“It’s a moral dilemma for a reason, Rhodes.” His mouth was dry again, though for what reason, he wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps because she’d just unintentionally decided which of them she’d murder, which she might one day actually do.
Precognition. Terrible. He spared no envy for Cassandra.
“There isn’t a correct answer,” Tristan said slowly.
Libby’s smile twisted slightly, eyes drawn up to his.
“I suppose not,” she observed, mostly to herself, and then, astoundingly, began walking away.
Suddenly, Tristan felt a bit mad with disbelief at the concept that Libby could wander over, suggest to him that he was capable of doing something utterly impossible, and then wander off again without addressing the thoughts that had been plaguing him for weeks. Could he kill someone? Could she? Had they signed over their souls the very moment they set foot in this building? Had they become something they would not have been otherwise, now contorted beyond recognition from what they’d been? Were they not yet the deformities they would ultimately be? What the fuck was he supposed to do with electrons—how could he possibly use time?—and had she broken it off with her boyfriend or not?
Tristan’s hand shot out before he could stop himself.
“Rhodes, listen—”
“Ah,” came Callum’s voice, cutting in just as Libby whirled around, eyes wide. “I thought I felt some lingering distress. Is Tristan pestering you again, Rhodes?”
“No, of course not.” She cleared her throat, glancing at Tristan’s hand, which he removed from her arm. “Just think about it,” she said quietly, “would you?”
Then she gave Callum’s shoes a wordless glance and ducked her head, leaving the room.
“So skittish, that one,” said Callum, glancing after her and turning back to Tristan. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
“No.” He still couldn’t bring himself to tell her. “And anyway, suppose it isn’t true?”
“Suppose it isn’t,” Callum agreed, falling into the chair beside Tristan’s. “How do you imagine they make that announcement, I wonder?”
“It could be a trick,” Tristan said. “Or a trap. Like—”
“The installation? And the Forum?”
Tristan sighed. “Suppose they just want to see what we’re capable of.”
“Suppose it’s real,” Callum mused alternatively. “I don’t suppose you have a lead, do you?”
“A lead?”
“A target would be the less sensitive term,” Callum said. “Or a mark.”
Tristan bristled a little, and Callum’s perpetual smile thinned.
“Do you find me callous now, too, Tristan?”
“A cactus would find you callous,” mumbled Tristan, and Callum chuckled.
“And yet here we are,” he said, summoning a pair of glasses, “two peas in a pod.”
He set one glass in front of Tristan, pouring a bit of brandy he procured from the flask in his jacket pocket.
“You know, I don’t remember the first time I realized I could feel things other people couldn’t,” Callum commented anecdotally, not looking up from the liquid in the glass. “It’s just… always been there. I knew, of course, right from the start that my mother didn’t love me. She said it, ‘I love you,’ just as often to me as she did to my sisters,” he continued, shifting to pour himself a glass, “but I could feel the way it lacked warmth when she said it to me.”
Callum paused. “She hated my father. Still does,” he mused in an afterthought, picking up his glass and giving it a testing sniff. “I have a guess that I was conceived under less than admirable circumstances.”
He glanced up at Tristan, who raised his own glass numbly to his lips. Like always, there was a blur of magic around Callum, but nothing identifiable. Nothing outside of the ordinary, whatever Callum’s ordinary even was.
“Anyway,” Callum went on, “I noticed that if I did certain things; said things a certain way, or held her eye contact while I did them, I could make her… soften towards me.” The brandy burned in Tristan’s mouth, more fumes than flavor. “I suppose I was ten when I realized I had made my mother love me. Then I realized I could make her do other things, too. Put the glass down. Put the knife down. Unpack the suitcase. Step away from the balcony.” Callum’s smile was grim. “Now she’s perfectly content. The matriarch of the most successful media conglomerate in the world, happily satisfied by one of the many boyfriends half her age. My father hasn’t bothered her in over a decade. But she still loves me differently; falsely. She loves me because I put it there. Because I made myself her anchor to this life, and therefore she loves me only as much as she can love any sort of chain. She loves me like a prisoner of war.”
Callum took a sip.