The Conspiracy of Us Read online

  I made my way toward Jack, the music getting louder as I came up beside him.

  He whipped around, and his eyes, behind his mask, went from high alert to relief—and what I could swear was something more as he took in my dress.

  It stabbed into my gut. “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.” His voice was nearly drowned out by the swell of the violins.

  I waited for the music to sink back to a normal volume and glanced back at the dance floor. Jack had chosen this spot well—nobody seemed to be watching us at the moment. “Madame Dauphin wants Stellan to hide me away and interrogate me.”

  “What?” Jack pushed his mask to the top of his head and led me to a small bar table in a dark corner.

  I took my own mask off, carefully detangling the strap from my hair. “I don’t know exactly what she suspects, but she knows something’s going on.”

  Jack tapped his mask against the table and frowned. “Well, now that you’ve told me, they won’t be able to get away with it, but I’d rather they not even try. Do you want me to talk to Stellan about Fitz by myself? I’ll get one of our security staff to watch out for you until I get back.”

  The orchestra struck up a waltz. I tucked a curl behind my ear, looking behind me again. “No,” I said. “I want to hear what he says. I think we talk to him, you stay with me so he can’t do anything, and then I get out of here.”

  “You don’t want to try to find your father?” The candles in the center of the table cast flickering shadows on Jack’s face.

  I frowned. I didn’t realize he knew that was my plan. Besides, that was looking like a dead end, too, unless everyone took their masks off. “I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight.”

  Jack took a breath. “Avery, I should tell you—”

  “Jack Bishop,” a girl’s voice said teasingly. Jack whipped around.

  A girl about my age sashayed toward us in a red dress with a cascade of ruffles that ended in a mermaid hem. She pushed sideswept dark bangs off a feathered red mask. Jack locked his hands behind his back.

  “What are you doing back here?” she asked, in a pretty, proper British accent.

  Jack glanced back at me. “Lydia,” he said. “I was . . . Lydia, this is Avery West. Avery, meet Lydia Saxon.”

  My fingers tightened on the mask in my hand. Lydia Saxon. Alistair Saxon’s daughter, I assumed.

  “Avery West? As in, the cousin we’ve heard about but not yet seen? Where have you been hiding her?” She gave Jack a playful shove and turned to me. “Pleased to finally meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.” There was something disconcerting about this girl. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I could swear she was looking at me funny, too.

  “Jack,” Lydia said. She looked me up and down so quickly, I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching her. “My father wants to speak with you. I’m sure he and Cole will want to meet Avery, too.”

  “Thanks, Lydia.” Jack gave her a tight smile. Unlike Stellan and Elodie with Luc, Jack seemed to actually treat Lydia as his employer. “We’ll be just one second.”

  Lydia waved her fingers and headed back onto the dance floor. When she was far enough away that I shouldn’t have been watching her anymore, she shot one last glance over her shoulder and frowned.

  “Let’s find Stellan quickly, then,” Jack said. He was all efficiency, but I could sense the tension in his face. “It sounds like the Saxons are looking for me. Cole is Lydia’s twin brother. They’re Alistair Saxon’s children.”

  Jack seemed to only ramble like this when he was nervous. I watched Lydia go. “You didn’t tell her anything about me, did you?”

  Jack looked around the dance floor distractedly. “What?”

  “Did you see the way she looked at me?”

  “Avery.” Jack slipped his mask inside his jacket and turned to me. “No. I did not tell her anything.”

  I let out a breath through my teeth as the orchestra started a fast song. I pointed to where I’d seen Stellan disappear and slipped my own mask back on. “Last time I saw him, he was over there. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.”

  Jack left a few seconds ahead of me so we wouldn’t be seen together again. I followed his back toward the other side of the dance floor when a man stepped in front of me. He was middle-aged, with a red face, a blue mask, and a shock of blond curls, and he grabbed my hand with a grin and pulled me toward the dance floor.

