Ander shook his head. His arm twisted behind him to trace the gills. “But they won’t heal.”

Solon took a drag from his cigarette and said, “Worst-case scenario is your possessor lies dormant within you for now.”

Ander nodded miserably.

“On the bright side,” Solon said, “you should be able to breathe underwater. You could swim away and save Eureka the trouble of pretending she doesn’t love you.” Solon swirled the golden liquid in his glass. “Of course, there is the Glimmering.”

Eureka felt like an arctic wind had crossed the cave. She’d known the moment Esme spoke about her history that she would have to face the Glimmering, that it was part of her preparation for Atlantis. She would do it alone. She didn’t want any of the others going near it again.

Ander leaned closer, hanging on Solon’s words.

“It looks like an ordinary pond,” the elder Seedbearer explained, “but it’s the masterwork of the gossipwitches. One’s reflection in the Glimmering is said to reveal who one ‘truly’ is, as ridiculous as that sounds. You could try it. I don’t believe in identity, reality, or truth, so there’s no reason for me to take the narcissistic peek. Which is ironic, because I’m extremely narcissistic.”

“How do I get there?”

“It isn’t far—south of the Celans’ caves, through a series of what used to be valleys before your girlfriend grew a conscience. Rapids likely roar there now. A gossipwitch could escort you, but”—his face twitched worriedly—“their help is costly, as you know.”

“You think I should go, even if it—”

“Burns your face off?” Solon finished Ander’s thought and stared sadly into his empty glass. “That depends. How badly do you need to know?”

The sky outside the Bitter Cloud was rusty gray, signaling dawn. Ander had spent his life watching Eureka from a distance—but that morning she was the voyeur.

She lagged behind, stalking him like a coyote stalks a deer. He moved quickly over dark rocks, through stands of dying trees. The orichalcum spear’s sheath gleamed in a belt loop of his black jeans.

He looked different at a distance. When they were close, chemistry got in the way, making Eureka’s body buzz, clouding her vision so that all she saw was the boy she wanted. But out in the wild diluvian dawn, Ander was his own person.

She was so focused on her subject that Eureka hardly noticed the path they followed. It was different from the path Esme had illuminated that night. When Ander arrived at the Glimmering, Eureka crouched behind a boulder as the sky lightened in the east. The wind was cold, its chill bone deep. As always, Ander stayed dry in the rain.

Her arms wanted to hold him. Her lips wanted to kiss him. Her heart wanted … to be another kind of heart. She thought the person capable ofyearning and love had died with Seyma and Dad. But the physical need lingered, undeniable.

She looked for Brooks’s body in the pine tree. She didn’t see him there, or anywhere.

Ander’s eyes looked sunken. She sensed the fear in him, like a hunter senses it in prey. He paced the shore, ran his fingers through his hair. He inhaled deeply and pressed his hand against his heart. He stood where the water lapped the shore, closed his eyes, and hung his head.

“This is for you, Eureka,” he said.

She stepped out from behind the rock. “Wait.”

He was at her side in an instant. He studied her lips, her dusting of freckles, the widow’s peak in her hairline, her shoulders and fingertips, as if they’d been separated for months. He touched her cheek. She leaned into him for a moment—blissful instinct—then forced herself away.

“You shouldn’t be here,” both said at the same time.

How similar their preservation instincts were, their tendency for sadness. Eureka had never met anyone as intense as Ander—and even that was familiar. People in New Iberia often said Eureka was “intense,” meaning it as an insult. Eureka didn’t think it was.

“If my family finds you … if Atlas does,” Ander said.

Eureka looked around, her gaze hovering on the empty pine tree. “I have to know the truth.”

Ander faced the Glimmering. Rain glanced off the air around his skin. Now that she was up close, Eureka admired the ridges of Ander’s cordon.

“Me too,” he said.

“When Brooks was taken,” Eureka said, “he became so different. I see now that it was obvious.” Bitter rain struck her lips. She hated that she’d done nothing to help Brooks, that he struggled alone. Was she making the same mistake with Ander, afraid to confront a frightening change in him?

“You don’t know me well enough to know if I’m different,” Ander said.

Eureka watched a cloud drape his face in shadows. It was true. He had guarded his identity closely. Yet he knew so much about her.

“You know yourself,” she said.

Ander grew impatient. “If I’m possessed, I can’t be around you anymore. I won’t let him use me to kill you. I would go into the far distance and never see you again.”

Then Ander would be free from his feelings for her. He wouldn’t grow old like Solon had when he’d been in love with Byblis. Wasn’t that what she wanted? She tried to picture carrying on without him, toward Brooks and Atlas and the impossible dream of untangling them and redeeming herself. Would it be better for Ander if he left her now?

“Where would I go?” Ander moaned softly, closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I weren’t next to you. That’s who I am.”