by Robin Benway
“It was like he was a magician,” my dad said. “He could make things just appear. Or disappear.”
“You thought he would steal from all the museums if you gave him the chance,” I said, putting the pieces together.
My mom nodded. “And he got upset with us, of course. We never agreed with the Collective recruiting him, but we couldn’t blame them. And Dominic never did anything illegal, or at least, nothing that we could prove. Not until now.”
“So he doesn’t know about the tunnels?” I asked.
“Oh, he knows. He just didn’t know what we used to do, or how we used to do it. And again, we were just having fun. We were young and dumb teenagers.”
“Ahem,” I said.
“You’ll see one day.” My mom smiled at me. “One day you’ll be amazed by all the things you didn’t know.”
“I already feel that way now,” I told her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about all this?”
“Because we were afraid that Dominic might try to get the information from you,” my dad admitted. “It was such a little thing, but we never knew what he would do. And now …” He raised his hands, then dropped them into his lap. “You know.”
“I wish you had told me.”
“I wish we didn’t have to.”
My mom’s words hung in the air as I contemplated what they told me. “Any other family secrets we need to air?” I asked.
“Not yet,” my dad asked. “How about you? Want to get anything off your chest?”
“Not yet,” I echoed. The pressure of the night was starting to weigh on me, and I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, both old and new. “Do you mind if I go to bed? I’m really tired.”
“Of course,” my mom said, coming to hug me, and I let her. “We love you, okay? We love you so much.”
“Love you, too,” I said, then tried not to wince when she gave me an extra-hard squeeze. “See you in the morning.”
Chapter 18
I woke up the next morning around 10:00 a.m., still exhausted. I had tossed and turned for most of the night, but I hadn’t cried any more after turning off the lights. Crying was too draining, too emotional, and I needed every ounce of strength that I had to figure out this case and get my life back on track. Or at the very least, figure out a new track. Clearly this whole “be a spy and a teenage girl at the same time, yay!” thing wasn’t working.
When I rolled over, I saw an A card taped to my bedroom door. “Oh, God,” I muttered, but dragged myself out of bed and went to look at it. Angelo had clearly been here that morning, doing his sneaky thing with his ever-present cards. I wondered if he had talked to my parents at all, or if they had talked to him. They were no doubt furious with him for not letting me tell them about the case, but I knew Angelo could handle himself. I just didn’t feel like getting stuck in the crossfire, which, the more I thought about it, seemed like a pretty good metaphor for the current state of my life.
“So what do you have to tell me today?” I said to the card, turning it over. The familiar pen-and-ink drawing was on the back, stone archways stretched across a small courtyard of trees and grass. It was Angelo’s sketch of the Cloisters, a small part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was at the very tip-top of Manhattan.
“Oh, joy,” I said, then got into the shower.
When I was ready to leave, I opened my bedroom door and stuck my head out. I felt like a rabbit, poking its head out of its hideaway to see how close the enemies are. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to my parents. I just didn’t want to talk to my parents.
They weren’t there, though, and I found a note on the counter that they had gone to run errands. That seemed dubious at best, and I wondered if maybe they didn’t want to talk to me, either. It was too awkward to make small talk and too soon to discuss what was really wrong. It’s always bizarre when you realize that your parents don’t have a clear solution to the problem, that they’re just as confused as you are. It makes them too real, too human, flawed just like you.
“And how was your journey north?” Angelo asked when I approached him at the Cloisters. He was sitting against one of the archways, tiny coffee cup in hand that I knew held a double espresso, and he looked as calm as ever. He had the sort of serenity of a man with a plan, which made me feel a little better.
But not much.
“Oh, you know,” I said, clinking my coffee cup against his before I took a sip out of the leaky lid. “Just take the A train for approximately four years, and then you’re here! It’s so easy.”
Angelo smirked at me. “There’s a song about that, you know.”
“About riding the subway for four years?”
“No, about taking the A train. By Duke Ellington, a wonderful jazz pianist.” He shook his head when I stared at him blankly. “Oh, dear. I shall make you a mix. We’ve been neglecting your musical education.”
“You want to make me a mix?” I repeated, incredulous. “Don’t you think we’re a little, you know, busy right now? Also, when did you learn to make a mix?”
“Maggie, love, it’s the twenty-first century. Technology does not go backward, so it’s best to keep up. And there’s always time for a song or two. Now,” he said, brushing some invisible dirt off the arm of his suit. “Let’s discuss last night.”
“Fiasco,” I replied. “And cuckoo clocks. There, that’s my summary.”
“I am very sorry for the lack of correct information,” Angelo said with a sigh. “That was my fault. There was a small crack in the system but it’s been fixed now.”
I gave him the side-eye. “You didn’t dump anyone’s body into the Hudson River, did you?”
“Of course not, Maggie. Not in this suit.” He winked at me and I laughed for what felt like the first time in days. “See? Life is not as bad as you think it is.”
“You talked to my parents, didn’t you?”
