by Lauren Kate
"There was supposed to be coffee," Solon said, "but apparently my employees have quit."
"I had the craziest dream." Cat appeared at the top of the stairs. "My brother and I were driving my dad's old Trans-Am across the ocean through all these giant schools of fish." She rested her head on Eureka's shoulder with un-Cat-like lethargy. She still hadn't reached her family.
A moment later, Dad mounted the stairs, his weight steadied by Ander. Eureka touched the bandage around his shoulder. It was clean and tight.
"Better today," he said before she could ask. The bruise spreading from his temple was green.
"You should be resting," she said.
"He was worried about you," Ander said. "We didn't know where you were."
"I'm fine--"
"Claire!" Dad shouted. "Get down!"
Claire had climbed atop the veranda's stone rail. She leaned for a branch of pink bougainvillea, its petals bordered with brown.
"I want to get the flower like Eureka."
She leaned too far. Her foot slid across the wet stone, and she tumbled forward, over the rail. Everyone scrambled toward her, but William, who was always already next to Claire, was first.
His arm shot over the rail. His open hand reached out. By the time Eureka got there, William was holding Claire.
Except he wasn't. Their hands didn't even touch. Five feet of air separated the twins. Claire dangled over a steep drop, held aloft by an invisible force. As William reached down and Claire reached up, some kind of energy in the space between connected them and kept her from falling. She looked beneath her feet at nothing. She began to cry.
"I've got you." William's forehead beaded with sweat. His body was still except for his twitching fingers. Claire began to rise.
The rest of them watched as Claire slowly floated toward her brother's hand. Soon, their fingertips connected, then each grasped the other's wrist. Then Ander and Solon were hauling Claire up the rest of the way, onto the veranda.
"Thanks." She shrugged at William after she was upright, safe.
"Sure." He shrugged back as Claire ran to Dad to wipe her tears.
Eureka knelt before William. "How did you do that?"
"I just wanted to bring her back where she belonged," William said. "With us."
"Try it again," Solon said.
"I don't think so," Dad said.
"Throw something in the air," Solon said to Claire. "Anything. But let William be the one to catch it."
Claire glanced around the veranda. Her gaze settled on the purple bag Eureka had set by the head of the stairs. The Book of Love peeked from its top.
"No!" Eureka warned, but Claire already held the book in her hands.
She hurled it into the sky. There was a small gray burst as the cordon became visible where the book pierced it. Wind and rain ripped through the hole it created. Eureka heard a loud buzz, like a riot of bees, then a tiny purple mushroom cloud bloomed in the sky. The book sailed over the Tearline pond below the veranda. It moved through the rain like it would never stop, like the answers to Eureka's heritage would always be further and further away. After what seemed like half an eternity, The Book of Love struck a high peak of white stone and fell open on the face of a rock.
"My book," Eureka murmured.
"I'll get it back," Ander said.
"The little thing has pierced my cordon and compromised the witches' glaze." Solon scratched his chin, horrified. His gaze darted around the Tearline pond, like he could suddenly sense Atlas, too. "Everybody run!"
"Wait." William edged forward and rested his elbows on the veranda's rail. He focused on the book across the pond. After a moment, it rose from the stone, thumped closed, and sliced backward through the air. A purple shimmer blinked in the sky as the book passed through the glaze. Then came the gray burst at the cordon's boundary. Everybody ducked as The Book of Love soared back to the veranda. It shot into William's arms and knocked him off his feet.
"Amazing." Solon helped William up, then hopped atop the veranda's rail and examined his cordon, through which rain no longer fell. "It must be a counterquirk."
"A what?" Eureka returned her book to her bag, and her bag to her shoulder.
"Yesterday, Claire trespassed the border of the witches' glaze to enter the Bitter Cloud. Today, William does the opposite. He said it beautifully: he brings things back where they belong. The twins' quirks are counterpoints. Counterquirks."
"What is a quirk?" Eureka asked.
"The quirk--it's ..." Solon glanced at the others. "No one knows? Really?"
"Eureka killed Google," Cat explained.
