Map of Fates (The Conspiracy of Us 2)

“Now,” Lydia said. Both bracelets sat on the coffee table between us. Lydia leaned in and picked one up.

Suddenly, there was a knife whipping through the air over her head.

Cole dodged, and the knife grazed his shoulder, then clattered to the ground with a strange hollow clunk. Plastic, and Elodie’s. She must have had it strapped to her somewhere, able to get through the metal detector.

In the second it took me to process it, Elodie was already lunging off the couch toward Luc. And then there was a gunshot, and she was thrown back onto a cafe table.

I screamed. Stellan and Colette and Jack all jumped up.

“Sit!” Lydia yelled. “Or I’ll hit something more vital next time.”

Elodie struggled to sit up, clutching the bleeding side of her torso. She was alive. Stellan started toward her.

“Stay,” Lydia said.

“She’ll bleed out.” Stellan perched at the edge of his couch. “Let me bandage it.”

“She should have thought of that before trying to kill my brother,” Lydia spat. “If you tell us everything you know quickly, then I’ll consider letting you help her.”

“No,” Elodie choked with a grimace. “Don’t tell them.”

“As the maid has already determined,” Lydia continued, like nothing had happened. She was still holding a bracelet in one hand and her gun in the other. “Blood is the key to this lock. What we need to know is how that works.” None of us said anything. “First of all, how could there be a union of blood? There’s the obvious, which I’m sure you’ve already discussed. A child.”

Jack shot Lydia a look so full of hatred, even I shivered. “There’s no way that could work.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. Clearly he’d never talked back to her before. “It’s true it’s a little outside our time range, but let’s run with it for now. If that did turn out to be correct, what would it mean, scientifically?”

Still, none of us said anything, even though we had had some ideas.

Elodie’s face was turning pale, and she took an unsteady breath. Suddenly, Luc sat forward. “A baby’s DNA is the combination of its parents’,” he said.

“Luc, don’t help them,” Elodie grunted.

“I’m not letting you die, El,” he said, then continued, “If the parents are some special thing themselves, the combination of their blood could be something else entirely.”

We were all gaping at him. It wasn’t that I thought Luc was stupid, but I also hadn’t thought he’d been paying much attention to the technical details, and here he was parroting theories Elodie had been putting together for days.

My siblings didn’t seem as impressed. “So you’re saying the DNA in a baby’s blood could unlock some kind of latch built into this bracelet? A human biological substance could change a nonhuman substance significantly enough to alter it?” Cole said skeptically. “So we have Avery make a baby with whoever the One is, wait nine months, extract its DNA, inject said DNA into these bracelets, and poof! We have four pieces of ugly jewelry instead of two?”

“Interesting theory,” Lydia said.

Cole curled his lip. “Let’s just smash the things.”

“If we smash them, we damage whatever’s inside,” Lydia said witheringly.

“Now you know as much as we do,” I said. Elodie was trying to keep pressure on her wound, but I could tell she was fading. Stellan was poised on the edge of the couch like it was killing him not to run to her. “Let us help her, please.”

Lydia shook her head. “Even if the baby hypothesis is true, it doesn’t help our cause at the moment. You must have other theories.”

“We don’t,” Jack said. “We’re not lying, Lydia. We thought the passwords would unlock the bracelets, but they’ve only done it halfway.”

I wrapped my locket around my fingers nervously and frowned when my fingers came away bloody. One of the cuts on my chest from the explosion must still be bleeding.

I started to wipe it off on my dress—but then stared at the finger.

Wait.

Blood. What if this were far simpler than we were making it?

I pressed my lips together.

“What?” Lydia demanded. Of course she’d seen that.

I let my hands fall by my sides. “Nothing.”

Lydia came behind me, keeping her gun moving between all of us. “How much longer do you think the maid can hold out?”

Stellan growled low in his throat, and Colette let out a tiny sob. Elodie’s eyes were slipping closed.

“Or maybe I’ll maim one of the Keepers,” Lydia continued. “You’re far too fond of both of them, anyway.” She glanced at Jack, then at Stellan. I saw her eyes land on the burn on his hand. The handkerchief had slipped off it, and it was already far less red; almost healed. Lydia squinted at it, but there was no way she could realize what it meant.

I tasted bile in the back of my throat. “I was just going to say . . .” I stalled.

Lydia peered over my shoulder. “Blood,” she said, running her fingers across my collarbone. Damn. She must have seen me look at it. “Blood has DNA. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Like combining blood instead of waiting for a baby.”

Elodie forced one eye open. “Not the same,” she said, her voice weak. “Mixing people’s blood together like you’re making a cocktail doesn’t combine DNA.”

“We’re guessing here,” Lydia said. “Who’s to say this isn’t the right guess?”

“So we take Avery’s blood, and that of the One, mix them together, and inject that into the bracelet. I suppose that does cut nine months out of the equation, which is a plus, but it still sounds absurd,” Cole said.