“We can’t—”

“Don’t be afraid,” Brooks said. Atlas said. “It’s only me now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got rid of him. It’s over.” His eyes shone like they had when Brooks visited her in the psych ward after she’d swallowed those pills, when he’d brought her pecan pralines and she’d told him, melodramatically, that it was the end of the world. She’d never forget his response: no big deal, he’d promised; after the end of the world, Brooks would be there to give her a ride home.

“How did you do it?” Eureka masked the suspicion in her voice.

A raindrop glittered on his eyelashes. She brushed it away instinctively.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. You don’t have to worry about anything. I know what he wants. I know his weakness.” He caressed the back of her head. “I can help you beat him, Eureka, as soon as we get to the Marais.”

The water on the veranda was up to their ankles. She lifted his T-shirt to examine his back. The dual set of deep red slashes had faded to pale scars. Did that mean Atlas was gone? She turned him around and brushed the hair from his forehead. The ring-shaped wound was less glaring, but it was there.

A smart girl would assume Brooks was lying.…

A smarter girl would keep that assumption to herself.

Even Atlas thought he was the bad guy, the gossipwitches had said. That meant Atlas didn’t know Eureka’s true lineage. He didn’t appreciate her darkness.

“Someday I’ll tell you the story of how we met and how we parted.” He turned away and the wound on his forehead glowed. “I will never forgive myself for the things he made me do. What happened with the twins—I can’t—”

“Let’s not talk about it.” Eureka wasn’t so heartless that she could think of William and Claire, whom she would soon abandon.

When he faced her, she felt how much she had missed Brooks like a punch in the stomach. Then she saw something behind his eyes—a ragged, foreign mania—and she was certain the boy before her was lying.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered. She would make him believe she did. She would get close enough to Atlas to learn how to win. She would stop the flood. She would save Brooks. She flung her arms around him. “Don’t ever go away again.”

She felt him stiffen in her embrace. When she pulled away, he was beaming.

“I’m going with you to the Marais.” He eyed the crystal teardrop dangling from the orichalcum chain. “We don’t have a lot of time.” His fingers reached for the pendant.

Eureka leaned away from him. Her facade and Brooks’s facade could bump up against each other’s—hands and eyes and lips and lies—butthe necklace was hers.

“This trip must be only you and me,” he said. “It’s not safe for the twins or Cat or—”

“You and me. That’s how I want it.”

Brooks’s eyes lit up like they did when he saw her round a corner at Evangeline, or when she got dressed up for the honors dinner and broke a high heel stepping from the car.

A giggle filled the air, curved the rain. Eureka looked up, expecting to see gossipwitches gliding toward her through the clouds. Instead, one vast pair of wings, aglow in soft amethyst, beat gently overhead.

The wings were shaped like a butterfly’s. They beat with graceful strength and lowered in the sky until they were thirty feet above Eureka’s head. Then she saw a creature’s graceful silver body between the huge wings. It had a long neck, four hooves, a thrashing white tail.

The horse was stunning. It had stockings of white on its front legs and a white star between its eyes. It neighed, raised its neck, and extended its shimmering M-shaped wings. They spanned a hundred feet on either side and were composed of a multitude of tiny flying things—bees, moths, fireflies, and black-and-white-striped baby hoopoe birds—beating their own wings in unison. Iridescent violet seams near the horse’s shoulders bound the wings—cruelly, beautifully—to its body.

A rustling came from the center of the horse’s left wing. Slender fingers wriggled through the layers of wings, followed by a palm, which glided forward as if parting a curtain. Esme’s face filled the gap.

“What do you think of our Pegasus?”

“Pegasus Two!” an unseen witch shouted from the top side of the wing.

“Yes, yes, we created one before. He was sacrificed to progress, like Icarus, or Atari,” Esme said. “We will call this one Peggy to distinguish.” She reached into a silver satchel strapped to the base of the horse’s neck and tossed down a ladder made of moths. “A stolen horse is not our preferred way to travel, but when Solon ran out of wings … No matter. We will be home soon and everything will be as it should long have been.”

Brooks reached for the ladder. The moths reorganized, drawing together, then tapering to stretch a little lower. He stepped onto the lowest rung, turned, and extended a hand to Eureka.

“You always said you wanted to fly away. Here’s your hallelujah by and by.”

The words were from her favorite hymn. She’d sung it with Brooks in oak boughs when they were kids, the bayou below snaking into the distance until it disappeared. “I’ll Fly Away” gave Eureka hope. Atlas wouldn’t have known about it. He was using Brooks’s memories to bait her, as Solon said he would. If there were memories to steal, there was still a Brooks inside, somewhere, to save.