NICO
NICO WAS FIDGETING. He was very often fidgeting; he was the sort of person who required motion, unable to sit still.
People usually didn’t mind it because he was perfectly likely to smile, to laugh, to fill up a room with the buoyancy of his personality, but it cost him quite a bit of energy, resulting in a somewhat pointless burn. Traces of magic were known to spill, too, if he wasn’t paying attention, and his presence already had a tendency to reshape the landscape around him, sometimes forcing things out of the way.
Libby shot him a warning look as the ground beneath them rumbled, slate eyes reproachful beneath what he
could see of her furrowed brow beneath her fussy bangs. “What’s going on with you?” she muttered to him after
they were released, referring with spectacular lack of
subtlety to what she probably considered an irresponsible disruption.
It was always such a marvelous thing how habitually she remarked on his tremors of agitation; no one else would
have identified such an insubstantial change to their
environment, of course, but then there was darling Elizabeth, who never failed to bring it to Nico’s attention. It was like having an ugly scar, something he couldn’t hide, even if she was the only one who saw it. He remained uncertain whether her delight in reminding him was a result of her insufferable personality, her alarmingly too-similar powers, or their longstanding history of forced coexistence, but he assumed it was some magical combination of all three, making it at least 33% her fault.
“It’s a big decision, that’s all,” Nico said, though it wasn’t. He’d already made it.
They’d each been given a twenty-four hour waiting period to decide whether they would accept the offer to
compete for initiation to the Alexandrian Society, but rather than being transported directly via charm as they had been for their arrival, they were deposited through their
respective portals of public transit. Unfortunately, living in Manhattan a mere matter of blocks from Libby Rhodes meant that she and Nico had the same transit point, and were now moments away from arriving at Grand Central’s magical port of entry (near the oyster bar).
He glanced at her, conceding to ask in a mostly inoffensive tone, “What are you thinking?”
She slid him a sidelong glance in exchange, then flicked her grey-green eyes to the pulse of his thumb against his thigh. “I’m thinking I really should have gotten that
fellowship,” she muttered, and because buoyancy came
naturally to him, Nico smiled, letting the shape of it stretch broadly across his lips.
“I knew it,” he said triumphantly. “I knew you wanted it.
You’re so full of shit, Rhodes.”
“Jesus.” She rolled her eyes, fussing again with her bangs. “I don’t know why I bother.”
“Just answer the question.”
“No.” She turned to him with a scowl. “I thought we agreed never to speak to each other again after
graduation?”
“Well, clearly that’s not happening.”
He beat his thumb against his thigh a few more times at the precise moment she remarked to nobody, “I love this
song,” which was another customary difference between them. He had felt the presence of the rhythm first; she had heard the melody sooner and identified it more quickly.
Again, there was no telling whether they had always been this way, or if they had learned it over the course of their unwilling inseparability. If not for her, Nico might not have noticed most of the things he did, and probably vice
versa. A uniquely upsetting curse, really, how little he knew how to exist when she wasn’t there; his only mode of pleasure was in knowing she probably felt the same whenever she could bring herself to stomach the admission.
“Gideon probably says hi,” Nico said, which was an offering of sorts.
“I know. He said hi when I saw him this morning.”
A pause, and then, “He and Max both love me, you know, even if you don’t.”
“Yes, I know. And rightfully, I hate it.”
Their shoes tapped along the floor and they emerged on the sidewalk, where they were free to transport themselves magically if they wanted; conversation over.
Or, possibly, not. “The other candidates are older than we are,” Libby noted aloud. “They’ve all been working already, you know? They’re so… sophisticated-looking.”
“Looks aren’t everything,” Nico said. “Though that Parisa girl is extremely hot.”
“God, don’t be a pig.” She half-smiled, mostly-smirked. “You have absolutely no chance with her.”
“Whatever, Rhodes.”
Nico slid a hand through his hair, gesturing down the block. “This way?”
“Yeah.”
Necessity required that they entertain certain détentes in their unending war for supremacy. They paused for the usual half-second to be sure no taxicabs were flying through the intersection before crossing the street, engaging the brisk walk-run that New York City taught its residents by
virtue of experience.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Libby asked him. All her usual flare-ups of anxiety were on full display; she
twirled her hair with one hand, chewing her lip absently. “Yeah, probably.” Definitely. “Aren’t you?”
“Well—” She hesitated. “I mean yes, of course, I’m not stupid. I can’t pass this up, it’s even better than the NYUMA fellowship. But…” She trailed off. “I suppose it’s a bit
intimidating.”
Liar. She already knew she was good; she was filling the social role of modesty she knew he wouldn’t deign to play. “You’ve really got to work on your self-esteem, Rhodes. Self- deprecation went out as a fashionable personality trait at least five years ago.”
“You’re such a dick, Varona.” She was chewing her thumbnail now. Stupid habit, though he detested the hair- twirling far more. “I hate you,” she added. A gratuitous conversational tic established between them, akin to an ‘um’ or a thoughtful pause.
“Yeah, yeah, understood. So you’re going to do it?”
