“Go back!” Eureka ran toward them.
“Speaking of Ander,” Solon mused, pausing to cough into the sleeve of his robe, “I’ve been wondering just how does he stay so young? I’ve never seen a boy more swallowed whole by love—yet since he arrived at the Bitter Cloud he hasn’t looked a day over eighteen. Don’t you think that’s odd, Albion?”
Ever since Eureka had learned what love did to a Seedbearer, she’d found new evidence of age on Ander every hour. But now, observing Solon’s shocking old age and the other Seedbearers’ return to youth, Eureka saw how extreme the changes in them were.
Did that mean Ander didn’t really love her?
“Where is Ander?” Chora repeated. “And will you please take off that ridiculous mask. My God,” she said, getting an idea. “Do you require oxygen to breathe?”
“He always was a heavy smoker,” Starling said.
“A Seedbearer with emphysema,” Critias said. “What an idiot.”
“It’s true my lungs are as black as the blues,” Solon said, “but I wear this mask for quite a different purpose. It is loaded with artemisia.” His finger hovered over a silver dot on the side of his mask. “To activate it, all I have to do is press this button.”
“He’s lying,” Chora said, but her fearful voice betrayed her.
Solon grinned behind his mask. “Don’t believe me? Shall I demonstrate?”
“What are you doing?” Eureka cried. “You’ll kill Ander, too.”
Albion’s head snapped toward her. His eyebrows lifted. “Going to weep again?” He drew near, holding a vial the same shape as the lachrymatory Ander had used, but a far less intricate one made of dull steel.
Eureka wasn’t going to cry. She slapped at the lachrymatory in Albion’s hand and grabbed him by his throat. She tightened her grip. The Seedbearer wheezed. He tried to push her off, but Eureka was stronger.
Albion looked different from the last time they faced each other, but Eureka had changed even more. She saw that he feared her. She snarled at him, dark rage in her eyes.
William began to cry. “Don’t kill anyone else, Reka.…”
From the corner of her eye, Eureka saw William standing with Cat and Claire, sad and skinny and filthy. He wasn’t the same boy who used to catapult into her bed every morning, spilling action figures across her sheets while she picked clumps of dried maple syrup from his hair. Eureka loosened her grip.
“Albion?” Solon snapped his fingers. “The show’s this way. I’d pay attention if I were you. I used to agree with you. I used to think we had a reason to stop her.” He turned to Eureka. “But nothing can stop her. Least of all us.”
Chora stepped slowly toward Solon. “The game has changed. It’s not what we would have wanted, but we can still use her tears to improve our position. If you were to come back to us …”
“Take the mask off, Cousin,” Critias said.
Solon’s finger moved toward the silver button on the side of his mask. Eureka imagined the poison filling Ander’s lungs in the distance. She imagined his shock becoming defiance as he gagged, his magnificent breath going out of him. The painful resignation as his body stilled. His soul rising. She wondered what his last thought would be.
She thought of the way his voice always sounded like a whisper. And the scissoring motions his fingers made when he ran them through his hair. The way his hand fit inside hers. The shade of blue his eyes took on when she walked by, even if he’d just seen her a moment before. How he kissed her as if his life depended on it. The person she became when she kissed him back.
Solon placed his hand over his heart. Then he grinned and pressed the button. “Bombs away.”
Poisonous gas, as green as the aurora borealis, glided over his face.
21
ILLUSIONMENT