CALLIOPE WALKED EAGERLY through the Nuage lobby, which on this sunny afternoon was all soaring white and blue, making the hotel live up to its name. She felt like she was floating through the center of a cloud, maybe of Mount Olympus.
In the nick of time she remembered her fake limp, for the benefit of the front-desk managers. The last thing she and Elise needed was to start being charged for the room they had no intention of paying for. But Calliope could hardly think straight; she was heading to afternoon tea with her mom, and her stomach was bubbling with a pleasant sense of anticipation. For Calliope and her mom, afternoon tea always meant something.
She turned into the hotel’s formal dining room, which was lined with gilded paneling, its delicate tables covered in wisp-thin linens and set with antique Francis I sterling. Young girls in bright pink bows squirmed in their seats, accompanied by harried moms; groups of women clinked champagne glasses; there were even a few tourists, eyeing the society crowd with trepidation and a degree of envy. Calliope found her mom at a table in the middle of the room. Of course, Calliope thought, unsurprised and amused. All the better for being admired.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked, settling into the opposite seat.
“The occasion is, I’m taking my daughter out for tea.” Elise smiled, looking cool and careless in a printed sheath.
Calliope leaned back. “Every time we do this, it reminds me of Princess Day,” she said, her tone reflective, but not quite wistful.
Calliope had been obsessed with tea ever since she was a little girl, when she and her friend Daera would put on Justine’s hand-me-down clothes and serve each other water in plain white mugs, calling each other made-up names like Lady Thistledown and Lady Pennyfeather. Elise had picked up on the fixation and started an annual tradition, just her and Calliope, called Princess Day. It instantly became Calliope’s favorite day of the year.
On Princess Day, Elise and Calliope would dress up—sometimes even carrying Mrs. Houghton’s purses, or wearing her scarves or jewelry. It was the only occasion when Elise would let them do so—and go to the Savoy Hotel for its expensive afternoon tea. Even at that age, Calliope had known that it was willfully stupid of them to do something so extravagant, something they clearly couldn’t afford. But they needed Princess Day. It was a chance for the two of them to escape their routines and step into someone else’s life, just for a moment. And Calliope could tell that her mother loved it as much as she did: being the one catered to, for once, rather than the other way around. She loved being presented with a silver tray of delicate little sweets and being asked which she would like, and she would lift her ring-crusted finger and say in an imperious tone, that one and that one, and also that. Commanding someone else, the way that Mrs. Houghton constantly commanded her.
Calliope would never forget the way her mom had turned to her, that first morning on the train to Russia, when their old life was long gone, and their new one just unfolding. “It’s Princess Day, sweetheart,” she’d said.
Calliope shook her head in confusion. “But we had one a few months ago.”
“Every day is Princess Day now,” Elise had said with a smile. Not the pinched, forced smile she’d worn for so long, but a genuine, easy smile; and Calliope saw that her mother was shedding some terrible skin she’d been forced into, and becoming someone new. As the years went on, she would realize that Elise had never been happy in London. It wasn’t until their life on the road that she’d seemed to find her true calling.
Even now, tea was still their tradition, as cherished and as sacred as any church. Calliope loved the ceremony of it being poured, hot and steaming, into a shape-shifting china cup, the beautiful array of fluffy scones and clotted cream and fancifully cut sandwiches. There was something soothing about the ritual of high tea. No matter where you went in the world, it was always stuffy and traditional and comfortingly British.
Whenever they had a big decision to make, Calliope and Elise would do so at afternoon tea, at whatever five-star hotel they’d conned their way into. It was how they chose when to move locations, how much cash Elise should try to swindle from her latest boyfriend or girlfriend, when they should next get their retinas replaced. It was how they made every important choice, Calliope realized … except her decision to get involved with Atlas. That was the only real choice she’d made on her own.
Just then, a waitress with a turned-up nose and jaunty ponytail approached their table. She looked younger than Calliope. Actually, Calliope thought, she seemed familiar, though she couldn’t have said why.
“Good afternoon, ladies. Are you familiar with our tea menu?” she asked smoothly.
A holographic scroll shimmered in the air before them both, with the menu written in calligraphy. Calliope could see the edge of each droplet of ink, the glitter that seemed dusted over it all.
“We’ll have the classic tea tower and lemon water, no tea,” Elise said briskly, waving her arm through the scroll so that its refracted pixels dissolved into nothing.
The waitress smiled. “Tea is complimentary with your tower. We have teas from every nation on earth, and several off-planet as—”
“Whatever is your favorite,” Calliope said quickly, then lifted an eyebrow at her mom as the girl scurried away. “Come on, I know we’re celebrating something. What did this Nadav guy give you?”
