The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“That,” she murmured, “isn’t really an answer.”

“Fine. Libby, I love you and I support you.” She was briefly permitted a pause for relief; and then he added, “But be careful, okay?”

“Be careful with what,” Libby scoffed, “Varona?”

Nico was laughably harmless. Good, certainly, even great if he put his mind to it, but he was hardly capable of schemes. He could get under her skin, maybe—but even then, there was no danger of anything aside from losing her temper.

“Just be careful.” Ezra leaned across the table, brushing his lips against her forehead. “I would never forgive myself if I let something happen to you,” he murmured, and she groaned. Just the usual white knight shit, then.

“I can take care of myself, Ezra.”

“I know.” He touched her cheek, smiling faintly. “But hey, what else am I here for?”

“Your body,” she assured him. “Plus you make a mean bolognese.”

He had her out of her chair in a flash, pulling her into him as she laughed in unconvincing protest.

“I’m going to miss you, Libby Rhodes,” he said, “and that’s the truth.”

So it was final, then. She was really doing this.

Libby wrapped her arms around Ezra’s neck, clinging to h

im for a moment. Maybe she wasn’t a damsel in distress, but it still felt nice to anchor herself to something before casting herself into the unknown.

III: BATTLE

CALLUM

It had not been a particularly complex matter deciding to join the Society at Atlas Blakely’s invitation. If he didn’t care for the experience, Callum reasoned, he would leave. It was how he generally lived his life: he came and went as he wished. People these decisions affected, if they were angry about his mutability, did not typically stay mad. Preternaturally or otherwise, Callum had a way of ensuring that people came around to see his position on the matter, one way or another. Once he’d made his point, they could always be compelled to act reasonably from there.

Callum had always been aware that word used for his specialty by the Hellenistic University of Magical Arts was not the right word. The manipulist subcategory of illusionist was more often applied to cases of physical specialties: people who could warp things, make them into something else. Water could be convinced to be wine, in the right hands, or at least made to look and taste like it. One of the particularities about the study and reality of magic was that it only mattered, in the end, how things looked or tasted; what they were meant to be, or what were at the start, could be easily dismissed in favor of achieving the necessary result.

But what the Society appeared to know—what Atlas Blakely seemed to know, which others typically didn’t—was that Callum’s work was more accurately defined as a vigorous type of empath. It was unsurprising, really, that he was magically misdiagnosed; empathy was a far more common magical manifestation in women, and thus, when it appeared, it was usually cultivated in a highly delicate, maternal sort of way. There were a number of female medeians who were able to tap into the emotions of others; more often than not, they became marvelous humanitarians, lauded for the contributions to therapy and healing. It was a very feminine thing, to be both magical and saintly. Philanthropy could be worn like jewelry or cosmetics, glittering from the effervescence of their pores.

When the same skill set could be found in men, it was usually too diluted to be classified as magical; more often it was considered an isolated personality trait. In the case of persuasion, a trait with the potential to achieve medeian-level ability—labeled, perhaps, ‘charisma’ by the non-magical—it would often be put aside in favor of the usual method of going about things: attendance at some famous mortal university, like Oxford or Harvard for example, and then a prosperous mortal career from there. Occasionally these men went on to become CEOs, lawyers, or politicians. Sometimes they became tyrants, megalomaniacs, or dictators—in which case it was probably best their talents went unrealized. Magic, like most other forms of physical exertion, required proper training to wield properly or for any extended period of time; had any of those men ever realized their natural qualities were something they could refine, the world would have been far worse off than it was already.

Naturally there is an exception to every rule, which in this case was Callum. He was saved from any sort of global misbehavior (or rather, the world was saved) by his lack of ambition, which, paired with his love of finer things, meant that he never aspired to world domination, nor to anything even close. Always dangerous, the pairing of hunger with any skill of manipulation; it is an essential law of human behavior that when given the tools to do so, those born at the bottom will always try to claw their way to the top. Those born at the top, i.e., Callum, were usually less inclined to upend things as they were. When the setting was already gilded and ornate, what would be the point of changing them?

Thus, nothing had driven Callum to accept Atlas Blake’s offer, but nothing had repelled him, either. He might go through with initiation, he might not; the Society might impress him enough to stay, or it might not. It went without saying, at least, that the building housing the Alexandrian Society was not especially impressive on its own. Callum came from money, which meant he had already seen wealth in a number of its natural forms: royal, aristocratic, capitalist, corrupt… The list went on into perpetuity. This form, the Alexandrian variety, was technically academic, though academic wealth was almost always one of the aforementioned forms, if not some combination of all of them.

There was a reason knowledge was reserved for the elite. A self-perpetuating cycle, really, though Callum could not be compelled to criticize it much. After all, he had done nothing but benefit from the inherent classism of higher education. As with most things from which Callum had profited, he questioned very little.

The same could not be said for the others, who had all returned (unsurprisingly) to accept the invitation. The American, Libby Rhodes, was most memorable by how often and irritatingly she spoke, and naturally she had been the first to ask a stupid question.

“We are in Alexandria, aren’t we?” she asked, her brow furrowing beneath a rather unalluring fringe. If it were up to Callum, he’d have given her a different haircut entirely; something tied up or pulled back, preferably so she’d leave the tips of her hair alone. “I can’t say anything looks particularly Alexandrian.”

It certainly did not. The interior of wherever they were—distinct from wherever had housed yesterday’s meeting, though presumably some equally untraceable location—looked very much like the inside of a London mansion, surrounded by what was surely an English garden as well. Despite the Novas’ residency in Cape Town, Callum’s family had been invited more than once to pay a visit to the British Royal Family (the Novas had once been close with the Greek royals, hence Callum’s very comfortable study at the Hellenistic University in Athens) and he considered the Society’s decor to be very similar. Portraits of aristocracy lined the walls alongside a variety of Victorian busts, and while the architecture itself was certainly Greco-Roman influenced, it bore obvious markers of the Romantics, leaning more eighteenth century Neo than genuinely Classical.

Overall, the idea they might have been anywhere other than England was extremely unlikely.

“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in saying we are actually in London,” confirmed Dalton Ellery, the stiff-looking aide to Atlas Blakely whose energy was immediately guessable; fear, or possibly intimidation. Callum presumed Dalton to harbor a bit of intellectual inferiority, which was the only thing to possibly explain the man’s ongoing devotion to academics. If the perks of Society membership were wealth and prestige, why stay here and fail to take advantage?

But, seeing as Callum didn’t care, he didn’t wonder about it for long.

Instead, he watched Tristan and Parisa, the only two interesting people, who exchanged a rather secretive glance between themselves while Libby, the fringed girl whose anxieties were so prickly and unceasing they nearly set Callum’s teeth on edge, frowned with confusion.

“But if this is actually the Library of Alexandria, then how—”