The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(134)

“Oh yes of course, just kill her and take her spot, everything all neat and tidy,” Ezra said, waiting for a laugh that didn’t come.

Atlas sipped his tea again, and Ezra blinked.

“What?”

No reply.

“Atlas,” he growled. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“She slept with your girlfriend, for one thing,” Atlas offered with a misbegotten smile.

Which was not an answer, so Ezra rolled his eyes.

“Libby doesn’t know a thing about me. Bit hypocritical, don’t you think, if I held that particular blemish against her?”

“Regardless, you know there’s a bonding aspect to initiation. You’ll have to become part of them somehow if you plan to take their initiation oath. Sacrifice will do the trick.”

“And if I don’t want to be initiated?”

Atlas’ cup paused partway to his lips. “What?”

“I don’t see the point,” Ezra said restlessly. “You’re here, aren’t you, with me? What do I need to be part of the Society for? I’ve been on your side since the beginning.”

“Yes, and it’s been exceedingly helpful,” said Atlas, setting his cup to the side.

There was something about the foreignness of the motion—Atlas had never liked tea, preferring extreme intoxication instead—that made Ezra wonder whether he really knew Atlas Blakely at all. He certainly had at one point, but over two decades had passed since then, and Ezra had missed them. What might have happened to Atlas’ mind, to his convictions, to his soul? What had initiation into the Society done to him?

So Ezra decided to do something he had never bothered with doing before.

He opened a door to the distant future.

This was not as exciting a thing as it sounded, because the future could always be changed. True, there were some unalterable events, but in general Ezra had learned to take his distant doors as a pseudo-reliable astrological reading: likely to happen, but not guaranteed. So long as he did not remain there, he wasn’t bound to the consequences of anything he saw. His presence, if he did not disrupt anything, was as forgettable as the motion of a single grain of sand.

But what he discovered discomfited him intensely. Because what Ezra saw—the conclusion of his and Atlas Blakely’s plan—was almost certainly the end of the world.

“Let’s make a new one,” Atlas had said once. Not long ago, in Ezra’s memory. Twenty years in Atlas Blakely’s, and therefore perhaps long enough for him to believe Ezra might have forgotten what he said. “This one’s shitty, mate, it’s gone and lost the plot completely. No more fixing, no more tinkering around with broken parts. When one ecosystem fails, nature makes a new one. Nature, or whoever’s in charge. That’s how the species survives.”

He had turned his head, locking his dark gaze on Ezra’s.

“Let’s be gods, bruv,” Atlas said.

At the time, Ezra had blamed it on the drugs. But then he saw Tristan Caine inside one of his doors, traversing time itself on the wards Ezra had helped put in place, and he understood for the first time that Atlas Blakely had already built the perfect team without him.

“What is it Tristan can do?” Ezra asked casually on their next meeting. “You never told me.”

“Did I not?” said Atlas, lifting his cup to his lips.

Ezra, irritated, knocked the tea out of his hands. “You know you didn’t, Atlas—”

“Getting cold feet, old friend?” Atlas murmured, giving Ezra a thin smile as he waved a hand, returning the cup to its original state. “I imagine you may find yourself less devoted to our goals than you once were. Perhaps,” he said, in English so falsely aristocratic he might as well have fucked the queen, “because you’ve made no sacrifices to get here.”

“Me? Atlas,” Ezra snapped. “This was always part of the plan—”

“Yes,” Atlas agreed, “but while I’ve spent the last quarter of a century getting older, you’ve remained a child, haven’t you, Ezra? We erased you, remade you, to the point where your stakes don’t exist. You,” he said with accusation, or possibly disappointment, “can’t see the way the game has changed.”

“I’m a child?” Ezra echoed, astounded. “Have you forgotten that I did your dirty work for you?”

“I believe I thanked you for that several times over,” Atlas reminded him. “And I offered you a seat at the table, did I not?”

“Only because you want me to take out another obstacle to you—and what’s wrong with Parisa, anyway?” Ezra demanded, bristling. “What threat is she to you?”

“No threat,” Atlas said. “Just… not the ally I’d hoped she’d be.”

The inadequacy of his response pricked like a needle, and Ezra stared at him.

“We started all this because we agreed this Society was fucked,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” Atlas agreed.

“And now?”

“Still fucked, as you put it,” said Atlas. “But this time, I can fix it. We,” he amended. “We can fix it, if you’re willing to see things as I see them.”

When one ecosystem fails, nature makes a new one.

That’s how the species survives.