When I woke up, the sky was gray and the room was dim. I still had Jesse’s hoodie, but it was tangled around my waist. When I went to reach for him, his side of the bed was empty but still warm, like he had just gotten up a few minutes before me. I felt better, though, almost satiated. I had been running on fumes and when they gave out, so did I.
I looked out the window for a few minutes, seeing only the sky and the old pale Parisian buildings across the street. Their windows were arched and wide, just like the ones in Ryo and Élodie’s—or Angelo’s?—apartment, and I saw figures moving past the window, winding up their day, living their life.
The bedroom door opened and I looked over to see Roux peeking her head in. “Hi,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled, stretching my arms over my head, and Roux took that as an invite to plop herself down next to me.
I nodded as I sat up. “How bad is my hair?”
“Atrocious,” she replied cheerfully, which made me smile.
“What time is it?”
“Almost six thirty. At night,” she added. “Jesse just got up a little while ago, too. He’s talking with Ryo and Élodie. They’re pretty cool. Élodie’s going to dye my hair for me.”
Called it.
“Are you hungry?” Roux continued. “There’s food. And coffee, of course.”
“There’s always coffee,” I said. “Wait, though. Are you okay?”
Roux just shrugged. “Yeah. Yesterday wasn’t exactly my idea of fun, but we’re okay now. And I like it here. I like Paris. I mean, I haven’t been outside yet, but I still like it. What about you? Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I said. “Just needed to have a psychotic breakdown, that’s all.”
“I highly recommend them.” She grinned at me. “Next time, though, definitely break something. Otherwise you just look like an amateur.”
“Noted,”I said. “Maybe smash a plate?”
“A plate, maybe a few glasses if someone else will clean up the mess.” Roux’s eyes gleamed wickedly in the dark room. “I’ll show you a few things when we get back to New York.”
“So you’re not mad that we had to leave?”
“What, and leave behind a bunch of people who called me names and two parents that wouldn’t know my name if they saw it on my birth certificate?” Roux rolled her eyes. “The world’s bigger than one city, right? It’s just nice to be doing something for once, rather than sitting around and waiting for someone to do something to us.”
I smiled back at her. “So it’s better than SAT prep?” I teased.
“So much better.” She laughed. “At least this will be useful in life. C’mon, let’s go eat. There’s cheese!”
After she left, I went into the bathroom and washed my face and brushed my teeth using one of the new toothbrushes that was laid out next to the sink. The water was surprisingly cold and it made me shiver, but it woke me up, too, and I finger combed my hair before padding down the hall and into the kitchen.
Ryo, Élodie, Roux, and Jesse were all around the large wooden table. There was a French press in the middle of the table, half-full with coffee, and some bread and cheese and cold roast chicken and figs. “She’s alive,” Ryo said when he saw me.
“Nice hair,” Jesse added, winking at me. I had it coming after all the grief I had given him about his curly hair, though, and I smiled a little as I slipped into the chair next to his.
“Sorry about … that,” I said, waving my arm back toward the living room. “I was just tired. And stressed. And pissed. And I won’t kill you, Ryo.”
“I wasn’t worried,” he said. “And don’t sweat it. No one’s dead, so it’s fine.”
“You should have seen me after our last debacle,” Élodie said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Ask Ryo, I was a mess. But then he fell apart after—well, we are getting ahead of ourselves.”
Roux shoved some cheese at me. “So good,” she said, her mouth full. “Try it.”
I took it, then poured some coffee into a chipped china teacup. It was strong and hot and made me feel more like myself.
“I know I asked this earlier,” I said, “but I probably missed the answer if there was one. What do you do? Who are you?”
“We should wait for Ames before we explain,” Ryo said. “He’ll be here soon. It’s somewhat easier to explain with him here.”
Élodie laughed under her breath and said something to Ryo in French before grinning at him. He smiled back, but what was surprising was that Jesse smiled, too.
“Wait, Jess,” Roux said. “Did you understand that?”
His eyes widened in realization. “Wait. No. Wait, say something else in French again.”
Élodie rattled off a string of words that I didn’t understand, but to my absolute amazement, Jesse responded in perfect French. “Holy shit!” he cried, then looked at me in surprise.
“You speak French?” I cried. “Since when?”
“Since I don’t know!” he said. “I mean, I’ve been learning French since kindergarten, and I know that I like to go with mes amis to la plage and drink limonade, but I thought it was just stupid things like that. Wow, my expensive education actually works!”
