The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

“My mother died in the fire. My father had died earlier. Car accident,” he said quietly.

“You both seem to be forgetting the laws of reality.” Jack paced back and forth. “How would people from a certain bloodline physically not burn?”

I glanced at Stellan. “I have no idea. Maybe we’ll find an explanation in the tomb, if we get a chance to look for it. It seems like that’s where Napoleon got his information.”

“Fitz was the one who found me after the fire. He brought me to the Circle,” Stellan said quietly. He touched the scars snaking over his shoulder.

Jack shook his head.

“If it is true, and Mr. Emerson knew, why wouldn’t he have told you?” I said.

“Sounds like he was looking for more information first. About whether the rest of it was true, maybe.” Stellan gave a nod in my direction.

The tension in Jack’s shoulders spread through his arms, and he eyed Stellan with an even greater animosity than usual, and all of a sudden, I realized the really important thing I’d overlooked.

“Oh,” I said under my breath.

The girl and the One. The One was supposed to unite with a girl of the bloodline.

Or, in other words, me.

“Napoleon mentioned the union being wrong. It doesn’t necessarily mean—” I couldn’t say it.

Stellan leaned back against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked from the book still in his hand, to Jack, to me. He frowned.

“Forget it. Let’s assume for a second we’re right, and there’s a conspiracy within a conspiracy going on here. That the One is a thirteenth. Is possibly even Stellan,” I said. “I know it’s crazy, but for argument’s sake, for Mr. Emerson’s sake, we have to think about it. What would it mean?”

Stellan didn’t say anything, but he closed the book, and his eyes narrowed.

“It would mean Luc’s not the One,” Jack said.

“The Dauphins would have to let me go, and then we could contact the Order—” And tell them it was Stellan they were looking for. I met Jack’s eyes. We couldn’t do that.

I started over again. “It would at least mean they’d have to call off the wedding. We could get out of here in time to tell the Order something.”

Stellan stood up abruptly. “Of course it would mean no wedding. Of course that’s what it all comes back to.”

“Well, it does—”

“How incredibly convenient,” Stellan said with a sneer. “You even thought you’d get me on your side with this ridiculous thirteenth theory.”

I looked from him to Jack, back again. “What?”

Stellan tugged back on his shoes and socks. “That’s enough. I’m not stupid. How long have you two been planning this pathetic charade for when she inevitably got caught?”

“No!” I said. “It’s not—”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into playing along for this long. I’m taking you back to your cell.” Stellan shrugged his T-shirt back on, grabbed my arm, and steered me out the door.

•   •   •

“Thank you,” Stellan said, opening the door to my room. “The struggling and crying was a good touch, in case anyone thought I was getting sucked in to your schemes.”

“Arrrrgh!” I threw myself on the hard wooden cot. “It’s not a scheme. Yes, I want to get out of this, but we’re not lying.”

Stellan stood in the doorway. “Even if this thirteenth thing were true—this whole conspiracy of . . . us—” He looked me over with a frown. “Do you think anyone would accept it?”

I sat back against the wall, my bare feet dangling from the edge of the cot. “They’d have to accept it if we had proof. If you don’t believe me, maybe I’ll tell someone else.”

Stellan crossed his arms. “If Monsieur Dauphin hears about you telling anyone, he’ll cut out your tongue so you can’t do it again. He’s not a nice man.”

I flinched.

“If you tried to spread this story, the Dauphins would destroy your ‘proof’ immediately. Then they would kill Jack and me for knowing about it.” He shook his head. “You think you’re so smart, but you’re completely naive in the ways of this world. These people are playing for a lot more than you can imagine.”

“Then I can run.” Fighting obviously wasn’t going to work, so flight was all I had left. “At least let me run. Pretend I got away.”

“No.” He smacked a palm on the doorjamb. “Pay attention. You can’t run. If Monsieur Dauphin can’t have you, do you think he’ll let anyone else have you?”

I swallowed hard.

“And it turns out I don’t want to see you get killed, kuklachka. So don’t do anything stupid.”

My mouth went dry. Stellan turned to go.

“How old is your sister?” I said desperately. I didn’t want to admit it, but Stellan was a lot like me. He’d heard us out because he cared about Mr. Emerson. The way to appeal to him was through the people he loved.

Stellan opened the door partway, but hesitated.

“What’s her name?” I said.

He stayed at the door. “Anya. She’s seven.”

I bit my lip. “What’s she like?”

His shoulders rose and fell with one deep breath, and he pushed the door closed again. He pulled a tattered photo out of his wallet. A tiny blond girl with huge blue eyes sat under a tree, laughing. Those same scars-that-weren’t-scars covered the whole right side of her face. Seven years old. She must have been a tiny baby when they were in the fire.

“Why don’t you leave and be nearer to her?” Hurt flared in his eyes, and I remembered this was why he was trying to transfer to Russia. I handed him the picture, and he gently put it back in his wallet.

“Even if I could get another job that would let me take care of her, you don’t just leave the Circle. It’s not a job you can quit, if you hadn’t noticed.”

I glanced at his neck, where I could see the top of his tattoo.

“Maybe I would have done things differently if I’d known what I was getting into, but I was a child. My parents were dead. It was this and have Anya well taken care of, or have both of us go into the foster system in Russia, which wasn’t an option.” He broke a splinter off the wooden doorframe and picked at it. “So I do my best so that I can try to move nearer to her someday. But it means I can’t make mistakes. Like letting someone beat me to an American girl I have very specific orders about. ”