by Lauren Kate
"Come with me," Ander cried. "Search for her. Atlas is out there. I know it."
"All the more reason for you and me to stay home. We're no match for him."
"And Eureka is?"
"Let's hope so," Solon said. "If you were to meet Atlas in these mountains--"
"Maybe he's already done the worst thing he can do to me," Ander muttered.
Eureka paused at the top of the stairs. Embers of a fire glowed below.
"What do you mean?" Solon asked.
"There's something I should show you," Ander said.
Eureka peered over the staircase railing. Solon straddled a low-backed leather chair, drinking prosecco out of his broken glass and smoking a cigarette. Ander stood with his back to Solon. He looked thinner. Eureka was used to him holding his shoulders straight, but tonight they slumped as he lifted his shirt, revealing the muscles on his bare torso--and two deep gashes in his flesh.
Solon whistled under his breath. "Does Eureka know?"
"She has enough to worry about," Ander said. He sounded intensely lonely.
Eureka knew about the gashes--she'd discovered them the first time she kissed Ander--but she didn't know what they meant. There had been so much else to process the night her fingers found those strange slits in his skin. The intoxicating taste of his lips, the storm her tears had begun, Brooks lost in the bay, and the last, most haunting translation of The Book of Love.
"There's this, too." Ander held a long piece of white coral shaped like an arrowhead. "It was inside me. I pulled it from the wound."
Solon placed his glass on the floor with a soft clink, his cigarette dangling from his lips. He examined the coral, whipping his finger away when he touched its sharp point. "How long have you had this?"
"Since the day before the storm began." Ander flinched slightly when Solon's fingers probed his back. "Eureka went sailing with Brooks. I knew she wasn't safe, so I followed her in the water. I saw the twins fall overboard"--he closed his eyes--"and her dive after them. But before I could do anything to help, something tore into me."
"Go on." Solon ashed his cigarette.
"It wasn't invisible, but it wasn't visible, either. It was a wave moving independently from the other waves, a sovereign force of darkness. I tried to fight it, but I didn't know how to fight such a thing. I pity Brooks, now that I know what he endured."
"The coral dagger carves a gateway for Atlas to enter Waking World bodies. It is so sharp because it is dead." Solon leaned back in his chair. "I've never known Atlas to inhabit two earthly bodies at once, let alone a Seedbearer body. He grows bolder all the time. Or perhaps he isn't working alone."
Who else would he work with? Eureka wanted to ask. She sensed from the fear that flashed across Ander's face that he knew whom Solon meant.
Solon handed the coral back to Ander. "Hold on to this. We will need it."
"Am I possessed?"
"How would I know?" Solon asked. "Do you feel possessed?"
Ander shook his head. His arm twisted behind him to trace the gills. "But they won't heal."
Solon took a drag from his cigarette and said, "Worst-case scenario is your possessor lies dormant within you for now."
Ander nodded miserably.
"On the bright side," Solon said, "you should be able to breathe underwater. You could swim away and save Eureka the trouble of pretending she doesn't love you." Solon swirled the golden liquid in his glass. "Of course, there is the Glimmering."
Eureka felt like an arctic wind had crossed the cave. She'd known the moment Esme spoke about her history that she would have to face the Glimmering, that it was part of her preparation for Atlantis. She would do it alone. She didn't want any of the others going near it again.
Ander leaned closer, hanging on Solon's words.
"It looks like an ordinary pond," the elder Seedbearer explained, "but it's the masterwork of the gossipwitches. One's reflection in the Glimmering is said to reveal who one 'truly' is, as ridiculous as that sounds. You could try it. I don't believe in identity, reality, or truth, so there's no reason for me to take the narcissistic peek. Which is ironic, because I'm extremely narcissistic."
"How do I get there?"
"It isn't far--south of the Celans' caves, through a series of what used to be valleys before your girlfriend grew a conscience. Rapids likely roar there now. A gossipwitch could escort you, but"--his face twitched worriedly--"their help is costly, as you know."
"You think I should go, even if it--"
"Burns your face off?" Solon finished Ander's thought and stared sadly into his empty glass. "That depends. How badly do you need to know?"
