Eureka had no body to feel pain, but she could sense the rapturous ache explode in Atlas as his mind was blown back to the depths of his being. Then came the vision Eureka had feared since she decided to kiss Delphine to death:
A cave within a rainy mountain range. A fire bright in the hearth. Love thick as honey in the air. A baby cooing at her mother’s breast. And then, in a flash of lightning, the baby was gone. Wrapped in a fox-fur blanket, tucked in a young man’s arms. The man ran down the mountain, toward another world.
Leander … Come back … My baby …
Delphine’s original misery flowed into the recesses of Eureka’s mind. It was supposed to empower Eureka as she absorbed it, as it killed Delphine. That was what had happened when Eureka kissed the other girls. But this was different, deeply intimate, like losing Diana a second time.
Delphine was the origin of everything Eureka hated about herself. She was the source of Eureka’s darkness and her flood. She was also Eureka’s closest family, her Tearline and her blood. There was no choice to reject or embrace this connection—both were happening all the time. Eureka and Delphine belonged together. Both of them had to die.
She cradled the ghostsmith, kissed her harder, more passionately. She sensed Atlas’s body grow faint. Delphine’s eyelids twitched. Her veins lit up like lightning and her skin began to smoke. Charred flesh bubbled along her body like rivers of tar. Atlas screamed as his lips and hands felt the burns, but Eureka would not let him let go.
The ghostsmith fried from the inside. Eureka didn’t stop kissing her until she slackened in Atlas’s arms and, eventually, was still.
At last Eureka pulled Atlas’s lips away and dropped the ghostsmith’s sizzling, blackened body in the water. Pieces of her floated away. Eureka wondered briefly about the fate of Delphine’s ghost.
“There is one death the ghostsmith doesn’t get to decide,” Eureka said, and wiped Delphine’s kiss from her mouth.
Rough hands shoved her—shoved Atlas—so hard Eureka fell backward in the water. Brooks leapt on top of Atlas, wrapped his hands around the king’s neck. Eureka’s mind clouded from the lack of oxygen.
“Brooks!” she gasped. “It’s me.”
“I know who you are.” He plunged her underwater.
“It’s Eureka!” she spat when she surfaced. “I possessed Atlas like he possessed you. Stop! I’m about to—”
He plunged her down again. She didn’t want to fight him, but she had to. He could not drown Atlas before she cried the tears that would release the wasted dead. She kneed him fiercely in the groin. He reeled away and Eureka came up for air to find him on his knees, wheezing.
“If I weren’t me, would I know you were born at nine thirty-nine p.m. on the winter solstice after putting your mom through forty-one hours of labor?”
Brooks straightened, stared into Atlas’s eyes.
“Would I know you used to want to be an astronaut, because you planned on sailing around the world after college and didn’t want to reach an end to exploration? Would I know roller coasters scare you, though you’d never admit it, though you’ve sat next to me on every one I’ve ever ridden? Or that you kissed Maya Cayce at the Trejeans’ party?” She wiped Atlas’s wet face. “Cat told me. It doesn’t matter.”
“This is a trick.” There were tears in Brooks’s eyes. Not sadness, she sensed, but hope that it was not a trick, that Eureka was not actually gone.
“Would I know you took theater for three years because I had a crush on Mr. Montrose? Or that you’re afraid your dad walked out because of you, but you never talk about it because you’ve always seen silver linings? Even when all I am is a rain cloud?” She paused to catch her breath. “If I were Atlas, would I know how much Eureka Boudreaux loves you?”
“Everyone knows that.” Brooks cracked the briefest smile.