Atlas Six (Atlas Series, 1)

Something had happened to Tristan.

It was immediately apparent upon Callum’s return to the Society’s London house. He had arrived in the late afternoon after spending their compulsory two days in Mykonos (he had no intention of going back to Cape Town, where the chance he would be expected to work was unfortunately much too high to risk) and begun scouring the house, starting with Tristan’s two most likely places in the morning: the library for tea, or the reading room for research. Callum had counted on the appearance of a particular version of Tristan upon sharing some significant news; namely, that someone, and in this case everyone, had left out a very important caveat about the Society’s initiation process.

Instead, though, he found Tristan in the door frame of the painted room, staring blankly at the floor.

“I presume you’ve had a visit from the Forum,” Callum began, and paused. Tristan looked more haggard than usual, as if he’d been up all night, and there were fumes of remorse and nausea coming off him in waves. “Christ,” said Callum upon closer inspection, taken aback. “What on earth did you get up to while we were all away?”

“Nothing. Just a bit knackered,” was the mumbled response, only half-coherent. Tristan’s voice was rasping and low, and the look of thorough misery on his face was enough to give Callum a second-hand migraine. 

“Sauced, too, by the looks of it.” Normally Tristan was better about holding his alcohol; it was one of the primary reasons Callum liked him. There was much to be said about a man who habitually remained upright.

“Absolutely fucking bladdered,” confirmed Tristan, pivoting slowly to face Callum and holding his hand to his head. “I’d do something about it, only the prospect of managing anything at all sounds positively exhausting.”

Understandable. Most people struggled with a hangover, and medeians even more so. Alcohol was a poison, after all, and magic was easily corrupted.

“Here,” Callum said, beckoning Tristan towards him and pressing his thumb to the furrow between his brows. “Better?”

It didn’t take much to alleviate a headache. Even less to make the headache feel as if it had been alleviated.

“Much.” Tristan gave Callum a fleeting look of gratitude. “Did you enjoy the opulent shores of Greece, Your Highness?”

“You were invited, as you may recall.”

“Yes, and I should have gone, clearly.”

“Well,” Callum said, “next time. In any case, there’s something very interesting I thought you ought to know.”

“If it’s about the Forum, I received a visit as well. From a rather unpleasant sort of bloke, if I do say so myself.”

“Actually, no,” said Callum. “Or not entirely, anyway.” He gestured outside. “Fancy a walk? Fresh air might do you some good.”

The gardens, which accommodated roses of all varieties, were always a tolerable temperature, despite the presence of snow. Inside the house, a clatter indicated Nico had returned along with Reina, and, presumably, Libby.

“I suppose now we’ll have to hear endlessly about Rhodes’ beloved inamorato,” sighed Callum.

To his surprise, Tristan became rapidly uncomfortable, going blank. “I suppose,” he mumbled, and Callum frowned. It wasn’t the discomfort that eluded him, but the obvious deflection; Tristan was magically keeping him out, preventing himself from being interpreted. The others did it often, sending up intangible shields whenever Callum approached, but never Tristan, who would have considered it a waste of effort.

Odd.

“Anyway,” Callum said, “this Society has an interesting little mechanism. The ‘elimination,’ as they call it? Is perhaps too true a term.”

It had not been very difficult to find the truth at the core of the Forum recruiter’s intentions. It seemed that although the contents of the Society’s collection remained a secret, its true nature was not.

“One candidate,” Callum said, leaning closer, “must die.”

Immediately he anticipated Tristan’s posture to stiffen, or his dark gaze to narrow, as it usually did. Perhaps Tristan would even confirm that he’d had suspicions, which he nearly always had. He was a man so beloved of his own misanthropy that he would surely express less horror at knowing the truth than he would a lack of surprise at uncovering it. 

“That’s madness,” said Tristan, without any particular feeling.

Callum’s jaw tightened, irritated.

So Tristan already knew, then.

“You didn’t tell me,” Callum observed aloud, and Tristan glanced up, grimacing.

“I only just found out, and I’d forgotten for a moment.”

“You’d forgotten?”

“Well, I—” Tristan fumbled, his wall of neutrality momentarily slipping. “I told you, it was… a strange night. I haven’t quite finished processing.”