The sky outside the Bitter Cloud was rusty gray, signaling dawn. Ander had spent his life watching Eureka from a distance--but that morning she was the voyeur.
She lagged behind, stalking him like a coyote stalks a deer. He moved quickly over dark rocks, through stands of dying trees. The orichalcum spear's sheath gleamed in a belt loop of his black jeans.
He looked different at a distance. When they were close, chemistry got in the way, making Eureka's body buzz, clouding her vision so that all she saw was the boy she wanted. But out in the wild diluvian dawn, Ander was his own person.
She was so focused on her subject that Eureka hardly noticed the path they followed. It was different from the path Esme had illuminated that night. When Ander arrived at the Glimmering, Eureka crouched behind a boulder as the sky lightened in the east. The wind was cold, its chill bone deep. As always, Ander stayed dry in the rain.
Her arms wanted to hold him. Her lips wanted to kiss him. Her heart wanted ... to be another kind of heart. She thought the person capable of yearning and love had died with Seyma and Dad. But the physical need lingered, undeniable.
She looked for Brooks's body in the pine tree. She didn't see him there, or anywhere.
Ander's eyes looked sunken. She sensed the fear in him, like a hunter senses it in prey. He paced the shore, ran his fingers through his hair. He inhaled deeply and pressed his hand against his heart. He stood where the water lapped the shore, closed his eyes, and hung his head.
"This is for you, Eureka," he said.
She stepped out from behind the rock. "Wait."
He was at her side in an instant. He studied her lips, her dusting of freckles, the widow's peak in her hairline, her shoulders and fingertips, as if they'd been separated for months. He touched her cheek. She leaned into him for a moment--blissful instinct--then forced herself away.
"You shouldn't be here," both said at the same time.
How similar their preservation instincts were, their tendency for sadness. Eureka had never met anyone as intense as Ander--and even that was familiar. People in New Iberia often said Eureka was "intense," meaning it as an insult. Eureka didn't think it was.
"If my family finds you ... if Atlas does," Ander said.
Eureka looked around, her gaze hovering on the empty pine tree. "I have to know the truth."
Ander faced the Glimmering. Rain glanced off the air around his skin. Now that she was up close, Eureka admired the ridges of Ander's cordon.
"Me too," he said.
"When Brooks was taken," Eureka said, "he became so different. I see now that it was obvious." Bitter rain struck her lips. She hated that she'd done nothing to help Brooks, that he struggled alone. Was she making the same mistake with Ander, afraid to confront a frightening change in him?
"You don't know me well enough to know if I'm different," Ander said.
Eureka watched a cloud drape his face in shadows. It was true. He had guarded his identity closely. Yet he knew so much about her.
"You know yourself," she said.
Ander grew impatient. "If I'm possessed, I can't be around you anymore. I won't let him use me to kill you. I would go into the far distance and never see you again."
Then Ander would be free from his feelings for her. He wouldn't grow old like Solon had when he'd been in love with Byblis. Wasn't that what she wanted? She tri
ed to picture carrying on without him, toward Brooks and Atlas and the impossible dream of untangling them and redeeming herself. Would it be better for Ander if he left her now?
"Where would I go?" Ander moaned softly, closing his eyes. "I wouldn't know what to do if I weren't next to you. That's who I am."
"You can't rely on someone else to define you. Especially not me."
"You talk like we're strangers," he said. "But I know who you are."
"Tell me." He had touched her most vulnerable reflex. Eureka immediately regretted her words.
"You're the girl who described falling in love more truly than anyone ever has. Remember? Love at first sight that shatters your world's skin. Not fearing someone's flaws and dreams and passions." He took her in his arms and held her tightly. "The unbreakable bond of reciprocal love. I'll never stop caring for you, Eureka. You think all you feel is sadness. You don't know what your happiness could do."
Ander believed there were more sides to Eureka than she would allow herself to see. She thought about the way Esme had tapped the thunderstone when she said there were exceptions to the Glimmering's deadly rule. Eureka approached the pond, slipped her necklace over her head. She held the stone over the water.