  “Oh,” I said, resisting. “No, I—”

  “What?” the man yelled, yanking us into place at the end of a line of couples. Three couples down, an older lady with snow-white hair and a bird mask held both of Jack’s hands. I met his eyes, but then everyone around me clapped twice, and the blond man spun me and I lost Jack in the crowd.

  I gave a silent thanks to my mom for forcing me to take ballroom-dance classes years ago, and foxtrotted across the floor. All the couples ended up in a circle, and then the whole crowd clapped again and my partner released me down the line. I tried to find Jack, but all the twirling tuxedos looked the same. The next guy in the circle, with smiling eyes behind a sky-blue mask, was already holding out his hand, and I took it reluctantly, searching the crowd over his shoulder as the dance continued.

  And then another new partner, and another, one in dark robes rather than a suit, squeezing my hand so hard, I was afraid he’d break my fingers, the next younger than me, and stepping on the hem of my dress as we ran through an arch made of everyone’s hands. I tried to escape every time we changed partners, but kept getting swept back up. How much longer could this dance go on?

  On the next partner switch, I fell into a set of arms that held me exactly how they were supposed to, if a little closer than normal. The man’s palm wasn’t even sweaty.

  “Looking lovely as usual, kuklachka,” he said in my ear.

  My eyes snapped up to Stellan’s, staring down at me through a gold mask. I fought the instinct to pull away, reminding myself I wanted to find him. If I could pull him off the dance floor, I could signal to Jack and we could get this over with.

  “How are you enjoying the ball?” he said. The dancing and the nerves had riled up my blood too much. My skin prickled when he moved his hand from my waist to the open back of my dress.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said tightly. The crowd formed two lines, and Stellan directed me to the end of one, holding both my hands between us.

  When we came together again, hands above our heads, he said, “One more question.” He leaned close to my ear. “What did you hear earlier?”

  So he had seen me while he was with Madame Dauphin. He pulled me back into a waltz position. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  A lock of blond hair fell over his forehead as he stared down at me. “Who are you?”

  My heart spiked. He didn’t actually know. Just keep playing dumb and I’d be fine. “What do you mean?”

  He tucked a finger under my chin. “I’m going to find out one way or another,” he said. “You may as well tell me now.”

  “I’m not—” He stroked my jaw with his thumb. “Nothing.” I gritted my teeth. “I’m no one. I’m not anything. Stop it.” I twisted my face away, suddenly very aware of the music pounding through my feet like a heartbeat.

  With a grating scrape of metal, Stellan drew his dagger at waist level.

  “I asked you,” he said, in a low, measured voice, “who are you?”

  CHAPTER 31

  What are you doing?” I couldn’t scream. That would draw more attention I didn’t want. “Is pulling a knife on me your answer to everything?”

  He tucked the arm not holding the knife even closer around me and twirled us deftly away from the crowd, making no move to let go when everyone clapped for a partner switch. “Qui êtes-vous, kuklachka?”

  “What?” I looked behind me frantically. We w
ere nearly off the dance floor now. Where was Jack?

  “Quien es? Ni shi shui? Kto ty? Or do you need it in another language?” The dagger shone in the dim light, scrollwork running down the blade like rivulets of blood.

  I pulled away as far as I could. The fabric of my dress strained against his arm, still locked around my waist. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If you won’t tell me, I’ll guess. I guess that you’re a spy.”

  “What?” My eyes snapped back to him. “No!”

  The blade touched my skin. I drew in a sharp breath. He wouldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t.

  “At first I thought you were a spy for the Order, or even one of their assassins, coming after Luc, but Prada proved me wrong. So, a spy for the Saxons?”

  “No!” He thought I was a spy? No wonder he’d been suspicious from the beginning. “I’m just a . . . relative.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  He pressed the dagger hard enough to make a dent in my skin. It rose and fell with my feverish breaths. “You realize someone sent a professional to kill you?” Stellan drew out the word.

