The Ends of the World

by Maggie Hall

  “Does it say something about his blood? Or the cure?” I asked.

  “And what does Alexander’s bone have to do with unlocking it?” Jack chimed in.

  “Be quiet and let me look.” Elodie waved us off.

  Stellan sat next to me. I’d relaxed a little since we got here, but he hadn’t. “Did you get ahold of Anya?” I said.

  “The nanny didn’t answer,” he said gruffly. “I knew she wouldn’t. That’s the protocol if I’m not calling from my number. I’ll call again in a few minutes.”

  Elodie was poking carefully at an edge of the metal. “Have any of you heard of curse tablets?”

  We shook our heads.

  “They were common in Alexander’s day. Thinly hammered sheets of iron with words stamped into them, usually asking the gods to curse someone who had wronged the person.”

  “You think that’s what this is?”

  “It looks like it, sort of. But they’re meant to be bigger, squarer. This is more of a strip.”

  “Doesn’t matter if the words are there.” Jack pulled out his phone and brought up an app to translate ancient Greek.

  Elodie frowned. “They’re not, though. These are the letters, but some of them are backward, and they’re not lined up with each other in a way that makes sense.”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of code,” Jack said.

  “The last clue did say the bones unlock something,” Elodie mused. “But it’s not like the bone has to do with a code. Unless maybe the clue itself did?”

  The three of them leaned over the metal under the lamp, and I sat back, thinking. They knew much more than I did about all of this, but there was something tickling at the edges of my brain.

  “Did they even use substitution ciphers at that time?” Jack asked while Elodie wrote down all the letters.

  “No,” I said. They all turned to me. I jumped up. “No, Alexander used a very specific kind of cipher. It was one of the first recorded codes. We did a project in school. I can’t believe I forgot. Where’s that bone?”

  Elodie was clearly skeptical about the school project part, but she produced the bone and unwrapped a scarf from around it.

  I picked up the edge of the metal piece. It felt like thick tinfoil. “Is it strong enough to be folded?” I said.

  Elodie shrugged. “If you have to.”

  I handed the bone to Stellan, and held the metal piece up to it. Then I wrapped it around in a spiral, covering the outside of the bone like a maypole. “This was the cipher,” I said. “You wrapped the thing around a cylinder of a certain size, wrote the message on it, and unwrapped it. The person reading it had to have the right size cylinder to wrap it again and read it, or else it just looked like gibberish.”

  I finished wrapping and held it up. “Does that look any better?”

  Stellan inspected it. “The letters are in the right direction now.”

  Jack grabbed the phone and entered them again, going around and around the cylinder of bone.

  He finally hit Translate and let out a low breath before he met my eyes. “Who knew American schools would have more answers than three people who have been part of the Circle for years?”

  He turned the phone to us.

  They said a woman should never have power again, it read. Now a woman holds it all.

  Elodie grabbed the phone out of Jack’s hands. “The Diadochi said that exact thing about Olympias. She was causing trouble for them. She must have written this.”

  “Why do you know so much about Olympias?” Stellan said.

  She rolled her eyes at him, ignoring the question. “That doesn’t tell us anything concrete, though.”

  “I only typed in part of it,” Jack said. “There’s more.”

  We set to translating the second half:

  I will hold all the secrets with me, where I await my son for our eternal rest, in the city named for him. My followers shall watch over us, at the thirteenth at the center of the twelve.

  We stared at each other. That was exactly what Napoleon had said. Alexandria. The thirteenth at the center.

  “So we have to go back to Alexandria,” I said. “I wonder if Olympias’s followers had some kind of headquarters? How would we find that out?”

  Stellan looked up at the ceiling. “We already searched so much of Alexandria—”

  Elodie’s phone rang, interrupting us. It was Luc. She put it on speaker.

