The Dazzling Heights. Катарина Макги

Both of you.” Leda pulled her bag onto one shoulder and stormed out without another word.

      Watt waited until he heard the front door close behind her before collapsing backward onto his bed, rubbing his hands over his temples. His bedcovers still smelled like Leda’s rose perfume, which pissed him off to no end. “Nadia, we’re screwed,” he said aloud. “Is she going to keep blackmailing us for all eternity?”

      “You won’t be safe unless she’s in jail,” Nadia told him, which he already knew.

      “I agree. But we’ve been through this already. How could I send her there?”

      He and Nadia had tried everything they could think of. There was no video of Leda pushing Eris: there weren’t any cameras on the roof, and no one had been recording on their contacts when it happened, not even Leda, not even Nadia—who deeply regretted it, but then, no way could she have predicted that outcome. Hell, Nadia had even hacked all the satellite cams within a thousand-kilometer vicinity, but none of them had picked up anything in the darkness.

      There was, unfortunately, no way to prove what had happened on the roof. It was Watt’s word against Leda’s. And the moment he said anything, he and Nadia were toast.

      Nadia was quiet for a moment. “What if you recorded her confessing to her actions?”

      “Can we deal in reality and not hypotheticals? Even if she did say the truth aloud, no way would she say it to me.”

      “I disagree,” Nadia said levelly. “She would say it if she trusted you.”

      For a moment Watt didn’t understand what Nadia was implying. When he did, he laughed aloud. “Do I need to reprogram your logic functions? Why would Leda Cole trust me, when she so clearly hates me?”

      “I’m just trying to explore all possible options. Remember, you programmed me to protect you above everything else. And statistics would suggest that the more time you spend with Leda, the greater your chances of winning her trust,” Nadia replied.

      “Statistics are useless when your chances of success increase from one-billionth of a percent to one-millionth.” Watt pulled up the covers, closing his eyes. “Did you know about Rylin going to school with them?” he asked, changing the subject.

      “I did. You never asked me about her, though.”

      “Have you hacked their school?” An idea was forming in his mind. “What if we messed with Leda a little—put Rylin in all her classes, so Leda can never escape her?”

      “Like I haven’t already done that. You underestimate me,” Nadia said, sounding self-satisfied.

      Watt couldn’t help smiling into the darkness. “I think the more time you spend in my brain, the more my personality has grafted itself onto you,” he mused aloud.

      “Yes. I’d venture to say I know you better than you know yourself.”

      Now there was a terrifying notion, Watt thought in amusement.

      “Nadia?” he added as he started to drift off. “Please don’t ever turn off around Leda again, no matter what commands I’ve given in the past. I need you, around her.”

      “That you do,” Nadia agreed.

       RYLIN

      RYLIN STRODE QUICKLY down Berkeley’s main hallway, keeping her gaze forward to avoid accidentally making eye contact with Leda—or worse, Cord. At least it was finally Friday afternoon, the end of her seemingly endless first week here.

      She followed the directions on her school tablet, past an enormous sandstone bell tower and a shining statue of the school’s founder, whose head moved majestically to follow her progress as she walked. She turned left at the athletic center toward the art wing, ignoring the somewhat morbid shrine to Eris that had been erected in one corner of the hallway, full of candles and instaphotos of her and notes from students who probably hadn’t even known her that well. It gave Rylin the creeps. Though she wasn’t sure whether that was because she’d seen Eris die, or because of the fact that she was here on scholarship, taking Eris’s spot in their class, which made Rylin’s existence a bizarre sort of living shrine.

      When she pushed open the door to Arts Suite 105, a dozen heads whipped toward her—almost entirely girls’. Rylin paused, confused.

      “Is this holography?” she asked. The room was black, lined with dark view screens and a velvet charcoal carpet.

      “It is,” Leda Cole called out from where she sat in the back row, next to the only available seat in the room.

      “Thanks.” Rylin’s heart sank as she took the empty desk, wondering what exactly she’d gotten herself into. She pulled out her school tablet and doodled a few loopy cartoons in its notepad function, but she still felt Leda’s eyes on her.

      Finally Leda grabbed something from her bag—a blue cone-shaped silencer, inscribed with calligraphied letters that read Lux et Veritas. She should get one of these for Lux, Rylin thought sarcastically. Of course Leda was the type of person who would buy branded gear from a university bookstore before she’d even gotten in.

      Leda flicked on the silencer, and the rest of the room immediately hushed, the machine distorting sound waves to create a little pocket of silence. “Okay. How did you get in here?” she snapped.

      “I thought we’d been through this. I go to school with you now, remember?”

      “Look around. These are all seniors.” Leda gestured sharply to the other girls in the class. “This is the most popular elective at school, with a ninety-person waiting list. The only reason I’m even here is because they reserve a few spots for juniors, and my application essay was best.” She clenched the edge of her desk as if she wished she could break it. “What’s your explanation?”

      “I honestly have no idea,” Rylin admitted. “I was just assigned this class. It appeared on my schedule the other day, so here I am.” She shoved her tablet toward Leda as if to offer proof. Accelerated Studies in Holography; instructor, Xiayne Radimajdi.

      “Watt,” Leda muttered under her breath, saying it as if it were a curse word.

      “What?” Rylin couldn’t have heard correctly. Wasn’t that the boy from the roof, who’d come with them to the police that night?

      Leda sighed. “Never mind. Just don’t screw this up for me, okay? I’m hoping to get a recommendation out of it.”

      “To Yale?” Rylin said drily, glancing at the silencer.

      “Shane went there,” Leda snapped. At Rylin’s confused look, she sighed. “Xiayne Radimajdi. He teaches this class! His name is right there on your tablet.” She rapped sharply at the evidence, and cut her eyes to Rylin in evident disbelief.

      “Oh.” Rylin hadn’t realized that Leda was saying the name Xiayne. She’d been wondering how to pronounce it. “Who is he?”

      “The triple-Oscar-winning director!” Leda exclaimed. Rylin just stared at her blankly. “You haven’t seen Metropolis? Or Empty Skies? That’s why this class only meets on Fridays—because he works the rest of the week!”

      Rylin shrugged. “The last holo I saw was a cartoon. But those things you just mentioned sound depressing anyway.”

      “Oh my god. This class is wasted on you.” Leda tossed the silencer back into her bag, turning away from Rylin just as the door swung inward. The whole room seemed to edge forward, collectively holding its breath. And then Rylin understood why the class was composed mostly of girls.

      Into the room walked the most incredibly attractive guy Rylin had ever seen.

      He was tall, and not much older than they