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

“The Circle aren’t that weak,” Stellan argued. “They’ll fight back, eventually. Diadochi wars were happening even in Alexander’s time. Clashes between Circle families aren’t new.”

“But what if—” I started.

Stellan turned to me. “What if this kills you?”

We all fell quiet.

Elodie sighed. “Until they have something that works on the mice, it’s irrelevant. What’s not irrelevant is our Monsieur Dauphin here.” She ruffled Luc’s hair with a sad smile. “We’re supposed to be there in an hour, so while we keep praying for a miracle, we’d better get going.”

• • •

There was a ceremony for when the head of a Circle family died, to pass leadership to the next generation and honor the dead. It was supposed to be performed within a day of the death. Even after Lydia’s declaration of war, we carried on with Luc’s.

In a normal situation the whole Circle would be invited, but technically, only one family had to be present as witness. Stellan and I sat in the front pew in black clothes we’d gotten from the Dauphins’ well-stocked closets. We hadn’t talked to each other since the conversation about the vaccine experiment. It hadn’t exactly been an argument, but it had felt like it. I pushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I had it pinned up, hiding as much of the pink as I could, to look sedate enough for a funeral.

But nothing about this church was sedate.

“This is my favorite church in Paris,” Luc had said as we followed him inside Saint-Chapelle. Every wall was stained glass. The late-morning sun turned the cathedral’s cool interior into an impressionist painting, blues and pinks and greens dancing over our skin.

Luc stood at the altar with Colette—the only other Dauphin family member we trusted—behind him. He looked so strong this morning. I wondered whether it came from Luc’s natural optimism, or whether death was so much a part of life in the Circle that it was always taken in stride like this.

I felt the tension in the inches of church pew between Stellan and me growing as the ceremony played out: Luc chanting low over a book with the Dauphin sun on the cover, pricking his own thumb and tracing the same sun on a blank page on the inside. Tearing out the page with what must be his father’s blood on it from this same ceremony, lighting a corner with a candle, and letting it crumble to ash.

At the appointed time, Stellan and I stepped to the front of the church. Colors played over his face like magic, just as they had in my hallucination. I couldn’t help but picture him holding my heart in his hands.

He looked up, his blue eyes as big and troubled as his little sister’s had been earlier. Without really thinking about it, I took his hand. He squeezed it hard, and guided me through the words I had to repeat as a witness to a new generation of the Circle.

I wondered if we’d ever do one of these ancient rituals again.

If we left, I knew what would happen. Being on the run was a state I understood well. Except now, it looked like I’d be doing it alone. But what if we stayed, and what if I lived? What if this worked? Would they even accept me—us, if Stellan stayed, too? The Circle had never liked me much besides the color of my eyes. And even if they did, would it just be a life of being a symbol and living by a Circle code I didn’t entirely agree with? Was I crazy to think it could be more?

• • •

Despite everything else—or maybe because of everything else—I’d known since our talk with Fitz that there was something else I needed to do in Paris. After Luc’s ceremony, we all assembled again at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Luc had pulled some strings.

Fitz was waiting for us at the gates. We wound our way through the city of crypts, and there, under a tree off a cobblestone path on a sunny afternoon in Paris, we buried my mother.

Her grave was beautiful. I knew she wouldn’t want to be buried in a Circle plot, or an Order one. We’d lived so many places, none of them felt right, so I chose Paris. My adopted home for now, and the center of all we’d been through. And she’d love the flowers.

It was the only concession I made to an over-the-top memorial. The hundreds of flowers were all yellow, her favorite color. Daffodils and tulips and roses and daisies. Calla lilies and hibiscus and freesia, scenting the air with a perfume so heady, it made me dizzy. My mom would have thought it was ridiculous, and perfect. We threw handfuls of the flowers in after the casket, and left the rest piled around the headstone and surrounding the gravesite like a celebration.

Afterward, everyone else waited a short distance away while Fitz and I looked down at the flowers. For the first time since my mom’s death, I really let myself know, deep down, that she wasn’t coming back. And she would forever be someone who had had her life cut short trying to do the right thing. And though I’d grown up believing I was a girl without a dad, now I was truly, forever, a girl without a mom.

Fitz cleared his throat. I reminded myself that one good thing had happened recently. I was a girl with a grandfather. With so much else to concentrate on, that one hadn’t quite sunken in yet. Fitz drew a book from his jacket pocket. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, handing it to me.

For a second I didn’t understand, but then I remembered the date. It was my seventeenth birthday today.

I opened the blank cover of the book and read the title page. It was a hard copy of Napoleon’s Book of Fate.

“This was your mother’s when she was your age,” Fitz said. “For her it was just fun, but she left it behind when she ran with you, and it helped set me down the research path that led us here.” He tapped the book with one finger. “Maybe there’s something to this fate nonsense after all.”

I flipped the yellowed pages. The book smelled like dust and vanilla perfume. I wondered if my mom had consulted it when she’d decided to leave my father and the Circle.

Fitz adjusted his glasses. “You’re very much like her. Just as brave and smart. Just as idealistic. I don’t think she’d like what your life has become.”