by Olivie Blake
“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.
Callum was the sort of person readily built to go far, Society or no Society. Tristan was the same, though in a different way. Callum could smell it on him: the ambition, the hunger, the drive. It was on the others, too, but not nearly so strong, and certainly not so close to longing. Nico had a hidden agenda (it was tightly sealed, tasting of metal) and perhaps the others had their reasons, but only Tristan truly wanted it, with his whole being. It was salty, savory, like salivation itself.
The only person who was as starved and desperate as Tristan was Reina, and there was certainly no point trying to win her. Not yet. She’d take whichever side she needed to when the time arose.
Libby was so unthreatening as to be a non-factor. Thus, Callum did not factor her into his personal calculations. If he ever needed another black hole, he’d simply seek her out in whatever mundane government job she accepted after being eliminated from this group. True, there was an as-yet unidentified link between Libby and Tristan—perhaps as a result of their experience during the installation—but that would be a simple enough matter to resolve. Tristan quietly resented her, or resented her abilities, and that was an uncomplicated emotion to play with. Callum could twist it easily around his finger, turning it steadily to hate.
As for Parisa, she was a difficulty. Callum had understated her abilities to Tristan for obvious reasons, and that was only with regard to her technical specialty. She was a better medeian than Callum, who had never been a particularly devoted student, and she was immensely calculating. Fatally, even. She was the one enemy Callum didn’t want, but she had already drawn the line, so he’d have to knock her pieces off the board quickly.
Callum didn’t want to waste time toying with Parisa’s pawns; he wanted her king.
“I have to admit, I am a little sick of the physicist show,” Tristan murmured to himself, staring with an intensity he didn’t know was envy while Libby and Nico, for unknowable and unimportant reasons, tried reversing a boiling cup of water.
Ah, inevitable acquiescence. How bountifully sweet.
“Let’s have a nightcap,” Callum suggested, rising to his feet. “Do you take your scotch neat?”
“I’d take it in a barrel at this point,” said Tristan.
“Excellent. Have a good night,” Callum said to the others, rising to his feet and making his way from the dining room to the painted room.
Reina didn’t look up as he went, nor did Nico. Libby did, which was why Callum had said it to begin with. She would see Tristan following in Callum’s wake and feel more isolated than she already did, and without even a blink of effort.
Poor little magic girl. So much power, so few friends.
“Good night,” Libby said quietly, not looking at Tristan.
People were such delicate little playthings.
NICO
The appearance of Eilif in the drain of his bathroom sink was not ideal. A diverse sampling of “fuck” fell out of Nico’s mouth in at least three languages, and Eilif, who had surfaced from somewhere in the plumbing, slurped out from the drain to perch herself on the lip of his sink, rolling her eyes. She said something impatient in rapid Icelandic, or possibly Norwegian, and Nico, who was exceptionally naked, gave her a glare intended to remind her that being quadrilingual was, while probably a worthy endeavor, not something he was in the mood for becoming today.
“It’s just me,” she said in English. “Calm down.”
“First of all, no,” said Nico, finding that a necessary and accurate starting point. “Secondly, how did you get in here?” he demanded, pivoting around for any Society-related consequences as a result of the mermaid who’d just broken into his bathroom. The usual red light in the corner, signaling a broach of the wards, troublingly did not appear. “This shouldn’t even be possible—”
“Well, it took some time to find you, but eventually I sorted out where you were. Called in a few favors, that sort of thing. I need you to lift the wards concealing my son immediately. You look well, Nicolás,” remarked Eilif, all in one liquid train of thought. “Nearly delicious enough to taste.”
“You,” Nico grunted, “need to stop that. And what do you mean ‘a few favors’?”
“Oh, I know where you are,” she drawled, beginning to toy with her hair. She was slightly blue, as always, and exceptionally vascular, so that Nico could see the indigo rivers splicing like kintsugi over her bare breasts. “It wasn’t very difficult. Naughty,” she chided as a preening afterthought.
“You still shouldn’t have been able to get in,” Nico said gruffly.
“Nicolás, how is it my fault if your creature wards were left unattended?”
Fair. It had crossed his mind briefly at the time they’d set them up, but he couldn’t very well tell everyone else why he needed to guard against one mermaid in particular.
Well—he could have, but he doubted anyone would take it seriously. Besides, Eilif wasn’t dangerous to him. Just… fishy, and mostly unhinged.
“Now, about my son,” Eilif began.
“No,” said Nico flatly, because despite Eilif presenting little danger to him, Gideon was a separate concern. “Do you know what it cost me to put up that ward in the first place? Leave Gideon alone.”
“Well.” Her pale lips pursed. “I see you have no understanding of progeny.”
“Neither do you!” Nico snapped. “You use him, Eilif, and he hates it. If Gideon wants you out, you’re staying out.”
In answer, Eilif’s eyes dropped to his hips.
And then lower.
And she stared.
And stared.
