The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(4)

It was a strange thought, actually, and strangely lonely. But still, thrilling all the same.

She felt a little rumble under her feet and glanced over, noting that Nico looked lost in thought.

“Hey,” she said, nudging him. “Stop.”

He gave her a bored glance. “It’s not always me, Rhodes. I don’t go around blaming you for forest fires.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know the difference between an earthquake and a Varona tantrum.”

“Careful,” he cautioned, gaze flicking to where Ezra sat beside her parents. “Don’t want Fowler to see us having another row, do we? Might get the wrong impression.”

Honestly, this again. “You do realize your obsession with my boyfriend is childish, don’t you, Varona? It’s beneath you.”

“I didn’t realize you thought anything was beneath me,” Nico replied lazily.

Across the stage, Breckenridge shot them a warning glance.

“Just get over it,” Libby muttered. Nico and Ezra had loathed each other during the two years they’d all been at NYUMA together before Ezra graduated, which happened to be a separate matter from Nico’s opposition to her. “You never have to see each other again. We,” she amended belatedly, “never have to see each other again.”

“Don’t make it sound so tragic, Rhodes.”

She shot him a glare, and he turned his head, half-smiling at her.

“Where there’s smoke,” he murmured, and she felt another rush of loathing.

“Varona, can you just—”

“—pleased to introduce your co-valedictorian, Elizabeth Rhodes!” came the voice of the commencement announcer, as Libby glanced up, realizing that their entire audience was now staring expectantly at her, Ezra giving her a little frown from the crowd that suggested he had observed her bickering with Nico yet again.

She forced a smile, rising to her feet, and gave Nico’s ankle a kick as she went.

“Try not to touch your hair,” was Nico’s parting benediction, muttered under his breath and of course intended to make her fixate on her bangs, which for the entire two minutes of her prepared speech threatened to fall into her eyes. One of his lesser magics, getting under her skin, and by the time she finished, she wanted very badly to kick him again, falling into her seat and reminding herself how marvelous life was going to be in approximately twenty minutes, when she would be free of him forever.

“Well done, you two,” Breckenridge said wryly, shaking their hands as they departed the stage. “An entire commencement ceremony, impressive.”

“Yes, we are very impressive,” Nico agreed, in a tone that Libby would have slapped him for, only Breckenridge gave a low chuckle of amusement and shook her head fondly, departing in the opposite direction as Libby and Nico made their way down the stairs.

Libby paused to conjure something terrible; a final, devastating parting malediction. Something to haunt him while she walked away.

But then instead, she held a hand out to him, deciding to be an adult.

Civil.

Et cetera.

“Have, you know. A good life,” she said, and Nico glanced skeptically at her palm.

“That’s the line you’re going with, Rhodes?” he asked, pursing his lips. “Come on, you can do better. I know you must have rehearsed it in the shower.”

God, he was infuriating. “Forget it,” she said, retracting her hand and pivoting away. “See you never, Varona.”

“Better,” he called after her, pairing it with careless applause. “Bra-va, Elizabeth—”

She whipped around, curling a fist. “What was your line, then?”

“Well, why bother telling you now?” he asked, with a grin that was more like a self-satisfied smirk. “Maybe I’ll just let you ponder it. You know,” he added, taking a step towards her, “when you need something to occupy your mind over the course of your monotonous life with Fowler.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” she snapped. “Pigtail-pulling isn’t sexy, Varona. In ten years you’ll still be alone with no one but Gideon to pick out your ties for you, and believe me, I won’t spare you a single thought.”

“Whereas in ten years you’ll be saddled with three baby Fowlers,” Nico retorted, “wondering what the fuck happened to your career while your patently unremarkable husband asks you where dinner is.”

There it was again:

Incensed.

“If I never see you again, Varona,” Libby fumed quietly, “it’ll still be too soon—”

“Pardon me,” came the voice of a man beside them, and Nico and Libby both rounded on him.

“What?” they demanded in unison, and he, whoever he was, smiled.

He was dark-skinned, his head shaved and slightly gleaming, appearing somewhere in his forties. He was also exceedingly British, from mannerisms to dress (tweed; very much tweed, with an accent of tartan), and quite tall.

Also, enormously unwelcome.

“Nicolás Ferrer de Varona and Elizabeth Rhodes?” the man asked. “I wonder if I might make you an offer.”

“We have jobs,” Libby informed him irritably, not wanting to wait for Nico’s inevitably patrician response, “and more importantly, we’re in the middle of something.”