Map of Fates (The Conspiracy of Us 2)

I nodded and tried my best to stay engaged in conversations as I waited nervously for the lights to go out. The security guards here probably didn’t have the authority to arrest me themselves, but they could have called the police, so I kept listening for sirens in the distance.

And then a car did pull up at the end of the red carpet, but it wasn’t the cops. Lydia Saxon got out, followed by her brother.

Stellan saw them at the same time I did, and grabbed my hand, pulling me away. It was too late. My sister’s gaze zoomed in on me the second she stepped out of the car, and a chill ran through me like lightning. “I thought they weren’t in town,” Stellan said.

“Jack said he didn’t tell them we were here,” I replied. But they could have showed up of their own accord.

“They can’t do anything to you in front of all these people,” Stellan said.

I nodded. The twins were making a beeline for us, bypassing the photographers calling for them to take a photo. They were a striking pair: Lydia’s hair slicked back in a sleek, modern ponytail that grazed the top of her strapless red dress, and Cole’s matching dark hair and olive skin topped off with a red bow tie and his usual smirk.

“Avery. So lovely to see you here.” Lydia leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, and raised an imperious eyebrow when she saw my hand still caught in Stellan’s. I pulled it away and took both her hands in mine, partly to make sure she wasn’t hiding any weapons.

“I didn’t realize you’d be at the festival,” I said. I’d hoped that even if they realized I was here they’d leave me alone since I’d promised Alistair the tomb. They must not trust me at all.

“Last-minute decision,” Cole cut in. The top of his head only reached Stellan’s shoulder, but he looked up at him with a sneer. “We didn’t realize you’d be here, either. With the help.”

They didn’t realize I’d be here? The cameras flashed like a swarm of fireflies in the night.

The Fredericks asked Cole a question, and he turned away to talk to them, but Lydia stayed right next to me. “I can’t wait to hear all about what you’ve been doing in Cannes,” she said with that sparkling smile that had tricked me into believing she cared.

I glanced up at the theater. What was Elodie doing? Could she not find the electricity?

“Avery.” Colette came up beside me, her gaze cutting to Lydia. “There’s a director I’d like you to meet. Come with me for a second?”

I nodded, grateful. Maybe I could hide until—

The lights cut off. Finally.

There were stray giggles, like there always seemed to be when darkness fell unexpectedly. And one sharp intake of breath from close by.

I felt Lydia clamp a surprisingly strong hand around my wrist. “Avery, get out of here,” she whispered.

“What?”

“It’s not safe for us to be here right now.” Lydia’s whisper was no longer calm. “The electricity wasn’t supposed to—just go.”

A chill came over me. “What did you do?” I pictured the milling crowds, and then the attack at the Emirs’. Lydia and Cole didn’t come to find me, and they didn’t come to walk the red carpet.

Stellan was already pulling me and Colette away from the building and the crowd.

Lydia followed us. “Take your Keeper boyfriend if you want. I won’t say anything. Just get out of here.”

“Are these people going to get hurt?” Stellan said, low enough that no one else could hear us under the low hum of voices. My eyes had started to adjust to the dark, and I saw that he had Lydia’s wrist, just like she had mine.

Lydia tried to pull away. Cole was headed toward us. “I can’t be sure it’ll go off when the power comes back, but it might. If anyone’s too close . . .”

“You set a bomb? Here?” Stellan said just as I said, “Elodie. Call her. Now.”

Stellan grabbed his phone with the hand not holding my sister.

“We have to get everyone out of here,” I said.

I opened my mouth to scream, but Lydia silenced me. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

The scream died on my lips. They still had my mom, and I couldn’t be sure Lydia was on the same page as Alistair.

Stellan muttered something into the phone in French, urgent.

“Lydia, these people will die,” I pleaded.

“It wasn’t meant to go off until later,” she answered, glancing back at the building. “When everyone was out. We’d grab the bracelet and no one would know.”

Of course they knew the bracelet was here. It had probably been the last thing Jack told them before he found out what they were really doing. “I don’t care,” I said. “We have to evacuate—”

“No! We can’t say anything or it’ll be obvious we knew about it.” Lydia looked surprisingly panicked.

I shook my hand out of hers. I’d let too many innocent people die already. If my mom was here, I’m sure she would agree it was worth the risk.

I took a deep breath and screamed, “Fire!” It was obvious there was no fire, but I kept yelling. Murmurs went up through the crowd. “Everybody get away from the building!” I screamed. Someone else in the crowd caught the panic and screamed, too, and that was it. A couple people started running, and then the crowd stampeded toward us. I yanked Stellan and Colette to the side, behind a car, away from the crush of bodies. The lights above the red carpet flicked back on.

The screams grew louder for a second as the crowd blinked away the brightness—and then they were drowned out by an explosion that rocked the red carpet.

CHAPTER 31

I flung my hands over my head. Stellan threw himself across me and Colette, and the explosion blasted out with a roar and the smell of unnaturally chemical smoke and heat condensed into one gust, like an industrial oven had just been opened. Bits of debris pelted my exposed skin. Overhead, there were mini explosions as the spotlights shattered, and I pulled my head from Stellan’s chest in time to see tiny shards of glass fall in a rain of glitter.