Tristan said nothing.
“Her book predicts she’ll never come into the full scope of her power. Odds of 1/1, actually. Frustrating thought, isn’t it? She nearly wasn’t chosen for the Society because they couldn’t agree on whether she would, but in the end Atlas Blakely convinced them.”
He felt Tristan shift.
“Blakely hates me, of course. Wants me dead. Wiped out like the plague. Loves you,” he added, shifting to look at Tristan. “If I were you, I’d start wondering why.”
“What did it say—” Tristan swallowed. He could speak normally by then, but probably didn’t want to. “What did it say about—”
“This? The elimination?”
No answer.
“I know we’ve only been left alone this long because they are waiting for you to do it,” Callum said. “I know you chose the dining room because, not long ago, you slid a knife into your pocket. I even know,” he added, glancing down to where Tristan’s hand had disappeared from sight, “that your fingers have wrapped themselves around the handle of that knife right now, and that the distance from there to my ribs is premeditated, carefully measured.”
Tristan stiffened. The hand around the knife was strained, though it had paused.
“I also know it’s insurmountable,” Callum said.
Silence.
“Put the knife down,” Callum told him. “You won’t kill me. It was a good idea,” he added. “Whoever decided it would have to be you—Rhodes, probably,” he answered himself on second thought, and when Tristan didn’t deny it, he shrugged. “It was a good idea,” he said again. “But so deeply unlikely.”
Tristan braced, and Callum waited.
“I could kill you,” Tristan said. “You might deserve to die.”
“Oh, surely,” Callum said. “But will I?”
Silence.
Elsewhere, a clock ticked.
Tristan swallowed.
Then he shoved Callum away and slid the knife from where he’d concealed it in his pocket, tossing it into the space between them.
“You can’t kill Rhodes,” said Tristan hoarsely.
“Fine,” Callum agreed.
“Or Parisa.”
“Fine.”
Tristan’s mouth tightened. “And you’re wrong.”
“About what?” It didn’t matter. He wasn’t wrong.
“Everything.”
Things fell silent between them again. Exhausted, emptied, and probably in need of more healing than he realized, Tristan summoned his glass from the table, draining it in one motion of his head. Callum watched the sheen of wine lingering on Tristan’s lips, slick when they parted.
“So who dies?” Tristan asked.
Finally. For once, he was asking the right questions. Callum reached over to pick up the knife with one hand, observing it in silence. The flicker of the dining room flames danced along its edge.
“As it turns out,” he said quietly, and glanced up, meeting Tristan’s eye. “I kill you.”
Within moments, the silence was punctured by a scream.
VIII: DEATH
LIBBY
“MEN, CONCEPTUALLY, ARE CANCELED,” Libby said to her knees. “This Society? Founded by men, I guarantee it. Kill someone for initiation? A man’s idea. Totally male.” She pursed her lips. “Theoretically, men are a disaster. As a concept, I unequivocally reject them.”
“If only you meant that,” drawled Nico, who was blindfolded for the moment. He grew easily bored, which Libby had already known, though it was different to have to actually live with it. She was starting to feel a bit of sympathy for Gideon, who had always looked exhausted during their four years at NYUMA. He must have had his hands full having a roommate who wouldn’t stop for anything, least of all the sun.
At present, Nico was throwing knives. Something about being prepared for any possible invasion, which Libby reminded him they already were. More likely he felt agitated about having a situation he couldn’t control, and therefore felt the need to stab it.
He held out a hand, feeling around the forces in the room.
“Levitate it,” he said. “The lamp.”
“Don’t break the lamp, Varona.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“Will you?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently.
Libby rolled her eyes, then focused on the forces of gravity surrounding it. She wished, not for the first time, that she could see things as Tristan saw them. She had never wondered before whether she should question what her eyes were promising her, but now it was all she ever did. She could feel Nico’s magic now like waves, invisible. He was stretching out his range, uncoiling it. He could tell where things were in the room just by filling it, taking up the volume of what he and Libby only saw as emptiness.