How strangely the world worked sometimes, that Rylin Myers and Leda Cole were off to find risotto together, forming a bizarre sort of truce under the soft, glittered sky.
CALLIOPE
CALLIOPE WAS STANDING alone near an arrangement of mood-flowers, which currently glowed a soft, contented gold to match her happiness. Their so-called emotion-detection system was pretty flimsy—based on heart rate and body temp and, supposedly, pheromones—but for once Calliope thought their reading was actually spot-on.
She’d retreated to this side terrace to catch her breath and wait for Atlas to find her. Sure enough, she heard footsteps behind her this very moment. She turned around, a smile breaking over her features, only to see that it wasn’t Atlas at all, but his sister.
Avery looked like a creature half-wild. She was wearing a shimmering white dress with an illusion neckline, sewn with several layers of lace and delicate pearls. The skirt cut off just above her knees, Calliope realized; not evenly, but in a jagged line, as if it had been sliced with a blade. Her hair fell loose from its pins to surround her face in a tangled blond cloud.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Avery declared, something ominous in her tone.
“Hi, Avery.” Calliope lifted an eyebrow curiously. She had to ask. “Is that a wedding dress?”
“It was, until I chopped it off and made it a party dress.”
Well, it was certainly attention-getting. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s simple, really. I want you to get the hell out of New York.” Avery spoke with distinct spaces between her words, as if she needed Calliope to understand the full import of every last syllable.
“Excuse me?” Calliope demanded, but she had a sudden, nauseated feeling that Avery knew.
Avery took a menacing step forward. “I know the truth about you and your mom. So now you both are going to get the hell out of New York and never speak to Atlas again, since you were playing him this whole damn time for his money. Since he was just a game to you.”
Fear spiraled in eddies over Calliope’s skin. She took a careful breath. “It’s not like that, okay?”
“What was your plan tonight, anyway? Were you about to run off with my mom’s earrings?”
Calliope felt a stab of guilt at the accusation. She’d considered it, hadn’t she? And she would’ve done it, too, not so long ago; yet tonight something had held her back. She hadn’t wanted to treat the Fullers that way. She hadn’t wanted to treat anyone that way anymore.
Maybe she was developing that thing people called a conscience.
She started to speak, but Avery was shaking her head at Calliope’s silence, her perfect features twisted in disgust.
Quietly, with all the dignity she could muster, Calliope reached up to unfasten the magnificent pink diamonds still hooked in her ears. She held them out to Avery, who snatched them back.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she maintained, watching as Avery switched out her own earrings for the pink diamonds. “You don’t even know me.”
Avery looked up, and her blue-blue eyes were nothing but cruel. “I already know far more than I ever wanted to know about you.”
“How did you find out? Was it Brice?” More than anything, Calliope felt saddened by the fact that she and her mother would have to leave again. After all her mom’s hard work—after her acceptance of Nadav’s proposal, her decision that they could stay—they would have to turn tail and run yet again. Pick up new retinas and new identities and start tricking some poor person into giving them something. There would be no more Calliope Brown, that was for damned sure. The thought made her feel hollow inside.
Avery looked up, startled. “What does Brice have to do with this? Is he in on it?”
“Never mind.”
“Ten, nine, eight …” Around them, the party broke out in a sudden countdown to midnight. The first round of fireworks was about to start—they would continue all night, on the hour, all the way until morning. Calliope felt dazed that it was still so early, when in the course of a single evening her whole world had been radically upended. Twice.
She kept her eyes on Avery, trying to interpret the dance of her emotions across her face. She’d predicted so many actions of so many people in her life, yet for the first time, her instincts seemed to have failed her.
Then Calliope thought of something her mom had said once: that if she was ever caught in a tough situation—if her lies weren’t working, if all else failed—sometimes the best way out was to tell the truth.
She’d never spoken her real name aloud. Don’t tell anyone, her mom had drilled into her ever since they’d left London. It’s too dangerous; it gives people power over you. Just give them another name, a fun name, anything you like. It had been a game she’d played—quite skillfully—for years. She’d worn so many names, played so many cons. She’d traded herself away in tiny little pieces with each lie, and now she had no idea what was left.
“Calliope isn’t my real name,” she said softly, so quietly that Avery had to lean forward to hear it beneath the drunken hum of the party. “It’s Beth.”
Avery’s rage seemed to falter, as if that tiny grain of truth had momentarily stilled it. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Beth,” she said, which was an odd thing to say. Then fireworks erupted overhead, breaking the temporary spell. “Whoever you are, I don’t care. You need to be gone before we get back to New York. If I ever see you in the Tower again, there will be hell to pay. Do you understand?”
Calliope clenched her jaw and stared unblinking at Avery. A flash of the old defiance scorched through her. “Trust me, you’ve made yourself clear,” she snapped, and Avery stormed off.
And so it was ending, yet again. Calliope allowed herself a few minutes of melancholy—of gazing out at the water, wishing things were different, that she’d played her cards with better skill. Then she turned with a defeated sigh and started back toward the party.
She intended to enjoy the rest of the night. Not with Atlas, since Avery would surely be watching him, but with anyone, or even alone; it didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore. Tomorrow morning she would tell her mom the truth, and they would have to skip town as quickly and silently as possible.
Calliope wasn’t particularly worried about the details. They’d fled many places in their day, and under worse circumstances than this; she knew they would get out all right. But after her mom’s announcement, she’d allowed herself to hope that this time might actually be different. Now she felt strangely adrift, as if she’d been offered something bright and wonderful, only to have it snatched away.
At the thought of going to another city—doing recon work and starting another con and stealing from another trusting, hapless person—her entire body ached. She felt tired, and saddened, and alone.
For a moment she thought she heard a sound from far off, as if someone had cried out, echoing the mournful wail of Calliope’s own heart. But when she listened again, it wasn’t there.
She turned slowly, the elegant fishtail of her gown swishing out behind her. For one last night she was going to be Calliope Brown, consequences be damned.
WATT
WATT’S ARMS CLOSED around Leda from behind. “Where’d you disappear to?” he murmured into her hair, which smelled of dusty roses, a smell he’d grown quite accustomed to these past few weeks.
“I was off meddling,” Leda said mischievously.
“Were you?” Watt released his arms to spin her around. She looked radiant, her face lit up from within, her whole being almost floating off the terrace where they stood.
“I’m trying to get Rylin back with Cord. It might take a while, though. They’re both being a little stubborn.”
“A few months ago, you were threatening Rylin, and now you’ve gone all Emma Woodhouse on her?” Watt was amused.
Leda tilted her head at him. “Am I mistaken, or did you just make a Jane Austen reference? Will wonders never cease.”
“Hey, I can read!” Watt protested, though in truth, Nadia had fed him that line. He decided to change the subject. “Anyway, what makes you think you should be the one to decide whether Cord and Rylin are together?”