The Atlas Six

by Olivie Blake

  “What?”

  “I just meant—”

  What had he meant? This was Callum, after all. “Never mind.”

  “You had faith in me once.” Callum’s fingers tightened around his cup. “Not anymore, I take it?”

  “Well, it’s just—”

  “This is what I do to survive,” Callum said, his voice harsh now with something; betrayal, maybe. Tristan flinched, remembering what Callum had said: Trust, once dead, cannot be resurrected. “I thought you understood that about me by now.”

  “I did. I do,” Tristan corrected himself. “But you just sound so…”

  “What, callous? Cold, indifferent, ambivalent?” A pause. “Or do you mean cruel?”

  Silence.

  Callum turned his head to glance expectantly at Tristan, who didn’t look up. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  Tristan said nothing.

  “We are this way because of what we have, not what we lack,” Callum said, suddenly bristling with impatience. “Who would Parisa be if she had not seen her brother’s thoughts? If Reina had not been leached upon from birth?”

  “Callum,” Tristan managed to say, “I was only trying to—”

  “To what? To vilify me? In the end we will make the same choice, Tristan. In fact, we have made it already.” Callum’s mouth was thinly lined; tight with malice, or pain. “Eventually, you and I will both decide to kill someone. Are you less guilty simply because you’ve been the one to unravel more?”

  Foggily, Tristan thought to say yes. He thought to argue: This is guilt, it is human, your decisiveness is robotic, like a machine. In the end I could not carry on as I was, I could not become a false version of myself, I have a beating heart inside my chest and where is yours?

  He didn’t.

  “You are here,” Callum said, “because you crave something from this as much as I do. Power, understanding, it doesn’t matter which. Maybe it’s knowledge you want, maybe not. Maybe you’re here because you plan to walk out of this Society and take over James Wessex’s company the moment you do. Maybe you’ll bankrupt him, send his daughter into ruin. Maybe this is vengeance for you, reprisal, whether you plan to admit that to yourself or not.”

  Tristan swallowed heavily.

  “Maybe you can see others, Tristan, but I can see the parts of you that you won’t allow yourself to see. That’s my fucking curse, Tristan!”

  Callum slammed a fist against the table, rising to his feet.

  “There isn’t a person alive who can see themselves as I see them,” Callum snarled, and it did not sound like a warning. Not a threat. “You want to believe that your hesitation makes you good, makes you better? It doesn’t. Every single one of us is missing something. We are all too powerful, too extraordinary, and don’t you see it’s because we’re riddled with vacancies? We are empty and trying to fill, lighting ourselves on fire just to prove that we are normal—that we are ordinary. That we, like anything, can burn.”

  He pivoted as one hand fell to his side, exasperated.

  “We are medeians because we will never have enough,” Callum said hoarsely. “We aren’t normal; we are gods born with pain built in. We are incendiary beings and we are flawed, except the weaknesses we pretend to have are not our true weaknesses at all. We are not soft, we do not suffer impairment or frailty—we imitate it. We tell ourselves we have it. But our only real weakness is that we know we are bigger, stronger, as close to omnipotence as we can be, and we are hungry, we are aching for it. Other people can see their limits, Tristan, but we have none. We want to find our impossible edges, to close our fingers around constraints that don’t exist, and that,” Callum exhaled. “That is what will drive us to madness.”

  Tristan glanced down at his forgotten toast, suddenly feeling drained.

  Callum’s voice didn’t soften. “You don’t want to go mad? Too bad, you are already. If you leave here the madness will only follow you. You have already gone too far, and so have I.”

  “I won’t kill Rhodes,” said Tristan. “I can’t do it.”

  Callum paused a moment, stiffening, and then he resumed his seat, waving a hand over his coffee to replenish its warmth.

  “Yes,” he said without expression. “Parisa made sure of that.”

