Map of Fates (12 page)

I made my way out of the sun and back into the boat's cabin, and I heard Stellan's voice.

“Why don't you tell her anything? You can only keep her in a bubble for so long.”

I stopped, holding the door so it wouldn't slam and give me away.

Something banged on the counter. “I'm keeping her safe.” It was Jack. “You know what the Circle can do to people.”

“I do. That's why you shouldn't keep things from her. Let her make her own decisions.”

“I don't recall asking for your opinion.”

“You used to.” Stellan's voice was mock wistful. “Remember those days when we were in things together?”

“No.” I heard the refrigerator close and footsteps recede.

“I'm just saying,” Stellan called, “If you're not careful, she's going to realize she has other options. You see how they all look at her. It's not even just the eyes. She's so
little
and
pretty.
It's like blood in the water.”

A cabinet door banged shut so loudly, I jumped.

“I said
they,
” said Stellan, but it was obvious he was goading Jack on purpose. “This is just business for me. A business transaction with historically wide-reaching political, moral, and personal implications. The usual.”

“Would you please stop talking?”

“Only saying you don't have to worry. Wide-eyed innocent isn't my type. I wouldn't touch your not-girlfriend.” Stellan paused, and I could hear a grin in his voice when he said, “Unless she asked me to.”

Okay, enough.

I made a show of slamming the door and clomping loudly down the stairs, and not a moment too soon. Jack looked ready to punch him. “Elodie was talking earlier about getting dressed up for dinner,” I said, so cheerful I'm sure I sounded fake. “Are we stopping somewhere?”

Jack shot one more glare at Stellan, who sat at the dining table, his legs stretched out along the booth on one side, a laptop open in front of him.

“I assume Elodie wants to do a formal dinner on the boat. She loves family dinners,” Stellan said. “We don't get to do it that often.”

The sun was starting to set, and as I watched, the strings of white lights flickered to life out on the deck. Elodie appeared, still in her bathing suit, holding an armload of flowers and candles that she plunked down on the long table in the outdoor dining room. Colette flitted in after her, with napkins and silverware.

I squeezed Jack's arm. “Let's go help,” I said, and pulled him outside. I wondered what Stellan had been talking about.

“Wait.” Jack stopped me in the breezeway. He chewed his lower lip. “Oliver Saxon was Lydia and Cole's older brother. He was killed in an accident two years ago.”

I froze. “What?”

Jack tugged on the sleeve of his T-shirt, obviously uncomfortable.

“The oldest son of the Saxon family was killed?” I repeated. “Does that not sound exactly like what's going on now?”

“It was a freak accident. I don't think it has anything to do with the current attacks, which is why I didn't tell you. No need for extra worries.” An unconvincing smile touched his lips. “Shall we go help Elodie with dinner?”

I nodded and followed him slowly, trying to picture the half brother I'd never know.

T
he next morning, we woke up docked outside Delphi. The cries of seagulls and the light metallic ting of ropes hanging off the sailboats bobbing alongside our yacht normally would have been calming, but I was too tense to even eat breakfast. The bracelet
had
to be here, or we were finished.

We headed inland, where the air was arid and hot. I'd imagined Greece green and tropical, but the part of the country near Delphi wasn't like that at all. Gnarled shrubbery and rocky outcroppings gave way to spring grass dotted with modestly sized pines and olive trees, with sage green leaves and twisted trunks straight out of a fairy tale. Towns dotted the hillsides, all whitewashed walls and red roofs.

At the Oracle site, I thought there'd be a single temple, but built into the dramatic hillside were ruins of several temples and a large amphitheater. We had a way bigger area to search than I'd anticipated.

When we got out of the cab, Stellan touched my arm. “There's a car that looked like it was tailing us,” he murmured. “Stay close.”

I cursed under my breath. It wouldn't be my father's people, so if someone was following us now, it was the Order. “Luc?” I said. He was ahead of us, standing in the shade of an olive tree with Jack.

“I told him, too. He'll be careful.”

I glanced over my shoulder, but all I saw was a tour bus with a stream of elderly people climbing on. “Let's go, then.”

Colette and Elodie had already gone one way, toward a circular temple with just a few columns still standing that seemed to be on all the tourist brochures. The rest of us spread out around the main temples. Stellan stuck close to Luc, and they headed up the hill to an amphitheater, while Jack and I scrambled down a fall of white stones gone gray with age and onto the foundation of a mostly destroyed structure.

The temple was fenced off with a single rope running along the edge of the path. Since there was no one else around, we stepped over it. Spears of bright green grass pierced the stone, like the earth thought the temple was part of it now, after all these years. It was eerily quiet. I glanced back toward the parking lot before kneeling down and inspecting one of the columns. “Where would he have hidden a bracelet? This place is huge.”

