But there was something different about New York. Perhaps it was the energy that beat just below the surface, like a pulse, or a drumbeat. Especially now, with the city suffused in a golden pre-holiday glow, there was a tangible magic in the air.
Calliope found that lately, she’d viewed the people she passed on her way to the lift—the people she normally pitied, whose lives seemed so routine and dull—with an uncharacteristic fondness. Like the girl who worked at the flower stand outside the Nuage, where Calliope always stopped to smell the freesia; or the wizened old man at Poilane bakery, where she got a croissant almost every morning, because unlike other girls her age she’d never bothered to count calories. Even those wild-haired people who belted out songs on the lift had become strangely dear to her.
New York called to something in Calliope’s soul. She felt a kinship with the city, she thought, both of them dramatically remade from their previous incarnations, gleaming and exquisite and one of a kind.
Against that, she weighed the siren song of all the new places she still had yet to explore, the adventures still lying in wait for her.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
Atlas nodded. “Listen,” he said after a beat. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, I’m sorry about last weekend.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Calliope protested, attempting to sound flirtatious, though it came out a little high-strung. This afternoon wasn’t playing out the way she’d hoped.
“Honestly, I was a mess that night. I guess I’m trying to give a blanket apology, in case there’s anything I do need to be sorry for,” Atlas explained.
So he didn’t remember anything. He’d been so drunk that he probably hadn’t even intended to bring her home with him. Calliope had been so proud of herself for finally getting somewhere with Atlas, when it hadn’t really meant anything at all.
Still, there was one question she did want to ask, while she and Atlas were companionable and easy in the afternoon light. “Atlas, I’m curious … Why did you go to Africa?” It was a question she’d never posed him, in all their months together. And if he answered it honestly, it might offer her some insight into why he didn’t seem to want her.
He weighed her question carefully. “I got myself in a bit of a mess,” he said at last. “It’s complicated. There were other people involved.”
Other people sounded like a girl. That explained a lot.
“You act differently here,” she said quietly, knowing it was a risk, but wanting to say it anyway. “I miss the old you.”
Atlas shot Calliope a curious glance, but he didn’t seem angered by the remark. “What about you? Why did you go to Tanzania?” he asked.
Never ask a question that you yourself don’t want to answer: that was another of Elise’s cardinal rules, and Calliope knew she should have had a careful, flippant response ready. But for some reason all she could think about was India: that family torn apart and the old man on his deathbed and Calliope standing there, a useless witness to it all, unable to do anything. She felt suddenly like the truth was beading on her skin like sweat, running in ugly rivulets down her body for Atlas to see.
“I had a bad breakup,” Calliope said. It was a lame excuse, but it was the best she could think of.
They were quiet for a while. The sun fell ever lower in the artificial sky. Atlas’s hand was right there on the ground next to her, drawing all of Calliope’s awareness like a magnet. She wanted to feel it in hers again.
Feeling reckless, she reached out and put her hand on top of his. He started at the movement, but didn’t pull away. She took that as a good sign.
“When do you leave for Dubai?” she asked. She needed to know how much time she had left on this con. It was a ticking clock.
“I’ll probably stay full-time after the party. At least, that’s what my dad wants.” Atlas didn’t sound that excited. Calliope wondered if going to Dubai hadn’t been his idea at all.
“Atlas. Do you even want to go to Dubai?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Does anyone ever really know what they want? Do you?”
“Yes,” Calliope said automatically.
Atlas’s eyes were sharp on hers. “What?”
She opened her mouth to give another empty, flippant answer—something like, how could I want for anything, my life is perfect—but found that the words crumbled to ash in her mouth. She was tired of telling people exactly what she thought they needed to hear. “To be loved,” she said simply. They might have been the truest words she’d ever spoken aloud.
“You are loved.”
Calliope let out a breath. “By my mom, sure.”
“And all your friends, back home,” Atlas said urgently.
Calliope thought again of Daera, the only real friend she’d ever had, whom she’d left without even saying good-bye. “I don’t actually have that many friends,” she confessed. “I just … I don’t make friends easily, I guess.”
“You have me.” Atlas flipped his palm over so that it was touching hers, their fingers interlaced. His hand felt very warm and steady.
Calliope looked over at him, but Atlas was staring at the window, to where the sun was setting below the jagged horizon of rooftops and spires, a blaze of crimson and fire. Friends, he’d said, but friends that held hands.
He felt her gaze and turned to her, his face lifting into a smile. It was good enough for now, Calliope thought, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
AVERY
AVERY LEANED AGAINST her heavy bedroom door, bracing herself for the walk down the hallway. Over the past week, that walk—sixteen steps; she’d counted them the other day—had become its own distinct sort of agony. Here in her room she was safe, but the moment she opened that door, she risked seeing Atlas.
Losing someone you loved was harrowing enough already, Avery reflected, without the added cruelty of constantly running into that person.
Part of her still refused to believe that this wasn’t all some terrible dream, that she wouldn’t wake up and everything would be normal again, Eris still alive and Atlas still hers and Calliope Brown off in Africa where she belonged. She would have given anything to go back to that awful night, except this time she would keep the trapdoor to the roof firmly shut.
But that wasn’t the world she lived in, and Avery could ignore the real world for only so long. Slinging her red gym bag over one shoulder, she stepped out into the hallway—just as Atlas turned the corner from his room, headed the same direction, several boxes rolling along behind him.
It seemed that Avery’s body was suddenly frozen in nitrocryo. She couldn’t move a single cell, couldn’t even breathe.