The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(111)

“I neither like nor dislike any of you. I know nothing of who you are,” he said with a rare glimpse of impatience, “only of that which you are capable.”

“Do my capabilities threaten yours?”

“You do not threaten me,” he assured her.

She eyed him for a moment, transitioning to thought.

What is this Society?

His reply was perfunctory and clipped. Defenders of all human knowledge.

Do you really believe that?

It was difficult to lie via telepathy. Thoughts consisted of various materials, and lies were flimsy, easy to see through. The flaws in them were always tactile, either like gauze for the inept or like glass from the proficient: unnaturally still.

“No one who takes the initiation oath does so in vain,” said Atlas.

Answer the question.

He fixed her with a glance, mouth twisting. Not a smile, but wry enough.

I would not have spilled blood except for something I believed unquestionably.

It was not the answer she expected, though she had little time to consider it.

“Go to the library,” Atlas said, unsteadying her for a moment.

“What, now?” she asked, taken aback.

“Yes, now.” Atlas ducked his head in something half-bow, half-tip of a hat.

He turned, retreating to the corridor that served as the house’s primary artery, but paused after a step, turning over his shoulder.

“Whatever you hope to find in Dalton, Miss Kamali, it will only be to your detriment,” he said. “Seek it if you wish, but as with all knowledge, whatever follows will be yours to bear alone.”

Then he departed, leaving her to take to the stairs, still buried in her thoughts.

It wasn’t a long walk. By now it was one she took frequently. She paused to brush the walls, strumming the wards like harp strings. Nothing amiss.

She stepped into the library, unsure what she would find, and discovered upon entry…

Nothing.

Certainly nothing terribly out of the ordinary. Tristan sat at the table, sipping tea. Libby was on the sofa, staring into the flames in the hearth. Nico and Reina were standing near the window, glancing outside. The roses were beginning to bloom.

Parisa paused to reconsider the contents of the room, and then conjured thoughts of its opposite: what the room did not contain. Perhaps it was clear after all, if one merely grasped that Atlas was not the neutral party he pretended to be.

Parisa waved the doors closed behind her, prompting the others to look up.

“Someone has to die,” she said, and added in silence: I nominate Callum.

Reina didn’t even turn. If the others agree, she thought in reply, glancing irritably at a fern across the room.

Libby lifted her head, slate eyes darting around apprehensively. “Where is he?”

“Wherever he is, he won’t be gone long,” Parisa said with a shrug, impassive. “He’ll feel the discussion and come soon, within minutes.”

At the window, Nico was fidgeting, his fingers tapping relentlessly at his sides. “Are we sure this has to be done?”

“It will be done,” Parisa reminded him. “And we can either decide on someone as a group or wait to see who comes for each of us in the night.”

They all exchanged mistrusting glances at that, though a small sensation of distaste was reserved for her specifically.

“I merely said it aloud,” Parisa told Reina. “Everyone would have come to the same conclusion eventually.”

“You think we’ll turn on each other?” asked Nico, disbelieving.

“We could be easily split into factions,” Parisa confirmed, “in which case it would become a race.”

That seemed to ring true without exception. Already, none of them trusted the others enough to believe they wouldn’t turn assassin once things got dire.

“Who would do it? If we actually chose someone.” Nico cleared his throat, clarifying, “If we were all in agreement on… him.”

“I will,” Parisa said, shrugging. “If that’s what’s necessary and I have your support, I’m perfectly capable of doing it.”

“No.”

Libby’s interruption both surprised Parisa and didn’t. The others turned, equally wary and braced for the argument to come—murder is wrong, morality and virtue, so on and so forth—but it never arrived.

At least, not the argument Parisa anticipated.

“It has to be sacrifice, not retribution,” Libby said. “Isn’t that the purpose of studying intent, unluck?”

There was no answer for a moment.

Then Reina said, “Yes.”

That, apparently, was enough to spur Libby onward. “The texts make it clear that spells cast in vengeance or retaliation will only corrupt over time. If this is for the purpose of moving forward in the library—if it’s even going to have any value at all,” she amended firmly, “then it can’t be someone who’d be happy to see him go, and certainly not someone indifferent to him. It can’t be someone whose soul won’t suffer from the cost of it. The arrow is most lethal only when it is most righteous, and that means one thing.”

She rose to her feet, turning to where Tristan sat alone at the table, eyes locked on his tea.

“It will have to be you,” Libby said.