The Dazzling Heights

“How did you get in?” she couldn’t help asking. She wondered if Avery was still talking to Watt, the lower-floor hacker who’d helped Leda find out Avery’s secret in the first place—Leda hadn’t spoken to him since that night, either. But with the quantum computer he was hiding, Watt could hack basically anything.

Avery shrugged. “I asked the principal if I could have access to this room. It helps me, being here.”

Of course, Leda thought bitterly, she should have known it was as simple as that. Nothing was off-limits to the perfect Avery Fuller.

“I miss her too, you know,” Avery said quietly.

Leda looked down into the silent vastness of the night, to protect herself from what she saw in Avery’s eyes.

“What happened that night, Leda?” Avery whispered. “What were you on?”

Leda thought of all the various pills she’d popped that day, as she’d sunk ever deeper into a hot, angry maelstrom of regret. “It was a rough day for me. I learned the truth about a lot of people that day—people I had trusted. People who used me,” she said at last, and was perversely pleased to see Avery wince.

“I’m sorry,” Avery told her. “But, Leda, please. Talk to me.”

More than anything, Leda wanted to tell Avery all of it: how Leda had caught her cheating scumbag of a father having an affair with Eris; and how awful she’d felt, realizing that Atlas had only ever slept with her in a fucked-up attempt to forget Avery. How she’d had to drug Watt to uncover that particular grain of truth.

But the thing about the truth was that once you learned it, it became impossible to unlearn. No matter how many pills Leda popped, it was still there, lurking in the corners of her mind like an unwanted guest. There weren’t enough pills in the world to make it go away. So Leda had confronted Avery—screamed at her atop the roof, without fully knowing what she was saying; feeling disoriented and dizzy in the oxygen-thin air. Then Eris had come up the stairs, and told Leda she was sorry, as if a fucking apology would fix the damage she’d done to Leda’s family. Why had Eris kept walking toward her even when Leda told her to stop? It wasn’t Leda’s fault that she’d tried to push Eris away.

She had just pushed too hard.

All Leda wanted now was to confess everything to her best friend, to let herself cry about it like a child.

But stubborn, sticky pride muffled the words in her throat, kept her eyes narrowed and her head held high. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said wearily. What did it matter anyway? Eris was already gone.

“Then help me understand. We don’t have to be this way, Leda—threatening each other like this. Why won’t you just tell everyone it was an accident? I know you never meant to hurt her.”

They were the same words she’d thought to herself so many times, yet hearing them spoken by Avery wakened a cold panic that grasped at Leda like a fist.

Avery didn’t get it, because everything came so easily to her. But Leda knew what would happen if she tried to tell the truth. There would probably be an investigation, and a trial, all made worse by the fact that Leda had tried to cover it up—and the fact that Eris had been sleeping with Leda’s dad would inevitably come to light. It would put Leda’s family, her mom, through hell; and Leda wasn’t stupid. She knew that looked like a damned convincing motive for pushing Eris to her death.

What right did Avery think she had, anyway, gliding in here and granting absolution like some kind of goddess?

“Don’t you dare tell anyone. If you tell, I swear you’ll be sorry.” The threat fell angrily into the silence. It seemed to Leda that the room had grown several degrees colder.

She scrambled to her feet, suddenly desperate to leave. As she stepped from the Oval Eye onto the carpet, Leda felt something fall out of her bag. The two bright pink sleeping pills.

“Glad to see some things haven’t changed.” Avery’s voice was utterly flat.

Leda didn’t bother telling her how wrong she was. Avery would always see the world the way she wanted to.

At the doorway she paused to glance back. Avery had slid to kneel in the middle of the Oval Eye, her hands pressed against the flexiglass surface, her gaze focused on some point far below. There was something morbid and futile about it, as if she were kneeling there in prayer, trying to bring Eris back to life.

It took Leda a moment to realize that Avery was crying. She had to be the only girl in the world who somehow became more beautiful when she cried; her eyes turning an even brighter blue, the tears on her cheeks magnifying the startling perfection of her face. And just like that, Leda remembered all the reasons she resented Avery.

