But had it been Delphine’s broken heart that sank Atlantis—or pride and embarrassment and the pain of losing her child? Were their Tearline stories truly as parallel as Delphine wanted Eureka to believe they were? Had Delphine had a Cat, a father, and siblings who loved her as heedlessly as Eureka’s did? Eureka didn’t think so.

And Ander. He was nothing like Leander. He was a boy who hadn’t deserved any of the shattering pain he’d known in his life. He’d loved Eureka because of his heart, not his destiny. The thought of him made Eureka turn inward, backward, to the moment she’d first seen him on the dusty road outside New Iberia. He had showed her love was possible, even after heart-erasing loss.

“You know where he is,” Eureka said. If Ander and the twins and Cat could at least be spared …

“You must not worry yourself with what might have been,” Delphine said, “only with what broke you. Love is crippling. Heartbreak gives us our legs.”

“Then why are you with Atlas?” Eureka asked before she could stop herself.

“With Atlas?” Delphine asked. “What do you mean?”

“The way you talk about him, sending each other notes.” Eureka paused. “Your tears have the same power as mine. They could fill the cannons, but he won’t put you through the pain of shedding them. It’s because he loves you. Doesn’t he?”

Delphine doubled over laughing. It was a cold sound, a winter wind. “Atlas cannot love. His heart’s not tuned that way.”

“Then why—”

“Your problem is you feel ashamed,” Delphine said. “I am more in love with my power than I could ever be with a boy. You, too, must embrace your darkness.”

Eureka found herself nodding. She and Delphine envisioned different destinies for Eureka, but maybe, at least for a moment, their paths intersected.

Delphine wiped sea mist from her face. “Did you know I have had thirty-six Tearline daughters? I loved them all—cruel ones, bashful ones, dramatic ones, homely ones—but you are my favorite. The dark one. I knew it would be you who reunited us.”

There was endless adoration in Delphine’s voice that reminded Eureka of the way Diana used to talk to her. It had sometimes made Eureka shy away from Diana’s love. It was the kind of love Eureka didn’t think she would ever understand. Maybe Delphine had not been lying when she said she would do Eureka any favor.

“What you said before, about getting to decide who is truly dead …”

Delphine nodded. “The fate of your friend Brooks. Atlas told me about him.”

“Could you bring him back?”

“Would it make you happy?”

“Then you could bring all these people back.” Eureka pointed at the ghosts filling the machines.“You could stop turning corpses into weapons and bring them back to life.”

Delphine frowned. “I suppose I could.”

“How?” Eureka asked.

“If you’re asking about the limits of my powers, I have yet to find them.” Delphine clasped her hands beneath her chin. “But I believe you’re asking what I will do. These ghosts have a higher purpose. I promise you won’t miss them when they’re gone. But”—she smiled—“our army can spare one. Even a strong one. Assuming he has not been pulverized. You shall have your Brooks, on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“You must never leave me.” Delphine drew Eureka into a tight embrace. “I’ve waited too long to hold you. Say you’ll never leave me.” Then she whispered, “Call me Mother.”

“What?”

“I can give you what you want.”

Eureka glanced up at the suspended wave and saw in it the wave that had killed Diana, that wave that had stolen Brooks away. An instinct rushed into her: she didn’t understand why, but she knew if she could get Brooks back, somehow she could fix things.

She pushed through her sickened heart into a black space where there had never been a Diana and no reason to feel a thing about using this word:

“Mother.”

“Yes! Go on!”

Eureka swallowed. “I will never leave you.”

“You’ve made me so … happy.” Delphine’s shoulders shook as she pulled away. A single tear shone in the corner of the girl’s left eye. “What’s about to happen, what I’m about to do for you, Eureka, you must never tell anyone. It must be our special secret.”

Eureka nodded.

Delphine took a step back and blinked. The tear left her eye and fell.

When it hit the sand, Eureka felt it deep inside her. She watched the earth split open as a single white narcissus flower sprang up from the sand. It grew rapidly, rising several feet, branching out into more flowers, countless blooms, until the plant was taller and wider than Eureka.

Then, slowly, the flower transformed into a figure. A body. A boy.

Brooks blinked, stunned to find himself before Eureka. His hair was long and untamable. He wore cutoffs, a green Tulane sweatshirt, his father’s old Army baseball cap—the same clothes he’d worn the last day they’d sailed together at Cypremort Point. Goose bumps rose on his skin, and Eureka knew that he was real. He looked at his hands, up at the suspended wave, into Eureka’s eyes. He touched his face. “I didn’t know the dead could dream.” He gazed at Delphine, who walked to stand beside them. “Maya?”

“You may call me the ghostsmith.” Delphine bowed slightly.