The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“Likewise,” Nico agreed, struggling to his feet. Libby, true to form, did not attempt to help him, instead merely watching with amusement as he dragged himself upright from the foot of the chair.

Instantly, Nico suffered the swift retribution of a muscle contraction in his thigh, a stab of pain that reverberated through his leg while he struggled unsuccessfully to remain aloft, stifling a whimper.

“Charlie horse?” Libby guessed tonelessly.

“Shut up,” Nico gritted through his teeth, eyes supremely watering.

“Don’t be such a baby.”

She waved a hand and the ground slid out from beneath him, sending him sprawling forward with an unsteady lurch. The heels of his hands hit the sheets of his bed, the room tilting to deposit him fully within the walls of his bedroom until he collapsed there in a fit of throbbing limbs, not bothering to protest.

“Thanks,” Nico managed to slur into his mass of pillows, tumbling headfirst into bed without any effort to fully undress. His shirt, he realized with faint but fading awareness, remained resolutely elsewhere, probably still soaked with sweat, and worse, he still hadn’t drunk any—

Nico blinked as a glass of water surfaced pointedly atop his nightstand.

“Fucking Rhodes,” he muttered to himself.

“I heard that,” came Libby’s reply outside his door.

But by then Nico was already well on his way to sleep, dreamlessly out like a light.

PARISA

So it was not a game, then. That, or it was a highly sadistic one.

It was only in retrospect that Parisa realized Atlas and Dalton had never specified that one of the six would be sent home; only that one of the six would be eliminated in a decision made by the others. Five would choose one to go, but the conditions of their departure had never been made clear. She had thought, initially, that it was a rather arbitrary—albeit civilized—method of ensuring that only the best and most dedicated moved on.

Now, though, everything made a twisted sort of sense. Why would the world’s most exclusive society of academics ever permit one of its potential members to leave? It would be a security risk at best; even if the eliminated medeian parted amicably from the others—already a significant if—people were reliable only for being careless with information.

Only the dead kept secrets. The moment she realized it—tripping over it in Dalton’s mind—everything else fell into place.

“One of us has to die,” Parisa had said aloud, testing it out to see how it would feel against the backdrop of reality. That Dalton was still inside her at the time was a secondary concern, until he went rigid.

“What?”

“That’s why you don’t want me to los

e. You don’t want me to be the one who dies.” She pulled away to look at him. “A bit drastic, don’t you think?”

He looked neither relieved nor undone by her knowing. At best, he was resigned to it, and though he tried to pull away, she locked him in place, still processing.

“You killed someone, then.” She registered it with a blink. “Is that what you keep locked away? Your guilt?”

“You used me,” he observed tangentially, confirming his suspicions for himself.

Which was quite obviously sufficient for a yes.

“But what possible reason could there be for killing an initiate?” Parisa pressed him, uninterested for the moment in the task of soothing his ego. As if a woman could not enjoy sex and read minds at the same time! They had not even disentangled and already, Dalton was looking for ways to make her the villain of his femme fatale narrative, which was hardly something she had time or patience for. “Ridding the world of a medeian, and for what?”

Dalton drew back, fumbling with his trousers. “You’re not supposed to know about this,” he muttered. “I should have been more careful.”

Liar. He’d clearly wanted her to know it. “Perhaps we shouldn’t dwell on things we’re not supposed to know,” Parisa remarked, and Dalton slid a glance at her, the taste of her so idly sweet on his tongue that even she could see him curl his thoughts around it. “Are you going to tell me why,” she pressed him, “or should I just run off and tell the others how this is all an elaborate fight to the death?”

“That’s not what it is,” Dalton said mechanically. That was the company line, it seemed. She wondered if he were capable of delivering any other explanation, contractually or otherwise.

“Magic comes only at a price, Parisa. You know that. Some subjects require sacrifice. Blood. Pain. The only way to create such magic is to destroy it.”

His thoughts were cloudier than that; less finite. “That’s not why,” Parisa observed.