It had all been worth it. The kidnapping. The torture. Sybil.
All of it.
Nora.
Maybe not all of it.
Jasper bombed his calculus quiz and smiled doing it. Who cared? What did it matter? He’d finally found it. This wasn’t fool’s gold; it was the motherlode. It was like finding out that magic was real and that he was actually a wizard-king. Every time he thought about the journal, his fingers tingled and the world faded away.
Joseph Reed—war hero, one-time bff of Washington, abolisher of slavery in Pennsylvania—had been deep into something very shady. Something the Libertines would kill to keep from going public.
By the time Cyrus knocked on the door of the frigid north wing, Jasper thought his heart was going to beat out of his ribcage. Larkin locked the door and Byron gently took out the diary. Using Jasper’s headlamp, Cyrus read the transcription first, then the diary, then reread both. The whole act took less than five minutes.
“Isn’t this crazy?” Jasper asked. “Can you freaking believe it?”
Cyrus stood and paced the room. Maybe it was the shadows, but his granite face looked harder than usual.
“It is extraordinary,” he finally said.
“I know, right?”
“More than the League could have ever imagined.”
“That line about George Washington losing faith in Arnold is crazy,” Jasper said. “Like maybe Washington was involved in the whole plot?”
“Perhaps,” Cyrus said. “Or Reed made that up to urge Ira on.”
Jasper’s stomach rumbled. He’d been too excited to eat. “Cyrus, tell me this is my way out.”
“It is.” The Counselor lowered his voice to a whisper. “For us all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
What?”
“The True Sons value honor above all else,” Cyrus said. “Imagine how this information would challenge the historical narrative. This, Jasper”—Cyrus held the diary in front of his face“—this is why they murdered your father. Why they have done all of this.”
“Right … because it makes Reed look like the bad guy—maybe even Washington. So we make a trade with the Libertines: no one challenges me, and I keep it quiet.”
“No, Jasper,” Cyrus said. “This is far bigger than you now.”
“I don’t … exactly know what that means.”
Cyrus grabbed Jasper by the shoulder. “We will make a trade, yes—but it will not just be for your duel. It will be for every duel.” He was so close, Jasper thought they might hug. “We will use this information to leverage a permanent peace for every member of the League.”
The tingling in Jasper’s fingers had spread to his face and down his spine. He was on fire. He could see his breath—giant clouds—as he heaved in and out. “We threaten to tell everybody—the world. Historians and professors and colleges. The Libertines would do anything to keep that from happening.”
“Precisely.”
Jasper felt lightheaded. This was a total rush. “So we set up a meeting,” he said, then realized how stupid that sounded. “Nope. They’ll definitely murder us.”
Cyrus nodded. “We’re going to have to seek an audience before the Arbiter and convince him to broker this deal.”
Jasper waited for an explanation.
None came.
“Who’s the Arbiter?” Jasper asked.
“In times of conflict, the Arbiter is an impartial judge who acts as an intermediary between our organizations. The True Sons respect his office and would never attempt violence if he is involved.”
“Please don’t say it’s the President,” Jasper said. “Or anything to do with the Illuminati.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
A sliding scale for sure, Jasper thought. “So, who is it?
“The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
Jasper wondered why he was even surprised.
Nicolas Cage, eat your heart out.
“Are you sure the Libertines won’t agree and then just massacre us?” Jasper asked. “That’s definitely something Elsbeth and her people would do.”
Cyrus was silent for a moment. “We have no other choice.”
“Freeze.”
Larkin’s voice on the other side of the door was like a diesel tractor engine.
“Hands up,” he said. “Walk forward. Slowly.”
Feet scuffed down the hallway. Jasper would know the sound of those combat boots anywhere.
Byron packed up the diary quickly and unlocked the door just in time for Larkin to march Nora inside at gunpoint.
“You should find a better hiding spot,” she said. “Eliza spotted your headlamp up here weeks ago.”
“Why are you here?” Cyrus asked.
“I go to school here, remember?”
“Explain yourself, Ms. Booth.”
“I saw your car pull up tonight,” Nora said. “It saved me from having to talk with Jasper’s babysitter.”
“What,” Cyrus said, “do you want?”
“I need to show you something.”
Cyrus stared at her. “We’ll be with you shortly.”
“Not him,” Nora said, nodding at Jasper. “He’s seen enough.”
Larkin marched her back out into the hall.
“What does she mean? What have you seen enough of?” Cyrus asked.
“Yeah … I … uh.” Jasper cleared his throat and tried to avoid Byron’s stare. “She caught me spying on her.”
“Keep him here,” Cyrus said to Byron. “Can you at least manage that?”
Jasper watched from the window as Cyrus and Nora marched out the front of the manor and to the chapel. Byron put a hand around the back of Jasper’s neck. He kept it there for a full thirty minutes until Cyrus and Larkin came back.
“You will not step foot in that basement again,” Cyrus said. “Is that understood?”
Jasper nodded.
“The diary is all that matters now. I will take all three back to Philadelphia and store them in your father’s safe.” Cyrus began pacing the room again, but it was different this time. His steps were faster, his swivels more jagged. “I will request a meeting with the Arbiter and summon you if he agrees to hear us out.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
But Cyrus was lost in something else, staring at the floor as he paced.
