wearing a tailored luncheon dress and heels. “Welcome home, sweetie! We missed you.”
Avery forgot her irritation that their reunion was happening like this, in the heat and noise of a crowded helipad. She forgot everything except the fact that she was seeing her mom again after so many months apart. “I missed you too!” she exclaimed, pulling her mom into a tight hug.
“Avery!” Her father turned away from Max, who had been shaking his hand. “I’m so glad you’re back!”
He hugged Avery too, and she closed her eyes, returning the embrace—until her dad deftly swiveled her around to better angle her toward the cameras. He stepped back, looking sleek and self-satisfied in his crisp white shirt, beaming with pride. Avery tried to hide her disappointment—that her dad had turned her homecoming into a stunt, and that the media had obliged him.
“Thank you all!” he declared in his booming, charming voice, for the benefit of everyone recording. What he was thanking them for, Avery didn’t exactly understand, but from the nodding faces of the reporters, it didn’t seem to matter. “We are thrilled that our daughter, Avery, has returned from her semester abroad just in time for the election! Avery would be delighted to answer a few questions,” her dad added, nudging her gently forward.
She wouldn’t, actually, but Avery didn’t have a choice.
“Avery! What are they wearing in England right now?” one of them cried out, a fashion blogger whom Avery recognized.
“Um . . .” No matter how many times she said she wasn’t a fashionista, no one seemed to believe her. Avery turned a pleading glance toward Max—not that he would really be any help—and her attention fastened on the neckline of his flannel shirt. Most of the buttons that marched up the collar were dark brown, but one was much lighter, a soft fawn color. He must have lost that button and replaced it with another, not caring that it didn’t go with the others.
“Clashing buttons,” she heard herself say. “I mean, buttons that don’t match. On purpose.”
Max caught her eye, one eyebrow lifted in amusement. She forced herself to look away so she wouldn’t burst out laughing.
“And who is this? Your new boyfriend?” another of the bloggers asked, causing the group’s focus to swerve hungrily toward Max. He gave a genial shrug.
Avery couldn’t help noticing that her parents’ gazes had hardened as they focused on Max. “Yes. This is my boyfriend, Max,” she declared.
There was a mild uproar at her words, and before Avery could say anything else, Pierson had put a protective arm around her. “Thank you for your support! We are so glad to have Avery back in New York,” he said again. “And now, if you’ll excuse us, we need some time alone as a family.”
“Clashing buttons?” Max fell into step alongside her. “Wonder where that came from.”
“You should be thanking me. I just made you the most stylish guy in New York,” Avery joked, reaching for his hand.
“Exactly! How will I handle that kind of pressure?”
As they walked toward the waiting hover, Avery’s mind drifted back to her father’s final words. Some time alone as a family. Except they weren’t a family right now, because they were missing one very important person.
Avery knew she shouldn’t be thinking about him, yet she couldn’t help wondering what Atlas was doing, half a world away.
“ISN’T THIS NICE?” Leda Cole’s mom attempted, her tone remorselessly upbeat.
Leda cast a brief, disinterested glance around. She and Ilara were standing in waist-deep warm water, surrounded by the jagged boulders of the Blue Lagoon. The ceiling of the 834th floor soared overhead, colored a cheerful azure that clashed with Leda’s mood.
“Sure,” she mumbled, ignoring the hurt that darted over her mom’s features. She hadn’t wanted to come out today at all. She’d been perfectly fine in her room, alone with her slender, solitary sadness.
Leda knew that her mom was only trying to help. She wondered if this forced outing had been suggested by Dr. Vanderstein, the psychiatrist who treated both of them. Why don’t you try some “girl time”? Leda could hear him saying, with invisible air quotes. Ilara would have seized gratefully on the idea. Anything to drag her daughter out of this unshakable dark mood.
A year ago it would have worked. Leda so rarely got a chunk of her mom’s time; she would have been grateful just for the chance to hang out with her. And the old Leda had always loved going to a hot new spa or restaurant before anyone else.
The Blue Lagoon had opened just a few days ago. After last year’s unexpected earthquake, which sent most of Iceland sliding back into the ocean, a development company had bought the now submerged lagoon from the bewildered Icelandic government at a bargain price. They’d spent months excavating every last sliver of volcanic rock, shipping the whole thing to New York, and re-creating it here, stone by stone.
Typical New Yorkers, forever determined to bring the world to them, as if they couldn’t be bothered to leave their tiny island. Whatever you have, they seemed to be saying to the rest of the world, we can build it here—and better.
Leda used to possess that same kind of cool self-confidence. She had been the girl who knew everything about everyone, who dispensed gossip and favors, who tried to bend the universe to her will. But that was before.
She ran a hand dispassionately through the water, wondering if it was treated with light-bending particles to make it that impossible blue color. Unlike the original lagoon, this one wasn’t filled from a real hot spring. It was just heated tap water, infused with multivitamins and a hint of aloe, supposedly much better than that old foul-smelling sulfuric stuff.
Leda had also heard a rumor that the lagoon managers pumped illegal relaxants into the air: nothing serious, just enough to make up 0.02 percent of the air composition. Well, she could use a little relaxing right now.
“I saw that Avery’s back in town,” Ilara ventured, and the name splintered through Leda’s protective shell of numbness.
It had been easy not to think about Avery while she was in England. Avery had never been reliable at vid-chatting; as long as Leda replied to her occasional one-line message, Avery was distracted into thinking that everything was fine. But what if seeing Avery again dredged up all those memories—the ones Leda forced herself not to think about, the ones she had buried deep within her, in the pitch-darkness—
No, she told herself, Avery wouldn’t want to think about the past any more than Leda did. She was with Max now.
“She has a new boyfriend, right?” Ilara fiddled with the strap of her black one-piece. “Do you know anything about him?”
“A little. His name is Max.”
Her mom nodded. They both knew that the old Leda would have bubbled over at the question, offering various conjectures and speculation about Max, and whether or not he was good enough for her best friend. “What about you, Leda? I haven’t heard you talk about any boys lately,” her mom went on, even though she knew perfectly well that Leda had been alone all
