Half an hour later, Atlas was as silent as the grave. While his cross-sticks were loosely grasped between his pointer and index finger, the majority of both of his hands were clutching at his forehead. It almost looked like he was nursing a headache, but Eden knew better; he was just trying to hold himself up.

“You’re not well,” Eden said, placing her sticks on the counter. He had eaten a lot of food, despite his complaints about how salty it tasted. There hadn’t been a grain of salt on any of it.

“I’m fine,” Atlas mumbled. “I just need a minute.”

“No, you need rest. Badly. Come on—”

Eden stepped down off her stool, but Atlas moved his hand away from his face only to grab her arm.

“No. I don’t want to.”

Eden laughed. It was more at his irrationality than anything else. “Yes you do. In fact I’d wager there is nothing you want more right now.”

“You’re wrong…” he said softly, eyes glazed. “I want you to stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere yet,” she said. “I don’t leave assignments unfinished. Why would I feed you just to let someone else break in while you sleep and slit your throat? That seems like an extremely effective way to waste all my efforts.”

If Atlas heard her, it was barely registering properly. His eyes slid shut mid-nod, and his body was beginning to tilt with what looked like very little control. Still, of all things, his grip on her wrist was like an iron shackle.

When he was about to fall, Eden cursed her luck and turned to heave his arm over her shoulder. Though she made it just in time to stop him from crashing to the floor, it didn’t stop them both from stumbling forward a few steps under his weight. It took a few moments more for him to shake himself out of his stupor.

He lifted his head, the proximity between their faces so much less than what she was used to from anyone in the entirety of her life. She didn’t know how to react, all she could think was how ugly the scars on her face must have seemed that close.

It was a traitorous thought, a weak thought. Insecurity was for the fragile,  the unfocused.

But, “Thank you,” was all he said.

“Sure,” she murmured, evading his gaze. “So, which room is yours?”

“I don’t have one. I—I try to switch whenever I need to sleep. It affords me a little extra time before they—”

“Forget the attacks,” Eden urged, hoisting him as best she could towards the door, “just tell me which one you call yours.”

“The next floor up…on the other side… the corner room.”

“Of course it is,” Eden lamented, but quickly pushed her protests aside in favor of concentration. It was a good decision, because it took a long time to make it there. A few times Atlas stumbled – especially on the stairs leading to the second floor – and Eden found herself becoming nothing more than a load-bearing pole.

By the time they made it to the room, getting the door open while supporting him was admittedly very difficult. But the moment they stepped in, Eden saw the room’s appeal. She helped him hobble over to the beautifully plush bed while she looked around, interested.

“Here,” she said, unhooking his arm from her neck and laying his hand on one of the vertical bedposts. It held up a very extravagant canopy that Atlas all but ignored.

Despite looking like he was on the verge of crumpling to the floor, he merely stared at the puffy, satin bedspread and said nothing.

“It’s okay,” Eden assured him. “Sleep now.”

He looked over at her with a small sliver of desperation buried under a mountain of reluctance.

“It’s okay,” she said again, nodding her head towards the bed. “I promise.”

He cracked all at once, throwing his hands over his shoulders to grab at the back of his shirt and tearing it off over his head. The ferocity almost made her jump.

Though he had half stripped in front of her, she did not outwardly react. Inwardly, she didn’t know how to. There was no dispute; Atlas was handsome. Or maybe it was that she could see he had once been even more so. She wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation that was zigzagging through her belly like a tiny, trapped sea monkey.

But he was so, so thin. His hip bones were too prominent, his shoulders too sharp. There was still muscle there, but it didn’t sit right on his body, she thought. No, he was once much bigger. Much stronger. Perhaps there was more to this mission than just shoving food down his throat.

Penning that into her mental notes didn’t exactly excite her inner agenda.

Atlas collapsed onto the bed, and dragged himself towards the pillows with a sort of guttural moan that, again, she didn’t know how to process. So she didn’t try. He was obviously very happy to see his bed.

Satisfied, she attempted to retreat to shut the door. Atlas’s hand shot out to snake around her wrist. He squeezed so urgently that she had no choice but to look into his face for the meaning.

His eyes were hard, and the mahogany hair draped over his glare enhanced it immensely. “Don’t leave,” he whispered.

“I told you I’m not—”

“I need you,” he said. She froze, but he turned his face into his pillow, like he was trying to stop any more from coming out. “Wherever you’re from, whoever you are… I need you.”

Eden said nothing, but it didn’t matter. He fell asleep like that; holding onto her arm the way a child might cling to their mother. She might have even been a little charmed, if the helplessness in his voice wasn’t quite so evident. It was a clear and final cry for help, and as he lay there, his features smoothed under the gentle hand of sleep, Eden glimpsed the boy instead of the man.