She finally abandoned a spare inch of pretense, rolling her eyes. “Of course. Assuming Ezra’s fine with it.”
“Jesus. You can’t be serious.”
Every now and then, Libby achieved a look that
successfully withered his balls, and this was one of those instances. It was the kind of look that reminded him she’d set him on fire the first time she’d met him without even batting an eye.
He’d like her more if she did it more often.
“I live with him, Varona,” Libby reminded him, as if Nico could possibly forget her absurd selection of Ezra Fowler, their former R.A. and human wet blanket. “I think I should probably tell him if I’m planning to jet off to Alexandria for a
year. Or even longer, I guess. Assuming I get initiated, that is,” she said, with an air of unsaid and I will be.
They exchanged a look of agreement that required no translation.
“I mean, you are going to talk about it with Max and Gideon, aren’t you?” Libby prompted him, arching a brow that disappeared once again beneath her bangs. “You guys haven’t been apart for longer than an hour since freshman year.”
“You say that like we’re surgically attached. We have our own lives,” Nico reminded her.
Libby’s brow remained annoyingly lost to the span of her forehead.
“We do,” Nico snapped, and her lips twisted up, doubtful. “And anyway, they’re not up to anything. Max is
independently wealthy and Gideon—” He broke off. “Well, you know Gideon.”
She softened at that. “Yeah. Well, um.”
She toyed with her hair. It occurred to Nico, not for the first time, that he should really start playing Libby Rhodes anxiety-habit bingo.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, pausing as they arrived at her block. “Right?”
“Hm? Yeah.” She was thinking about something. “Right, and—”
“Rhodes,” he sighed, and she looked up, frowning. “Look, just don’t… you know. Don’t get all Rhodes about it.”
“That’s not a thing, Varona,” she grumbled.
“It’s absolutely a thing,” he assured her. “Just don’t Rhodes out on this.”
“What the—”
“You know,” he cut in. “Don’t spend all this time like, fretting or whatever. It’s exhausting.”
She set her jaw. “So I’m exhausting now?”
She really was, and how she didn’t already know it remained an eternal mystery. “You’re good, Rhodes,” he reminded her, leaping to cut her off before she got
needlessly defensive. “You’re good, okay? Just accept that I wouldn’t bother hating you if you weren’t.”
“Varona, that presumes I care at all what you think.” “You care what everyone thinks, Rhodes. Especially me.” “Oh, especially you, really?”
“Yes.” Clearly. “No point denying it.”
She was agitated now, but at least that was an improvement on weak and insecure. “Look, whatever,” she muttered. “Just… see you. Tomorrow, I guess.” She pivoted away, heading up the block.
“Tell Ezra I say ‘sup,’” he called after her. She flipped him off over her shoulder.
All was well, then, or at least the same as it always was.
Nico managed the handful of blocks on foot before
waving himself up the stairs of his building, fiddling with the wards and barging in without a key to find Gideon seated on the cramped sofa beside a dozing, outstretched black lab.
“Nicolás,” Gideon said, glancing up at his entry with a smile. “Como estas?”
“Ah, bien, más o menos. Ça va?”
“Oui, ça va,” Gideon replied, giving the dog a nudge. “Max, wake up.”
After a moment’s pause, the dog slid groggily from the sofa, stretching out with a heavy-lidded look of annoyance. Then, in a blink, he was back to his usual form, scratching idly at his buzz cut to glare over his shoulder at Gideon.
“I was comfortable, you massive fuck,” announced the man who was sometimes Maximilian Viridian Wolfe (barely domesticated under the best of circumstances) and sometimes not.
“Well, I wasn’t,” Gideon said in his usual measured tone before setting himself on his feet, tossing aside the newspaper he’d been reading. “Should we go out? Get
dinner?”
“Nah, I’ll cook,” Nico said. He was really the only one who could, seeing as Max was mostly uninterested in
picking up practical skills, preferring instead to sleep on the couch and ponder his existence, while Gideon… had other problems. Right now Gideon was shirtless, stretching his hands overhead past the usual wayward glints from his
sandy hair, and if not for the bruising below his eyes, he would have looked almost perfectly normal.
He wasn’t, of course, but deceptive normalcy was all part of Gideon’s charm.
Eternal sluggishness aside, Nico had certainly seen Gideon in poorer states than this one. Hastily avoiding his mother, for instance, who had a tendency to show up in
public toilets or the occasional gutter of rainwater, or
skirting his foster family, who were less a family than a bunch of bloodsucking Nova Scotian leeches. Gideon’s condition had been worse than usual in recent weeks, but Nico was pretty sure that was the inevitable result of
graduating NYUMA. For four years Gideon had gotten to have a mostly normal life, but now he was back to…
Well, whatever life became, Nico supposed, when you had nowhere to go and a serious case of something a less- informed person might call chronic narcolepsy.
“Ropa vieja?” Nico suggested, saying nothing of what he was thinking.
“Yes.” Max smashed a fist into the side of Gideon’s arm, heading into the bathroom. He was, as he always was when he shifted, completely nude. Nico rolled his eyes and Max winked, not bothering to cover himself as he strode past.