Elise shrugged. “Show tickets, a funny little invention of his that tracks your heartbeat and muscle movements, nothing of any real value. But he’s asked for a family dinner soon,” she added, her tone lowering several octaves.
Calliope understood in a flash what today’s tea was about. She was being scolded—very lightly, with a lot of sugar and fanfare, but a scolding nonetheless.
“You want me to be friendlier with Livya.”
“I’m not asking for much. But it would have meant a lot to me, if you’d put in just a teensy bit of effort with her at the ball.” Elise sighed. “I thought you were going to play backup for me, but you went off, focused on your own thing.”
“I was with a date, Mom,” Calliope pointed out.
Elise threw her hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “I get it, I get it. I know you like running your own little side cons.” They aren’t little, Calliope thought, slightly peeved. “And I never tell you no, do I? I think I’ve been more than fair,” her mom went on.
Calliope shrugged. “Of course I’ll do a family dinner,” she promised, as if she hadn’t done a million of them in the past—some ending with a wedding ring, others not. She wondered how quickly her mom would wrangle a proposal out of this relationship.
But Elise wasn’t finished. “I was hoping that you could play a little less … loose, when we’re at dinner,” she suggested. “Act more like Livya.”
“You mean act boring,” Calliope pointed out.
“Exactly!” Elise laughed.
The waitress deposited an opulent display of treats on their table. It tapered upward like the real Tower, complete with a miniature sugar spire. “This is lunar tea,” she said, pouring a steaming mug of tea that smelled vaguely like aloe. “My favorite. It’s grown on the moon’s surface. The plants see a much weaker sun, so their growing season is twice as long.”
Calliope took a tentative sip from the mug, which, sensing the tea inside, had shifted into a golden half-moon shape. She immediately spit it back, disgusted by the bitter taste. The waitress pursed her lips at her reaction, as if holding back a smile; and Calliope suddenly wondered whether the younger girl hadn’t recommended the revolting tea on purpose, just to screw with what she likely thought was a pair of entitled, rude women.
It was the kind of thing Calliope would have done, if she’d been in that girl’s shoes. She glanced down at her chic printed skirt and the fuchsia Senreve bag perched next to her chair. Did this girl think of her the way Calliope used to think about Justine Houghton? But she was nothing like Justine Houghton.
“Does that waitress remind you of someone?” she blurted out, after the girl had walked away.
“I don’t think so.” Elise was reaching around the offending tea for her water glass, with a cheerful slice of lemon floating on top. “Now tell me more about your progress. It’s clearly going well, since you didn’t even come home until Sunday morning.”
“I’m not so sure,” Calliope said, her usual confidence faltering. She didn’t know what to make of the situation with Atlas. She’d tried to scout around the Fullers’ apartment a little, later that night, but almost all the rooms had no-guest settings on their doorways. And she hadn’t really been in the mood to steal a random antique off a tabletop. She wanted something bigger. She wanted jewelry, but she had a feeling she might never get any from Atlas.
He’d been perfectly nice the morning after that party, sitting and eating breakfast with her, even calling her a hover home. But Calliope could see that his mind was elsewhere. Maybe he regretted letting her come over the night before. Not that anything had even happened between them; Atlas had been so drunk that he promptly passed out, leaving Calliope to sneak around their apartment uninhibited. Eventually she’d come back to his room and found a T-shirt of his before drifting off on the other side of the bed, alone.
“I can see why. That boy is almost too gorgeous to con.”
It was a moment before Calliope realized her mom meant Brice Anderton. “Oh, I just used Brice for an invite to the party. He’s not connable,” she said quickly, knowing that Elise wouldn’t push it. “No, I’m targeting a different boy. He’s the one I went home with.” She looked down at her hands, nervously slicing a cucumber sandwich into tiny triangles. Her mom always seemed to understand what other people were thinking, what they wanted. Maybe she would have some insight into Atlas. “Actually, I could use your advice,” Calliope admitted.
Elise leaned forward eagerly. “What else are moms for?”
Calliope told her everything. About how she’d recognized Atlas at the Fullers’ cocktail party and staged a run-in with him at the Nuage pool, then accepted Brice’s invitation to the Hudson Conservancy Ball knowing that Atlas would be at the same party. How she’d gone home with Atlas—proving, once and for all, her conviction that he did want her—only to realize that maybe she’d been wrong.
“Let me get this straight,” Elise said, reaching for a bite of scone. Tiny sugar-flecked pieces crumbled down, sparkling like scattered gems against the china plate. “You met this boy in Africa?”
