Callum cleared his throat.
“Do you make a habit of psychologically profiling everyone you meet?” he asked neutrally, and Atlas didn’t answer. “Though,” Callum mused, “I suppose people less inclined to notice when they’re being influenced are unlikely to call you on it, aren’t they?”
“I suppose in some ways we are opposites, Mr. Nova,” Atlas said. “I know what people want to hear. You make them want to hear what you know.”
“Suppose I’m just naturally interesting?” Callum suggested blithely, and Atlas made a low, laughing sound of concession.
“You know, for someone who knows his own value so distinctly, perhaps you forget that beneath your natural talent lies someone very, very uninspired,” Atlas said, and Callum blinked, caught off guard. “Which is not to say there’s a vacancy, but—”
“A vacancy?” Callum echoed, bristling. “What is this, negging?”
“Not a vacancy,” Atlas repeated, “but certainly something unfinished.” He rose to his feet. “Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Nova,” he said, “as I imagine you could have done a great number of things during the period we spoke. How long would it have taken you to start a war, do you think? Or to end one?” He paused, and Callum said nothing. “Five minutes? Perhaps ten? How long would it have taken you to kill someone? To save a life? I admire what you have not done,” Atlas acknowledged, tilting his head with something of a beckoning glance, “but I do have to question why you haven’t done it.”
“Because I’d drive myself mad interfering with the world,” said Callum impatiently. “It requires a certain level of restraint to be what I am.”
“Restraint,” Atlas said, “or perhaps a lack of imagination.”
Callum was far too secure to gape, so he didn’t.
Instead, Callum said: “This had better be worth my time.”
He did not say: Four minutes, thirty-nine seconds. That’s how long it would take.
He had the feeling Atlas Blakely, Caretaker, was baiting him, and he also had the distinct feeling he shouldn’t bother trying not to be caught.
“I could say the same for you,” Atlas said, and tipped his hat politely in farewell.
PARISA
One Hour Ago
She’d been sitting in the bar in her favorite black dress, sipping a martini. She always came to do this alone. For a time she’d been in the habit of having girlfriends around, but ultimately determined they were too noisy. Disruptive. Often jealous, too, which Parisa couldn’t abide. She’d had one or two female friends at school in Paris and had once been close to her siblings in Tehran, but since then she’d determined she was better as a singular object. That made sense to her, ultimately. People who lined up to see the Mona Lisa typically couldn’t name the paintings hanging nearby, and there was nothing wrong with that.
There were quite a lot of words for what Parisa was, which was something she supposed most people would not approve. Perhaps it went without saying that Parisa didn’t put a lot of stock in approval. She was talented and smart, but above that—at least according to everyone who’d ever looked at her—she was beautiful, and being gifted approval for something that had been handed to her by some fortuitous arrangement of DNA instead of earned by her own two hands wasn’t something she felt necessary to either idolize or condemn. She didn’t rail against her looks; didn’t give thanks for them, either. She simply used them like any other tool, like a hammer or a shovel or whatever else was necessary to complete the requisite task. Besides, disapproval was nothing worth thinking about. The same women who might have disapproved were quick to fawn over her diamonds, her shoes, her breasts—all of which were natural, never synthetic, not even illusioned. Whatever they wanted to call Parisa, at least she was authentic. She was real, even if she made a living on false promises.
Really, there was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.
Parisa watched the older men in the corner, the ones in the expensive suits, who were having a business meeting. She’d listened for a few minutes to the subject of conversation—after all, not everything was sex; sometimes insider trading was the easier option, and she was smart enough to serve multiple threats—but ultimately lost interest, as the business concept was fundamentally unsound. The men themselves, however, remained intriguing. One of them was toying with his wedding ring and fussing internally about his wife. Boring. One of the others was clearly harboring some sort of unresolved sexual angst about the boring fussy one, which was more interesting, albeit unhelpful for her purposes. The last one was handsome, probably rich, a tan where his wedding ring should have been. Parisa shifted in her chair, crossing one leg delicately over the other.
The man looked up, catching a glimpse of her thigh.
Well. He was certainly willing. That much was clear.
She looked elsewhere, not sure the man would be ending his business meeting anytime soon. In the meantime, she’d occupy her thoughts with someone else’s. Maybe the wealthy woman in the back corner who looked likely to cry any minute. No, too depressing. There was always the bartender, who certainly knew how to use his hands. He’d pictured them on her already, traveling over a fairly accurate mental illustration of her hips, only she wouldn’t get anything out of that. An orgasm, surely, but what good was that? An orgasm she could have on her own without becoming the girl who fucks bartenders. If anyone was going to be involved in Parisa’s life, they were going to bring money, power, or magic. Nothing else would do.
She angled herself towards the dark-skinned man at the end of the bar, contemplating the silence that came from his head. She hadn’t seen him come in, which was unusual. A medeian, then, or at least a witch. That was interesting. She watched him toy with a slim card, tapping it against the bar, and frowned at the words. Atlas Blakely, Caretaker. Caretaker of what?
The problem with being a smart girl was being naturally curious. Parisa turned away from the business meeting, aiming herself instead towards Atlas Blakely and fiddling with their respective positions in the room, turning the volume up.
She focused in on his mind and saw… six people. No, five. Five people, without faces. Extraordinary magic. Ah, yes, he was definitely a medeian, and so were they, it seemed. He felt a kinship with one of the five. One of them was a prize; something the man, Atlas, had recently won. He felt a bit smug over it. Two of them were a set, they came together. They didn’t like being shoved in like twins in a too-small womb but too bad, that’s what they were. One was a vacancy, a question, the edge of a narrow cliff. Another was… the answer, like an echo, though she couldn’t quite see why. She tried to see their faces clearly but couldn’t; they warped in and out of view, beckoning her closer.
Parisa peered around, pacing a little inside his thoughts. They seemed curated, a bit like a museum, as if they’d been intended for her to view in a particular order. A long process of selection, then a mirror. Five frames with hazy portraits, and then a mirror. Parisa looked at her own face and felt a jolt, startled.
At the end of the bar, the man rose to his feet, placing the card in front of her, and without him detailing anything aloud, she already knew why he’d given it to her. She’d spent long enough in his mind to understand it, and she realized now that he’d willingly let her in. In one hour, his thoughts said, the card would take her somewhere. Somewhere important. It was obviously the most important place in the world to this man, whoever he was. That bit Parisa suspected was her interpretation, as it was slightly fuzzier. She knew instinctively that whatever it was, it would be more worthwhile than the man having the business meeting. That man had recently repaired st
itching in his suit. It had been refitted; it wasn’t new. A man wore a new suit to a business meeting like this if he could afford it, and that man couldn’t.
Parisa sighed in resignation, picking up the card from the bar.