The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(42)

It was strange, obviously. It had all the hallmarks of Nico’s pre-established habits and customs while manifesting in a new and disturbing way. Not that Nico had ever been particularly devoted to wearing shirts, for example, but coming across him without one, dripping sweat and colliding with Libby in the hallway only to slime the front of her blouse with his perspiration, was now all too frequent an occurrence.

Admittedly, the ease of Nico’s comradeship with Reina, or whatever it could be called, had bothered Libby at first. Terrible as it was to acknowledge, Nico was currently the closest thing Libby had to a friend. Reina had made it clear she had no interest in being amicable with Libby, and the others certainly hated her (in the case of Callum, that feeling was deeply mutual), so the potential loss of Nico was a blow; something Libby had never thought she’d say about Nico de Varona, or the lack of him.

She was particularly resentful of the fact that Reina and Nico had bonded over their joint foray into violence, both because it meant Libby might lose Nico’s alliance—thereby chancing her own elimination once the others felt free to confess their collective dislike—and because it was annoying that Nico had spent four years hating Libby only to befriend a girl who almost never spoke except to scowl.

“Don’t pout, Rhodes,” advised Nico. By then they had all taken to exploring the grounds within the Society’s wards; the house was surrounded by a lovely manicured lawn, a grove of trees, and some roses, beside which had been the first site of Nico and Reina’s communal venture into recreational pugilism.

It was sometime in the early weeks when Nico had first pulled Libby aside, her shading her eyes from the high summer sun and him chirpily toweling the sheen of sweat from his chest. “I still need you,” he assured her, ever his effervescent, pompous self.

“Oh, good,” Libby said drily, “thank heavens I’m still of some use to you.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.” Nico wasn’t listening, having grown entirely too used to her sarcasm by then, but he surprised her with a conspiratorial hand on her elbow, tugging her around the collection of rose bushes that she supposed counted as a garden to the English. “I’ve noticed something about Reina.”

“Varona,” Libby sighed, “if this is going to be gross—”

“What? No, nothing like that. If anything I’d want to sleep with—well, never mind,” he muttered, “that’s not relevant. The point is, trust me, you want me to get Reina on our side,” he assured her, dropping his voice in a manner she supposed he found provocative. “We need her, and I’m not even sure she understands that. Or why.”

“Do you?” prompted Libby doubtfully. It wasn’t as if Nico had ever been notorious for his talents of perception. For example, he had somehow managed to miss that Libby’s best friend at NYUMA, Mira, had been sickeningly in love with him for the entirety of their schooling.

(Before and after he slept with her. Fuckboys, honestly.)

“I sorted it out by accident,” Nico admitted, again dismissing Libby’s loyal efforts to undermine his masculinity on Mira’s behalf, “so your skepticism isn’t entirely the worst, but yes, I do. Reina is—” He broke off, frowning. “She’s like a battery.”

Libby blinked. “What?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and what is a naturalist except for a type of energy source, right? I don’t know how she’s doing it or what she’s tapping into, but think about it, Rhodes.” Nico seemed to be imploring her; irritatingly, as if the gears in her head were not already turning precisely as his had turned. “I noticed it when we took on the waves medeian at the installation. When I was touching her, it was like I had an extra power source.”

(The epiphany and its corresponding conversation had occurred pre-wormhole. Truthfully, they wouldn’t have managed it at all if not for Nico figuring this out about Reina, but Libby certainly hadn’t confessed that to his face. Nor did she plan to.)

“We’ll have to test it,” Libby said, glancing over her shoulder. It was a bit exciting, discovering that their alliance was an alliance indeed; he had clearly waited until they were alone to share his suspicions. “Do you think she’d be on our side?”

“Rhodes, she’s already on our side,” Nico scoffed, which at first Libby attributed to his indefatigable arrogance, but then, thankfully, he went on to support the allegation with actual evidence. “We don’t talk much,” he clarified, gesturing to his recent bout of physical activity, “but there’s no question she definitely loathes Parisa. And she doesn’t make a secret of not trusting Tristan or Callum.”

“Nor should she,” Libby murmured to herself.

This appeared to have sparked some secondary, tangential epiphany in Nico de Varona’s manic web of thoughts. “You were with Tristan that night,” Nico observed aloud, holding up a water bottle and pouring some of it over his head (splashing Libby, which she did not appreciate) before consuming what remained. “How was he?”

Ah yes, Tristan. A complete enigma, as far as she was concerned.

“He can do something strange,” Libby admitted, brushing a droplet of water from her brow before it made her bangs all wonky. She was growing them out, which meant they were inconceivably annoying. “You know how he said he can see through illusions? I didn’t realize that means he doesn’t necessarily see them while they’re being used.”