“Drink lemonade with your friends at the beach,” Élodie scoffed. “Tell me, do you see a beach around here? What do they teach you in those textbooks?”
Jesse was still laughing to himself, though, not listening to Élodie at all. “I can’t believe it!”
“I wonder what I can do if Jesse can speak French,” Roux mused. “Does anyone have a ninja star I can throw?”
“No,” we all said immediately, but it did nothing to squash Roux’s enthusiasm for Jesse’s newfound talent. “You should totally take AP French when we get home,” she told him. “You’d smoke everyone in that class.”
“Good plan,” I said. “Now I have a non–language related question. How’s Ames going to get in the front door? He can’t crack the lock.”
“Of course he can.” Élodie shrugged. “We all can. It’s easy.”
“Easy?” I cried. “I almost lost a finger trying to get that thing open! I’ve been practicing for nearly six months and it was still difficult.”
“Ames made a tool that makes it simple,” Ryo said. “And besides, that’s how we know someone is worthy of getting in. If you can’t do the lock, you don’t deserve to be here. Lucky for you, you passed the test.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said. “More like blood, sweat, and tears. Literally.”
“Well, that sounds like a party!”
We all turned to see a guy walking through the living room into the kitchen, a huge grin across his face and a motorcycle helmet under his arm. He wore a leather jacket and his boots were heavy on the parquet floors, and he had the sort of flushed cheeks that made him look like he was perpetually embarrassed or pleased.
“Oh,” I heard Roux murmur behind me.
“Howya?” He nodded at Ryo and Élodie, dropping his helmet down on the table and giving Élodie a kiss on the top of her head before doing the same to Ryo. “Someone said something about blood? Who are these strangers? Why haven’t we boiled them in a pot yet?” He winked at me. “Just kidding. I’m a vegetarian. I only eat my enemies. For breakfast.” His Irish accent was broad and deep. Roux hadn’t stopped looking at him.
Ryo gestured to me, ignoring the guy’s bravado. “Ames, this is Maggie.”
Ames’s face split wide open in a smile. “Maggie,” he said. “We’ve heard so much. How’s high school? Waste of time, yeah?”
“My own personal hell on earth,” I said. “I’m sorry, how do you know I’m in high school?”
“We were waiting for you to explain, Ames,” Élodie said, patting the chair next to her. “Way to take your time, by the way. We love waiting for you.”
“You know what I like best about you, Él?” Ames said, and Élodie wrinkled her nose at the nickname. “You use sarcasm to hide your true emotions. It’s so human.” He looked at Jesse. “You must be the boyfriend. Falling in love with a criminal, yeah?” He winked at Jesse in a knowing way. “It’s great craic.”
Jesse looked a bit confused but still shook Ames’s hand. “Hey,” he said.
“I’m Roux,” Roux said, offering her own hand, and the Ames Charm Tour came to a halt when he took her hand in his. The two of them froze for only a second, but it was clear that something had changed in the room. Roux’s shoulders, which were always somewhere around her ears due to her constant nervous energy, fell a little, and the blush in Ames’s cheeks grew a little, along with his smile.
“Enchanté,” he said to her. “I’m sure.”
Roux grinned, but it wasn’t her normal smile. It was the smile she got when someone paid attention to her, when they noticed her. It was real and warm and I almost felt like I should look away, like Roux and Ames should have this moment for themselves.
Ryo, apparently, felt differently.
“So you’re here,” he said. “Finally. And Maggie’s here, along with her two rogues. Can we please get to work?”
“Right,” Ames said, plopping down between Élodie and Roux. “So. Maggie. We heard you almost got shot. Good work not dyin’.”
“Um, thank you?” I said.
“About that,” Jesse said, his hand cupped around his coffee mug. “So we’re all cool just sitting in front of these large windows?” He pointed at the arched windows that lined one of the kitchen walls. “No one’s worried about a follow-up attack?”
“They’re bulletproof and tinted,” Élodie said. “Please do not worry.”
“Yeah, no offense,” Roux said, “but I’ve heard that before. Let me guess: the Collective put the windows in. Because if so, that won’t make me feel any safer.”
“The Collective,” Ames scoffed. “You still trust them after all they did to you?”
Roux and Jesse both looked at me, and I took a deep breath.
