The Ends of the World (The Conspiracy of Us 3)

I had to stop before that train of thought went too far, or I’d panic again.

“If it’s really a vaccine, would Luc have gotten slightly sick like he did?” Stellan said, still testing the theory.

“Sometimes you can get a vaccine for say, the chickenpox, and still get a mild version of the chickenpox, right?” Elodie said. “And it’s not like this virus is normal anyway. Something kept Lucien from dying. That’s the important part. We should get Nisha to start testing it. If it really is a vaccine, we could get it to the Circle. That might even clear our names, and get them to help us against the Saxons. I’ll call her right now.”

• • •

An hour later, we’d done all we could for Luc, and left him to handle family things. As I set the table, my thoughts tried to wander. I wasn’t the one who deserved to be upset right now, but being around this much death—

A shiver passed through me. I really was feeling calmer after that little stairwell rendezvous earlier, or I wasn’t sure I’d be okay. Now I was helping Colette assemble some snacks in one of the Dauphins’ sitting rooms so we could eat and make a plan about where to go from here.

Elodie came into the room. “Happy news,” she said, spreading her arms. “The doctor says I have bronchitis.”

I let her take a cookie from my hand. “Are you kidding me? That’s why you’ve been coughing?”

“I’m supposed to drink lots of fluids and take some cough syrup. She said it’s relatively common in the month after the kind of surgery one gets from being shot in the abdomen, but I swear, it was that bus. Traveling with the masses could kill a person.”

Colette snorted, and handed me a bowl of fruit I was just setting down when my phone rang. I grabbed it out of my bag, checked the number, frowned. Why was Stellan calling me? Colette had sent him to get coffee mugs just a couple of minutes ago.

The door swung open and he walked into the room.

That’s when I remembered. “Your phone,” I told him, showing him my screen. “Maybe Mariam found it.”

“Answer it,” he said, setting the mugs on the table.

I picked up. “Hello, sister,” said a girl’s voice on the other end.

It took me a second longer than it should have. “How do you have this phone?” I said to Lydia. I put the phone on speaker.

“I found it in the tunnels in Alexandria.” Lydia’s voice sounded entirely too light. Singsong. Creepy. She was up to something. I’d worry she was tracing the call, but she knew where we were already. “I was disappointed, though. There aren’t even sexy text messages on here. How boring you and your husband are.”

Stellan pulled out the chair next to me and sat. The whole room was listening now.

“So, have you saved the lives of the poor Dauphin family yet?” She didn’t know that the cure didn’t work. Stellan and Elodie both glanced down the hall to where Luc was, like Lydia might have someone here waiting to kill him.

“I knew there was a chance you’d avoid my people there, you know,” Lydia went on.

My throat tightened. “What do you mean by that?”

“When are you going to understand that I am always one step ahead of you? Finding this phone proved very useful. Say hello, love.”

Away from the phone, there was a whimper, then a little girl’s cry of pain.

Stellan jumped up so fast his chair fell over. He ripped the phone out of my hand. “Get your hands off my sister!” he roared.

“Too late!” Lydia chirped. “I have this adorable little girl with me now, and you’ll only get her back if you do exactly what I want you to do.”

Stellan yelled something in Russian. Jack and Luc and Rocco ran into the room, alarmed.

I grabbed the phone back. “You crazy bitch. She’s a little kid.”

“All I want is you, Avery. You and that boy of yours. Is it really worth all these people you supposedly care about getting hurt? Come alone—just you two. I’ll know if you try any of your little tricks. I’m in his hometown. Ciao.”

She hung up. Stellan was staring at the phone, frozen. Then he blinked half a dozen times, and flipped the table. I recoiled, avoiding a flying loaf of bread. A jar of jam shattered, throwing sticky bits of glass everywhere, and a puddle of coffee spread across the hardwood.

Stellan walked straight over the mess, his boots leaving a sticky red trail, and ripped his arm away when Elodie touched him, his hands on top of his head like he was trying to physically hold himself together.

“The virus and the cure,” Elodie murmured. “If they thought they had both, they’d be unstoppable. If they have you—”

I nodded, watching Stellan pace in the hallway, then storm back inside. Jack approached and Stellan tried to throw him off, but Jack shoved him against the wall. He got in Stellan’s face, murmuring something low and intense. Finally, Stellan stopped struggling. After a few more seconds, he grabbed Jack’s shoulders, touched their foreheads together, and crossed the room to right the table he’d flipped over.

Colette was standing hesitantly over the mess of food, watching him. Elodie approached cautiously. “You can’t go there. At the very least, she’ll take your blood and lock you up. Or kill you, since there are probably others of the thirteenth bloodline out there who wouldn’t give her so much trouble.”

Jack nodded.

“The Order will help you,” Elodie said. “We can send in a team.”

They were right, of course.

Stellan set a block of cheese back on the table, then the empty metal coffee pitcher. “No,” he said. “I’m going. Alone. It’s the only way to save her.”

I crouched by him and picked up pieces of glass. We should let the Order go. Even if it meant Anya might die, which would be very possible if we didn’t obey Lydia’s orders. One little girl’s life for the Circle? Maybe the world? It shouldn’t be a question. Just like it shouldn’t have been a question that my life wasn’t worth the potential for the destruction it could cause. There were so many shoulds.