The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“You can see me?” asked the man, incredulous. Tristan supposed he might have been using a cloaking illusion, but was interrupted before he could ask. “Well, never mind, that’s obvious,” the man sighed, mostly to himself. He was not British; he was extremely American, in fact, albeit different from whatever sort of American that Libby happened to be.

(Tristan wondered why she had come to mind, but hastily dismissed it.)

“Obviously you can see me or you wouldn’t have said anything,” the man remarked in something of a continued amiability, “only I’ve never actually encountered another traveler before.”

“Another… traveler?” asked Tristan.

“Usually when I do it everything’s a bit frozen,” said the man. “I knew there were other kinds, of course. I just always thought I was existing on a plane that other people couldn’t see.”

“A plane of what?” asked Tristan.

The man gave him a bemused half-frown. “Well, never mind, I… suppose I’m wrong.” He cleared his throat. “In any case—”

“What are you looking at?” asked Tristan, who was academically stuck on the point at hand. “Your surroundings, I mean.” He hoped to determine whether they stood in the same place physically, or only temporally. Or perhaps neither, or both.

“Oh.” The man glanced around. “Well, my apartment. I’m just deciding whether to go inside.”

“I don’t think I’m on the plane you’re on, then. I think I can just see it.” Tristan paused, and then, because he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the encounter to end, “What are you deciding?”

“Well, I’ve just not entirely made my mind up about something I’ve got to do,” said the man. “Actually no, it’s worse. I think I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, and I just hope it’s the right thing. But it isn’t, or maybe it is. But I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he sighed, “because I’ve already started, and looking back won’t help.”

That, Tristan thought, was certainly relatable.

“I won’t keep you,” Tristan said. “I’m just… playing around a bit, I think.”

Calculations had started, albeit unhelpfully. It seemed they were both on the same plane of something—time was the only plausible explanation— but how had Tristan arrived there? Either it had happened so subtly he didn’t know how he was doing it (and therefore he might have done it before, or might do it accidentally again) or he had done something to initiate the mechanism and failed to write it down. He ought to start cataloguing his meals, his socks. Every step he took differently, just in case something he did managed to drag him to another corner of reality.

“Yes, well, play responsibly.” The man gave Tristan a lopsided grimace. “I’m Ezra, by the way.”

“Tristan,?

?? said Tristan, offering Ezra a hand to shake.

“Tristan,” echoed Ezra, brows twitching as he accepted Tristan’s grip. “But you’re not—?”

Tristan waited, but Ezra stopped, clearing his throat.

“Never mind. Best of luck, Tristan,” he said, and strode forward, gradually disappearing into the thick fog that covered the house’s lawn.

Once Ezra had disappeared, it occurred to Tristan that he had done something. What it was he hadn’t the slightest idea, but he had done it, and so he turned on his heel and marched himself into the house, launching up the stairs.

He could tell Libby. She would probably exceed him in enthusiasm, meaning that he would have the freedom to derisively say things like ‘calm down it’s nothing’ even if he did not feel them. Unfortunately she would also ask several questions, trying to unpuzzle things as she always did. She was an architect of details, constantly in the trenches of construction. She would want to see how things moved, what parts were in play, and of course Tristan would have no answers to any of it. She would look up at him, wide-eyed, and say anything else? and he would say no, that’s all he knew, sorry he even brought it up at… three.

In the morning.

Tristan sighed, stepping back from Libby’s door and shifting to face the frame beside his own instead, knocking once.

Callum arrived at the door shirtless, his hair mussed. Behind him, Tristan could see the rumpled sheets, still warm from where Callum had lain there moments before, breathing deeply in solemn slumber.

It was strange how Tristan did not know how Callum looked to the others. He wished sometimes that he could venture inside someone else’s head the way Parisa could, just to see. It was a curiosity now. He knew Callum did something to his hair, to his nose. He could see that enchantments were used there, but could not piece together their effect. Instead, Callum appeared to Tristan as he always did, with hair that wasn’t quite blond and the forehead that was noticeably high; the jaw that was so square it looked perpetually tensed. There were things available to fix, if one were in the business of fixing. Callum’s eyes were close-set and not as blue as he could make them if he tried. Possibly Callum could even afford the enchantments that made them permanent; even mortal technology could fix a person’s eyesight. Medeian charms afforded to the son of an agency of illusionists meant that even Callum might not remember the way his face looked undone.

“I see you,” came out of Tristan’s mouth before he had decided fully what to say, which was probably best, as it might have been ‘I don’t want to be alone,’ or worse, ‘I don’t know what I want,’ both of which Callum would know by looking. What a terrible thing it was to be so tragically exposed.

Callum shifted away from the door, beckoning him in with a motion.

Wordlessly, Tristan stepped inside.

NICO