CHAPTER 21

“I’m here,” I called as loud as I dared. “I can’t get out. The guards have the keys.”

A few seconds later, jingling, and then the door swung open. Elodie held a huge key ring, and Stellan was a few steps away, dragging a crumpled guard away from the door. He grabbed a gun and a knife from the guard’s belt.

I shoved past Elodie and scanned the hall for more guards. “What are you guys doing here? They’ll kill you.”

“If we left you here, they’d kill Jackie and lock you up,” Elodie said. “We weren’t going to let Luc help, but he insisted.”

“I don’t think they’ll hurt him at the Saxons’ home,” Stellan said over his shoulder, “but he won’t hold them off for long.”

Elodie peered behind me. “Where’s Jack?”

“I don’t know.”

Elodie cursed and pocketed the key ring. “I’ll find him. You get out.”

I nodded, but paused. They still had my mom. I grabbed the notepad on Alistair’s desk and scribbled, I’ll find the tomb for you. Don’t hurt her.

“Come on,” Stellan said. “What are you doing?” I tossed the note back on the desk and turned just in time to see the guard rising up, a heavy chair in his hands arcing toward Stellan’s head.

“Watch out!” I screamed, and Stellan ducked, but not fast enough. The chair’s front leg cracked into his skull, and he stumbled to one knee.

The guard popped to standing and grabbed me, hauling me off down the hall. My legs dragged and I flailed, kicking back at his knee. “Let me go!” I screamed.

The guard clamped a hand over my mouth.

I found skin and ground my teeth together as hard as I could, until I tasted the metallic tang of blood.

He yelled and dropped me in a heap, cradling his hand, a mix of shock and contempt blazing in his eyes. “You little bitch—”

He didn’t get to finish. Stellan came up behind him and put a gun to his head.

“Don’t—” I said, and at the last second, Stellan took his finger off the trigger and smacked the side of the guard’s head with the butt of the gun. The guard fell next to me, and I saw two phones with blue rubberized cases sticking out of his pocket. My untraceable phone, and Jack’s, too. I grabbed them and stuffed them into the bag across my chest, and Stellan hauled me to my feet. I spat the remnants of blood out of my mouth, wiping my tongue like I could get rid of the whole idea.

“Your head,” I said. Blood matted Stellan’s blond hair.

“It’s fine.” He shook the cobwebs from what was obviously a pretty bad head injury, then pointed his gun down the hall. We were alone.

We hurried to a door, and it opened to a pitch-black stairwell. Stellan grabbed my hand, and I felt slick blood across his palm. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I said.

“Yes. Go.”

I clung to Stellan with one hand and the banister with the other, only stumbling once as we made our way down three flights of dark stairs until we were on level ground again. “There’s got to be a door,” Stellan whispered, and we felt the walls with our free hands, all smooth, no handles or doorjambs.

Suddenly, a door burst open in the wall. Someone held a flashlight, and I made out the glint of a gun. And a person. Scarface.

I didn’t think. I didn’t consider the gun. I let go of Stellan, wheeled around, and kneed Scarface as hard as I could in the crotch.

Yes, Stellan was right that guys had good reflexes when it came to that, but I had the element of surprise. Scarface fell to one knee, gasping in pain, his gun flying off into the dark.

“That was for killing Fitzpatrick Emerson,” I said. “And for kidnapping my mom. Where is she?”

Scarface panted. “I don’t know where your damn mother is. Not here.”

I was inclined to believe him. I wasn’t sure he could be in that much pain and come up with a good lie at the same time.

“I’ve already called for backup,” he said, nodding at Stellan’s gun. “You kill me, they’ll still be down here before you can get away.”

I looked up at the side of the chateau, where Elodie and Jack might be right now. “Call them off,” I said.

Scarface just laughed.

Stellan jammed the gun into his head. “We’ll take our chances.”

“Wait.” Suddenly, I had another idea. It was risky, in a lot of ways. But so was having either or both of us captured again.

“No,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “He’s going to call them off.”

Scarface raised an eyebrow up at me.

“The Saxons are not the right side to end up on,” I said. I was starting to understand. In the Circle, loyalty goes family first, with the Circle not far behind, but I represented a whole lot more power than the Saxons did.

A frown quirked Scarface’s long, dark scar downward. “I know who you are. You belong to the Saxons.”

“I don’t belong to anybody,” I said. “I’m giving you a choice because I think you’re smart. We could work together.”

Shouts came from the floors above. “Call them off now and let us go,” I said, “and when I’m in power, you’ll be beside me.”

Scarface’s eyes flickered between us. “You’re going to take over by yourself? Without the Saxons?”

“I’m not on the Saxons’ side anymore.”

Scarface considered my answer. And then he got to his knees.

I tensed, but he bowed, hands across his forehead, palms to me, hands crossed, so they shadowed his face in the flashlight beam. I recognized the posture: at the wedding at Notre-Dame, after I’d revealed myself, the people had done the same thing, pledging their loyalty to me.

I gaped down at him, then at Stellan. I let out a jagged breath. “Okay. Call them off.”

Scarface pulled a walkie-talkie out of his belt and barked into it, “No one at the back stairs. Try the east wing.”

It had actually worked. “Okay. Um. Stay with Lydia and pretend you’re still working for her. Try to keep the guards away while we escape. Luc Dauphin—make sure he gets out safely. And don’t let the Saxons do anything to my mother. That’s the most important thing.”

