The Ends of the World Read online

Stellan’s usually light accent was a little thicker these days, his ths softening almost to zs. Zey’ve disappeared. It was because he’d been spending more time in Russia than he usually did. His little sister, Anya, was part of the thirteenth bloodline, too, which meant plenty of people might like to get their hands on her. He had her stashed somewhere safe, and went back every few days to move her to a new town in case anyone was looking for her.

  “Luc’s fine,” I murmured, still watching the rest of the party. “This is a harmless way to let him feel like he’s involved.”

  Stellan sighed and pulled me tighter against him. Some of the Circle didn’t believe our relationship was real. That mattered because they still thought our “union” was what fulfilled the mandate, and to them, union meant marriage. There were whispers that we’d lied about having completed the marriage ceremony already—since we were so young, and I was an outsider, would I really have agreed to it like that? It was part of the plan tonight to show them just how very in love we were and put those doubts to rest, because they were completely right about the objections I’d have. Even if we had to be initiated, there was no way I’d go through with the marriage ritual, so we needed them to accept that it was already done.

  We certainly looked the part of the perfect, pretty power couple: Stellan in a classic tuxedo, having perfected the look of I’m too good for this place, his blond hair mussed just enough to keep up the illusion. My dark hair contrasted with his, and my four-inch heels brought me just a little closer to his height, though he still towered over me. I was wearing some designer or another— Colette and Elodie had taken care of it. The dress was high-necked and black. It was beautiful, I supposed. A month ago, I would have had fun putting on something gorgeous and coming to some fancy party. Now my mom was dead and nothing else mattered.

  “You doing okay?” he said. “I know being here is probably—”

  “I’m fine.” Maybe I was feeling a little tense, but nothing that was going to get in the way of what we were doing here.

  Stellan twirled me. We’d rehearsed for tonight—for the politics and the Circle business and exactly what we needed to find out. But the dancing didn’t require practice. Stellan always knew just how to guide me in the direction he wanted to go, and I knew just how to respond to his touch. I wasn’t even that good a dancer, but I fell easily back into his arms at the end of the turn.

  He brought my hand up between us, and his fingers skimmed my knuckles. They were red and raw. Hitting something was the only way I’d found to blunt the sharp edges of the things that lived in my chest. It turned out that wrapping my hands with athletic tape didn’t work very well.

  I snatched my hand back.

  “We could find you something softer than a heavy bag to hit when you don’t have gloves.”

  “Or you could mind your own business,” I said with a sweet smile, but I wasn’t surprised that he knew what I was doing. At least it wasn’t Jack who had caught me. He would have posted guards outside my room so I could no longer leave at night, just in case I got murdered on the way to the hotel gym.

  “Having your hands look like you’re part of a back alley fight club doesn’t exactly go with formal wear,” Stellan said. “Next time, tell me and I’ll hold some couch cushions for you to hit.”

  When I said nothing, he pressed, “Or you could get a new hobby. Knitting? Crossword puzzles. I bet you’re a crossword puzzle girl. Or”—his eyes flicked to my mouth and his lips curled up in a sly smile—“I could help you release stress another way.”

  In the past, that might have gotten a rise out of me. Now I was just annoyed that he thought he had license to hear my innermost thoughts because we’d made out once. We’d twirled too close to some cousins of the Wang family, so I giggled like I was playing along. “If you really want me to punch you, I’ll punch you,” I murmured. “Can you please drop it?”

  “Actually, no. You’ve hardly said more than ‘pass the salt’ for weeks, and now I have you here and you can’t run off.” He curled a hand tighter into my waist to prove the point. “I’d like to at least know that inside that pretty little head you’re not planning to murder me.”

  “Not currently.”

  I pushed away from him, following the steps of the dance, and he caught my opposite hip. “Kuklachka—”

  “While we’re at it, don’t do that,” I said. “The little doll thing. I’m not. Not yours, despite this arrangement, and not the Circle’s, either.”

  “Avery,” he said pointedly.

