“Miss Rhodes,” said Atlas pleasantly, “what a surprise.”
She paused in the doorway, frowning.
“It’s not actually a surprise, though,” she determined aloud, “is it?”
Atlas glanced up, half-smiling. “What gave it away?”
A lack of disturbance, mostly. There was no magic to that, aside from observation.
“Just a hunch,” she said, and Atlas beckoned for her to take a seat.
“How did you know I was here?”
Surveillance wards. “I heard Dalton mention it.”
“Mm,” said Atlas. “I take it you have further questions about initiation?”
If you could call them questions.
“Yes,” said Libby, “several.”
So many, in fact, that she hardly knew where to start.
Libby had been doing a variety of things over the past couple of days. Research, as always. Following her visit from the Forum, she had been looking primarily for anything to do with Kitty, to no particular results. All the library would give her—or, in any case, all the library was programmed by someone else to give her—were subjects pertinent to their task at hand: degenerative curses, longevity and its opposites. The decay that was a process of natural entropy was currently off limits unless it had something to do with the study of intentional corruption.
Libby had just begun to wonder who was actually keeping them from the contents of the library when Nico had pulled her aside for another conversation entirely, looking unusually distressed.
“I have to tell you something,” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Apropos of nothing? I assume not.” Libby had never liked anything Nico had to say to her uninvited and certainly wasn’t expecting to start now. She opened her mouth to tell him she had other things on her mind, but hastily he stopped her.
“Just… try not to Rhodes this,” he said. “Okay?”
“Once again, my name is not a verb, Varona.”
“Whatever.” He rubbed his temple. “Look, definitely don’t tell Fowler—”
“I don’t tell Ezra anything,” she snapped, preemptively irritated. “Certainly not anymore.”
Nico blinked. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Nothing she wanted to say to him, anyway. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine, just—” Nico exhaled, dropping his voice. “I think,” he murmured, “when they say we have to eliminate someone, they mean it… literally.”
That wasn’t what Libby had been expecting at all. “What?”
“The sixth person, the person who doesn’t get initiated. I think they get—” An agitated pause.
“Get what?”
“Jesus.” Nico tousled his hair with one hand. “Killed.”
“No,” said Libby. “That’s ridiculous. That’s impossible.”
“I mean, I’m sure it is,” said Nico reflexively. “But also, is it?”
“That’s nonsensical.”
She glared at him, frowning. “Who told you that?”
“Parisa, but—”
That was slightly more troubling, given the mind-reading. “Then she must have misinterpreted or something. Or maybe she’s lying.”
Nico was surprisingly hesitant. “I don’t think so, Rhodes.”
“Well, it’s outrageous,” said Libby caustically. “There’s no way we’re part of… of some kind of…” She fumbled, flustered. “Some sort of murder competition—”
“Maybe we’re not,” Nico agreed. “Maybe it’s a trick or something. Or maybe it’s the whole intent thing Dalton was going on about,” he said, waving a hand in reference to the lesson he had probably only half-listened to. “Maybe we just have to be willing to do it in order for it to work, but—”
“What do you mean ‘work’?”
“Well, Parisa says—”
“Parisa doesn’t know shit,” said Libby staunchly.
“Okay, great, maybe not, but that’s the information I have, so that’s what I’m giving you. Christ,” Nico suddenly swore loudly, “you’re fucking impossible.”
“Me?” She glared at him. “Who else knows, then?”
He winced. “Everyone, I think.”
“Everyone ‘you think’?”
“I—” He faltered. “Fine, I know.”
“Seriously. Everyone?”
“Yes, Rhodes, everyone.”
“That’s impossible.”
She was aware she was repeating herself, but it seemed unlikely she could bring herself to respond another way.
“Has anyone bothered to ask Atlas?” she demanded, suddenly infuriated. “Is any of this even remotely confirmed?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“You don’t know?”
“Elizabeth, would you listen to me?”