The dying boy. The boy that was being murdered by lies and, as he had said, counterfeit kindness. It wasn’t a mystery why he clung to her so futilely; she was brutal and scarred, but she was not a liar. He saw this, he knew this. She wondered if that was a mistake on her part, and how she could have done things differently. Not have coming face to face with him would have been the best bet, but it was a bit late for that now.

Eden waited patiently for a few minutes, hoping the time would be enough for a deeper sleep to pull him under. When she carefully began prying his fingers loose from her wrist, she needed only to lift two before his hand dropped free.

From this action alone, she could tell it was going to be a very long day. Even as his knuckles skirted against the cool floor, he did not stir.

She went to the door but decided against locking it. Locks only hinted that something beyond was being protected, and should Atlas be attacked she was not about to give the intruders help by pointing out which room he was in.

That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t be prepared. There were plenty of items in the room that could function as a makeshift warning system. Most noticeably was the china set arranged neatly on the large L-shaped desk in the corner. She grabbed all of the dainty cups – four in total – and piled them into a pillar behind the edge of the door.

Then she settled in to wait, choosing the cushioned nook on the far wall. It had a convenient built-in window seat, and the window itself was covered gently with woodwork that resembled honeycombs, separating the entering light into hexagonal compartments and casting them across the floor. The little cove was charming and warm, and though she wasn’t dressed in her usual attire, she found herself relaxing just a little, leaning her head back against the wall.

It didn’t last long. At the thought of relaxing, of enjoying herself for those precious few moments, she was flooded with guilt. Guilt that reached back through the years, to the night her brother was killed. She had been relaxing then – on the roof – so careless, so conceited.

He died. He died and it was all her fault.

The Loon straightened her back and took her head away from where it rested. How could she? How dare she feel relaxed? How dare she feel at ease? Something was wrong with her. There was no time to be complacent. Complacency lead to tragedy. If she quieted her mind – if she turned it off recklessly – it only allowed disasters to sneak up on her.

She busied herself with planning out what to say to Thetan. He didn’t want her to be seen again… but she had tossed that order out the window. That order had fallen multiple stories to its death, where it splattered abrasively across every discretion in sight. It wasn’t going to be a fun meeting.

But she had discovered some terribly crucial information that even Thetan would likely pause at. The king was being attacked relentlessly, and if they wanted the mission to continue at all, he would need to be monitored appropriately. That would be her angle – her excuse for being seen.

Looking back into the room, she let her eyes wander along the desk on the far side. Despite the tea set that was (or had been) laid out there, none of it looked as if it had been used. But there were wine bottles too, and most were no fuller than half.

Things weren’t looking good for Atlas. He was kinder than she anticipated but he still drank. He still slept with women and then discarded them. He still was not fit to choose his own bride. At this point his choice would likely be a catastrophe. He sought her advice about the woman named Maureen, when Maureen shouldn’t have even been an option on the table. Why was he considering her when he clearly didn’t even like her? Had he given up finding someone appropriate?

Then again… if Thetan thought that Atlas was capable of making an informed decision, he would likely drop the whole mission. Unfortunately, it had been the distasteful rumours surrounding Atlas that had made Thetan conjure up this plan in the first place. It was going to be hard to reverse that.

In a way, Eden knew that manipulating Atlas into choosing Rosie was wrong. But under a different light, it was safer than allowing just anyone to be chosen. Better for the city. Good for Rose too. Thetan might even give her the validation she desired if she was to obtain some of Atlas’s power. Would he even need any of them with Rose so securely under his thumb?

Would he eventually let them retire? The thought wasn’t unwelcome, she just wondered what she would do with all her free time.

Eden meditated while Atlas slept. It was a sound slumber – deep and nearly deathlike. A few times she got up to check on him, sliding a finger under his nose to check his breathing. It seemed slow but not troubled, so she didn’t worry.

The tide pipes began singing their song again in the late afternoon, drawing her back to the window. It worried her a little. Would she be stuck here all night? Saisal would have given his report to Thetan by now, and she had foolishly said she would be back to the Lakehouse ‘soon’. Thetan’s idea of ‘soon’ was not the next day.

As if rising to meet her anxiety, the tide pipes hummed and whistled into a higher pitch, startling away her current thoughts. The pipes hardly ever hit second octave, and she cracked open the honeycomb window to listen. It had to be only her third or fourth time hearing it in eighteen years. It was a soothing sound, despite the fact that it meant the tide was unusually high at the moment.

It wasn’t cause for worry. If anything, it gave people a minor dose of exhilaration. She could imagine kids running home to their parents, screaming about what they heard – half wild with excitement. Ironically they would be out later tonight with other children at play, chasing that feeling and each other through the streets. What a bittersweet thought.

More bitter than sweet.