There was part of me that, now that we had an adult we actually trusted again, wanted to throw everything at his feet and beg him to tell us what to do. The other part felt like nothing I'd ever known was quite real, and I should be cautious.
The five of us made our way to a table on the lower deck.
"My brave girl," Fitz said, with a hand on my shoulder. Back home, Fitz didn't have any kind of accent that I remembered, but now his voice was lilting, light. An Irish accent, maybe? Yet another thing to ask. Yet another piece of the puzzle. "I'm so sorry, love. Your mother-"
He took off his glasses and wiped his tired eyes with the back of his hand. He'd arrived in Paris a couple of hours before us, and had had time to clean up and get settled, but he still looked rough, with a dark bruise across one cheek and his glasses taped together at the hinge. I thought of Lydia and Cole in Egypt, and how they'd gotten there. I didn't want to think of the injuries on Fitz I couldn't see.
"My brave kids. I've wondered so many times whether all of you would be friends if your worlds collided." There, again, was that uncomfortable tug on my stomach, of just how much our lives had been steered to get us here, not just by Fitz, but by my mom, the Circle, the Order. I suddenly felt close to tears again. I didn't exactly feel upset-just confused. Overwhelmed. Guilty-again-for feeling anything but what I should feel, which was relief that we were all here and remorse that my mom wasn't.
Jack answered a call and warned us to be careful-apparently the Saxons had gotten word of the Dauphins' plane's movements and knew we were in Paris. They were stationing Rocco and some others here to try to find us, but they had no more intel than that. They didn't seem to know yet that Fitz was gone.
We asked Fitz about Rocco's breaking him out of the Saxons', and he told us that story, along with an abbreviated version of what had happened since he'd been imprisoned. He'd tried to break out on his own twice early on, he said-he'd been at the Saxons' before, and knew a little about the inner workings of the house because my mother had been an Order plant at the Saxons' for years.
I gripped the table, and Fitz turned to me. "I have much to tell you about your mother, Avery." He glanced around the table. "In fact-"
He cut off when the boat's door swung open and half a dozen people came inside. I took a last swipe at my eyes with a tissue and stood to greet the Order.
Each member of the small group gave Fitz a hug, then shook hands with us and found a seat at the table. Most of them were adults, but a couple of girls were just slightly older than us. One of them, with sleek dark hair and a gold stud in her nose, looked familiar.
"Were you at the Rajeshes'?" I said.
She nodded. I recognized her now, in the same heavy dark eyeliner she'd put on me while Lydia and I were getting ready for the dinner where I'd met Dev Rajesh for the first-and only-time.
"I have been assigned to the Rajesh home for years," she said. Her voice was quiet but confident, with a soft accent. "After recent developments, I got a new assignment. I have been speaking with you on the phone about the experiments. My name is Nisha."
This was Nisha, who had been experimenting on our blood for weeks? I could barely choke out a hello. Elodie sat next to her and took out a list of questions she'd come up with on the flight. I settled back into my chair. Fitz stood behind his seat on one side of me, and Stellan sat at the other. He'd been observing silently since the Order came in.
"Will any more of the group be joining us?" Jack asked, taking his own place across from me.
The Order members looked at one another. Fitz cleared his throat. "That's one of the things we need to tell you about our organization. There is still one of us in every Circle home. Some of them are here today, but some are at their assignments. Other than that . . ." Fitz paused. "The people in front of you are actually all that's left of the Order."
Some of the meager group gave small nods.
Jack shook his head like he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "The people in this room . . . plus a few others hiding in Circle households, doing nearly nothing?" he asked. "You mean to tell us that's the entire Order?"
"We used to be more," Fitz said. "There was a clash with the Circle a few decades ago that decimated our ranks, and we haven't recovered."
Half the questions I wanted to ask immediately went out the window. I saw now exactly why they hadn't mobilized to rescue my mom. They were barely staying afloat as it was.