“I don’t know what to believe,” I said, “but it would be a lot easier to figure out if you told me what we were doing here and who you were.”
Ryo, Ames, and Élodie all looked at one another. “We used to be part of the Collective, too,” Élodie said. “Until they tried to turn us, then erased our identities.”
I felt both Roux and Jesse look at me.
“And some other things,” Ames added, pulling off a piece of chicken with his fingers.
“Care to elaborate?” Jesse asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“You know what’s complicated?” I said. “Flying all night to Paris after someone opens fire on your family. That’s complicated.”
Ames grinned and pointed at her and Élodie. “You two, you love to make it all woo-woo-y.”
“Well, it’s not like we explain it that often!” Élodie protested. Her hair was in her face, and she twisted it back into a hasty bun. “We don’t have open membership, Ames.”
“Can we back this up a moment, please?” I interrupted them. “Let’s go back to that ex-Collective part.”
“That’s the best part,” Ames agreed, then popped the chicken in his mouth and leaned so far back in his chair that I was afraid he would fall.
“I’ll start,” he said. “They recruited me when I was in high school in Dublin, said I had a gift for mechanics and locks and such.”
I tried not to bristle with jealousy.
“And then when I turned eighteen, they wanted me to go further, do more dangerous things.”
“Which you probably loved,” Élodie muttered.
“’Course I did!” Ames grinned. “But there’s dangerous and then there’s what they asked me to do. Spying on other members of the Collective, hunting down people who tried to leave.” He shrugged. “That’s not what I do, mate. I don’t turn on friends. When I said no, they tried to kill me. So I ran.”
He told the story like he was describing a trip to the supermarket. Jesse’s posture was ramrod straight next to me, Roux’s eyes were wide, and I realized that I had my hand over my heart.
“Tell ’em your story.” Ames nodded at Ryo. “That’s a good one.”
“I was in Tokyo,” Ryo said, rubbing his hand over his face. I wondered how much sleep they were getting. “The Collective came to me and interrogated me about Élodie for hours.”
“I was in Dakar, in Senegal,” she interjected. “I had no idea about any of this. Things had been so slow with work lately, you know. The Collective said we should take some time, go visit our families. They just wanted to separate us.”
“But you two were already together?” Jesse asked.
Ryo nodded. “Since we were fifteen. We went to boarding school in Paris.”
I thought of my parents and said nothing.
“The Collective recruited us, too, just like Ames,” he continued. “But they said Élodie had turned and I couldn’t get ahold of her at all.”
“They did the same thing to me,” Élodie said. “They said that Ryo had gone rogue, that he had stolen evidence, and they wanted me to help find him. But I knew he had not done anything of the sort.” Her eyes blazed with anger and her fingernails were digging into the wooden table. Ryo must have noticed, too, because he reached over and covered her hand with his.
“So we ran,” Ryo said. “And apparently the Collective didn’t like that very much.”
My mind was spinning at a furious pace, trying to keep up with the story and the connections to my life. “When was this?”
“The beginning of summer,” Ames said.
“Angelo,” I said, and all three of our new friends nodded. “He got you out.”
“He smuggled me out of Dakar,” Élodie said, “and got Ree into Paris.”
“Ree!” Ames snickered, which made Ryo turn red.
“Why do you have to call me that?” he muttered to Élodie.
“Ignore that sai sai,” she said, nodding at Ames. “He is an idiot. Angelo should have left him in Dublin.”
“But he didn’t, so the story has a happy ending!” Ames grinned, then looked at us. “So you’re the safecracker,” he said, pointing at me. “What do you two do? Angelo never mentioned that you might be joining our little soirée.”
Roux just smiled at him. “I deal in sarcasm, punching people, and ordering takeout.”
“I specialize in being a civilian who manages to find himself in life-threatening situations,” Jesse replied. “It’s a natural talent. Oh, and apparently I speak French, too.”
Ames, Élodie, and Ryo all gaped at us. “You’re civilians?” Ryo cried. “And they tried to kill you, too?”
Jesse nodded. “Blew up the building and everything, but Angelo got us out, too.”
“This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill us, actually,” Roux replied, helping herself to some cheese and bread. “Last year, Maggie had to break into this guy’s safe and he was chasing us but I punched him in the nose.”
Ames let out a laugh and looked at her in admiration. “I’d have loved to see that.”
“Stick around.” Roux shrugged. “I come in pretty handy.”