“Whatever it is that you’re not telling me,” Jasper said, “should I be worried?”
Actual worry lines creased Cyrus’s face. Cracks in the granite. “The safest place in a tornado is the eye. That is where we are right now.”
“So I should be pretty worried.”
“Byron is here with you,” Cyrus said. Then he added, almost under his breath, “And it seems others have been here with us all along.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jasper slept the entire next day and most of the following night. He woke up at 4:20 on Sunday morning and started getting dressed before he realized there was no more work to do. He lay in bed and reviewed the entries in his head. The thrill even blocked out Sheldon’s epic snoring. At 5:00, Jasper got up to take a shower, ate a breakfast that was actually hot, and finally got around to watching the vampire ninja movie Tucker had been raving about on the TV in the study room.
“It was actually as bad as I thought it was going to be,” he said to Byron.
“Worse.”
Winter hadn’t left, but he could tell spring was calling ahead to book reservations. The giant piles of snow had melted to gravelly peaks streaked with black, and most of the paths around campus were clear. Jasper had to squint as he walked off the eight eggs he’d inhaled for breakfast. He felt like he’d come out of a yearlong coma.
“What’s the date?”
“March 3rd,” Byron replied.
“Wow.”
When they reached the amphitheater, Jasper saw Colton and Lacy sitting exactly zero inches apart on the stage, sipping giant mugs of something hot. They waved him over.
“You’re al
ive,” Lacy said.
“Barely.”
“White as a sheet,” Colton said. “Like them vampires in that movie.”
“I want that hour and twenty-six minutes of my life back,” Lacy said. She patted the stage. “Talk to me about things. You doing okay?”
Jasper sat. “Actually, yeah. Everything is better.”
“I was getting worried about you. Not as worried as Sheldon, but almost.”
“She asked about you every day,” Colton said.
“It was all kind of a lot,” Jasper said. “I needed some time to figure things out.”
Lacy nodded slowly. “And you thought the best way to do that was to completely ignore everybody who cared about you—people that also might be a little shaken by everything.”
Jasper guessed he deserved that—knew he deserved it.
He took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m really sorry, Lace. I guess I’m so used to being on my own I just went back to old habits.”
She looked at him, her face harder than he’d ever seen it. The reaction really surprised him—that his absence had made her that upset. That he’d been equal parts oblivious and selfish to everyone around him.
“You can only play the orphan card so many times, you know,” Lacy said.
“That’s true.”
She finally smirked. “That was your last time. I hope you enjoyed it.”
“You know, I really did,” Jasper said.
Colton gave him a tiny nod, and he felt the tension seep out of the moment.
“So,” Jasper said. “Did I miss anything good?”
“Let’s see,” Lacy said. “Chillingsworth finally caught the kid who was shoving paper towels into the toilets in the boys’ bathroom by the library—nobody knows how. Then there was that tenth grader who slipped on the ice out front and broke her arm. Am I missing something?” she asked Colton.
“That other thing.”
“Oh, yeah. I got into college.”
“College?” It sounded like a different language to Jasper. “Right. College. That’s great. So, you’re not going to duel, then?”
“I will be majoring in business administration at a small school in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Lacy said. “It’s not exactly Harvard, but they gave me a partial scholarship. Student loans will cover the rest.”
“That’s amazing.” Jasper saw Colton try really hard to smile. “Congratulations.”
A door banged open and Jasper saw Kingsley stalking along the path through the soccer fields. Behind him, just above the snowdrifts, bounced Nora, hood up over her head. They disappeared into the gym.
“That’s … weird,” Lacy said.
“Kingsley don’t open the range on Sundays,” Colton said.
“Pretty strange.” Jasper snuck a look at Byron, who stared bullet holes into him. None of your business. Don’t even think about it.
“Could be she left something in there,” Colton said.
“Like what?” Lacy asked.
“Don’t know. Bookbag, maybe.”
Lacy put a hand up. It was dead quiet, not even a breeze. “Wait.”
They listened for at least two minutes. Jasper strained his ears until his brain just started making up noises.
And then he heard it.
A light pop followed by another set of three.
Pop pop pop.
Lacy was up before Byron could stop her, charging through the snow and slush to the gym. Jasper and Colton could barely keep up. She threw open the door and ran up the steps.
They found Lacy staring at a girl in the firing line who looked exactly like Nora.
But Jasper knew that wasn’t possible because Nora would never be in the firing range, eye protection on, headphones slung around her neck, glaring at Kingsley who stood, arms folded, doling out advice she clearly didn’t want. Nora would never be breaking down a handgun and rebuilding it with robotic precision or slamming the clip home and racking the slide.
But then the girl took off her hoodie and Jasper saw her tank top. And the tattoos. He watched her raise her weapon and fire off volleys of three, one right after another.
Pop pop pop.
Pop pop pop.
Pop pop pop.