If this version of Tristan was anything, ‘unfinished’ was certainly the right word.

“Care to postulate aloud?” prompted Callum. “After all, you’ve ostensibly become aware that one of us will have to be murdered.” He bristled with irritation at not being the one to reveal that trivial little tidbit of information. “Who told you? No, don’t answer,” he grumbled as an afterthought. “It was Parisa, wasn’t it? You were with Parisa last night.”

Tristan looked moderately relieved. “I… yes, I was, but—”

“How did she know?”

“She didn’t say.”

“You didn’t ask?” Unfathomable. Under any circumstances Tristan would have made demands.

“I—” Tristan stopped, wavering again. “I was distracted.”

Callum stiffened. Of course Parisa had taken the opportunity to secure her alliance with Tristan the one way she knew how. Callum had been Tristan’s primary confidant for months; surely she would have suffered that loss by now and tried something to repair it. 

“You know,” Callum remarked, “there is no fate so final as betrayal. Trust, once dead, cannot be resurrected.”

Tristan glanced up sharply. “What?”

“With the Society,” Callum clarified smoothly. “They’re lying to us, or at least misleading us. How shall we respond?”

“I imagine there has to be a reason—”

“You,” Callum echoed, and then scoffed. “You imagine there to be a reason, really?”

“Well, is it any wonder?” Tristan said defensively. “And anyway, maybe it’s another trick. A test.”

“What, making us think we have to kill someone? Clearly you don’t understand the damage of such an exercise,” Callum said gruffly. “There is nothing so destructive as thought, and especially not one that can never be rescinded. The moment a group of people decide they can be rid of someone permanently, what do you suppose happens next?”

“You’re saying you wouldn’t do it?” 

“Of course not. But succumbing to the demands of a Society whose precursor for entry is human sacrifice? You can’t tell me you’ve simply accepted it without question.” Callum was sure of that much. “Even Parisa wouldn’t consider it unless there was something significant in it for her. As for the others, Reina wouldn’t care, and perhaps Varona could be persuaded, but certainly Rhodes would—”

Callum stopped, considering it. “Well, by that measure, I don’t see the elimination falling to anyone other than Rhodes.”

“What?” Tristan’s head snapped up. 

“Who else would it be?” Callum prompted, impatient. “The only person with fewer friends than Rhodes is Parisa, but she’s useful, at least.”

“You don’t find Rhodes useful?”

“She’s half of a set,” said Callum. “Varona has precisely Rhodes’ talents, only in a less obnoxious package.”

“Varona is not Rhodes,” Tristan said, the edges of his shield flickering a little. “They are not interchangeable.”

“Oh, stop. You only can’t imagine killing Rhodes because it would be like drowning a kitten,” said Callum. “She’d fuss the whole time.”

“I—” Tristan turned away, sickened. “I cannot believe you’re actually discussing this.”

“You’re the one who seemed entirely unfazed by the idea we’d be asked to commit a murder,” Callum pointed out. “I’m simply trying to sort out how you expect it to take place.”

“Varona will never agree to kill Rhodes,” Tristan said. “Nor will Parisa.”

“They’ll have to choose someone, won’t they?”

“Maybe they’ll choose me,” Tristan said, blinking rapidly. “Perhaps they should.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tristan.” A little fuse of Callum’s temper sparked. “Must you be so very small all the time?”

Tristan cut him a glare. “So I should be more like you, then?”

This was obviously going nowhere.

“Have a nap,” Callum said, pivoting away in annoyance. “You’re a terrible bore when you’re unrested.”

He had hoped they’d have some sort of strategy session, determining which of the others they could most stand to lose, but it seemed Tristan was currently handling everything with exceptional ineptitude. Callum stalked through the corridors, returning to his room when he nearly collided with Libby.

“Rhodes,” he said gruffly, and she glanced up, face draining of color, before hurrying past him without a word.

If there was one thing Callum loathed about himself, it was the prison of his deduction. So, Libby and Tristan were suffering the same intolerable human illness of shame and alcoholism. Wonderful. Clearly something had happened between them, and Tristan had not told him.

Again, Tristan had not told him.