  It was worse than we’d thought. Not only did the Circle believe we’d set the bomb and tried to kill them, but the Melechs had “discovered” that the virus was our blood—obviously the Saxons had told them to spread the word. “So needless to say, they are not particularly happy with you,” Luc finished. “The fact that you’re the girl with the purple eyes and Stellan the Great is not going to get you out of this.”

  We told him about the Avery lookalike who had set the bomb. “That makes sense,” Luc said. “Rocco says he thought the Saxons might have been in Jerusalem. They’re so secretive now, only a couple of their crew ever goes with them, so he didn’t know for sure.”

  We all turned to stare at the phone. “Rocco says?” Stellan asked.

  Rocco—whom we used to call Scarface until we recruited him to our side and learned his real name—was our very own double agent in the Saxon home. He’d broken my mom out of captivity, and he claimed to not have killed our friend and mentor Fitz like we thought he did—I guess Cole Saxon actually did that himself—but we still didn’t fully trust him.

  “I called earlier and couldn’t get ahold of you,” Luc said defensively. “I was worried. I wanted to see if he’d heard from you.”

  “How do you even have his number?” Stellan asked.

  “You all have been gone for a month. Somebody had to keep an eye on what was going on in London.”

  “You’ve been talking to Rocco for a month?” Jack said.

  “All right, I don’t care,” Elodie cut him off. “Anything else, Lucien?”

  “Actually, yes,” Luc’s tinny voice said from the phone. “They are also saying you are conspiring with the Order.”

  Jack’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

  “They’re saying that you have been in league with them for a long time and that you were becoming a full-fledged Circle family to infiltrate more deeply,” Luc said. “Loads of people believe them. I have to admit, if I didn’t know you, I’d think it was a convincing argument.”

  “What argument?”

  “They say that they have proof that Avery’s mother kept her away from the Circle for a reason. They’re saying she was a member of the Order, too.”

  I stared at the phone. “My mom? The Order? That’s ridiculous for so many reasons. If anyone here knew my mom . . .” I shook my head. “And anyway, all those assassinations being blamed on the Order were the Saxons. The Order probably doesn’t even exist.”

  “They exist,” Jack said.

  “So maybe they used to cause trouble for the Circle, but it seems like now they’re just a bogeyman.”

  “Not to the Circle,” Jack said. “If they thought we did this because we’re power-hungry, that’s one thing. If they believe we did it for the Order . . . It’s like the difference between involuntary manslaughter and premeditated homicide. We have to get out of this city, now.”

  Stellan was nodding along. He briefed Luc on what we suspected about the possibility of more attacks and told him to warn other families as well as he could without implicating himself, and then we signed off.

  “Will it look more suspicious if we run?” I said. We did have some families on our side—maybe enough of them that we could argue our case. “Isn’t there anyone who would believe us that these Order accusations are ridiculous? The Rajeshes? Or we could get Luc to talk to his parents . . .”

  “If the situation were different, maybe.” Stellan cro
ssed to the window and pulled back the curtain a sliver to peek out. “But so much as mentioning the Order makes everything different. I think we have to let the Circle think we’re either dead or gone to ground until we’re safely out of here. And . . .”

  “What?”

  He dropped the curtain. “We’ve been looking to destroy the cure because we thought they wouldn’t release the virus without it. Obviously that’s not true.”

  “They still did it in a very contained area. If they got the cure, it could be so much worse. Today doesn’t change the fact that we need to find it before they do.”

  “I understand that. But what it does change is that we are in far more danger than we were hours ago. We have to be smart.”

  This time, Jack was the one nodding his agreement. He sat on the edge of the bed, facing me. “Avery, I hate to ask, but we need the whole story. Are you absolutely sure your mother wasn’t . . .”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Even if the Order was real, the thought of my scatterbrained mom being part of some group of counter-Circle agents was laughable.

  Elodie was perched on the desk chair, her posture rigid, gnawing a thumbnail. I realized she’d been quiet since we hung up with Luc.

  “Don’t tell me you believe it,” I said to her. “You know everything they’re saying is a lie.”