  For the rest of the day, Tristan felt dazed, as if he’d suffered a wound that hadn’t clotted. The constant questioning of himself, of others, was viciously acute. It was one thing to be understood by someone else, to be exposed by them, and another (however inevitable it was) to be misused by them. Both Parisa and Callum had seen pieces of Tristan that he either didn’t or couldn’t understand; both fundamentally distrusted the other. What, then, had they seen in him that they could each use to their advantage? He was caving in on himself beneath the weight of his doubt, uncertain.

  Nothing was concrete anymore. Time did not exist and neither did infinity. There were other dimensions, other planes, other people who could use them. Maybe Tristan was in love with Callum or Parisa or both or neither, maybe he actually hated them, maybe it meant something that he trusted them both so fucking little and they didn’t mind, having known it all along. Maybe the only parts Tristan couldn’t see were himself and his place in their game between each other.

  What Tristan wanted was to believe in something; to stop staring at the pieces and finally grasp the whole. He wanted to revel in his magic, not wrestle with it. He wanted something, somewhere, that he could understand.

  He was pacing while he postured. Movement didn’t help the blur of things half-seen, but sitting still was not an option. He closed his eyes and reached out for something solid, feeling strands in the air. Their wards were gridlike, difficult to disturb, like bars. He paused and tried something different: to be part of them, participant instead of observer.

  He felt himself like a flicker of existence, both in place and not. It was meditation, in a sense. A focus on connectedness, and the more embedded in his own thoughts he became, the less he was able to place himself in any physical reality. In the absence of sight, sense and memory could tell him where he was: hard wooden floors, the smell of kindling burning in the furnace, the air of the Society mansion, occupied by magical contortions he himself had made—but in the interest of unlearning his preconceptions, he discarded them. He was nowhere, everywhere, everything and nothing. He abandoned the necessity of taking a form or a shape.

  Bewilderingly, it was Parisa’s voice that spoke to him.

  “You ought to have a talisman,” she said. “Find one and keep it with you, and you’ll never have to wonder what’s real.”

  Tristan’s eyes snapped open, alarmed, but upon recalling himself in reality, he confirmed that he hadn’t moved from where he’d remembered himself last. He still sat on the floor of the painted room, surrounded by no one and nothing.

  Where had he gone in that instant, or had he actually moved at all? Had Parisa been inside his head somehow, or had it been a memory? Was it her magic or his own?

  So much for not wondering what was real.

  In the end, Tristan shook himself, rising to his feet. After a pause to think, he took a small scrap of paper, scribbling something on it and tucking it into his pocket.

  Callum looked up when he entered, bracing himself for a continuation of their prior argument, but Tristan shook his head.

  “I’m not here to have a row,” he said. “You’re right, of course. I know you’re right.”

  Callum looked warily unconvinced. “Is that supposed to be concession or a compliment?”

  “Neither. A fact. Or rather, a white flag.”

  “So this is a truce?”

  “Or an apology,” Tristan said. “Whichever you prefer.”

  Callum arched a brow. “I don’t suppose I need either.”

  “Perhaps not.” Tristan folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the frame of the reading room. “Drink?”

  Callum regarded him another moment, then nodded, shutting the book before him and rising uncompli
catedly to his feet.

  The two of them walked in practiced cohesion to the painted room. Callum summoned a pair of glasses from the corner, glancing over his shoulder to Tristan. “Whisky?”

  “Sure.”

  Callum poured with a wave of his hand, leaking magic as he always did, and beside him, Tristan took his usual seat. Their motions were practiced, frequently rehearsed, and Callum set a glass in Tristan’s hand, taking hold of the other. For several moments they were silent, each savoring the drink. It was a smoky, hollow blend, silken with amber and caramel in the light, with the smooth finish they both tended to prefer.

  “It doesn’t have to be Rhodes,” Callum said eventually. “But you have to admit she’s unpopular.”

  Tristan sipped his whisky. “I know.”

  “Unpopular doesn’t mean valueless.”

  “I know.”