Callum reached the corridor of private rooms and pushed open the door to Parisa’s bedroom, shutting it behind him.

“No,” said Parisa lazily. “And don’t bother with Reina, either. Well—no, on second thought, that I would very much like to see,” she mused, lifting her head to prop it up with one hand. “I suspect she’d bite your dick if you even tried it. Shall we have a wager and find out?”

Parisa, unlike the others, reeked of nothing. None of Parisa had come loose. She did not even seem particularly dehydrated. She seemed… 

Smug.

“What did you do?” asked Callum bluntly.

“What I do best,” said Parisa.

“What did Rhodes have to do with it?”

“You know, I rather like Rhodes,” Parisa hummed thoughtfully. “She’s very… sweet.”

Her smile curled up thinly, taunting, and Callum understood he was being toyed with.

He relaxed a little, relieved. Finally, someone who could play.

“They’re idiots,” he said, prowling over to recline beside her on the bed. “All of them.”

“Everyone’s an idiot,” Parisa replied, tracing mindless patterns on her duvet. “You should know that as well as anyone.”

“What did you do?”

“Changed them,” she said with a shrug. “Can’t reverse that sort of thing.”

That was the peril of thought. Thoughts were so rarely dismissed once they’d been picked up and toyed with, and a mind successfully altered could rarely, if ever, revert.

Worse were feelings. Feelings were never forgotten, even if their sources were.

“No, you can’t,” Callum slowly agreed. “But why would that matter to you?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” She shrugged. “It’s a game. You know it’s a game.”

“No matter the stakes?”

She blinked with surprise, and then her expression fell away.

“Did you kill them this time?” she asked tightly.

“Kill who?”

“Whoever it was. From the Forum.”

“No, not particularly.”

She stared at him. “Not particularly?”

“Well, if he dies later on, that’s really not my doing. They’re his feelings,” said Callum, shrugging. “How he chooses to process them is not my responsibility.”

“My god, you’re an absolute psychopath,” said Parisa, sitting fully upright. “You don’t feel any empathy at all, do you?”

“An empath with no empathy,” echoed Callum. “Surely you hear how foolish you sound?”

“You can’t just—”

“And what did you do, hm?” prompted Callum. “You can hear their thoughts, Parisa. You can change them, as you’ve just willingly confessed. By default you are no less interfering, and was your cause any more noble than mine?”

“I don’t destroy people—”

“Don’t you?” Callum asked her. “From what I just saw, Tristan and Rhodes look severely devolved. They are not who they were before.”

“Devolved,” Parisa said, “is hardly the word I’d use. And it’s certainly not the same as destroyed.”

Callum shifted an inch closer to her on the bed, and she leaned away, repulsed.

“You hate me because we’re the same,” he told her softly. “Haven’t you come to that conclusion yet?”

She bristled, distractingly lovely in her fear. “We are not the same.”

“How are we different?”

“You feel nothing.”

“Whereas you feel sympathy but act regardless. Is that it?”

Parisa opened her mouth, then closed it.

“We are not the same,” she said, “and what’s more, you overestimate yourself.”

“Do I?”

“You think you’re more powerful than I am, don’t you?”

“You have to work much harder to accomplish the same result. If I am not more powerful, I certainly have a more extensive vault from which to draw.”

“The others know better.”

“Do they? Perhaps not.”

He could feel pieces fitting together for her, melting smoothly into place. An effortless joining. Her process of thought was so elegant, so pleasing. It was so satisfying to watch her make decisions, unlike other people. Normal people were so messy and unkempt. Parisa poured out her thoughts like honey, and though Callum couldn’t read them the way she could, he could intuit other things far more clearly.

For example she thought, rather foolishly, that she could win.

“Shall we prove it?” Parisa prompted him. “Maybe you’re right. After all, you clearly think we’re the same, so for all intents in purposes, so must they. Thoughts, feelings, this is all the same to them.” Again they were conspiratorial in their agreement. Even safely out of Callum’s reach, surely Parisa could feel the way they were bound by similar circumstances. “They ought to have a chance to know the truth of what each of us can do.”

“A battle of wits?” Callum replied.