“Of course not, this is absurd.”
“Fine,” said Nico, throwing his hands up. “For what it’s worth, I hate it too, but—”
“But what?” Libby demanded. “What could possibly be the but, Varona? What about this would you kill for?”
“Jesus, Rhodes, which part of this wouldn’t you kill for?”
He had shouted it at her, his mouth snapping shut with alarm. She blinked, taken aback.
“I only meant,” Nico began hastily, and then shook his head, grimacing. “No, never mind. Talk to me when you’re ready, when you’ve processed. I can’t explain this right now.”
“Varona,” Libby growled, but he was already walking away, shaking her off like a chill.
So Libby had checked the surveillance wards to discover that Atlas Blakely, who had offered them a position beyond their wildest imaginations without ever mentioning the cost, was alone in the reading room.
“You must have known there would be something,” Atlas said, jarring her from her momentary stumble.
She didn’t bother asking how he knew what she was thinking about. “So it’s true?”
“It’s not as gruesome as it sounds,” said Atlas placidly. “But yes, one of you will have to die.”
Part of her was convinced she was imagining this. Was it a dream? Surely not, and yet not a thread of her had ever believed, even for a moment, that Atlas would ever confirm Nico’s suspicions as truth.
“But—”
“Sometimes it is a conspiracy,” Atlas admitted, mercifully keeping her from spluttering any further. “On occasion it bears some resemblance to the Ides of March. But often it is a sacrifice, and therefore beholden to great sorrow.”
“But,” Libby attempted again, and hesitated, finding herself unable to begin. “But how—”
“How can we ask it of you? Not easily,” said Atlas. “It is, I’m afraid, an ancient practice. As old as the Library itself. With each generation of initiates we learn more, we expand the breadth and use of our knowledge, but the primary principle of magic remains unfailingly true: It always comes at a cost.”
“But we were not informed,” Libby said flatly, and Atlas nodded.
“No one ever is, Miss Rhodes.”
“Would you have told us?”
“Yes, of course, eventually. Secrets are difficult to keep, and the Forum often interferes.”
Libby gritted her teeth. “How do they know about it?”
“The Society is ancient, Miss Rhodes, and therefore so are its enemies. Humans are fallible creatures. Better the Forum’s interference than the Wessex Corporation, at least. Capitalism has a terrible tendency to abandon its principles altogether.”
“And somehow your principles remain?”
“If there were another way,” Atlas said simply, “we would use it.”
Libby fidgeted a moment, both wanting and not wanting to ask.
“You want to know how,” Atlas guessed, and she glanced up, resentful of his sympathy. “It’s a reasonable question, Miss Rhodes. You may ask it.”
“Is it—?” She broke off. “Is it… some sort of full moon sacrifice, some customary ritual? Each year on the solstice or the equinox or something?”
“No, nothing like that. It is a sacrifice, the sliver of a whole.”
“That’s it?”
“It?” he echoed, and she blinked. “There is no small matter of it, Miss Rhodes. You are all bound to each other by your experience here, whether you like it or not,” Atlas informed her, suddenly more adamant than she had ever heard him. “There is nothing forgettable or small about the way you have all embedded yourselves in each other. Without exception, you become more deeply inextricable from each other with every passing day. The purpose of the elimination is not to rid yourself of something you can lose, but rather to remove something which makes you what you are.”
“So we just have to kill someone,” Libby summarized bitterly. “That’s it? No particular method, no ceremony, no specific day?”
Atlas shook his head.
“And every few years you simply stand there and watch someone die?”
“Yes,” said Atlas.
“But—”
“Consider, Miss Rhodes, the scope of power,” Atlas cut in gently. “Which specialties benefit the world, and which do not. This is not always a matter of personal allegiances.”
“Why would an unbeneficial specialty be chosen to begin with?” Libby demanded. “Didn’t you say yourself that each initiate is the best the world has to offer?”
