The Atlas Six

by Olivie Blake

  Libby couldn’t decide what was more troubling; the thoughts she was having about Tristan, or the fact that Parisa could see them and still didn’t believe Libby was capable of taking what she wanted.

  What did she want?

  Libby glanced at Tristan and felt it again; that little sway, the pulse of time stopping. It had been so unlike her, so much more about feeling and instinct than anything she’d ever done before. Whether a result of her sister’s loss or her own psyche, Libby thought constantly, relentlessly, perpetually wavering between states of worry or apprehension or, in most cases, fear. Fear of ineptitude, fear of failure. Fear she’d do it wrong, do it badly; be the disappointing daughter who lived instead of the brilliant one who died. She was afraid, always, except when she was proving herself to Nico, or letting Tristan lead her blindly, forcing her to trust in something she couldn’t see.

  She took hold of Tristan’s face with one hand and pulled him close, dragging his lips to hers, and he let out a sound in her mouth that was both surprise and relief.

  She kissed him.

  He kissed her back.

  It was enough of a thrill to have Tristan’s tongue in her mouth, his arm wound tightly around her ribs, but then Libby reached out further, finding the silk of Parisa’s slip dress. Parisa’s hand slid over Libby’s hip and when Tristan pulled away, catching his breath, Parisa kissed Libby’s neck, the tip of her tongue tracing a line across Libby’s throat. Libby slid a hand gracelessly up Parisa’s thigh and Tristan groaned in Libby’s mouth; evidence Parisa’s other hand must have found an equally suitable location.

  Was this actually happening? It appeared it was. Remnants of the absinthe burned in Libby’s chest, sending her thoughts scattering. Tristan pulled her astride his lap and Parisa tugged at her sweater, casting it aside to join the near-empty bottle.

  For a moment, half a lucid thought flashed through Libby’s mind before reverting to base sensations: hands, tongues, lips, teeth. Somehow Tristan’s chest was bare, and she dug her nails into the fibers of his muscle, his skin sparking where she touched it.

  Things progressed hastily, drastically, euphorically. She tasted from them both like sips from the bottle, and they each had her like the last laugh. If she would regret this, that was for tomorrow to decide.

  “Don’t let me wake up alone,” she whispered in Tristan’s ear, and it was quiet and fragile, crystalline, like glass breaking, the splinter of a hairline fracture that crept up from an unsteady base. Her vulnerability was misplaced among the multitude of sins, but she didn’t care. She wanted Parisa’s hair wrapped around her knuckles, she wanted Tristan to put her in positions she’d undeniably shiver to recount, but she wanted this, too. To be connected to someone undeniably, even temporarily, at least until the first garish rays of light came through.

  Fleetingly, at the back of her mind, Libby knew things would always be different between them now, irreversibly so, and a saner piece of her wondered if that had been Parisa’s intention from the start. She’d practically spelled it out already, that sex was a means of asserting control—of creating strings, chains of obligation, where there had been none before—but whether Libby was being used or maneuvered or devoured, she didn’t care, she didn’t care, she didn’t care. It was enough to taste, to feel, to touch, instead of think. Enough to be that free of feeling.

  Enough, for once, to feel, and nothing else.

  CALLUM

  Something had happened to Tristan.

  It was immediately apparent upon Callum’s return to the Society’s London house. He had arrived in the late afternoon after spending their compulsory two days in Mykonos (he had no intention of going back to Cape Town, where the chance he would be expected to work was unfortunately much too high to risk) and begun scouring the house, starting with Tristan’s two most likely places in the morning: the library for tea, or the reading room for research. Callum had counted on the appearance of a particular version of Tristan upon sharing some significant news; namely, that someone, and in this case everyone, had left out a very important caveat about the Society’s initiation process.

  Instead, though, he found Tristan in the door frame of the painted room, staring blankly at the floor.