“Of course not,” she said. “Why do battle when we could simply… play a game?”

He slept well that night, untroubled. In the morning, they persuaded their referee.

“We do have a specified lesson for the day,” said Dalton in his stuffy academic’s voice. “And I hardly think this is necessary.”

“The present research subject is thought,” said Parisa. “Is there no value in observing a practicum on the subject?”

Dalton glanced uneasily between them. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate.”

“Oh, go on,” said Nico, who was intensely bored by the subject matter as usual. “We’ve got to eliminate someone eventually, don’t we? Seems worth knowing what the other magics can do.”

“Yes, Dalton, we will be eliminating someone quite soon,” Callum agreed smoothly. “Why not allow us to determine who has the greater capability now?”

Dalton, out of anyone, would know the difference between Callum and Parisa’s talents. After all, he was busy keeping her out of his head and holding Callum at bay as well, preventing either from being able to manipulate his moods—which meant Dalton was frequently overworked when they were in the same room, allowing things to slip between the cracks.

That Dalton had been sleeping with Parisa for months was, if still a secret among the others, not a very well kept one, and certainly not to Callum. More than once Callum had witnessed Dalton experiencing Parisa within every parapet of his being without touching her, with only the silhouette of former senses; muscle memory for lovers. At arbitrary times throughout the day, Callum could taste and feel and smell her anew, like the ghosts of someone else’s aching.

He wondered if that was something to use against Parisa. Would she care for one amorist to find out what she’d done with two of the others…? Likely not, Callum thought with disappointment. She seemed the sort of person one only loved at one’s own risk, and he doubted she had ever made (or kept) a promise.

“Well,” Dalton said uncomfortably, “I suppose it needn’t take long.”

“One hour,” said Parisa. “But no interference.”

That, Callum thought, was quite an interesting request.

Perhaps even a stupid one.

“What’s the purpose of a referee if there can be no interference?” prompted Tristan gruffly. He, Callum thought, would be a challenge for later. Already he had glanced furtively at Libby twice; he would need to be reminded how to choose his allies well. 

“Just someone to stop us when the hour is up,” Parisa said, glancing pointedly at Dalton. “No more, no less.”

“No astral planes, either,” said Callum. “Dull for the audience.”

“Fine,” said Parisa. “Corporeality only.”

They shook on it, taking their places on opposite sides of the room.

“Rhodes,” Callum said. “Turn your anxiety down.”

Across the room, Parisa’s mouth quirked.

“Don’t worry about him, Rhodes,” she said. “He’ll be fine.”

Warily, the vibration of Libby’s unceasing agitation faded somewhat.

They waited in silence until the clock met the hour.

“Start,” said Dalton.

“Why are you here?” asked Parisa promptly, and Callum chuckled.

“You want to do this as a debate? Or an interrogation?”

“Varona,” called Parisa to Nico, not taking her eyes from Callum’s. “What do you not do at the beginning of a fight?”

“Most things,” replied Nico ambivalently. 

“And why not?”

“Don’t know the traps,” he supplied, shrugging. “Have to learn the other person’s rhythm first before you deal the heavy blows.”

“There,” said Parisa. “See? Even Varona knows.”

Callum scoffed. “Is that what we’re doing? Sparring? I thought the purpose was to differentiate ourselves from the physical specialties, not conform to them.”

Parisa’s smile twisted upward.

“Answer the question,” she said.

“Very well. I joined because I had no other pressing plans,” said Callum, “and now, I believe, it’s my turn to ask you a question. Correct?”

“If you’d like,” said Parisa obligingly.

“Marvelous. When did it occur to you that you were beautiful?”

There was a twitch between her brows, suspicious.

“It’s not a trap for your modesty,” Callum assured her. “Not much of one, anyway, when surely we can all confirm it for a fact.”

“My modesty is not at issue,” Parisa replied. “I simply fail to see the relevance.”

“It’s an opening swing. Or, if you prefer, a control.”

“Is this some sort of polygraph?”

“You asked me why I was here in order to gauge some sort of truth from me, didn’t you? Given your own parameters, surely I can do the same.”

“Fine.” Parisa’s mouth tightened. “You’re asking when I knew I was beautiful? I’ve always known.”