“You’ll never get tired of that story, will you?” I said, and she shook her head and smiled at me through a mouthful of bread.
“Well, we are safe here, at least for now,” Élodie said. “This is Angelo’s home, he brought us here. And the tunnels, of course, they are safe, too.”
“You know about the tunnels?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Roux raised her hand. “Can we pretend that some of us haven’t heard about these tunnels?”
“Good idea,” Jesse added.
“You don’t know about the tunnels?” Ames said, looking serious for the first time in our conversation.
“My parents told me about them,” I said, sitting up in my chair. “You’ve been in them?”
Ames took a pencil out of his pocket and started to lightly trace the eraser end across the table. “There’s a network of tunnels underneath Paris. Sort of the flip side of our City of Light, yeah? The tourists love it. But they’re messy and damp and cold. Still, though, fun for the whole family.” He grinned and I saw Roux grin back.
Oh, boy.
“But we use them a little … differently,” Ryo continued as Ames and Roux continued to make googly eyes at each other. There was a soft lump sound under the table, and Ames winced and shot Ryo a dirty look as he rubbed his shin.
Élodie rolled her eyes. “You two take forever explaining this,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She set her cup down and looked squarely at Jesse, Roux, and me. “When we went to school here, we used the tunnels under Paris to set up film festivals and art shows, and we snuck into old cultural buildings to repair them without the government’s knowledge.” She sat back in her seat, satisfied. “See? I did it in one sentence.”
“What do you mean, you repaired them?” Roux asked. “What, like you fix their lights or something?”
“Or something,” Ryo and Ames chorused.
“There are some buildings in Paris that will get attention,” Ryo added. “The Louvre, for example. It’s a massive tourist site and it has the Mona Lisa, of course, so the government will always pay for repairs.”
“Its security is absolute crap, though,” Élodie added.
“True,” Ames said. “But Ryo is right. It’s in fine condition. But we think that maybe there are other things that are also worth a bit of our attention. So we fix them up, show them a night on the town, and we do it all without even a thank-you. Rude, I know, but hey.” He let out a sad sigh. “Being a merry band of artistic criminals has its own special set of perks.”
“So you repair things and you use the tunnels to access buildings?” Jesse asked.
“Mostly, yes. We set up shop in different buildings.” Élodie smiled to herself. “We used to have this little saying: If it’s already been created, it must be possible to re-create. That is what we wanted to do, re-create parts of Paris. But then we joined the Collective and we came back and found that all of the work we had done in school was destroyed.” She looked so sad. “We forget that not everyone sees things the same way, but they are the idiots. You can appreciate the past and still have an iPhone, you know. It is not difficult.”
“Did you—I mean, do you know my parents?” I asked them.
“Your parents are so cool.” Roux sighed dreamily. “Can we swap, please? Or can they just adopt me?”
“Oh, we’ve never met,” Ryo assured me. “We’ve only met Angelo.”
“He used to provide a bit of financial backing,” Ames said. “For tools and such. And a nice establishment to stay in every now and then. We’re very picky about our chandeliers, as you can imagine. No thief worth their weight in gold would settle for any old bulb.”
Jesse smiled to himself and ran a hand over his eyes. “Maggie.” He sighed. “We’re never going to get bored, are we?”
I ignored his comment, though. I had never missed my parents as much as I did right then.
“Now it’s our turn for some questions,” Élodie said. “What did you do to piss off the Collective? Because if you’re here with us, there’s a reason.”
“What did Angelo tell you?” I asked, not sure of how much to say. I had tucked the gold coins into my pillowcase, hidden from everyone else, but I could still feel their weight in my hand, the way they clinked together.
“That you might be here one day,” Ryo said. “He didn’t mention your friends, obviously.”
“A very nice surprise,” Ames added, smiling at Roux. “And you, too, Jesse, of course.”
“Hey, no offense,” Jesse said, smiling a little. “Feel free to keep eye-flirting with Roux. You’re not hurting my feelings.”
Roux groaned. “You’re such a mood killer, Jesse, seriously.”
“So you must have something of Dominic’s,” Ryo guessed. “Seeing as how you’re the official safecracker of the group.”
“I have several of his things that he wants back. But he stole them from someone else.”
“Plural? Them?” Élodie asked.
I took a deep breath and dug my hands into my pockets. “Are you sure you want to know about this? Because if you do, we have to all be in this together.”