"What are you doing?" Ander asked.
The Glimmering answered. Lacy bands of water formed from its depths and drew up around the surface, like a deck of liquid cards being shuffled. A mauve fog spread out above the Glimmering, then gathered into a cloud of concentrated purple in the center, inches from the softly gurgling spring. The cloud stretched into a spire of purple vapor, which imploded and vanished into the center of the pond.
The Glimmering had stilled into a shining mirror.
"I don't think we should do this," Ander said.
"You mean you don't think I should do this."
"You could die."
"I need to know who I am before I go to the Marais. The witch told me. My history is in here."
She expected him to protest. Instead, Ander took her hand. The gesture moved her in a way she hadn't expected. The two of them lined the toes of their shoes up with the edge of the water. Eureka's heart was pounding.
They leaned over the Glimmering.
The surface filled with color and she saw the outline of a girl's body. She saw a stunning white gown where her jeans and blue button-down shirt should have been reflected. She took a breath and lifted her gaze slowly, toward the reflection of her face.
It was not Eureka's face. The girl looking up from the Glimmering had dark hair and big, searching black eyes. She had dark skin, high cheekbones, a broad, confident smile. Her lips parted when Eureka's lips did; she tilted her chin at the same angle as Eureka's chin.
Maya Cayce, Eureka's nemesis from Evangeline, the girl who'd stolen her journal, who'd tried to steal Brooks, stared back at her. Eureka gaped. How could it be? In her reflection, her lips curled into a smile. The image burned into her. It would be there forever, locked in the amber of her soul.
"I don't understand," Ander said blankly.
"What does it mean?" Eureka murmured. "How can it be her?"
"How can it be who?" Ander sounded dazed and haunted. Eureka pointed at her reflection, but she saw that Ander's eyes were fixed to the space where his reflection ... should have been.
No one was there. Nothing looked back at Ander but the lead-colored sky.
19
EVICTED
"The trick is to be calm and illogical, just like him," Solon was saying to the twins when Eureka and Ander returned to the Bitter Cloud later that morning.
They sat before the broken fire pit in the center of the salon. Candles dwindled in stalagmite candelabra. Glass shards littered the floor. No one had thought to clean up after the raid. The twins faced Ovid, who sat cross-legged on a green and gold Turkish rug. His posture was lifelike, his features uniquely appealing, but his eyes were as dead as stones. Claire and William lay on their stomachs, examining the robot's gleaming toes.
"Solon, no--" Eureka said. The robot was neutral now, but she knew how quickly he could morph into the ghosts he carried. Hadn't the twins been through enough without having to see Dad's dead face in the machine?
She wondered whether the Poet's ghost inhabited the robot, whether the acquiring radius Solon had mentioned now reached the Glimmering.
"Don't worry, he's asleep." Solon stood behind Eureka, placed his index and middle fingers along the right corner of her jaw, like he was checking her pulse. Then he twisted his fingers clockwise and whispered: "For when you need to know."
He was showing her how to power down the robot. She noticed the subtle infinity-shaped indentation on the inside of Ovid's jaw.
"We need to talk to you," she said. "We just came from the Glimmering."
Solon's eyebrows shot up. "Did your vanity survive?"
"What's the Glimmering?" Claire asked as she climbed on Ovid's shoulders the way she used to climb on Dad's.
"I saw something in there," Eureka said to Solon.
"Her hissstory," a soft, feminine voice sang.
Eureka turned and saw no one. Then bees appeared, a few at a time, until they were swarming the eye sockets of the skulls on Solon's walls.
The gossipwitches entered the salon in swaying caftans. They arranged themselves in the shape of a triangle, with Esme at the point closest to Eureka.
"Well, good morning, Ovid," Esme said. "I see your crapshoot tinkering finally paid off, Solon. Tell me, how did you bypass the valve filled with vermilion sands? Or didn't you? Oh--did someone die?"
"It was the children's father, since you're sending condolences," Solon said.
"All witches are orphans," Esme said to Claire. Eureka wondered if it was possible that the witch was being kind. She turned to Eureka. "Did you enjoy the Glimmering?"
