Despite everything that had happened, Jack and I were not together. Not dating. Certainly not boyfriend and girlfriend.
Early on, we’d talked. It would be too distracting. He didn’t want to put me in an uncomfortable position. No matter what we felt for each other, it would be best to put our relationship on the back burner until we were no longer in a life-or-death situation.
I knew he was right. Besides, it was bad enough that he was helping me hide from the Saxons. If they found out that something inappropriate was going on . . .
Yes, we’d slipped up sometimes. Just last week, we were sitting on the couch, flipping through Napoleon history books, and we thought we’d made a breakthrough about a museum in Austria. Without thinking about it, I’d kissed him. He’d kissed me back like he’d never wanted to do anything more in his life, which only made it more awkward minutes later, when he’d let go of me like he’d just committed a crime. The Austrian museum turned out to be nothing, anyway.
So Jack and I were friends now. Teammates. People who lived together—slept in the same room in our tiny apartment—but in separate beds. People who tried really hard not to remember how it felt to wake up with my head on his chest.
Or maybe that was just me.
I looked up at him, heavy brows over gray eyes like storm clouds, the square line of his jaw, a knit beanie that disguised his dark hair.
We were the definition of it’s complicated.
“Yeah.” I adjusted my own dark glasses. “Coffee. And more Parisian document forgers. It’ll be fine.”
We were almost back to the apartment when my phone rang. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jack sigh.
It had also been two weeks of Stellan. He was across Paris, at the Dauphins’, but ever since we learned he was part of the lost thirteenth bloodline of the Circle of Twelve, he might as well have been living in our little apartment with us. And though no one besides us knew it, he was also the One. The heir of Alexander the Great. And the person who I, according to the Circle’s ancient mandate, was meant to marry in order to find Alexander’s tomb. Of course, I didn’t believe that part for a second.
I answered the phone. “Do you need something?”
“Only wondering what you’re doing today,” he said casually. A car horn sounded up the street from us just as one honked in the background on the phone, and I could picture Stellan weaving between little black Vespas near the Louvre, out on an errand for the Dauphins.
“Nothing important,” I answered. Jack and I paused on the curb as a red Fiat sped by, then continued across the cobblestones and around the overgrown garden on our corner.
Jack pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. He pretended he thought the whole thing was as ridiculous as I did. That me marrying Stellan wouldn’t do anything. But he’d grown up in the Circle. The union in the mandate, between the One and the girl with the purple eyes, meant marriage to him, like it did to the rest of the Circle. I knew it bothered him more than he’d say.
“Where are you?” Stellan asked. Over the past few weeks, his light Russian accent had become as familiar to me as Jack’s British one.
“Why?” I answered suspiciously. “Where are you?”
We stepped onto our street, and there was Stellan, leaning against the wall in front of our apartment, his tall, slim frame clad in his usual uniform of skinny jeans, a close-fitting T-shirt, and boots. He flipped his blond hair out of his eyes and grinned. I sighed and put my phone back in my bag.
“Does he realize he doesn’t have a standing invitation?” Jack grumbled.
“I can hear you,” Stellan called.
Jack pushed past him without a hello and punched in the door code to our building. The now-familiar scent of old wood followed me up the stairs. Jack held the apartment door open for me, then frowned. “We forgot the coffee.”
“I can go out later—”
“I’ll just go. You all right?” His eyes cut to Stellan, who stepped inside the apartment. I nodded. “I’ll be back in a minute,” Jack said, closing the door behind him.
“This playing house you two are doing is adorable.” Stellan flopped onto the couch, stretching his arms along the back. The apartment had only two rooms—a closet-sized bedroom and this one, which contained an efficiency kitchen, one small table, and a couch that backed up to windows overlooking a sunny courtyard.
I tossed my hat and sunglasses on the table and glanced at our wall of clues, where we’d pinned Xeroxes of pages from Napoleon’s diary—which we’d also found from Mr. Emerson’s clues—the wording of the inscription on the bracelet, photos of the gargoyle that had pointed us to the diary, and a map of the world. I’d marked the cities we might want to visit with colorful pins, and tacked up museum brochures and notes. All in all, it looked like crazy conspiracy theorists lived here. I guess that wasn’t far from the truth.