Sloane sat in the doorway facing the elevator so she would see if anyone was coming toward them. Her right leg was stretched out on the broad boards of the floor of Esther’s room; her crutches leaned against the inexplicable holy water stoup fixed to the wall that Esther was using to hold her jewelry.
“Odd is not the word I would have chosen,” Sloane said. “Alarming or suspicious, maybe.”
“I don’t think I understand what’s so alarming,” Matt said. He had unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and was rolling up the sleeves. He wore his siphon all the time now—he and Esther both did. That morning Sloane had caught them turning their breakfast coffees into ice. “People misspeak all the time. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“Have you ever randomly started referring to me as ‘he’?” Sloane said.
“Well, no,” Matt said. “But maybe they were trans and Aelia just slipped up with the pronouns, or maybe she didn’t really know them at the time, or—”
Esther interrupted him. “Why didn’t you just ask her about it when it happened?”
“I figured if she told one lie, she might tell another,” Sloane said. “Seemed safer to hold it in for the time being.”
“I still think—” Matt began.
Esther cut him off again. “Don’t be dumb,” she said. “Aelia was obviously talking about two different people. Nero and Aelia have been lying to us. But we don’t know why. It’s just as likely it’s for a good reason as a bad one.”
“I can’t believe you guys.” Sloane slapped the floor with her palm. “These people kidnapped us from another dimension. They’re holding us hostage until we fight their bad guy. And you’re having trouble believing they would lie to us? Why—because they said please and thank you?”
“Always with the drama.” Esther rolled her eyes. “All I’m doing is trying not to freak out; I’m not campaigning for them to get the Nobel Prize.”
Matt was toying with the string that kept his siphon tight to his hand, turning it around and around his fingertip. “Even if Aelia did lie and it was for some insidious reason,” he said, “what are we supposed to do about it? Our only path home is still through her.”
He wasn’t wrong, Sloane thought. No matter what Aelia was hiding, no matter what was really going on with Genetrix and Earth, wouldn’t they still do whatever they had to to get home? The thought of spending the rest of her life here, surrounded by taffeta and the clink of siphon plates, made her feel suffocated. This was not her planet. Not her life.
Even if she had nothing but heartache waiting for her back on Earth—moving out of the apartment she shared with Matt, grieving over Albie, navigating the scrutiny of the media—at least that life belonged to her. But she couldn’t forget the strange relief of hearing Aelia make her misstep, of finally having a name for what she had been feeling since she pulled herself out of the Chicago River: She was being lied to. And Sloane hated lies unless she was the one telling them. “I’ll get proof,” Sloane said. “And I’ll confront her with it. She won’t be able to lie to me then.”
“I can talk to Cyrielle,” Matt offered. “Just casually, not an interrogation.”
Sloane recognized that as the peace offering it was and gave him a small smile.
“Nothing like a casual conversation about dead Chosen Ones over dinner,” Esther said.
“Cyrielle, huh?” Sloane said. She meant to tease him, but it came out sounding flat, almost accusatory.
“Something else you’d like to ask?” he said quietly.
Sloane felt that awful swelling inside her—in her throat, in her chest, in her stomach—that meant she might burst into tears. She put her hands on the door frame behind her and pushed herself to her feet. “No,” she said once she was steadier. “I’m gonna go. Tired.”
It was obviously a lie. But Matt, in his infinite courtesy, let her tell it.
EXCERPT FROM
The Mammoth Treasury of Unrealist Poetry, Volume 2
Le Quoi
by Artificielle
What is it?
Is it
IS it?
What is
is
Is itwhatit is
I
S
I
S
IT!
what
28
THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED brought Sloane boredom and frustration. The doctor had told her not to train with siphons for two weeks at least, so no one bothered her about practicing. She wasn’t supposed to walk without crutches, and the crutches hurt her armpits, so she spent most of her time in one place, reading The Manifestation of Impossible Wants. That place was a small bench down the hall from Nero’s workshop.