  “I presume you’ve had a visit from the Forum,” Callum began, and paused. Tristan looked more haggard than usual, as if he’d been up all night, and there were fumes of remorse and nausea coming off him in waves. “Christ,” said Callum upon closer inspection, taken aback. “What on earth did you get up to while we were all away?”

  “Nothing. Just a bit knackered,” was the mumbled response, only half-coherent. Tristan’s voice was rasping and low, and the look of thorough misery on his face was enough to give Callum a second-hand migraine.

  “Sauced, too, by the looks of it.” Normally Tristan was better about holding his alcohol; it was one of the primary reasons Callum liked him. There was much to be said about a man who habitually remained upright.

  “Absolutely fucking bladdered,” confirmed Tristan, pivoting slowly to face Callum and holding his hand to his head. “I’d do something about it, only the prospect of managing anything at all sounds positively exhausting.”

  Understandable. Most people struggled with a hangover, and medeians even more so. Alcohol was a poison, after all, and magic was easily corrupted.

  “Here,” Callum said, beckoning Tristan towards him and pressing his thumb to the furrow between his brows. “Better?”

  It didn’t take much to alleviate a headache. Even less to make the headache feel as if it had been alleviated.

  “Much.” Tristan gave Callum a fleeting look of gratitude. “Did you enjoy the opulent shores of Greece, Your Highness?”

  “You were invited, as you may recall.”

  “Yes, and I should have gone, clearly.”

  “Well,” Callum said, “next time. In any case, there’s something very interesting I thought you ought to know.”

  “If it’s about the Forum, I received a visit as well. From a rather unpleasant sort of bloke, if I do say so myself.”

  “Actually, no,” said Callum. “Or not entirely, anyway.” He gestured outside. “Fancy a walk? Fresh air might do you some good.”

  The gardens, which accommodated roses of all varieties, were always a tolerable temperature, despite the presence of snow. Inside the house, a clatter indicated Nico had returned along with Reina, and, presumably, Libby.

  “I suppose now we’ll have to hear endlessly about Rhodes’ beloved inamorato,” sighed Callum.

  To his surprise, Tristan became rapidly uncomfortable, going blank. “I suppose,” he mumbled, and Callum frowned. It wasn’t the discomfort that eluded him, but the obvious deflection; Tristan was magically keeping him out, preventing himself from being interpreted. The others did it often, sending up intangible shields whenever Callum approached, but never Tristan, who would have considered it a waste of effort.

  Odd.

  “Anyway,” Callum said, “this Society has an interesting little mechanism. The ‘elimination,’ as they call it? Is perhaps too true a term.”

  It had not been very difficult to find the truth at the core of the Forum recruiter’s intentions. It seemed that although the contents of the Society’s collection remained a secret, its true nature was not.

  “One candidate,” Callum said, leaning closer, “must die.”

  Immediately he anticipated Tristan’s posture to stiffen, or his dark gaze to narrow, as it usually did. Perhaps Tristan would even confirm that he’d had suspicions, which he nearly always had. He was a man so beloved of his own misanthropy that he would surely express less horror at knowing the truth than he would a lack of surprise at uncovering it.

  “That’s madness,” said Tristan, without any particular feeling.

  Callum’s jaw tightened, irritated.

  So Tristan already knew, then.

  “You didn’t tell me,” Callum observed aloud, and Tristan glanced up, grimacing.

  “I only just f
ound out, and I’d forgotten for a moment.”

  “You’d forgotten?”

  “Well, I—” Tristan fumbled, his wall of neutrality momentarily slipping. “I told you, it was… a strange night. I haven’t quite finished processing.”

  If this version of Tristan was anything, ‘unfinished’ was certainly the right word.

  “Care to postulate aloud?” prompted Callum. “After all, you’ve ostensibly become aware that one of us will have to be murdered.” He bristled with irritation at not being the one to reveal that trivial little tidbit of information. “Who told you? No, don’t answer,” he grumbled as an afterthought. “It was Parisa, wasn’t it? You were with Parisa last night.”