“I would assume one of two possibilities,” Jack said. “He could have buried it, in which case we're looking for a marker or the entrance to a tunnel. Or he could have hidden it inside something. A secret space in one of these columns, maybe?”

We combed every inch of the temple. I crawled between stones, dirtying the knees of my jeans, looking with my hands as much as my eyes for anything that seemed out of place. The whole time, I watched for anyone coming too close. A couple with a baby walked by once, and another time I thought a couple guys in touristy Greece T-shirts may have been watching us from a nearby path, but they stayed a good distance away. Maybe Stellan had been wrong about the car.

Finally, I sat back on my heels and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. “I haven't seen anywhere it looks like we should dig.”

Jack sat on part of the stone wall. “Agreed.”

“Hello!” came a voice from above. I shielded my eyes against the scorching midday sun to see Luc at the next level up, waving happily. “Any luck?”

“No,” I called. I peered off across the site, at another temple just past a wide stone amphitheater, and saw movement. One of the guys in the tourist T-shirts had just ducked behind a scrubby tree, closer now.

“Did you see that?” I said.

Jack stood up, on automatic alert. “What?”

“Some guys have been watching us. One of them just hid when I looked at him.”

Jack's brow crinkled, and he stepped in front of me protectively.

I looked behind us. “Luc!” I gestured for him to get down. He was about as exposed as possible, standing on that ledge.

“Come up here and look before we go,” Luc called back. “I see baby goats in a field!”

“Luc!” I repeated, gesturing frantically. Jack clambered up the rocks toward him, and I followed, but Stellan must have heard the fear in my voice, because he suddenly appeared, bundling Luc away. Jack climbed over the cliff ahead of me and reached back to pull me up, but I hesitated, peering at where the guy had gone. I didn't see him anymore.

“Avery!” Jack said, and I let him help me up the rocks and behind some columns.

“What did you see?” Stellan said quietly.

“These two guys. I swear they've been watching us.” I peered out again, but besides a tour group led by an older lady carrying a yellow flag, I didn't see anybody. “Maybe I'm just going crazy. Did
you
see anything?”

Jack shook his head, and Stellan did, too.

I sat back against a broken column and realized I'd ripped the knee of my jeans scrambling up the hill. “Let's move on, then. Just be careful.”

But ever since Stellan had mentioned the car following us, something besides fear of the Order had been building in the back of my mind. What if we
didn't
find anything here, or it wasn't enough? I'd be back to either marrying someone or going on the run, neither of which was conducive to helping my mom. I knew the Order were dangerous, but if I confronted one of them face-to-face, there was a chance I could get information out of them. And if that was my only option? I'd do it in a second.

Just then, all our phones buzzed with a text from Elodie.
We found something. Round temple.

• • •

Unlike where we'd just been, the temple Colette and Elodie were waiting at was full of people, so the six of us huddled at its edge, waiting for the crowd to thin. “It's that symbol from your necklace,” Colette said. “It's there, on a brick.”

It was all I could do not to shove a bunch of little kids out of the way and run straight for it. When the temple area emptied out, we gathered around a partial wall off the main circular pedestal. Sure enough, the symbol was carved into a weathered stone.

“And this,” Elodie said, pointing two bricks up. It was more eroded than the symbol, but it looked like writing, in French.

Jack translated, “
To learn the secrets my twin and I hold, look where he looks. Those who gave all hold the key.
”

“That sounds like the clue on the first bracelet.” I looked down at my arm. I had its inscription memorized.
He watches over our lady, above the sacred site. Where he looks, it will be found. When it is found, my twin and I will reveal all, only to the true.
“This one says ‘where he looks,' too. That was the clue we used to find the diary.”

“It makes sense the clues would have parallels,” Elodie said.

“Wait,” Stellan interrupted. “It says ‘my twin and I,' like it's from the perspective of the other bracelet. It could be around here somewhere.”

I kneeled in the dirt. “Like maybe buried?”

“Or behind one of these bricks.” Luc tapped on the edge of the one with the inscription.

Elodie glanced behind us and, seeing no one paying attention, pulled a chisel and a small hammer out of her bag. While she chipped away at the mortar surrounding the brick, Jack joined me in brushing dirt from the base of the wall, looking for anything out of place.

After a few minutes, Luc said, “
Merde.
Someone's seen us.”

I peered over the wall to see a middle-aged site employee in a black uniform striding purposefully toward us.

