Page 96 of The Dazzling Heights
“I thought it was the right thing at the time,” Elise said haltingly. “God, when that woman hit you, the things I wanted to do … and after all the years of mistreatment I’d suffered at her hands. It seemed only fair that we take something from her and run.”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Calliope could hear the angry roar of the canal far below, echoing the roiling churning confusion of her thoughts. She’d had no idea that her mom felt conflicted like this—that she’d questioned their life too, when for so long it had seemed like she’d sailed blithely and blissfully along.
Her mom sighed. “No, it’s not. I’m the one who led you down this path, with no actual plan. I got to have a normal teenage experience, with school and friends and relationships, but you …”
“I’ve experienced those things,” Calliope offered, but Elise waved her words away.
“I don’t know where the time went. I feel like I look at you, and it was just yesterday that we were running away from the Houghtons’ house, not seven years ago. I should never have let it go on this long.” She lifted her gaze, and Calliope saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I’ve deprived you of the chance to live your life, areallife, and that wasn’t fair to you. Where on earth will you end up, when all of this is over?”
Far off, a chorus of shouts arose as an enormous cake floated out from the kitchens on a gleaming black platter. The buttercream icing was packed with microscopic digestible LED chips, so that the entire cake seemed to light up like a torch.
Calliope didn’t answer her mom. She’d never really thought that far into the future, probably because she was afraid to.
“I was thinking,” Elise went on, with a little more self-possession, “that we could make this a bit of a longer con, our longest one yet. We could get you into school, so that you spend your senior year in New York. If you hate it, of course, we can always cut bait and leave on the next ’loop out. But we might as well see how it treats us first.” She ventured a smile. “It could be fun.”
“You would do that?” Calliope wanted what her mom was offering—so, so very much. But she also knew what it meant: that Elise would have to give up her independence, and live with a man who, no matter how kind he was, she didn’t love.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” Elise said simply, as if that answered every other question. “I hope you know that.”
“Look who I found!” Nadav stepped back onto the terrace, with Livya in tow.
Calliope stepped forward to give the other girl an impulsive hug. “You look beautiful tonight,” she gushed, in a burst of charitable fondness. It was true; her makeup made even Livya’s pale, watery features into something interesting, and her ivory cloqué gown with its full skirt gave her skinny figure some much-needed shape.
“Thanks,” Livya said stiffly, quickly extricating herself from Calliope’s arms. She didn’t return the compliment.
“Cheers to our new family!” Nadav cried out, brandishing a cold bottle of champagne like a weapon as he popped the cork. The sound ricocheted loudly over the hum of the party, drawing a few glances their way, but Calliope didn’t care.
She noticed that Livya barely took the smallest, almost imperceptible sip of the champagne before setting it down, her lips pursed. Clearly she wasn’t as pleased by this turn of events as Calliope was.
Ah, well. You can’t win ’em all,Calliope thought ruefully.
They were done conning. They wouldn’t have to cheat or lie or betray anyone’s trust; wouldn’t have to put on fake names and couture dresses and start the whole vicious cycle over again. The entire world felt brighter, lighter, and full of infinite possibility.
She would live in New York, for real—actually be herself, not some character her mom had made up to play the supporting role in their latest fiction. She could go to school, and have friends, and actuallybecomesomeone.
She couldn’t wait to find out what Calliope Brown, New Yorker, was really like.
“Darling,” her mom hissed, with a sidelong glance, as Nadav handed each of them a champagne flute. “Are those new earrings? They look almost real.”
Calliope tried desperately not to laugh, but the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile in spite of everything. “Of course they’re not real. They’re beautiful, though, aren’t they?”
Elise’s unfamiliar new diamond sparkled in the moonlight as she held her glass towards Calliope’s. “Here’s to this time.”
“Here’s to this time,” Calliope repeated, and no one but her mother would have heard the hopeful, eager edge to the phrase she’d spoken so many times before.
RYLIN
FROM WHERE SHEstood on the edge of the dance floor, Rylin could see the mirroring of The Mirrors to full effect. Three stone bridges dotted with lanterns spanned the canal, each of them so thick with people that they were near impossible to move across. Overhead, etherium bridges winked into being with a burst of light and then vanished seconds later, reminding Rylin of the planes she and Chrissa used to watch from the elevated monorail station. From that far down, the planes had looked like lightning, vanishing from the sky almost the moment Rylin saw them.
What an unexpected day it had been. Just last night Rylin had pinged Leda from the ViewBox—she’d half expected Leda to ignore her, but Leda picked up right away. “What’s up?” she’d asked briskly, as if it weren’t at all weird for Rylin Myers to be pinging her on a Friday night.
“I want to come to Dubai,” Rylin had explained, and from that instant it had all been a whirlwind. She’d bought a new dress, flown overseas on Avery’s family’s plane, and now here she was.
She hadn’t seen Cord yet, but the night was still young. The thrill of what he’d said last week, that he never stopped caring about her, buzzed warm and pleasant in her chest. She was determined to find him—and to find out what it meant.
Her tablet buzzed with an incoming message. Curious, Rylin glanced at it—and was shocked into reading the whole thing.
From: Xiayne Radimajdi.
