It was Atlantean for joy.
Atlas roared, and Eureka felt her consciousness shoved backward within him. She saw only white and knew she was soon bound again for the coral as Atlas screamed, “Delphine!”
Eureka willed her mind forward to the place from which she could manipulate Atlas’s body. She focused on ramming his fist into the center of his face. When she succeeded, she felt no pain but knew he did from the way his thoughts faded and her vision of the beach returned.
“Don’t make me hurt you again.” Her words in his throat sounded clearer, expressing the perverse flirtation she’d intended.
Movement at the crest of a sand dune—near the palm grove Atlas’s vision painted turquoise—caught Eureka’s attention. One ghost robot chased another. Their bodies were identical, but the pursuing robot was special: Ovid wore Solon’s features as it lunged to grab the legs of the other robot and brought it down upon the sand.
Solon was the inscriber of the message in the sand. He’d withheld the meaning of her namesake until now, when she could use it. Did it mean he still believed in her?
The other robot struggled, then straddled Ovid’s chest and wrestled its arms into surrender. Its fingers searched the sand and found a heavy rock. Eureka held Atlas’s breath as the robot bashed the boulder into Ovid’s head.
Sparks flew. Eureka couldn’t see Ovid’s face crushed beneath the stone; it was wedged deep into wet sand. She didn’t know if ghost robots died, but she could see that Ovid would never rise again.
As the victor rose from the orichalcum carnage, Ovid’s arm glided toward its opponent’s face and touched its cheek, a gentle caress. Then it jabbed two fingers under the robot’s jaw and twisted them into the infinity-shaped keyhole Eureka knew marked its neck. The ghost robot keeled over onto Ovid’s chest, as if in an embrace. Neither of them moved again.
“Delphine!” Atlas’s mouth shouted. “She will betray you—”
To quiet him, Eureka slashed Atlas’s cheek with the coral dagger.
At the far end of the beach, where the waveshop had once been, Delphine lay on her back. Waves lapped her long hair. Brooks straddled her, a shocking, erotic pose that sent jealousy surging through a fault between Eureka’s and Atlas’s minds.
But something separated Brooks’s and Delphine’s bodies. Eureka had to get closer to see what it was. She dove back into the ocean, drawing all of Atlas’s speed as she swam.
“Delphine!” Atlas shouted as soon as Eureka surfaced.
Her dagger slashed his other cheek. Blood rained upon the water.
At the sound of Atlas’s voice, Brooks lifted his gaze. His eyes darkened with a hatred Eureka reminded herself was not meant for her.
Brooks had pinned Delphine to the beach beneath the same waterfall that had once imprisoned him in her waveshop.
“Where is Eureka?” Brooks and Delphine asked in unison.
“She is dead,” Eureka said about herself to her best friend.
“No,” Brooks said. The waterfall fell from his hand. It smoked and boiled and disappeared into the ocean.
Delphine pushed him aside and splashed toward Atlas. Her skin was one great greenish-purple bruise. Her hair was a matted nest stuck to her cheeks, and her red lipstick had smeared to a bright pink smudge that reached her chin.
“I decide who is dead,” she said.
In her new body, Eureka towered over Delphine. She was amazed by how delicate, how fragile the ghostsmith appeared. She grabbed the back of Delphine’s head, drew her pink lips forward, and kissed her deeply on the mouth.