  Elodie drew in a breath. “I don’t—”

  “What is wrong with everyone?” I exploded. “My mom’s dead. Do we really have to accuse her of things?”

  “Avery, trust me, I’m not accusing her of anything. In fact—” She shook her head, but then stood up abruptly. “I guess I have to tell you. I’m sorry.” She looked at each of us. “I didn’t want any of you to find out this way. I didn’t want you to find out ever, actually, but Jackie’s right—you need the whole story.”

  The room was silent. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  Elodie crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Stellan, who had pushed off the window where he’d been standing, then at Jack, who had gone rigid on the bed. “Promise me you’ll stay calm and give me a chance to explain.”

  Stellan took a step forward. “Elodie . . .”

  “Okay. Yes. It’s true that Avery’s mother was in the Order. And I know because I am, too.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The neon hotel sign blinked and buzzed out the window. Inside the room, we all stood, frozen.

  “The Order’s nothing like what the Circle says,” Elodie added quickly.

  “Elodie.” Jack stood, his hands clenched at his sides, like he wasn’t sure whether to reach for a weapon. “You can’t actually be saying you’re part of a group that has sworn to destroy the Circle.”

  “That’s not how it is. It’s been a long time since we used violence against the Circle at all.”

  “The Order killed Oliver Saxon only a few years ago.”

  “That wasn’t us.” Elodie had her arms crossed, her shoulders nearly at her ears. I’d never seen her look this uncomfortable. “I think that was actually an accident. Think about it, you two: Keepers are taught from the very beginning of their training to be on the lookout for the Order, but have you ever seen a confirmed Order attack? Since Alexander’s time, when we were known as the Order of Olympias, we’ve been charged with keeping the peace. That does mean reining in the Circle’s power at times, but it’s very rarely violent. In fact, every Circle member sees someone in the Order daily. We’re in every Circle household. Just like I am. Just like Avery’s mother was.”

  Stellan was silent and rigid, staring blankly at a spot on the wall above Elodie’s head.

  Jack wasn’t. “You’ve been lying to us since we met you, then?”

  “We’re forced to hide our real identities.” Elodie looked at me meaningfully. “And Avery’s mom isn’t the only person you know who’s secretly in the Order.” She glanced up at Jack and looked genuinely sad. “Emerson Fitzpatrick was, too.”

  “What?” Jack exploded. “Elodie, I don’t know where you’re getting this—”

  “It’s true.”

  Jack was still staring her down. “I can’t believe that,” he murmured. “Fitz was loyal. He was my friend—”

  “All of that is still true as well,” Elodie said.

  “You know what I don’t believe?” Stellan asked, interrupting the conversation. “That you’ve been keeping it from me our whole lives that you’re part of the group that killed my family.”

  I’d forgotten about that. The fire that had killed Stellan’s mom and burned him and his sister nearly to death was started by the Order.

  But Elodie was already shaking her head. “The Order didn’t kill your family.” She sounded softer than usual, speaking right to Stellan. “The Circle did.”

  Stellan didn’t move. Jack started to protest, but I silenced him with a hand.

  Elodie went on, “I know because they killed my family, too. That’s why I joined the Order in the first place.”

  Stellan just stared. Elodie went on, like the two of them were the only ones in the room. And then she switched to Russian. Stellan straightened, alarmed.

  “I said,” Elodie translated for us, “that I’m from Russia, too. I was never French.” She turned back to Stellan. “My mother was Mongolian, my father Russian. I spent the first years of my life in a tiny village near the border, and when my brothers were born, my father moved us to a small town outside Chelyabinsk. That’s where Stellan grew up, too,” she said to Jack and me.

  Stellan sat down on the hard sofa and stared at her. “What do you mean it’s why you joined the Order?” he said flatly. It was like Jack and I weren’t even there.

