24

AN AGREEMENT

ELIOT’S STEPS FELT KILOS LIGHTER WHEN she climbed back in the magcart. The meeting had gone as well as possible. Subject Seven hadn’t thrown any tantrums—a good thing, too, since it would have ended badly for him. He’d just stood there glowering as the drama unfolded. Oh, and what drama! Men like Lux were easy to bait; she’d given him everything he wanted—the Rubaiyat, some wine, the promise of more—all while upending his authority through technological trickery. Eliot acted on every cue, tossing breadcrumbs to get the scene to end the way she wanted.

READINGS ARE 57% COMPLETE. REMEMBER CHARLES.

So far she was on course.

Seven reclaimed his magcart seat. His aviators were back on, making him look far more suave than he likely felt after so many vodka shots and a face-off with Lux. “Some warning wouldn’t have gone amiss, you know. Maybe a ‘Hey, Far, I actually do have the Rubaiyat and I’m not going to let Lux rip out your entrails and roast them for breakfast.’”

“Lux is too refined for that.” Eliot clipped her safety belts into place. “I imagine he only eats eggs Benedict with a silver spoon.”

The boy smiled. Eliot could tell he was trying not to—the fight of it all wrinkled his cheek. “Fine. My guts would be hors d’oeuvres, then, right before he’d drink my blood as an aperitif. Why didn’t you just tell me you could magic things into existence? It would’ve saved me a hundred gruesomely imagined deaths.”

“Would you have believed me if I had?” Eliot traced the bracelet-that-was-not-a-bracelet on her wrist—holding everything, the least of her secrets.

“I don’t know!” Seven’s expression snapped with his voice. “Maybe if you’d slice the shazm with all this cloak-and-dagger business and talk to me, we’d get somewhere. Hades, I’m not asking for a bottle of wine, just some goodwill explanations!”

Subjects like Seven were harder to wrangle once they caught the scent of the truth. Eliot would need to feed him some, if they were to keep moving forward. “I don’t travel as light as I look. I have a—well, it’s kind of like an invisible, bottomless bag.”

Far’s brows twitched over his glasses. “Got any mints in there?”

“No.” Though there were plenty of other items: wigs, eyebrow pen, outfits for a vast array of times and occasions, extra storage for the memories she kept losing, a first aid kit, her laser knife, her gun. Thinking about the last item always made her stomach clench. “I keep it to the essentials.”

Seven exhaled, and Eliot realized that mints actually were essentials. His was a special kind of halitosis. Hangover, stress, and morning breath all in one. “Anything else you feel like sharing? Like why we’re really going to Alexandria? Or why I keep forgetting what happened on the Titanic?”

“You remember that?” Eliot figured he’d had enough Belvedere in his bloodstream to forget what he’d forgotten. She hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol and even she needed Vera’s prodding to gather what was being lost.

“Hard not to. Usually you’re so composed, and the look on your face…” Far paused. A frown slashed his lips. “Ever seen your life flash in front of your eyes?”

Eliot stared at the boy on the other side of the magcart. Her reflection stared back through the silver of his glasses, smaller than life, hardly recognizable with a fresh wig and What Abyss Waits shaded eyebrows. What could she say that was true? What could she tell him that he would believe? Nothing Agent Ackerman would clear, that’s for sure.

Far went on. “I used to think it was a line poets pulled out of their tails when they couldn’t come up with something better. But this job gets dangerous: bullets, flames, the works. Once I started getting shot at on the regular, I realized there was truth in the saying. When you start facing death, all you can see is life. That was the feeling I just had in Lux’s villa. That”—he pointed at her—“was the feeling on your face last night. When you appeared on the Invictus, I thought maybe you were running some sort of con. But that wobbly landing, the memory gaps, your fear… those things add up to something bigger.”

Their magcart sped along. Earth’s darkness cut through its windows again and again as they passed the tunnel’s lights. Bright, shadow, bright, shadow, life, death. The Eliot trapped inside the aviators flickered and squirmed.

“When you showed up on the Invictus, you claimed you wanted a fresh start, which makes me think you’re running from something,” Far said. “You want to work with a crew? Well, here’s your chance. Take your thumb off my operation, come clean about what’s going on. Gram, Priya, Imogen, and I… we can help you.”

Help? Had any of the other subjects been so generous? This olive branch was a stretch for him, Eliot knew. What a shame she had to spit on it.

“What’s happening—you’re right. It’s big and very, very complicated. I can’t fill you in on the details.” There were too many holes and forgettings—all following her—and talented though this crew might be, they couldn’t stop what was coming. “I didn’t tell you about my storage situation because I wanted to demonstrate that I’m good on my word. I told you I’d deliver the Rubaiyat to Lux and I did. Trust is falling. Now you know I’ll catch you.”

“Trust isn’t a plunge off a cliff,” Seven countered. “It’s something you build.”

“Then consider this the first brick.”

“No.” His voice edged to a shout. “Trust is a two-way street, Eliot Antoinette. Give and take. All you’ve done, from Versailles to Vegas, is the latter.”

Eliot couldn’t stand her own stare anymore. Her gaze cut to the window. “When’s the soonest the crew can get prepped to depart for Alexandria?”

“So that’s how it is? You’re gonna keep dragging me and mine through the dark? Use Lux to make us your compliant puppet ship?”

“I need a timetable, Captain.”

She watched the boy’s window face—just as transparent as hers. Bright, shadow, still, motion, bright, shadow, spite, surrender. “Depends on the mission. Imogen likes to get the lay of the land before we go tumbling into a new era. That means wardrobe, proper translation equipment, building schematics, a timeline down to the second, a backup wardrobe. All that can take from twenty-four hours to a week.”

“She’s a good Historian. Thorough.” Perhaps too thorough. They didn’t have a week to spare. Even twenty-four hours was a stretch, though it was impossible to establish parameters within the Fade’s whim. “Could she get it done in twelve?”

“Assuming this is just a snatch-and-grab?” Seven prefaced. “Yeah. Imogen might not think she can do it, but she can. It wasn’t just nepotism that got her a spot on the Invictus.”

No, Eliot thought. It was trust. Thicker than blood, made of years and tears and toil. Seven was right. The feeling—though was it a feeling? It seemed to her more of a mandate—had to be built. But no matter how firm your bricks, no matter how high your wall, there was always a part of the act that became a plunge, because though your trust might be steady, the world never was.

Trust is built. Trust is falling.

Give and take, take, take.

Who would catch her?

Ache curled over Eliot’s left lung as the magcart slowed into the light. They were back dockside, where the Invictus’s hull shimmered like a waterfall’s fringe. Gram waved through the vistaport, calling behind his shoulder to Imogen. Home filled Far’s sunglasses as he lifted a hand and waved back.

No matter how long Eliot stared, all she saw was a ship.