“Libby texted me,” Gideon remarked to Nico in Max’s absence. “Says you were your usual dickish self.”
“Is that all she said?” Nico prompted, hoping it was.
Ah, but of course not. “Said you guys got some sort of mysterious job offer.”
“Mysterious?” Damn it.
“In that she wouldn’t tell me what it was, yes.” They had been warned not to, but still.
“I can’t believe she told you already,” Nico grumbled, disgusted anew. “Seriously, how?”
“Messaged me just before you got here. I like that she keeps me informed.” Gideon reached up, scratching the
back of his neck. “How long would it have taken you to tell us if she hadn’t?”
That sneaky little monstress. This was Nico’s punishment, then. Forced communication with people who mattered to him, which she knew he loathed, all for implying that her boyfriend was precisely what he was.
“Ropa vieja takes a while,” Nico demurred, retreating hastily to the kitchen. “Has to braise.”
“Not a good answer, Nico,” Gideon called after him, and regrettably Nico stopped, sighing.
“I,” he began, and pivoted back to Gideon. “I… can’t tell you what it is. Not yet.”
With a pleading glance Nico enacted the faultless trust built on their four years of shared history, and after a moment, Gideon shrugged.
“Okay,” he conceded. “But you still have to tell us things, you know. You’ve been on eggshells with me lately, it’s weird.” He paused. “You know, maybe you shouldn’t come this time.”
“Why not?” Nico demanded.
“Because you’re babying him,” came Max’s drawl as he emerged from his room, clipping Nico’s shoulder with his. He had deigned to put on an incongruous mix of sweatpants
and a cashmere sweater, which was at least an improvement on the apartment’s state of sanitation. “You’re fussing, Nicky. Nobody likes a fusser.”
“I’m not,” Nico began, but at Gideon’s look of skepticism, he sighed. “Fine, I am. But in my defense, I make it look
very appealing.”
“When did you even have time to grow maternal
instincts?” Max asked him, sniffing the air as Nico began sifting through food in the kitchen.
“Probably during some class you didn’t attend,” Gideon
told Max before turning back to Nico. “Hey,” he cautioned in a low voice, nudging him. “I’m serious. If you’re going somewhere, I’d like to know about it.”
“You won’t even notice I’m gone,” Nico said with a sidelong glance.
“Why, because you expect me to come visit?”
Nico reached over, backhanding Gideon to remove him from the path to the fridge. “Yes,” he said, pretending not to see that his answer had left Gideon with some relief. “In fact you could come, actually. Could put you in a nice drawer somewhere, you know? Stand you upright in my closet.”
“No, thanks.” Gideon sank to the ground to lean against the cabinets, yawning. “Do you have more of that—”
“Yes.” Nico dug through one of the kitchen drawers,
tossing Gideon a vial that was caught with one hand. “But you’re not using it,” Nico warned with a spatula, “unless I’m allowed to come tonight.”
“I can’t decide if that’s a reflection on your concern for me or just your massive fear that something exciting will
happen without you present,” Gideon muttered, draining the contents of the vial. “But yeah, sure, fine.”
“Hey, you need me. That stuff doesn’t come easily,” Nico reminded him, though in truth he would never tell Gideon
just how easily it didn’t come. He’d had to do a lot of things he didn’t want to say aloud just to make sure the third year alchemical had left her mind blank enough for him to steal the formula. That he’d even managed that skill—which had taken nearly the entire four years at NYUMA to learn and
had depleted him so thoroughly that for four days Libby Rhodes thought he was either dying or trying to trick her into hoping he was dying—was already more than he’d do for anyone else.
The trouble with having Gideon for a friend was the constant possibility of losing him. People like Gideon, who was not technically a person, were not, by most laws of nature, supposed to exist. Gideon’s parents, an irresponsible finfolk and an even more irresponsible equidae (a mermaid and satyr respectively, by colloquial terms), had always
possessed the 25% chance their offspring would look
perfectly human, which Gideon did. They, of course, had not cared that their human-looking child would not be
technically anything at all that could be registered, and that while he would have medeian abilities, he would not be afforded the class of species to which all medeians were required by law to belong. Gideon wasn’t entitled to any social services, couldn’t be legally employed, and
unfortunately couldn’t spin straw into gold without
considerable effort. That Gideon had been educated at all was mostly an accident, along with an instance of wide
scale institutional fraud.
It all basically came down to one thing: the opportunity to study a subspecies like Gideon was not something NYUMA had been prepared to pass up, but now that he was no longer enrolled as a student, he was back to being nothing.
Just a man who could walk through dreams, and Nico’s best friend.
“I’m sorry,” Nico said, and Gideon glanced up. “I was going to tell you, I just…”
Felt guilty.
“I keep telling you,” Gideon said. “You don’t need to.”
If Libby Rhodes mocked that Nico and Gideon were
attached at the hip, it was only so that Nico could personally assure Gideon’s survival. Libby would not understand that, of course; she was one of the spare few who knew that Gideon was not what he seemed, but she didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t know how often Gideon ended up in harm’s way, unable to secure himself corporeally in a single realm, or how often he got swallowed up inside his own head, lost to the intangible spaces of thought and subconsciousness, and couldn’t find his way back. She didn’t know that Gideon had enemies, or that those who knew what he was and intended to use him for it were most dangerous, above all.