Scarface nodded. I started toward the door, but he didn’t get off his knees.

Stellan stopped me. “You’ll have to accept him officially,” he said quietly. “Otherwise he’s not really yours.”

I glanced at the door, outside, freedom. “What do you mean?”

“It’s usually done at the ceremony when we get our tattoos.” The frown on Stellan’s face told me he wasn’t sure about this idea. “The tattoo is the symbol of who you’re loyal to.”

A sacred Circle ceremony. We didn’t have time. It wasn’t like I could give him a new tattoo, anyway. My hand flew to my necklace, twisting, and then it stopped. The knot symbol, with thirteen loops.

“Where’s your tattoo?” I asked Scarface. Without standing or even looking up, he pulled down the back of his collar. There was a compass tattoo there, which had been inked over an old tattoo. I couldn’t quite tell, but it could have been an olive branch.

It didn’t matter. I unhooked my necklace. “Lighter?” I asked Stellan. He dug it out of his pocket. I flicked it and dangled my necklace in the flame. The orange light glinted off the gold.

“Are you sure you trust him enough to do this?” Stellan said. “It’s a big deal.”

“I don’t care as long as he lets us go,” I breathed in his ear. It wasn’t like we ever had to see Scarface again if something went wrong.

When I thought it would be hot enough, I tried to grasp the necklace between my thumb and finger, and hissed.

“I’ll do it,” Stellan said. I shook my head. He might not burn, but it still hurt him. He took a tissue from his pocket and gripped the necklace.

“Tell me where you want it,” he said.

But that didn’t feel right. “Together,” I said. “Above the compass.” I put my hand over Stellan’s. Together, we pressed the hot necklace into the end of the olive branch. Scarface twitched, and I responded by pressing harder. I wanted it to hurt. For my mom. For Mr. Emerson.

Stellan pulled our hands away, revealing an angry red welt. I hoped it would be enough for us to escape.

Scarface touched his neck, then put his hands to his forehead again.

Despite Scarface’s calling them off, a door opened in the stairwell far above.

“Go,” I said to Stellan. We shoved through the outer door as footsteps pounded down the stairs.

Scarface leaped up. He intercepted the pair of guards. “They’re getting away,” one of them said.

And then Scarface unceremoniously slit both their throats.

A strangled gasp escaped my throat. “I didn’t mean kill everybody!”

The door was closing. I clawed at it, keeping it open. “Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to!” I yelled.

Stellan grabbed my arm and pulled me away. “Nothing you can do.”

I felt sick. With one last glance back, I stumbled after him, letting the door slam.

“You know what our tattoos mean, right?” Stellan said. “Loyalty to the death. He’s given that to you now. If they’d seen him letting us escape, he’d be the one killed.”

My necklace was still dangling from my wrist. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t fasten it, and Stellan reached around my neck and did it for me. His white shirt, at my eye level, was stained such a dark red that it looked black in the dim light.

“Is it like stabbing the meat?” I whispered. “Like once you keep seeing people die over and over, it gets easier?”

“No.” He dropped the necklace on my chest. It was bloody and still warm. “It never gets easier.”

Stellan rested a hand on my shoulder, and I let out a shaky breath. For a second, I thought he was trying to console me, but I realized he was swaying. I caught him around the waist. “Concussion,” he said, leaning into me. “I think. Not feeling good. Should probably sit.”

I blocked out everything else. We weren’t out of the woods yet.

“Do you know where Elodie was going to look for Jack?” I said.

“No.” Stellan stumbled a little, and I held him up.

I looked at the chateau. It was four stories tall, all windows. I had absolutely no clue where Jack might be. I hadn’t been letting myself worry about him, but now it washed over me. What they’d do to a Keeper who’d gone behind their backs.

Still, they would have kept him alive long enough to interrogate him. And Elodie would find him. Right? And then another thought, just as dark. If they offered him what they’d offered me—side with them and live—could Jack have chosen the people he’d been loyal to all his life?

The question was answered with a crash. A second-story window halfway down the building shattered in a rain of sparkle in the moonlight.

Two people leaned out of the window. Jack and Elodie. I ran toward them, pulling Stellan with me. He tripped over his own feet and came down hard on one of my toes, and I realized his eyes were sliding closed.

I hissed and elbowed him in the side to wake him up. “You have to walk.” He mumbled something in Russian. The head injury was way worse than I’d realized, or maybe he’d lost too much blood, but he was heavy, and slipping.

I half dragged him toward the window, where Elodie was dangling from the sill and ready to drop into the hedge below. Just as she fell and jumped up, Jack climbed out after her, and then the lights flicked back on in the house. A shadow entered the room where Jack was hanging.

The guard who’d been outside my room earlier appeared in the window, shouting back over his shoulder. He saw us first, then Jack. He raised his gun.

Something silver swished through the air. Elodie’s knife hit the guard in the shoulder, but not before he squeezed the trigger. Jack managed to swing his body in toward the wall, and the bullet missed him, but he lost his grip, and then he was falling, crashing headlong into the brush below.

I threw Stellan’s limp form onto Elodie and rushed to the hedge. Jack was sitting up, dazed. “I’m all right,” he said, holding his shoulder.

“Allons-y,” Elodie called, and I hauled Jack to his feet as shouts came from overhead. Jack took Stellan’s other side, and we hurried to a car hidden behind the chateau. Elodie jumped in the driver’s seat, and we sped away.