"I will destroy you!" Brooks shouted, his voice muffled by the sound of the waterfall.
"Oh, he'll be fun." Atlas chuckled.
Eureka's teeth clenched. Atlas's laughter made her hands itch to kill. She weighed her options. Defend her friend now and lose--or bide her time?
Atlas stepped closer to Brooks, surveying the waterfall cage. Then his fist plunged into it. The barrier curved pliantly around his fist, likely allowing Atlas to strike Brooks in the stomach, though Eureka couldn't see her friend through the waterfall. When Brooks howled, Eureka felt his pain in her own gut, like a twin.
Then came a dull shatter, like a hammer against a block of ice. She knew Brooks had tried to fight back, but his fist couldn't penetrate the water. His cage didn't work that way.
"Was that necessary?" Delphine asked, bored.
Eureka's arms wanted to enclose the waterfall, to cradle Brooks. But she could show no reaction or Atlas would guess who was inside.
He stood before her now with his mesmerizing redwood eyes and sharp white teeth. He fingered a lock of her wet hair. "I have a present for you, Eureka. An apology for your experience with the lightning. With Delphine's permission, I will take you to it."
"You have nothing I want."
"Perhaps no thing. Perhaps someone."
"What sickness are you up to?" Delphine looked up from her wheel. The music's pace quickened and Eureka became afraid.
Atlas shook his head and slipped an arm around Eureka's waist as he steered her toward the wave's exit. "I want to see the amazement on your face."
"Remarkable, isn't it?" Atlas paused at the midpoint of the second bridge they'd crossed since leaving the waveshop. At either entrance, two giant statues of his likeness drew long silver swords on each other.
When empty, both bridges stretched low across their wide moats, but when tread upon, they rose into towering arches, offering spectacular views of the city ahead.
"I can give you a beautiful life, Eureka," Atlas said. "You always wanted something more extraordinary than the bayou--didn't you? If you help me, I will welcome you here. The cost is tiny, the reward endless."
The nearly full moon hung over the skyline of Atlantis, which glittered like a galaxy fashioned into buildings. They were shaped like roller coasters, with gem-colored swimming pools slanting down their roofs. Parks burst through the city's seams, astonishing flora growing so rapidly that the topography was ever changing. Commuter trains swam through the sky. Behind them, the Gossipwitch Mountains rose starkly.
"I have lived in a hundred other bodies," Atlas said, "seen a hundred other worlds. None came close to my Atlantis. Imagine if we had never sunk ..."
Eureka leaned against the bridge's orichalcum railing. Now that she knew how the precious metal was mined, everything made from orichalcum looked like rotting flesh. "But you did sink."
"That is literally ancient history."
"Alternative history, you mean. Most people don't believe you ever existed."
Atlas forced a bitter laugh. "Most people no longer exist."
Looking into the moat below, Eureka saw Delphine's face in her reflection. "How did you forgive her?"
"What?"
"If Delphine had never cried that tear, you never would have sunk."
"Did she say something about me, about that?"
The time it took Eureka to think of an answer made Atlas squirm. "You must really love her, that's all I mean."
As Atlas's eyes probed Eureka's for information, she understood that his relationship with Delphine had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with fear. Maybe no one else could see it, but Delphine ruled the king.
They walked down the bridge in silence and were greeted by a gathering of Atlanteans. Twinkling city lights illuminated the Atlanteans' made-up faces, their exquisite jewelry and clothes. Atlas gave a gentle wave and the crowd broke into applause.
"Is this your queen, sir?" a woman's voice called out in Atlantean. A bright blue heptagonal hat shielded her features.
Atlas raised Eureka's hand high in the air. "Isn't she marvelous? Everything I deserve?" His false smile deepened, as if seeing Eureka through his subjects' eyes. "She could use a scrub, of course. And these clothes must be burned and never spoken of again. But where better to shop for replacements than in our city?"
As the crowd applauded, Atlas gestured toward a man at the front who was holding up a small black box.
"There he is! Smile for the royal holographer!" Atlas slipped an arm around Eureka's waist and held her close. She could feel his rapid breathing. "Imagine your dead friend stands in my place, and smile."