"A quirk is an enchanted inkling," Solon said, "a fragment of magic with which every mortal soul is born. Most people never learn how to harness theirs, and die with their quirks still dormant. Quirks are as fragile as one's sense of self. Unless one's quirk is protected to survive the chilling effects of growing older, it disappears. A true pity, because even the most absurd quirks become essential in the proper context."
"Do we get only one?" William asked.
"Ambitious lad," Solon said. "Well, why should there be a limit? One quirk is a miracle, but don't let me stand in your way. Quirk out as much as you like."
"Do you have a quirk?" Claire asked Solon.
"Yes," Cat answered for him. "Being a dick."
"I possess the Seedbearer's global quirk," Solon said, "the Zephyr. Ander shares it, too. Groups often have global quirks, and sometimes counterquirks, like the twins. My neighbors, the Celans, can visit the dead in their dreams. But quirks don't have to rely on heritage or who your parents were. Each of us has magic within us. We take our quirks from the universal store." He paused. "William and Claire have already awakened their quirks. Perhaps the time has come for the rest of you to do the same."
Eureka approached Solon. "You're supposed to prepare me to go to the Marais," she said. "We have eight days before the full moon."
"Says the girl who disappeared last night when we could have been working."
"She left because you dropped a bomb on her," Ander said.
"A bomb I wouldn't have had to drop if you had been honest," Solon said.
"A bomb went off last night?" William asked.
"Everything good happens when we're asleep," Claire said, and crossed her arms.
"Eureka's right," Ander said. "This isn't the time for magic tricks. Our enemy is out there. Teach us how to fight him."
"Not us. Me. This is my fight," Eureka said to Solon, to Ander, to Atlas wherever he was.
"If I were facing the darkest force in the universe," Solon said, "I'd want all the help I could get."
"Yeah, well, some people have less to lose than others," Eureka said.
"Meaning?" Solon asked.
"You don't love anyone, so you don't care who gets hurt," Eureka said. "When I go to the Marais, I'll go alone."
Solon snorted. "The day you're ready to go to the Marais alone is the day I keel over and die!"
"Finally, you've given me a goal!" Eureka shouted.
A hint of green in the corner of Eureka's vision grabbed her attention. Cat sat with her back against the trunk of the tree, which wasn't barren anymore. Its branches sprouted tender green leaves, then flowered into a thousand pale pink cherry blossoms. Petals floated to the ground, showering Cat's braids, as ripe red cherries swelled from the branches' buds. The twins started laughing, leaping to pluck the fruit from the tree. Its branches curved forward, embracing Cat in what almost seemed like a gentle, grateful hug.
"How did you do that?" Eureka asked.
"Diana said you and Solon were supposed to be great friends," Cat said. "I didn't want you to fight. So I sat down and focused on the love Diana felt for both of you. I was hoping you'd feel it for each other."
"Cat." Eureka sank to her knees. "Why do you love fixing people up so much?"
Cat ran her hands through the carpet of cherry blossoms around her feet. "I want everyone to fall in love."
"But why?"
Eureka plucked a cherry, handed it to her friend. "I think you found your quirk."
"Eat one, Reka," William said, dumping a fistful in her lap.
Eureka slipped a cherry in her mouth. As she chewed she found it difficult to stay angry at Solon. There was love inside the fruit. Love that was bigger than fear.
"I'm sorry," she told Solon. "I'm just worried that I'm running out of time."
"Now you have to say you're sorry, too." Claire held out a cherry to Solon.
"I regret nothing," Solon said, and turned away. "Trenton, you're next."
"Wait," Cat said. "I could do more. If we went back to those hazelnut trees, I could revive them. My grandfather grew pecans--one tree produces six hundred pounds of nuts per year. Say there were fifty trees in that grove. That's three hundred thousand pounds of food. The Poet said his family is starving. I could help."
"None of you will leave the protection of the glaze," Solon said.
"My family could be starving right now," Cat said. "If there was something someone could do to help them--"
"You cannot handle what is out there." Solon glared at Eureka, making her wonder if he knew where she had been last night.
Dad approached Solon. "I'll give it a shot. What do I do?"
"You don't have to, Dad," Eureka said. "You're not well."
