CALLIOPE GLOWED WITH palpable happiness as she walked with Brice into city hall, pulling her gown to one side so it wouldn’t catch on her heels. It was a deep purple—the color of royalty, of course—made of a glorious lithe satin that clung to her waist before falling in dramatic folds down to her strappy black stilettos. Next to her, Brice looked brooding and aloof and devastatingly handsome.
“I’m so glad you decided that you could come tonight after all,” Brice said warmly.
At first Calliope thought there was no way she could come to the ball. It was too high-profile and conspicuous, too flagrant a violation of the rules she should be living by; and besides, Nadav and Elise would be here. Yet in a shocking twist of events, Calliope’s deliverance had actually come from Livya.
Livya had woken up this morning sick and clammy with a fever. She had begged her daddy to please stay home and take care of her. It made no sense to Calliope; everyone knew that room comps were equipped with a full suite of medical products, and could just as easily monitor a sick person or feed them soup. But of course, Nadav agreed to stay by Livya’s side all night, like the smothering parent he was.
The moment she knew for certain that Nadav and Elise weren’t coming, Calliope had messaged Brice. I think I can sneak out, if you want to go to the inauguration ball.
Sneak out! For shame, Brice had replied, and she could practically see the amusement glinting in his eyes. I’ve been a terrible influence on you, Calliope Brown, and you should turn me away while there’s still hope for you. If you can. I’m usually quite difficult to get rid of.
Don’t even try to take credit for my behavior, she had replied, smirking. I was breaking rules long before I met you.
She was glad, now, that she had decided to come. City hall took up multiple levels of the Tower, spanning the 432nd to 438th floors. It was a tangled warren of administrative offices and shabby board rooms, the entire thing dominated by an enormous domed foyer at its center, and its crowning glory: a curved observation deck that perched at the top of the dome, looking directly out at the sky.
This must be the very first black-tie function ever held here. The Tower itself was less than two decades old, yet these midTower public spaces seemed to have aged more rapidly than the rest of the structure. There was already something faded and scuffed about city hall, as if it had been lived in too aggressively.
Tonight, though, the entire place was transformed into an enchanted fairyland. Every last centimeter was spangled and tech’d out to perfection: the flagstones of the foyer were covered in crimson carpets, printed in an interlocking F monogram. The walls had been lined in a hologram of waving gold banners, scattered with occasional vid-clips of Pierson Fuller. And flowers, there were so many flowers, piled into perfect globes that hovered over every table. As Calliope moved with Brice through the room, a progression of faces flashed past like lights flickering on and off; all painted with makeup and treated with DNA longevity treatments, all animated by the same weary excitement. It felt a bit like a wedding, as if Mr. Fuller was making a lifelong commitment to something. Probably to his own ambition.
To one side of the room, Calliope saw Avery talking to a group of reporters. She couldn’t help thinking that there was a tempestuous heat to Avery’s beauty tonight—as if beneath her bright-gold exterior, she was coming rapidly untethered.
A photographer walked past and lifted an image-renderer to snap a pic of them, but Calliope quickly ducked aside. She couldn’t afford photographic evidence of her and Brice. She was risking enough just being here.
Though even if Nadav’s friends did see her, Calliope wasn’t sure they would actually recognize her. Wearing this dramatic low-cut gown, her hair tumbling sexily over one shoulder, Calliope looked nothing like the frumpy, morose creature she had been at her mom’s wedding. She felt utterly like herself again.
When she left the apartment earlier, Nadav had been in the kitchen, overseeing the stove as it brewed a pot of soup for Livya. His head had instantly darted up at the sound of Calliope’s footsteps. “Where are you headed?” he’d demanded.
“Volunteering at the hospital,” Calliope said automatically.
“Again?”
“Yes, well, that’s the thing about children. New ones get sick every day,” Calliope had said evenly. Nadav just pursed his lips, ignoring the sarcasm.
She felt a sudden brush of guilt, remembering the way her mom had looked at Nadav during the wedding. Don’t risk everything just because of some boy, she had begged.
Well, Brice wasn’t just some boy.
“Cord is here,” Brice said, interrupting her thoughts. Something in his tone gave Calliope pause; it sounded as if Brice wasn’t all that happy to see his younger brother. Her eyes followed his, to where Cord stood with a beautiful half-Asian girl, her hair pulled into a simple low ponytail. She looked familiar. Hadn’t Calliope seen her at school?
“Should we go say hi?” she offered, but Brice was already edging in the opposite direction.
“Not while he’s with Rylin.”
Rylin! That was definitely her name. “What happened between you and Rylin?” Calliope asked, curious. “Did you hit on her?”
“Worse. I got rid of her,” Brice said bluntly. “I thought she was using Cord for the money, so I broke them up.”
Using him for the money. Calliope shifted uncomfortably. There were dozens of boys who could, quite accurately, make the same complaint about her.
“Anyway,” he went on, “their breakup clearly didn’t stick. Now they’re back together. And I’m the guy who tried to get between them.”