The crowd cheered even louder at the first forced peek of Eureka's smile. The applause was deafening, but their expressions were vacant as they clapped. She loathed them. Did they not know about the Filling? She wanted all of them turned into ghosts. They were either idiots or as selfish as their king.
The mob circled around her as she and Atlas passed a cobbler, a market, and a hologram shop, each with lifelike wax statues of Atlas marking their doorsteps, advertising their wares.
"I bought my sole at Belinda's," a prerecorded Atlas panned through a speaker outside the cobbler's.
"Nothing turns me on like Atlantean ardorfruit," his voice blared through the speaker above an Atlas statue about to bite into a golden triangular-shaped fruit. "Tender. Tangy. Take some home tonight."
Atlas steered Eureka into a central triangle surrounded by grand and gleaming buildings. Flags of many shades of blue hung from a hundred eaves, cascading in the wind.
"They love me," Atlas told Eureka without a hint of irony. They mounted a stage that appeared to be floating. Half a dozen Devils lined its perimeter.
"What's the penalty if they don't?" Eureka asked.
"Delphine could never connect with the public like this." Atlas glanced at Eureka, adding, "Her powers are remarkable, no one is arguing that, but without me, she's just a witch in a wave."
Eureka wondered whether he was lying for her sake or for his. Delphine wasn't here because she didn't have to be. She made Atlas do it for her. The king was a ghost, a puppet, like Delphine's other creations.
They stopped in the center of the stage and looked down at a hundred Atlanteans. These people didn't love him. No one did. Perhaps because it was so obvious he didn't love anyone back. Eureka wondered if he ever had. Delphine said his heart wasn't tuned that way. All of this mattered, but Eureka wasn't sure how.
The royal holographer passed his device through the air before Eureka's body, following her curves with his arm. Then he pulled a level and a great plume of silver smoke rose from his device. A huge hologram of Eureka popped into view in the middle of the audience, which parted, clapping and curtsying before her likeness.
"I give you," Atlas boomed into an invisible microphone, "your Tearline girl! Eureka sacrificed her heart to resurrect your world. And soon her tears will bring you more good fortune. By tomorrow, the so-called Waking World, which has oppressed you for thousands of years, will be vanquished. We will have ascended. One question remains." He turned to Eureka and kissed her hand with flair. "How to repay the girl who gave her heart so you could taste the sweetness of supremacy? Eureka, my treasure, this gift wasn't easy to come by, so I do hope you'll appreciate it."
He looked skyward. The crowds' eyes followed. Eureka tried to hold off as long as possible, but curiosity betrayed her and her chin lifted toward the night sky. Something large and green and formless lowered toward her. When it was twenty feet overhead, Eureka saw it was a fleet of green Abyssinian lovebirds. There were thousands of them, carrying what looked like a huge golden birdcage toward the stage.
Though she couldn't see beyond the birds, Eureka was gripped by the sudden premonition that Ander was inside the cage. She imagined the lightning cloak enfolding him, scrambling his mind with torturous memories, stripping his sadness of meaning. Her heart raced the way it had the first time they kissed.
The cage landed with a boom
on the stage. Atlas clapped his hands three times. The birds scattered into the night. Inside the cage--
Stood Filiz.
"Well?" Atlas asked Eureka, his arms spread wide as if to receive her enormous gratitude. "My Devils picked her up along the inner moat this morning. We have all sorts of ways to torture trespassers, but I said, 'No, no, she must be a friend of Eureka's.' " He turned toward the crowd and yelled, "And any friend of Eureka's is a friend of mine!"
Filiz's hands were stuffed in the pockets of her tight black jeans. Her cheek was badly bruised, her T-shirt torn down the middle. Her chin was low, and her red hair hadn't been washed in many miles. Her eyes rose slowly. No words found Eureka.
"I'm having trouble reading you, darling." Atlas laughed for the audience's benefit. "Is this what gratitude looks like in the so-called Waking World? Here I stage a beautiful reunion between you and your loved one, whoever she is. She followed you all the way here, so she's clearly devoted. She has the most refined taste in hair color imaginable"--he waited for the crowd's laughter to rise and fall--"and yet you look upon her as if she were offal. Has Delphine hardened you so much already?"
Eureka moved toward the cage. "How did you get here?"