Libby didn’t know, either, that while Nico didn’t
underestimate her, she relentlessly underestimated him. He had perfected skills in multiple specialties outside his own, all of which had cost him greatly. He could change his shape
to follow the other two into the environment of dreams (animals had fewer restrictions on their boundaries than humans), but only after learning to manipulate each element of his own molecular structure; something he only did once a month, because it meant a full day’s recovery afterwards. He could brew something to bind Gideon’s physical form more permanently to the reality he currently stood in, but only after backbreaking effort that left Nico throbbing and sore for a week.
There had been no way Nico was turning down the Society’s offer. Power? He needed it. An obscure cure? He
needed that, too. Money, prestige, connections? He needed all of it, and Gideon would be better for his access. Two years away was hardly too much to ask.
“I never expected you to put your life on hold for me, Nico,” Gideon said.
No, he didn’t, and that was the only reason Nico had
done it to begin with; or thought he had no choice but to do it, anyway, until today.
“Look, the moment you became my friend, you became my problem,” Nico told him, and then, realizing what he’d said, he amended, “Or, you know, mine. Or whatever.”
Gideon rose to his feet with a sigh. “Nico—”
“Can you guys stop whispering?” Max yelled from the sofa. “It’s hard to hear you from here.”
Nico and Gideon exchanged a glance.
“You heard him,” Nico said, figuring it wasn’t worth continuing the argument.
Gideon, who had obviously decided the same, plucked some carrots from the produce drawer for a side dish,
nudging Nico aside with a motion of his hip. “Shall I grate?”
“You’re grating already,” Nico grumbled, but he caught the evidence of a smile on Gideon’s face, deciding the rest of the conversation could stand to wait.
TRISTAN
THE PROBLEM WITH SEEING THROUGH THINGS SO READILY was the
development of a certain degree of natural cynicism. Some people could be promised knowledge and power without a compulsion to uncover the caveats implied, but Tristan was not one of them.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, remaining behind the other five candidates and approaching the Caretaker who’d so evasively insisted on recruiting him.
Atlas looked up from muted conversation with whoever
the man was who’d come in to drone on at length about the Society; Dalton something-or-other, who’d been effusing
quite a lot of magic while he spoke. That was partially why Tristan had not made an effort to listen. If he were going to be convinced to abandon the life he’d already set up so
meticulously for himself, he wasn’t going to be illusioned or manipulated into it. It would be his choice, based on uncompromisable facts, and Atlas would give them to him or Tristan would leave. Simple as that.
Atlas seemed to have gathered as much from a glance and nodded, dismissing Dalton.
“Ask,” Atlas beckoned, neither patiently nor impatiently, and Tristan’s mouth tightened.
“You know as well as I do that my abilities are rare, but not useful. You can’t possibly expect me to believe I have one of the six most valuable magical specialties in the
world.”
Atlas leaned against the table, considering Tristan for a moment in silence.
“So why would I have chosen you, then, if I didn’t believe it?”
“That’s precisely what I want to know,” Tristan said staunchly. “If this has anything to do with my father—”
“It doesn’t,” Atlas said, dismissing Tristan’s concerns with a wave of a hand. “Your father is a witch, Mr Caine. Skilled enough, but commonplace.”
Of course Atlas would want him to believe that. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to magnify Tristan’s abilities in order to reach or infiltrate his father’s gang. “My father is the head of a magical crime syndicate,” Tristan said, bristling, “and even if he were not, I am—”
“You,” Atlas cut in, “don’t even understand what you are, I’d wager. What was your specialty? And I do not mean your abilities,” he clarified. “I mean to ask which credential you received from the London School of Magic as a medeian.”
Tristan scrutinized him warily. “I thought you already knew everything about everyone in that room.”
“I do,” Atlas said with a shrug, “but I’m a rather busy and important man with many things on my mind, so I would prefer you to tell me anyway.”
Fine. No sense dragging this out. “I studied in the college of illusion.”
“But you are not an illusionist,” Atlas pointed out. “No,” Tristan said gruffly, “but as I can see through
illusions—”
“No,” Atlas corrected, startling him. “You can do more than see through illusions.”
He rose to his feet with sudden immediacy, beckoning Tristan after him. “Walk with me,” he said, and though Tristan did not remotely want to listen, he conceded to follow, allowing Atlas to lead him through a narrow hallway that wound into a wider corridor.
“Here,” Atlas determined, pausing abruptly before a painting. “What is this a painting of?”
Disappointing. This, as far as Tristan could tell, was predictable cultish recruitment. Evade and flatter, mystify and conceal.
