The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

I squeezed my knees together until my rings dug into my skin. It all made sense—that phone call I’d overheard, Stellan at prom. Even that text Jack had gotten that had made him turn me over.

“And now, I can’t reach my mentor,” Jack continued. “Fitz. I was on my way here to find out what you know about him, and you’re nearly being killed by the Order.” He pulled a brown bottle from the pharmacy bag. “You tell me—does that not sound suspicious?”

My mouth felt like sand. “But I don’t know you. I don’t know the Saxons, or the Dauphins, or your mentor. Why would these Order people care about me?”

“That’s the question, then, isn’t it?” Jack crouched in front of me with a cotton ball soaked in peroxide.

“Who are the Saxons?” I said finally. “Politicians, or . . . something else?”

His eyes were directly on level with mine, but carefully avoiding them. He ripped open a packet of gauze. “Politicians, in a sense, and something else.”

Like I’d suspected, I guess. “The Dauphins, too? All twelve?”

Jack was so close, I could feel his body tense, but he nodded. With the cotton ball in one hand and a gauze pad in the other, he brushed my hair aside, and I watched his rough fingers slide the strap of the yellow sundress off my shoulder, carefully avoiding the knife wound.

I thought about downstairs, where I wanted nothing more than for him to stay with me. At the sink, with my hands cradled in his. Even now, his body was like a magnetic force. I realized I was leaning toward him, and I abruptly pulled back.

I might be upset, but I wasn’t helpless. And I was not going to let myself start depending on anybody now, especially not here. Especially not him.

“I don’t need you,” I said. I reached for the cotton ball. “I don’t need you to do this, I mean. I can do it. I’m fine.”

He held it out of my reach. “This isn’t just a scratch. Unless you happen to know first aid, let me handle it.”

I glanced down at the cut, and the flap of skin hanging off it. I shivered. “All right,” I said, but I sat stiffly while he leaned in again, careful not to relax into his touch.

The wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but it throbbed with every beat of my heart. Jack pressed the cotton ball to it, and I hissed at the bright bite of peroxide.

When he’d cleaned it and smoothed on a bandage, I brushed past him to the sink. I pulled up the strap on my dress, then wet a paper towel to wipe off the blood on my necklace while Jack washed his hands.

“What did the message say?” I finally asked. “The one your mentor sent.”

Jack pulled out his phone, pressed some buttons, and handed it to me.

The girl is in danger. Don’t take her to Saxons. If the worst happens—follow what I’ve left you.

“That’s it?”

Behind me, Jack carefully unrolled and rebuttoned the sleeves on the clean white dress shirt he’d changed into, and frowned as he rubbed away a slash of dried blood—probably my blood—from his neck. I wondered what the people at the pharmacy had thought about that. “That’s it,” he said.

A pang of surprise and unexpected gratitude swelled in my chest. He’d sent me with Stellan to keep me safe—going against a direct order to bring me to the Saxons—all because of this vague message. Maybe he cared a little bit after all.

I studied the text again. Then I looked at the picture of the sender, and the phone almost fell out of my hands.

Staring up at me was a familiar face, laughing eyes peering out from behind small, round glasses. A face that couldn’t be on Jack’s phone.

“This is your mentor?” It suddenly felt chilly in the tiled bathroom.

Jack finger-combed his dark hair in the mirror and nodded. “Fitz.”

I stared at the picture. “Jack, I know him. This is Mr. Emerson.”

Mr. Emerson, my pseudograndfather, whose most recent postcard was sitting on my bedside table.

Jack was across the room in a second, snatching the phone out of my hand and squinting at the picture. “His name is Emerson Fitzpatrick.”

“When he lived next door to us years ago, he went by Fitzpatrick Emerson.”

Jack looked from the phone to me. “There’s no way,” he said. “You must be thinking of someone else—”

“I’m not.” This time, I wasn’t even going to entertain the possibility of a coincidence. I stalked to the bathroom door. “How do you know him?”

“He works for the Circle, and has for decades. Which means . . .”

I ran my hands through my hair and leaned against the mirror on the back of the door. “Mr. Emerson was spying on me?”

“No.” The single forceful syllable echoed off the walls. Jack paced. “He’s one of the good guys. I just can’t believe you know him.” Jack glanced at me, appraising, and I hadn’t realized how closed off he’d been until he opened up again. It was like me knowing Mr. Emerson made him feel like we were on the same team. I still wasn’t sure.

I stared at a copy of a Monet water lily painting on the wall above the toilet. “You think he’s in trouble?”

“He just hasn’t answered his phone since he sent that message.” Jack stared out the window, fiddling with a basket of fake fruit on the sill. He picked up a lemon and tossed it anxiously from palm to palm. “I’ve been to his place here in Paris, and he’s not there. And he’s not answering the phone at his flat in Istanbul.”

Istanbul. Like his postcard, from the Hagia Sophia. Jack was saying Mr. Emerson lived there, and wasn’t just taking a vacation from Boston.

I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. “What does this mean?” I whispered.

I stared into my eyes, still bloodshot and haunted, and it hit me.

“Luc’s eyes,” I said. “They’re purple.”

“Yes . . .” Jack turned, letting the plastic lemon rest in his left hand. He met my eyes in the mirror like he heard the question in my voice.

“That’s a Dauphin family trait?”

“Many of the Dauphins do have violet eyes, yes.” He set the lemon back in its basket.

I swallowed. “I know you said I’m distant family of the Saxons, but I think I might be related to the Dauphins instead. Could that be what Mr. Emerson meant?”