“What? No, nothing like that. If anything I’d want to sleep with—well, never mind,” he muttered, “that’s not relevant. The point is, trust me, you want me to get Reina on our side,” he assured her, dropping his voice in a manner she supposed he found provocative. “We need her, and I’m not even sure she understands that. Or why.”
“Do you?” prompted Libby doubtfully. It wasn’t as if Nico had ever been notorious for his talents of perception. For example, he had somehow managed to miss that Libby’s best friend at NYUMA, Mira, had been sickeningly in love with him for the entirety of their schooling.
（Before and after he slept with her. Fuckboys, honestly.）
“I sorted it out by accident,” Nico admitted, again dismissing Libby’s loyal efforts to undermine his masculinity on Mira’s behalf, “so your skepticism isn’t entirely the worst, but yes, I do. Reina is—” He broke off, frowning. “She’s like a battery.”
Libby blinked. “What?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and what is a naturalist except for a type of energy source, right? I don’t know how she’s doing it or what she’s tapping into, but think about it, Rhodes.” Nico seemed to be imploring her; irritatingly, as if the gears in her head were not already turning precisely as his had turned. “I noticed it when we took on the waves medeian at the installation. When I was touching her, it was like I had an extra power source.”
（The epiphany and its corresponding conversation had occurred pre-wormhole. Truthfully, they wouldn’t have managed it at all if not for Nico figuring this out about Reina, but Libby certainly hadn’t confessed that to his face. Nor did she plan to.）
“We’ll have to test it,” Libby said, glancing over her shoulder. It was a bit exciting, discovering that their alliance was an alliance indeed; he had clearly waited until they were alone to share his suspicions. “Do you think she’d be on our side?”
“Rhodes, she’s already on our side,” Nico scoffed, which at first Libby attributed to his indefatigable arrogance, but then, thankfully, he went on to support the allegation with actual evidence. “We don’t talk much,” he clarified, gesturing to his recent bout of physical activity, “but there’s no question she definitely loathes Parisa. And she doesn’t make a secret of not trusting Tristan or Callum.”
“Nor should she,” Libby murmured to herself.
This appeared to have sparked some secondary, tangential epiphany in Nico de Varona’s manic web of thoughts. “You were with Tristan that night,” Nico observed aloud, holding up a water bottle and pouring some of it over his head （splashing Libby, which she did not appreciate） before consuming what remained. “How was he?”
Ah yes, Tristan. A complete enigma, as far as she was concerned.
“He can do something strange,” Libby admitted, brushing a droplet of water from her brow before it made her bangs all wonky. She was growing them out, which meant they were inconceivably annoying. “You know how he said he can see through illusions? I didn’t realize that means he doesn’t necessarily see them while they’re being used.”
“What, at all?”
“No. Not at all. He had to ask me what I thought the room looked like.”
“Huh, weird.” Nico paused thoughtfully, chewing on the lip of his water bottle. “Useful, you think?”
“Very. Well,” Libby amended after a moment’s thought, “it’s a useful skill, at least. Though I’m not sure whether it qualifies as enough to keep him from being eliminated. Much as I hate to admit it,” she sighed, “an empath and a telepath could be much more helpful allies when we move out of the physical sciences.”
“Better a telepath than an empath, don’t you think? If we had to choose,” Nico said.
“You only say that because you like Parisa,” Libby muttered under her breath, and Nico gave her an unforgivably broad smile.
“Can you blame me, Rhodes?”
“Varona, honestly.” No, of course she couldn’t blame him; Parisa was, hands down, the most beautiful girl Libby had ever seen in her life. Luckily, Libby was not a useless boy and did not focus on extraneous details like Parisa’s looks. “Your dick aside, she’s really not a team player. I’d hardly call her an asset when it comes to working as a group.”
“True,” Nico said, who must have taken a blow to the head to actually consider taking something she said seriously. “She’s been weird to Callum, hasn’t she?”