“I’d love to,” she told him.
As they stepped out from beneath the ice rink, Calliope found that tiny flakes of silver were falling from above, catching in Atlas’s hair, settling on the dark sleeves of his sweater. The machine-made snow. She stuck out her tongue and let the flakes settle there, cold and crisp, the way she used to do in London as a child.
Atlas looked over and saw her. “You know that’s made of velerio. You shouldn’t actually eat it,” he said with a strangled laugh.
“I’m not worried,” Calliope decided. After Atlas’s invitation, she felt invincible. As if a little velerio could harm her, when her life was so evidently charmed.
“Calliope Brown, you’re nothing like the other girls I know,” Atlas said, still shaking his head in amusement. Calliope decided to take it as a compliment.
When she got home that evening, Calliope heard a series of thuds coming from her mom’s room across the suite. She ducked in to see Elise sitting cross-legged on the floor, folding a stack of flimsy silk dresses into an airtight bag.
“You’re back! Where were you?” Elise glanced up and asked, but Calliope could tell that her mind was elsewhere.
“With Atlas. Actually, he invited me to that launch party in Dubai.” Calliope’s gaze was still trained on the clothes scattered all over the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Just reorganizing my things. We’re leaving soon,” Elise announced, as casually as if she were commenting on the weather.
“How soon?”
Her mom shot her a knowing look. “Things are moving more quickly than I expected. I think I’m going to get a proposal from Nadav. Can you believe, another engagement ring—and a big one!”
“Oh.” Calliope thought of Atlas, and the party, and didn’t know how to respond.
Elise was staring at her curiously. “You don’t seem excited. Come on, darling!” She laughed a bit, standing up and reaching for Calliope’s hand to give her a little spin. Calliope didn’t join the laughter. “You’re the one who’s always so eager to move on! I’ll even let you pick our next spot. What about Goa? Or the Mediterranean? I could use a beach, this time of year.”
“I don’t know.” Calliope managed a lackluster shrug. “What if we didn’t leave right away?”
Elise took a step back, her movements—and her voice—suddenly much heavier. “You of all people know we can’t do that, sweetie. We can’t afford the life we’re leading. The hotel is about to kick us out, we’re running through our credit at all the boutiques, and you know how much is left in our bitbanc.”
Calliope did know. She’d checked all the global bitbancs just yesterday. It consistently shocked her, how little cash they seemed to have. Of course, it was all wrapped up in clothes and jewels and accessories, she thought, her eyes narrowing at her mom’s overflowing closet.
“A few days from now and we’re done here, whether Nadav has proposed or not,” Elise finished.
They’d lived this way for years, and yet it had never really bothered Calliope till now. “I just wish that for once, we could stay somewhere. Just for a while,” she said, almost plaintively.
“Staying means getting attached to people, and we can’t afford that even more than we can’t afford this hotel.”
Calliope didn’t answer. Her mom’s voice lowered. “This is about Atlas, isn’t it? Look, it’s okay if you can’t get anything of value from him. You tried hard, that’s what counts—”
“Oh my god, stop!” Calliope cried out.
Elise shut up. Her smile had frozen funnily, falling off her face in shaky little pieces, almost as if it were melting.
“Just back off, okay? You’re the world’s greatest expert on lying, but you’ve never even seen a relationship through.” It came out harsher than Calliope intended.
She thought of Atlas—the way he smiled, the earnest warmth in his brown eyes, the sad wistfulness that seemed to haunt him, no matter what she said—and felt an odd protectiveness of their relationship, or friendship, whatever it was. She found that the thought of stealing from him wasn’t as appealing as it used to be. He probably won’t even notice, she reminded herself, but that wasn’t the point.
“I don’t want to talk about this con with you anymore,” she added quietly.
Elise took a step back, a stricken expression on her face. The same oval face as Calliope’s, same high forehead and strong cheekbones; only softened by age, and all the surges. Calliope had a curious sensation of looking through a fun-house mirror, through a tear in the fabric of the universe at a vision of herself in twenty years. She didn’t like what she saw.
“I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again,” Elise said after a moment, her voice strained.
Calliope tried to nod. She couldn’t remember ever speaking like that to her mom—couldn’t remember disagreeing with her about anything before. “I just don’t want to leave yet, right when things here are getting fun. I want to go to this Dubai party with Atlas. He’s staying in Dubai after that, anyway. It’s my last chance to get something really big from him.”
“Of course,” Elise conceded. “If that’s what you want, we’ll stay through the party. Hey,” she ventured, as if getting the idea, “maybe I’ll come too. It could be fun!”
“That’s a great idea.” Calliope turned to walk across the suite to her stiff, impersonal room, with its cold windows and heavily stitched pillows and the frothy white comforter that looked like something out of a magazine.
She was Calliope Brown, she reminded herself, and once again she was getting what she wanted. But for the first time, it didn’t feel like such a victory.
RYLIN
“THE ENTIRE FARM was designed as one enormous Fibonacci spiral. When you stand at the pinnacle, you can look down over all the levels and see the breathtaking symmetry of the plans …” the tour guide droned on.
It was Monday morning. Rylin had completely forgotten that she had a field trip for biology class today—she’d only realized it when she showed up to school and her tablet immediately prompted her to board the waiting shuttle. Rylin had never really minded being in biology before, but standing here now, surrounded by the entire freshman class, she felt an overwhelming sense of injustice. These kids were Chrissa’s age. Why couldn’t the school have let her get away with skipping biology altogether?
After the weekend she’d just had, a field trip was the last place she wanted to be. She’d gotten back from LA early yesterday morning—she’d rebooked herself onto the five a.m. train home, not even bothering to tell Xiayne her new plan. She knew he would receive an automated message notifying him of the ticket change, and he would obviously know what had prompted Rylin’s early departure.