“So the second tear,” Ander said, “the one that seeps into the roots—”
Eureka nodded. “That’s getting to know someone. Their fears and dreams and passions. Their flaws.” She thought of Dad’s words earlier that day. “It’s not being afraid to touch the other person’s roots. It’s the next thousand miles of falling in love.” She paused. “But it still isn’t love. It’s infatuation, until—”
“The third tear,” Solon said.
“The third tear reaches the Sleeping World,” Ander said. “And awakens it.” His cheeks flushed. “How is that like love?”
“Reciprocation,” Eureka said. “When the person you love loves you back. When the connection becomes unbreakable. That’s when there’s no turning back.”
She hadn’t realized she was leaning toward Ander and he was leaning toward her until Solon wedged a hand between their faces.
“I see you haven’t told her about us,” Solon said to Ander.
“What about you?” Eureka asked.
“He means”—Ander turned back to his plate and cut a bite of schnitzel but didn’t eat it—“the Seedbearers’ role in stopping your tears.”
Solon scoffed at Ander.
“I know about that,” Eureka said. Ander might have turned against his family, but he still cared about the fate of her tears. She thought of the icy Zephyr against her frozen cheeks. “Ander has it,” she realized.
“What?” Solon asked.
“The third tear. I cried again on the way here, but his breath froze my tears. They didn’t hit the earth. They’re safe inside his lachrymatory.”
“Tearline tears are never safe,” Solon said.
“They’re safe with me.” Ander showed Solon the little silver vial.
Solon rubbed his jaw. “You’ve been running with a bomb.”
“Bombs can be disarmed,” Eureka said. “Can’t we dispose of my tears without—”
“No,” Ander and Solon said together.
“I’ll keep this.” Solon snatched the lachrymatory and glared across the table. “I didn’t stockpile all this food for it to go to waste. Eat! You should see what my neighbors have for dinner. Twigs! Each other!”
Eureka spooned some noodles onto her plate. She eyed the meat, which smelled like the kitchen of the Bon Creole Lunch Shack, whose crumpled, grease-stained takeout bags danced in the wind above the beds of most New Iberia pickup trucks. The scent awakened a nostalgia in her, and she wished she were straddling a sticky barstool at Victor’s, where Dad used to fry oysters as small as quarters and as light as air.
Ander tucked forkfuls into his mouth rapidly, without tasting, as if the void within him might be filled.
Eureka was in awe of her own hunger. It had become a shape inside her, with edges sharp as broken glass. But Solon’s words had made it hard to chew. She thought about Filiz’s penetrating golden eyes.
“That’s why you sent Filiz and the Poet away before you brought out the food.”
“Did you really think a deluge of salt water could fall from the sky and not destroy the food chain?” Solon asked. “My assistants think I’m starving, just as they are starving. They must continue to think that. It wouldn’t do for the neighbors to be crawling around on hands and knees, bumping their heads on my glaze. Understand?”
“Why don’t you share with them?”
Solon picked up the pitcher, held it high over Eureka’s empty glass, and poured a long stream of water to refill it. “Why don’t you go back in time and not flood the world?”
Ander snatched the pitcher from Solon and slammed it on the table. Water sloshed onto Eureka’s thighs.
“How very wasteful,” Solon said.
“She’s doing the best she can.”
“She must do better than that,” Solon said. “The third tear is in the world. Soon Atlas will get it.”
“No,” Eureka said. “We came here so you could help me stop him.”