan nodded. “If I were betting, I’d say somewhere in the Emirs’ territory, to make it look to the world like a Middle East conflict. That would spread fear faster than random attacks.”

  “We have to warn them, then.”

  Stellan looked grim. “It’s unlikely anyone will believe us since they think we did it.”

  We rounded a corner and the hotel appeared. We both stopped, looking up at it. Neither of us had mentioned Jack and Elodie and Luc since the hospital—on purpose, I was certain. We couldn’t afford to panic again. But as we’d made our way here, I’d been getting more and more nervous.

  I folded my arms over the stiff khaki of my uniform shirt. “What if—” I said.

  Stellan shook his head and started forward again. If they’re not here, my mind rationalized, it doesn’t have to mean the worst. The Circle could have taken them. Or maybe they were hurt—a broken wrist or something. Maybe—

  The lobby door flew open, and Elodie rushed down the steps and crashed into our arms.

  CHAPTER 6

  Merde, you two. Where have you been? I thought—I thought you—” She pulled away, still holding on to both of our shoulders. In the light spilling out from the hotel lobby, I could tell her face was red and blotchy.

  She was okay. She was alive.

  Then she pulled away and punched Stellan in the shoulder, hard. “Where were you? It’s been hours.”

  I was peering behind her. The longer the doorway stood empty, the more times I glanced back at Elodie’s puffy eyes, the more my chest caved in on itself.

  “Where’s Jack?” I interrupted. I grabbed her. “Elodie. Where is he?”

  “He’s okay. He’s inside,” she said, and my bones turned to jelly. I sat down on the front steps of the hotel.

  “Lucien?” Stellan said.

  “He’s fine. I saw him just after, and texted with him a few minutes ago. He’s going to call when he can.”

  Stellan sat down hard beside me, his head in his hands.

  “Hello,” Elodie said. “I asked where you’ve been. We ran around to the other entrance looking for you and heard that the police were looking for a dark-haired girl in a white robe. We figured that was bad, so we didn’t go back to the Circle, but we’ve been searching all over this city. I’m assuming you didn’t join the army while you were gone, so what happened?”

  We went inside as we told her about Lydia setting us up and about the hospital.

  Jack threw open the hotel room door as we approached, and sagged with relief when he saw us. His black pants and shirt were so dusty, they were gray. So was his hair. “Took your time getting back here, didn’t you?” He wrapped me in his arms so hard, my feet came off the ground. I buried my face in his dirty shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” I muttered against him.

  He set me down and nodded, then looked over my shoulder at Stellan. They stared at each other for a second, then pulled each other into what I could tell was a bruisingly tight hug.

  Stellan pulled away and smacked Jack on the side of the head, raising a cloud of dust from his hair. “There’s such a thing as a shower.”

  Jack patted Stellan’s chest. “Sure thing, Officer.”

  Stellan went immediately to call his sister. I sat down and shook my hair out from under my hat. The hotel we’d chosen as a rendezvous was a cheap, seedy one that no one would expect us to stay in, and I could see its lit sign buzzing and flickering out the window while Jack and Elodie told me what had happened after the explosion. All the Circle had made it out without getting sick.

  “Did you hear that other people were infected, though?” I asked as Stellan came back into the room. “People died who weren’t
Circle.”

  Jack and Elodie looked at each other. “We did hear, and we had a thought,” Jack said. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “The virus infects people with Circle blood,” Elodie cut in. “Until now, we’ve been thinking of it in terms of close relatives of the twelve families. Biologically, though, that’s not necessarily true. Circle blood has spread a lot farther than that in the past two thousand years.”

  I didn’t understand for a second, but then coldness slipped over me. “Olympias meant the virus to kill the Circle—”

  “But she was expecting to kill them in the first or second generation,” Stellan said, catching on at the same time. “Who knows how many people have some amount of Circle blood now? If a distant ancestor is all it takes . . .”

  “That must have been what happened with my mom,” I said. I’d assumed she’d lied about being Circle. Maybe instead, she had enough of the blood to be killed by the virus, but not enough to know about it.

  Jack nodded grimly. “Which means this could devastate far more than just the Circle.”

  I didn’t want it to, but it made sense. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought about it before, actually. I put my head in my hands. “Are you guys feeling okay? I know you said the virus didn’t seem to hit in the ceremony chamber, but—”

  Jack and Elodie both nodded. “Fine.”

  Fine. They were fine. I closed my eyes for a few seconds. My hair fell lank around my face. It smelled like smoke, and like the herb they’d thrown into the fire at the ceremony. I bottled back up the flood of emotions that had tried to overtake me in the last few hours, and sat up straight again. “Okay. So I guess this is even more important now.” I pulled the piece of metal out of my shirt. “The box was taken away when we got arrested, but I got this out first.”

  Elodie snatched it and examined it under a bedside lamp. “This is ancient. It actually could be from Alexander’s time. I can’t believe you got it out of there.”