“Well, surely that’s true in some sense,” Callum said, “but you’re not just ordinarily beautiful, are you? You’re the kind of beauty that drives men to warfare. To madness.”

“If you say I am.”

“So, when did you first understand it? Your power over others. Men, primarily,” he said, taking a step towards her. “Or was it a woman first? No,” he determined, catching the motion of her bristling in response. “Of course it was a man.”

“Of course it was a man.” She echoed it with a smile. “It always is.”

“You have a loneliness to you, you know,” Callum said, “but it’s a bit… manufactured, isn’t it? You’re not an only child; that would be a different sort of loneliness. Like Rhodes,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder, “she’s lonely and alone, but not you. You’re lonely because you choose to be.”

“Perhaps I simply loathe other people,” said Parisa. 

“What’s your sister’s name?” asked Callum, as Parisa blinked. “You were close, of course, until you weren’t. Your brother has some sort of strong name, I suspect; masculine, difficult to fracture. He’s the heir, isn’t he? The oldest, and then your sister, and then you. He favored you, your brother, and your sister turned you away… and she didn’t believe you, did she? When you told her what you saw inside his mind.”

He could see Parisa faltering, forced to relive the shadows from her youth.

“Let’s see,” Callum said, and snapped his fingers, populating the walls with images and tones from Parisa’s past. “Money, that’s easy enough.” It would be false, a painting, unlike something she could do from his head, which would be a photograph. It was an inexact science, being an empath, but the important thing was to identify the proper sensations. For example, the golden light of her childhood and privilege. “Obviously you were well educated. Private tutors?”

Her jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“That stopped after a time. You adored your tutor, of course. You love to learn. But your brother, he didn’t like you paying so much attention to someone who wasn’t him. So sad! Poor little Parisa, princess of her family, locked inside her vault of riches like a sweet, caged bird. And how did you get out?” He considered it, splashing an image of her former self onto the wall. “Ah, of course. A man.”

The hazy illustration of young Parisa was swept away, carried off on the wind.

“Walk with me,” said Callum, and immediately Parisa’s knees buckled, lacking the strength to fight him. The others, he was sure, would follow, equally entranced. “More room this way. What was I saying? Ah, yes, someone saved you—no, you saved yourself,” he amended, “but you made him believe it was his doing. Was it… your brother’s friend? Yes, his closest friend; I can feel the betrayal. He expected something from you for his efforts… eternal devotion? No,” Callum laughed, “of course not. He wanted something much more… accessible.”

He paused, glancing at her, and the image of her following them along the walls as they walked was pulled into a darkened room, the light around it suddenly extinguished.   

“How old were you?” he asked.

He watched Parisa swallow, her mouth gone dry.

“Eighteen,” she said.

“Liar,” he replied.

Her lips thinned.

“Fifteen,” she said.

“Thank you for your honesty,” Callum replied. He turned to the stairs, directing her up them. “So, you must have been what, eleven when you knew?”

“Twelve.”

“Right, right, of course. And your brother was seventeen, eighteen…?”

“Nineteen.”

“Naturally. And your sister, fourteen?”

“Yes.”

“So troubling. So very, very troubling.” Callum reached out to brush her cheek and she shrank away, repulsed. He laughed. “So it’s me you hate, then?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t want to hate me,” Callum replied, “because you suspect me of committing terrible crimes with such silly things as hatred.” 

He stepped into the ballroom, holding out a hand. “Shall we?”

She glared at him. “You want to dance?”

“I want to see if you can keep up,” Callum assured her.

She rolled her eyes, but took his hand.

“I assume you think you’re winning,” she remarked, beginning an uncannily perfect waltz once he set his hands upon her waist, though he would have expected no less. Somewhere, music was playing. He assumed that had been her work.

“You tell me,” he said. “You’re the one who can supposedly read my thoughts.”

“You spend most of your existence in the singular belief that you’re winning,” she said. “To be honest, Callum, there’s nothing so very interesting to read.”

“Oh?”

“There’s not much going on in there,” Parisa assured him, her neck beautifully elongated as she carried out the waltz’s steps. “No particular ambition. No sense of inadequacy.”