Nora cleared the pistol and pressed the zipline button to bring the target forward. Ripping it off the wire, she examined the holes and put it aside. Kingsley said something, she yelled something back, and he roared louder. She just kept pointing to a part of the gun. Her eye caught Jasper’s, and she paused, staring at him for a few seconds, before slamming a fresh clip home and chambering a round.
Pop pop pop.
Pop pop pop.
Pop pop pop.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Sheldon wouldn’t believe Jasper until Nora showed up on the range for class the next afternoon. He spent most of the hour gawking at her.
“Maybe she’s having a psychotic breakdown,” he said as the group walked back to the manor later.
“She is not having a psychotic breakdown,” Lacy said. “You saw her. She’s perfectly calm.”
“Then maybe she’s defaulting to her natural state like the head vampire ninja guy in the movie,” Sheldon said. “For a while, he stopped slaughtering innocent villagers, but eventually he just had to give in to his monster instincts and get down with his bad self.”
“That’s not it,” Jasper said, sidestepping an icy patch. He’d tossed and turned most of the night wondering how her sudden willingness to pick up a gun fit into what he had discovered, if at all. Byron either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell him. Jasper figured it was the second one.
“Something’s not right,” Lacy said. She was yanking a curl that stuck out under her winter hat. “Why is Chillingsworth letting her handle a gun? She knows about Nora’s past.”
It was actually a great question—one Jasper had asked himself.
Maybe that’s why he answered it out loud, totally oblivious that he was wading into some of his own secrets, too.
“Maybe she was ordered to by somebody higher up,” he said.
Jasper felt Byron pull the back of his coat, then release it as Jasper wiped out completely on the walkway.
Lacy and Sheldon turned around.
“Nice, dude,” Sheldon said.
“It’s icy,” Byron said. He didn’t offer to help Jasper up. “You should be more careful.”
Jasper got up and wiped bits of snow off his butt. Lacy held his stare for a second too long—three seconds too long, actually—then turned around and they kept walking.
Byron looked straight ahead like nothing had happened.
“You should just ask Nora,” Sheldon said.
“Maybe,” Jasper replied, distracted. Somebody higher up.
Somebody like Cyrus.
“Bro, that was a joke.”
“Right.”
But the weird thing was, Nora seemed to become less pissed at him as the week went on. When they’d come back from Charlottesville, she’d outright ignored him, except for those daily staring contests on his way back from the range. Now, she’d catch his eye as they passed in the hallway. So there wasn’t any high-fiving or fist-bumping, but the loathing was gone, that much was obvious. Jasper just couldn’t figure out why. What had changed?
****
A week later, Jasper woke up in the middle of the night. Byron was looming over him, a finger pressed to his lips. The bodyguard let Jasper put on his coat before he pushed him out into the hall. There was no Donelson guard. Just a small travel bag, which Byron made Jasper carry to a bathroom on the first floor.
“Change,” Byron ordered. “You have one minute.”
“What? Why?”
“Fifty-eight seconds.”
After Jasper changed, they ducked out a side door. Snow crunched as they walked to the tree line, single file. Byron stopped twice, turning around and scanning the woods. When they got to the outer wall, they followed it south, eventually coming to a small hollow. Byron made a sort of whistle noise and
a shadow slid from the trees.
“You’re late,” Nora said. Her gun glinted in the moonlight as she lowered it.
Byron reached into his coat and handed Jasper his holster and weapon. “He’s a heavy sleeper.”
“What’s going on?” Jasper asked.
“Lower your voice,” Nora said.
Jasper shivered, then clipped the holster onto his belt. “Where are we going?”
“Over the wall.”
She climbed the tree, a great big cottonwood with branches that reached over the brick. Twenty feet up, she shimmied out onto a branch until she could step easily onto the top of the wall. Byron dug out a thick rope from the underbrush, tied one end around the trunk and tossed her the other. She hauled it up and threw the rest over the other side.
“Move,” Byron said.
On the way up, Jasper lost his footing on a busted branch and nearly broke his neck. Nora had made the shimmying part look easy—he got pretty close to crushing some vital equipment down there before making it to the wall. She rappelled down first and switched on a headlamp so he could see where he was going. Jasper grabbed the rope and slowly eased himself down to the slope below.
“Cyrus told you what we found,” he said when he had his feet back on solid ground.
“Good work, detective.”
Jasper pulled his coat tighter. “That stuff I said, I didn’t mean any of it—I had to say it. It was horrible. Cyrus told me to—”
He flinched as her hand moved toward his face—he’d been expecting that. But instead of slapping him, she stuck her hand into his coat collar until she found the scar. She gently ran her thumb over it, back and forth.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
“I wanted it to hurt.”
“I mean, it really hurt for a while.”
“Good.”
Jasper heard Byron’s feet scraping the brick above.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “You said you’d never pick up a gun again.”
“The universe does not revolve around my self-pity. Some things are bigger than me.”
Byron landed nearby.
“What took you so long?” Nora asked.
“Heard something.”
Nora led the way down the slope, faster this time. She’d occasionally stop and switch on her headlamp to examine a notch in a tree, then change direction slightly. Jasper wondered what else she knew that he didn’t—what she and Cyrus were keeping from him.
League of American Traitors Page 16