“Rylin might forgive you. You both clearly care about Cord. If you tell her what you just told me, she might understand.”
“Would you forgive me, if you were her?” Brice asked, and he had her there.
“Not at all. I like to hold grudges, though,” Calliope said easily. “Rylin seems like she might be the forgiving type.”
“She might,” Brice agreed, “but then, I’m not really the apologizing type.”
Calliope tilted her head, looking up at him. “Does that mean you won’t apologize to me if you hurt my feelings?”
“I don’t like this hypothetical scenario. Why are you assuming I’ll hurt you?” Brice demanded.
Everyone in a relationship hurts the person they’re with eventually, even if they don’t mean to. But then, she and Brice weren’t technically in a relationship. “Just trying to prepare myself,” Calliope replied, trying to make it sound offhand. She was used to being the one who did the leaving, or the hurting; but then, she wasn’t used to being the one who cared.
“Of course if I hurt you, I would apologize,” Brice said, his eyes warm on her. “Think of yourself as the exception to my no-apology rule. You’re the exception to every rule. You are a goddess, after all.”
He grabbed a pair of champagne flutes and handed one to her as they wandered nearer the dance floor. Calliope took a small sip; it was expensive champagne, the kind that tasted like marzipan and fireworks. The kind that made you want to kiss whomever you were with.
She was glad she’d decided to come to this party, after all.
“Where do you think you’re headed next year?” Brice asked.
“Next year?”
“To college. Are you thinking East Coast? California? Please don’t say Chicago; it’s too cold there,” he added, half teasing.
Calliope felt as if the carpet with its scrolling interlocking Fs had been yanked out from beneath her. She’d never been one for planning the future. She used to joke that she could tell you more about the next five minutes than about the next five years.
But ever since her mom brought it up, Calliope had been toying with the idea of college. She’d even met with one of the college counselors at school. His thoughts on her application had only served to dishearten her.
“I’m not sure where I’ll get in. I’m not very good at standardized tests,” she said vaguely. Not to mention her spotty school record.
“That’s not surprising. You aren’t exactly a standard person,” Brice replied. “Still, I have no doubt that you’re smart. Even if you currently use those smarts for nothing but sneaking into five-star restaurants.”
Her contacts lit up with an incoming ping from her mom, but Calliope shook her head to one side to decline it.
“What do you want to study?” Brice pressed.
“I don’t know. Maybe history or creative writing,” she admitted. She was pretty good at inventing stories. “Why are you so curious?”
Brice stepped a little closer, as if to block her off from the dance floor, to obtain some small measure of privacy. “Because I like you, Calliope. I would like to keep seeing you, no matter where you end up.”
Her mom pinged again. Again Calliope shook her head.
“I would like that,” she told him, her smile growing wider.
She had never met anyone like Brice—had certainly never revealed so much of herself to anyone before. She should have felt nervous about how well he really knew her. It was as if every fragment of truth she had handed him was a bullet, a weapon he could choose to someday use against her; and Calliope simply had to trust that he wouldn’t.
Her contacts lit up a third time, and Calliope felt a cold chill trace down her back.
“Sorry,” she murmured with a little jerk of her head and turned aside to accept the ping. Her heart pounded in her rib cage.
“Hey, sweetie.” Elise’s voice was oddly strained and muffled. Calliope realized with a pang that she was hiding this ping from Nadav. “Something has happened. It’s Livya.”
Maybe Livya was seriously ill. “Is she in the hospital?”
“No. Although that’s where you are supposed to be, if you recall.” Elise sighed. “You aren’t reading to sick children, are you?”
“Look, Mom, I—”
“I thought I told you no side cons.”
“This isn’t a side con!” Calliope hissed, momentarily forgetting that she was in a public place. She cupped her hand around her mouth to hide her words. “I actually like him, okay?”
Elise pretended not to hear that. “Livya set you up, sweetie. I’m pretty sure she faked being sick to lay a trap for you and see if you would sneak out.”
“Oh my god.” Calliope staggered a step back.
“Please tell me you aren’t at the inauguration ball.”
Calliope couldn’t answer, because she didn’t want to lie to her mom.
“Leave right now,” Elise said after a moment. “I’ll cover for you until you’re home.”
And then she abruptly ended the ping.
Calliope shook her head. She should have seen this coming. She, who could always predict other people’s reactions, who prided herself on her cool levelheadedness—how had she been outwitted by Livya Mizrahi?
“Everything okay?” Brice asked.
Calliope bit her lip. She let her eyes dart quickly around the room, taking it all in—the lights, the glittering gowns, the amphitheater of space filled with people. The echo of music and gossip and delicate martini laughter. And yet, just as she had at the train station last week, Calliope felt irrevocably distant from these people.
I actually like him, she had said to her mom, and it was true. She really liked Brice, more than she had ever allowed herself to like anyone, and she liked the idea of continuing to see him into the future.
But Elise loved Nadav, and Calliope had promised not to screw it up for her.
“I’m so sorry. I have to go,” she whispered, then turned to leave the party as quickly as she could.