The Ends of the World (The Conspiracy of Us 3)

There was no angry Dauphin welcoming party at the airport. No one had noticed the plane missing, Luc said, and we should be fine as long as we disappeared now.

Disappearing was the plan. Fitz had made it to Paris before we did. Someone in the Order owned a boat that did dinner cruises on the Seine, and if we met there, we could be certain no one would see us.

Our cab pulled up at the bridge where the boat was docked. The four of us made our way down the stone steps to the river’s edge, which would usually be full of picnickers and joggers and glamorous women smoking cigarettes on their lunch break, but now was eerily quiet.

We found the right boat, and the door at the top of a carpeted gangplank swung open.

I froze in place. Fitz was thin, and his eyes looked sunken behind his glasses, but the smile that lit his face was exactly the same as I remembered.

I hadn’t really cried since just after my mom died. I hadn’t let myself. But as Fitz came down the ramp and pulled me into a hug, I burst into tears.

CHAPTER 18

The boat was long and thin, with an upper and a lower deck, both set with long strings of dinner tables. For now, we were the only people here. The rest of the Order would meet us shortly.

Elodie found me tissues and water, but I was still sniffling as I hung back and watched Fitz. He and Elodie talked Order business. He hugged Jack and murmured a few things, and Jack glanced at me and smiled.

Then Fitz clapped Stellan on the back and asked about his sister. Stellan was cordial, but I could tell he was still feeling guarded. As glad as I was to see Fitz, I understood. I’d built Fitz up as this mythical faux-grandfather for years. I remembered the last time I’d seen him. Mr. Emerson, our jolly next-door neighbor. He’d helped us pack up our moving van in Boston. And then he’d hugged us good-bye—and for years after that, he was in my life only via postcards, letters, and the occasional phone call. I should have known this person who cared enough to stay in touch all these years wasn’t just a random neighbor.

There was part of me that, now that we had an adult we actually trusted again, wanted to throw everything at his feet and beg him to tell us what to do. The other part felt like nothing I’d ever known was quite real, and I should be cautious.

The five of us made our way to a table on the lower deck.

“My brave girl,” Fitz said, with a hand on my shoulder. Back home, Fitz didn’t have any kind of accent that I remembered, but now his voice was lilting, light. An Irish accent, maybe? Yet another thing to ask. Yet another piece of the puzzle. “I’m so sorry, love. Your mother—”

He took off his glasses and wiped his tired eyes with the back of his hand. He’d arrived in Paris a couple of hours before us, and had had time to clean up and get settled, but he still looked rough, with a dark bruise across one cheek and his glasses taped together at the hinge. I thought of Lydia and Cole in Egypt, and how they’d gotten there. I didn’t want to think of the injuries on Fitz I couldn’t see.

“My brave kids. I’ve wondered so many times whether all of you would be friends if your worlds collided.” There, again, was that uncomfortable tug on my stomach, of just how much our lives had been steered to get us here, not just by Fitz, but by my mom, the Circle, the Order. I suddenly felt close to tears again. I didn’t exactly feel upset—just confused. Overwhelmed. Guilty—again—for feeling anything but what I should feel, which was relief that we were all here and remorse that my mom wasn’t.

Jack answered a call and warned us to be careful—apparently the Saxons had gotten word of the Dauphins’ plane’s movements and knew we were in Paris. They were stationing Rocco and some others here to try to find us, but they had no more intel than that. They didn’t seem to know yet that Fitz was gone.

We asked Fitz about Rocco’s breaking him out of the Saxons’, and he told us that story, along with an abbreviated version of what had happened since he’d been imprisoned. He’d tried to break out on his own twice early on, he said—he’d been at the Saxons’ before, and knew a little about the inner workings of the house because my mother had been an Order plant at the Saxons’ for years.

I gripped the table, and Fitz turned to me. “I have much to tell you about your mother, Avery.” He glanced around the table. “In fact—”

He cut off when the boat’s door swung open and half a dozen people came inside. I took a last swipe at my eyes with a tissue and stood to greet the Order.

Each member of the small group gave Fitz a hug, then shook hands with us and found a seat at the table. Most of them were adults, but a couple of girls were just slightly older than us. One of them, with sleek dark hair and a gold stud in her nose, looked familiar.

“Were you at the Rajeshes’?” I said.

She nodded. I recognized her now, in the same heavy dark eyeliner she’d put on me while Lydia and I were getting ready for the dinner where I’d met Dev Rajesh for the first—and only—time.

“I have been assigned to the Rajesh home for years,” she said. Her voice was quiet but confident, with a soft accent. “After recent developments, I got a new assignment. I have been speaking with you on the phone about the experiments. My name is Nisha.”

This was Nisha, who had been experimenting on our blood for weeks? I could barely choke out a hello. Elodie sat next to her and took out a list of questions she’d come up with on the flight. I settled back into my chair. Fitz stood behind his seat on one side of me, and Stellan sat at the other. He’d been observing silently since the Order came in.

“Will any more of the group be joining us?” Jack asked, taking his own place across from me.

The Order members looked at one another. Fitz cleared his throat. “That’s one of the things we need to tell you about our organization. There is still one of us in every Circle home. Some of them are here today, but some are at their assignments. Other than that . . .” Fitz paused. “The people in front of you are actually all that’s left of the Order.”