“Should I feel inadequate?”

“Most people do.”

“Perhaps I’m not most people. Isn’t that the point?”

“Isn’t it just,” Parisa murmured, glancing up at him.

“You’re so very guarded with me,” Callum told her disapprovingly. “It’s rather starting to hurt my feelings.”

“I wasn’t aware you had any feelings available to hurt.”

He spun her under his arm, conjuring a little flash of color to marinate the walls.

“Was this it?” he asked, gesturing to the crimson. “I’m not quite sure I have the precise hue.”

“For what?”

But he could feel her stiffen in his arms.

“Your wedding dress,” he replied, smiling politely, and for a moment, she froze. “How is your husband, by the way? Alive, I assume. I imagine that’s why you changed your name, went to school in Paris? You don’t strike me as the career-oriented type, so I assume you were fleeing something. And what better place to hide than within the walls of a magically warded university?”

He felt the low undercurrent of her rage and felt keenly, acutely blissful.

“Oh, it’s not the worst thing,” he told her. “Plenty of teenagers have run from their tyrannical husbands before. Did your brother try to stop it? No, of course not,” he sighed to himself, “he never forgave you for turning from him, and this was your punishment.” 

Parisa stepped back, dazed, and Callum held out a hand to her.

“You’ve been running a long time,” he murmured to her, brushing a loose curl from her cheek. “Poor thing.” He pulled her into an embrace, feeling the low swell of her misery greet him like a wave inside his chest. “You’ve been running for your life since the moment you were born.”

He felt her sag against him, drained slightly, and he angled her shoulders beneath his arms, guiding her out of the ballroom.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he told her, adjusting his arm to fit her waist as he led her up the stairs, up past the bedrooms and to the terrace on the top floor. She was gradually deflating, sentiment beginning to bleed out of her as if he’d sliced a vein. “People think beauty is such a prized thing, but not you. Not yours. Your beauty is a curse.”

“Callum.” Her lips were numb, his name slurred. He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, half-smiling.

“Do you hate them?” he whispered to her, lightly kissing her cheek. “No, I don’t think you do. I think, quietly, you suspect you deserve this, don’t you? You drive people to madness; you’ve watched it happen. You see them set eyes on you and you know it, don’t you? The way it looks, the way it feels. Perhaps you consider yourself a monster for it. It would explain your fear of me,” he told her softly, taking her face in his hands. “Secretly, you believe yourself to be far worse than I have ever been, because your hunger is incurable. Your wants are insatiable. You never tire of making people weak for you, do you? The perversity of your desire scares you, but it’s easier to think I might be worse.”

They reached the terrace, Callum nudging the doors open for their entry. Parisa’s feet met the wet marble, nearly slipping as the London rain fell. It splashed over the Greco-Roman farce that was the Society’s decor, droplets sliding like tears from the marble cupids, the white-washed nymphs.

Callum tucked one of her hands in the crook of his arm, leading her around the rooftop’s perimeter.

“You must wonder sometimes if it would be easier not to exist,” he commented.

Parisa didn’t answer, staring instead at her feet. Her shoes, fashionable as always, were suede and ruined, soaked through from the rain within minutes. Her hair fell lank over her shoulders in the wet, though of course her beauty was undiminished. He had never seen a woman’s eyes shine so dully and still remain so bright. The haunted look in them heightened her beauty, in his mind. She had never been so lovely, so broken. She made devastation look like riches, like jewels. 

“Did they hurt you?” he asked. 

She dragged her gaze up, sickened. “Who?”

“Everyone.”

Her eyes shut briefly, and she swayed. Her lips parted to mumble one word.

“Yes.”

Callum stroked the drops from her cheeks, her lips. He pressed a kiss to the furrow between her brows; comforting, tender. Sweet.

“They don’t have to hurt you anymore,” he said, and stepped away, leaving her to stand alone.

She was burning on low now; a simmer that threatened to flicker, a glimmer poised to go out. Funny thing about rain, really, how it always made things seem so dismal. London did that naturally, of its own accord. The foggy grey was so spectacularly akin to loneliness, which Parisa was inescapably awash in. She was so saturated in it that she was the only thing that shone.