Angelo nodded, running his thumb around the lip of his cup. “They are … concerned. But I reassured them that things are fine.”
“Really? Could you reassure me, too?”
“Why don’t you reassure me? Tell me about everything last night. Start from the very first cuckoo.”
So I took a deep breath and launched into my story of Dominic Arment and his bizarre collections and heavy cologne and annoying humming habit. “There’s an egg, though,” I said. “It’s one of the Fabergés. I think it is, anyway. I don’t know, I just think it’s really important.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. It sort of stood out to me. Like it had a secret.”
Angelo smiled knowingly. “What’s the first rule of being a spy?” he asked in a singsong sort of way.
“Listen,” I answered. “And I listened to that egg for two and a half hours. Well, so to speak. I mean, the egg wasn’t exactly talking to me, that would be delusional. But there’s something with it.”
“Do you think it’s a real Fabergé? There are some eggs that haven’t been accounted for. Eight, I believe.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe? Or maybe it’s a fake? I need to get back into that house and figure it out, Angelo. Like, soon. Today. Tonight.”
“We’ll find a time. But why don’t you tell me what happened afterward?”
I glanced out at the small courtyard, at how green the leaves on the trees were against the beige stone of the walls. “This must be really pretty in the fall,” I murmured. “We should come back here. If we’re still here, I mean.”
Angelo sat next to me, always a port in the storm, always hearing what I wasn’t saying. “It is quite difficult to do this job when you love people,” he said softly. “Don’t you think?”
I nodded and swallowed against the lump forming in my throat. “How do you do it?” I asked him. “I mean, you do all this and you still love people, right? Like my parents and me?”
“Very, very much so.”
“Then how do you do it?”
Angelo thought a minute, looking out across the park. It
was unlike him to not have an answer at hand. “I suppose,” he said after a minute, “that I do it because I love you. And your parents. And others. The world that we see, Maggie, sometimes it’s quite dark and depressing. We meet terrible people all the time.”
“But then we bring them down.”
“Exactly my point, love. We make the world better. When you love people, you want the world to be a beautiful place for them. If you’re lucky enough, you can make their world better just by standing next to them. And if you’re very, very lucky, you can work with the people you love to improve things. You’re in it together.”
“And sometimes … ?” I asked, prodding him to give the answer that I didn’t want to hear.
Angelo smiled ruefully. “And sometimes you make their world better by traveling far away to save it.”
“Do you think Jesse’s world will be better if I travel far away?”
“Ah, I should have known,” Angelo said. “You and Jesse had a fight, I take it?”
I nodded. “It was really bad. I think we broke up. I missed dinner with him and his mom and then he was upset that I couldn’t tell him why I was so late.”
“That’s to be expected.”
I thought for a moment. “This is why spies don’t have friends, isn’t it? Because of things like this?”
“Sometimes, yes. And sometimes friends can be the very thing that saves you. You never know. If I recall correctly, Roux can land quite a punch. Perhaps she saved all of us that day.”
I smiled despite myself. “She’ll be the first to tell you that, too.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” Angelo said. “Maggie, what’s done is done. You made choices that weren’t for the best when you involved Roux and Jesse and now you must live with the consequences of your decisions. If they’re mad at you for not giving them all the information—”
“I’m doing it to keep them safe, though!”
“I know, and I don’t disagree with your decision. But they have the right to be upset, too. You can control many things, my love, but you cannot control how people feel.”
I nodded. If my parents had said that to me, I probably would’ve gone all defensive and ballistic, but Angelo always talked to me like an adult. That was just one reason why I loved him so much. “But what if …” I had a hard time even forming the words in my mouth. “What if one of the consequences is that Roux or Jesse gets hurt?”
“Listen to me.” Angelo set down his coffee cup and grasped my arms, guiding me to look at him. “Listen to me very, very carefully. I will never let anything happen to Roux or Jesse. Is that clear?”
I nodded, surprised by the force of his words. “I know,” I told him, and I realized with a start that I did know that. Angelo would move heaven and earth to keep me, my friends, and my family safe.
I just hoped that I could do the same.
We sat together in silence for a while, watching the tourists and student groups mill around us. “You do remember where we put important things, yes?” Angelo asked.
A chill went through my shoulders and down my ribs as I looked at him. We hadn’t talked about that in years. “Yes,” I said. “I wouldn’t forget something like that.”
“All right. Now remember this address.” He rattled off an address to me in French. “Do you have it?”
“Of course.” I imagined writing it across my brain, tattooing it onto my thoughts and making it a permanent part of me. “But why—?”
“If you ever need to leave, they will keep you safe.”
“Wait, wha—?”
Angelo looked down at me and for once, his face was so serious that I knew not to ask any more questions. “Okay,” I said instead. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”
“Excellent. And how is progress coming along with your lock?”
“Ugh.”
“That well, I take it.”
“It’s fine, I just can’t get the final lock. I’m losing a lot of sleep over this, Angelo.”