“Of course. However, each initiation cycle, there is one member who will not return, and the Society is cognizant of this,” Atlas said. “This must always be a factor in discussion among the board’s members when nominating which candidates to submit for consideration.”
“Are you saying someone is… intentionally chosen for death?”
The idea itself was astounding. Libby could hear her blood rushing in opposition, a deafening tide of disbelief.
“Of course not.” Atlas smiled. “Just something to think about.”
They sat there in a long, unwavering silence until Libby rose clumsily to her feet. She stopped, halfway to the door, and pivoted around.
“The archives,” she said, belatedly remembering her sister once again. “Who controls what we can see?”
Atlas glanced up, fixing her with a long moment of scrutiny. “The library itself.”
“Why should I believe that?” she asked, and then, frustration igniting, she pushed him more vehemently. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
His expression didn’t change. “I do not control the archives, Miss Rhodes, if that is your question. There are numerous subjects denied to me as well.”
“But this is your Society!”
“No,” Atlas corrected. “I am one of this Society’s Caretakers. I do not own it, I do not control it.”
“Then who does?” she demanded.
He gave her a small, impassive shrug.
“Does the arrow aim itself?” he asked.
Libby, rather than answer, turned frustratedly on her heel, launching herself toward the stairs and making her way back to her room.
On the landing of the gallery she collided with someone who’d been turning the corner simultaneously, the two of them barreling into one another. Had she been more able to focus on anything outside her thoughts, she might have heard him coming. As it was, though—
Tristan steadied her, hands around her shoulders.
“Have you seen Parisa?” he asked her, and because Libby was distraught—because she was fucking human—she glared up at him.
“Fuck you,” she said venomously.
Tristan blinked, taken aback. “What?”
“You knew.” Ah, so that was why. In a fit of delayed recognition, Libby suddenly understood the force of her resentment. “You knew this whole time, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me.”
“Knew—” He stopped, contemplating her face. “You mean—?”
“Yes. The death. The fucking murder.”
He flinched, and for a moment, she hated him. She loathed him.
“I can’t—” She broke off, agonized or anguished, unable to tell the difference and unwilling to locate the divide. “I can’t, I won’t—”
“Rhodes.” Tristan’s hands were still tight around her shoulders. “I should have told you, I know. I know you’re angry—”
“Angry?” She wasn’t not, though that hardly seemed the proper word for it. She was feeling something that festered, true, and it could easily have been rage. She had learned long ago to control her magical impulses, restraining them, but at the moment she could feel it spark, smelling smoke.
“Believe me, Tristan, angry,” she seethed, “doesn’t even begin to describe it—”
“None of us actually knows how much this Society controls,” Tristan reminded her, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “Do you really think anyone can walk away from this? Believe me, I know recruitment, I know the difference between institutions and cults, and there is no innocence to this one. You do not get to walk away.”
He may have quieted, but she refused. “Then why? Why do it?”
“You know why.” His mouth tightened.
“No.” The thought sickened her. “Tell me why anyone would do this, tell me why—”
“Rhodes—”
“No. No.” She wasn’t entirely sure what had inflamed her so maniacally, but she beat a fist against his chest, letting her delirium take over. “No, you’re one of them, aren’t you?” Her lips felt cold, impassive, the words tumbling out like debris, retching from her unfeeling mouth. “It means nothing to you, because of course it doesn’t. Sex is nothing to you, this is all a game—Everything is just a game!—so what’s murder? What is a life, compared to all of this? This Society is just a poison,” she spat, her fury so rapidly spent her head fell heavily against Tristan’s chest, fearful and exhausted.
“They dose us,” she muttered, “a little at a time with it, a little more each round, until we can’t feel anything anymore—until we’re blind and deaf and numb to everything—”
Tristan took her hand and tugged her around the corner, pulling her wordlessly into his room. She nearly flung herself inside, swaying unbalanced beside the hearth, and he sealed the door shut behind them, staring at the handle.
