The Dazzling Heights

Atlas gave an appreciative laugh. He yanked on a pair of gloves, fastening the second one with his teeth even though there was an auto-fasten setting. “Piece of advice, don’t ever take a job for your mom. Because it really sucks, working for a parent.”

You’d be surprised. Calliope wondered what Atlas would say if he knew the deadly efficiency with which Calliope and Elise worked together.

Atlas pushed a few buttons on a screen, setting his handholds to orange—Calliope’s were already colored her signature bright fuchsia—and started up. She waited until he was close before spinning around to regain her handholds and join him.

The wall was almost empty right now. There was a trio of climbers in the distance, but Calliope could barely hear them, let alone see them. It felt like she and Atlas were alone on some remote desert peak. The sun streamed in through the massive windows behind them.

There was something so soothing about climbing, Calliope thought as they crept beetle-like up the sheer, exposed face. Find handhold, find new foothold, pull yourself up, repeat. The motions were clean and uncomplicated, but they required focus, leaving no room for her mind to wander. She loved the rush of adrenaline in her stomach as she climbed ever higher, her body contracting a little in instinctive fear that she might fall; though of course the aeroharness wouldn’t let that happen. Her shoulders began to ache with a pleasant soreness. She would definitely need to use a massage pillow in the hotel tonight.

Next to her Atlas was swinging wildly, like a creature let out of hell. He took huge, leaping jumps, missing hand- and footholds, scrabbling desperately for purchase. More than once Calliope saw him fall, only to be caught in midair. Then he would grit his teeth and start the furious climb again.

“You know that aeroharness is a safety device, not a toy. This isn’t a race.” Her tone was deceptively lighthearted. What was Atlas so worked up about?

“You’re only saying that because you’re losing,” Atlas called out from several meters above.

Calliope stifled a smile and tried to move faster, her footholds slightly less sure, her hands burning beneath the high-tech supergrip gloves. This high up, the rock face was covered in tiny ice crystals, to simulate climbing Kilimanjaro or Everest. Against it, Calliope’s pink handholds stood out as particularly ludicrous. She marveled at how the light turned the ice almost blue, little swirls of color sparking off it each time she brushed it.

When she reached the summit, Atlas held out a hand to pull her up and over the top. She kept her palm in his for a moment, absorbing the unfamiliar but pleasant feel of it clasped around her own. When he let go, she felt a surprising pang of disappointment.

The ceiling soared overhead, its solar panels a robin’s-egg blue, with little wisps of cloud darting across them. Despite the ice crystals, it was comfortably warm up here. Calliope plopped down on the gravelly surface and took a sip of water from her pack, her legs stretched out before her.

“So,” Atlas asked, “what do you think of our man-made mountain?”

“A better climb than the one in the Singapore Tower, and definitely a better view than Rio,” she replied, just to remind him how worldly and well-traveled she was. “But not as nice as the real thing. After all, it’s not Africa.”

Atlas was leaning back on his elbows, his heather-gray shirt damp with sweat. Expressions darted across his face too quickly for Calliope to make sense of them all. She wished she could snatch his thoughts from the air with her hands and take them to some lab to analyze. How did he really think of her—as a stranger, a travel buddy, a mistake? Or as someone he wanted to get to know?

He’s just a mark, she chided herself. It didn’t matter what he thought of her, as long as she could figure out how to get something of value from him.

“No, it’s not Africa,” Atlas agreed, with a note of something like defeat. “But nothing ever is.”

“Don’t you want to go back?”

“Do you?”

Calliope hesitated. A month ago she would have said “maybe someday,” the way she always spoke about the places she’d already been. The problem was simply that there were so many places in the world, so many corners she hadn’t yet seen, and Calliope felt a deep, primal hunger to taste them all. Which was why she always spoke about the familiar with a touch of impatience.

But there was something different about New York. Perhaps it was the energy that beat just below the surface, like a pulse, or a drumbeat. Especially now, with the city suffused in a golden pre-holiday glow, there was a tangible magic in the air.

Calliope found that lately, she’d viewed the people she passed on her way to the lift—the people she normally pitied, whose lives seemed so routine and dull—with an uncharacteristic fondness. Like the girl who worked at the flower stand outside the Nuage, where Calliope always stopped to smell the freesia; or the wizened old man at Poilâne bakery, where she got a croissant almost every morning, because unlike other girls her age she’d never bothered to count calories. Even those wild-haired people who belted out songs on the lift had become strangely dear to her.

New York called to something in Calliope’s soul. She felt a kinship with the city, she thought, both of them dramatically remade from their previous incarnations, gleaming and exquisite and one of a kind.

Against that, she weighed the siren song of all the new places she still had yet to explore, the adventures still lying in wait for her.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted.

Atlas nodded. “Listen,” he said after a beat. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, I’m sorry about last weekend.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Calliope protested, attempting to sound flirtatious, though it came out a little high-strung. This afternoon wasn’t playing out the way she’d hoped.

“Honestly, I was a mess that night. I guess I’m trying to give a blanket apology, in case there’s anything I do need to be sorry for,” Atlas explained.

So he didn’t remember anything. He’d been so drunk that he probably hadn’t even intended to bring her home with him. Calliope had been so proud of herself for finally getting somewhere with Atlas, when it hadn’t really meant anything at all.

Still, there was one question she did want to ask, while she and Atlas were companionable and easy in the afternoon light. “Atlas, I’m curious … Why did you go to Africa?” It was a question she’d never posed him, in all their months together. And if he answered it honestly, it might offer her some insight into why he didn’t seem to want her.

He weighed her question carefully. “I got myself in a bit of a mess,” he said at last. “It’s complicated. There were other people involved.”

Other people sounded like a girl. That explained a lot.

“You act differently here,” she said quietly, knowing it was a risk, but wanting to say it anyway. “I miss the old you.”

Atlas shot Calliope a curious glance, but he didn’t seem angered by the remark. “What about you? Why did you go to Tanzania?” he asked.

Never ask a question that you yourself don’t want to answer: that was another of Elise’s cardinal rules, and Calliope knew she should have had a careful, flippant response ready. But for some reason all she could think about was India: that family torn apart and the old man on his deathbed and Calliope standing there, a useless witness to it all, unable to do anything. She felt suddenly like the truth was beading on her skin like sweat, running in ugly rivulets down her body for Atlas to see.

“I had a bad breakup,” Calliope said. It was a lame excuse, but it was the best she could think of.

They were quiet for a while. The sun fell ever lower in the artificial sky. Atlas’s hand was right there on the ground next to her, drawing all of Calliope’s awareness like a magnet. She wanted to feel it in hers again.

Feeling reckless, she reached out and put her hand on top of his. He started at the movement, but didn’t pull away. She took that as a good sign.

“When do you leave for Dubai?” she asked. She needed to know how much time she had left on this con. It was a ticking clock.

“I’ll probably stay full-time after the party. At least, that’s what my dad wants.” Atlas didn’t sound that excited. Calliope wondered if going to Dubai hadn’t been his idea at all.