This made Delphine smile. “Long ago, I began an experiment: Grind the flesh and bones of my conquests into fine powder. Add heat and a gelatinous enzyme from the Cnidaria—you call it a jellyfish—while it is still in the medusa stage. Much like the stare of my snake-maned friend, the medusa enzyme transforms ordinary corpse powder into the most durable and lovely element in the world.” She caressed the orichalcum leg on her wheel. “And I transform that into whatever I please. I have mined orichalcum in this manner since before Atlantis sank. Atlas’s empirical conquests used to provide the bodies. Now your tears have given me endless material to work with. By sunrise, all that will be left to do is convert the living into ghosts.”
“What happens at sunrise?” Eureka asked casually, though she wanted to scream.
“The survivors are preparing arks. A community in Turkey has long anticipated a flood. Perhaps you know of them? The living are traveling there from around the world to board their ships. We can see them in the water map. This is convenient, because it gathers all the living souls in one place. We must stage the final apocalypse before they disperse again across the seas.”
Eureka met Delphine’s eyes. They were so dark she could see her face reflected in them. “That’s why Atlas wants more tears.”
“Yes.” Delphine gestured over her shoulder, lighting the space behind her. What looked like a cross between a medieval catapult and a futuristic rocket launcher sharpened into view. “The rest of my cannons are in Atlas’s armory, but I keep an early model here.” She rose from her wheel, lifted the cannon’s hatch, and withdrew a palm-sized crystal globe. “A single crystal shell, armed with one of your tears, will do thirty-six times the damage of your world’s nuclear bombs.”
“But I’m not going to cry,” Eureka said.
“Of course you are.” Delphine returned the crystal globe to the cannon with care. “You’re unsettled by Atlas’s mistake with the lightning cloak. But no one will harm you—ever again.” She caressed Eureka’s hair. “We must all make sacrifices. Your tears are your contribution, though you may choose what makes them flow.”
“No.”
“Surely you have enough to cry about”—Delphine tilted her head—“losing your greatest love so recently? Remember, I know how you feel. I had my heart broken, too.”
But had it been Delphine’s broken heart that sank Atlantis—or pride and embarrassment and the pain of losing her child? Were their Tearline stories truly as parallel as Delphine wanted Eureka to believe they were? Had Delphine had a Cat, a father, and siblings who loved her as heedlessly as Eureka’s did? Eureka didn’t think so.
And Ander. He was nothing like Leander. He was a boy who hadn’t deserved any of the shattering pain he’d known in his life. He’d loved Eureka because of his heart, not his destiny. The thought of him made Eureka turn inward, backward, to the moment she’d first seen him on the dusty road outside New Iberia. He had showed her love was possible, even after heart-erasing loss.
“You know where he is,” Eureka said. If Ander and the twins and Cat could at least be spared …
“You must not worry yourself with what might have been,” Delphine said, “only with what broke you. Love is crippling. Heartbreak gives us our legs.”
“Then why are you with Atlas?” Eureka asked before she could stop herself.
“With Atlas?” Delphine asked. “What do you mean?”
“The way you talk about him, sending each other notes.” Eureka paused. “Your tears have the same power as mine. They could fill the cannons, but he won’t put you through the pain of shedding them. It’s because he loves you. Doesn’t he?”
Delphine doubled over laughing. It was a cold sound, a winter wind. “Atlas cannot love. His heart’s not tuned that way.”
“Then why—”
“Your problem is you feel ashamed,” Delphine said. “I am more in love with my power than I could ever be with a boy. You, too, must embrace your darkness.”
Eureka found herself nodding. She and Delphine envisioned different destinies for Eureka, but maybe, at least for a moment, their paths intersected.