Callum watched Parisa turn her head, gazing out over the gardens, taking in the view of the city from where they stood. She was still staring, half-unblinking, when she reached out for the railing, closing her hand around it and settling into the breeze with a shiver. She was so empty now he doubted much would ignite her. Perhaps a spark, but then nothing.

Isolation was a powerful weapon. Forced isolation more so. 

He did her the honor of watching, at least, as she climbed onto the railing. To her credit, she took little time to decide; she wasn’t one for second-guessing. He was proud of her, nearly, for being so strong that way, for taking things into her own hands. He kept his gaze on hers, reassuring. He would not be revulsed by her choice.

When she fell, Libby gasped.

Unfortunate, Callum thought internally. He’d forgotten the others were there, being focused instead on Parisa’s emotions, which were engulfing. She was so lovely, her sadness so pure. Her anguish was the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted.

“No,” sputtered Libby, half-hysterical. “No, you can’t—what—”

“Why didn’t you stop them?” Nico demanded, rounding on Dalton, who shook his head, numb.

“It hasn’t been an hour,” he said, visibly dumbfounded.

“Are you mad?” Tristan spat, seeming to fumble for words. His eyes, Callum observed, were widest, though it was difficult to tell which emotions were uniquely his. Callum could feel a variety of things from Tristan: sadness, disbelief, and then, at the tail end, distrust.

Ah, he thought with a grimace, and looked up, catching Parisa’s eye as she smiled at him.

“Time to wake up,” she said, and snapped her fingers.

In an instant, they were all back in the painted room, standing still, clothes dry.

As if they had never moved.

“I said no astral planes,” Callum said, irritated, though he had to give her credit. He hadn’t noticed anything; not one detail of the house had been amiss, and the rain had been a nice touch. 

“So I should be dead, then?” she scoffed. “And anyway, we weren’t on an astral plane. We were in someone else’s head.”

“Whose?”

“Nico’s,” Parisa said, as Nico blinked, startled. “Sorry,” she added insincerely, turning to him.

Retroactively, Callum realized why she had begun with such a simple question, electing to misdirect him while she addressed Nico within the first minute. Clever girl, he thought grimly. 

“You were rather an easy target, Varona. Guileless,” Parisa offered to Nico in explanation. “Fewest impermeable walls.”

“Thank you?” Nico said, though he was staring at her, still unconvinced that she was real.

“That’s an hour,” said Dalton, exhaling with relief as he glanced at his watch. “Though I’m not sure how to declare a winner.”

“Callum, of course,” said Parisa. “He did the most magic, didn’t he? I could hardly even fight back,” she said, turning to him.

“Did I?” he echoed, and watched her mouth twitch.

“Yes,” she said. “I may have put us somewhere you couldn’t actually harm me, but you beat me nonetheless. You broke me, didn’t you? So you’ve won.”

But he could feel the triumph radiating from her; it was sickening and putrid, rancid and rotting. She was overripe with it, devolving to decay. She was deadness taking root in fertile soil, resurrecting in the abundance of his loss.

He had genuinely broken her, that much was undeniable. Her death, even in noncorporeal form, had been real. But still, there was no question she’d let him find the pieces to break, knowing he would do it. Nothing she had revealed to him was a lie, but in taking advantage of her weakness, he’d revealed far more of himself. She, after all, understood thought: specifically, that something, once planted, could never be forgotten.

Now Callum’s mistake was obvious: he had thought to prove himself strong, but nobody wanted strength. Not like his. Strength was for machines and monsters; the others could not relate to faultlessness or perfection. Humans wanted humanity, and that meant he would have to show evidence of weakness. He could see Tristan failing to meet his eye and knew it, that Parisa had beaten him, but this was only a single round. For his next trick, he would have to let the smokescreen of what he’d been today disappear.

“Callum, then,” said Dalton, turning to the others. “Would anyone like to review what we saw?”

“No,” said Reina flatly; speaking, for once, for all the others. She turned to Parisa with something like sympathy, which Callum observed with a grimace. 

He would have to make them believe he could be weak. Perhaps only one person would be willing to believe it of him, but Parisa had already proven that to be considerable enough.

There was no stopping what one person could believe.