The Towering Sky

“I never say yes to dinner without drinks first,” she told him, with an inscrutable smile.

“Done.”

The stadium went suddenly dark and erupted in wild screaming as the first two ComBots faced off.

It was the dinosaur against her lion-dragon. Calliope reached beneath her seat for her glowstick and waved it in the air, shouting like everyone else until her throat was ragged, watching wide-eyed as the dinosaur and the hybrid creature began slashing at each other. They breathed fire; they shot small ballistics; they lunged forward and then quickly fell back. A pair of commentators narrated the action in a guttural, excited mix of English, Mandarin, and Spanish. Strobe lights flickered overhead. She felt Endred’s gaze heavy on her and couldn’t resist giving her head a proud toss.

The dinosaur’s barbed tail slashed at the hybrid. Calliope jumped to her feet, one hand still wrapped tightly around the lime-green glowstick. “Get him!” she cried out as the lion-dragon’s jaws unhinged—grotesquely wide, wider than a real creature’s jaws ever could—and a torrent of flames erupted from it. The dinosaur stumbled, a gash in its side exposing a bright red tangle of wires. Its arms flailed, as if its computer was short circuiting, and then it tottered to one side and fell still.

Amid the roar of the stadium, Endred looked over at her and grinned. “It seems congratulations are in order.”

“I always know how to pick a winner,” Calliope said provocatively.

Endred waved over a pitcher of a sticky lemon drink and handed her a glass. Down in the arena, a team of human specialists had run forward to sweep away the debris of the broken ComBot. The team managing the winning bot were high-fiving one another, readying themselves for another round.

Calliope took a tentative sip of the lemon drink, wincing at its tanginess. “So, Endred, tell me about yourself. Where are you from?”

Endred preened, predictably, beneath the attention. “Miami. Have you ever been?”

Calliope shook her head, though she and Elise had run cons in Miami countless times.

He began describing the city’s waterlogged streets; which had been flooded for half a century, ever since the sandbars surrounding Florida crumbled into the ocean. Calliope didn’t listen. As if she hadn’t taken a Jet Ski up and down those very streets. She loved Miami, loved the stubborn sexiness of the city, the way it refused to admit defeat even when it was flooded, and instead rose boldly from the waters like a modern super-Venice.

But Calliope could tell that Endred was the type of guy who could be easily won over by talking about himself. Like most boys.

As she peppered him with questions, slipping in the occasional lie about herself, Calliope felt herself reviving like a plant in water. She’d forgotten what a rush it was, playing this game. But now she was in her element again, and all her self-confidence came rushing back as she did what she did best: become someone else.

“If it isn’t Calliope Brown,” an unexpected voice said behind her.

Calliope turned around slowly, trying to mask her trepidation. It was Brice Anderton, Cord’s older brother. He wore a dark jacket and oversized sunglasses, which he lifted now, his eyes roving unabashedly over Calliope’s skintight dress. He was swarthy and tall and far too good-looking, and he knew it.

“I’m afraid you have the wrong girl,” Endred interrupted, oblivious to the tension between them. “This is Amada.”

“Yes. You must have me confused with someone else,” Calliope heard herself say in the Australian accent.

“My mistake.” Brice’s mouth twisted in amusement.

Endred tried to pick up their conversation where it had left off, but Calliope’s smile was beginning to slip from her frozen features. “Excuse me,” she murmured, and ducked back up the narrow stairs to the neon-decked bar just as the lights began to dim for the next fight.

Brice was leaning negligently against the bar, as if he’d known that she would come. “Calliope. What an unexpected pleasure,” he said in that unmistakable entitled drawl.

She refused to back down. “The unexpected pleasure is all mine. I had no idea you were into ComBattles.”

“I could say the same thing. This doesn’t exactly strike me as your scene.”

This is far closer to the real me than the Little Bo Peep version of me everyone has seen all year. “I like to think of myself as a thing of mystery,” she said flippantly.

“And I like to think of myself as a person who solves mysteries.”

The smart thing to do would be to ignore him and head home. Brice was the only person aside from Avery with the power to blow Calliope’s cover. She’d met him once before, in Singapore, when she’d conned his friend and then skipped town. Whether or not he recognized her—which she never could quite figure out—there was always a dangerous, and slightly magnetic, edge to their interactions.

But instead of leaving, Calliope leaned forward over the bar, kicking one boot behind the other. She held Brice’s gaze. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Since last year’s Under the Sea ball, I think.”

“I’ve been traveling a lot. To East Asia, Europe, all over the place.”

“Is New York too boring for you?”

“Not anymore,” Brice said meaningfully, his eyes on her. “But really, what were you doing in there, telling people your name is Amada, using that fake accent?”