  “That was just—”

  “I know Prada wasn’t a mistake, and so do you.” He spun me to an abrupt stop, still holding me close. “And then you run out of the club like an insane person after taking advantage of Luc’s inebriation to get him to tell you who knows what.”

  “I did not take advantage of Luc,” I snapped. Now I knew why he hadn’t told Madame Dauphin anything. He had no idea who I was, and couldn’t afford to be wrong.

  “What would the Circle do if they knew you were threatening a member of another family?” I said, glaring up at him, my fingers digging into the shoulder of his tuxedo jacket. “Let go of me. Now.”

  He stared back, eyes flashing, and, after a few more seconds, dropped the knife from my chest.

  I peeled his arm from my waist, turned, and nearly ran into Jack, who was hurrying toward us as the music faded to a less rowdy number and the dancers dissipated. He gestured with his head and we made our way into the shadows off the dance floor. “What’s going on?” he said. “Did you tell him?”

  I wiped the tiny bead of blood from my chest with shaking fingers. I had entirely forgotten about asking Stellan about Mr. Emerson. “No. He threatened me,” I whispered, and Jack tensed. “It’s okay, I’m fine. I just got sidetracked.”

  I let go of Jack and turned to where Stellan was walking away. “Wait,” I called.

  We caught up with him at a tall cocktail table. “Changed your mind about telling me the truth?” he said to me. “Or have you two come to show me a slide show of the must-see tourist attractions of Istanbul?”

  I stiffened. Jack wasn’t kidding when he said they could track me anywhere. “If you’d given me time to explain before, I would have told you I had a panic attack at the club. I needed some air, but I got lost, and Jack was in Istanbul, so he picked me up.”

  I was proud of the lack of waver in my voice.

  “Istanbul is what we need to talk to you about,” Jack said. I watched for anyone watching us. We were alone. “It’s Fitz. I was on my way to see him when I caught up with Avery, so I brought her with me. But he wasn’t there—it looks like the Order’s taken him.”

  Stellan’s brows inched up.

  “He left pictures of the thr—” Jack paused. “Of you and me, saying that we needed to help him.” I gritted my teeth at the near-slip, but Jack went on. “Do you know why he might have said that?”

  “Of course not.” Stellan pulled his mask off and tossed it onto a table. “Are you seriously telling me Fitz has been kidnapped? Why in the world would the Order take a tutor?”

  “We’re not sure. We were hoping you might have some insight.”

  “Well, I don’t.” He looked between Jack and me, and his eyes narrowed. “What does she have to do with this?”

  My heart rate spiked again. This was exactly what I didn’t want. “I don’t have anything to—”

  I trailed off as a million tiny lights suddenly danced in front of my eyes. Maybe I actually was having a panic attack now.

  But no, people were pointing out of the tower. Of course—the Eiffel Tower light show. It twinkled out over Paris every hour. If I had been a tourist, I definitely would have wanted to come see it, and now we were watching it from the inside.

  “What are you not telling me?” Stellan said.

  “We have some things to show—” Jack started to pull the diary out of his jacket, but Stellan looked over my shoulder. His face hardened, and I put a hand on Jack’s arm. A tall man in a tuxedo was storming across the dance floor toward us. Jack hid the book again.

  “You and the security staff were supposed to keep her home tonight,” the man barked at Stellan, his face and light brown hair blurring with the twinkling lights. “And now she’s off doing God knows what.”

  “Yes, Monsieur Dauphin,” Stellan said, and I looked up sharply. The lights burned into my brain. “Madame was not meant to come tonight. But—”

  “But she does as she wants.” Monsieur Dauphin hit the table with a fist, and I flinched.

  He looked just like Luc, only twice as wide. And ten times as mean. He didn’t look like me. Not even a little bit.