Calliope nodded. “But then he left me one day, with no explanation. I never told you, because—”
“It’s all right,” Elise said quickly. They didn’t talk much about that con in India, the worst one they’d ever done. Elise had gotten involved with an older gentleman who worked in the government, and solicited a donation to a fake charity organization, but then the old man had died, all of a sudden, under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly the country’s entire police force had been after them. It had been so terrifying that Calliope and Elise had split up as they fled the country. Just in case.
“I just didn’t realize you ran a con in Africa,” her mom went on, sounding a little hurt.
“It doesn’t matter, because it didn’t work.”
“Yet. It didn’t work yet,” Elise corrected. She gave a narrow smile, her eyes glinting like a cat’s. “It’s a longer con than you’d expected, but who cares? You can afford to play a long game.”
“Not too long. He’s moving away soon.” It was less than a month before Atlas went to Dubai, to run his dad’s tower there. She had to get something from him before that happened.
“Well, don’t worry if it doesn’t work out. I’ll get enough for the both of us,” Elise promised, and sighed. “You did say this boy comes from money, right?”
“He’s Atlas Fuller.” Hadn’t Calliope said that already? “That cocktail party was at his family’s apartment.”
Elise froze like a character in a holo game, an iced cake lifted halfway to her lips. The only movement was the slow, stunned blink of her gold-shadowed eyes. For a moment Calliope worried she’d gone too far—that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, trying to con the boy whose family literally lived on top of the world.
But then Elise was laughing, so hard that tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Seeing it made Calliope laugh too. “The thousandth floor! Let it never be said that you don’t aim high. Cheers to that.” Elise clinked their water glasses with renewed purpose.
“What can I say, I have expensive taste,” Calliope conceded with a smile.
Her mom was right; Calliope was a pro, and she always landed her mark in the end. She would land Atlas too, no matter how long it took.
The waitress came over to collect their tea tray, scattered with smears of butter and half-eaten tarts. In a flash of insight Calliope knew who the waitress had reminded her of: Daera, her childhood friend. She had the same chestnut hair and wide-set eyes.
She wondered what Daera was up to now, all these years later.
“Do you want to get the check this time, or should I?” Elise asked.
“We can’t pay with the bitbanc money? I thought our last payout was a big one.” Surely they hadn’t spent all that money so fast. The thought of doing one of their tricks right now felt strangely wearying.
Elise shrugged. “We blew through most of that money on our girls’ week in Monaco.” Calliope cringed at the thought of that extravagant trip, with shopping sprees and decadent hotels and a boat they’d rented on a whim. Maybe they should have been a little more responsible. “I’m trying to save the rest for our tickets out of here,” her mom added. “But don’t worry, I’ll get our tea.”
She glanced around, then reached over to yank out a few of Calliope’s hairs.
“Hey—ow!” Calliope cursed. She wanted to clap a hand to her head, but she knew it would ruin the con. “You didn’t bring anything with you?” she hissed, under her breath.
“Sorry. I’d use mine, but they aren’t nearly dark enough to pass for the waitress’s.” Elise started to place the hairs on a plate, then thought better of it, and curled them in the bottom of the teacup. She leaned back, draping a pale arm carelessly over the back of the chair as she took a sip of the previously untouched tea.
An instant later she let out an affected shriek, a hand lifted to her chest. Heads swiveled automatically in their direction. The waitress who looked like a grown-up version of Daera hurried over.
“Oh my god. There’s hair in my tea!” Elise cried out, her tone dripping with revulsion. Her eyes lifted accusatorily to the waitress. “You shed into my tea!”
More glances kept shooting their way. New Yorkers did love drama, Calliope reflected, as long as they weren’t the ones causing a scene.
“I’m so s-sorry,” the waitress stammered, reaching up hesitantly toward the crown of her head as if to confirm that her hair was up in a slick, high ponytail. Her expression was one of unmasked fear.
During the ensuing familiar hubbub of calling a manager, complaining, getting their meal comped, Calliope said nothing. She found herself wondering what would happen to the waitress when this was all over. Probably she would have her wages docked for the amount of their tea, Calliope thought, shifting a little in her chair. Surely she wouldn’t be fired, right?
“You okay?” Elise asked when it was all over and they stepped into the elevator back up to their suite. “You look pale.”
“I think I ate too much sugar.” Calliope put a hand on her stomach, which was, in fact, aching. “I’ll be fine.”
But as the doors closed, revealing the gleaming mirrored interior of the Nuage’s elevator, Calliope looked down at her hands clasped tight around the handle of her purse. For once, she didn’t really feel like admiring her own reflection.