The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

“Are you worried about not being able to interpret the mandate?” I said.

“That, and everything.” He pawed at the back of his neck. “This thing. This tattoo.” He was slurring now, and pulled clumsily at the collar of his shirt. “This tattoo is so . . . heavy.”

I could see the edge of the sun, in the same place as Stellan’s, at the top of his spine.

“Even more than my blood,” he mumbled, “this thing is the weight of my family—of our whole territory!—on my back. Literally.”

He snorted with drunken, derisive laughter at his own joke, but just as quickly, his face fell.

“What does it mean?” I asked gently.

He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray, and the last bits of smoke curled up toward the lights over the bar.

“Everybody in the Circle gets their family’s tattoo on their seventeenth birthday. Family members, of course, but also the Keepers, the house staff . . . everybody.” He traced his tattoo with a fingertip, like he knew the lines by heart. “They are a physical sign of our fidélité. They mean unwavering loyalty. To the death.”

“To the death?” So I’d been right about the guy who worked for Liam’s family.

He nodded blearily. “As in, we swear to die for the family, and we recognize that treachery can be punishable by death. When you hold as much responsibility as we do, there has to be incentive to stay in line. There are plenty of stories.”

I stared at the tattoo. Just like Stellan’s. And Jack’s. I thought of Jack, desperate for me to come to the Saxons. “Like what?” I said.

“All kinds of things.” A rowdy group of guys leaned on the bar right next to me, calling for drinks. I scooted even closer to Luc, who hardly seemed to notice. “Grant Frederick is not . . . tolerant. His Keeper might have refused a kill order, or he might just have talked back when he shouldn’t’ve,” he said, starting to slur his words together. “And there’re more. Like the Rajesh Keeper who leaked information to a media outlet we don’t control. Or the Emir Keeper, who had a relationship with a family member. They got caught . . . you know. Together. He was terminated immediately.”

My thoughts flashed back to Jack asking me to prom. If being with a family member was grounds for termination, it really must have meant nothing.

“Some families are more harsh than others, of course,” Luc went on, “but you don’t want to test it. And for family members, the tattoos are a constant reminder of our place in our family. And in the world.” Luc swirled the ice and lime wedges in his empty glass. “And yet, despite all that power, I can do nothing. Not to stop the Order, not to find clues to the mandate, not even to stop my new baby sister from being married off.”

“Married?” That was an abrupt change of subject.

Luc chuckled again, but it was a hollow sound. “Of course, no one finds it odd to be betrothed to an infant. They’re all at our home groveling to my parents for the chance. I find it repulsive, but it’s what the mandate says, so we will do it.”

I wasn’t listening anymore. My heart pounded in my ears, off the beat of the music.

Married. The mandate. Betrothed.

The rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes. Their union.

Suddenly, Luc wasn’t the only one swaying on his bar stool.

CHAPTER 18

Luc stared at me, waiting for an answer. “Because union in the mandate means ‘marriage,’” I clarified, hoping I’d misinterpreted. “Right? The girl with the violet eyes marries the One, once you figure out who the One is.”

“Merde. Why do I say thissthings?” Luc slurred. “I should not talk this way. The mandate, it is good. And, it is destinée,” he said, putting air quotes around the word. “‘Their fates mapped together.’”

Their fates mapped together. Another line of the mandate—it had to be. I’d been practically kidnapped and almost killed, all so I could be married off like a princess in a fairy tale?

I felt myself starting to shake again. It was like the shock had been waiting just under the surface since Prada, held back by a thread that had just snapped. I clenched clammy fingers on my bare thighs.

Luc belched and set his glass down. The music broke into a hard beat, and everyone on the dance floor jumped up and down in unison, hands in the air.

So I was to be married to whoever the Circle decided was the One. If they didn’t figure out the mandate, it sounded like the Saxons would marry me to whatever son they had available. The Dauphins would choose someone to unite me with, if I was their family. If I wasn’t, they might kill me so I wouldn’t take their baby girl’s birthright.

My mom had always known about this. Suddenly, I knew exactly how she must have felt. Trapped. Hunted.

I glanced behind me at the booth where Stellan still perched, talking with Liam and Colette. Colette gestured with a cigarette, her big sleepy eyes laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world, even though they’d been talking about a staff member’s “termination” a few minutes ago.

The music swelled too loud, and the cigarette smoke was too thick.

“Whasswrong?” Luc squinted one eye.

I scrambled off my bar stool. “Bathroom,” I said, and fled.

I shoved past bodies writhing on the dance floor, dizzy from the lights and the heavy bass and the heat. There had to be an emergency exit somewhere.

Stellan appeared by the bar, a head taller than everyone else.

In the second I stood frozen, watching his face come in and out of the lights, he turned and saw me. He must have read something in my face, because his eyes narrowed. I spun on my heel and darted toward the back door I’d seen earlier, shoving it open hard.

The steam hit me first, so heavy it felt like I could drown in it. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dim pink light. The room was a long, narrow cave with recesses along the wall. In each one, a steaming fuchsia waterfall splashed down in front of one of the dancing girls I’d seen from the bar.

A short woman with an earpiece and a scowl yelled something and grabbed my arm, propelling me to a waterfall that was missing a girl.

She thought I was one of the dancers, late for her shift.

I was about to rush back out and find a real exit, but the door opened. Stellan peeked in. I could go with him. Pretend I got lost on my way to the bathroom. But after seeing me run just now, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight again.