She turned away, leaving her former best friend to weep alone on a tiny fragment of sky.

CALLIOPE

THE GIRL STUDIED her reflection in the floor-length smart-mirrors that lined the walls, lifting her mouth in a narrow red smile of approval. She wore a navy romper that was at least three years out of fashion, but deliberately so; she loved watching the other women in the hotel shoot envious glances toward her long, tanned legs. The girl tossed her hair, knowing the warm gold of her earrings brought out her caramel highlights, and fluttered her false lashes—not the implanted kind, but real organic ones; grown from her own eyelids after a long, and painful, genetic repair procedure in Switzerland.

It all exuded a tousled, effortless, glamorous sort of sexiness. Very Calliope Brown, the girl thought, with a frisson of pleasure.

“I’m Elise on this one. You?” her mom asked, as if reading her mind. She had dark blond hair and artificially smooth, creamy skin, making her seem ageless. No one who saw the pair of them was ever quite sure whether she was the mother or the more experienced older sister.

“I was thinking Calliope.” The girl shrugged into the name as if into an old, comfortable sweater. Calliope Brown had always been one of her favorite aliases. And it felt somehow fitting for New York.

Her mom nodded. “I do love that one, even if it’s always impossible to remember. It sounds like it’s got … spunk.”

“You could call me Callie,” Calliope offered, and her mom nodded absently, though they both knew she would just call Calliope by endearments. She’d said the wrong alias once, and it ruined everything. She’d been paranoid about making the same mistake ever since.

Calliope glanced around the expensive hotel, taking in its plush couches, lit with gold and blue strands that matched the hue of the sky; clumps of businesspeople muttering verbal commands to their contact lenses; the telltale shimmer in the corner that meant a security cam was watching. She stifled an urge to wink at it.

Without warning, the toe of her shoe caught on something, and Calliope crashed violently to the ground. She landed on one hip, barely catching herself on her wrists, feeling the skin of her palms burn a little with the impact.

“Oh my god!” Elise’s legs folded beneath her as she knelt beside her daughter.

Calliope let out a moan, which wasn’t difficult given how much actual pain she was in. Her head pounded angrily. She wondered if the heels of her stilettos were totally scuffed.

Her mom gave her a shake and she moaned harder, tears welling in her eyes.

“Is she okay?” It was a boy’s voice. Calliope dared tilt her head enough to peer at him through half-lidded eyes. He had to be a front-desk attendant, with his clean-shaven face and the bright blue name-holo on his chest. Calliope had been to enough five-star hotels to know that the important people didn’t advertise their names.

Her pain was already subsiding, but still, Calliope couldn’t resist moaning a little louder and pulling one knee up to her chest, just to show off her legs. She was gratified by the mingled flash of attraction and confusion—almost panic—that darted across the boy’s face.

“Of course she’s not okay! Where’s your manager?” Elise snapped. Calliope stayed quiet. She liked letting her mom do the talking, when they were first laying the groundwork; and anyway, she was supposed to be injured.

“I’m s-sorry, I’ll call him …” the boy stammered. Calliope gave a little whimper for good measure, though it wasn’t necessary. She could feel the attention of everyone in the lobby shifting toward them, a crowd beginning to gather. Nervousness clung to the front desk boy like a bad perfume.

“I’m Oscar, the manager. What happened here?” An overweight man in a simple dark suit trotted over. Calliope noted with delight that his shoes looked expensive.

“What’s going on is that my daughter fell in your lobby. Because of that spilled drink!” Elise pointed to a puddle on the floor, complete with a lost-looking lime wedge. “Don’t you invest in a maid service here?”

“My sincerest apologies. I can assure you nothing like this has ever happened before, Mrs. …?”

“Ms. Brown,” Elise sniffed. “My daughter and I had planned on staying here for a week, but I’m no longer sure we want to.” She bent down a little lower. “Can you move, honey?”

That was her cue. “It really hurts.” Calliope gasped, shaking her head. A single tear ran down her cheek, ruining her otherwise perfectly made-up face. She heard the crowd murmur in sympathy.