“Everyone get away from here,” Elodie said, putting her tools in her bag as she stood up. “
Casually.
”

I grabbed Jack's hand, and we wandered away down the hill, pointing into the distance and chatting like ordinary tourists. I glanced back to see Luc and Stellan going the other way. And Colette and Elodie stayed put, heading off the park employee with flirtatious smiles and a barrage of questions. I saw him try to put them off and
keep the rest of us in his sights, but after a second of indecision and a glance around the area to see that things looked okay, he let Colette lead him back toward the main temples.

I stopped Jack and waited until Colette and the guy were out of sight. Up the hill, Elodie was doing the same thing. Then she made her way back to the symbol. Jack and I followed, and I could see Stellan and Luc heading back from up the rocky hillside, weaving between another screaming group of kids.

“I don't know that there's anything behind here,” Elodie said. “If the brick had been taken out and replaced, I probably would have broken through the mortar by now.”

“What about the other bricks?” I said. “Like the one with the symbol?”

Elodie set to chiseling—and almost immediately, there was a cracking noise. She looked up, excited, and tapped at the other three sides. As Luc and Stellan got back to our spot, she was prying the mortar out of the wall with dirt-crusted fingernails.

Finally, I grabbed one side of the brick, and Elodie held the other. I held my breath, and we pulled.

The brick came tumbling out of the wall. We dropped it on the ground, and I fell to my knees, brushing away bits of dried grass and dirt. Behind the brick was a slim, dark hollow. I hesitated for a second, but pushed aside thoughts of spiders and thrust my hand inside.

It was cool and dry—and empty.

I sat back on my heels, brushing dirt from my hands. “There's nothing in here.”

Elodie felt inside, too, and shook her head.

I felt like screaming. “It
had
to be there,” I said. I yanked the chisel away from Elodie and tried to chip at another brick, but my
sweaty fingers slipped on the metal and I nicked the side of my hand instead. I threw the tools to the ground with a curse and sucked on my bleeding finger.

“Wait,” Jack said. “There's a museum here. What if they found it and moved it there?”

I pushed back the strands of hair clinging to my face. “There's a
museum
?”

Moments later, we were making our way back down the mountain. I was trying to force myself to calm down. And then I stopped, and Jack came to a halt, too. “That's them again,” I said, staring at the backs of two white T-shirts, one of which had a map of the Delphi site printed on it. “The guys I saw earlier.”

“They're probably just tourists,” Jack said, but I saw his hand drift to his waistband, where I knew he had a gun hidden.

“Did you see how the one just turned around when I saw him so I couldn't get a look at his face?” It was crazy, but—“What if they're Order?”

“Then we should all get to the car.” Jack put a protective hand on my arm.

I shook it off. “You should get
Luc
to the car. They've already had the chance to kill me, and they haven't. If they want to kidnap me, they wouldn't be able to do it from a public place.” The idea wouldn't get out of my head. “If they are Order . . . what if they know something? What if they know where my
mom
is?”

“Avery . . .” Jack's voice was a warning.

I felt around in my bag. I had my knife. I thought I was being calm and collected about this, but after hearing my mom's voice yesterday, and knowing that I now only had
three days
to save her . . .

I watched the guy's blue baseball cap bob through the crowd and
remembered all the times the Order had tried to kill me and Jack. Shooting at us on Mr. Emerson's balcony. Cornering us at a market in Istanbul. Chasing us through the Louvre.

My hand tightened around my knife. I knew I wasn't any good at fighting with it. Trying to chase a trained killer probably wouldn't end well. And if I was wrong, and they did want to hurt me—

At the temple just below, both the guys had stopped. Next to them were two families. Two women and some little kids. Delphi T-shirt guy ruffled the blond curls on one of their heads.

I let out a breath through pursed lips. “Tourists,” I said under my breath. “Just tourists.”

Subdued, we kept going toward the museum.

• • •

Colette had beaten us there. “It's a small collection,” she said. “I've already looked. There's nothing like the bracelet there.”

“We should ask someone,” Stellan said, and flagged down a docent, describing what we were looking for.

“Actually,” said the woman, “we did have an item like that, years back, when I first started work here. A gold bracelet.”

My heart leaped, and I grabbed Jack's hand. The woman glanced my way, and suddenly, I remembered the matching gold bracelet on my own arm. I surreptitiously slipped it off and into my bag, and luckily, the docent didn't see.

“It was very mysterious,” she continued. “It wasn't an ancient piece, so it must have been placed here at Delphi more recently. Then one of our archaeologists associated it with Napoleon Bonaparte, of all people. And almost immediately, it was taken from us back to France and is now in a private collection.”