“I don’t have time,” Tristan snapped, “to play games. I assure you, I was diagnosed by every medeian at the London School, and I know the extent to which my abilities are—”
“In the moment I asked,” Atlas interrupted, “you identified this painting as a portrait of the artist’s lover.” He gestured again to the painting behind him. “You saw a number of things, of course—far more than I was able to
distinguish from my brief foray into your observations—but you looked at this nondescript portrait of a nineteenth
century Society benefactor and interpreted the details which led you to conclude what you were looking at, which no one but you would have seen.”
Atlas pointed to the title on the plaque, which read simply: Viscount Welles, 1816.
“You ascertained that the light coming in through the window came not from a typical portrait studio, but a location both the artist and the subject found comfortable. You noted his presentation was informal and the marks of his rank were added hastily afterward. You came to a
reasonable conclusion not on what was presented to you, but on what you deduced. This is because you see
components,” Atlas pointed out, and Tristan, always wary of a hidden agenda, assumed a guarded suspension of disbelief. “In mortal terms that would make you a savant.
You also see magical components, which is why you were identified for medeian classification. But you are correct,” he conceded, “to suspect that our interest in you exceeds the magic you have exhibited deliberately up to this point.”
Atlas saddled Tristan with a look of immense and troubling expectation.
“You are more than rare,” Atlas said, pronouncing it with finality. “You cannot begin to imagine your capabilities, Tristan, because no one has ever known what to do with you, and thus you have never encountered a reason to know. Have you ever studied space? Time? Thought?”
To Tristan’s momentary furrow of bemusement, Atlas said, “Precisely. You were educated alongside a group of illusionists, intending only to profit from marketable sleight of hand.”
Tristan bristled. “Is that what you think I am?”
“Obviously not, Tristan, or I would not be standing here trying to convince you otherwise.”
Tristan considered that a moment.
“You make it sound like the game is rigged in my favor,” he observed, still guarded, and Atlas shook his head.
“Not at all. I know how useful you are; it’s your turn to convince the others. The promise of your talents is nothing compared to whatever you ultimately prove to be.”
At that point, Atlas gave Tristan a curt, inattentive smile, expressing wordlessly that he wished to conclude the conversation.
“I can promise you nothing,” Atlas said. “I will, in fact, promise you nothing, and whatever you take from this, do not be misled; nothing I have told you is a guarantee of
anything at all. Unlike the others of your initiate class, your power remains largely untested. Your potential is almost entirely unreached, and however unmatched I believe it to be, it will have to be you who brings it to fruition. I’m afraid, Mr Caine, that you will simply have to take the gamble if you wish to see it through to the reward.”
Tristan wasn’t entirely risk averse; he had been known to cast his lot in venturesome ways before. In fact, the majority of his current life had been a gamble, and while it had been
paying off as he intended thus far, he hadn’t been aware at first how unsatisfactory that return would be. Based on his previous decisions, Tristan would be married to an heiress in a matter of months, the inheritor to a massive player in the magical economy, finally dismantled from his father’s criminal enterprise and probably equally likely to jump off a bridge as he was to ‘accidentally’ poison Rupesh’s favorite detoxifying kombuchas.
Some gamble.
“Shall I see you to the lifts?” Atlas prompted.
“No, thank you,” said Tristan, who figured he ought to start learning the building. “I can find them myself.”
PARISA
FOLLOWING DALTON ELLERY’S PATH was not a particularly trying task. The building was mildly sentient, possessing enough layers of enchantment that it had a basic primordial sense of thought, and so it was a simple enough effort to identify the motion of his footsteps along the vertebrae of its corridors. Parisa stepped daintily in his trajectory, hardly breaking a sweat.
To her relief, he was still handsome upon second glance.
It wasn’t a face he had put on for them at the meeting; typically, masking charms of any kind were too strenuous to hold at unnecessary moments, like this one.
She felt, though, the little catch of an unseen mechanism when he spotted her; his defenses flying up.
“You don’t seem like the power-seeking type,” Parisa ventured, deciding to guess aloud what sort of man Dalton Ellery was. The assertion was so accurate as to be unremarkable; he had a studious look to him, and a
solemnity that didn’t lend itself to the hypermale braggadocio of politicians and businessmen.
Her more pressing estimation—the more reckless guess
—had been that candor might alternatively unnerve or embolden him. Either way would be enough to secure herself a place in his thoughts, in which case it would be like leaving the door open a crack behind her. She would more
easily find her way back to his thoughts if she had been inside his head to begin with.
“Miss Kamali,” said Dalton, his tone evenly measured despite his initial surprise. “I cannot imagine I seem like much at all, given the inconsequence of our meeting.”
That was insufficiently informative, to say the least; neither unnerved nor emboldened, but merely factual.
She tried again, attempting, “I wouldn’t describe anything that just happened as inconsequential.”
“No?” He shrugged, inclining his head to dismiss himself. “Well, perhaps you’re right. If you’ll excuse me—”
That wouldn’t do. “Dalton,” she said, and he glanced at her, giving her a look of intensely restrained politeness. “Surely it’s reasonable that I still have questions, despite your illuminating presentation.”
“Questions about…?”
“Everything. This Society, among other things.” “Well, Miss Kamali, I’m afraid I can’t give you many
answers beyond the ones I have already provided.”
