The Conspiracy of Us (10 page)

“Sure, a little,” he said.

I was surprised into silence for a second. “But she looks hot doing it, so it's okay?”

“I suppose she does, but that's not the point. It's true she'll have an easier time getting in than I would, but Elodie's doing this job mostly because she knows more about art
and
bypassing difficult security systems than anyone else in our family.”

“Really?” I looked for signs he was joking.

He just smirked. “Who's being sexist now?”

At that moment, Luc swept back in between us and clapped his hands. “On with our evening?”

Stellan stood. “I'll be patrolling.” He shot a lingering glance at me, and I watched him disappear into the crowd again.

Luc offered his arm, and I slid off the bar stool. He spotted someone across the club and waved enthusiastically. “Liam and Colette are here,” he said, dragging me through the crowd toward the half-moon bar bordering the dance floor. Behind it, glowing magenta waterfalls hid nooks carved out of the wall, and behind each waterfall, a girl danced in silhouette, dry-ice steam rising at her feet.

“You said Elodie's looking for a new clue to the mandate?” I yelled as I followed him.

“For deciphering the lines about the One. You know.” He waved a hand in the air as he steered us around a couple making out to a techno remix of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

As in,
the rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes.
“What exactly do you mean, deciphering?” I called hesitantly, because I
didn't
know, and even if I was planning to escape, it'd be nice to learn what my fate was supposed to be.

Luc turned and jerked me to a halt in the middle of the dance floor. His brows arched practically to his hairline, and with his light brown hair styled in an exuberant bouffant, he looked like an anime character. “You don't know?”

Uh-oh. “I just—I haven't really been around—”

“Does that mean you don't know about the mandate at
all
?”

I thought about lying, but that wouldn't do me any good. I shook my head. “Just a tiny bit. My mom wouldn't tell me anything.”

We stared at each other for a tense second, then Luc smiled the smile of someone letting a few drinks take the edge off his worries. He wagged a finger down at me. “Don't let anyone hear you talking like that,
cherie.
It's odd for
anyone
in the Circle to be so uninformed. But I understand your predicament.”

I exhaled.

He took my arm again. “We're trying to decipher the mandate because we're looking for something. Something very important.”

He pulled me to a stop and his eyes danced, daring me to ask.

“What is it you're looking for?” I said.

He paused dramatically, then leaned close to my ear. “Treasure.”

I
pulled away and frowned. That was what Stellan had said on the plane. But I thought he'd been joking. “Treasure?” I said skeptically.

“Treasure!” Luc threw his arms wide, face raised to the disco ball. “Wealth! Power!” He twirled, circling behind me, and whispered, “Death.”

I whipped around. Luc laughed out loud, reading the surprise on my face. The low light threw the angles of his face into sharp relief. “And it's the Circle's birthright, what with it being in the tomb of our predecessor.”

“Who is . . . ?” I could tell he was waiting for me to ask.

“Alexander the Great, of course! In his tomb is everything that made him who he was. It'll make the Circle that much more powerful, and the families of the union infinitely so.” He grinned and tapped the end of my nose. “It's so deliciously odd that you don't know this,
cherie.
Your adorable little face is priceless right now.”

Luc swooped my hand up and held me formally, like we were waltzing at a garden party instead of to trance music at a club. “Liam and Lettie can wait for a minute. I see you have more questions.”

“So the mandate's like a worldwide treasure hunt for the tomb of Alexander the Great?” I said, keeping up with his steps to this unwaltzable music, in these ridiculous heels.
One
two three
one
two three.

“Yes and no.” Luc twirled me. “The mandate is like a prophecy. It comes from an ancient book the Circle has had for ages—the Book of Mandates. It's a series of predictions. Many of them have come true. ‘By the follies of one and the loyalties of the rest will the world burn a second time.' That'd be World War Two. There was one about World War One. The Crusades. They've been accurate all through history. This one talks about the union between ‘the rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes.' That's the most important line, anyway. And now that there's going to be a girl with violet eyes—my baby sister—we're just figuring out who the
rightful One
is.”

Someone bumped me from behind and sent me careening into Luc. “Sorry,” I said. My throat was starting to hurt from yelling over the music. “What do you mean, figuring out?”

Luc brought my arms around his thin neck, and my forearms glowed green from his neon necklace. “The language on who the One is, or which family he comes from, is vague, but it's believed that only the
rightful
One—the single correct person—will trigger the prophecy's fulfillment. The Book of Mandates is the main source of the predictions, but there were other writings of the Oracles that got lost over time and never made it in, and they've been found all over the world—in museums, or at archaeological digs, or in family memorabilia—all throughout history. We're hoping to find something that gives us more specifics on the One. And if we don't, since we have the girl, my family will choose the One for the union ourselves and hope for the best. So, to make a long story short and answer your original question, Elodie is seeking something more about the mandate.”