  “And if your attachment to her is…”

  “It isn’t.” Again, Tristan sipped his glass. “I don’t think.”

  “Ah.” Callum turned his head, looking at him. “For the record, she has been trying to research her dead sister.”

  Tristan blinked. “What?”

  “Her sister died of a degenerative disease. I suppose I might have mentioned that before.”

  He hadn’t, though Tristan remained undecided as to whether or not he should have.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know,” said Callum simply. “Someone who has seen another person waste away is easy to spot. They are haunted differently.” He paused, and then added, “And she is also requesting books on human degeneration, which the library is currently denying her.”

  “And that you know because of…?”

  “Coincidence. We do live in the same house.”

  “Ah.” Tristan cleared his throat. “How do I know you’re being honest with me?”

  “What reason would I have to lie?”

  “Well, it’s not as if it doesn’t benefit you. Having someone.”

  “Having someone, or having you?”

  “You tell me.” Tristan slid him a glance, and Callum sighed.

  “You are not accustomed to being desired, are you?” Callum prompted, and before Tristan could manage his surely uncomfortable reply, Callum clarified, “As a friend, I mean. As a person.” A pause. “As anything.”

  “Please don’t psychoanalyze me today,” Tristan said.

  “Fine, fine.” Callum’s smile quirked. “Daddy issues.”

  Tristan glared at him, and Callum laughed.

  “Well, the whisky’s good, and so is the company,” said Callum. “Astoundingly, that is the primary extent of your worth to me, Tristan. Ample conversation, at the very least.”

  “I don’t know about ample.”

  “That,” Callum said, “is the best part. The silences are particularly engaging.”

  Aptly, they sat in silence for a moment, saturating themselves in the relief of conflict resolution.

  After a few minutes of quiet coexistence, Callum glanced at the clock.

  “Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m for bed, then.” He rose to his feet, setting his empty glass on the table. “Are you staying up?”

  “For a bit,” Tristan said, and Callum nodded.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, clapping a hand on Tristan’s shoulder, “the parts of you that you seem to loathe are hardly abhorrent at all.”

  “Thanks,” said Tristan pithily, and Callum let out another hearty laugh. He strode through the doors and disappeared, the warmth of his magic swallowed up by the dark and gone with him.

  Tristan, left alone in the light of the painted room’s fireplace, set his glass on the table, reaching into his pocket. He removed the note he’d scrawled to himself earlier, unfurling it to read the script written inside.

  A glass of wine. Vintage. Old World.

  Tristan looked up at the sweat on his glass of whisky, watching it fall to the table below.

  “Fuck,” he swore aloud, crumpling the piece of paper in his hands.

  LIBBY

  “Miss Rhodes,” said Atlas pleasantly, “what a surprise.”

  She paused in the doorway, frowning.

  “It’s not actually a surprise, though,” she determined aloud, “is it?”

  Atlas glanced up, half-smiling. “What gave it away?”

  A lack of disturbance, mostly. There was no magic to that, aside from observation.

  “Just a hunch,” she said, and Atlas beckoned for her to take a seat.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  Surveillance wards. “I heard Dalton mention it.”

  “Mm,” said Atlas. “I take it you have further questions about initiation?”

  If you could call them questions.

  “Yes,” said Libby, “several.”

  So many, in fact, that she hardly knew where to start.

  Libby had been doing a variety of things over the past couple of days. Research, as always. Following her visit from the Forum, she had been looking primarily for anything to do with Kitty, to no particular results. All the library would give her—or, in any case, all the library was programmed by someone else to give her—were subjects pertinent to their task at hand: degenerative curses, longevity and its opposites. The decay that was a process of natural entropy was currently off limits unless it had something to do with the study of intentional corruption.

  Libby had just begun to wonder who was actually keeping them from the contents of the library when Nico had pulled her aside for another conversation entirely, looking unusually distressed.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Apropos of nothing? I assume not.” Libby had never liked anything Nico had to say to her uninvited and certainly wasn’t expecting to start now. She opened her mouth to tell him she had other things on her mind, but hastily he stopped her.

