The Conspiracy of Us (8 page)

I nodded. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.

“Well.” He blinked. “That changes things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, “I know exactly why someone would want you dead.”

B
ecause they want to hurt the Dauphins?” I said. A car horn honked outside, and I jumped more than I should have. I ducked around Jack. “So I am related to them? And not the Saxons?”

“Shh.” Jack opened the door, peered into the hall, then shut it again. “No. Maybe. God. I don't know. To them, to the Saxons, to a different family entirely . . . All I know is that you are much, much more than a distant relative.”

I swallowed hard. “But if I have the same eyes as the Dauphins . . .”

“All twelve families of the Circle have violet eyes.” He swept all the first aid supplies into the pharmacy bag and stuffed it into his pocket. “That tells us nothing.”

I leaned over the sink, staring into my eyes again. “How is that possible—”

“Have you told Stellan and Luc any of this?”

“No—”

“Okay, then. Fitz was right. You're in danger. From a lot of people, and especially the Order. I must have misinterpreted that message. The Saxons won't hurt you, and I'm taking you to them.” He plucked my bag off the little vanity counter where he'd set it when he'd brought it from the dressing room earlier. He handed it to me. “Let's go.”

I hugged it to my chest. “No.” Jack stopped with one hand on the doorknob. “You need to explain exactly what's going on,” I said.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up, then the other way to smooth it back into place. I could tell he was trying to act normal, but he stared at me with a mix of awe and horror, like I was some dangerous mythical creature. “I'm not the one who should be telling you this. We should really just—”

“I'm not going anywhere.” I plunked my bag back down on the vanity, toppling a trio of tiny lotion bottles. “What do my eyes matter? Why would someone try to kill me? What the hell is the Circle?”

After a second, Jack bit his lip and seemed to come to a decision. “All right,” he said. “Okay. Avery, the Circle are . . . how to put this. The Circle of Twelve are important to the world. We make things happen.”

“So, politicians,” I said.

“Not exactly, no.” He paced to the window, back to the door, then to the window again, like a caged animal. “Well, most major government officials are members of one of the twelve families, yes. But—”

“
Most
? You rig elections?” My voice rose sharply and Jack shushed me, nodding at the door.

“No,” he said. “Well, usually we don't have to. It's advantageous for leaders in government, business, economics, to be ours, but most of them already are, organically.”

My shaking fingers twisted the tiny gold cap off one of the lotions, screwed it back on, twisted it back off. A warm rose scent wafted from the bottle. “Business? Economics? What does that mean?”

Jack frowned uncomfortably. “It wouldn't be wrong to say that in our modern world, and in much of history, all roads lead back to the Circle. We're so entwined in society—its history, its present, its future—that even though you don't know we're there, your life would be entirely different without us.”

I took a shaky breath and opened the next lotion. Citrus. “Like what?”

He glanced at the door again. “You know World War One, and Two?”

I raised my eyebrows at the stupid question.

“There are twelve families, and together they form the Circle of Twelve. Occasionally, a family will attempt to win more than their share of power. The Hersch family—they're the ones currently in Germany—did just that, and it was the driving force behind World Wars One and Two.”

I paused, the lotion cap halfway off. “You did
not
just say the Circle started both World Wars.”

He held up a hand. “The
Hersch family
started both World Wars. Not everything each family does represents us as a whole.”

I set down the lotion. Having business and political leaders in the families—and even rigging elections—sounded almost plausible, but if he'd been teetering on the edge of the “makes frightening sense” cliff before, he'd just launched himself off.

“Avery!” Luc's voice echoed up the stairs. Jack and I both froze. “We're hungry. Are you ready to go?”

I'd forgotten Luc and Stellan were still waiting to go to dinner, of all things. I cracked the door. “Almost!” I yelled. “Give me one more minute!”

I turned slowly back to Jack. I wasn't sure what would be worse—if he was messing with me, or if he really believed this.