Solon looked hard at Dad. "Your quirk is likely buried very deep within you. But it's there. It's always there. Perhaps a tool might help. Ander, the orichalcum?"
Ander unzipped his backpack and withdrew three silver objects. First was the delicate anchor they'd used yesterday to make landfall. It gleamed as if recently polished, as all the objects did. There was also a sheath, six inches long, and made of thinly hammered silver. From it Solon drew a futuristic-looking spear that was, amazingly, many times longer than the sheath. It was nearly four feet long, with a thin serrated blade.
The last object was a small rectangular chest about the size of a jewelry box. It contained Atlantean artemisia, a substance deadly to Seedbearers. Ander had flashed that chest at his family when they tried to run Eureka off the country road in Breaux Bridge. Its green glow had scared them off. Solon eyed it greedily.
"The objects before you are made of orichalcum," he said to Dad. "Before Ander brought them here, I had not seen them in three-quarters of a century and was beginning to think they were mystical aspects of my imagination. Orichalcum is an ancient metal. It is also an indentured metal, which means it works for its owner. You may choose one--which is to say one may choose you--as a talisman to help uncover your quirk."
Dad stared at the objects. "I don't understand."
"Can we please stop trying to make sense of things?" Solon said. "It's supposed to be natural, like it was for your children. For example, this one speaks to me." He lifted the chest's lid and gave a deep, sensual sniff.
Ander snapped the lid shut. "Are you suicidal?"
"Of course I'm suicidal," Solon said, laughing. "What kind of insane lunatic isn't suicidal?"
"If you die, I die," Ander muttered. "I won't abandon Eureka because you're too much of a coward to live."
Solon raised an eyebrow. "That remains to be seen."
"Dad, take the chest," Eureka said.
"Yeah, I like this one." Dad eased the chest from Ander's and Solon's grips. He opened the lid and recoiled at the sharp odor. Solon leaned forward, breathing in, enchanted. Eureka noticed that Ander leaned forward, too. Seedbearers couldn't resist artemisia.
As Solon bent over in another consuming coughing spell, Dad watched with a concern that Eureka recognized. He'd looked at her that way all her life.
"You have cancer," he said.
Solon straightened, stared at Dad. "What?"
"Your lungs. I see it clearly. There's darkness here"--he gestured toward Solon's heart--"and here, and here." He pointed at two other places along Solon's lower ribs. "Artemisia could help. The herb eases inflammation."
"Hear that, Ander?" Solon laughed.
"This artemisia comes from Atlantis," Ander said. "It's far more potent than any herb you are familiar with."
"Dad," Eureka tried to explain, "Solon can't inhale artemisia without dying from it, without killing Ander, too."
"There are other homeopathic remedies," Dad said, pacing, excited. "If we could get our hands on some Venus flytrap extract, I could make a tea."
"There's a health-food store about a mile underwater," Solon said.
"You've always had your quirk," Eureka said to Dad. "That's why you try to heal us all with food. You can see what's wrong inside us."
"And you want us to get better," William said.
"Your mother always said I could see the best in people," Dad said.
"Which one?" Eureka asked. "Rhoda or Diana?"
"Both."
"Now it's Eureka's turn," Claire said.
"I think my quirk is my sadness," Eureka said. "And I've already used it enough."
Solon frowned. "Your mind is much narrower than Diana's."
"What do you mean?"
"There is a wider spectrum of emotions than just sorrow and desolation. Have you ever considered what might transpire if you allowed yourself to feel"--Solon's eyes widened--"joy?"
Eureka looked at William and Claire, who were waiting for her response. She recalled a quote she'd once seen tattooed on a boy's neck as he fought with another kid at Wade's Hole:
A LEADER IS A DEALER IN HOPE.
At some point, Eureka had become Cat, Dad, and the twins' leader. She wanted to give them hope. But how?
She thought of a popular phrase in the chat rooms she had trolled after Diana died: "It gets better." Eureka knew it was originally offered as encouragement to gay kids, but if there was one thing she'd learned since Diana's death, it was that emotions didn't travel in a straight line. Sometimes it would get better, sometimes it would get worse. Sure, Eureka had known joy--in the tops of live oak trees, in dilapidated boats cruising the bayou, on long runs through shady groves, and in peals of laughter with Brooks and Cat--but the sensation was usually so fleeting, a commercial in the drama of her life, that she'd never put much stock in it.