“What’s really going on, Rhodes?”
She shut her eyes.
Ask yourself where power comes from, Ezra said in her head. If you can’t see the source, don’t trust it—
Don’t tell me who to trust!
“Rhodes.”
Tristan came no closer, and she couldn’t decide whether she wanted him to.
“Why would we have done this?” Her voice sounded thin, girlish. “Why?”
“Because, Rhodes. Because look around you.”
“At who? At what?”
He didn’t answer. Bitterly, she conceded that he didn’t need to.
She had more power now than she had ever possessed. It wasn’t a matter of what she was born with or what she was given; being here, among them, with access to the library’s materials, she had every opportunity to travel miles beyond herself. She could feel the outer edges of her power more distantly than ever, further than the tips of her fingers or the soles of her shoes. She could feel herself in waves, pulsing. She could feel herself expanding, and there was no end to it, no beginning. Who she had been once was as distant and unrecognizable as what she would, inevitably, become.
“Whose side are you on, Tristan?” Libby choked from the depths of her remorse. She was dismayed with herself for even asking, but it was making her nauseated, flooding her with bile. The not knowing was making her physically unstable, and she shivered, suddenly sick with it.
“I don’t know.” Tristan’s voice, by contrast, was mechanical and measured. “Yours, maybe. I don’t know.” He gave a little off-color laugh, sounding precisely as unhinged as she felt. “Did you know Callum’s been influencing me? I don’t know how much, or how strongly, or how lingering its effects have been, but he has. Did you know that?”
Yes. It was obvious. “No.”
“I thought I had control of myself but I don’t.” He turned to look at her. “Do you?”
No. Even now she didn’t.
Tristan’s lips parted and she swallowed.
Especially not now.
“I’m not being influenced by Callum, if that’s the question,” she managed to snap at him, incensed by the desperation of her longing. It wasn’t what he’d asked, but selfishly she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth, not even a sliver of it. There were only so many pieces of herself she was willing to lose.
Tristan faced away from her again, turning his back.
Libby wanted to sob, or to vomit.
Fine. “I want it.” Her voice was small when she confessed it to his spine. “This life, this power, Tristan, I want it. I want it so badly it hurts me. I’m in such terrible, disgusting pain.”
He brought one hand up, leaning his forearm against the door and sagging against it.
“When Atlas was telling me about it,” she continued slowly, “it almost made sense: Of course there is a cost. Of course we all have to pay a price. And maybe there is one person I could stand to lose.”
She inhaled deeply; exhaled.
“And for a moment, I thought… maybe I could kill him. Maybe I could do it. Maybe he shouldn’t even exist; maybe the world would be better without him. But my god,” she gasped, “who am I to decide that?”
Silence.
“Who am I to place value on someone else’s life, Tristan? This isn’t self-defense, this is greed! This is… it’s wrong, and—”
Before she could continue, dissolving into a puddle of her own incoherent babbling, Tristan had turned away from the door, pivoting to face her.
“Do you worry much about your soul, Rhodes?”
In another world he might have touched her.
In another world, she would have welcomed it.
“Always.” All it would take was a step. “Constantly.” His hands could be on her jeans, stroking a line down her navel, tucking her hair behind one ear. She recalled the sting of his sigh on her skin, the tremors of his wanting. “It terrifies me how easily I can watch it corrupt.”
Whatever was in motion—whether Parisa had started it willfully or if it had always been Libby, if she had manifested this somehow after viewing herself in projections, in visions, in daydreams disguised as phantoms—it was already too late to stop. Still they hung in idle paralysis, precariously balanced.
One more step could break it. She could have him, this, all of it, in one fatal swoop. Whatever corruption of herself she might become next, it was all within arm’s reach. It pulsed in her head, throbbed in her chest, static and blistering,
this
could
all
be
“I should go,” said Libby, exhaling.
—mine.
Tristan didn’t move until after she was gone.
