The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(95)

He could tell Libby. She would probably exceed him in enthusiasm, meaning that he would have the freedom to derisively say things like ‘calm down it’s nothing’ even if he did not feel them. Unfortunately she would also ask several questions, trying to unpuzzle things as she always did. She was an architect of details, constantly in the trenches of construction. She would want to see how things moved, what parts were in play, and of course Tristan would have no answers to any of it. She would look up at him, wide-eyed, and say anything else? and he would say no, that’s all he knew, sorry he even brought it up at… three.

In the morning.

Tristan sighed, stepping back from Libby’s door and shifting to face the frame beside his own instead, knocking once.

Callum arrived at the door shirtless, his hair mussed. Behind him, Tristan could see the rumpled sheets, still warm from where Callum had lain there moments before, breathing deeply in solemn slumber.

It was strange how Tristan did not know how Callum looked to the others. He wished sometimes that he could venture inside someone else’s head the way Parisa could, just to see. It was a curiosity now. He knew Callum did something to his hair, to his nose. He could see that enchantments were used there, but could not piece together their effect. Instead, Callum appeared to Tristan as he always did, with hair that wasn’t quite blond and the forehead that was noticeably high; the jaw that was so square it looked perpetually tensed. There were things available to fix, if one were in the business of fixing. Callum’s eyes were close-set and not as blue as he could make them if he tried. Possibly Callum could even afford the enchantments that made them permanent; even mortal technology could fix a person’s eyesight. Medeian charms afforded to the son of an agency of illusionists meant that even Callum might not remember the way his face looked undone.

“I see you,” came out of Tristan’s mouth before he had decided fully what to say, which was probably best, as it might have been ‘I don’t want to be alone,’ or worse, ‘I don’t know what I want,’ both of which Callum would know by looking. What a terrible thing it was to be so tragically exposed.

Callum shifted away from the door, beckoning him in with a motion.

Wordlessly, Tristan stepped inside.





NICO



NICO SLIPPED TO THE INSIDE of a right cross and missed a hard incoming hook, running directly into Reina’s fist and swearing loudly in a mix of highbrow Spanish and rural Nova Scotian slurs.

(Once, Gideon had taught him how to say something in Mermish—which was a blend of Danish, Icelandic, and something Nico classified as vaguely Inuit—but had also warned him that, pronounced incorrectly, it would summon a sort of half-ghost, half-siren sea-thing, so it hardly seemed worth it to use. Max was not particularly helpful with profanity, as he was stubbornly prone to overuse of the same one: “balls.”) “You’re out of sorts,” remarked Reina, wiping sweat from her brow and eyeing Nico as he stumbled back, dazed.

It took a moment, but eventually his eye stopped watering.

“Maybe you’re just getting better,” mumbled Nico half-heartedly.

“I am, but that was your mistake,” Reina observed with her usual regard for his feelings.

“Yes, fine.” Nico slumped down to sit on the lawn, sulking a bit. “I suppose let’s call it, then.”

Reina gave the grass a derogatory look (it may have insulted her; she had mentioned once that certain types of English lawns had a tendency to be excessively entitled) but eventually sat uncomfortably beside him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Reina.

“Nothing,” said Nico.

“Fine,” said Reina.

It was, in nearly every sense, the opposite of the encounter he’d had shortly before this one.

“You’re lurking,” Parisa had called to Nico from inside the painted room, turning a page in her book without looking up. “Stop lurking.”

Nico froze outside the door frame. “I’m not—”

“Telepath,” she reminded him, sounding bored. “You’re not only lurking, you’re pining.”

“I’m not pining.”

(Okay, so maybe it wasn’t totally different from his conversation with Reina.) “Just come in here and tell me what’s bothering you so we can move this along,” said Parisa, finally glancing up from what Nico was surprised to see was a vintage copy of the X-Men comics.

“What?” she prompted impatiently, following his line of sight to the comic with a look most closely described as exacting. “Professor X is a telepath.”

“Well, I know,” said Nico, fumbling.

“You don’t think he’s based on a medeian?”

“No, I’m just… never mind.” He paused, rifling the hair at the back of his head with a grimace. “I’ll just—you’re busy, I’ll—”

“Sit down,” said Parisa, shoving out the chair across from her with her foot.

“Fine. Yes, alright.” He sat heavily, clumsily.

“You’re fine,” said Parisa. “Stop fretting.”

“I’m not fretting,” Nico said, bristling a bit from the wound to his manhood, and she glanced up.

It was really so desperately unfair she was so pretty, Nico thought.