The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(122)

“No blood?”

He could feel their eyes on him, waiting.

“I told you, nothing.” Only emptiness. Only absence. Magic unrecognizable, belonging to no one. “But she’s definitely not here.”

“So it’s an illusion,” Parisa said, as Nico’s expression turned to a ghastly mix of concern and relief. “A really excellent one.”

“Professionally done,” Reina said, glancing at Callum.

It took a moment for Callum to process what she’d said.

“You honestly think I would abduct Rhodes and leave an illusion in her place?” he demanded.

“Your family is famous for their illusions,” Reina said. “Aren’t they?”

“I also know Tristan would see through it,” Callum snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”

“So someone outside the Society must have done it,” Parisa inserted quickly, rising to her feet again. She was barefoot, Tristan registered, and still thoroughly unconcerned with her appearance. “Only someone who wouldn’t know what Tristan’s specialty is could have done it.”

“Does anyone know—?”

“No,” Tristan said. Only Atlas had ever guessed the details, though he must have had to discuss it with the Society’s board. “I mean, maybe. But I don’t think so.”

“Could still be the Forum,” Reina said. “Or one of the other groups.” She glanced at Nico, whose face was pale.

“But why?” he asked, swallowing. “Why Rhodes?”

Reina glanced at Parisa. “Victim of circumstance?”

“No. This was planned,” said Parisa with abject certainty, just as Atlas entered the room behind them, Dalton trailing in his wake.

“What’s this? Wh-” Atlas broke off, staring. “Miss Kamali, your hands—”

Parisa glanced down, scrubbing them with disgust onto the shirt that was clearly not her own. It was comical, really, how Tristan wanted so desperately to see the carnage the others were seeing, even if they obviously wished to put it out of their minds.

For him there were only the traces left behind, which was oppressive. There were no fingerprints, no clear signature. Only the enormity of what was missing.

“It’s an illusion,” said Tristan. “It’s not real.”

Atlas frowned, glancing at him without conviction. “An illusion that powerful would take—” “I know what it would take,” Tristan snarled, rapidly losing his patience with repetition, “and I promise you, it’s not there.”

It was the harshest tone any of them had ever taken with Atlas, though at the moment Tristan didn’t much care. That someone who could break into this house and take something inside it did not mean Libby Rhodes was still alive. The fact that she had not been killed in this room, or that this was not her body, was not, for Tristan, a comforting piece of information. Particularly not if whoever had taken her had the resources to do it in a way that could successfully trick all but one of the most talented medeians alive.

The look on Atlas’ face in response was carefully measured.

“I will have to contact the board,” he said. “They will need to know about this immediately.”

Then he disappeared, leaving Dalton standing alone in the doorway.

None of them particularly expected him to speak, though he did. “It’s not an illusion,” Dalton said, his tone blank and perfunctory, and Tristan gave a loud growl.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m telling you, it’s not r-”

“It’s not real, no,” Dalton confirmed quickly, “but it’s not an illusion.”

He waved a hand and whatever the others saw, they leapt back from the sight of it, Parisa stifling a scream as the traces of magic rose up in a thick blur, like heavy fog. Nico looked like he was going to be sick.

“It’s an animation,” Dalton said, and then he turned and left.

In his absence, the others stood speechless again.

“We should go,” Callum said in a measured voice, at the same time Reina said, “It’s his specialty.”

Parisa glanced up. “What?”

“Dalton. He’s an animator. I don’t know what that means,” Reina added. “But that’s what he does.”

“What’s the difference between an illusion and an animation?” The question sounded bitter from Nico, though it might not have been. His anger or his loss or whatever it was that was ailing him at Libby’s loss was bleeding, uncontained, into everything he said.

To Tristan’s immense surprise, Parisa turned to Callum for confirmation of something.

“Sentience?” she asked. She was asking him alone.

“Sort of,” Callum said. Nobody but Parisa seemed willing to meet his eye. “Illusions have no sentience, but animations have… some. It’s not strictly sentience,” he corrected himself, “but it’s an approximation of life. A sort of… naturalistic spirit. Not to any level of consciousness, but to the extent of being, arguably, alive.”

“There are myths about that.” Reina’s tone was cerebral. “And writings from antiquity.”

“Yes,” Callum said. “Spectral things, certain creatures. They’re animated but not sentient.”