  Over the past weeks, I kept thinking I’d pushed him away enough that he’d stop trying to draw me out, but he was persistent. Jack knew how it felt to not want to talk. Elodie was distracted and busy lately. But Stellan had zero boundaries. I pulled him down like I wanted to whisper something sweet and romantic. “If you have a problem with how I’m playing the role of your wife, tell me. Otherwise, I don’t care, I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t need your help.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Miguel Reyes approaching. “Time to play thirteenth family,” I murmured.

  There was a master of ceremonies for tomorrow who had been gathering information from everyone’s records and putting it together into this initiation ritual, but we couldn’t talk to him. We couldn’t ask anyone directly, in fact. It would look too suspicious. There were a couple of families we could count as allies, but most still looked at us with a mix of awe and skepticism that we—this small outsider girl with strands of pink in her hair and her “husband,” who had been a Keeper for the Dauphin family for years—had suddenly become the Circle’s saviors. The fact that we were suddenly pumping them for information wouldn’t make them less wary. Luc had told us that some of the families were more thorough about passing down history than his, and might know specifics about the initiation, so we had a plan.

  Stellan kissed my cheek with an exaggerated wink, like we didn’t have a care in the world besides wearing fancy clothes and dancing and flirting, but when we broke from the dance, he didn’t let go of my hand, and with the others watching I couldn’t make him.

  We finished our chat with the Reyes family—we hadn’t expected them to know anything about the ceremony, and they didn’t seem to—and then Stellan placed my hand in the crook of his elbow and guided me off the dance floor toward where George and Marie Frederick, from the American Circle family, stood by an expansive spread of hummus and kebabs and salads.

  I went over in my head what we’d discussed about the Fredericks. To make sure none of the families caught on to what we were doing here, we were using ourselves as bait, becoming whatever version of us we thought they’d most respond to.

  “Hello, Mr. Frederick,” I said. “Mrs. Frederick.” We asked about the weather back in Washington, DC, where they lived, and Stellan made some small talk about how at least Jerusalem is a dry heat. When we had them smiling, I said casually, “I can’t believe the ceremony is tomorrow. I haven’t even had time to prepare. I mean, I’ve hardly been able to think about anything but—”

  I cut off and cast my eyes to the floor.

  “Oh, sweetie pie.” Mrs. Frederick had a soft southern accent that sounded strange to my ears after so long away from the United States. She took my free hand in both of hers. “My darling girl. I am so sorry.”

  The Fredericks had some vague attachment to me because I was American, and they had also been in that room in Paris just after my mom died. With them, our strategy was to play the victim card. It felt a little gross to exploit our tragedies—by this time, the whole Circle knew that not only had my mom been killed, but that Stellan’s family had died when he was young—but part of being in the Circle was learning to use every advantage you had.

  “Do you think—” I sniffled a little and lowered my voice. “Could you tell me a little about the ceremony? What kinds of things happen? I’m just so nervous.”

  The Fredericks, we’d
heard, were especially interested in Circle ritual, and through the generations had incorporated some aspects of various ceremonies into their own country’s traditions.

  They glanced at each other. “You know, honey, it’s hard to say exactly what’ll go on,” Mrs. Frederick said. “I’d be willing to bet there’ll be pledges, so you’ll have to be ready to give yourself up to the Circle, you know, like we all have.”

  I stifled a shudder. “Anything else?”

  “You kids don’t have to worry yourselves about it. All you’ve got to do is show up. We’ll all help you out,” she said warmly, patting Stellan on the back. We pushed just a little more, but when we could tell we weren’t getting anything more, we thanked her and left.

  “That strategy may have backfired,” Stellan muttered.

  I nodded. They didn’t want to upset the sad orphan children with too much technical talk. “Zara Koning and Sakura Mikado are over there,” I said. “Give me a few minutes alone with them, then come over.”

  He nodded and headed toward the bar. I needed a few minutes away from him anyway. I hoped being alone would ease the tightness in my chest. I wasn’t used to being that close to someone for hours at a time lately, and he’d been right while we were dancing—as numb as I usually felt now, being here around so many memories was opening a few cracks.

