Every once in a while, in a moment like this-a moment that felt like control when nothing else in my life did-a tiny part of me wondered whether being part of the Circle wouldn't be so bad.
But I'd thought finding my family would fill the hole in my sad little heart, too. And instead, they'd killed my mother and unleashed a plague.
The Melechs left the room, and Elodie made a pleading face as she and Jack followed. She hated being left out.
"Are you okay?" Stellan said. "What was that?"
"Nothing. I'm fine," I lied, hurrying across the room without waiting for him to catch up. Even if I did want to stay with the Circle, this was one reason I never could. It would always mean memories I couldn't handle. Until I could leave, though, I would ignore them, like I had been for weeks.
The box was in a glass case. There was no lock. "Should we just-" I whispered.
Stellan was already opening the door. We looked inside, on the lid, on the outside of the box. "It doesn't even look very old," he said. "There's no way this is from Alexander's time."
I sagged with disappointment. "It's a copy at best. They probably already have the real one at the ceremony, if we're even right about what we're looking for. Does that mean-"
Stellan set the box back down and dragged a hand over his face. "I think," he said, "it means that tomorrow, we get initiated as the thirteenth family of the Circle of Twelve."
CHAPTER 2
Stellan and I stood in a courtyard outside the Old City, waiting to be called in to the initiation ceremony. The plan was to watch for the box, and if it looked like what we needed, do something to pause this ceremony before it actually went through.
Above, palm trees rustled against the cream stone. We'd been to Jerusalem once before, when the Saxons were considering marrying me off to Daniel Melech, but I hadn't seen much of it that day.
For some reason, I had expected the city to be stuck in time, all old stone and desert and prayer, but I was wrong. It was also modern and clean and bustling. As I looked out the window on our car ride here, people crowded around bus stops, and bikes and cars shared the streets. Blue-and-white Israeli flags waved against a cloudless sky, and a riot of multicolored flowers peeked over balconies.
Jack had told me a little about the city's history the last time we came here. Jerusalem was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. There had been so much devastation here-wars, natural disasters, being conquered over and over. And yet it had survived it all, on this same spot, a city of great importance to three major religions and to so many cultures through history. A melting pot and a highly contested land, a bustling modern metropolis and an ancient stronghold all in one. None of us were fans of the Melech family, but their city was a different story. If things were different, I'd want to spend time here.
Now I brushed those thoughts aside. The last thing I needed was to get sentimental about another city, especially considering what else we'd seen on the way here.
Just around the corner from where we'd stopped the car, I'd seen a group of girls about my age, wearing military uniforms and eating Popsicles in front of a coffee shop. They all held machine guns strapped across their chests as casually as I'd hold a backpack. Nearby, another group of girls in headscarves and jeans leaned against a 50% OFF SALE sign, looking at their phones. Down the street, a group of little boys played soccer.
The worrisome part was that at least half of each group was wearing white surgical masks.
When Cole had slipped the virus into champagne glasses in Paris, a dozen people had died. The world outside the Circle had quickly embraced various theories: it was a deadly new flu, or something in the air. Some even got it right and called it a biological weapon. What they didn't know was that from this, at least, they were safe: the virus only affected Circle members.
The fact that this meant my mother was somehow related to the Circle and hadn't told me was something I hadn't been able to think about yet. What we did have to think about was that, despite the fact that there had just been the one incident, the alarm was spreading all over the globe. We could only hope that if we prevented the Saxons from releasing it further, it would die down eventually.
I realized I was clutching my phone hard enough that my fingers had gone white. I shook them out, then turned on the phone, looking at news sites. Mystery Virus Airborne? one said. Deaths in Paris Under Investigation.
I flipped to another tab: the online version of Napoleon's Oraculum. The Book of Fate.