The Conspiracy of Us Read online

  “Nonsense,” Monsieur Dauphin cut him off. “It’s nearly midnight. Isn’t most of your family staying with us anyway? Sort it out in the morning. Speaking of, have you seen my wife? The headstrong . . .” He broke off, muttering under his breath.

  My father glanced at me, then at Jack, and the hope coiled inside me like a spring. Then he gave a noncommittal shrug. “Yes. Fine. Lovely.”

  The spring snapped. My hand fluttered up to my chest, like I was trying to hold in the bits of shattered heart leaking out. My father knew I existed, and he didn’t care a bit.

  I really, really didn’t want to cry in front of him. “I’m ready to go now,” I said quietly. My voice didn’t even hitch.

  Jack stepped forward. “I’ll take you—”

  “No.” I jerked away. My breath rattled in my chest. “Somebody else is probably going back anyway.”

  “I am.”

  I closed my eyes as Stellan stepped up beside me. Which was the lesser of the two evils?

  Jack had lied to me. I’d asked him over and over about my father. He knew exactly how much this meant to me. I’d told him embarrassingly personal things. And he knew his own employer was my father, and he didn’t tell me. The betrayal burned through my blood like acid.

  And yes, Stellan was supposed to interrogate me, but now that I’d met the Saxons and Jack knew Madame Dauphin’s plan, he couldn’t lock me up and throw away the key. Plus, it looked like there was no way I was ending up anywhere but the Dauphins’ tonight.

  I didn’t look at Jack or my father as I followed Stellan out of the ball and rode silently in the elevator to the ground floor.

  Thank you, world, for reminding me again exactly why I never let myself care.

  We made our way to a line of waiting long black cars, and I stared up at the glowing tower, stretching nearly a thousand brilliant feet into the gray-and-purple night.

  Stellan watched me. “What is your story, kuklachka?” he finally said.

  I blinked, and the orange glow of the Eiffel Tower blurred into watercolor.

  • • •

  Stellan stopped in front of my room.

  “So,” he said. “You tell me you’re no one, then almost get killed at a boutique, run away from a club in Istanbul, and now you’re crying in a ball gown. You’re sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” My voice came out in a rasp. “You really don’t believe me?”

  Stellan unlocked the door to my room. “I learned long ago that I’m the only person I can trust, so no. I don’t believe you. I just can’t figure out what you’re trying to cover up.”

  I pushed past him. “And I can’t figure out why you’re so temperamental. You were threatening to kill me a couple of hours ago, and now you’re pretending to be friendly.”

  Stellan followed me into the room. “If I was actually threatening to kill you, you’d be dead.”

  “I’m going to sleep. Please leave.” I stalked to the bathroom.

  In the mirror, Stellan came into view and leaned against the doorframe. I turned on the sink and washed my hands.

  “You know, spies are usually good liars. So are pretty girls,” he said.

  I tossed the lavender soap into the soap dish so hard, it bounced out and slithered to the bottom of the sink. I whirled on him.

  “Really?” The water dripped down my forearms, and I grabbed a towel. “Sometimes I can’t tell whether you’re trying to interrogate me, or kill me, or sleep with me.” I snapped my mouth shut and felt my whole body flush.

  The corner of his mouth crooked up. “To be honest, I can’t quite decide either.”

  “Get out.”

  Slowly, he pushed off the doorframe, blocking my way out. “You know, if you were a spy, I’d be impressed. Nothing hotter than a talented girl. I mean, I’d have to kill you. But before I did—”

  “Go. Away.” The tears were building behind my eyes again, frustration and exhaustion and bone-deep sadness. I threw the towel on the sink and swiped at my face with the back of my hand. “Seriously, go away.”

  Stellan studied me. “What is it that’s upsetting you so much? Prada?”

  I suddenly thought of that first morning, before Prada, when I was wearing nothing but a robe and my biggest problem was trying to forget how attractive Stellan was. It seemed like another lifetime.

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just want you to leave so I can sleep.” I had to brush against him to get through the doorway, and he blocked my way with one hand.

  “You’re rubbing your eyes a lot for someone who’s fine,” he said, not entirely unkindly. His hand was warm on my hip.

  The tears swam even closer to the surface. I forced them back by sheer will and pushed the rest of the way past. “I’m fine. My contacts itch, that’s all.”

  There was a pause. “You wear contact lenses?”

  I felt the scowl drop off my face. Oh God. I forced myself to turn and glare at him again, but I couldn’t cover the beat of hesitation. “I have really bad vision.”

  He pursed his lips, and there was a knock on the door. Elodie stuck her head in and said something to Stellan in French without even a glance at me.

  Stellan sighed. “It appears I’m needed. Sleep well, little doll. There will be guards outside to make sure nothing happens to you overnight.”

  I covered my sigh of relief with a yawn. I could only hope that another purple-eyed girl was so far out of the realm of possibility that he wouldn’t connect my contacts to his suspicions.

  He made no show of hurrying, and I shoved him the rest of the way out with the door. I closed it behind him, locked it, and rested my forehead against the cool wood while I listened to the two sets of footsteps retreat down the hall.