“Stop cursing my dick,” said Nico impatiently. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
Eilif threw her arms up with a sigh. “You know, I’m getting very tired of you,” she informed him shrilly. “Shouldn’t you die soon? Gideon’s had at least seventy mortal years by now.”
“He’s twenty-two,” Nico said.
“What? Impossible,” Eilif scoffed.
“I threw him a birthday party,” Nico said. “Which, by the way, you missed.”
She waved a hand, uninterested as usual in the traditional customs of motherhood. “Then he’s been a child for centuries, at least!”
“He’s not a child, he’s an adult. He’s at approximately a quarter of a mortal lifespan.”
“That doesn’t sound right—”
“Well, it is!” Nico said indignantly, and Eilif gave a loud, cerulean groan.
“Give me my son,” she barked, unconstrained. “He needs me!”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“How will he eat?”
“He eats fine.”
Her eyes narrowed, unconvinced.
“You know, we were fine before you,” she accused him, bemoaning it with a sullen howl.
“That’s not even close to true,” Nico said. “You left your infant son in the woods of Nova Scotia and then proceeded to show up every few years just to make him chase you through the dream realms. I wouldn’t call that being ‘fine,’ unless we’re only counting you.”
“
Who else would we be counting?” Eilif demanded, and then paused. “Ah yes. Gideon.”
“Yes, Gideon.” How eminently exhausting. “Your son, remember?”
“GIVE ME MY SON,” Eilif said hotly, trembling now with fury. “I don’t like it. I don’t like you. Give him to me. Sweet Nicolás,” she murmured, with her melodic hell-purr of sirenic persuasion. “My darling, don’t you dream of riches?”
“Stop,” he said.
“But—”
“No.”
“But I want—”
“You can’t.”
“BUT HE’S MINE,” Eilif wailed, shuddering with temper before resolving to a juvenile sulk. “Fine, have him. I’ll be back,” she promised in her most simpering tone, and then she threw herself into the sink, swallowed up by the drain again.
“Varona, what the hell is going on in there?” came Libby’s voice from the corridor.
“Hell,” Nico confirmed. “But don’t worry, it’s been wrangled.” Or it would be soon.
“Whatever,” Libby muttered, the sound of her footsteps heading back to her room.
A quick text to Gideon—meet me in the usual spot? followed by a hasty everything’s fine!—ensured an early night.
“What did you do?” Gideon said the moment Nico sat up, resuming his place inside the jail cell of the Society’s subconscious wards. “Something interesting, I hope.”
“Bored, Sandman?” Nico asked him, stepping close to the bars.
Gideon shrugged.
“I guess,” he said. “There’s only so many books you can fall asleep reading.”
“Well, don’t watch too much television,” Nico said. “You always end up in the dangerous realms when you’ve been exposed to excessive violence and I’m sorry, but you’re just not very good with firearms.”
Gideon gave a theatrical sigh. “Stop scolding me, Nicky,” he said, “you’re not my mother.”
It was a joke, but Nico winced at the reminder. Gideon, catching it, abruptly froze.
“Oh no,” Gideon said, paling at once, and Nico sighed.
“It’s fine, Gideon, I have it handled, I prom-”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing, I told you, it’s f-”
“Nicolás,” Gideon said fiercely. “What did she say?”
So much for it’s fine, Nico thought. Not that he’d ever been very good at lying to Gideon.
“Nothing much, really,” he said. “She seems to… want you for something.”
“Yes, I know she does,” Gideon said, scrubbing tiredly at his cheek with one hand. “She always does eventually. I thought she had actually left me alone this time, but—”
He broke off, and again, Nico winced.
“You,” Gideon realized aloud, glaring at Nico. “You set up a ward against her without telling me, didn’t you?”
“What? That’s crazy,” said Nico.
“Nico, you had no right—”
“That’s ridiculous, of course I did—”
“—you can’t just interfere without telling me—”
“—I was going to tell you; in fact, I’m sure I already did! It’s not my fault if you didn’t read the minutes closely—”
“—for the last time, my mother is my problem, not yours—”
That, of course, was met with a growl of frustration. “Haven’t you figured out by now that I want your problems?” Nico demanded, half-shouting it, and thankfully, Gideon’s mouth snapped shut. “Your pain is my problem, you idiot prince. You little motherfuck.” Nico rubbed his temple wearily as Gideon’s lips twisted up, half-laughing. “Don’t laugh. Don’t… don’t look at me, stop it. Stop it—”
“What are these pet names, Nicky?”
“Shut up. I’m angry.”
“Why are you angry?”
“Because you seem to think for some stupid reason that you should be handling everything on your own—”
“—when really you should be handling it on your own, is that it?”
Touché. The bastard.
“Gideon, for fuck’s sake, I’m rich and extremely handsome,” Nico growled. “Do you think I have my own problems? No, I do not, so let me have yours. Put me to use, I beg you.”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “You are,” he said, and exhaled, “unbearable.”
