Map of Fates (The Conspiracy of Us 2)

Suddenly, the fog cleared.

Look where he looks. That was what the clue had said. And on the first bracelet: Where he looks, it will be found. When it is found, my twin and I will reveal all.

I sat up straight. Oh my God. That was it. This was what had been at the tip of my tongue for days. We’d been ignoring the “where he looks” clue that kept popping up because we’d already found the diary by using it, but Mr. Emerson had hidden the diary.

Not Napoleon.

We were such idiots.

Mr. Emerson had figured out Napoleon’s clues and knew where the gargoyle was looking, so he hid something in that line of sight—at the Louvre.

But the “where he looks, it will be found” clue Napoleon left on the bracelet couldn’t refer to the diary we found at the Louvre. It had to refer to something that was there in Napoleon’s time. At the Louvre or anywhere else the gargoyle might be pointing. Look where he looks. Where he looks, it will be found. Those who gave all hold the key.

The password was somewhere in the gargoyle’s sight line.

I was so keyed up, I had to type the louvre paris into my phone four times before I spelled it right. Finally, I brought up pictures. It was unlikely we were looking for something inside the museum. The collection would have changed too much since Napoleon’s time. Maybe there was a really obvious inscription on the building that unlocked the bracelets.

But I got frustrated quickly. Most of the photos weren’t good enough to tell if there was anything there at all. I called everyone into the kitchen.

“This isn’t a bad idea,” Jack said, his eyes lighting up. “Or maybe it’s not at the Louvre. That was the right direction for the gargoyle, but there are an infinite number of other buildings in the same direction.”

“‘Those who gave all,’” I thought out loud. “It sounds like someone who’s dead. Like a martyr. Or a saint? Could it be a church?”

“It could be any number of things,” Stellan said.

He pulled up a map of Paris on his phone, but it was too hard to continue the gargoyle’s sight line on the small screen.

“We need a map,” I said.

Elodie shook her head. “What we need is to go to Paris.”

CHAPTER 18

A few hours later, we were on the ground, back in the city that felt more like home than anywhere had in a long time.

Since we couldn’t let the Saxons know we were with Stellan and Elodie, Colette left me and Jack in Paris before continuing to Cannes, while Stellan and Elodie had taken a separate plane. During the flight, Jack and I studied one of the paper maps of Paris we’d picked up in an Athens bookstore. We’d isolated the area that could be in the gargoyle’s line of sight, and now we were making a list of landmarks that fell within it. Churches, small museums. Anything that may have been important to Napoleon.

I got out my phone in the cab on the way from the airport. Six missed calls from my father. I listened to the first voice mail just as Jack’s phone rang.

“Elodie?” he said, then sat forward in his seat. “What? Is he—thank God.”

In my ear, my father’s voice said, “Avery, there’s been another attack, in Paris. They tried to get to Luc Dauphin. Call me as soon as you can.”

I gasped out loud. Jack put down his phone.

“He’s fine,” he said. “An attacker came at him in the Louvre courtyard, right in plain sight. Dauphin security fought him off and got Luc to safety. They’re interrogating the attacker, but he’s not talking. Elodie and Stellan wanted to go back immediately, but the Dauphins already have Luc secured. They’re still meeting us.”

We got out of the cab, and I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see somebody coming at us with a gun at any moment, and if they did, I swear I was ready to kill them with my bare hands. I could have sworn a couple times I even saw somebody watching us, but whenever I looked twice, it was nothing.

A cab pulled up, and Elodie leaped out and started running to us before it came to a complete stop. “I just talked to Luc. The reason he was out alone was that he was coming to meet us. He figured out where the bracelet is.”

She thrust her phone into my hands.

It was zoomed in on what looked like the itinerary of the Cannes Film Festival. I looked up, confused, and Elodie pointed to one sentence. Priceless antiques from around the globe will be on display at the opening gala of the Festival. 6–10 p.m., Main Lobby.

I looked up. “Does this mean . . .”

Elodie smiled triumphantly. “Luc talked to the collector’s estate manager. The bracelet will be displayed in Cannes in two days.”

The bracelet on my arm gleamed in the sunlight, and my heart sped to a gallop. “We’re going to have to steal it,” I breathed.

“Correction,” Elodie said, taking her phone back. “We’re going to have to heist it. From the Cannes Film Festival.”

• • •

Jack wanted to go immediately, but Elodie disagreed. “First of all, even if we manage to get the other bracelet, we still need the password. Secondly, right now, the bracelet is in transit on its way to the exhibition space.”

“But the festival will be crawling with security,” I said. We were sitting on the edge of a fountain in the Place de la Concorde. “What if we went after it while it was in a warehouse or something?”

Stellan nodded his assent. “Could I just jump a guard in a back alley?”

Elodie ran her fingers through the water. “At the party, there will be distractions. Drunk people leaning on the cases, celebrities wanting closer looks, beautiful women in evening gowns. Plus, everyone will be wondering if the Order is going to try to kill them. And also, we have no idea where the bracelet is right now. Trust me, the party is the best opportunity for a heist.”