"How would joy help me defeat Atlas?" Eureka wondered aloud.
"Solon!" a voice called from behind them. The Poet appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked terrified. "I tried to stop them ... but beggars must be choosers."
"What are you talking about?" Solon asked.
From behind the Poet an enraged voice shouted something Eureka didn't understand. A young man with a stubbly beard joined the Poet on the stairs. Every muscle in his body was tensed, as if he were in shock. His chest heaved and his eyes were wild. He pointed a trembling finger at Eureka.
"Yes," the Poet said with heavy regret. "She is the one the dead speak of in our dreams."
14
STORMING A STORM
"Stay there!" Solon shouted at Eureka. His silk robe trailed behind him as he rushed past the Poet and down the stairs. Without the protection of his cordon, rain returned to the veranda.
"What's going on?" Cat asked the Poet.
The other boy moved quickly across the veranda, splashing through puddles, trampling on swirls of cherry blossoms, heading for Eureka.
A silver flash caught her eye as the orichalcum chain of Ander's anchor tightly encircled the boy's bony rib cage. He grunted, struggling to breathe.
Ander held the shank of the anchor over his shoulder, the chain coiled around his wrist. He shoved the bearded boy and the Poet against the veranda's rail. He pressed their necks over the overlook. A sheet of mist spread toward them and the boys slipped in and out of foggy, white obscurity.
"Who's down there?" Ander's grip tightened on both boys' necks. "How many?"
"Don't hurt him!" Cat said.
"Let go, please," the Poet grunted. "We come in pieces."
"Liar," Ander said. Lightning split the sky, illuminating his shoulder mu
scles through his T-shirt. "They want her."
"They want food." The Poet gasped and struggled to break free.
The Poet's companion began whipping his head back in violent jerks, trying to strike Ander's face.
Claire tugged on the sleeve of Dad's jean jacket. "Should I spear that boy?"
Dad locked eyes with Eureka. Both of them had noticed the orichalcum sheath in Claire's hand. Dad lifted it from one daughter and passed it to the other. Eureka slipped it through the belt loop of her jeans as Dad tucked the orichalcum chest inside his jacket.
A series of thumps drew Eureka's attention to Ander and the boys. The sharp point of Ander's elbow snapped into the back of the bearded boy's head, over and over, until the boy grunted and finally went limp.
Dad tried to shield the twins from the violent sight, and Eureka was surprised she hadn't thought to do the same. It hadn't shocked her the way it would have once. Now violence was ordinary, like the ache of hunger and the dull edge of regret.
Dad moved the twins toward the staircase. Something in Eureka lightened as they slipped away. The sensation came and went quickly, and she couldn't put it into words, but it made her wonder whether she would rather be like Cat, with no knowledge of her family, with no special responsibility to protect them.
A crash below made Dad jump away from the head of the stairs. There was nowhere safe to go.
"Stay up here!" Eureka called.
Behind her, the Poet was on his knees, lightly slapping the unconscious boy's cheeks, murmuring something in their language.
"Take this to your family," Cat said, her crossed arms full of cherries. The Poet gave her a grateful nod and a shy smile that belonged on the outskirts of a high school football game--not over an unconscious body somewhere near the end of the world.
"We have more food," Eureka heard herself say.
Ander moved next to her. She felt his heat pulse near her body. He was bleeding above his eyebrow where the boy's head had struck him.
"If we feed them," Ander said to the Poet, "do you swear they'll leave her alone?"
Another crash sounded below. Eureka heard Solon wheeze: "I said hit me, you pathetic weaklings!"
"Solon, you idiot," she muttered as she rushed for the stairs.
Dad's arm shot out, trying to block her. "This isn't your fight, Reka."
"It's only my fight," she said. "Don't go down there."
Dad started to argue, then realized he couldn't stop her, or change her mind, or change the person she'd become. He kissed her forehead lightly, between her eyes, the way he used to after her nightmares. You're awake now, his soft voice once reassured her. Nothing's gonna get you.