The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(114)

“It is for her own safety that she feels nothing,” Callum said. “It is something she does to survive.”

He had not told Tristan the truth, which was that Tristan was asking the wrong questions. For example, Tristan had never asked Callum what books the library gave him access to. It was a grave error, and perhaps even fatal.

“Tell me about your father,” Callum said, and Tristan blinked, taken aback.

“What? Why?”

“Indulge me,” Callum said. “Call it bonding.”

Tristan gave him a hawk-eyed glare. “I hate it when you do that.”

“What?”

“Act like everything is some sort of performance. Like you’re a machine replicating human behaviors. ‘Call it bonding,’ honestly.” Tristan glanced moodily at his glass. “Sometimes I wonder if you even understand what it means to care about someone else, or if you’re just imitating the motions of whatever it’s meant to look like.”

“You wonder that constantly,” Callum said.

“What?”

“You said you sometimes wonder. You don’t. It’s constant.”

“So?”

“So nothing. I’m just telling you, since you seem to like it when I do that.”

Tristan glared at him again, which was at least an improvement. “You do realize what I know, don’t you?”

“The betrayal, you mean?”

Tristan blinked.

Blinked again.

“You feel betrayed by me,” Callum clarified. “Because you think I have influenced you.”

“Manipulated me.” The words left Tristan’s mouth with a snarl.

It had certainly been a mistake. Callum couldn’t think how Tristan had suddenly conjured up a method to test him, but now that it had happened it couldn’t be undone. People hated to lose autonomy, free will. It revulsed them, the controls of another. Tristan would not trust him again, and it would only get worse. The difficulty of it was the festering, the ongoing sickness. Tristan would wonder forever whether his feelings were his own, no matter what Callum did to reassure him.

“Can you really blame me? I preferred the libation of my choice,” said Callum, suddenly finding the whole thing rather exhausting. “Anyone given a talent has a tendency to use it.”

“What else have you done to me?”

“Nothing worse than Parisa has done to you,” Callum said. “Or do you really think she cares about you more sincerely than I do?”

Tristan’s expression was anguished, curiosity warring with suspicion. That was the trouble with possessing too many feelings, Callum thought. So difficult to choose one.

“What does Parisa have to do with it?”

“Everything,” Callum said. “She controls you and you don’t even see it.”

“Do you even hear the irony of what you just said?”

“Oh, it is exceptionally ironic,” Callum assured him. “Petrifyingly so. Tell me about your father,” he added tangentially, and Tristan scowled.

“My father is not at issue.”

“Why not? You discuss him at length, you know, but you never actually say anything when you do it.”

“Ridiculous.” A scoff.

“Is it? Speaking of ironies,” Callum mused. “Upfront but never true.”

“Why would I be honest with you?” Tristan retorted. “Why would anyone, ever, be honest with you?”

The question fell like an axe over them both, clumsily surprising them.

A shift, then.

For a moment, Callum said nothing.

Then, “When Elizabeth Rhodes was a child, she discovered she could fly,” Callum said. “She didn’t know at the time that she was altering the molecular structure within the room while shifting the force of gravity. She already had a predilection for fire, always reaching for candle flames, but that was normal for a child her age, and her parents were devoted, attentive. They kept her from burning, so she has never actually discovered that she cannot, as a rule, burn. Her understanding is that she can only alter physical forces without disturbing natural elements,” Callum added, “but she is wrong. The amount of energy it would require for her to change molecular composition is simply more than she possesses on her own.”

Tristan said nothing, so Callum continued, “It startled her sister, or so Libby thought. In reality her sister was suffering the early symptoms of her degenerative illness: weight loss, loss of hearing, loss of vision, weakening bones. Her sister fainted, which was purely coincidence. Lacking an explanation, Libby blamed herself and did not use her powers for close to a decade, not until after her sister passed away. Now she thinks of it only as she would think of a recurring dream.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Tristan attempted brusquely, but Callum pressed on.

“Nicolás Ferrer de Varona is the only child of two deeply average medeians who made a considerable profit on good investments, despite what talent they lacked themselves. He is, of course, their most profitable investment, being more aware of his talents than Libby, but not by much.”

At Tristan’s arched brow, Callum shrugged. “He can transform his own shape as well as the things around him.” Few medeians who were not naturally shifters could do so, and shifters could not perform Nico’s magic in reverse: shifters could transform themselves, but nothing else.