“I think I've heard this conspiracy theory,” I said carefully. “New World Order, right? A small group of really powerful people who run the whole world behind the scenes.”

“Yes,” he said.

“So . . . you're telling me that's what you are.” I could hear the condescension in my voice, like I was talking to a kid playing make-believe.

“That's exactly what we are.” He was looking at me like he wasn't sure what I'd do, and I realized he'd gotten himself between me and the door, trapping me inside.

I ran my fingertips over the subtle damask of the wallpaper, letting it ground me in reality. “You know that's not real, right? That's why they call it a
conspiracy theory,
and not a fact.”

“And it's very convenient for us that that's what the world believes. Avery, listen. I promise, I'll explain it all. But we have to go before Stellan and Luc—”

This time I was the one holding up a hand. “So you're actually trying to get me to believe one of the families started both World Wars,” I said. “And the other eleven . . . participated?”

“Of course.” He paced the room again, like a professor lecturing to a class. “The families had to take sides. You know the history of which countries lined up where. You just don't know that each of those countries had a family of the Circle behind it. Trust me, things would have gotten much worse if we hadn't. And it's not only history.” He plunged ahead, seeming to gain steam. “Even now, some of the Middle Eastern families . . . Well, they're difficult. And you see how the ramifications of that bleed into the world. Or sometimes, certain families use their influence to modify the stock market. Or banking interests.”

“
Modify.
” Now, that made sense. Rich people manipulating the stock market I understood. “So if strapless dresses aren't flattering on a Circle member, they can put halters on the cover of
Vogue
and make them popular instead?” I asked, not sure whether I was joking or not. I glanced accidentally at the bloody gold dress.

“If they cared about that, then yes. Absolutely.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. I could see his compass tattoo through his sleeve.

“This is all insane, you know,” I said. “You sound like one of those paranoid people on the Internet telling everyone to wear tinfoil hats. Next you're going to tell me you killed JFK.”

Jack looked up. “Not me personally.”

My mouth fell open.

“I'm sorry. That wasn't funny. But . . . there were reasons for it.” Jack shot me an almost-sympathetic look. “I'm sure it must seem absolutely mad from the outside, but it's the reality of our lives. Of
everyone's
lives,” he said quietly. “The world doesn't operate like most people think it does. I'm telling you the truth.”

It
did
seem absolutely mad. But I couldn't help thinking about my original suspicions. Mafia, or politicians. Wasn't that kind of what he was describing? Politician-mafia. On a huge, huge scale. I crossed my arms over my chest, only partially to hide the fact that my hands had begun to tremble again.

“So what you're saying,” I ventured, “is that Stellan wasn't exaggerating at the prom when he said the Circle runs the world.”

“Avery!” Luc's footsteps clomped up the stairs, and I snapped my mouth shut.

Jack started to open the door. “You're coming with me to the Saxons,” he murmured.

I ducked in front of him. “Sorry, I'm throwing up,” I called down the stairs. “You probably don't want to come up here.”

The footsteps stopped abruptly. “Oh,” Luc said. “Um. Is Jack still with you?”

I glared at Jack and nodded at the door. He frowned. “I'm sitting outside to make sure she's all right. She's a little shaken up,” he called, and I pulled him back inside and slammed the door. We were both right. I was shaken up, and I was
thisclose
to being sick.

“Let's pretend for one second this is true,” I said once Luc's footsteps had retreated. The music came back on and switched from Bach to some kind of French hip-hop. “Why would these Order people care about
me
? There have to be a ton of Circle members more important than a teenage girl.”

Jack sat on the tiny vanity chair and propped his elbows on his knees. “The Order is an opposition group. They don't think the Circle should have as much power as they do. They've been a thorn in our side for a long time, and they've been ramping up their efforts against us recently.”

I made my way to the warped window and stared outside as the afternoon light faded to evening.

Jack took a breath and continued. “Where you come in is with something called the mandate.”