"Do not lie," the old witch snorted. "We have underwater eyes. We saw everything you saw." She looked at Ander. "And did not see."
"What did she say?" Solon pointed at the old witch. He spun toward Ander and let out a noise somewhere between guffaw and cough. "Exactly what didn't you see?"
"I--I don't know," Ander stammered. "We need to talk."
"You do not belong," the old witch said. "Get it? You're nothing!"
The middle witch said something behind her hand to the old witch. They looked at Eureka and laughed.
"You know what my reflection means," Eureka said to Esme.
The witch smiled and tilted her head, considering her reply as she looked at the twins, at Ander. "Some truths are best kept secret from loved ones."
Then Esme shrugged and laughed, and Solon laughed and lit another cigarette, and Eureka saw everything clearly and completely: no one had any idea what was going on. If there was a system or a meaning to the magic around them, no one knew what it was. Eureka would have to take matters into her own hands.
A shadow shifted in the back of the cave and Eureka heard a sniff. Cat poked her head out from behind the tapestry separating the guest room. Eureka knew they were still in a fight, that things between them would never be the same, but her body moved to be with Cat before her mind could stop her.
"What are they doing here?" Cat asked.
The witches flicked their tongues and turned to Solon. "We did not receive our payment yesterday," Esme said. "We require triple wings today."
"Triple wings." Solon laughed. "It can't be done. The bugs have bugged out."
"What did you say?" Esme's forked tongue hissed. Her bees paused in their busy circles to tremble in the air.
"I was raided yesterday," Solon said. "I lost nearly everything. The butterfly room, the hatchery--gone." He pulled a small velvet pouch from his robe pocket. "I can offer you this. Two grams of orchid petals in your favorite color."
"This trifle does not aid us in our mission," the middle witch said.
The old witch glared at Solon through a monocle, her amber eye huge and distorted behind the glass. "We cannot go home without more wings!"
Esme raised he
r hand to quiet the others. "We will take the robot."
Solon let out a sudden laugh that became a ragged smoker's cough. "Ovid is not collateral."
"Everything is collateral," the old witch said. "Innocence, afterlives, even nightmares."
"Tell it to the judge." Cat had slipped away from Eureka to stand in front of Esme. " 'Cause the robot stays with us."
The girl-witch raised an eyebrow. She seemed to be preparing to do something terrifying. But Eureka had driven Cat to karate lessons. She'd watched Cat's fists make both of mean Carrie Marchaux's eyes black. She recognized Cat's expression when she was about to whale on someone.
Cat's left leg snapped up. Her bare foot connected with the witch's jaw. Esme's neck twisted to the side and four shiny white teeth shot from her mouth. They clattered across the floor like loose mosaic tiles. The blood that dribbled from the witch's lips matched her amethyst gown. She wiped the corner of her mouth.
"That was for the Poet," Cat said.
Esme smiled a wicked, toothless smile. She flicked her forked tongue, and every bee in the cave swarmed around her head. She flicked her tongue again. The bees dispersed, flowing as a team over the cave floor, retrieving each of her teeth. She threw her head back and opened her mouth wide. The bees entered her mouth and placed the teeth back in the blood-wet grooves in her gums. She turned to her companions and giggled.
"If the girl gets this incensed over a silly boy, imagine when she finds out that her whole family"--Esme turned to Cat, spitting purple blood as she hissed the words--"is rotting on the putrid New Shores of Arkansas."
Cat tackled Esme. Bees stung her arms and face, but she didn't seem to notice. She had the witch in a choke hold, until Esme snapped her neck free. Cat tore at the gossipwitch's hair as bees crawled up her hands, her fingers trolling the back of Esme's head. Then she paused as disgust filled her face. "What the--"
"Control your impudent friend, Eureka!" Esme shouted, and struggled to untangle herself from Cat. "Or you will all regret it."
Cat thrust the witch's head down toward her chest.
Where the back of Esme's skull should have been was an amethyst-colored void, at the center of which a single monarch butterfly flew furiously in place.
This explained the gossipwitches' endless appetite for winged creatures. This was how they flew.
