“I changed.” Leda let out a heavy breath but didn’t tear her eyes from Rylin’s. “And for the record, so have you. You’re not the same girl I bullied at lunch that first day.” A new song had started playing over the speakers, yet Rylin had heard every word.
“You’re right,” Rylin said, a smile creeping over her features. “Now I’m way too tough for you to boss around.”
“You were always tough,” Leda replied, with a funny look. “But now you’re also smarter, and more observant, and—I think—not quite so prickly. Besides,” she added, smiling now, “I don’t need to bully you anymore. I’ve moved on to other victims lately.”
Rylin couldn’t tell whether the other girl was serious or joking. Maybe a little bit of both.
A memory flitted into her mind, unbidden, from one day in the edit bay, when Xiayne had told her that holography was all about perspectives. That different people saw the world in different ways. Rylin knew she had wronged so many people—and been wronged by them too: Hiral, Leda, Xiayne, and most of all Cord. But maybe she needed to look at it from another angle.
“Oh my god, Rylin. This is a party and you look like you’re trying to solve the mysteries of the universe.” Leda reached for a drink and handed it to her. “Relax, and try to smile, ’kay?”
Rylin took a sip of the drink from the frosted white glass. It tasted bitter on her tongue, and far too strong. “I can’t drink this on an empty stomach,” she protested.
“I know, I’m starving. Have you seen the risotto balls? They look incredible.” Without another word, Leda was looping her arm in Rylin’s and dragging her toward one of the food stations. For a moment Rylin hesitated—she still wanted to find Cord—but then she remembered that there were still hours left in this party, and she was hungry, and it was kind of nice, not hating Leda anymore.
How strangely the world worked sometimes, that Rylin Myers and Leda Cole were off to find risotto together, forming a bizarre sort of truce under the soft, glittered sky.
CALLIOPE
CALLIOPE WAS STANDING alone near an arrangement of mood-flowers, which currently glowed a soft, contented gold to match her happiness. Their so-called emotion-detection system was pretty flimsy—based on heart rate and body temp and, supposedly, pheromones—but for once Calliope thought their reading was actually spot-on.
She’d retreated to this side terrace to catch her breath and wait for Atlas to find her. Sure enough, she heard footsteps behind her this very moment. She turned around, a smile breaking over her features, only to see that it wasn’t Atlas at all, but his sister.
Avery looked like a creature half-wild. She was wearing a shimmering white dress with an illusion neckline, sewn with several layers of lace and delicate pearls. The skirt cut off just above her knees, Calliope realized; not evenly, but in a jagged line, as if it had been sliced with a blade. Her hair fell loose from its pins to surround her face in a tangled blond cloud.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Avery declared, something ominous in her tone.
“Hi, Avery.” Calliope lifted an eyebrow curiously. She had to ask. “Is that a wedding dress?”
“It was, until I chopped it off and made it a party dress.”
Well, it was certainly attention-getting. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s simple, really. I want you to get the hell out of New York.” Avery spoke with distinct spaces between her words, as if she needed Calliope to understand the full import of every last syllable.
“Excuse me?” Calliope demanded, but she had a sudden, nauseated feeling that Avery knew.
Avery took a menacing step forward. “I know the truth about you and your mom. So now you both are going to get the hell out of New York and never speak to Atlas again, since you were playing him this whole damn time for his money. Since he was just a game to you.”
Fear spiraled in eddies over Calliope’s skin. She took a careful breath. “It’s not like that, okay?”
“What was your plan tonight, anyway? Were you about to run off with my mom’s earrings?”
Calliope felt a stab of guilt at the accusation. She’d considered it, hadn’t she? And she would’ve done it, too, not so long ago; yet tonight something had held her back. She hadn’t wanted to treat the Fullers that way. She hadn’t wanted to treat anyone that way anymore.
Maybe she was developing that thing people called a conscience.
She started to speak, but Avery was shaking her head at Calliope’s silence, her perfect features twisted in disgust.
Quietly, with all the dignity she could muster, Calliope reached up to unfasten the magnificent pink diamonds still hooked in her ears. She held them out to Avery, who snatched them back.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she maintained, watching as Avery switched out her own earrings for the pink diamonds. “You don’t even know me.”
Avery looked up, and her blue-blue eyes were nothing but cruel. “I already know far more than I ever wanted to know about you.”
“How did you find out? Was it Brice?” More than anything, Calliope felt saddened by the fact that she and her mother would have to leave again. After all her mom’s hard work—after her acceptance of Nadav’s proposal, her decision that they could stay—they would have to turn tail and run yet again. Pick up new retinas and new identities and start tricking some poor person into giving them something. There would be no more Calliope Brown, that was for damned sure. The thought made her feel hollow inside.
Avery looked up, startled. “What does Brice have to do with this? Is he in on it?”
“Never mind.”
“Ten, nine, eight …” Around them, the party broke out in a sudden countdown to midnight. The first round of fireworks was about to start—they would continue all night, on the hour, all the way until morning. Calliope felt dazed that it was still so early, when in the course of a single evening her whole world had been radically upended. Twice.
She kept her eyes on Avery, trying to interpret the dance of her emotions across her face. She’d predicted so many actions of so many people in her life, yet for the first time, her instincts seemed to have failed her.
Then Calliope thought of something her mom had said once: that if she was ever caught in a tough situation—if her lies weren’t working, if all else failed—sometimes the best way out was to tell the truth.
She’d never spoken her real name aloud. Don’t tell anyone, her mom had drilled into her ever since they’d left London. It’s too dangerous; it gives people power over you. Just give them another name, a fun name, anything you like. It had been a game she’d played—quite skillfully—for years. She’d worn so many names, played so many cons. She’d traded herself away in tiny little pieces with each lie, and now she had no idea what was left.