If Parisa hadn’t already been aware how little men cared for evidence of female frustration, she might have grimaced. His indifference was deeply unhelpful.
“You,” she attempted, venturing a more effective topic. “You chose to do this once yourself, did you not?”
“Yes,” Dalton said, with an unspoken obviously. “You chose this after one meeting?” she prompted.
“Tapped by Atlas Blakely, sat in a room with strangers just as we were… and you simply agreed, no questions asked?”
Finally, a hitch of hesitation. “Yes. It is, as I’m sure you know, a compelling offer.”
“But then,” she pointed out, “you chose to stay beyond your initiation period.”
His brow twitched; another promising sign. “Does that surprise you?”
“Of course,” she said, relieved to see he was finally
taking a more active role in the conversation. “Your pitch to us in that room was about power, wasn’t it? Returning to the world after initiation to take advantage of the resources
allotted to the Society’s members,” she clarified, “and yet, given the opportunity to do so, you chose to remain here.” As a cleric, essentially. Some intermediary between the
Alexandrian divine and their chosen flock.
“Someone once told me I don’t seem like the power- seeking type,” Dalton said.
She smiled. He didn’t know it yet, but she had found her footing.
“Well, I suppose I have little reason not to join,” Parisa replied with a shrug. Nothing, after all, was keeping her. “Only that I am not particularly enamored with teamwork.”
“You will be glad to have a team,” Dalton assured her. “The specialties are chosen to complement each other, in
part. Three of you specialize in physicalities, while the other three—”
“So you know my specialty, then.”
He smiled grimly. “Yes, Miss Kamali.” “So I suppose you don’t trust me?”
“Habitually, I refrain from trusting people like you,” said Dalton.
That, Parisa thought, was rather telling.
“I imagine you suspect me of using you, then,” she said.
His response was a wry half-smile with a clear enough translation: I know better than to answer that.
“Well,” she said. “Then I suppose I’ll have to prove you wrong.”
He gave her another curt nod. “Best of luck to you, Miss Kamali,” he said. “I have very high hopes for you.”
He turned, about to head for the corridor, when Parisa reached for his arm, catching him unawares just long
enough to draw herself up on her toes, bracing her palms on his chest.
There would be the slightest pulse of contemplation here
—the hardest work was managed in the moments before a thing was accomplished. The promise of her breath on his lips; the angle at which he viewed her, her dark eyes overlarge, and the way he would gradually become conscious of her warmth. He would smell her perfume now and catch hints of it again later, wondering if she had
rounded a nearby corner or recently been in a room. He
would catalogue the sensation of her smallness in the same incongruous moment he registered the pressure of her presence; the immediacy of her, the nearness, would
momentarily unsettle him, and in that moment, lacking the presence of mind to recoil, he would permit himself to
imagine what might happen next.
The kiss itself was so fragile and brief it hardly mattered. She would learn only the smell of his cologne, the feeling of his mouth. The most important detail of a kiss was usually
the cataloguing of a single fact: is the kiss returned? But this kiss, of course, was far too fleeting to be informative. Better he did not return it, in fact, as no man would allow a woman access to the more worthy corners of his mind if he kissed her too readily to start with.
“Sorry,” she said, removing her hands from his chest. Balance was a delicate matter; the sending of her desire forward while also tearing herself physically away. Those who did not believe this to be a dance had not undergone the choreography long or devotedly enough. “I’m afraid it cost more energy than I cared to expend,” she murmured, “preventing myself from doing that.”
Magic was an energy they all knew better than to waste; on some level, she knew he would relate.
“Miss Kamali.” These, the first words after kissing her, would forever taste like her, and she doubted he’d escape an opportunity to say her name again. “Perhaps you
misunderstand.”
“Oh, I’m sure I do,” she said, “but I suppose I quite enjoy an opportunity for misunderstanding.”
She smiled up at him, and he slowly detached himself from her.
“Your efforts,” he said, “would be better spent convincing your initiation class of your value. I have no direct impact on the decision as to whether or not you’ll be chosen for
initiation.”
“I’m very good at what I do. I’m not concerned with their opinions.”
“Perhaps you should be.”
“I don’t make a habit of doing things I should.” “So it appears.”
He flicked another glance at her, and this time, to her immense satisfaction, she saw it.
The opening of a door.
“If I believed you capable of sincerity I would recommend you turn and run,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think you have every weapon necessary to win this game.”
“So it is a game, then.” Finally, something she could use. “It is a game,” he confirmed. “But I’m afraid you
miscalculated. I am not a useful piece.”
She did not, as a rule, miscalculate. Better that he wonder, though.
“Perhaps I’ll simply have you for fun, then,” she said, but as she did not make a habit of being the one left behind, she took the first step in retreat. “Are the transportation portals that way?” she asked him, deliberately pointing in the
wrong direction. The moment his mind would take to replace the incorrect information with accuracy would be enough to catch the shadow of something, and she was right,
observing a flicker of something heavily suppressed. “That way,” Dalton said, “just around the corner.”
Whatever lurked in his mind was not a complete thought.
