Map of Fates (The Conspiracy of Us 2)

“I said they,” said Stellan, but it was obvious he was goading Jack on purpose. “This is just business for me. A business transaction with historically wide-reaching political, moral, and personal implications. The usual.”

“Would you please stop talking?”

“Only saying you don’t have to worry. Wide-eyed innocent isn’t my type. I wouldn’t touch your not-girlfriend.” Stellan paused, and I could hear a grin in his voice when he said, “Unless she asked me to.”

Okay, enough.

I made a show of slamming the door and clomping loudly down the stairs, and not a moment too soon. Jack looked ready to punch him. “Elodie was talking earlier about getting dressed up for dinner,” I said, so cheerful I’m sure I sounded fake. “Are we stopping somewhere?”

Jack shot one more glare at Stellan, who sat at the dining table, his legs stretched out along the booth on one side, a laptop open in front of him.

“I assume Elodie wants to do a formal dinner on the boat. She loves family dinners,” Stellan said. “We don’t get to do it that often.”

The sun was starting to set, and as I watched, the strings of white lights flickered to life out on the deck. Elodie appeared, still in her bathing suit, holding an armload of flowers and candles that she plunked down on the long table in the outdoor dining room. Colette flitted in after her, with napkins and silverware.

I squeezed Jack’s arm. “Let’s go help,” I said, and pulled him outside. I wondered what Stellan had been talking about.

“Wait.” Jack stopped me in the breezeway. He chewed his lower lip. “Oliver Saxon was Lydia and Cole’s older brother. He was killed in an accident two years ago.”

I froze. “What?”

Jack tugged on the sleeve of his T-shirt, obviously uncomfortable.

“The oldest son of the Saxon family was killed?” I repeated. “Does that not sound exactly like what’s going on now?”

“It was a freak accident. I don’t think it has anything to do with the current attacks, which is why I didn’t tell you. No need for extra worries.” An unconvincing smile touched his lips. “Shall we go help Elodie with dinner?”

I nodded and followed him slowly, trying to picture the half brother I’d never know.

CHAPTER 13

The next morning, we woke up docked outside Delphi. The cries of seagulls and the light metallic ting of ropes hanging off the sailboats bobbing alongside our yacht normally would have been calming, but I was too tense to even eat breakfast. The bracelet had to be here, or we were finished.

We headed inland, where the air was arid and hot. I’d imagined Greece green and tropical, but the part of the country near Delphi wasn’t like that at all. Gnarled shrubbery and rocky outcroppings gave way to spring grass dotted with modestly sized pines and olive trees, with sage green leaves and twisted trunks straight out of a fairy tale. Towns dotted the hillsides, all whitewashed walls and red roofs.

At the Oracle site, I thought there’d be a single temple, but built into the dramatic hillside were ruins of several temples and a large amphitheater. We had a way bigger area to search than I’d anticipated.

When we got out of the cab, Stellan touched my arm. “There’s a car that looked like it was tailing us,” he murmured. “Stay close.”

I cursed under my breath. It wouldn’t be my father’s people, so if someone was following us now, it was the Order. “Luc?” I said. He was ahead of us, standing in the shade of an olive tree with Jack.

“I told him, too. He’ll be careful.”

I glanced over my shoulder, but all I saw was a tour bus with a stream of elderly people climbing on. “Let’s go, then.”

Colette and Elodie had already gone one way, toward a circular temple with just a few columns still standing that seemed to be on all the tourist brochures. The rest of us spread out around the main temples. Stellan stuck close to Luc, and they headed up the hill to an amphitheater, while Jack and I scrambled down a fall of white stones gone gray with age and onto the foundation of a mostly destroyed structure.

The temple was fenced off with a single rope running along the edge of the path. Since there was no one else around, we stepped over it. Spears of bright green grass pierced the stone, like the earth thought the temple was part of it now, after all these years. It was eerily quiet. I glanced back toward the parking lot before kneeling down and inspecting one of the columns. “Where would he have hidden a bracelet? This place is huge.”

“I would assume one of two possibilities,” Jack said. “He could have buried it, in which case we’re looking for a marker or the entrance to a tunnel. Or he could have hidden it inside something. A secret space in one of these columns, maybe?”

We combed every inch of the temple. I crawled between stones, dirtying the knees of my jeans, looking with my hands as much as my eyes for anything that seemed out of place. The whole time, I watched for anyone coming too close. A couple with a baby walked by once, and another time I thought a couple guys in touristy Greece T-shirts may have been watching us from a nearby path, but they stayed a good distance away. Maybe Stellan had been wrong about the car.

Finally, I sat back on my heels and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. “I haven’t seen anywhere it looks like we should dig.”

Jack sat on part of the stone wall. “Agreed.”

“Hello!” came a voice from above. I shielded my eyes against the scorching midday sun to see Luc at the next level up, waving happily. “Any luck?”

“No,” I called. I peered off across the site, at another temple just past a wide stone amphitheater, and saw movement. One of the guys in the tourist T-shirts had just ducked behind a scrubby tree, closer now.

“Did you see that?” I said.

Jack stood up, on automatic alert. “What?”