The Conspiracy of Us

by Maggie Hall

  I took inventory of the club—for anyone who looked sketchy, for my eventual exit, for suspicious glances from Stellan. I found him near the dance floor, already being flirted with by a gorgeous, dark-skinned brunette. As I watched, he searched the room and met my gaze. His smile faded.

  “As you can see, you’re not special.” Elodie was staring at him, too.

  I leaned on the table to hear her over the pulsating techno mix. “What?”

  “He has a list of conquests a mile long. The whole innocent thing you have going on is just a novelty.” She took a compact out of her bag and touched up a nonexistent imperfection in her lipstick. “He’d corrupt you for fun.”

  Even though that was far from why I’d been watching him, heat shot to my cheeks. I couldn’t suppress a flash of what Stellan corrupting me would entail. Maybe Elodie liked him and all this animosity was because she thought I was trying to steal him.

  “That’s really, really not—” I paused, trying to make it as clear as possible. “I’m not interested in him in that way. At all.”

  Elodie rolled her eyes and the copper on her lids shimmered. “Everyone’s interested in him in that way.”

  Before I could answer, an arm went around my shoulders. “What are we talking about, girls?” Luc said, grinning widely. He’d ditched his jacket, popped the collar of his pink shirt, and found a green glowstick necklace.

  “The unfortunate attack this afternoon,” Elodie said, smiling sweetly at me.

  “Aw, El.” He squeezed my shoulder. “We’re having fun now, remember?”

  Luc was the only one who’d bothered to ask how I was doing after Prada. He sat by me on the plane and chatted about movies and Paris and the club we were going to, and I could tell he was trying to get my mind off it. His kindness made how quickly he moved on from killing someone even more disconcerting.

  And I couldn’t help glancing at his eyes, like I’d been doing all evening. They were so much like mine.

  “It’s time for me to do my job,” Elodie said. My ears perked up. I’d assumed they were here to dance.

  “Already?” Luc pouted. He bumped Elodie’s shoulder with his own. In her towering heels, she was taller than he was.

  “We don’t want him seeing me with you. I doubt he’d recognize you, but . . .” Elodie leveled a cool stare around the room. The bottom of a tattoo peeked out from under the hair at the nape of her neck. It looked like Stellan’s sun symbol.

  “I know.” Luc kissed her on the cheek, and she wiped a thumb across her face with a pretend scowl. “Be safe,” he said.

  “It’s perfectly routine.”

  “Then I expect you back by the time we leave, new clue to the mandate in hand,” Luc said with a wry smile.

  I covered the sharp breath I drew in with a cough.

  “I’ll be right back,” Luc said to me, and slipped his arm through Elodie’s.

  They walked away, and after I made sure no one was watching me, I perched on one of the tall bar stools and pulled out my phone. On the plane, Stellan had turned on my international roaming and entered his, Elodie’s, and Luc’s phone numbers—and my number in their phones. In case something happened, he said, but it was probably so he could keep track of me. Now I was about to pull up Google when I saw I had a missed call from my mom’s cell phone. Thank God.

  I dialed my voice mail and plugged my free ear with my finger to drown out the music. “Avery. Sweetheart.” My mom sounded understandably tense. “Yes, we do have a lot to talk about, and I wish I could have told you sooner. Please stay right where you are and be very careful. I’m coming to get you.”

  No. I held the phone in a death grip. She thought I was in France, which meant she probably knew where the Dauphins lived and was headed there. I dialed her number, only to get an immediate chime on her voice mail. “This is Carol West,” her tinny voice said. “I’m not available . . .”

  I cursed under my breath. She couldn’t go to the Dauphins’. She might be in danger from the Order, too—or she could get recognized by my father, whoever he was.

  “Mom,” I said, “don’t—” I was poised to leave the whole story on the message, but stopped. What if Stellan had done something else to my phone, like bugged it? I glanced around the club and lowered my voice. I didn’t trust anybody anymore.

  “Mom, don’t come,” I said simply, my voice tight. “Call me back. Or I’ll call you. Just don’t come to France.”

  The voice mail picking up on the first ring meant her phone was off. She might be on a plane already. If so, I wouldn’t be able to reach her until morning.

  I looked over my shoulder again. Besides a couple of guys wearing too much hair product who smiled smarmily at me from the next table, no one was watching me. I Googled “Emerson Fitzpatrick.”

  Too many results, none of them him. I added “Istanbul” to the search. “Emerson Fitzpatrick, volunteer docent at the Hagia Sophia,” it said, with a photo of his smiling face. I pictured the postcard. It was like Mr. Emerson was trying to send me clues about who he really was.

  But there was nothing else. No personal phone-book entry or anything. I hunched my shoulders over the phone and pulled up a map of Istanbul. If I had to, I could get to the Hagia Sophia, hide until morning, and find someone who knew him. Maybe he’d even be there. If I was going to do that, though, I should probably not try to escape the club quite yet. I’d rather not camp on the street for longer than necessary.