Ames gestured to the table. “We already are. Breaking bread in Paris is a sure sign of team loyalty.”
I stood up. “Be right back,” I said, then came back a minute later with the velvet pouch. “Go ahead,” I said, handing them to Élodie. “Be my guest.”
She took it and shook the coins out, her eyes widening at the sight of them. “Are these … ?” she started to say.
“Yes,” I told her, knowing the recognition in her eyes. “They are.”
Ames’s eyes lit up when he saw them, but Ryo just furrowed his brow. “The double-eagle gold coin,” he said. “How do you know these aren’t fake?”
“The fact that someone sent a crew of hitmen to try and kill us after I took them was kind of a tip-off.”
“Shame, really,” Ames said. “The Collective used to be so admirable.” He picked up one coin, then rolled it over the back of his fingers before making it disappear into his palm. “Oops,” he said, then made it reappear. “Gotta work on that one.”
“How much are these worth?” Jesse asked. “Like, roughly?”
“About seventy million dollars,” I said, and Roux leaned away from the table like the coins might suddenly bite her. “Roughly.”
Ryo let out a low whistle. “And Dominic wants them back, I assume?”
“Yep,” I said. “And since the Collective accused my parents of stealing the coins, my family and I probably won’t be too safe if that happens. Not to mention your safety, as well.”
“Right, so we’re all dead, then,” Ames said cheerfully. “Drink up!”
“So what we do?” Roux asked. “Call him up and say, ‘Hey, let’s arrange a trade.’” I knew she was kidding, but she had a point.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve always taken things, I’ve never had to give them back before. And these are technically stolen material,” I added, and Ryo nodded along with me. “Angelo said that they were taken from the US Mint in 1933, so that’s partly why they’re so valuable. The Secret Service has arranged stings to get them back before. So there’s that, too.”
“The fun just keeps coming, doesn’t it.” Jesse groaned. “What else, do they explode? Are they really tiny grenades?”
I made a face at him and he gave me a goofy smile in return. “No,” I said. “They’re just gold coins. That people really want. A lot.”
“Has Dominic asked for them back yet?” Ryo asked me.
“Well, I don’t know, we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now,” I said. “I mean, I lost his cell, then I e-mail him and it takes him three weeks to write back, then the next thing you know it’s finals week and I’m just a mess.”
Élodie smirked at Ryo. “I like her.”
“What I meant to say,” Ryo said, bumping Élodie’s leg with his knee while giving me a sarcastic look, “was that he’s going to find this place and come calling. It’s more of a when than an if, innit?”
Ryo had a point. “Probably,” I admitted.
“Angelo will know what to do,” Ames said, picking up another coin and rolling it around on his left hand this time. “He’ll make demands through someone.”
“He called when you were sleeping, by the way,” Ryo said. “He said that Dominic is not in Paris. Yet, anyway. That’s all he knew. He knows you have the coins, though, and without you, he doesn’t get them. So we’re all right now, at least for a day or two.”
I felt a small twinge of jealousy when Ryo said that Angelo had called, but I let it slide. “I can’t imagine Dominic is happy about that,” I muttered. “I don’t think he’s used to having his toys taken away.”
“Yes, the Collective doesn’t like to lose,” Ames said, the first time I had heard a trace of any anger in his voice. “Look at Colton Hooper. He spent ten years trying to kidnap you.”
“You heard about him?” I asked, and they all nodded.
“Can I just say that breaking his nose was so satisfying?” Roux chimed in. “Because I did. There was blood everywhere, like, gushing out—”
“Roux,” I said, still wincing at the memory. Blood was not my strong suit.
“Good on ya,” Ames said, smiling at her.
And then Roux did something I have never seen her do before: she blushed. It was faint in the low light, but her cheeks pinked up and she ducked her head away. Ames just kept smiling at her and I looked away, suddenly feeling like I needed to give them privacy.
“Can I see the tunnels?” I asked tentatively. I wanted to see where my parents had been, their old home back when they were my age. I wanted to feel connected to them in this crazy new world of ours where nothing felt safe at all.
“Yeah, enough about the Collective!” Ames declared. “We already know what our guests here do, breaking locks and noses and bread and everything in between. Let’s show them how we travel through Paris.” He held out his hand to Roux, who took it like he was holding out a lit firecracker. “It’s time for a little show-and-tell.”