“Let me take care of everything,” Oscar pleaded, turning bright red with anxiety. “I insist. Your room, of course, is complimentary.”

Fifteen minutes later, Calliope and her mom were firmly ensconced in a corner suite. Calliope stayed in bed—her ankle propped on a tiny triangle of pillows—holding perfectly still as the bellman unloaded their bags. She kept her eyes closed even after she heard the front door shut behind him, waiting till her mom’s footsteps turned back toward her bedroom. “All clear now, sweetie,” Elise called out.

She stood up in a fluid motion, letting the tower of pillows tumble to the ground. “Seriously, Mom? You tripped me without warning?”

“I’m sorry, but you know you’ve always been terrible at a fake fall. Your instincts for self-preservation are simply too strong,” Elise replied from the closet, where she was already sorting her vast array of gowns in their color-coded transport bags. “How can I make it up to you?”

“Cheesecake would be a good start.” Calliope reached past her mom for the fluffy white robe that hung on the door, emblazoned with a blue N and a tiny image of a cloud on the front pocket. She pulled it around her, letting the threads of the tie instantly weave themselves shut.

“How about cheesecake and wine?” Elise made a few brisk motions with her hands to call up holographic images of the room service menu, pointing at various screens to order salmon, cheesecake, a bottle of Sancerre. The wine popped into their room in a matter of seconds, propelled by the hotel’s temperature-controlled airtube system. “I love you, sweetie. Sorry again for flinging you on your face.”

“I know. It’s just the cost of doing business,” Calliope conceded with a shrug.

Her mom poured them two glasses and clinked hers to Calliope’s. “Here’s to this time.”

“Here’s to this time,” Calliope echoed with a smile, as the words sent a familiar shiver of excitement up her spine. It was the same phrase she and her mom always used when they arrived somewhere new. And there was nothing Calliope loved more than starting somewhere new.

She headed into the living room, to the curved flexiglass windows that lined the corner of the building, with dramatic views over Brooklyn and the dark ribbon of the East River. A few shadows that must have been boats still danced across its surface. Evening had settled over the city, softening the edges of it all. Scattered flecks of light blinked like forgotten stars.

“So this is New York,” Calliope mused aloud. After years of traipsing the world with her mom, standing at similar windows in so many luxury hotels and looking out over so many cities—the neon grid of Tokyo; the cheerful and vibrant disorder of Rio; the domed skyscrapers of Mumbai, gleaming like bones in the moonlight—she had come to New York at last.

New York, the first of the great supertowers, the original sky city. Already Calliope felt a burst of tenderness toward it.

“Gorgeous view,” Elise said, coming to join her. “It almost reminds me of the one from London Bridge.”

Calliope stopped rubbing her eyes, which were still a bit itchy from the latest retinal transfer, and glanced sharply at her mom. They rarely spoke of their old life, before. Yet Elise didn’t pursue the subject. She sipped her wine, her eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon.

Elise was so beautiful, Calliope thought. But there was something hard and a little bit plasticky about her beauty now: the result of the various surges she’d had to change her appearance and go unrecognized each time they moved somewhere new. I’m doing this for us, she always told Calliope, and for you, so you don’t have to. At least not yet. She never made Calliope play more than a supporting role in any of her cons.

For the past seven years, ever since they’d left London, Calliope and her mom had moved constantly from place to place. They never stayed anywhere long enough to get caught. The pattern was the same in each city: They would trick their way into the most expensive hotel in the most expensive neighborhood, and scout the scene for a few days. Then Elise would pick her mark—someone with too much money for his or her own good, and just enough foolishness to believe whatever story Elise decided to tell. By the time the mark realized what had happened, Elise and Calliope were always long gone.

Calliope knew that some people would call the pair of them cheats, or con artists, or swindlers. She preferred to think of them as very clever, very charming women who’d figured out how to level the playing field. After all, as Calliope’s mom always said, rich people get free things all the time. Why shouldn’t they, too?