  I looked up to find Stellan strolling toward my table. A spasm of adrenaline shot through me, and I stuffed my phone into the bottom of my bag. This was the first time we’d been alone since Prada, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  “All by yourself, little doll?” Stellan set down a glass of something clear and leaned his elbows on the tall bar table. He didn’t raise his voice, but the smooth, low tones of his accent easily undercut the electronic beat of the music. “I’m surprised. Aren’t you afraid something else might happen?”

  Yes. My fists clenched on my bag and I forced myself not to look over my shoulder. That was one good thing, I guess—I had less of a chance of being killed with Stellan nearby.

  I gave him a tight smile. “No,” I said. “Not worried. Luc said it was an accident.”

  The DJ, silhouetted against a spill of neon lines cascading down the wall, pumped a fist in the air. Stellan watched him. “I suppose it is impressive how easily you got away from that Order operative,” he mused. “Maybe you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  I touched my bandaged shoulder. If that had been getting away easily, I wouldn’t want to find out what “hard” looked like.

  “And at least you understand now why I need a weapon for a weekend of meetings and parties.” Stellan’s face was half obscured by shadow, half flashing neon blue. I searched for his knife and saw a bulge under the right side of his slate-gray jacket, and another on the left. He saw me looking and flicked the jacket open. A gun.

  I swallowed. “Why do you need both? A gun seems pretty effective.”

  “It takes more effort to kill with a dagger.” He rebuttoned his jacket. “You have to do it on purpose. Guns make it too easy.”

  I was surprised he’d care about that. “It didn’t seem very hard for you to kill Frederic at Prada.”

  Stellan swirled the drink he hadn’t so much as sipped and gave me a thin smile. I couldn’t help but remember the rage in his face at Prada.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “I still don’t know why you killed him. I know you don’t care about me that much.”

  “Ah, but I do care about being punished for something happening to our guest.”

  Oh.

  Stellan pulled out the other bar stool and sat. My feet dangled, but his rested solidly on the floor.

  “What’s Elodie doing?” I said, because I didn’t want to talk about ki
lling anymore.

  “There’s a wealthy businessman here in Istanbul with an ancient Greek art collection. She’s infiltrating.”

  That explained the trip to a club on the other side of the continent. I wondered how often Elodie had to “infiltrate.” That was one disadvantage of being ridiculously beautiful.

  “Didn’t you say she’s Madame Dauphin’s assistant?” I said. “Is this a normal part of the job?”

  Stellan strummed a stack of cocktail napkins with his thumb. “There are no female Keepers. Sometimes a task comes up that’s better suited to a girl.”

  I felt a sting of indignation. “So guys do the important work, but you bring in girls when you need to seduce somebody? Don’t you think that’s a little sexist?”

  Stellan gave me a one-sided smile, and my jaw clenched in anticipation of the offensive thing about to come out of his mouth.

  “Sure, a little,” he said.

  I was surprised into silence for a second. “But she looks hot doing it, so it’s okay?”

  “I suppose she does, but that’s not the point. It’s true she’ll have an easier time getting in than I would, but Elodie’s doing this job mostly because she knows more about art and bypassing difficult security systems than anyone else in our family.”

  “Really?” I looked for signs he was joking.

  He just smirked. “Who’s being sexist now?”

  At that moment, Luc swept back in between us and clapped his hands. “On with our evening?”

  Stellan stood. “I’ll be patrolling.” He shot a lingering glance at me, and I watched him disappear into the crowd again.

  Luc offered his arm, and I slid off the bar stool. He spotted someone across the club and waved enthusiastically. “Liam and Colette are here,” he said, dragging me through the crowd toward the half-moon bar bordering the dance floor. Behind it, glowing magenta waterfalls hid nooks carved out of the wall, and behind each waterfall, a girl danced in silhouette, dry-ice steam rising at her feet.

  “You said Elodie’s looking for a new clue to the mandate?” I yelled as I followed him.

  “For deciphering the lines about the One. You know.” He waved a hand in the air as he steered us around a couple making out to a techno remix of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

  As in, the rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes. “What exactly do you mean, deciphering?” I called hesitantly, because I didn’t know, and even if I was planning to escape, it’d be nice to learn what my fate was supposed to be.

  Luc turned and jerked me to a halt in the middle of the dance floor. His brows arched practically to his hairline, and with his light brown hair styled in an exuberant bouffant, he looked like an anime character. “You don’t know?”

  Uh-oh. “I just—I haven’t really been around—”

  “Does that mean you don’t know about the mandate at all?”

  I thought about lying, but that wouldn’t do me any good. I shook my head. “Just a tiny bit. My mom wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  We stared at each other for a tense second, then Luc smiled the smile of someone letting a few drinks take the edge off his worries. He wagged a finger down at me. “Don’t let anyone hear you talking like that, cherie. It’s odd for anyone in the Circle to be so uninformed. But I understand your predicament.”

  I exhaled.

  He took my arm again. “We’re trying to decipher the mandate because we’re looking for something. Something very important.”

  He pulled me to a stop and his eyes danced, daring me to ask.

  “What is it you’re looking for?” I said.