  Tristan looked moderately relieved. “I… yes, I was, but—”

  “How did she know?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask?” Unfathomable. Under any circumstances Tristan would have made demands.

  “I—” Tristan stopped, wavering again. “I was distracted.”

  Callum stiffened. Of course Parisa had taken the opportunity to secure her alliance with Tristan the one way she knew how. Callum had been Tristan’s primary confidant for months; surely she would have suffered that loss by now and tried something to repair it.

  “You know,” Callum remarked, “there is no fate so final as betrayal. Trust, once dead, cannot be resurrected.”

  Tristan glanced up sharply. “What?”

  “With the Society,” Callum clarified smoothly. “They’re lying to us, or at least misleading us. How shall we respond?”

  “I imagine there has to be a reason—”

  “You,” Callum echoed, and then scoffed. “You imagine there to be a reason, really?”

  “Well, is it any wonder?” Tristan said defensively. “And anyway, maybe it’s another trick. A test.”

  “What, making us think we have to kill someone? Clearly you don’t understand the damage of such an exercise,” Callum said gruffly. “There is nothing so destructive as thought, and especially not one that can never be rescinded. The moment a group of people decide they can be rid of someone permanently, what do you suppose happens next?”

  “You’re saying you wouldn’t do it?”

  “Of course not. But succumbing to the demands of a Society whose precursor for entry is human sacrifice? You can’t tell me you’ve simply accepted it without question.” Callum was sure of that much. “Even Parisa wouldn’t consider it unless there was something significant in it for her. As for the others, Reina wouldn’t care, and perhaps Varona could be persuaded, but certainly Rhodes would—”

  Callum stopped, considering it. “Well, by that measure, I don’t see the elimination falling to anyone other than Rhodes.”

  “What?” Tristan’s head snapped up.

  “Who else would it be?” Callum prompted, impatient. “The only person with fewer friends than Rhodes is Parisa, but she’s useful, at least.”

  “You don’t find Rhodes useful?”

  “She’s half of a set,” said Callum. “Varona has precisely Rhodes’ talents, only in a less obnoxious package.”

  “Varona is not Rhodes,” Tristan said, the edges of his shield flickering a little. “They are not interchangeable.”

  “Oh, stop. You only can’t imagine killing Rhodes because it would be like drowning a kitten,” said Callum. “She’d fuss the whole time.”

  “I—” Tristan turned away, sickened. “I cannot believe you’re actually discussing this.”

  “You’re the one who seemed entirely unfazed by the idea we’d be asked to commit a murder,” Callum pointed out. “I’m simply trying to sort out how you expect it to take place.”

  “Varona will never agree to kill Rhodes,” Tristan said. “Nor will Parisa.”

  “They’ll have to choose someone, won’t they?”

  “Maybe they’ll choose me,” Tristan said, blinking rapidly. “Perhaps they should.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tristan.” A little fuse of Callum’s temper sparked. “Must you be so very small all the time?”

  Tristan cut him a glare. “So I should be more like you, then?”

  This was obviously going nowhere.

  “Have a nap,” Callum said, pivoting away in annoyance. “You’re a terrible bore when you’re unrested.”

  He had hoped they’d have some sort of strategy session, determining which of the others they could most stand to lose, but it seemed Tristan was currently handling everything with exceptional ineptitude. Callum stalked through the corridors, returning to his room when he nearly collided with Libby.

  “Rhodes,” he said gruffly, and she glanced up, face draining of color, before hurrying past him without a word.

  If there was one thing Callum loathed about himself, it was the prison of his deduction. So, Libby and Tristan were suffering the same intolerable human illness of shame and alcoholism. Wonderful. Clearly something had happened between them, and Tristan had not told him.

  Again, Tristan had not told him.

  Callum reached the corridor of private rooms and pushed open the door to Parisa’s bedroom, shutting it behind him.

  “No,” said Parisa lazily. “And don’t bother with Reina, either. Well—no, on second thought, that I would very much like to see,” she mused, lifting her head to prop it up with one hand. “I suspect she’d bite your dick if you even tried it. Shall we have a wager and find out?”

