I pulled out my phone. In a few seconds, I had pulled up a photo of Dev Rajesh. I leaned the phone against a candle on the shrine. “He was a victim, too.”
Elodie set down the bottle of wine and found a picture of Liam Blackstone to go next to Dev. On Jack’s phone, Malik Emir. Stellan rested a hand on Luc’s shoulder, and I knew they were thinking about Luc’s baby sister.
“And to the rest of them, all our brothers killed by the Order,” Luc said quietly.
Jack took out his wallet and pulled out the photo of him and Mr. Emerson on Mont Blanc, the photo Mr. Emerson had left as a clue. He set it in the shrine, too, then squeezed my hand.
“There’s a tradition I know of,” Elodie said. “You open a window to let the spirits of the dead out, like smoke.”
I released a shaky breath.
“You’re not forgetting them, but you’re allowing them—and yourself—to move on.”
I felt my nails digging into my palms. We were still in the middle of this. I wasn’t sure any moving on could happen right now.
But Luc ran across the room and opened the balcony door. He grabbed a package of incense and lit one of the sticks in a candle flame and waved the smoke back and forth across the shrine. The smoke thickened as we passed the bottle of wine between the five of us. It was sweet, syrupy. I kept one eye on the smoke, but none of it was drifting out the open door at all.
? ? ?
An hour later, we were down almost two bottles of wine. A few of the candles had burned out, but the rest flickered over the photos. Cream rugs covered the hardwood floors in the apartment, and there was a small kitchen and two overstuffed leather couches that all five of us lounged on now. I stayed a careful distance from Jack on one couch, while Elodie’s legs sprawled across Stellan’s lap on the other.
Luc sat on the furry rug at Stellan and Elodie’s feet, and he set to opening another bottle of wine, clumsily. I got the feeling he’d already had a little to drink before we arrived. “Is it horrible to say this is fun?” he said. “It’s like a—what is the American word? Slumber party? A very tragic slumber party.”
We should have been using the time to plan our trip to Greece, but I realized I was glad we weren’t. “Fun” might not have been the right word, but it really was like a slumber party in the cozy apartment, and after the exhaustion and frustration about the clue that wasn’t a clue and all the literal and figurative blood on my hands, I needed that right now. I think we all did.
Elodie leaned over to grab the wine from Luc, and Stellan pushed off the couch and went into the other room.
I stretched and got up, too, and made my way across the room to the small balcony. Jack followed. He stopped me at the French doors and peered outside. “Seems safe.”
I looked out over the piazza below, where a steady rain was now falling, making the cobblestones shiny in the lone streetlight. The piazza was a rectangle, enclosed on three sides by buildings with barred windows and planter boxes, and bordered by a canal on the fourth. It was chilly out, and I shivered even though I was still wearing Jack’s coat.
“You okay?” Jack said.
I hugged my arms around myself and nodded.
“Do you really think Greece is a good idea?” he said.
I looked up sharply. “Of course. Eight days, remember? Do you not think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t like being so far away from Saxon security. Especially after the attack today.” Jack paused. “The Saxons want the tomb as much as we do. If we told them the truth, they could at least send guards.”
I was shaking my head before he’d even finished speaking. “You know why we can’t tell them. They’d never let me give what we find to the Order.”
I leaned on the railing. We were sheltered from the rain by the building’s overhang, but the occasional breeze sent a drop or two our way. My shoulders stiffened when Jack leaned beside me.
“I know. I understand.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just—you’ve got to understand my point of view, too. The way you feel about doing everything you can to keep your mom safe? That’s how I feel about you. I know I’m not supposed to,” he continued. “I know we’re not . . . But you can’t imagine what it felt like today to see him raise that gun in your direction.”
I swallowed. “I really don’t think they’re going to hurt me—”
“And I think you need to take into account the opinions of people who don’t have an emotional stake in this like you do.”
I pushed back from the railing. “You just admitted you do have an emotional stake in it.”
Jack turned. Earlier I had been so relieved for us to be back together, and needed the comfort of us so much, that I couldn’t not kiss him. I knew he felt it too—he’d just admitted he still felt it as much as I did. But this—this suddenly not being on the same page when I had thought we were—was a different kind of tension entirely, and one I wasn’t used to.
“Avery—” he said.