It was a rush of things, identifiable only by how carnal they were. Desire, for example. She had kissed him, and he was wanting. But there was something else, too, and it wasn’t interwoven with the rest the way it sometimes was.
Lust was a color, but fear was a sensation. Clammy hands or a cold sweat were obvious markers, but more often it was some sort of multisensory incongruity. Like seeing sun and smelling smoke, or feeling silk and tasting bile. Sounds that rose out of unseeing darkness.
Dalton Ellery was definitely afraid of something.
Tragically, that something wasn’t her.
“Thank you,” Parisa said, rather meaning it, and
proceeded down the corridor to find there was an additional person waiting in the vestibule.
He, she thought, was interesting. There was something very coiled up about him, something rearing to strike, but the best part about snakes was how little they could be bothered to do so unless someone was blocking their sun.
Besides, call it merciless Westernization, but she liked British accents.
“Tristan, isn’t it?” she asked, watching him look up from a rather murky swamp of thoughts. “Are you headed to
London?”
“Yes.” He was half-listening, half-thinking, though his thoughts were mostly unidentifiable. On the one hand they took very linear paths, like a map of Manhattan, but they
also seemed to reach destinations that would require more effort than Parisa had energy to follow at the moment. “And you?”
“London as well,” she said, and he blinked with surprise, refocusing on her.
He was recalling her academic origin of École Magique de Paris and her personal origin of Tehran, basic
introductory details distributed by Atlas. Good, so he’d been paying attention. “But I thought—”
“Can you see through all illusions?” she asked him. “Or is it just the bad ones?”
Tristan hesitated for a moment, and then his mouth twisted. He had an angry mouth, or at least a mouth
accustomed to camouflaging anger. “You’re one of those,” he said.
“If you’re not busy, we should have a drink,” she replied. He was instantly suspicious. “Why?”
“Well, there’s no point in me going back to Paris. And besides, I need to entertain myself for what remains of the evening.”
“You think I’ll entertain you?”
She allowed a deliberate flick of her eyes, following the shape of him.
“I certainly think I’d like to see you try,” she said. “And anyway, if we’re going to do this, we ought to start making friends.”
“Friends?” He practically licked his lips with the word.
“I like to know my friends intimately,” she assured him. “I’m engaged.” True, but immaterial.
“How wonderful for you. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl.” “She isn’t, actually.”
“Even better,” Parisa said. “Neither am I.”
Tristan cut her a sidelong glance. “What kept you so long after the meeting?”
She considered what to tell him, weighing her options.
This wasn’t the same calculation that Dalton Ellery had been, of course. This was purely recreational. Dalton was more of a professional concern, though it was tinged with a bit of genuine craving.
Dalton was chess; Tristan was sport. Importantly, though, both were games.
“I’ll tell you over breakfast,” Parisa suggested.
Tristan sighed aloud, addressing his resignation to empty air, and then turned back to her.
“I have to do a few things first,” he said. “Break things off with Eden. Quit my job. Punch my best friend in the jaw.”
“That all sounds like responsible behavior that can wait until morning,” advised Parisa, stepping through the portal’s open doors and beckoning him after her. “Be sure to
schedule in the part where I tell you my theories about what
we’re not being told, presumably between the broken engagement and the probably well-deserved assault.”
He, obligingly, stepped into the portal after her. “You have theories?”
She pushed the button for London. “Don’t you?”
They exchanged a glance, both smiling, as the portal confirmed: King’s Cross Station, London, England, United Kingdom.
“Why me?” said Tristan. “Why not?” said Parisa.
It seemed they were like-minded. She was inexperienced with collaboration, but felt that was an important qualification for teamwork.
“I could certainly use a pint,” Tristan said, and the doors closed, delivering them to the remainder of their evening.
LIBBY
IT HAD NOT BEEN A VERY GOOD DAY for Ezra, poor thing. This was a rather inevitable outcome, of course, considering he’d had to spend most of it with Libby’s parents at her graduation ceremony before she, admittedly, had skipped off
mysteriously without warning and then returned to delay any explanation for her absence by tugging him firmly into bed with her. At least he’d gotten s*x that day, which she presumed would be a lovely turn of events, but also, his partner in the act had clung to a secretive and knowingly
manipulative agenda that had left her distracted and unable to climax, so that was… potentially less lovely for him.
Subsequent pro: she had graciously made him dinner. Subsequent con: she had also informed him over said dinner that she would be accepting the offer made to her by
Atlas Blakely, Caretaker, despite being unable to properly explain why.
“So you’re just… leaving?” Ezra asked, warily bemused.
He had been mid-sip when Libby began talking and had
since forgotten about the wine glass that remained clutched in his hand. “But Lib—”
“It’s only two years,” Libby reminded him. “Well, one for sure,” she amended, “and then hopefully a second year if I’m selected.”
Ezra set down his glass, frowning at it. “And… what is it, exactly?”
“I can’t tell you.” “But—”
“You’ll just have to trust me,” she said, not for the first time. “It’s essentially a fellowship,” she added in an attempt to explain, but this, unfortunately, had been exactly the
wrong auditory cue.
