Page 97 of The Towering Sky

Rylin bit her lip until she tasted blood. She wanted to crawl out of her skin, to strip this expensive dress off her back and rip it to shreds. She felt disgusted with Cord and with herself.

She had been so angry with Hiral, for deciding that he would leave town without consulting her, for making it feel like he had made her choicesforher. And yet Cord had been right here, doing the same thing the whole time.

“We should never have gotten back together,” she said heavily. “We were right to break up the first time. We’re too different, you and I.”

She turned and walked away, her head held high, and only after she was on the lift back home did Rylin reach up to brush away the tears.

AVERY

THE INSIDE OFthe elevator car was completely dark.

“What’s going on?” Avery blinked rapidly, then gave a series of voice commands to her contacts. They refused to cooperate.

“That won’t work,” Atlas said, hearing her struggle. “The elevator shaft is lined with magnets, which interferes with their frequency.”

Avery pounded on the door. She knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything, but it made a satisfyingly loud noise beneath her closed fist.

“Hey, hey. Calm down,” Atlas said, reaching for her arm; and she realized how utterly absurd it was that she was standing here in her hand-stitched gown, pounding on the elevator like a Neanderthal.

“Sorry,” she muttered, somewhere on the precipice between laughter and tears. If only she could see Atlas. The darkness feltpervasive in a heavy, palpable way, like it used to feel in Oxford. Real darkness, without the omnipresent urban glow.

“Maybe they’re doing repair work somewhere nearby and damaged a power line,” Atlas offered by way of explanation. “Or maybe the party is draining so much of city hall’s electricity that it’s overwhelming the grid.”

“Someone will be here to let us out soon, though. Right?”

“I think so,” he said unconvincingly.

Their breath came ragged and shallow. There seemed to be a strange hum of energy circling through the elevator car, crackling in the air: as if the entire world was waiting, breathless with expectation, for something to happen.

“I’m sorry.” Atlas’s voice sounded at once very close and very far away.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Not for the power outage, for everythingelse. For coming back to town, upsetting you, interfering with your life—” He broke off impatiently. “I’m heading back to Dubai next week.”

“You are?”

“Don’t you want me to?”

Avery didn’t answer. She was desperate for Atlas to leave, and yet she dreaded it. It was as if there were two warring halves of her, two versions of herself, and each of them wanted such drastically different things. She felt like she would break beneath the strain.

“I heard that you and Max are moving in together,” Atlas went on.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” The apartment in Oxford felt suddenly as fanciful, as detached from reality, as something she had dreamed. Would she really live there?

“Maybe?” he repeated, puzzled.

“I’m not even sure I want to go to Oxford anymore,” Avery admitted.

Atlas was quiet for a moment, digesting that. “It’s funny,” he said at last. “I was so surprised when you first announced that you were applying there. I had always pictured you doing something more adventurous. Like Semester at Sea. Or that school in Peru, the one perched on the edge of a mountain.”

Avery should have known that Atlas would recognize her restlessness, her confused desire to get out of New York and figure out who she was. Atlas, the boy who gave her a magic carpet.

While Max handed her the key-chips to an apartment that came complete with a whole entire life.

Avery lowered herself to the floor, no longer caring about her expensive gown, and looped her arms around her legs to rest her forehead against her knees. “I wish you hadn’t come home,” she heard herself say. “I was doing just fine until you showed up and threw everything out of whack. You wouldn’t understand, Atlas, you’re so obviouslyhappyin Dubai. But it was hard for me, for a long time after we said good-bye.”

She heard him slide down to sit next to her. “I’m not actually that happy in Dubai.”