look at her things and her face, and said: “I’ll arrange it.”
“You don’t have to,” Marlow began, but stopped when Honey lunged toward her. It was a violent motion, a frightening one. Somehow, between the lunge and her hand coming up, Honey recalibrated her force. She chucked Marlow on the shoulder in a lighthearted, friendly way, though Marlow noticed the fist she made was so tight, the color drained from her knuckles.
Honey gave a canned half laugh. “Oh,” she said, a little too loudly. “Do you know how to get into Atlantis? I didn’t think so.”
She had a guy who could do it, she said, who could take Marlow to Orla. The plan was that the guy would pick her up before sunrise the next day. They would pass at dawn into Atlantis, gliding over the land border without the guard’s face even changing, all because the car had been sent by Honey Mitchell, privacy princess. The leaders of Atlantis appreciated her work, even if it was a thin, commercial knockoff of theirs.
The guy came to the apartment that afternoon. He gave Marlow a sober nod as he shook her hand. He handed her a little paper map of the tristate area and traced the path that they would travel with a chapped, thick finger. He told her about contingency plans, about public transportation she could take, and where to find it, on the off chance that something went wrong, separating them along the way. When the guy got up to leave, Honey thanked him. “I’m eager for Marlow to see Atlantis,” she said. “I’ve told her how beautiful it is.” The second the door closed behind him, she turned back to Marlow. “It’s a shithole,” she said. “And I say that as someone who grew up without indoor plumbing. But there you go, it’s all set. Anything you need for the trip, go out now and get it on me. There’s a silicone press of my thumbprint in the drawer next to the stove. Sunglasses on my vanity. My wig closet’s in the hallway, third door on the right. Don’t worry,” Honey said. “Everything will go according to plan.”
And as far as Marlow knew, everything else did. But she did not.
Instead, she waited in the dark until she was sure that Honey was asleep. Then she did several things she had never done before, all in a thrilling row:
She found Honey’s expensive tequila and poured it, slowly, over the security system sensor by the front door, the one that would have told Honey she was going. She watched the sensor’s blue light flicker and die.
She sneaked out.
She made a person on the street stop and meet her eye. It took several tries, several frustrating episodes of her pleading and shuffling her feet. Finally, someone paused, looking put out, and told her where to get the bus.
She saw a bus.
* * *
She had not gone along with the plan because, shortly after her Atlantis escort left, Marlow decided to take Honey up on the shopping. She lifted a pair of sunglasses—a chunky, shapeless set that hid the whole top third of her face—from a felt-covered bar in Honey’s room. She stood in front of the wig closet, marveling at the strands that rippled from ceiling to floor, quivering like ghosts when she opened the door, and wondered what Orla Cadden’s hair looked like. In the end, she chose a sleek bob in silver, piled her hair on top of her head, and pulled the wig down hard.
Marlow was halfway to the block of shops David had directed her to when she realized: she had forgotten the silicone print of Honey’s thumb, the one she could slip on to use her credit account.
She was on Hudson Street, headed back, when she spotted Honey. She was doing the strangest thing: walking, instead of being driven. She was on the opposite side of the street, headed north, wearing a blinding getup: white sneakers, white wide-legged pants, white turtleneck, white headscarf, white-framed aviators. A disguise about as subtle as an extra exclamation point.
Somewhere in Marlow’s mind, a soft bell went off.
She took up Honey’s route, keeping half a block back and close to the storefronts, so that she could duck into one if Honey turned around. She followed her until Honey turned abruptly, in the middle of a block, and disappeared into a wall.
When Marlow got closer, she saw that Honey had walked through the gate of a garden sprouting out of nowhere. She