If Filiz was in Atlantis, maybe Eureka's loved ones were, too. No one should care enough about Eureka to follow her here, but she knew they did. Did Atlas have them imprisoned, too?
"Speak up, girl," Atlas said. "We'd all like to know."
Filiz swallowed, adjusted her black choker necklace. "My grandmother told tales of the Atlantean mountains where the gossipwitches live." She spoke Atlantean, too. "Her grandmother told her that her grandmother told her"--she paused, swallowed, gazed into Eureka's eyes--"that whoever visited those mountains would find the answer to life's greatest question."
"The Gossipwitch Mountains?" Atlas scoffed. "How stupidly rumors warp over millennia! Those mountains are for the unclean and undesired. Forget the wisdom of your ignorant elders. You are fortunate to have trespassed upon civilization."
"I can see that now." Filiz's gaze bored into Eureka, who raised her eyebrows as if to ask, Are they here? Filiz nodded subtly and looked toward the mountains.
"Open the cage," Eureka demanded.
"Your tears will unlock her cage."
Eureka would never cry to save Filiz. Filiz knew it. Didn't Atlas?
Again Eureka recalled Delphine's words that Atlas's heart wasn't tuned for love. In fact, he seemed to completely misapprehend it. He couldn't see what others saw so clearly. Atlas thought love was his subjects' affected adoration.
A flash of self-consciousness crossed his face as Eureka studied him. He drew a torch from its holder at the edge of the stage. The gossipwitches' amethysts glowed at the base of its flame. Atlas thrust the torch inside the cage. Filiz screamed as tendrils of flame found her skin.
Atlas withdrew the torch and looked at Eureka. He tipped the flame. "Again?"
"Oh, how I wish I were in the mountains my elders spoke of," Filiz said, rubbing the burnt places on her arms, staring hard at Eureka.
Could she trust Filiz? The two of them shared a murderous recent history. Was this a trick?
"If you like being burned, please continue discussing the mountains." Atlas lifted the torch, preparing to strike Filiz again. Eureka stepped between them.
She slapped the torch from Atlas's hand and shoved him. He stumbled across the stage. After he righted himself, he glanced quickly at the audience and forced a laugh. "So feisty!"
Buoyed by laughter in the crowd, Atlas grinned and picked up the torch. This time, as he approached, Filiz snapped her fingers, igniting a flame in her hand twice as tall as the one Atlas held.
"Was she not searched for fire starters?" Atlas roared at his Devils.
Before the Devils could answer, Filiz hurled her fireball at Alas. Eureka grabbed Atlas by his hair and made him duck. If the fire grazed him, Filiz would die.
The fireball flew into the crowd and landed on a man's blue fur coat. Atlas reached through the bars of the cage and grabbed Filiz by the neck.
"I'll do it!" Eureka shouted. "Don't hurt her. I'll cry."
"Eureka," Filiz warned.
An approving roar sounded from the crowd. Atlas watched them for a moment, then released Filiz. He straightened, smiled, and nodded behind him. Two Devils approached Eureka. One of them handed her a lachrymatory made of silver, woven with blond human hair. Eureka thought of Aida, whom Delphine's pain had killed.
"Not here," Eureka said to Atlas as she took the lachrymatory.
"But, darling, they have come for the show," Atlas said.
"I'm not an actor. What I feel is real."
"Of course." Atlas masked his disappointment. "Give her every comfort she desires," he announced before the crowd, then lowered his voice for the Devils. "I don't care what you have to do. Fill the vial by sunrise."
30
CRIMSON KISS
Eureka had to reach the mountains.
Filiz had given her a signal: answers awaited her in the gossipwitches' lair. At least, Eureka thought that was the signal. Maybe Filiz had been lying. Maybe Eureka was taking a hint that hadn't been dropped.
It didn't matter. Getting to the mountains was the only plan she had.
Once she got there, she might have to face four people she had loved and left behind. It would eat up essential energy. But Eureka had become skilled at shutting down her heart. She would take what she needed from the witches, then move on.
First, she would have to lose the Devils ushering her through the coral tunnel. Six of them, armed with orichalcum billy clubs and crossbows tucked into sheaths sewn into the back of their crimson dresses. These girls were stronger than they looked. Their biceps flexed; veins protruded from their forearms. If they returned her to Atlas's castle, it meant the lightning cloak for Eureka.