  I collapsed onto the blue velvet comforter, the fabric of my dress crinkling under me.

  I lay there for a second before I pulled out my phone and called my mom again. Nothing.

  I put the phone back in my bag and dug around for my locket. I set the Prada necklace on the bedside table and tied the two ends of my locket’s broken clasp around my neck, then buried my face in the comforter. I felt about a hundred years older than I had a few days ago. I knew so many things I’d never wanted to know. And at the same time, I felt like a little kid. So much less sure of the world, of myself, of everything.

  My father didn’t care about me. Pretty soon I was going to have to accept that my mom was actually missing. And Jack had lied. I trusted him—I finally trusted him—and he lied. After everything we’d been through. I didn’t even know what that meant. When had he told Saxon? Did they have some kind of plan that involved keeping me in the dark? It didn’t seem like my father cared enough to have a plan like that.

  I rolled over to my back and stared up at the canopy above the bed.

  It felt so trivial to be sad about a boy right now. Jack lying to me shouldn’t hurt so much, especially compared with everything else. Like Mr. Emerson. I reached into my bag again and found the piece of paper with the Order’s phone number on it. Ironically, I’d written it on the back of the sketch of Jack’s tattoo I’d done in Ancient Civ that day. I traced the drawing with one finger. I almost wished I had a compass tattooed on me right now. I could use some direction.

  With a start, I realized I could get one on my seventeenth birthday if I wanted. I was a Saxon.

  I shook my head. We only had about twelve hours until the Order’s deadline. I flipped the paper back over and stared at the phone number until my eyes crossed. We were at a dead end with the clues. Maybe my father could help us find the Order and take Mr. Emerson back by force, if I could get him to care enough about me to go to the trouble.

  I rolled off the bed and crossed the room to the window. Should I suck it up and call Jack and have him get Saxon to start a search? I really, really didn’t want to talk to him ri
ght now.

  I slid the window open, letting the smell of the storm that had been threatening all afternoon wash over me. A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and I leaned on the window frame and looked out over the Louvre courtyard.

  “There you are,” said a deep voice next to me.

  I whipped around. There on the balcony, leaning against the wall outside my window, was Jack.

  CHAPTER 33

  What are you doing here?” I demanded. It came out part angry, part relieved, a lot worried.

  He scrambled to his feet. “Please let me explain.”

  “Coming to my room in the middle of the night? Are you crazy?” I whispered, pointing at the bedroom door and putting my finger to my lips. I kicked off my shoes and climbed out the window onto the thin balcony. I refused Jack’s hand when he held it out to help, and I eased the window closed behind me.

  I stared him down. “Why did you lie to me?” The breeze flapped my dress.

  “Avery, I’m so sorry.” And he looked it. He looked as broken as I felt, from his pleading eyes to the loose bow tie around his neck, obviously forgotten. “I was wrong. I was going to tell you, so many times.”

  “How long have you known?”

  I could tell he wanted to avert his eyes, but he didn’t. “Since Prada. It’s not exactly that you look like him, but I could see it, once I realized your father had to be one of the twelve.”

  I swallowed. “So you and the Saxons were just stringing me along that whole time? Why?”

  “He didn’t know until tonight.”

  “What?” I looked up, my eyes swimming.

  “He found out at the ball, and it wasn’t me who told him,” Jack went on. “Lydia figured it out. She recognized you somehow.”

  Just like I’d recognized her. She looked like my sister. I still hadn’t processed that.

  I crossed to the railing. Even though the museum was long closed, people still milled around the square below, taking photos of the pyramid gleaming against the softer lights on the Louvre’s stone facade.

  “It was never my intention to hurt you,” Jack said quietly. “Trust me on that.”

  “I can’t!” I whirled around. “That’s the point. I can’t trust you. You knew how much this meant to me, and you lied over and over about having no idea who he was.”

  He paced a few steps down the balcony. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to know what Fitz meant before I let you walk into something dangerous. Or because you might run. Or . . . I don’t know. I should have told you.” His dark hair flopped onto his forehead, like even it felt defeated. “I thought it would be better for everyone if I told you when you were in the same place and let you approach him yourself. We were so busy, the ball was the first opportunity.”

  That was what he’d been about to say before Lydia interrupted us, I realized. “And what if I hadn’t wanted to talk to him?”

  “I was going to let you leave.”

  “You would have let me get away again? They’d kill you for that. Especially if they found out you knew who I really was,” I said, half jokingly, looking at the spot on his arm where I knew his tattoo was. Beautiful. Deadly.

  “I know,” he said, not jokingly at all.

  I leaned on the railing, not sure whether he was making me feel better or worse. “You can’t say things like this, then do something completely different and expect me to believe you. To trust you.”

  If I shattered one more time, I might not be able to put the pieces back together.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Jack said again, quietly. “That’s what I came here to say.” He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out an envelope with my name on it. “Saxon wrote you this. It was my excuse for coming to see you.”

  Avery,

  I understand this is a shock. It is one for me, too, but a welcome one. I wish I could speak with you tonight, but I think it’s best not to arouse unnecessary suspicion. I’ll come get you in the morning. Security at the Dauphins’ is tight—you’ll be safe.

