The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“Me?”

“Callum is influencing you,” said Parisa. “I don’t know if he’s doing it magically or otherwise, but he wants something from you. He’s willing to blind you to accomplish it.”

“I’m not a damsel, Parisa. I don’t need rescuing.”

That, much to the dismay of his vanity, only served to amuse her. “Actually, I think you’re precisely a damsel, Tristan.” She reached out, touching his cheek. “I know you don’t trust Callum,” she said, murmuring it. “I think that’s precisely what he’s using against you. He’s presenting you with his reality, thinking his candor will appeal to you, but you’re not listening, are you, Tristan? You’re not listening to what he really is, even when he says it to your face.”

Tristan stiffened. “If I don’t trust him, then what does it matter?”

“Because even if you don’t trust him, you believe him. He is influencing your perception by confirming everything you already believe to be true. He’s planting things in you, and I worry.”

Her thumb stroked his jaw, floating over his lips. “I worry,” she said again, quieter.

Tristan’s immediate reflex was to mistrust Parisa’s softness.

“What did he do?” he asked her. “What could have possibly upset you so much?”

“It didn’t upset me. It unsettled me.” She pulled away. “And if you really must know, he convinced the illusionist to kill herself.”

Tristan frowned. “So?”

“So, don’t you see? His weapon is us. Our beliefs, our weaknesses, he can turn them against us.” From the faint light through the window, Tristan could see the tightening of her mouth. “He finds the monsters we keep locked away and sets them loose, so why would I ever want him to see mine?”

“Fine,” Tristan permitted evasively, “but couldn’t you do the same? You can read minds. Should we regard you with the same suspicion?”

Parisa rose agitatedly to her feet.

“There is a difference between what we are capable of and how we choose to use it,” she snapped.

“Maybe so, but if you want me to trust you, you’ll have to give me a reason,” Tristan pointed out. “Otherwise, how are you any different from Callum?”

She gave him a glare so sharp he could feel it, cutting himself on its edge.

“Callum,” she said, “doesn’t need you, Tristan. He wants you. You should ask yourself why that is.”

Then she slipped out of his room and did not speak to him again for four days.

Not that it bothered him too immensely. The silence of temperamental women was a very common feature in his life, and anyway, he did not know what to make of her… warning? Threat? Unclear what she wanted, though he was privately pleased she hadn’t gotten it. He hated giving people what they wanted, especially if it was unintentionally done.

He was also extremely distracted. They were covering the many theories about time, beginning with attempts at time travel by witches in the Middle Ages; a conversation which also included, for some reason, the prominent European attempts at extending the mortal lifetime. In Tristan’s mind, the concept of time should have been covered in the physical magics, not historical or alchemical failures. Perhaps it was just an excuse to give them more access to another magical period in history.

He was beginning to steal away privately more and more, pursuing his own research in the ancient texts they’d been reading about the construction of the universe before doubling back to the mysteries he felt unsolved. Why hadn’t their wormhole successfully traveled through time? Did it really require more magic to influence time, or had they simply not gone about it correctly? He tried to draw it once, scribbling it in his notes while Dalton droned on about Magellan and the Fountain of Youth, but nothing came of it.

Nothing, that is, until Libby sought him out.

It wasn’t clear at first that she’d been intentionally looking for him. He had assumed she merely stumbled on him in the painted room after dinner and would therefore hastily leave. It became apparent, however, that the stumbling was really just another side effect of her natural presence, and so he glanced up expectantly.

“I had a thought,” she said.

He waited.

“Well, Varona and I both had a thought. I mean, I thought of it,” Libby clarified hurriedly, “but I needed him to test it, and, well, I don’t know if you’re willing to hear it, but I noticed your drawing the other day and—not that I was prying, I just… oh god, sorry,” she said, mangling what might have been a blissful end to that sentence. “I didn’t mean t- Well, the thing is—”

“Spit it out, Rhodes,” said Tristan. He had just been on the verge of something, maybe. (Probably not, his brain reminded him. Wishful thinking.) “I haven’t got all day.”

“Right, well, alright.” Her cheeks burned furiously, but she came closer. “Can you… try something with me?”

He gave her a look intended to express that he would consider it, if—and only if—it meant she would get to it and leave him alone.