“You’ll be able to open it when you need it most,” he said. “Trust me on that.” He patted my knee, then picked up his espresso, then set it down again. “You know, darling, there are a lot of people who are upset with us. And there are certain people not very happy with you.”
I thought of Dominic Arment, of everyone in the Collective who was trying to sully my family’s good name. “Well, I’m not very happy with certain people,” I replied. “And you can tell them I said so.”
Angelo smiled a little. “Duly noted. But we do have allies. You must remember that.”
I waited until a couple walked past us before speaking again. “I thought I saw someone following Jesse and me the other day. A man.”
Angelo nodded. “Yes, that’s very possible.”
“I knew it!” I said. “Was he a good guy or a bad guy?”
“Funny how you can’t tell just by looking at them,” Angelo said, then nudged my shoulder when I rolled my eyes at him. “Not every bad guy has the same motives, but either way, I’m not sure, darling. Perhaps he was a little bit of both. Or maybe he was just lost. It’s best not to lose our heads wondering about the maybes and what ifs.”
“Says the man who just mentioned our secret hiding space and then had me memorize a mysterious Paris address.”
“How do you know it was in Paris?”
“Because you hate the suburbs.”
Angelo laughed this time. “Fair play. So let’s go back to this mysterious Fabergé egg, the one that talks to you.”
“I need to see it again,” I told him. “I can’t stop thinking about it. The only problem is that I don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s not like I’ve ever seen a real one. Do you know where we can get one?”
“I might,” Angelo said. “But unfortunately they are all an ocean or two away.”
“Well, there has to be an exhibit somewhere or maybe a—”
And suddenly it hit me. I knew someone who had a Fabergé egg. Or at least, someone who said she did.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Roux.”
Chapter 19
“Harold!” Roux’s voice came beaming down the intercom system. “Harold, you shining sun of a man!”
I gripped the granite top of the front desk in Roux’s building, my impatience already mounting. Roux’s doorman, the long-suffering Harold, barely blinked at me in response.
“Harold, you know it just makes my day when you buzz me. Did you know that? Because you should. Know that, I mean.”
“A girl by the name of Maggie is here to see you, Miss Green.” Harold’s voice stayed calm and monotone.
“Really?” I asked him. “A girl by the name of Maggie? You’ve known me for a year. Why can’t you just let me go up?”
“Maggie!” Roux’s voice sounded positively gleeful. “Magga Ragga!”
“I hate that nickname,” I told her. “Will you please just let me in?”
“Harold, it’s Maggie! Did you know that things got super weird between us but we’re friends again? Gotta keep up with current events, Harold. Things change every minute around here.”
“Roux—” I tried to interrupt.
“Except you, Harold.” Roux was on a roll now. “You should never change, Harold. Never, okay? Unless you want to change for the better, I mean. Then you can change. But I would still mourn the man you were and—”
Oh my God.
“Roux!” I shouted into the intercom. “Will you just let this poor man drink his coffee and send me up already? Good Lord!”
There was a brief pause.
“Maggie sounds stressed, Harold. Does she look stressed?”
Harold eyed me. I eyed him right back.
“Oh, never mind. Let her come up, Harold. We’ll do some deep breathing exercises together. It’s good for the mind and the soul.”
“Go on up,” Harold said to me, gesturing toward the ornate elevator.
“Thank you.” I could still hear Roux rattling on about the positive effects of yoga even
as the doors shut.
The doors opened again at the fourteenth floor, and I hurried out and stalked to Roux’s front door, banging on it until she opened it.
“Where’s your egg?” I demanded, storming in past her.
“My what?” She grinned. “I was right, you do look stressed. Are you upset about Jesse?”
Wait. What?
“How did you know about that?” I asked her. “Did he call you? What did he say?”
She shook her head. “No, he didn’t call. It’s online. This girl Sara saw the two of you fighting last night, and she put it on her Facebook page. Did you really flip him off?”
I winced and ran my hand over my face. “No, of course not. It’s a long story,” I told her.
“I’ve got nothing but time and a sympathetic ear,” she said. “And a drawerful of delivery menus. I mean, obviously.”
“Roux.” I took a huge, deep breath. “Just stop for a minute, okay?”
“Stop what? Oooh, that was a good cleansing breath. You look relaxed already.”
“Where’s your Fabergé egg?”
Roux froze, her smile slowly slipping off her face.
“Remember?” I said. “When we were breaking into Colton’s apartment last year, you said that you got a Fabergé egg for your sixteenth birthday. Were you kidding about that? Because if you were, you need to tell me right now.”
I had seen Roux elated, furious, drunk, crying from heartbreak, and determined, but I had never seen that look on her face before. She suddenly looked like an adult, someone who could weigh her options rather than act impulsively, and I wondered if that’s how I looked when I was working, too.
“I wasn’t kidding,” she said. “I was serious.”
I took another deep breath. At this rate, I was going to either be completely relaxed or hyperventilating on the floor. “Can I see it? Please? It’s important.”
Roux went and flipped the deadbolt lock on her front door, then beckoned me upstairs. “C’mon, follow me.”
