The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(69)

“Still,” Dalton said. An appeal; believe me, listen to me.

Crave me, fuck me, love me.

“What is it about me? You don’t trust me, clearly,” Parisa observed. “I don’t even think you’d want to trust me if you could.”

He gave her a curt, telling smile. “I do not want to, no.”

“Have I seduced you, then?”

“I think conventionally you have.”

“And unconventionally?”

Her hair had slipped over one shoulder, catching his eye.

“You torment me a bit,” he said.

“Because you think I might not want you?”

“Because I think you might,” he said, “and that would be disastrous. Calamitous.”

“Having me, you mean?” It would fit the archetype of her. Seduce and destroy. The world was filled with poets who thought a woman’s love had unmade them.

“No.” His lips twitched ironically. “Because you would have me.”

“How bold of you.” Unlikely, too. She had yet to identify his nature. Was he humble or boasting? Had he been recklessly led astray, or was she the one being led somewhere with intention? The idea he might be toying with her precisely the way she toyed with him was brutally intoxicating, and she twisted to face him. “What would happen if I wanted you?”

“You would have me.”

“And?”

“And nothing. That’s it.”

“Do I not have you now?”

“If you did, wouldn’t you find it dull?”

“So you’re playing a game, then.”

“I would never insult you with a game.” He glanced down. “What is your theory?”

“Who did you kill?” she asked.

There was a brief stalemate between them; tension unsettled.

“The others,” Dalton observed, “have suggested we focus on the mechanics of time. Loops.”

Parisa shrugged. “I have no need to rebuild the universe like blocks.”

“Why not? Isn’t that power?”

“Why, simply because no one else has done it? I don’t need a new world.”

“Because you want this one?”

“Because,” Parisa said impatiently, “the power it would take to create one would only destroy countless things in its path. Magic has costs. Didn’t you say it yourself?”

“So you agree, then.”

“With what?”

“The Society’s rules. Its elimination process.”

“Its murder game, you mean,” corrected Parisa, “which is itself insulting.”

“And yet you remain, don’t you?”

Unwillingly, she felt her eyes travel askance to her notes.

“I told you.” This time, Dalton’s smile broadened. “I told you. Even knowing the truth, you would not say no.”

“Who did you kill?” Parisa asked him. “And how did you do it?”

He tugged the page from below her arm, glancing over it.

She sighed, remembering what he said about the intimacy of academia. He liked her most when she was vulnerable, didn’t he? When he had a piece of her that she had not wished to give up. Pleasure unadulterated, or knowledge unshared.

“Memory,” she said, and Dalton glanced up. “The experience of time through memory.”

He arched a brow.

“Time travel,” Parisa explained, “is simple, provided you are traveling through one person’s perception of time. Perhaps,” she demurred, agitated in anticipation of inevitable misunderstanding, “that might be considered less interesting to my unsubtle associates—”

“They study what they specialize in, as do you. Go on,” Dalton said.

“It’s not very complex,” she told him; surprised but not displeased by his dismissal. “Intelligent people respond more quickly to stimuli, therefore intelligent people experience time faster, and may be perceived to have more of it. Intelligence is, in some senses, also an illness—genius is frequently a side effect of mania. Perhaps some would have such an excess of time that they are experiencing it differently. Also, if time could be consumed differently, it could also be preserved. And if a person had an excess of time—”

“They could travel throughout their own experience of time differently,” Dalton concluded.

“Yes,” Parisa said, “in essence.”

He curled a hand around his mouth in thought, contemplating it.

“How would you measure intelligence? Or would it be magic, in this case?”

“Who did you kill?” asked Parisa.

“He was not well liked,” said Dalton, surprising her again. She had not expected an answer. “Not that it’s an excuse,” Dalton added.

“Was he dangerous?”

Dalton’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Was he dangerous,” Parisa repeated. “To either you or the Society?”

“He—” Dalton blinked, retreating slightly. “The Society did not determine whether he lived or died.”

“Didn’t they? In a sense,” Parisa said. “They selected six candidates knowing that one would be eliminated. Don’t you think they have an idea which one they find expendable?”