It was the zetta she really worried about.

She and Atlas had turned the problem over and over, but there was ultimately nothing they could do, not knowing which i-Net site it even belonged to. To own a zetta, you needed a commercial license, and the licenses were prohibitively expensive—after all, no one wanted swarming clouds of these things clogging up their city.

Whoever had that picture, Avery knew she would be hearing from them very soon. She could only hope that they would reach out to her directly, maybe hold the picture for blackmail, rather than go ahead and post it.

She reached the end of the room and turned again, fidgeting uselessly with the end of her ponytail. Next to her, Atlas sat holding his tablet on his lap, still open to the same article he’d pulled up two hours ago. They hadn’t spoken much since last night; as if they’d used up all their words on I love yous, and needed to hoard the remaining ones for whatever lay ahead.

Both of their heads whipped up as the front door slid open. Avery felt every cell in her body spring to instant alertness. She heard voices, the familiar hollow sound of her mom’s heels echoing down the hallway, and for a single instant, everything was blissfully, blessedly normal.

“We need to talk about the pro-am golf tournament,” her mom was saying. “How many people do you think you’ll be inviting?”

Pierson didn’t answer right away. Then he cursed, loudly and angrily. “What the hell,” he snarled, probably holding out his tablet.

And just like that, Avery knew that everything had changed.

Elizabeth screamed. It was a raw, animal scream, and the sound of it struck a primeval terror deep into Avery’s marrow. She glanced at Atlas, then logged into the feeds with a sickening sense of dread.

Sure enough, there was the article that her dad must have found. It had only been posted thirty seconds earlier. Fuller Siblings: Too Close for Comfort, read the headline. It came complete with a picture of her and Atlas, tangled together in a kiss, from the elevator last night.

No one could mistake them. It was Atlas’s light-brown hair, Atlas’s patriotic pin gleaming on the breast of his tux, Atlas’s hands wrapped firmly around her. And the blonde crouching among the ripples of her shimmering golden gown couldn’t have been anyone but Avery.

Avery felt a cold, detached sense of unreality. To think that after all this time—all the vast lengths she and Atlas had gone to, in order to keep their secret safe—the worst had actually happened, and the truth was out in the world.

“It’ll be okay. I love you,” Atlas whispered, and as he stood up, he let his hand brush gently against Avery’s back. A small, barely-there touch to remind her that they were in this together.

Avery’s heart crashed against her chest as her parents stormed into the living room. Her dad was holding out his tablet, which was frozen on the Too Close for Comfort article. He held it out at arm’s length, as if it might contaminate him. “What filth! For someone to use my children like that, to make up such vile slander, just to undermine my administration. . . .”

Oh god, oh god. He thought it wasn’t real. Avery tried to catch Atlas’s eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on their mom.

Elizabeth Fuller looked impeccable as always, in the short-sleeved knit dress and heels she’d worn to whatever breakfast the Fullers had attended this morning. She walked into the kitchen with spare, unadorned movements and poured herself a glass of water without drinking it. Avery knew that she just wanted something ordinary to do with her hands. But those hands were trembling.

Avery’s father was still yelling, using words like defamation and appalling. He’d leaned one elbow on an antique console table, making little emphatic knocks on its painted ebony surface to punctuate his words. The whole scene had taken on the sticky, unrealistic quality of a dream. Avery willed herself to wake up.

She had imagined this conversation so many times, worrying herself sick that her parents might somehow learn the truth about her and Atlas. But never in all her imaginings did she predict that her parents would willfully ignore the truth, even when the truth stared them full in the face.

Pierson abruptly broke off from his monologue. His face was deep red, veins etching themselves along the breadth of his forehead. He glanced from Avery to Atlas and back again, and something subtle changed in his expression.

“You two are awfully quiet. I’d assumed you would feel more upset about your images being violated like this. Whoever edited that photo, it looks very real.” His voice grew dangerously calm. A beat of silence stretched through the room. “Unless, of course, the photo wasn’t manipulated.”

There it is, Avery thought as her mom gasped.

It would be so simple to lie, to say that of course the images were doctored, that she and Atlas were nothing but normal adoptive siblings with a normal fraternal affection for each other. Avery had been telling that lie for most of her life—to herself, to the world. She knew the art of it better than anyone. She knew how to bury her true feelings so deep inside her that no one could ever begin to guess at them.

It was the lie her parents wanted so desperately to hear. But for the first time, Avery couldn’t bring herself to tell it.

Instead she reached out and took Atlas’s hand. The implications of her gesture were lost on no one present.

“Avery.” A threat lay there, low and coiled, in Pierson’s voice.