"She's dragging," one murmured. "Trying to slow us down."
"Hurry up." Another girl gripped Eureka's neck and jerked her to the side.
Red coral stung the center of Eureka's brain. She hadn't seen the wall coming.
One of the Devils made a retching noise, and Eureka watched as the girl wiped blood off her hand. Eureka understood, dimly, that the blood was her own.
Something told Eureka to jerk her upper body toward the girl, who responded with a practiced block that sent Eureka to the ground. The Devils were trained for combat.
Eureka spat blood. The girl's feet inched away from where it landed.
Two Devils lifted Eureka under her arms. They walked her through the tunnel, farther from the mountains. Eureka wondered about the depth of their combat experience. They'd been frozen beneath the ocean for many thousands of years in a realm where no one aged or died. What cause could they have fought for, what enemy could they have killed? What could these girls know about loss? Eureka wanted to teach them.
She remembered Delphine's lips on Aida's cheek. Pain seeking pain in the astral light. Pain was power, Delphine had said.
"I need to rest," Eureka said.
"Don't respond," a brunette Devil said.
"Water." Eureka reached for a red leather canteen around the girl's waist. "Please."
"Atlas said she'd trick us."
"A dehydrated person can't cry," Eureka said. "If you want to keep your job, give me a drink."
She'd made them nervous. As the brunette slowly unscrewed her canteen's lid, Eureka dipped toward the other, a slender blond girl wearing blue-tinted glasses.
Eureka didn't know what she was doing. She thought about Delphine and her broken heart. She thought about Diana and the wave that broke her body. She thought about her own agony flowing across every day that followed. She kissed the blond girl's cheek.
Zzzzt.
Sharp pain filled Eureka's body as a vision filled her mind: A younger version of the blond girl was being dragged across the threshold of a house by older, laughing Crimson Devils. Before she could say goodbye to her family, the girl was flung into the back of a silver wagon
. Eureka heard a door slam and saw darkness and felt sobs.
Back in the tunnel, the blond girl screamed, and Eureka screamed, and it lasted only a moment, but when Eureka's vision cleared she saw the Devil on the floor, convulsing, dying.
Eureka's pain subsided slowly, like a temper. She spent an instant admiring Delphine for silently enduring this agony when she'd killed Aida. Eureka was dizzy and wanted to vomit.
The canteen fell to the ground. The brunette Devil glanced between Eureka and her convulsing friend. She took a step backward.
"You're next," Eureka said.
She paused, fearing the pain killing the second guard would cause.
Thwack.
Stars exploded before Eureka's eyes as an orichalcum club hit the back of her shoulders. Eureka spun around, her lips homing in on her attacker. She shoved another Devil aside--and froze.
It was happening again. Her hands barely touched the girl--she was only trying to move the Devil out of her way--but the pain came, and then another vision. A wall of fire. A baby screaming on the other side of it. Then Eureka was in the mind of the Crimson Devil as a young girl, the moment she gave up on saving her baby sister, the moment she turned away and ran from the blaze into the night.
The girl in her hands dropped to the ground. Eureka's hands groped for another. It didn't need to be a kiss. When she was enraged, all of her skin could kill. She was her own lightning cloak.
The club struck her spine. She howled and grabbed behind her, finding flesh. New pain. New visions. A boy and a girl kissing, hotly, madly, breathing fast. Eureka didn't recognize either of them, but she felt the pain of heartbreak and betrayal on behalf of the girl in her grip. She heard the club hit the ground, and then felt the girl slide, lifeless, from her hands.
Her arms flailed again, this time grabbing two Devils at once. Her vision hadn't cleared enough for her to see them, but Eureka could feel them writhing and, more keenly, she could feel the wild telescoping of their deepest agonies:
Fat. Dull. Worthless. A mother's voice branded one girl's heart.
And then a different mother, lying dead in a cold room, tiny embers of a fire remaining in the hearth. Blood all over the sheets. All over the Crimson Devil sobbing at the woman's side.
Eureka reached for more flesh, more pain. A bottomless hunger for agony grew inside her. Her vision cleared. She was grasping at air, alone in the coral tunnel. Crimson dresses fanned around her feet. Had she killed them all so quickly? One, two, three, four, five--