“Yes. And you are safely hidden from your mother right now, so hush. But she is definitely looking for you,” Nico conceded, which had been the primary warning he’d intended to pass along. “The ward will hold for a while yet, but it’s only a matter of time before she breaks it. Or pays someone else to break it.” Eilif was unfortunately much worse than the usual finfolk; largely in that she had friends in low places, most of them possessing uncompromised access that many people and governmental organizations wished they didn’t.
“I could stay here,” Gideon said thoughtfully. “In the realms?”
It would work, but not forever. “You still have a body.”
“Yes.”
“A mortal body—”
“Well, it looks like a mortal body, anyway.”
“It’s aging, isn’t it?”
“It appears to be, possibly, but—”
“We’ll figure it out someday,” Nico assured him. “Your lifespan and all that. Your natural diet,” he enumerated idly, “where to put the litter box, how to give you proper exercise. You know, the usual care and keeping of hybrid creatures—”
“Though I suppose none of it will matter if my mother kills me first,” Gideon remarked.
Nico sighed, stepping back from the bars for a quick count of three, and then stepped back.
“Do not,” he said with a long-suffering scowl, “say things like that.”
But Gideon, who customarily looked amused by everything Nico did, only smiled.
“Don’t worry about me, really,” he said, for probably the millionth useless time. “I don’t think she’ll actually kill me. Or if she does, it’ll be an accident. She’s just very careless.”
“She nearly drowned you twice!”
“I might be misremembering that.”
“I don’t think there’s a way to misremember!”
“In her defense, she didn’t know I couldn’t breathe underwater. The first time, anyway.”
“That,” Nico said, aghast, “is not a defense!”
Gideon, though, was laughing.
“You know, Max is perfectly unbothered by all of this,” he said. “You should consider doing what he does.”
“What, dragging my ass across the carpet?”
“No, and he’s stopped doing that,” Gideon said. “Thankfully.”
“Gideon, I just want you to be okay,” Nico told him pleadingly. “Por favor. Je t’en supplie.”
“I am, Nico. Worrying about me is just your excuse to avoid your own life—which, by the way, I know nothing about,” Gideon pointedly reminded him. “Are you planning to tell me anything, or am I just always going to be your princess in the tower?”
“You’d make a terrible princess, first of all,” Nico muttered. “You haven’t the figure for a corset at all, and as for the rest, believe me, I would if I could—”
“But you can’t,” Gideon preemptively supplied, and grimaced. He glanced away before looking back, adding, “You know, I do worry about you, too. Your vanity aside, I do think you have plenty of problems without fixating on mine.”
“Like what?” Nico scoffed, emphatically gesturing to his full head of hair.
“I… never mind.” Gideon shrugged. “I’m just saying, this is a two-way street.”
“Well, I know that, don’t I? I would never devote myself so magnanimously to someone who failed to notice how interesting I am.”
“And you are very devoted.”
“As devoted as I am interesting,” Nico confirmed, “so you see how we’ve reached a détente.”
Gideon gave him a look like he’d swat him on the nose with a newspaper.
So, the usual.
“Estás bien
?” Gideon asked.
Yes, strangely, Nico was doing quite well indeed. He and Libby were very nearly getting on, arguing only about academic things (“It’s one thing to stop time and another to try to move it around” was his take on the subject of her latest theory, but of course she’d had Arguments) and he and Reina were doing fine, and in general Nico ate well and didn’t want to murder the people around him. (He could do without Callum and Tristan, but he’d suffered more distressing opposition before.)
Sure, he missed normal things, like the freedom to go places that weren’t this house and also, sex—but he had a feeling it was best that he didn’t sleep with anyone here. He’d probably let Parisa do whatever she wanted to him, and that was just not a good look for anyone.
“Je vais bien,” Nico said conclusively.
“Good,” said Gideon. “Then I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
“What, already?” Nico said, frowning. “But—”
Gideon snapped his fingers and Nico sat up in bed, gasping. He was back in his body, back in the Society’s manor house. Back in the place he’d never technically left.
Beside him, his phone buzzed.
Go to sleep.
Nico rolled his eyes. Dumbass.
See u in my dreams, he joked.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Always, Nicolás, always.
REINA
As far as Reina was concerned, she had already received extravagant returns on her investment in joining the Society. By the close of summer, only a quarter through their allotted year, she’d already wound up with riches. True, she had left very little behind, so perhaps the upfront sacrifice had been minimal, but the point remained that she was enjoying herself, in her way. The access she had to the Society’s archives—to the reading room itself—was everything she had longed for. It was precisely what she had dreamed the Library of Alexandria would contain, and that was only at the surface level; the most elementary access to ancient scientific and magical thought. Having managed a mere three months’ worth of research on the physics of force and space, Reina had already seen the grimoire by Circe and the lost oeuvre of both Democritus and Anaximander.
