“Went against a direct order.” Luc swigged his drink.
I leaned my elbows on the shiny black tabletop. “They fired him for going against one order?”
A glance passed between the three of them. “Fired is one way to put it,” Colette said carefully.
Wait. They weren’t saying the guy got put to death for going against an order? Before I could ask, Stellan emerged from the crowd. He nodded to Liam and Colette, then looked at the drink in Luc’s hand when Luc hiccuped.
Luc narrowed his eyes and downed the drink in one gulp. “Gonna go smoke.” He slid out of the booth and flopped onto a stool at the end of the bar.
“What’s wrong with him today?” Colette asked. “He’s been acting strange.”
Stellan watched Luc light a cigarette. “He’s been having a hard time with the babies coming and the mandate and all.”
The three of them started talking. At the bar, Luc rubbed a hand over his head, mussing his hair. I scooted out of the booth, too, pulling down my dress, which wouldn’t stop trying to inch up, and slipped onto the bar stool next to Luc.
“Hey,” I said. He didn’t look up, and I studied the sharp curve of his jaw, his angular, lanky frame. Besides the eyes, he looked nothing like me. But what if the Dauphins were my real family? If Monsieur Dauphin was my real father? That would mean Luc was my half brother. I felt a wave of affection for him.
“Everything okay?” I said. It was like the couple extra drinks had flipped a switch in him. He stared at his glass with big, miserable puppy dog eyes.
“Cherie, you’re so lucky.” He wasn’t even trying to talk over the music anymore. I could smell the sour liquor tang on his breath even over the cigarette. “You, Colette, Liam. You get the perks without the . . . devoir. Without the anxiety.”
“Are you worried about not being able to interpret the mandate?” I said.
“That, and everything.” He pawed at the back of his neck. “This thing. This tattoo.” He was slurring now, and pulled clumsily at the collar of his shirt. “This tattoo is so . . . heavy.”
I could see the edge of the sun, in the same place as Stellan’s, at the top of his spine.
“Even more than my blood,” he mumbled, “this thing is the weight of my family—of our whole territory!—on my back. Literally.”
He snorted with drunken, derisive laughter at his own joke, but just as quickly, his face fell.
“What does it mean?” I asked gently.
He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray, and the last bits of smoke curled up toward the lights over the bar.
“Everybody in the Circle gets their family’s tattoo on their seventeenth birthday. Family members, of course, but also the Keepers, the house staff . . . everybody.” He traced his tattoo with a fingertip, like he knew the lines by heart. “They are a physical sign of our fidélité. They mean unwavering loyalty. To the death.”
“To the death?” So I’d been right about the guy who worked for Liam’s family.
He nodded blearily. “As in, we swear to die for the family, and we recognize that treachery can be punishable by death. When you hold as much responsibility as we do, there has to be incentive to stay in line. There are plenty of stories.”
I stared at the tattoo. Just like Stellan’s. And Jack’s. I thought of Jack, desperate for me to come to the Saxons. “Like what?” I said.
“All kinds of things.” A rowdy group of guys leaned on the bar right next to me, calling for drinks. I scooted even closer to Luc, who hardly seemed to notice. “Grant Frederick is not . . . tolerant. His Keeper might have refused a kill order, or he might just have talked back when he shouldn’t’ve,” he said, starting to slur his words together. “And there’re more. Like the Rajesh Keeper who leaked information to a media outlet we don’t control. Or the Emir Keeper, who had a relationship with a family member. They got caught . . . you know. Together. He was terminated immediately.”
My thoughts flashed back to Jack asking me to prom. If being with a family member was grounds for termination, it really must have meant nothing.
“Some families are more harsh than others, of course,” Luc went on, “but you don’t want to test it. And for family members, the tattoos are a constant reminder of our place in our family. And in the world.” Luc swirled the ice and lime wedges in his empty glass. “And yet, despite all that power, I can do nothing. Not to stop the Order, not to find clues to the mandate, not even to stop my new baby sister from being married off.”
“Married?” That was an abrupt change of subject.
Luc chuckled again, but it was a hollow sound. “Of course, no one finds it odd to be betrothed to an infant. They’re all at our home groveling to my parents for the chance. I find it repulsive, but it’s what the mandate says, so we will do it.”
I wasn’t listening anymore. My heart pounded in my ears, off the beat of the music.
Married. The mandate. Betrothed.
The rightful One and the girl with the violet eyes. Their union.
Suddenly, Luc wasn’t the only one swaying on his bar stool.