  He paused dramatically, then leaned close to my ear. “Treasure.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I pulled away and frowned. That was what Stellan had said on the plane. But I thought he’d been joking. “Treasure?” I said skeptically.

  “Treasure!” Luc threw his arms wide, face raised to the disco ball. “Wealth! Power!” He twirled, circling behind me, and whispered, “Death.”

  I whipped around. Luc laughed out loud, reading the surprise on my face. The low light threw the angles of his face into sharp relief. “And it’s the Circle’s birthright, what with it being in the tomb of our predecessor.”

  “Who is . . . ?” I could tell he was waiting for me to ask.

  “Alexander the Great, of course! In his tomb is everything that made him who he was. It’ll make the Circle that much more powerful, and the families of the union infinitely so.” He grinned and tapped the end of my nose. “It’s so deliciously odd that you don’t know this, cherie. Your adorable little face is priceless right now.”

  Luc swooped my hand up and held me formally, like we were waltzing at a garden party instead of to trance music at a club. “Liam and Lettie can wait for a minute. I see you have more questions.”

  “So the mandate’s like a worldwide treasure hunt for the tomb of Alexander the Great?” I said, keeping up with his steps to this unwaltzable music, in these ridiculous heels. One two three one two three.

  “Yes and no.” Luc twirled me. “The mandate is like a prophecy. It comes from an ancient book the Circle has had for ages—the Book of Mandates. It’s a series of predictions. Many of them have come true. ‘By the follies of one and the loyalties of the rest will the world burn a second time.’ That’d be World War Two. There was one about World War One. The Crusades. They’ve been accurate all through history. This one talks about the union between ‘the rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes.’ That’s the most important line, anyway. And now that there’s going to be a girl with violet eyes—my baby sister—we’re just figuring out who the rightful One is.”

  Someone bumped me from behind and sent me careening into Luc. “Sorry,” I said. My throat was starting to hurt from yelling over the music. “What do you mean, figuring out?”

  Luc brought my arms around his thin neck, and my forearms glowed green from his neon necklace. “The language on who the One is, or which family he comes from, is vague, but it’s believed that only the rightful One—the single correct person—will trigger the prophecy’s fulfillment. The Book of Mandates is the main source of the predictions, but there were other writings of the Oracles that got lost over time and never made it in, and they’ve been found all over the world—in museums, or at archaeological digs, or in family memorabilia—all throughout history. We’re hoping to find something that gives us more specifics on the One. And if we don’t, since we have the girl, my family will choose the One for the union ourselves and hope for the best. So, to make a long story short and answer your original question, Elodie is seeking something more about the mandate.”

  It made me feel a tiny bit better to know they still had to find something else before using the girl. “And the treasure in the tomb is more than money?”

  When the next song started, they turned on a black light. Luc gave me a wide grin, and his teeth gleamed like a Halloween decoration. “Much more,” he said. “The mandate says it will make whoever has it invincible.”

  That tugged at my brain, and I remembered our Ancient Civ reading from last week. It was hard to believe that class, where Jack had covered for me, was only yesterday. It felt a million years away from designer dresses and ancient prophecies.

  The section about the Diadochi I’d forgotten that day said something about invincibility. Our book referenced a prophecy from an oracle saying that whichever of the Diadochi—Alexander’s successors—was in possession of his body would never be conquered. They’d be invincible. Vying for his body—and his tomb—was the cause of centuries of war between the Diadochi.

  “Wait wait wait,” I said. “The Circle are the Diadochi? Alexander’s successors?” The most powerful people in the world two thousand years ago had descendants who were secretly the world’s most powerful people today? And the prophecy we’d learned about in history class was part of the Circle�
��s mandate? No wonder Jack had known how to answer Mrs. Lindley’s question.

  “Smart girl!” Luc patted me on the head like a dog learning a new trick. “Where do you think the word for twelve comes from in so many languages? Dodici—‘twelve’ in Italian. Duodecim. Doce. Dodeka. Sound like Diadochi, right?”

  “Oh wow,” I whispered.

  Luc grinned wider. “Then you’ll really be impressed with this. The twelve months of the calendar. Inches in a foot. Hours in a day. Zodiac symbols. The ‘twelve’ aspects of those all came into being around 300 BC, just around when the Diadochi took over.”

  I glanced around the club. I couldn’t believe he was saying all this so openly, so loudly, in such a public place. Someone could overhear. But so what if they did? No one would believe it. I barely believed it.

  “So the Order’s after the treasure, too?” I said, because the rest of this was too much to contemplate.

  “Again, yes and no. They want the riches in the tomb, yes. But besides wealth and power, the tomb is also rumored to contain a weapon. The mandate says it’s so powerful that it will ‘vanquish the greatest enemies.’”

  Like Jack had said at Prada.

  “And so they want the treasure and to keep this mysterious weapon from the Circle.” I was starting to get it now. “What is the stuff about the Order attacking the Circle?”

  Luc’s arms tightened around my waist. “The newest assassination yesterday—the oldest son of the head of the Sony Corporation in Japan, in that awful hotel fire? Horrible.”

  Assassination?