“I am only saying.” Stellan stood up from the couch. “You claim you’ll do anything to help your mother, but even with this new very short time line, you’re not willing to consider the union. Or going to the Saxons, for that matter.”
I stiffened. “You too? They’re my family. I should be the one to decide what I want to do or not do with them.”
He raised a finger to stop me. “They’re your blood. They don’t have to be your family unless you want them to be. Maybe you don’t.”
I shivered. It was warm outside, but these old stone buildings retained the cold. “What does that even mean? Of course I want them to be my family.” I only wished it was as easy as that; that wanting made things true. My fingers tightened around my locket, which contained the only picture I had of the person who had always been my family. The person who had to be my first priority now.
If my mom were here, what would she do? Would she trust the Saxons? Would she try to find another way? My mom had never been the pro-and-con-list type. Whenever I was trying to make a decision, she’d tell me my heart knew what it wanted, and if I followed it, I wouldn’t go wrong. And then I’d remind her that my heart would probably never want to take three AP classes in one semester, but that my college applications would. And it wasn’t like that helped me now. All my heart wanted was to save her, but I didn’t know how.
Stellan raised his eyebrows.
“I just think I should be the one to choose who I want to marry and when. And for all I know, the Saxons could marry me off to someone who might—maybe—be even worse than you,” I said flippantly.
“Now, that is just rude.” Stellan crossed the room and pulled aside the heavy front drapes that we usually kept closed and peered into the street, letting in the soft glow of sunset.
I brushed a stray bread crumb off the counter. “If I went to the Saxons, they might help . . . or they might lock me up in their basement and force me to marry the highest bidder. Which means the safest thing for me to do is find the tomb on my own.”
“If you find it.”
I huffed out a breath. “Don’t the Dauphins need you for . . . something? Anything?”
“That’s code for she doesn’t want you here.” Jack came inside, tossing a bag of espresso beans on the counter.
“Fine.” Stellan let the curtains fall, and the light in the room dimmed. “Lovely to see you both, as always. Talk tomorrow.”
He left, but everything he’d said had brought my worries rushing back even stronger. My plan—to figure out and follow these clues on our own—wasn’t working. Something was going to have to change.
? ? ?
After dinner, I sat on the couch and Jack stood in front of the clue wall, reading over the new article I’d pinned up earlier. It was about a cache of Napoleon artifacts found at a site near New Delhi, India.
“So what this means is that Napoleon’s been everywhere,” he said.
I shrugged. We knew we had to search places other than Paris—if we could ever get passports—but the list of where to search just kept growing.
I buried my face in my hands, and after a second, I felt the couch dip as Jack sat beside me.
“Yes, there are lots of possibilities,” he said. “But we’ve already determined that he’d likely have left the second bracelet, or any other clues, in places important to him or the Circle or Alexander, right?”
I nodded. If he wanted someone to find the clues, he wouldn’t bury them in a random field somewhere.
“So we’ll figure out how to get out of here, then we’ll do a methodical search of Circle headquarters cities, Alexander monuments . . . every place we can in the time we have,” he said.
He always sounded so calm. So logical. He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder, then pulled back and hovered awkwardly. “I’m going to bed.”
Don’t, I almost said. I don’t want to be alone in my own head right now. I need somebody. I need you.
“Good night,” I said instead. At least pretending not to care—forcing myself not to care—was something I had plenty of practice with.
“It’s like I said before,” Jack said after a second. “It’ll be all right, yeah? We’ll figure it out.”
I nodded and tried to believe him.
He disappeared into the bedroom, kicking off his shoes as he went. I sighed and pulled a history book from the stack on the coffee table. I read about Napoleon’s campaign through France for the thousandth time. Alexander’s time in Egypt. Napoleon’s outposts in northern France. Alexander’s conquests in India.
I grabbed my phone. India. Elephants. Bright colors. Bright colors painted onto elephants. The Napoleon treasure they found recently was in Delhi, not Kolkata, where the Circle family based in India lived. I looked up important monuments in Kolkata. Temples. The Indian Museum, which supposedly had both Alexander artifacts and European art and jewelry. It was a pretty building, but too new-looking. Built—hmm. Built in 1814. The year Napoleon was exiled from France.