It made me feel a tiny bit better to know they still had to find something else before using the girl. “And the treasure in the tomb is more than money?”

When the next song started, they turned on a black light. Luc gave me a wide grin, and his teeth gleamed like a Halloween decoration. “Much more,” he said. “The mandate says it will make whoever has it
invincible.
”

That tugged at my brain, and I remembered our Ancient Civ reading from last week. It was hard to believe that class, where Jack had covered for me, was only yesterday. It felt a million years away from designer dresses and ancient prophecies.

The section about the Diadochi I'd forgotten that day said something about invincibility. Our book referenced a prophecy from an oracle saying that whichever of the Diadochi—Alexander's successors—was in possession of his body would never be conquered. They'd be
invincible.
Vying for his body—and his tomb—was the cause of centuries of war between the Diadochi.

“Wait wait wait,” I said. “The Circle are the
Diadochi
? Alexander's successors?” The most powerful people in the world two thousand years ago had descendants who were secretly the world's most powerful people
today
? And the prophecy we'd learned about in history class was part of the Circle's mandate? No wonder Jack had known how to answer Mrs. Lindley's question.

“Smart girl!” Luc patted me on the head like a dog learning a new trick. “Where do you think the word for
twelve
comes from in so many languages?
Dodici
—‘twelve' in Italian.
Duodecim. Doce. Dodeka.
Sound like Diadochi, right?”

“Oh wow,” I whispered.

Luc grinned wider. “Then you'll really be impressed with this. The twelve months of the calendar. Inches in a foot. Hours in a day. Zodiac symbols. The ‘twelve' aspects of those all came into being around 300 BC, just around when the Diadochi took over.”

I glanced around the club. I couldn't believe he was saying all this so openly, so loudly, in such a public place. Someone could overhear. But so what if they did? No one would believe it.
I
barely believed it.

“So the Order's after the treasure, too?” I said, because the rest of this was too much to contemplate.

“Again, yes and no. They want the riches in the tomb, yes. But besides wealth and power, the tomb is also rumored to contain a weapon. The mandate says it's so powerful that it will ‘vanquish the greatest enemies.'”

Like Jack had said at Prada.

“And so they want the treasure
and
to keep this mysterious weapon from the Circle.” I was starting to get it now. “What is the stuff about the Order attacking the Circle?”

Luc's arms tightened around my waist. “The newest assassination yesterday—the oldest son of the head of the Sony Corporation in Japan, in that awful hotel fire? Horrible.”

Assassination?

“And the Russian prime minister's son. I did not know Sergei well, but the plane crash was a tragedy. Malik Emir's death, too. He was a good man. A friend.” Luc's eyes glinted. “I hate that the whole world thinks it was just militants killing an unimportant Saudi prince.”

Something about the death of a Saudi prince had been on the news last time I was at home, right before my mom told me about the new mandate. “You
knew
him?” We were barely dancing now, swaying just enough to not stand still. We'd ended up just below a stage, and a mass of arms waved above us. I suddenly felt very small. “The Order killed him?”

Luc nodded. “Since we don't know who the One is, the Order is trying to take out anyone that could be him.”

That's why he had said at Prada that the Order could have been after
him.
“So is everyone in every family a possibility? Are they planning to kill them all one by one?”

“I suppose any male member of the families is a possibility. Like any act of terrorism, it's partially a scare tactic,” he said. “And partially blackmail. If we agree not to carry out the union, they stop killing us.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“I know,” Luc said. He untwisted my arms from around his neck and led us away from the ever-more-crowded center of the dance floor. “And of course we can't allow the news to report it as anything more than accidents.”

“Yeah,” I said vaguely. The fact that they could dictate what the news covered hardly surprised me.

“It appears the Order is going to more effort now because of my mother's pregnancy,” Luc continued over his shoulder. “We hoped they wouldn't learn that one of the twins is a girl, but it's leaked.”

Maybe they learned about it the same way they learned about me, however that was. If they were going to that much trouble to kill people who might
possibly
be the One, they wouldn't let
me
go for sure. My dress, or my skin, suddenly felt too tight. I watched the revelers around us out of the corner of my eye. So it was true. Both these groups who started wars and assassinated world leaders had very good reasons to want
me.

I found myself looking around for Stellan. Because I was afraid of him, or because I was afraid of everyone else, I wasn't sure.

Luc grabbed a neon-blue drink off a waitress's tray. “Now do you understand why I'm not mourning a couple of dead Order members?”

