The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(47)

“Oh, they’re not,” Callum agreed. “You feel you owe Rhodes your life. Parisa you simply want to owe your life to.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. And you want very badly to mistrust me on her behalf.” Callum gave Tristan another wary smile. “Unfortunately, you also find me appealing.”

“In what way?”

“Nearly all of them,” Callum said, adding with a glance between them, “You’re not alone in that.”

Tristan was silent another moment.

“You seem to have done something to Parisa,” he noted, and Callum sighed.

“Yes, I do seem to, don’t I? Pity. I like her.”

“What did you do? Insult her?”

“Not that I know of,” Callum said, though the real answer was no, he had not insulted her. He had scared her, which was the only sensation Parisa Kamali could not abide. “But I think perhaps she’ll come around.” She was the sort of person who would always do what was best for herself, even if it took her some time to puzzle it out.

“You don’t concern yourself much with being liked, do you?” Tristan asked, half-amused.

“No, I don’t.” Doubtful Tristan would be capable of understanding that, but the sensation of being liked was extraordinarily dull. It was the closest thing to vanilla that Callum could think of, though nothing was truly comparable. Being feared was a bit like anise, like absinthe. A strange and arousing flavor. Being admired was golden, maple-sweet. Being despised was a woodsy, sulfuric aroma, smoke in his nostrils; something to choke on, when done properly. Being envied was tart, a citrusy tang, like green apple.

Being desired was Callum’s favorite. That was smoky, too, in a sense, but more sultry, cloaked and perfumed in precisely what it was. It smelled like tangled bedsheets. It tasted like the flicker of a candle flame. It felt like a sigh, a quiet one; concessionary and pleading. He could always feel it on his skin, sharp as a blade. Piercing, like the groan of a lover in his ear.

“Being liked is fairly ordinary, I’m afraid,” Callum said. “Intensely commonplace.”

“How unimpressive,” Tristan said drily.

“Oh, it can be helpful at times. But I certainly don’t aim for it.”

“How exactly do you plan to avoid being eliminated, then?”

“Well,” said Callum patiently, “for one thing, you won’t let it happen.”

Tristan raised a hand to release a scoff into his palm, curling his fingers around it. “And how won’t I?”

“Rhodes listens to you. Varona listens to her. And Reina listens to him.”

Tristan arched a brow. “So your presumption about me is…?”

“That you will not want to eliminate me.” Callum smiled again. “It’s really quite simple, don’t you think?”

“I noticed you didn’t include Parisa in your calculations. Or me, for that matter,” Tristan said in his usual drawl, “though I’m willing to overlook that for the sake of argument.”

“Well,” Callum said, “a telepath is useful, of course, if your goal is to interfere with someone’s thoughts. But do you know how infrequently people actually think?” he prompted, raising his glass to his lips while Tristan, inescapably in agreement, offered the echo of a soundless laugh. “With very rare exceptions, emotions are far stronger. And, unlike thought, emotion can be easily manipulated. Thoughts, on the other hand, must be implanted or incepted or stolen, which means a telepath will always burn more energy than an empath when magic is being used.”

“So you think you are the more useful option, then?”

“I think I’m the better option,” Callum clarified. “But more importantly, I think that, at the end of the day, you understand me more than you care to admit.”

The statement rang with relative clarity. Callum had almost no doubt that whatever reasoning the others had to dislike him, Tristan would find his rationale more persuasive. Tristan’s cynicism, or his disillusionment, or whatever it was that left him so bitterly disenchanted with the world, was useful that way.

“My offer is this,” Callum said. “I am on your side.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Callum said. “Surely you see this is a game of alliances? I am your ally.”

“So then I should be yours?”

At that precise moment, Libby looked up. She had already adopted a habit of skirting Callum’s attention (probably wise) and so managed to lock eyes with Tristan by accident before quickly looking away, returning to her conversation with Nico.

Tristan tensed; aware, probably, that he had just been caught in discussion with Callum, whom none of the others were in a rush to befriend.

“Parisa is not an ally,” Callum cautioned Tristan, who cleared his throat. “Neither is Rhodes. As for the others, Varona and Reina are pragmatists; they will side with whoever will take them the furthest.”

“Shouldn’t you do the same, and wait,” Tristan advised, “to see if I have any value before trying to recruit me?”

“You have value,” Callum said. “I hardly need assign it to you.”

Across the table, Nico exclaimed something unintelligible about gravitational waves and heat. Or perhaps time and temperature. Or perhaps it didn’t matter at all, not even remotely, because unless Nico wanted to be some sort of medeian physicist chained to a laboratory for the rest of his life, nothing would come of it. The purpose of the Society was to get in, get access, and then get out. Remaining here, as Dalton Ellery had done, was pointless. The best of them would seek to parlay the influence of the Society, not bind themselves to the annals it contained.