  “When I was a kid, there was a fire in my apartment building,” Elodie said. “The building exploded. I woke up lying outside in the snow, surrounded by my whole family: My mom. My dad. My two little brothers. All dead. Maybe I was just in shock, but for some reason, I kept thinking of a few weeks earlier, when another building nearby had burned. Our neighborhood wasn’t rich. Bad wiring, or someone building a fire inside on the coldest days . . . But two major fires so close together? And I knew my father had been rocking a lot of boats in the town.” She twisted her fingers. “I left the bodies of my family in the snow and I ran. As far as anyone knew, I died that night, too. I was burned all over, but the worst of it was the back of my head.”

  She didn’t look up, but she pulled her hands through her hair—and took off her short platinum-blond wig.

  Part of Elodie’s head was scarred and bald. The rest was covered in black hair, buzzed short. That was what I’d seen at her hairline. She slipped the wig back on, settling it into place over her real hair.

  “When another apartment building a couple of neighborhoods away burned down, too,” she said, brushing her bangs back into place, “I watched the aftermath. I wondered if I was wrong and it was all a coincidence, but then I found out that some kids had survived that fire, too. A baby, and a boy about my age.”

  Elodie’s face was oddly calm. Stellan’s breathing was labored. I realized I was holding my breath.

  “I went to the hospital where you were,” Elodie whispered. “I watched you every day. You and Anya. You’d been burned much worse than I had, but you’d lived. And one day, a man came to see you. He wasn’t Russian, and he’d taken a particular interest in you. I could tell you didn’t want to, but you went with him because you had no other choice. I don’t know if it was because I knew somehow that you were connected to my family’s deaths or because I’d gotten attached to you, but I followed you. That’s how Fitz found me. He took pity on me, and brought me to France, too. Brought me into the Order.” Elodie finally looked up, studying Stellan for a long moment. When he didn’t respond, she turned to Jack and me. “I was planted in the Dauphin home to do various things, including watch out for Stellan, though I never really knew why until you all uncovered the thirteenth
bloodline. Fitz never told me what he suspected. I don’t think he told anyone.”

  I was still trying to wrap my head around any of it. Somehow, what came out of my mouth was, “Do you think the Dauphins killed your family?”

  Elodie hadn’t put the wig on quite straight, and a bit of scar tissue peeked out. She looked vulnerable, which didn’t look right on her. “I don’t think so. I suspected the Vasilyevs at first, but Fitz didn’t think it was them. That’s one reason I agreed to be in the Order—so I could keep investigating. I’ve never really stopped, even though I haven’t found answers.”

  The shell-shocked silence hung heavy over the room. Finally Jack cleared his throat. “So now the Order wants to take down the Circle using the virus? Is that the conclusion to this story?”

  I wasn’t sure whether to admonish him for being so callous or to wait for the answer. Maybe both.

  Elodie licked her lips, eyes darting between us. “The purpose of the Order is not to harm the Circle. Just to serve as a line of defense between them and the world.”

  Stellan sat with his elbows on his knees, stroking the scars on the backs of his hands. He hadn’t said a word since Elodie started the story. Now he looked up. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me?” He said it so quietly, it was scary.

  “I couldn’t risk it,” Elodie said. “I wanted to—”

  Stellan stood up. Without a word, he stalked out of the room.

  Jack turned to Elodie. “Stay here,” he said. “Just—stay here.”

  He took my hand and pulled me into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

  “Do you believe . . .” Jack’s face was slack. “Would Fitz really have . . .”

  “I don’t think Elodie’s lying. And it doesn’t sound like Fitz did anything evil. I just can’t imagine him being part of something like what the Circle always thought the Order was. Him or my mom. Though—” Connections started forming in my head. “Do you think he was just studying me the whole time? Both me and Stellan?” I’d known that I’d been entangled with Jack—with Charlie Emerson, as Fitz had called him—through Fitz for years. But Stellan was part of that web, too. And Elodie. Fitz hadn’t just been our mentor. He’d been our puppet master, pulling the strings that had brought us to where we were today. Who we were today.