“Before I forget, this is for you. I just uploaded it with the name Calliope Ellerson Brown. That’s what you wanted, right?” Her mom handed her a shining new wrist computer.

Here lies Gemma Newberry, beloved thief, Calliope thought in delight, burying her most recent alias with a silent flourish. She was as shameless as she was beautiful.

She had a terribly morbid habit of composing epitaphs each time she set aside an identity, though she never shared them with her mom. She had a feeling that Elise wouldn’t find them quite so amusing.

Calliope tapped at the new wrist computer, pulling up her list of contacts—empty, as usual—and noticed to her surprise that there wasn’t a school registration listed. “You’re not making me go to high school for this one?”

Elise shrugged. “You’re eighteen. Do you want to keep going to school?”

Calliope hesitated. She’d gone to school so many times, playing whatever role their particular scheme cast her in—a long-lost heiress, or a victim of some conspiracy, or occasionally just as Elise’s daughter, when Elise needed a daughter to seem attractive to some victim. She’d attended a preppy British boarding school and a French convent and a pristine public school in Singapore, and had rolled her eyes in sheer boredom at each one.

Which was how Calliope had ended up running a few cons of her own. They were never as big as Elise’s cons, which netted their real payout; but Calliope liked to do something on the side if she saw an opportunity. Elise was fine with it, as long as Calliope’s projects didn’t impede her ability to help out her mom whenever she was called upon. “It’s good for you to get some practice,” Elise always said, and let Calliope keep everything she earned herself—which supplemented her wardrobe quite nicely.

Usually Calliope tried to gain the interest of a wealthy teenager, then conned him into buying her a necklace, or a new handbag, or the latest Robbie Lim suede boots. On a few rare occasions she’d managed to get bitbanc payments—not gifts—by pretending to be in serious trouble, or by finding out people’s secrets and blackmailing them. Calliope had learned through the years that rich people did a lot of things they would rather keep buried.

She briefly considered going to high school, doing the same thing as usual, but she quickly dismissed the idea. This time, she would go bigger.

Oh, there were so many ways to hook a mark—the “accidental” run-in, the sidelong glance, the nuanced smile, the flirtation, the confrontation, the accident—and Calliope was an expert in all of them. She’d closed out every con she’d ever started.

Except Travis. The one mark who’d ever left Calliope, rather than the other way around. She’d never figured out why, and it still nettled her, just a little.

But he was just one person, and there were millions here. Calliope thought of all the crowds she’d seen earlier, streaming in and out of elevators, rushing home or to work or to school. All of them preoccupied with their own small worries, clutching at their impossible dreams.

None of them even knew she existed, and if they did know, they wouldn’t care. But that was what made this game fun: because Calliope was about to make one of them care, very much. She felt a bright, glorious, reckless rush of anticipation.

She couldn’t wait to find her next mark.

AVERY

AVERY FULLER WRAPPED her arms tighter around herself. The wind tore at her hair, yanking it into an unruly blond tangle, whipping the folds of her dress around her like a banner. A few droplets of rain began to fall. They stung lightly where they touched her bare skin.

But Avery wasn’t ready to leave the roof. This was her secret place, where she retreated when all the furious lights and sounds down there, in the rest of the city, became too much to bear.

She looked out to the hazy purple of the horizon, which stretched into a deep fathomless black overhead. She loved the way she felt up here, aloof and alone and safe with her secrets. It’s not safe, a nagging feeling told her, as a pair of footsteps sounded. Avery turned around, nervous—and broke into a smile when she saw that it was Atlas.

But the trapdoor flung open again and suddenly Leda was there, her face suffused with anger. She looked thin and drawn and dangerous. She wore her very skin as if it were armor.

“What do you want, Leda?” Avery asked warily, though she didn’t really need to ask; she knew what Leda wanted. She wanted to break her and Atlas apart, and Atlas was the one thing Avery would never, ever give up. She took a step in front of him as if to protect him.