  Zara Koning, from the South African Circle family, was about my age, and Sakura Mikado, from Japan, was a few years older. I didn’t know either of them well, but I knew they were both too savvy for any of our tactics, so I planned to be blunt.

  After we exchanged pleasantries, I dropped my cool exterior. “I need your help,” I said. “Is there anything you can tell me about the ceremony? The rituals are a part of life for you, but for me, they’re still a little weird. No offense. I’d just rather not be blindsided.”

  They looked at each other, and Zara’s expression softened. “They’re not making you do the marriage ceremony, right?”

  Sakura muttered something under her breath about disgusting patriarchal traditions.

  “We’ve already done it, so I don’t think they’re making us repeat it,” I said. Not as long as our romantic display tonight worked. I wasn’t sure what was the worst part of the marriage ceremony: the fact that we would then actually be married, or the part that said the marriage had to be immediately consummated in front of people to be valid. I pushed the conversation back on track. “For the initiation, is there some creepy ritual object you pass around, or . . .”

  Zara frowned. “I know at some ceremonies there’s a chalice you drink out of—that’s not that odd, though. Catholics do it every week.”

  I laughed a little with her, but my heart quickened. A chalice. That could be the object we were looking for. “Would it be the same chalice that’s been around since the very first initiation ritual?” I said. “That’d be fascinating.”

  “I have no idea—oh, there’s your husband.”

  Stellan rested a hand on my lower back, and I did my best to gaze at him adoringly rather than tensing. Like I was simply catching him up on the conversation, I told him about the chalice idea. He made a joke to Zara about how he would be glad if they gave us wine to get through the ceremony, then said something in Japanese to Sakura, and she laughed and pointed. When it came to politics—and acting—I might be okay, but Stellan would always be better.

  We said our good-byes, and he told me Sakura had pointed him toward Arjun Rajesh as someone who might know more about this chalice and what the ceremony was like. We were planning to speak with him anyway.

  I glanced around for him, and found Jack’s eyes on us again. Jack and Elodie were both shadowing us closely—just in case—and were also part of our show. Since we’d rather have gossip about our scandalous little family on everyone’s minds than the fact that we were being especially nosy tonight, we were showing off Jack and Elodie. It was insolent and a little disrespectful of us, flaunting that we’d stolen the Saxons’ Keeper and the Dauphins’ house manager. And that now, against tradition, we were making them both our Keepers. It was exactly the kind of posturing a Circle family would do, so we did it.

  I spotted Mr. Rajesh looking out over the city. His son, Dev, had been one of the Saxons’ first victims. The Rajesh family was kind in a way I didn’t expect from the Circle. Right after my mom died, Mrs. Rajesh had sent a giant care package of food. With Mr. Rajesh, we played close to our normal selves, with a side of sweet and dumb. “There’s some kind of chalice, I heard, that you do the ceremony with?” I asked after we’d greeted him.

  “No, not a chalice,” he said. “I’ve heard that for this ceremony, they use a small box, almost a jewelry box.”

  The master of ceremonies was the head of the Vasilyev family. He wasn’t here tonight, nor would he have been allowed to talk to us about the initiation if he were, but Stellan noticed his son across the party. We hadn’t expected him to be here. We whispered quickly about a strategy, and Stellan asked the questions in Russian. If we can be honest with you, he was going to say, we want to make sure nothing goes wrong during the ceremony. Obviously your family is trustworthy, but we know not all of them are. Have you heard anything from your father about items used during the ceremony, and could we inspect them beforehand to make sure there’s no wrongdoing afoot?

  The man nodded sagely. Apparently some of the Vasilyev family were the Circle’s resident conspiracy theorists, so it wasn’t hard to convince him we were fellow skeptics. He glanced over his shoulder before he whispered something to Stellan.

