Page 57 of The Dazzling Heights
“What are you here for, anyway?” he went on, after a moment.
“I’m here to meet with the dean.” She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice. “I’m missing a week of school for a work-study program with Xiayne. I’ll be a filming assistant on his new holo.”
“I thought you were here onscholarship. Shouldn’t you be studying, not jetting off to LA?”
Rylin recoiled at the harsh phrasing. “This is a great opportunity. It’s rare that students our age get to actually work on set, get hands-on experience.”
“Or maybe it’s a chance for Xiayne to get some free labor. He’s not paying you, is he?” Cord said, and she was surprised by the venom in his tone.
“Actually, he is.” She hated how defensive she sounded.
“Well, I’m glad he’s taken such aspecialinterest in you.”
“Cord—” Rylin broke off, not quite certain what she was about to say, but the dean’s door swung open before she could answer.
“Rylin Myers, sorry for the wait! Come on in,” his voice boomed.
Rylin looked searchingly at Cord, feeling both saddened and hurt. But he was shaking his head. “Whatever, Rylin. God knows you don’t owe me an explanation. Have fun taking teacher’s pet to a whole new level.”
Suddenly Rylin’s mind was able to form sentences again. “Not everyone is as cynical as you are, Cord. You should try being happy for me sometime.”
She squared her shoulders and walked away before he could reply.
CALLIOPE
CALLIOPE WALKED EAGERLYthrough the Nuage lobby, which on this sunny afternoon was all soaring white and blue, making the hotel live up to its name. She felt like she was floating through the center of a cloud, maybe of Mount Olympus.
In the nick of time she remembered her fake limp, for the benefit of the front-desk managers. The last thing she and Elise needed was to start being charged for the room they had no intention of paying for. But Calliope could hardly think straight; she was heading to afternoon tea with her mom, and her stomach was bubbling with a pleasant sense of anticipation. For Calliope and her mom, afternoon tea always meant something.
She turned into the hotel’s formal dining room, which was lined with gilded paneling, its delicate tables covered in wisp-thin linens and set with antique Francis I sterling. Young girls in bright pink bows squirmed in their seats, accompanied by harried moms; groups of women clinked champagne glasses; there were even a few tourists, eyeing the society crowd with trepidation and a degree of envy. Calliope found her mom at a table in the middle of the room.Of course,Calliope thought, unsurprised and amused.All the better for being admired.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked, settling into the opposite seat.
“The occasion is, I’m taking my daughter out for tea.” Elise smiled, looking cool and careless in a printed sheath.
Calliope leaned back. “Every time we do this, it reminds me of Princess Day,” she said, her tone reflective, but not quite wistful.
Calliope had been obsessed with tea ever since she was a little girl, when she and her friend Daera would put on Justine’s hand-me-down clothes and serve each other water in plain white mugs, calling each other made-up names like Lady Thistledown and Lady Pennyfeather. Elise had picked up on the fixation and started an annual tradition, just her and Calliope, called Princess Day. It instantly became Calliope’s favorite day of the year.
On Princess Day, Elise and Calliope would dress up—sometimes even carrying Mrs. Houghton’s purses, or wearing her scarves or jewelry. It was the only occasion when Elise would let them do so—and go to the Savoy Hotel for its expensive afternoon tea. Even at that age, Calliope had known that it was willfully stupid of them to do something so extravagant, something they clearly couldn’t afford. But theyneededPrincess Day. It was a chance for the two of them to escape their routines and step into someone else’s life, just for a moment. And Calliope could tell that her mother loved it as much as she did: being the one catered to, for once, rather than the other way around. She loved being presented with a silver tray of delicate little sweets and being asked which she would like, and she would lift her ring-crusted finger and say in an imperious tone,that one and that one, and also that.Commanding someone else, the way that Mrs. Houghton constantly commanded her.
Calliope would never forget the way her mom had turned to her, that first morning on the train to Russia, when their old life was long gone, and their new one just unfolding. “It’s Princess Day, sweetheart,” she’d said.
Calliope shook her head in confusion. “But we had one a few months ago.”
“Every day is Princess Day now,” Elise had said with a smile. Not the pinched, forced smile she’d worn for so long, but a genuine, easy smile; and Calliope saw that her mother was shedding some terrible skin she’d been forced into, and becoming someone new. As the years went on, she would realize that Elise had never been happy in London. It wasn’t until their life on the road that she’d seemed to find her true calling.
Even now, tea was still their tradition, as cherished and as sacred as any church. Calliope loved the ceremony of it being poured, hot and steaming, into a shape-shifting china cup, the beautiful array of fluffy scones and clotted cream and fancifully cut sandwiches. There was something soothing about the ritual of high tea. No matter where you went in the world, it was always stuffy and traditional and comfortingly British.
Whenever they had a big decision to make, Calliope and Elise would do so at afternoon tea, at whatever five-star hotel they’d conned their way into. It was how they chose when to move locations, how much cash Elise should try to swindle from her latest boyfriend or girlfriend, when they should next get their retinas replaced. It was how they made every important choice, Calliope realized … except her decision to get involved with Atlas. That was the only real choice she’d made on her own.
Just then, a waitress with a turned-up nose and jaunty ponytail approached their table. She looked younger than Calliope. Actually, Calliope thought, she seemed familiar, though she couldn’t have said why.
“Good afternoon, ladies. Are you familiar with our tea menu?” she asked smoothly.
A holographic scroll shimmered in the air before them both, with the menu written in calligraphy. Calliope could see the edge of each droplet of ink, the glitter that seemed dusted over it all.
“We’ll have the classic tea tower and lemon water, no tea,” Elise said briskly, waving her arm through the scroll so that its refracted pixels dissolved into nothing.
