Another set of footsteps clattered on the ladder, and a moment later, Eris’s golden-strawberry head appeared. Great. The last person on earth Leda wanted to see right now, and here she was.
“There you are!” Eris exclaimed, unfolding herself from the ladder. She was looking at the Rylin girl. “Listen, I just want to talk to you. Cord is looking for—”
“What the hell is your problem?” Leda hissed, venomous. Her anger had swerved wildly from Avery to Eris, sharpened to a single white-hot point.
Eris raised an eyebrow. “Calm down, Leda. I’m sure she didn’t mean to come up here.”
“I’m not talking to her, I’m talking to you!” The moonlight gleamed on the cream Calvadour scarf—the scarf that Leda’s dad had given Eris—and Leda lost whatever self-control she had left. “How dare you even look at me right now?”
“Eris!” Avery cried out. “Go back down, okay?”
Eris glanced at the other girl—the one she’d followed upstairs—and then back to Leda. For some crazy reason, she stood her ground. “I’m guessing that you found out,” she said steadily, looking right at Leda. “Did your dad tell you?”
“I don’t want to talk to you!” Leda backed away frantically, approaching the edge of the roof.
Avery came to stand next to Eris, and the two of them exchanged a worried glance. “Leda,” Avery said, and Leda could hear the fear in her tone, “please come down from there, and we’ll talk about it.”
But Leda looked only at Eris, her eyes glued to the scarf. How could she go around wearing that in public, a gift from a married man? Wasn’t she ashamed? “What’s wrong with you?” she shrieked. “Why can’t you just leave my family alone?”
She took another step back, feeling desperate. They were literally backing her into a corner, these two girls who were supposed to be her friends. But one of them was having an affair with her dad and the other had stolen the only boy she ever cared about. The joke was on her, she thought frantically, for having such shitty friends. She fumbled in the pocket sewn into the side of her dress, looking for another xenperheidren. She just needed to think a little more clearly; then she could figure out how to handle all this. But her hand came up empty.
“I know you’re upset!” Now Eris’s voice was raised too. “I’m sorry, okay? I know it’s weird! But I won’t tell anyone. And I’m never going to s-see”—she stammered a little—“see your dad, ever again. I promise.”
“Take your stupid scarf and just go!” Leda wanted to cry, or scream, or tear Eris apart limb from limb—anything except stand here another second, hearing Eris talk about seeing her father. As if she hadn’t had enough to deal with tonight.
By now Eris was standing next to her, close enough for Leda to pull the scarf right off her neck. Her heart pounded with the razor-sharp clarity brought on by the stimulant. They were both dangerously close to the edge. Avery kept shouting at them to get back. “This has all been weird for me too, okay?” Eris murmured, looking right into Leda’s eyes. “Please,” she said, and reached out to touch Leda’s arm. That was the final straw.
“I told you, don’t touch me!” Leda cried, pushing Eris blindly away. Dimly she thought she heard another set of footsteps coming up the ladder.
Eris stumbled backward, almost in slow-motion, her sky-high heels folding underneath her.
For a moment it seemed like she would recover her balance, and Leda was reaching for her—but it was too late, Eris had already fallen backward. Her beautiful face was wide-eyed with shock. Leda watched as she hurtled toward the earth, the folds of her scarlet dress fluttering around her, the scarf whipping up like a useless white flag of surrender. She looked strangely beautiful, Leda thought with an eerie sort of detachment, the way her tiny form was slipping away into the darkness of the city below.
Leda stood there watching long after Eris had disappeared from view.
An unknowable eternity later, the horror of what had happened finally sank into Leda’s mind. She buried her face in her hands and began to scream.
In the distance the sun was edging over the horizon, stretching bold red fingers into the retreating night sky.
When she looked at it, all Leda could see was the sickening red of freshly splattered blood.
WATT
WATT COULDN’T BELIEVE what he just saw.
He’d gotten to the party and started pushing wildly through the crowds, asking if anyone had seen Avery, or Leda. Eventually a pair of scared-looking freshman girls had pointed him in the direction of the kitchen. He’d seen the open pantry door, and a ladder stretching up into the darkness, and his stomach had twisted in distress even as Nadia said urgently, “Get up there. Now.”
At the top of the ladder, Watt found Leda and Eris yelling at each other. Eris had reached for Leda, and Leda had recoiled, pushing her back. And then Eris fell, just slipped off the side of the Tower and out into the void. He thought of her hurtling toward the ground, her arms stretching upward helplessly. If she were lucky, she would die of shock before the impact.
He felt nauseated at the thought of what her body—whatever was left of it—must look like now, on the ground.
Leda was still standing there, looking out over the edge, her eyes vacant, her mouth opened in a shrill, endless scream. There were other girls up here on the rooftop too: Avery, and a girl with bright green eyes and dark hair whom he didn’t recognize. Both were staring in utter shock at the spot where Eris had disappeared.