“Speaking of fellowships, I’ve been meaning to bring it up,” Ezra said, brightening, “but I just heard from Porter in the bursar’s office that Varona turned down that NYUMA fellowship. I know you weren’t excited about the VC job, so if you’re still interested in that position, I’m sure I could put in a good word.”
Surely he must have known this was the exact wrong thing to say. Shouldn’t he? She wouldn’t want Nico’s cast- offs, and certainly not now.
Though it did leave her with one other thing to explain. “Well, the thing about Varona is—” Libby coughed. “Well,
Varona is… also invited.” Ezra faltered. “Oh?”
“Oh, come on. You can’t be surprised.” She fidgeted with her utensils, pushing the pasta around on her plate. “You
saw us this morning, didn’t you?” “Yes, but I thought—”
“Look, it’s the same as it always is,” she said listlessly. “For whatever reason, Nico and I can do the same things, and—”
“So then why do they need both of you?” Ezra prompted.
Again, the wrong thing to say. “You hate working with him. Not to mention everyone knows you’re better—”
“Actually, Ezra, they don’t. Clearly they don’t,” Libby added with a scoff, “since he got the fellowship I wanted. See how that works?”
“But—”
“I can’t let him win this time, babe. Seriously, I can’t.”
She wiped her mouth with her napkin, setting it back on the table with frustration. “I’ve got to set myself apart from him. Don’t you get that?”
“Can’t you do that by, I don’t know,” Ezra posed with tacit disapproval, “doing something different?”
He made that sound so simple.
“Look,” Libby said, “chances are, only one of us is going to make the cut when the… fellowship,” she remembered, narrowly avoiding giving more details away, “determines
the final members for its—” A pause. “Faculty.” Another pause, and then, “We have the same specialty, which means we’ll draw the most obvious comparison. So either he’ll be picked and I won’t, in which case I’ll be back in a year or less, or I’ll be picked and he won’t, in which case—”
“In which case you win,” Ezra exhaled with a hand
around his mouth, “and we can finally stop worrying about whatever Varona is doing?”
“Yes.” That much, at least, was fairly obvious. “Not that you have to worry about Varona now.”
Ezra stiffened. “Lib, I wasn’t—”
“You were, actually,” Libby said, picking up her glass. “And I keep telling you, there’s nothing there. He’s just an asshole.”
“Believe me, I’m aware—”
“We’ll talk every night,” she assured him. “I’ll come
home every weekend.” She could do that, probably. Maybe. “You’ll barely notice I’m gone.”
Ezra sighed. “Libby—”
“You just have to let me prove myself,” she told him. “You keep saying that Varona’s not better than me—”
“—because he isn’t—”
“—but it doesn’t matter what you think, Ezra, not really.”
His mouth tightened, probably resentful that she was so dismissive of his admittedly very thoughtful attempts to reassure her, but on this, she couldn’t make allowances.
“You hate him too much to see how good he really is, babe. I just want the opportunity to learn more, to prove myself.
And proving myself by going up against the best in the
world means going up against Nico de Varona, whether you believe that or not.”
“So I don’t get a say, then.” Ezra’s expression was slightly grim, but mostly unreadable.
“Of course you get a say,” Libby corrected him. “You can say, ‘Libby, I love you and I support you,’ or you can say
something else.” She swallowed before adding, “But believe me, Ezra, there are only two answers here. If you don’t say one, you’re saying the other.”
She braced herself, waiting. She didn’t expect him to make any unreasonable demands, exactly, but she
definitely knew he wasn’t going to be thrilled. Closeness was important to Ezra; it had been his idea to move in together, and he expected a certain amount of what a therapist might call ‘quality time.’ He certainly wasn’t going to savor the fact that Nico would be there in his absence.
To Libby’s immense relief, though, Ezra merely sighed, reaching across the table for her hand.
“You dream big, hotshot,” he said.
“That,” she murmured, “isn’t really an answer.” “Fine. Libby, I love you and I support you.” She was
briefly permitted a pause for relief; and then he added, “But be careful, okay?”
“Be careful with what,” Libby scoffed, “Varona?”
Nico was laughably harmless. Good, certainly, even great if he put his mind to it, but he was hardly capable of schemes. He could get under her skin, maybe—but even then, there was no danger of anything aside from losing her temper.
“Just be careful.” Ezra leaned across the table, brushing his lips against her forehead. “I would never forgive myself
if I let something happen to you,” he murmured, and she groaned. Just the usual white knight shit, then.
“I can take care of myself, Ezra.”
“I know.” He touched her cheek, smiling faintly. “But hey, what else am I here for?”
“Your body,” she assured him. “Plus you make a mean bolognese.”
He had her out of her chair in a flash, pulling her into him as she laughed in unconvincing protest.
“I’m going to miss you, Libby Rhodes,” he said, “and that’s the truth.”
So it was final, then. She was really doing this.
Libby wrapped her arms around Ezra’s neck, clinging to him for a moment. Maybe she wasn’t a damsel in distress, but it still felt nice to anchor herself to something before
casting herself into the unknown.