The word hit me like a punch to the gut. I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling like I'd been waiting my whole life to hear this. A thrill of fear flared through me. “What exactly is the mandate?” I finally said.

“The mandate . . .” Jack buttoned and unbuttoned one cuff. “If you don't believe the rest of it, you'll find this ridiculous, but the mandate is like a prophecy. Among other things, it gives us a way to subdue the Order.”

I stared at him. “A prophecy? You're right. I don't believe you.”

“It has a lot of basis in history, and—”

“How?” Now I was the one pacing. “How is this mandate supposed to work?”

“‘The rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes . . . ,'” Jack said. “That's the most important line. And the line the Order cares about says, ‘the means to vanquish the greatest enemies.'”

“The greatest enemies are the Order.”

Jack nodded.

“And that's why they'd want this violet-eyed girl killed, to make that impossible.” I'd already started to assume that my mom's mandate and the Circle's mandate were not two different things. That when I'd heard her mention that word on the phone so long ago, she made up that that's what her work orders were called to keep me in the dark about my father's family.

But now I couldn't stop thinking about all the times she got weird. Got nervous. And then we'd move. I'd always attributed her anxiety to work, but hearing this, I had to wonder if she hadn't just been keeping the Circle from me, but had actually been going to a lot of trouble to keep
us
from
them,
and from the Order.

I traced a crack in the tile floor with one foot. “Why would they think I'm the specific purple-eyed girl the mandate is talking about?”

Jack's jaw tensed. “The thing is, very few females get the gene for the violet eyes. Almost everyone who's ever had them is male. A girl with the purple-eyes gene is about to be born, to the Dauphins.”

“But . . . ?” I knew a
but
was coming.

“But, until the Dauphins' baby is born, you are the only girl with purple eyes in the world.”

I leaned hard against the windowsill. “That's—” I was about to say that was impossible, but really, compared with the rest of this, was it? “Let me make sure I'm understanding,” I said, feeling shaky again. “What you're telling me is that, one”—I held up a finger—“you're part of a world-controlling secret society. Two, there's an opposing secret society. Three, you need me, because of the color of my eyes, to stop them, and therefore, they want me dead.”

“That would be the simplified version, yes. And now you understand why you have to come to the Saxons. You'll be safe there.” He started to open the door again.

“I don't think I want to go to them,” I said to my own reflection in the mirror.

Jack rubbed his temples. “I
have
to take you to them. There is no scenario in which anything else would be a good idea, for anyone. You don't understand everything at play here.”

I understood that all this time, my mom and I were literally on the run for our lives. For my life. Add that now I'd put myself back in the crosshairs of the people we were running from
and
a powerful group who wanted to use me.

There was one thing I had to ask. “So are you saying my father was
not
a Saxon?”

“Not was.
Is.
Obviously our intel was wrong. Your having purple eyes means that your father is not only living, he could be the head of any of the families of the Circle.”

“He's
alive
?” I gripped the edge of the sink. And if they were wrong about that, he might not even know I existed. “Why would the Saxons have thought I was their relative?”

“Intelligence comes in all the time, from all over the world. I don't know where this came from or why it was wrong or even exactly what it said. You'll still be safest with the Saxons,” Jack continued. “I promise. And we can contact Fitz and see what he meant by that message.”

My father wasn't dead. I let that sink in for just a second before I snapped out of it. Allowing myself to be taken in by the Circle without understanding exactly what I was getting into would be beyond stupid. I had no room to be blindly optimistic anymore.

Jack was standing at the door, like there was no doubt I'd follow him. Yes, I was grateful that he'd finally told me the truth, but it wasn't enough.

I had to get out of here. Get in touch with my mom. Decide what to do next.

But how? Jack would never let me get away again if he had the choice. I glanced at the window. The bathroom was one story up. Too high to jump, but maybe there was a fire escape. I could get him to leave me alone for a second, and run.