The Atlas Paradox

Aviditas. Appetite. Aviditas vitae, the wanting to live. The hunger for it, which drove everything. Nico knew it to exist because he had seen Reina create it. He knew it to be powerful because he believed Tristan to be correct. He now believed the desire to live to be more than philosophy, more than psychology, but rather, a primordial principle of physics.

t I used to not believe that,” Reina continued. “I believed the universe was completely random, and that’s what eluded us. Because we all want to believe we are fundamental in some way. We are our own myths, our own legends. We give things reason. We are reasonable creatures and so everything must have its place, its purpose—but we are also egotistical creatures, and so we give ourselves reasons that don’t exist.”

information could have killed Libby. Not actually, of course. But in some life-changing, destructive way, possession of an answer would have killed the spark of her that kept her going, moved her forward

History did that to people. Proximity. Love in some cases, hatred in others. The specific kind of intimacy that meant that every enemy was once a friend.

She had long ago embraced her value as an object of beauty, not unlike a flower or a statue. She had learned how to position herself for the best angles, the most expressive looks, all for the sake of bettering other people’s perception of her.

If power is a thing to be had, it must be capable of possession. But power is not any discrete size or weight. Power is continuous. Power is parabolic. Say you are given some power, which then increases your capacity to accumulate more power. Your capacity for power increases exponentially in relation to the actual power you have gained. Thus, to gain power is to be increasingly powerless.

If the more power one has, the less one has, then is it the thing or are you?

“Varona,” Libby said, taking a step toward him. “We need to talk.”

Then she collapsed into Gideon’s arms.

He, Gideon noted, seemed for once too stunned to speak, one hand still pressed to his mouth and the ghost of Gideon’s kiss.

It was unmissably magical, unavoidably so. The opening of a transport ward.

Gideon spun, one arm thrown instinctively into Nico’s chest to put himself between Nico and his latest assassin, when instead he blinked in surprise. Behind him, Gideon felt Nico’s pulse stutter and quicken; heard the confusion in his voice.

“Rhodes?”

Libby Rhodes stood before them on the sidewalk. There was blood on her clothes—clearly someone else’s—and ash in her hair, but there was no question it was her. She had found her way back, through time and space and impossibility. It was Libby Rhodes, and she was here.

To say she was unharmed would be false. Her eyes were unfocused except for the way they met Nico’s.

There was a streak of blood on Nico’s cheek when Gideon looked at him. A slow trickle from Nico’s hairline, a cut along his jaw. There was a roar of something furious and fierce in Gideon, who reached up to brush the blood away and then stopped.

“What?” said Nico, who swallowed a laugh. The muscle in his jaw jumped, then stilled.

“Nothing,” said Gideon.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Gideon, come on, no te hagas rogar—”

Don’t make me beg. Ha, as if he would. As if he could.

Nico laughed again and it hurt Gideon somewhere deep, jellying his legs with delayed paralysis. That, or a timed-release breakdown. Fear, firstly, that they had skirted something narrowly, so narrowly that it was almost a disaster, a disaster from which Gideon would never recover. Relief, that no one had put a stop to that arrogant laugh. That Nico de Varona had never learned how fragile Gideon really was. That because Nico believed himself to be invincible, Gideon sometimes believed it, too, right up until the terrifying moments when he didn’t. Like now.

“I always forget how good you are at stuff,” Nico was babbling appreciatively, still talking, still laughing, still blissfully, ridiculously alive, and some madness inside Gideon’s chest made up his mind for him. He leaned forward and caught Nico’s mouth with his in something of a punitive force, a captive blow. More of a gasp than anything else, really.

Although technically it was a kiss.

Nico’s lips were dry and his mouth was hot, taken aback, unprepared and metallic with concentration. Gideon felt Nico’s breath catch on his tongue, an audible hitch of surprise, and then Nico pulled away and Gideon thought no, no, no—

“Oh. So it’s like that?” Nico said. His eyes were searching and bewilderingly, confusingly bright. In response Gideon felt unopened and raw, like he’d cracked his chest in two and presented the evidence for Nico’s evaluation.

“Yeah.” It left Gideon in a rasp, but fuck it. It had lived in his throat long enough. “Yeah,” he attempted again, “yeah, it’s like that.”

Nico’s smile broadened.

“Good.” Nico caught him by a fistful of his T-shirt, tugging him in again. “Good.”

Gideon’s heart banged in his chest, his lips parting in absolute rapture, when he heard another noise behind him.