The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(127)

“Did she contract any significant illnesses?” (Tristan again.)

“No, but she was regularly vaccinated, so that would not be out of the ordinary.”

“The common cold,” Callum suggested drily, and Dalton shrugged.

“Most people do not take note of commonalities,” he said, “hence the inadequacy of our existing research.”

“What exactly are we supposed to do with this?” Nico asked, his fingers tapping impatiently at his sides. “Her magical specialty was… life?”

“Somewhere in her genetics is the ability to not decay,” Dalton replied, which appeared to be confirmation. “We have no way of knowing how common this ability is, which is part of the purpose for research. Is Viviana the only one?” he posed to the group. “Have there been, historically, others? If none have lived long enough to become remarkable, then do people blessed with longevity typically attract fatalities? Is it possible they habitually die young, and if so, is this a result of magic?”

“Or,” Dalton asked after a moment of silence, “is it somehow proof of fate?”

Parisa felt her eyes narrow, at odds with Dalton’s offhanded remark. Magic the way they typically studied it was narrow, predictable, scientific in its results. Fate was inherently not. The magnetic quality of being drawn to a particular end was to remove the option of choice, which was so displeasing as to prick her slightly. Parisa did not care for the sensation of not being in control; it filled her mouth with bitterness, like excess salivation.

“You said something had come up,” Reina said in her low voice. “Is this not what was planned for our next subject?”

Dalton tilted his head, reconciling with what appeared to be his own thoughts. “Yes and no. The unit of study following the initiation rites is always death,” he said. “Most often we perform the traditional rituals on the eliminated member.”

Tristan twitched with discomfort. Callum, solemnly, did not move.

“This particular case is, contrary to its appearance, fortuitous timing,” Dalton flippantly remarked. “The Society’s work remains uninterrupted, in a sense.”

“Does it?” said Nico blisteringly, and Dalton slid a glance to him.

“For all intents and purposes, yes,” he said. “Initiation will move forward as scheduled. You will also find that the units on life and death will allow you to access far more of the library’s resources.”

“And in exchange?” Parisa prompted.

Dalton’s shoulders gave his customary indication of tension at the sound of her voice. It was a reflex born from a need to not look so quickly, fighting eagerness, which ultimately manifested like a tic of hesitation.

“You are beholden to the Society as it is beholden to you,” he said without expression, before returning his attention to the details of Viviana’s undiagnosed medeian status.

Parisa left the remainder of her questions for when they were alone. When she found him, Dalton was sitting in the reading room over a single book, toying with something out of her sight; invisible. Whatever it was he was doing, it was causing him intense strain. She watched the fight go out of him at the realization of her presence and stepped forward to reach him, smoothing a bead of sweat from his brow.

“What is it?” she murmured.

He glanced blearily up at her from a distance, traversing miles of thought.

“Do you know why he wants you?” he asked.

It was a question that had been plaguing Parisa since Libby’s disappearance, if not earlier.

“No,” she said.

“I do.” He leaned his cheek against her hand, closing his eyes. “It’s because you know how to starve.”

They sat in silence as Parisa considered the implications of this. After all, was there a way to starve properly?

Yes. Conservation done well was to survive when others would perish.

Longevity, she thought in silence.

Then she stroked the back of Dalton’s neck, smoothing the tension from his vertebrae.

“You saw something,” she said. “In Libby’s… in that thing.”

It had been haunting her a bit from night to night. First the image of Libby on the floor, bleeding out, contorted. Then what Dalton had done, launching the corpse upright, making it dance.

An animation, he said. For which he was briefly the puppeteer.

“What is it?” she asked him again, and in the moment Dalton’s eyes met hers, she thought she caught a glimpse of the familiar. Not the man in her bed from time to time, but the one she sought like firelight, drawn to him like a flame.

“Only one person could have made that animation,” Dalton said.

“Who?”

She knew the answer before he said it.

“Me.”

There was no point asking what he remembered. If that animation had ever been his creation, he clearly didn’t know. Whether Dalton was indeed some god descending from machines was outside his existing mind’s jurisdiction, and now he was pleading with her in silence. Begging for her to take away the guilt unearned.

Parisa slid the contents of the desk aside, replacing them with herself, and Dalton leaned forward to breathe her in, a wrench from his throat like a silent sob to bury in the fabric of her dress.

This was the difference between life and longevity; somewhere between a car crash and a splintered soul.