“Were you in Paris this whole time?” Lydia said, and I watched a red double-decker bus drive by on the wrong side of the road, followed by a whole row of black cabs that looked like bowler hats.
“Yes,” I answered, tearing myself away from London’s charms. “Like I told your father—our—Alistair—” What was I supposed to call him? “Like I told him on the phone, the Order has my mom, and I’ve been trying to help her. Paris seemed like the best place to do it, but I’m not sure that’s true anymore.”
Lydia nodded. “You said the Order wants you to find the tomb? And swap it for your mum?”
Jack met my eyes quickly. We’d talked about this. We were going to tell the Saxons almost everything. “That’s their demand,” Jack said. “Of course, we hope to stop them directly.”
A frown flashed across Lydia’s face, but was gone just as quickly. “Of course,” she said.
I touched the bracelet on my arm, currently hidden under a cardigan.
We walked in silence for a few minutes. I couldn’t help but gawk at the city. The stone turrets and gleaming skyscrapers. Bright red phone booths and crisp new street signs. The clean and modern contrasting with the charming, comfortably worn-in look of the rest of the city, like the buildings just wanted to sit down with you and have a cup of tea.
The people, though, were like people in any big city: crowded, rushed, pushing. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen so many different kinds of people in one place, either. You always heard London was a melting pot, but I hadn’t quite realized. We passed a group of Asian businessmen in expensive suits, sitting on a bench next to a few kids whose accents sounded Eastern European maybe, and who were younger than me, but whose mullets and acid-wash jeans were from a time before I was born. And running between them, a whole swarm of preschool kids, one little Indian girl screeching to a pale redhead in the cutest tiny British accent that she wanted to have the next go with the jump rope.
I’d forgotten what it was like to understand conversations on the street. I paused for a second, listening to a couple argue about where to eat dinner, marveling at how foreign my native language sounded.
Out of everywhere I’d ever lived, this was where I technically belonged. My family lived here. London would have been my home if things had been different. My sister looked perfectly at ease on these wide, clean streets. I think I’d been expecting to feel some kind of connection to the city.
But there was nothing more than the usual feel of a new place. When you moved as much as my mom and I did, everywhere was home and nowhere was. You got as used to washing your hair at the Days Inn off the highway as you did to learning the quirks of a new kitchen. It was the same with people, I guess. Would I really feel like the Saxons were who I belonged to more than anyone else?
As if on cue, Lydia answered a phone call and told the person on the other end we’d be there shortly. “Father’s ready,” she said. “Let’s take you home.”
CHAPTER 3
“Home” was a gated estate on the outskirts of London, with a wide walkway leading from the front drive up to the house. We had touched down on a rooftop landing pad, and were now looking over grounds that stretched away into a sparkling pool, a stable complex, and what appeared to be a racetrack with a single car circling it. Keeping the estate from looking too formal were beds of wildflowers that swayed in the late-afternoon breeze.
The second Jack had helped us down from the helicopter, he’d disappeared with nothing more than a nod in my direction, leaving me and my sister alone. Lydia began giving me the full tour immediately and stopped talking only to change for dinner. She’d offered me a change of clothes, too, but I wasn’t sure we were at the clothes-sharing point yet, and when we left Paris this morning, I’d dressed nicely on purpose, in a plain black dress. While I waited for her in a sitting room, my phone chimed with a text. I hoped it was Jack telling me where he was, and that everything was okay.
It wasn’t. It was Scarface. 13 days, the text said.
I tossed the phone back in my bag like it was on fire. Another reminder that not only was my mom’s life on the line, but that I’d be going behind the Saxons’ backs. Up until now, I hadn’t felt bad about that, but after meeting Lydia, I was starting to.