  When we left, Stellan pulled me onto the dance floor again. “We’re going to have to get into the Melechs’ private collection,” he murmured in my ear. “He says there is a box, and it was stored here since the first initiation ceremony was held in Jerusalem. He thinks it’s probably still here until tomorrow.”

  That was both the best news we could ask for, and the worst. We might have a chance at finding it—but getting caught snooping around the Melechs would be very bad.

  We danced past Jack and Elodie, and I could tell they were dying to know what we’d found out. “What if we ask the Melechs for a tour?” I said, my fingers brushing Stellan’s chest flirtatiously. “Jack and Elodie can come, too, and be extra eyes.”

  “Smart,” he said, and I let him tuck my arm through his again.

  The Melechs almost didn’t agree. I wanted to add a jab about how we were sure they’d want to cooperate with anything we wanted, to put to rest those nasty rumors that they condoned the Saxons’ actions, but luckily Stellan cut me off. He was right. We were playing a particular persona with the Melechs, too. They would never like us, but they’d let their guard down more if we could make them believe we were silly, spoiled kids joining the Circle for the parties and the private jets.

  So while we saw the view from their formal dining room and heard how many guest rooms they had, I giggled, and hung on Stellan’s arm, and nuzzled his neck whenever I saw something that could be a ritual box that I thought we should take a second look at. And when the Melechs wanted to show us the greenhouse, I whined, “I want to see more pretty things. Do you have any . . . art?”

  David Melech, as we’d hoped, had gone from wary to bored with our dumb questions. He looked at his phone and told Daniel and his wife to show us the museum wing, then left. I squeezed Stellan’s hand as Mrs. Melech gave us the fastest tour she could manage. We were about to leave, disappointed, when my eye caught on something. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, that’s a replica of a sarcophagus. It’s one of the Circle’s oldest artifacts,” she said, a note of pride creeping into her voice. I squinted at the thing. It was a small box, the size of a jewelry box. “It’s used in rituals,” she finished, and I squeezed Stellan’s hand. “Can I show you the way back to the party?”

  She led the way out the door. Stellan and I followed as slowly as we could, trying to communicate silently.


  When Daniel looked back at us, I could see the suspicion in his eyes. His parents might have bought our act, but he thought we were up to something. He had all night.

  I giggled again, pretending not to notice. Then I reached down very obviously and grabbed Stellan’s backside.

  Stellan turned a surprised widening of his eyes into a saucy eyebrow raise so quickly, I was impressed. Daniel, as I’d hoped, had been watching every move, and averted his eyes in disgust. Stellan caught on to my plan, and when the Melechs turned around to see what was taking us so long, we’d slowed, my hands on his chest, him pulling me close to whisper in my ear as I blushed.

  “We’ll find our own way back,” Stellan said dismissively, hardly looking up at them, like all we’d really wanted from this tour was a place to make out.

  Mrs. Melech looked at Daniel, at her Keeper, and at Jack and Elodie. “I don’t know if—”

  Stellan leaned down and kissed me.

  I stood on my tiptoes and forced my lips to follow his, in another kind of dance that he could lead and I could follow all too easily. We were lucky that was true, because we couldn’t give away the fact that, far from this being a sign that Stellan and I just couldn’t keep our hands off each other, this was the first time the Circle’s new golden couple had kissed since our actual first kiss.

  As numb as I’d been for so long, all my senses came suddenly, painfully alive. I heard Mrs. Melech clear her throat uncomfortably. I sensed every eye in the room on us. I noticed the spread of Stellan’s hands on my waist and the stiffness of his collar under my wrists as my arms looped around his neck. I felt his lips parting mine. He tasted like—

  The memories came in a rush. How his mouth had tasted like vodka and lime that night in Cannes, and the air was scented with the sea. His hands in my hair, mine undoing the buttons on his shirt, my head dizzy with drink and wanting. And then, different memories. A few days later. The smell of blood permeating that room in Paris, hot and coppery. My hands slick with it, crimson spatter all over my mother’s clothes, her slim hand grasping at my wrist as I knelt beside her. Confusion. Screams. Death.