  Best, Alistair Saxon

  I read the note again. “So does he want to marry me off to somebody in the morning?”

  Jack shook his head. “He doesn’t know about the purple eyes. I should have told him, but I wanted you to at least be able to do that yourself.”

  I held the note so hard, it crumpled between my fingers. I turned back to Jack, who was rubbing the back of his neck uneasily.

  “Why couldn’t you have told me?” I said again. My voice cracked.

  The confusion, the uncertainty, the relief still flowing through me at seeing Jack. The euphoric jump in my heart knowing that my father did care. The sound of the killer’s head hitting the floor at Prada. The last thing I said to my mom—a lie about how I’d stay home from prom and pack.

  I was falling. Falling, falling, falling. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob that escaped anyway.

  Jack’s jaw clenched, and he crossed the balcony in one stride.

  He folded me into his arms.

  I pushed him away, but he didn’t let me. He tucked me under his chin and wrapped his arms around me tight. And then I crumbled. I clung to him with everything I had, handfuls of his shirt balled up in my fists, sobbing the huge, choking sobs I’d been holding back for days.

  It felt like the tears would never stop.

  Jack held me close, and I felt his heart beat and his chest rise and fall under my cheek, and breathed in the inexplicable, musky sweetness of his skin—apples, I decided through the haze of tears. He smelled like fall, like autumn sun and ripe apples. Finally, I felt my shoulders relax and the sobs taper off.

  I nuzzled my head into his chest and he tangled his fingers in my hair. “Sorry,” I whispered, but that wasn’t the right thing to say. “Thanks,” I said, but that wasn’t quite right either. I pulled away an inch and stared at his chest, where my tears had left a wet, mascarasmeared blotch.

  “I can’t betray the Saxons and the Circle,” he murmured into the top of my head. “But I can’t—I won’t—betray you, either. I promise.”

  Hearing him say it felt like standing on the edge of a threshold we’d been dancing around since we met.

  “Are those two things mutually exclusive?” I whispered.

  “I hope not,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to wish I could run my fingers through his hair again, to touch a new cut on his cheek. I didn’t want to forgive him, but I did want to, so badly.

  “You didn’t leave me,” I said. I ran a fingertip around a button on his shirt, not meeting his eyes. “You didn’t leave me and save yourself on Mr. Emerson’s balcony. You didn’t turn me in to make things easier. You didn’t leave me alone tonight, even though you knew I’d be mad at you.” I swallowed back a lump in my throat.

  His fingers paused in stroking my hair. “Of course I didn’t.”

  However misguided it was, Jack had done what he’d done to protect me. How was it possible that in a tug-of-war for his loyalty between the Saxons—his only family for years—and me, I was winning?

  I finally disentangled myself from his arms. My hands lingered under his tuxedo jacket, palms grazing down his sides, his starched white shirt crinkling under my fingertips.

  He drew in a sharp breath that sent a flutter through me. His gaze skimmed the curves of my silver Prada dress. It really was the color of his eyes. Moonlight and storms.

  I pulled my hands away and sat cross-legged, my dress spread out around me on the balcony. I wiped my cheeks with the heels of my hands, and the quickening breeze dried them the rest of the way. The storm really seemed to be moving in now. Jack slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and draped it around my shoulders before he sat down, too.

  “Did you tell my—Saxon about anything else? Mr. Emerson or the clues or any
thing?”

  “I told him about Fitz being gone, but that’s all for now. He’s agreed to get someone in intelligence asking around right away. We can get him looking for your mom, too, if you’re still not able to reach her.”

  A weight lifted off my chest. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower’s hourly golden light show twinkled again against the clouds.

  “Am I like him?” The words came out before I realized I was thinking them.

  Jack kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. “If anything, it’s like two sides of the same coin,” he said. “You both have this sparkle in your eyes. But his is . . . I don’t know. Darker? Yours is light.”

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “Cheesy lines aren’t going to make me forget I was mad at you.”

  “I’m not trying—”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  I wondered if Jack meant it when he said kissing had made things worse. Or whether he had meant it, but what he’d said and done tonight meant he didn’t care. Or whether he was here to be a good friend and that was all. I wondered if he was thinking about my hands on him as much as I was thinking about his hands on me.

  Jack cleared his throat. “My second day in Lakehaven,” he said. “It was a Monday.”

  Lightning lit the whole sky to daylight. I looked up at him expectantly, but he kept his eyes on the skyline.

  “That was when I stopped watching you just because it was my job,” he said.

  I dug my nails into my palms. I guess I had my answer.

  “The Saxons don’t always pick me to go on recon missions like this, but they needed someone who would fit in at a school. I had this picture of you, and I thought it might be hard to find you, but the whole school was walking in one direction, and there you were, walking the other way, all by yourself, to sit outside and read. You fascinated me.”

  I stared at him. “Because I didn’t have friends to sit with at lunch?”

  His mouth crooked up. “Everyone with the Circle . . . they do what they’re told. I do what I’m told. I know it probably sounds mad to you, but I’d never thought of doing anything else. And there you were, doing what you wanted.”