“But we avoided Avery on the plane today— I thought—”
Leda laughed, making him feel even more foolish. “Avery was avoiding you, Watt. Because for some reason she thinks you’re upset with her. Besides, I thought it might be more fun, sitting just us,” she added, in a slightly less certain tone.
“Oh,” was all he could think to say. He was still trying to understand this new world where Calliope was competing with Avery for Atlas; where Leda was okay with Avery and Atlas dating, and was being considerate of his feelings. He wondered where it left them.
Leda’s arm tightened on his. “Who is that, with her?”
Watt lifted his gaze back to Calliope. She’d left Atlas, almost furtively, and walked to where another woman stood at the edge of the terrace.
Next to him, Leda was muttering at her contacts to zoom in. Watt didn’t need to say anything because Nadia had already focused in on the woman. She looked like a slightly older version of Calliope, her features similar but more deeply etched by time and cynicism.
“Avery told me Calliope lives with her mom,” Leda offered. “That must be her, right?”
They glanced at each other, clearly getting the same idea at the same moment. “Watt—could Nadia do facial-reg on the mom?” Leda asked.
Already running it, Nadia replied, still huffy. She’d switched from voice to text, layering the words over Watt’s vision as if they were an incoming flicker.
I really am sorry.
It’s okay. As you so aptly put it, I don’t have any feelings for you to hurt.
Watt knew what she said was true, and yet for some reason, it made him inexplicably sad.
He watched as Calliope and her mom kept talking. At first their expressions were clearly tense; their gestures rigid and tight, loaded with significance. Then Calliope’s mom said something, and Calliope smiled uncertainly. Nadia, are you picking up what they’re saying?
Nadia sent him a transcript of their conversation, without any commentary of her own. When he read it, Watt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Leda,” he started to say, but she shushed him impatiently.
“I’m listening! LipRead,” she added, in answer to his questioning look.
LipRead was an application designed for the hearing impaired. Watt wondered why he’d never thought to use it to eavesdrop.
He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by Leda’s brilliance, or terrified.
He leaned forward again, to watch them more closely—and Nadia sent him the facial-reg results on Calliope’s mother.
“Leda,” he croaked, grabbing her elbow and dragging her farther away, despite her protests. “You’re going to want to see this.”
AVERY
AVERY STOOD IN the eye of a storm of people, laughing uproariously at every joke that was told, looking spectacular in the attention-getting—and exorbitantly expensive—bridal gown that she’d bought on a whim and chopped off at the knees. Even the alterations-bot had refused to make the drastic change, so Avery had set her beauty wand to scissors mode and sawed it off herself; watching the frothy layers of tulle, covered in hand-embroidered seed pearls and tiny crystals, fall to the floor of her closet with a surreal sense of detachment. The gown was so thick that it had taken several minutes of resolved focus to cut it all. Part of Avery had felt that she was watching herself from a distance; normal Avery would have cried out at the sacrilege of cutting a couture wedding gown like that. But then, normal Avery had retreated into a shell, and the only thing left was this irrational Avery, volatile and highly unpredictable.
She kept glancing over to where Atlas stood with Calliope, their heads bent together, their faces easy and smiling. The sight of them hurt more than Avery dared reveal.
Risha grabbed her arm in surprise. “Oh my god.” She gasped, her gaze clearly following the same direction as Avery’s. “Are those your mom’s pink earrings?”
Avery felt a stab of shock at the sight of her mom’s iconic earrings in Calliope’s ears. “Looks like they are,” she said, trying to sound like the question bored her, so that Risha would drop it.
Across the way, Calliope was leaning forward to whisper something, her gown so thin it was almost nonexistent. Avery felt a darkness rising up in her—a vast empty blackness, like a pool with no bottom. She reached down to feel along the uneven hem of her gown. For some reason its frayed, flawed imperfection was reassuring.
“If your mom lent her those earrings, then she and Atlas must be getting serious,” Risha pointed out.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Avery realized she was grinding her back teeth, sending a dull ache throughout her jaw, and forced a tight smile. “I’m going to get a drink.”
She turned around abruptly, not inviting Risha to join her, and tried to push her way toward the bar. But of course, Avery Fuller didn’t need to elbow through the crowds like a normal person. They fell back instinctively, as if she had a spotlight trained on her, just like always.
It was all the same, wasn’t it? The same women moving across the terraces in a familiar click of heels, the same men murmuring to one another in low tones about the same things they always discussed, their eyebrows drawn together in the same clichéd expression of concern. It all struck Avery as futile, and purposeless. Here they were, halfway around the world, and yet everyone was stuck in their little loops—engaging in the old tired flirtations, doomed to the same disappointments.
“Avery! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Leda hurried toward her. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining fierce with determination.
“Here I am,” Avery said uselessly. She searched within herself for the best smile she could find, but it came out shaky. Leda saw, and narrowed her gaze at Avery; a sort of knowing, you-didn’t-fool-me expression.
“We need to talk. In private,” Leda insisted.
She led Avery backward through the party, through the enormous gilded arch that opened into a luxury housing development within the dark tower. A few partygoers were here, milling about the empty space; everything too pristine and perfect, with that un-lived-in construction glow. Avery had been in plenty of her father’s towers while they were still unoccupied, and each time she found it a little unnerving. Empty windows gazed out from the apartments’ front hallways like soulless eyes.
“What’s going on?” she asked when Leda finally came to a halt. They stepped too close to one of the for-sale apartments, and little ads popped up on both their contacts. They quickly edged closer to the middle of the street.
“I have news, about Calliope.” Leda took a deep breath and lowered her voice dramatically. “She’s a con artist.”
“What?”