  I touched Jack’s arm, motioning him away. We couldn’t do this now. Monsieur Dauphin’s eyes flicked to me and narrowed. I could see the wheels turning in his head—Madame must have told him her suspicions, too. He said something in French to Stellan, who glanced at me, too.

  I turned, pulling on Jack’s sleeve, and was surprised to see Lydia Saxon headed our way, with a frowning dark-haired boy who must have been her brother, Cole, in tow. And behind them, a man in a masquerade mask. Now Jack was the one who snapped to attention. My hand fell from his arm.

  The lights kept going. Flash, flash, flash. They seemed to get brighter by the second.

  Flash. I turned to Jack, to find his brows a tangle of unreadable emotions. He nodded to the man, who stepped forward, pulling off his mask.

  Flash. The lights flickered faster, or maybe now it really was in my head.

  Flash. I stared, unblinking, unable to move. The man’s face was illuminated by a million tiny bulbs, dark-bright, dark-bright.

  Flash. I couldn’t tear my gaze away, and the man didn’t move either as the edges of my world fell away.

  As I stared into a mirror version of my own eyes.

  CHAPTER 32

  My eyes.

  And not just the same color, like Luc’s. The same everything. Intense, dark violet eyes, set a little too far apart. Rimmed with thick black lashes, bordered by dark brows. The rest of his face was entirely different—the square jawline, the pronounced cheekbones—and if I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed any more resemblance than distant family would be expected to have. But I knew. They were my eyes.

  Lydia stepped up next to him, her hand on his arm. She’d taken off her mask, too. She didn’t have the eye color, but I could see now that her wide-set eyes—and her twin brother’s—were an echo of mine. That was what had bothered me about her. Even behind the mask, I’d seen shades of my own face. Lydia and Cole Saxon. That meant—

  Something drew my gaze down, to Alistair Saxon’s jacket, to the embroidered insignia on a handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket. A compass. Just like Jack’s tattoo, which I had always thought looked familiar. Then I realized when I’d seen it before.

  I was five years old, searching the drawers in my mom’s bedroom for something to play with. In one of them, my locket had rested on top of a sheaf of papers. Letters. Love letters, from what I could read of them. On top of each one, like personalized stationery, a compass had been embossed into the paper.

  My head swiveled between the three of them, and the certainty of it all knocked the breath out of me.

  This man was my fathe
r, and he was also Jack’s boss, Alistair Saxon.

  Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t look at all surprised. Obviously he hadn’t found out just now. Finally, he flicked his eyes to mine, then back to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed.

  Jack had lied. He knew exactly who my father was.

  My father.

  Jack broke the silence that probably only lasted a few seconds but felt like a lifetime. “Sir, this is Avery West. She’s the cousin we found in the States.” He looked pointedly at Stellan and Monsieur Dauphin, who were talking just a few feet away, still shooting glances in our direction.

  Saxon, my father, took a step closer to me. He knew I wasn’t a cousin. I could tell. I could see him confirm it as he recognized me bit by bit. My mom’s button nose and rounded cheeks. His own eyes. His daughter.

  I wondered just how much Jack had lied to me—how much he’d told Saxon. If he knew I was the purple-eyed girl they’d all been waiting for.

  “Yes,” my father said with a bland smile. “Very good. Nice to meet you, young lady.”

  And then he turned away, like he was already bored.

  I staggered like I’d been slapped, and had to grab the back of a chair. The lights outside stopped blinking. My father didn’t bother to look in my direction again.

  So Jack hadn’t told him about my eyes. He didn’t know how powerful I could make him, so he didn’t care that I was his kid. After all that, he was just any old deadbeat dad. Maybe he had a dozen illegitimate children running around, and finding a new one wasn’t a big deal.

  “It’s been a long night, Hugo,” my father said to Monsieur Dauphin. “I know our guest has been staying with you, but I think we’ll take her to our hotel, as we haven’t had a chance to talk—”

  I looked up, a flicker of hope running through me.