The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(73)

This version of him wasn’t at all what she imagined.

“What’s the Forum?” she asked him.

“Boring,” said Dalton. “Society rejects.”

“You don’t find that interesting?”

“Everyone has enemies.”

She couldn’t help feeling a mismatch; some glitch of something, details that didn’t follow.

“Why are you still here?” she asked him.

He stole forward, prowling towards her sleekly, and in that moment, she registered what he was. He flickered slightly, moving in bursts.

“Are you an animation?” she asked, forgetting her previous question.

Dalton’s mouth twisted wryly. His lips parted.

Then Parisa felt a hand on her collar, dragging her backwards.

“Get out,” said a deep voice. “Now.”

She jolted upright, or tried to, but found that the return to her own consciousness had left her lying paralyzed on her side. The real Dalton was holding her head, and gradually, as she resumed occupation in her body, she realized she had been seizing. She was choking, half-retching on what she registered belatedly was her tongue.

She had overexerted herself; the hourglass beside her had long since run out, and by the look on Dalton’s face, it had taken a significant amount of effort to wake her.

She scrambled away from him, blinking. “What was that?”

He frowned. “What was what?”

“That voice at the end, was that—?”

She stopped, blinking.

There was something about Dalton’s face now; not that it was older, which it was. He must have been in his early twenties in his memory, but this was more than that. The expression he wore was different now, more steeped in concern. She had not tried to read his younger self’s thoughts at the time, thinking she was speaking directly with them—they were, after all, both inside his head—but retroactively, she could see she’d been wrong.

Whatever he had been then, his current self did not contain any trace of it. It was a loose thread fraying; something that had come undone, and then been severed.

“You’re not whole,” she realized aloud, “are you?”

He stared at her. “What?”

“That thing, the animation, it was—”

“You never started the test,” he cut in slowly, and then it was her turn to stare at him.

“What?”

“Where were you?” he pressed her, concerned now. “I could feel you, but—”

She felt a shudder of uncertainty.

“What was it?” she asked. “Your test.”

“A bank vault,” he said. “With a combination lock. A puzzle, in essence.”

So what had she broken into inside his head, then? Strange. More than strange. The situation he described sounded straightforward, even elementary. In short, something she would expect from someone who was not a telepath, unlike the thing she’d found.

“What did your bank vault contain?” she asked warily.

“A bit of parchment, nothing important… It was only supposed to take a few minutes to find. Where were you?” Dalton said again, more urgently, but this time, Parisa didn’t answer.

Wherever she had been, she was growing increasingly certain that Atlas Blakely had been the one to pull her out.





REINA



THEY WERE GIVEN LEAVE around the December holidays to return home if they wished, which Reina firmly did not.

“Shouldn’t someone stay behind to tend the wards?” she asked Dalton privately.

“Atlas and I will be here,” he said. “It’s only a weekend.”

“I don’t celebrate Christmas,” she said, displeased with the inconvenience.

“Most medeians don’t,” he agreed, “but the Society hosts its annual events during the mortal holidays.”

Reina frowned. “We’re not invited to the Society events?”

“You’re potential initiates, not members.”

“But we’re the ones who live here.”

“Yes, and one of you,” Dalton said neutrally, “will not remain by the end of the year, so no. You’re not invited.”

The idea of going home (a meaningless concept by now) was unfathomable. Detestable, even. She was currently in the middle of a fascinating manuscript she had seen Parisa with; a medeian work on the mystical study of dreams by Ibn Sirin, which led Reina to a curiosity about the concept of realms within the subconscious. Nico had expressed some interest in it as well, which she considered a point of distinct significance. As with the runes he had asked her to translate, there was no telling what he wanted a book on dreams for; he had no interest in historical psychology, or in anything he couldn’t turn into a miracle of physics (Nico was very sulky when he was not permitted to be incomprehensibly astounding), but regardless, it was nice to have someone to discuss it with. The others were usually very private about their research, guarding their theories as secrets.

Nico was always the most open with her, going so far as to invite her to New York for their winter recess. “You’ll loathe Max,” he said happily while they were sparring, referring to someone Reina gathered to be one of his flat mates. “You’ll want to kill him and then five minutes after you’ve left you’ll realize you actually love him. Gideon is the opposite,” he added. “He’ll be the best person you’ve ever met, and then you’ll notice he’s nicked your favorite sweater.”