Disturbingly, I kind of did. And I was starting to think more and more that maybe hiding out for an extra few hours on the street was better than staying here waiting for the Order to find me, or for the Dauphins to figure me out.

I glanced around for an exit, but Luc took my hand. “Let's not talk about it anymore.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I'm tired of it, love. Let's have fun.” His grin looked more forced than it had earlier.

I studied the layout of the club again as we made our way across the dance floor. There were the front doors we'd come in through, and another door nearby that seemed to lead to the back of the club. When we got to the bar, Luc let go of me.

“Did you see we got Clancy Campbell?” someone with an American accent said.

“Yeah, yeah. We've got our eye on a thirteen-year-old from Brazil,” said Luc. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luc shake hands with the guy and clap him on the back.

I leaned on the bar, pressing my palms to the cool, glossy surface. Breathe. Think. I didn't see any immediate threat. I shouldn't run off yet. A steaming pink trough ran down the center of the bar, and I passed my fingers over the dry ice, letting the cold pull me out of my head.

“That's not going to win you Champions this year,” the American guy said.

Luc chuckled stiffly. “Want to bet?”

“You just want to win back Guam.”

“It was my favorite,” Luc whined. “And that bet wasn't fair.”

Guam? I turned around and my heart stuttered yet again. Luc wasn't talking to a random friend named Liam. He was talking to Liam Blackstone. And . . . yes. There at the bar, ordering something pink, was Colette LeGrand, her famous curves on display in a cleavage-baring boho lace dress. Luc's friends Liam and Colette were Liam Blackstone and Colette LeGrand.
Li-ette.
At least, that's what
Us Weekly
called them when they were on the cover every other week.

“Oh, this is Avery,” Luc said. “She's a relative of the Saxons, and since we're all playing nice this weekend, she's come out with us.”

I forced a smile in Liam's direction. I wasn't used to seeing him in clothes. He mostly did movies where his abs were the main character. “So you play . . . fantasy soccer?” Guys at every one of my schools had been into fantasy football. What a bizarrely ordinary thing for Luc and one of the world's most famous actors to be talking about.

“I wish.” Colette LeGrand slipped an arm under Liam's jacket. Her light, lilting French accent was even prettier in person. “They have bought the teams. Their little game takes up
all
Liam's time.”

Of course they owned professional sports teams. That could be the most normal thing that had happened all day.

“Jesse knocked us both out last year,” Liam said. He must have meant his younger brother, who was the lead singer in Shadow Play, Lara's favorite band. “He has Man U.”

Colette LeGrand pushed her wavy auburn hair behind her shoulder and rolled her eyes like,
see what I mean?
I gave her a tight smile, still a little shocked to be talking to people I'd only seen on screen and in tabloids, but I couldn't help being wary of them, too. As far as I knew, anyone could be a spy.

We stayed at the bar for a few minutes, and I made sure to stand so I could see the whole club. Colette complimented my dress and I fished for something normal to say, finally settling on how her curls looked so perfect all the time—when I let my hair dry wavy, it was a frizz ball. While she told me, I studied Liam, who was laughing over a video on Luc's phone. He and Colette both seemed to be acting normal, and I relaxed just a bit, looking around more widely. I noticed how Luc was already looking a little tipsy. And how he was paying no attention to me at all anymore—in fact, he seemed to be shooting surreptitious glances at the bartender. The bartender who was very cute, and also very
male.
I watched him for a second, and yes, that was definitely a little smile on his face when he caught the guy's eye. And then I remembered how I'd seen him eyeing the people sitting next to us earlier. Now that I thought about it, there hadn't been any girls at that table. And Luc was definitely a little more . . . vibrant than the other guys. Oh. I turned away so no one would see my sudden grin. Not that it was any of my business, but I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before, and for some reason, even more than Luc being nice to me, seeing this glimpse of what I assumed was a secret made me feel just a little better about being here with them. Like they were just people after all, going about their own lives.

Or Luc was, at least, I reminded myself, searching for Stellan again.

Colette looked around. “Our booth's open. Let's sit.” She slipped an arm through mine with a smile, obviously trying to make me feel comfortable, and I could see why she and Luc were friends.

“Why did you two come out tonight, anyway?” Luc said as we slid into the dark leather booth. Liam's sandy-blond hair gleamed in the booth's low red lights, and Colette lit a cigarette and blew smoke up at the ceiling, pursing her trademark full lips. “It's dangerous for any of us to be out in public.”

Colette shrugged. “You're here.”

“I have a reason to be. Plus, I'm less recognizable than you,
and
I have my Keeper with me. He has knives.” Luc pouted. “And guns.”