How bad is it? How much do they know? he asked Nadia.
Watt was going to read it himself too, eventually. Probably. But by now Nadia would have already scanned and analyzed the full contents of the file. After all, she could consume the entire dictionary in under half a second.
“Watt,” she replied heavily. “I’m so sorry. It doesn’t look good.”
What do you mean?
“It seems the police have connected Mariel’s death with Eris’s. They know that something happened that night on the roof, that there was some kind of cover-up. Right now they’re still trying to figure out why you all lied.”
Watt felt cold and clammy all over. He ripped the caffeine patches from his arm, and his head instantly erupted into a splitting headache. He winced. If they realize that Leda was blackmailing us, the next logical step is to find out what she had on us—why she was able to force us to hide the truth, and then we’ll really be in trouble . . . Leda most of all.
“Watt, you need to talk to them. To warn them.”
Nadia was right. He had to talk to the others right away: to Avery and Rylin, and especially to Leda. They had to confer about what they would do next. The only way they could possibly emerge from this unscathed was together. If they all stuck to their stories, if they all guarded one another’s backs, they might possibly have a shot.
Where are they right now? Watt demanded.
They’re all at Pierson Fuller’s inauguration ball.
Oh, right. Watt felt an odd sense of disbelief that events like that were still going on—that the world was still churning forward, when it felt as if it were tilting furiously off-kilter.
He stood up, took a deep breath and began to run, ignoring the alarmed stares of passersby. Thank god he’d bought that tux last year, in a ridiculous attempt to impress Avery. He was getting far more wears out of it than he had ever expected.
As he sprinted toward the downTower elevator, Watt had a curious and unwelcome sense of déjà-vu. This felt too much like last year, when he’d lost Leda at the Dubai party and found her precariously near death—or worse, like the night he’d raced up to Avery’s roof, only to arrive just as Eris fell off the edge.
He could only hope that, this time, he wouldn’t be too late.
CALLIOPE
WHEN CALLIOPE RETURNED to the Mizrahis’ apartment, she was greeted by a heavy and decidedly menacing silence.
She started hesitantly down the hallway, her footfalls vanishing into the thick carpet. Her reflection danced in the ornate mirror to her left, wearing the jeans and long-sleeved shirt she’d been wearing when she left, hours ago; she’d stopped back at Altitude to change out of her incriminating gown, which she’d left hanging in a locker there. She couldn’t help thinking that she seemed unnaturally pale.
Nadav was seated in a high-backed chair in the living room, as if he were a judge about to deliver some kind of final sentence. He looked up at her arrival, but didn’t speak.
Where was Elise? Maybe she was hiding from the confrontation, Calliope thought; maybe she figured that it was easier to swoop in later, to help advocate on Calliope’s behalf.
Or maybe she’d decided that it was better for her marriage if she didn’t weigh in on what her daughter had done.
“There you are, Calliope,” Livya said smugly, turning the corner from her bedroom. She walked with small, mincing steps like a snail leaving a glistening trail of slime behind her. “We’ve all been so worried about you.”
“I’m sorry,” Calliope began. “I never—”
“You were at the inauguration ball, weren’t you?” Nadav asked, and his words fell like sharp-edged stones into the screaming quiet.
It went against all Calliope’s instincts to tell the truth in situations like this, but she also knew better than to tell a blatant lie when she’d been cornered.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I was at the inauguration ball. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about where I was going, but I was afraid that you would say no, and I had a good reason for wanting to go. The mayor’s new public health team was there, and I’ve been trying to petition them about the hospital’s emergency response teams—they don’t have adequate equipment. . . .” Calliope was pulling this story out of thin air, but she had to admit it wasn’t half bad; she was still a decent liar under pressure. “I went to the inauguration ball because it was the only way I could think of to actually talk with them face-to-face.”
Livya rolled her eyes. “Cut the crap,” she declared, and Calliope was gratified by the shock on Nadav’s features. Neither of them had ever heard Livya curse before. She threw a great deal of enthusiasm into it, for someone so ostensibly sweet-tempered. “Why don’t you tell the truth about where you were tonight? Or rather, who you were with?”
“I don’t . . .” Someone must have told Livya, she realized with a sinking feeling. That room had been packed with hundreds of people, and any one of them could have casually mentioned the fact that Livya’s stepsister was there with the older Anderton brother.
“She was out with Brice Anderton,” Livya announced, turning triumphantly to her father.
Nadav seemed to find his voice again. “Calliope. You went out with Brice, even after I told Livya to warn you about him? Why would you do that?” He sounded more hurt than angry.