The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(45)

“Why couldn’t you make a wormhole through time?”

“I—” That wasn’t what she expected his follow-up to be. “Well, I… theoretically I suppose we could, but that would require understanding the nature of time to begin with.”

“What would you need to know in order to understand?”

He didn’t seem to be mocking her; she hazarded an attempt to explain without getting defensive at being asked a moderately obvious question.

“Well, time’s not a physical thing,” Libby said slowly. “Var-Nico and I can manipulate things we can see and feel, but time is… something different.”

“You can’t see or feel it?”

“I—” Again, she stopped, a little taken aback. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you can?” He regarded her for a moment, mildly troubled.

“I didn’t say that,” he amended. “I just want to be prepared for whatever we do on Monday.”

It didn’t seem worth it to point out that Tristan had done almost nothing the past few weeks as it was. Aside from posing theoretical arguments to guide their experiments, he hadn’t contributed all that much. But she supposed it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t. At least he worked hard, didn’t he? He was reading and annotating all the texts, working on his own over the weekend. And maybe if he could see differently than she could when it came to illusions, he could see other things differently, too.

The idea that maybe Tristan, like Reina, had some additional talent that Libby could make use of and report back to Nico filled her with a little thrill. Why should Nico de Varona be the only one to sort out what a person was good for?

“There’s a theory that quanta is space,” Libby said, exciting herself with the prospect that she might have stumbled onto something. “That space itself isn’t emptiness, but a fabric of tiny individual particles. So, I assume that time could be made up of similar particles? The gravitational potential is—”

“Look, I appreciate the book,” Tristan said, “but I don’t really have anything to chat about.”

“Oh.” The word slipped out of her defeatedly. “Right, sorry.”

Tristan’s jaw tightened, annoyed, and she grimaced.

“Not sorry,” she amended, forcing a smile. “I only meant—”

“You don’t have to be sorry for existing, you know,” Tristan cut in irritably, and then he turned to leave, prompting Libby to wish she’d stayed on the phone with Ezra instead of answering the door.

Ezra was so good about being supportive. That was why she liked him, really. He was her number one fan, her tireless champion. He believed in her so much and so powerfully that it always made her feel there was someone in her corner, and at times like these, she longed for something to make her feel centered. Secure.

“Rhodes,” Tristan said, startling her into noticing he’d paused in the threshold before exiting the room. “Thank you for the book.”

She blinked, and then nodded.

“Hope it helps,” she said.

He shrugged and closed the door behind him, leaving her to fall back on her bed with a sigh.





CALLUM



PARISA DIDN’T TRUST HIM NOW. It radiated from her, suspicion, her misgivings warping irreparably in the air between them. Considering their respective talents, she must have known he was aware of how she felt; of the corrosion atrophying their potential from one side. That she hadn’t bothered to conceal it could only mean she had no intention to repair it, and if she did not care to repair it, then it appeared she had chosen to draw a line.

Which was too bad, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because it meant Callum had been mistaken. He had taken Parisa for the sort of girl who admired when a man took control of a situation instead of leaving her to do the work herself.

Evidently not.

In terms of allying himself with the others, Libby was out for obvious reasons, and so was Nico. Reina was an island, so that was useless, but Callum would have to befriend someone. Not to keep from being eliminated, of course; he could persuade them if it really came down to it, or if he even decided to stay.

It was more an issue of entertainment, and since Callum wasn’t entertained by books or research, he would have to find stimulation in a person.

Luckily, one potential source still remained.

“You look distressed,” Callum commented to Tristan, leaning over to speak with him in pseudo-privacy. “Something bothering you?”

Tristan’s gaze slid to his, and then back to Libby and Nico. “Aren’t you seeing this?”

“I’m seeing it.”

“And you’re not distressed?”

Callum smiled thinly.

“I suppose I don’t see much use for having a black hole in my living room,” he said.

It wasn’t as if Callum was unaware that what Libby and Nico (and, he supposed, Reina) were doing was relatively monumental. He could understand, theoretically speaking, why magically modeling a previously unexplained phenomenon was a matter of significance, and for purposes of the Society, he could acknowledge it as the sort of thing belonging somewhere in the archives. There was no question of academic value.

It all just seemed terrifically impractical, and Callum was a practical sort of man.