Leda caught the gesture. “How dare you,” she spat, and reached out to shove Avery—

Avery’s stomach lurched, her arms wheeling as she tried desperately to cling to something, but it was all too far away, even Atlas, and the world had devolved into a blur of color and sound and screaming, the ground hurtling ever faster toward her—

She sat up abruptly, a cold sheen of sweat on her brow. It took her a moment to recognize the dim bulkiness of her surroundings as the furniture in Atlas’s bedroom.

“Aves?” Atlas murmured. “You okay?”

She curled her knees to her chest, trying to slow the erratic beating of her heart. “Just a nightmare,” she told him.

Atlas pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her from behind, so that she was safe in the warm circle of his embrace. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Avery did want to talk about it, except she couldn’t. So she turned around to silence him with a kiss.

She’d been sneaking over to Atlas’s room every night since Eris died. She knew she was playing with fire. But being with the boy she loved—talking to him, kissing him, just inhaling his presence—was the only thing that kept Avery from spinning off the edge lately.

And even here, with Atlas, she wasn’t wholly safe from herself. She hated the web of secrets that kept tightening around her, driving an invisible wedge between them, though Atlas had no idea.

He didn’t know about the delicate balancing act Avery now found herself in with Leda. A secret for a secret. Leda knew about them, and the only reason she hadn’t blasted it to the world was that Avery had seen her push Eris, up on the roof that night. Now Avery was hiding the truth about Eris’s death under threat from Leda.

She couldn’t bring herself to tell Atlas about it all. The knowledge would only hurt him, and the truth was, Avery didn’t want him to learn what had really happened that night. If he knew what she’d done, he might not look at her this way anymore—with such blinding love and devotion.

She wrapped her fingers tighter in the curls at the base of Atlas’s neck, wanting to stop time, to disappear into this moment and live in it forever.

When Atlas finally pulled away, she felt his smile, even if she couldn’t see it. “No scary dreams anymore. Not while I’m here. I’ll keep them away, I promise.”

“I dreamed that I lost you,” she blurted out, a note of trepidation threading through her voice. Now that they were together, against all odds, losing Atlas was her greatest fear.

“Avery.” He put a finger under her chin and gently lifted it, so that she was looking into his eyes. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” she replied, and she knew that he meant it, but there were so many obstacles in their path, so many forces stacked against them, that at times it all felt insurmountable.

She lay back down in the soft, warm space next to his body, but her thoughts were still scattered. She felt like she was coiled too tightly and couldn’t be unwound.

“Do you ever wish another family had adopted you?” she whispered, voicing a thought she’d had countless times. If he’d ended up with some other family, if some other boy had grown up as her adopted brother, then Atlas wouldn’t be forbidden. She wondered what it would have been like, meeting him in school, or at some party; bringing him home to meet the Fullers.

It would all be so much easier.

“Of course not,” Atlas said, startling her with the vehemence of his tone. “Aves, if I’d been adopted by a different family I might never have met you.”

“Maybe …” She trailed off, but she couldn’t help thinking that she and Atlas were inevitable. The universe would have conspired for them to meet, some way or another, pulling them together with a gravitational force that was all their own.

“Maybe,” Atlas conceded. “But that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. The day your parents brought me home—the day I first met you—was the second-best day of my life.”

“Oh really? And what was the best day?” she asked with a smile.

She expected Atlas to say that the best day was when they confessed their love for each other. But he surprised her. “Today,” he said simply. “Which will only last until tomorrow, and then tomorrow will be the best day. Because every day with you is better than the one before.”

He leaned over to kiss her lightly, just as a knock sounded on the door.

“Atlas?”

For a terrible instant, every cell in Avery’s body was frozen. She looked up at Atlas and saw her own terror reflected on his handsome face.

His door was locked, but here—like everywhere in the apartment—Mr. and Mrs. Fuller had the ability to override.

“One second, Dad,” Atlas called out, a little too loudly.

Avery stumbled out of bed, wearing her ivory satin shorts and a bra, and stumbled breathlessly toward Atlas’s closet. Her bare feet nearly tripped over a shoe as she ran.

She’d just managed to pull the door shut behind her when Pierson Fuller strode into his adopted son’s room. The overhead lights flicked on with his steps.