The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(110)

“Very. Like a barb.”

“I’m sorry.” She stroked his brow, soothing it, and he leaned gratefully against her shoulder.

Their breaths syncopated, pulses gradually finding common ground. It took a few moments to slow, to loosen the magic coursing through both their veins, finally allowing their separate parts to settle. Easier to exist in reality, corporeal among the usual dimensions. Nothing to fight with her in his arms, her fingers coiled in his hair.

Eventually the effort at being other faded away, settling into stillness.

Dalton’s voice, when he spoke, was coarse with confession. “What did you find?”

Nothing.

No, not nothing. Nothing she could explain, which was worse. Always difficult to admit when something remained out of reach.

“What does the library show you?” asked Parisa instead, easing away to look at him. “There’s something here that only you can access.”

She could see immediately that he wasn’t going to tell her.

“Dalton,” she began, but was promptly interrupted.

“Miss Kamali,” came Atlas’ buttery baritone. “I was hoping to find you.”

Dalton moved to release her, stepping away with an averted glance as Parisa revolved in place, finding Atlas in the doorway of the reading room. He beckoned her with a barely perceptible motion, not bothering to acknowledge Dalton.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”

There was a tug to her thoughts, lassoed like a command. She would clearly be walking whether she wished to or not.

She pursed her lips, displeased.

“Fine,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Dalton, who stood with his arms folded again. Lacking any reaction from him, she plucked her book from the table and followed Atlas, who led her into the corridor.

“Am I being scolded for my misbehavior?”

“No,” Atlas said. “You’re free to pursue whatever recreation you wish.”

She glanced up at him, suspicious. “Is that supposed to feel like freedom?”

“I know where you were, what you were doing.” He slid a pointed look at her. “You can’t use that much magic and expect me not to notice.”

“Is your surveillance a personal favor, or do you watch all of us equally?”

“Miss Kamali.” Atlas slowed to a halt, pausing before they reached the door to the garden. “Surely you don’t need me to tell you the uniqueness of your gift. You will have observed several times by now, I’m sure, that your skills far exceed those of other telepaths.”

“I have observed it, yes.” She wasn’t Libby. She did not need to be informed of her talent. She was clever enough to sort it out for herself.

“But surely you must also understand that you are not the first to possess such ability.”

He left the remainder of his intentions unspoken.

“So I should consider you my equal?” she prompted him, half-daring him to argue.

“I had thought us kindred spirits. Or rather, I suppose I’d hoped it.” Atlas lingered in the doorframe, casting a glance over the greenery outside.

“Do you think me an enemy?” he asked her, directing the question outward.

“I think your presence much too reliable to be coincidence,” she replied, adding, “You pulled me out of Dalton’s head once before.”

“You shouldn’t have been there.”

She bristled. “But your presence in his thoughts is acceptable?”

“Miss Kamali, there is no point pretending we are not the same,” Atlas told her, finally conceding to arrive at his point. “We are both telepaths, talented ones. Rarities.” A pause. “What we do is not unlawful surveillance so much as unwilling access. I feel disruptions in thought, just as you must feel them yourself.”

Surely there was more to it. “And?”

“And,” he confirmed, “you are a frequent disruption.”

“Is that what being a Caretaker means?” she mused. “Quieting disruptions?”

Atlas faced her fully now, his effort at languor cast aside.

“I care for the Society,” he said. “Of which you are not currently a member.”

“Not until I conspire to kill someone,” Parisa said.

“Yes.” Atlas’ confirmation was stony, unflinching. “Not until then.”

She felt her mouth tighten, curiosity warring with her more mutinous impulses.

“You interfered with the outcome of Dalton’s class, didn’t you?” she asked. “You intervened to save him.”

“Dalton has also intervened,” Atlas pointed out. “It’s human nature.”

“Yes, but your intervention was purposeful, intentional. His was—”

“His was no less intentional.”

She thought of Atlas’ desperation and compared it to Dalton’s, measuring them against each other.

“Why Dalton?”

“Why you?”

They were squared off defensively, which was unwise. A seductress by nature, Parisa understood the fruitlessness of combat compared to subtler methods of resolution. She eased her posture, leaning against the wall behind her to relieve the tension between them.

“You don’t like me,” Parisa guessed aloud, and Atlas’ mouth tightened.