  “Just… try not to Rhodes this,” he said. “Okay?”

  “Once again, my name is not a verb, Varona.”

  “Whatever.” He rubbed his temple. “Look, definitely don’t tell Fowler—”

  “I don’t tell Ezra anything,” she snapped, preemptively irritated. “Certainly not anymore.”

  Nico blinked. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” Nothing she wanted to say to him, anyway. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine, just—” Nico exhaled, dropping his voice. “I think,” he murmured, “when they say we have to eliminate someone, they mean it… literally.”

  That wasn’t what Libby had been expecting at all. “What?”

  “The sixth person, the person who doesn’t get initiated. I think they get—” An agitated pause.

  “Get what?”

  “Jesus.” Nico tousled his hair with one hand. “Killed.”

  “No,” said Libby. “That’s ridiculous. That’s impossible.”

  “I mean, I’m sure it is,” said Nico reflexively. “But also, is it?”

  “That’s nonsensical.”

  She glared at him, frowning. “Who told you that?”

  “Parisa, but—”

  That was slightly more troubling, given the mind-reading. “Then she must have misinterpreted or something. Or maybe she’s lying.”

  Nico was surprisingly hesitant. “I don’t think so, Rhodes.”

  “Well, it’s outrageous,” said Libby caustically. “There’s no way we’re part of… of some kind of…” She fumbled, flustered. “Some sort of murder competition—”

  “Maybe we’re not,” Nico agreed. “Maybe it’s a trick or something. Or maybe it’s the whole intent thing Dalton was going on about,” he said, waving a hand in reference to the lesson he had probably only half-listened to. “Maybe we just have to be willing to do it in order for it to work, but—”

  “What do you mean ‘work’?”

  “Well, Parisa says—”

  “Parisa doesn’t know shit,” said Libby staunchly.
>
  “Okay, great, maybe not, but that’s the information I have, so that’s what I’m giving you. Christ,” Nico suddenly swore loudly, “you’re fucking impossible.”

  “Me?” She glared at him. “Who else knows, then?”

  He winced. “Everyone, I think.”

  “Everyone ‘you think’?”

  “I—” He faltered. “Fine, I know.”

  “Seriously. Everyone?”

  “Yes, Rhodes, everyone.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  She was aware she was repeating herself, but it seemed unlikely she could bring herself to respond another way.

  “Has anyone bothered to ask Atlas?” she demanded, suddenly infuriated. “Is any of this even remotely confirmed?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Elizabeth, would you listen to me?”

  “Of course not, this is absurd.”

  “Fine,” said Nico, throwing his hands up. “For what it’s worth, I hate it too, but—”

  “But what?” Libby demanded. “What could possibly be the but, Varona? What about this would you kill for?”

  “Jesus, Rhodes, which part of this wouldn’t you kill for?”

  He had shouted it at her, his mouth snapping shut with alarm. She blinked, taken aback.

  “I only meant,” Nico began hastily, and then shook his head, grimacing. “No, never mind. Talk to me when you’re ready, when you’ve processed. I can’t explain this right now.”

  “Varona,” Libby growled, but he was already walking away, shaking her off like a chill.

  So Libby had checked the surveillance wards to discover that Atlas Blakely, who had offered them a position beyond their wildest imaginations without ever mentioning the cost, was alone in the reading room.

  “You must have known there would be something,” Atlas said, jarring her from her momentary stumble.

  She didn’t bother asking how he knew what she was thinking about. “So it’s true?”

  “It’s not as gruesome as it sounds,” said Atlas placidly. “But yes, one of you will have to die.”

  Part of her was convinced she was imagining this. Was it a dream? Surely not, and yet not a thread of her had ever believed, even for a moment, that Atlas would ever confirm Nico’s suspicions as truth.