“You’re right,” she murmured.
Atlas laced his fingers in hers, bringing her hand lightly to his mouth and kissing it. It was a tender, almost courtly gesture, and it melted Avery’s lingering anxieties.
She glanced at the darkness swishing past, thick and layered and beautiful. It felt like there could be ghosts out there in the woods—or nymphs maybe, some kind of ancient spirit. The Tower felt worlds away.
They were on their way to see the Northern Lights. Because of the shifting movement of the tear in the ozone layer, the aurora was visible this far south only once a year. Avery had always longed to see it, had watched it in VR countless times, yet for some reason she’d never come in person before.
They pulled into a clearing where a dozen other self-driving sleighs were already parked, separated by discreet distances, like some enchanted version of old-fashioned drive-in movies. A hushed spell had fallen over the gathering. Steaming mugs of cocoa, topped with fluffy dollops of whipped cream, were passed on floating hovertrays. Their seat began to recline until they were lying flat, blinking up into the darkness. It seemed to Avery that there was nothing in the world at all except the cold outside and the warmth of Atlas’s body next to her, and the velvety vault of the sky stretching endlessly above her.
An array of colors burst suddenly into life: streaks of blue and green, of blush and apricot, arcing and twisting around one another. For a brief moment Avery felt almost afraid, as though the earth were careening toward a distant galaxy. She held tight to Atlas’s hand.
“Are you listening to anything?” she asked quietly. There were dozens of soundtracks recommended to accompany the lights, everything from violin concertos to oboe solos to rock music. She’d shut them all off. She imagined that she could hear the lights swishing in the silence, whispering to her against the curtain of the sky.
“No,” Atlas murmured.
“Me neither.”
Avery snuggled closer to him. Tears pricked at her eyes, and the tears fragmented the light even further, splintering it into a million beautiful shards.
She must have dozed off at some point, because when she opened her eyes, the sun’s rosy fingers were appearing on the horizon.
“We’re here, Sleeping Beauty.” Atlas tucked her hair behind her ears and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
Avery looked up at him, no longer tired at all; her whole being suddenly and painfully alert to how close he was. “I like waking up to you,” she said, and was rewarded with one of Atlas’s dazzling smiles.
“I want to wake up with you every morning, always,” he agreed as the sleigh pulled up to their hotel with a jolt. They were staying at the famous Snow Palace, where everything was made of nonmelting ice, even the fireplaces. Around them, other couples were rising sleepily from their blankets, starting toward the massive double doors carved like icicles. Avery bounded lightly from the sleigh as Atlas stepped out the other side.
“Avery?” Boots crunched on the snow behind her.
Avery tensed at the sound of her name. She didn’t dare glance over at Atlas; but in her peripheral vision she saw him crouch, pulling his hat lower over his brow and pushing quickly through the hotel’s doors. A strange pang clutched her chest as she watched him walk away from her without a backward glance. It felt like a terrible portent of things to come.
She turned around slowly, calling up a fair approximation of a smile. “Miles. What a surprise,” she exclaimed, and gave the newcomer a hug. Miles Dillion had been in Atlas’s high school class. She wondered in a wild panic if he’d seen him.
“I know!” Miles laughed, and his companion stepped forward, a tall young man with smooth, handsome features. “This is my boyfriend, Clemmon. Are you here alone?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Avery didn’t dare step forward in case her knees gave out. She pulled her coat tighter around her, trying to pin her mind down to some kind of focus. “My dad might acquire this hotel, and he wanted me to come check it out for him. So far, I like it. What do you think?” It was a good enough lie, given the short notice.
“We love it,” Clemmon exclaimed. “So romantic. It really is too bad you’re here alone,” he added, in the same puzzled tone that people always adopted when Avery told them she was single.
“Do you want to come get breakfast with us?” Miles offered, but Avery shook her head, that smile still pasted on her face.
“I think I’m going to take a nap. Thanks, though.”
She waited until the two boys had walked hand in hand toward the dining room, with its soaring ice ceiling and stalagmites dotting the floor, before hurrying down the hallway toward her room.
When she stepped inside, Atlas was already there, gazing into the fire from one of the slouching armchairs. On a side table gleamed a silver tray laden with Avery’s favorite things: croissants and fresh berries and a carafe of hot coffee. She smiled, touched as always by Atlas’s thoughtfulness.
“I’m so sorry about that,” she said slowly. “What an awful coincidence. I mean, what are the chances?”
“Evidently not as low as we thought.” Atlas’s jaw was strong and hard in the flickering light of the fire. He looked up at her. “This isn’t a coincidence, Aves, this is our reality. We can’t be together in New York, but look what happens when we try to leave.”
Avery walked slowly around to sit in the other chair, kicking her legs close to the fire. “I don’t …”
Atlas leaned forward, his hands on his knees, a frightening new urgency in his tone. “We have to run away, like we always planned, before it’s too late.”
For a moment Avery let herself sink blissfully into the fantasy: walking with Atlas along a sun-drenched beach, shopping in a colorful fish market, holding him in a hammock under the stars. Actually getting to be together, without fear of being caught. It was a beautiful dream.
And an impossible dream, at least right now. Her stomach dropped at the thought of Leda: who knew the truth about them, and wouldn’t hesitate to blast it out if they ran away together. Avery couldn’t imagine putting her parents through all that. What would happen to them, if news of Avery and Atlas’s relationship became public?
Although by now her father might already suspect the truth.
“There’s nothing I want more than to run away with you,” Avery said, and she meant it, with every fiber of her being. “But I can’t, not yet.” If only she had a better explanation.
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Whatever it is, Avery, you can—”
“I just can’t, okay?”
Atlas looked down, his features wounded and closed off.