The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

He almost didn’t hear her over the sound of his blood rushing, but it had been enough to make Callum blink. Enough for him to glance down at the knife in his hand and toss it away after looking at Tristan with visible disgust.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” he said, but Tristan’s adrenaline said otherwise. The knowledge of Callum’s face unmasked said otherwise. The reality of their circumstances said, quite firmly, otherwise. Tristan’s muscles ached, his entire body slow to reconvene its usual rituals of survival.

How would Caesar have made Brutus pay if he had lived?

“I’m sorry.” The words left Tristan’s mouth numbly, unevenly.

“Apology accepted,” said Callum

, his voice cool and unaltered. “Forgiveness, however, declined.”

The red light in the corner flashed, attracting both their attention.

“No one could have gotten through the vacuum,” said Callum. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it?” Tristan’s breath had yet to slow. “That’s not what it sounds like.”

“No.” Callum’s brow furrowed slightly. “No,” he agreed, “it doesn’t sound like that.”

He rose to his feet, exiting the dining room, and Tristan glanced at the discarded knife before shuddering, stumbling upright in Callum’s wake.

Callum’s stride was long and surprisingly urgent as Tristan followed him up the stairs.

“What is it?”

“Someone’s here,” said Callum without pausing. “Someone’s in the house.”

“No shit,” came Parisa’s voice around the corner. She was hurrying after them from somewhere else in the house, lovely and disorderly and wearing a man’s shirt over bare legs.

Tristan arched a brow in response to her appearance, and she gave him a silencing glare.

“I don’t understand how it happened,” she said. “The house’s sentience usually alerts me when someone tries to enter. I see he’s still alive.”

It took Tristan a moment to register that the last line had been said in his thoughts.

“Obviously,” he mumbled, and Callum’s eyes slid to his. Tristan didn’t have to look to know that Callum had understood perfectly well what Parisa had asked him, even without words. Even without magic, Callum knew.

He knew they had agreed on him to die, and now none of them would ever be forgiven.

They rounded the gallery corner to the rooms. Nico was forcing open the door to Libby’s bedroom, Reina at his heels.

“Did you—”

“No,” Reina answered Parisa blandly. “I heard nothing.”

“Who could have—”

There was a blast of something inconceivable from Nico’s palm as Tristan thought for the thousandth time, my god—marveling at the power they had, Libby and Nico; individually and apart.

Imagine having something so wild in your bloodstream. Imagine feeling something, anything, and seeing it manifest without the blink of an eye. Even at Tristan’s angriest he was nothing, only of any use to anyone when he was thinking clearly, seeing sense. No bombs exploded at the whims of his frustration, which made him ordinary. It made him normal; something he had tried his whole life not to be.

It was Nico who entered the room first, letting out a sound like a wounded dog in answer to the fading sound of Libby’s scream. The bitterness on Tristan’s tongue at the sound, however mystifying and incongruous it was to feel, was envy, because of course. Of course one pseudo-twin would suffer the other’s pain, the two of them in orbit to something Tristan would never grasp or understand. It was the same reaction as always: brittle unsurprise.

But what startled him properly were the others.

The sound from Parisa’s tongue had to be Farsi, though it was the first time Tristan had ever heard her use it. It morphed rapidly into French, but by the time her color had fully drained, she had fallen silent again. Reina, too, was speechless and pale, though she was often speechless. More alarmingly, it was the first time Tristan had ever observed her forcing her gaze away from something rather than boring holes in it, unrelenting.

Callum stared loudly. His expression was vocal, even if his mouth was not. He was saying things like how could this be happening and also, somehow, I told you. It was as if the hard look in his eyes was saying something to all of them that the rest of him could not: See? I was never your enemy after all.