  Parisa, unlike the others, reeked of nothing. None of Parisa had come loose. She did not even seem particularly dehydrated. She seemed…

  Smug.

  “What did you do?” asked Callum bluntly.

  “What I do best,” said Parisa.

  “What did Rhodes have to do with it?”

  “You know, I rather like Rhodes,” Parisa hummed thoughtfully. “She’s very… sweet.”

  Her smile curled up thinly, taunting, and Callum understood he was being toyed with.

  He relaxed a little, relieved. Finally, someone who could play.

  “They’re idiots,” he said, prowling over to recline beside her on the bed. “All of them.”

  “Everyone’s an idiot,” Parisa replied, tracing mindless patterns on her duvet. “You should know that as well as anyone.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Changed them,” she said with a shrug. “Can’t reverse that sort of thing.”

  That was the peril of thought. Thoughts were so rarely dismissed once they’d been picked up and toyed with, and a mind successfully altered could rarely, if ever, revert.

  Worse were feelings. Feelings were never forgotten, even if their sources were.

  “No, you can’t,” Callum slowly agreed. “But why would that matter to you?”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” She shrugged. “It’s a game. You know it’s a game.”

  “No matter the stakes?”

  She blinked with surprise, and then her expression fell away.

  “Did you kill them this time?” she asked tightly.

  “Kill who?”

  “Whoever it was. From the Forum.”

  “No, not particularly.”

  She stared at him. “Not particularly?”

  “Well, if he dies later on, that’s really not my doing. They’re his feelings,” said Callum, shrugging. “How he chooses to process them is not my responsibility.”

  “My god, you’re an absolute psychopath,” said Parisa, sitting fully upright. “You don’t feel any empathy at all, do you?”

  “An empath with no empathy,” echoed Callum. “Surely you hear how foolish you sound?”

  “You can’t just—”

  “And what did you do, hm?” prompted Callum. “You can hear their thoughts, Parisa. You can change them, as you’ve just willingly confessed. By default you are no less interfering, and was your cause any more noble than mine?”

  “I don’t destroy people—”

  “Don’t you?” Callum asked her. “From what I just saw, Tristan and Rhodes look
severely devolved. They are not who they were before.”

  “Devolved,” Parisa said, “is hardly the word I’d use. And it’s certainly not the same as destroyed.”

  Callum shifted an inch closer to her on the bed, and she leaned away, repulsed.

  “You hate me because we’re the same,” he told her softly. “Haven’t you come to that conclusion yet?”

  She bristled, distractingly lovely in her fear. “We are not the same.”

  “How are we different?”

  “You feel nothing.”

  “Whereas you feel sympathy but act regardless. Is that it?”

  Parisa opened her mouth, then closed it.

  “We are not the same,” she said, “and what’s more, you overestimate yourself.”

  “Do I?”

  “You think you’re more powerful than I am, don’t you?”

  “You have to work much harder to accomplish the same result. If I am not more powerful, I certainly have a more extensive vault from which to draw.”

  “The others know better.”

  “Do they? Perhaps not.”

  He could feel pieces fitting together for her, melting smoothly into place. An effortless joining. Her process of thought was so elegant, so pleasing. It was so satisfying to watch her make decisions, unlike other people. Normal people were so messy and unkempt. Parisa poured out her thoughts like honey, and though Callum couldn’t read them the way she could, he could intuit other things far more clearly.

  For example she thought, rather foolishly, that she could win.

  “Shall we prove it?” Parisa prompted him. “Maybe you’re right. After all, you clearly think we’re the same, so for all intents in purposes, so must they. Thoughts, feelings, this is all the same to them.” Again they were conspiratorial in their agreement. Even safely out of Callum’s reach, surely Parisa could feel the way they were bound by similar circumstances. “They ought to have a chance to know the truth of what each of us can do.”

  “A battle of wits?” Callum replied.