Page 48 of The Towering Sky
“Calliope,” the other girl said as they walked, “I know you’re new here and can’t be expected to know everything about everyone.”Try me, Calliope thought,I bet I know fifty times what you know.“But Brice Anderton is bad news.”
Good thing you aren’t the one he was flirting with. “Bad news?” Calliope repeated, all innocence.
“I just want you to be careful. A nice girl like you should stay far away from boys like that. Boys withreputations.”
This was the part where Calliope should back down. But part of her felt sharply resentful. Who was Livya to say what she could or couldn’t do? “He doesn’t seem that bad to me,” she protested.
Livya gave a smug smile. “I’m just looking out for you. After you disappeared the other night—”
“Disappeared?” Calliope asked blankly.
“I checked with your calculus professor, and she said that there wasn’t any review session that evening. Where did youreallygo?” Livya pressed.
Calliope didn’t answer. All the bright, breathless joy she had felt with Brice seemed to vacuum away, leaving nothing but a dull sense of anger.
Livya laced her fingers deliberately in Calliope’s. To all the onlookers, it probably looked sweet, that the two girls were holding hands. But Livya’s nails were pressing into the soft flesh of Calliope’s palm like a row of tiny claws.
Calliope had never hated a role so much as she did now—god, not even that time she’d had to work as a nurse and wash out bedpans to try to sneak her mom into that Belgian hospital. At least then she’d been able tosaywhat she wanted.
She wished she could break out in screams, tear her hand violently from Livya’s. Instead she forced herself to swallow it back.This isn’t real, she assured herself. I’m not really this cold, unfeeling person. I’m just playing a part. It isn’t real.
“Thank you for the advice,” she said woodenly.
“Of course. I’m your stepsister, Calliope. I’m family now,” Livya simpered, that ugly smile still pasted on her face. “And I would doanythingto protect my family.”
Calliope couldn’t let a threat like that go unanswered. “So would I,” she replied and smiled right back at her.
AVERY
“THANKS AGAIN FORtonight,” Avery told Max, lingering on the landing to her family’s private elevator. She wasn’t quite ready to go inside.
She didn’t want to risk seeing Atlas.
Avery still couldn’t believe that he had moved back into their apartment. He had unpacked in his old room and was heading off to work every day with their dad, slipping nonchalantly back into his old life as if no time at all had passed since he left for Dubai. As if nothing had changed.
Except that everything had changed, Avery thought furiously.Shehad changed. And it wasn’t fair that he was suddenly here, when she’d gone to such painful lengths to move on from him.
“Are you okay, Avery?” Max asked, sensing her hesitation.
“I just wish that I could stay with you tonight,” she said, and meant it. Avery had slept over in Max’s dorm room the past fewevenings. She wished she could keep staying there indefinitely—but her mom had made a pointed comment about it this morning, and Avery didn’t want to push her luck.
“Me too.” Max pulled her into a hug, tucking his chin above her head. “I’m sorry this election stuff has been so intense. I never realized how much it would affect you. We aren’t so obsessed with the candidates’ families in Germany.”
“That sounds nice.” Avery smiled. “Maybe next time my dad can run for mayor of Würzburg.”
In the week since her dad’s election, her parents had become more committed than ever to maintaining their image as New York’s first family. “New York royalty,” the feeds kept calling them. Even worse, they had dubbed Avery the so-called princess of New York.
Her inbox was now flooded with interview requests—which she found ludicrous, given that she wasn’t an authority in anything except, perhaps, being a teenager. Or hiding an illicit romance from her parents.
Yet bloggers suddenly wanted her to weigh in on everything from her favorite face cream to her most-anticipated fashion trends. When Avery tried to decline the interviews, her parents were horrified. “You’re the youthful face of my administration! Tell them whatever they want to know!” her dad cried out, and signed her up to talk to anyone who would listen.
Meanwhile, Avery’s follower count on the feeds had skyrocketed from a few thousand to a half million. She’d tried to make her page private, but her parents adamantly refused. “We can hire an intern for you, to post and reply to things,” her mom offered. Avery had thought she was joking.
“I’ll see you later,” she murmured and gave Max one last kiss. Then she stepped into the elevator that rose toward their foyer, holding her breath.
As the door slid open, Avery saw with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t waited long enough. Atlas was home.
He stepped out of the kitchen, the shadows falling softly over the planes of his face, so familiar and yet so changed. The silence fluttered between them like a curtain.
