Katharine McGee - The Towering Sky

Avery refrained from pointing out that when they told Leda to start over, the doctors probably hadn’t been talking about furniture. “Should we do dinner before Cord’s party? I’ll wait while you change.”

Leda hurried to shake her head. “That’s okay. I wasn’t planning on going.”

“You live for this party!”

“I used to,” Leda said quietly, her eyes hooded. “Not anymore.”

This wasn’t Leda at all. The person before her was a hollow pod-person version of Leda, a mannequin Leda, who looked and sounded like Leda but couldn’t possibly be Avery’s sharp and vibrant best friend.

Well, if anything could snap Leda back into herself, it was a good party.

“Too bad,” Avery said briskly, pressing her palm against Leda’s wall to open her closet. “You’re coming, even if I have to drag you the entire way. I promise not to let you drink a single thing,” she said loudly, over Leda’s stammered protests. “I’ll even vid-chat your rehab counselor in real time, if that’s what it takes. But you’re coming. I want you to meet Max.”

Now, as they looked out over Cord’s living room, Avery couldn’t help thinking that she’d made a mistake. Leda stood there vacant and glassy-eyed, utterly disinterested in her surroundings.

A pair of freshman girls strutted up the stairs, both of them wearing cat ears and holographic tails that swished lazily behind them. “That’s her. Avery Fuller,” one of them whispered. “She’s so gorgeous.”

“You would be too, if you were genetically designed for it.”

“Can you believe her dad is running for mayor?”

“I’m sure he’s buying his way in, the same way he bought Avery. . . .”

Avery tried not to listen as the girls brushed past, but her grip on the railing tightened imperceptibly. She should be used to the gossip by now; it had been going on her entire life.

Everyone in New York knew the story of Avery’s creation: that her parents had custom-built her from the pool of their combined DNA in a very expensive genetic mining procedure. The year of her birth, her baby photo had even been on the cover of Time digital magazine, under the headline “Engineering Perfection.” Avery hated it.

“Want me to kick them out?”

Avery looked over in surprise. Anger was stormclouding over Leda’s features, fracturing her formerly cool surface.

She felt the strangest urge to laugh in relief. The old Leda was still in there after all.

“We’re at a party. No need to stir up unnecessary drama,” Avery said quickly.

“Where else does unnecessary drama belong, if not at a party?” Leda asked and then smiled. It came out a little rigid, as if she hadn’t smiled in a while and had half forgotten how to do it, but it was a smile all the same.

Unnecessary drama. Suddenly, Avery couldn’t help thinking of this time last year, when she and Leda had been standing at the top of these very stairs, both hiding the same monumental secret—that they were in love with Atlas.

“Where is he, anyway?” Leda asked.

“Who?” Surely Leda hadn’t been thinking about—

“This Klaus von Schnitzel of yours.”

Oh, right . “It’s Max von Strauss,” Avery corrected, hoping Leda hadn’t heard the beat of hesitation. “And I’m not sure. He disappeared earlier this afternoon, saying that he had to do something urgent. He promised to meet me here, though.”

“How mysterious,” Leda said, and it was almost teasing.

Avery swallowed and decided to ask the same question she’d posed earlier. “Leda. What’s going on?”

Leda opened her mouth as if to reassure Avery with a lie, only to pause. “I didn’t have the easiest year,” she admitted. “I needed to work through some things.”

Avery knew precisely what Leda was wrestling with: the fact that she had killed Eris. “She wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up like this.” She didn’t bother clarifying who she meant. They both knew.

“It’s complicated,” Leda said evasively.

“I wish you’d told me.” Avery felt her chest clench with sorrow. Had Leda been like this all year long, avoiding their friends, hiding from the world in that hollowed-out bedroom?

“You couldn’t have helped,” Leda assured her. “But I’m glad you’re back. I missed you, Avery.”

“I missed you too.”

Avery glanced down at the living room, and her eyes lit up at the sight of Max, threading his way through the crowd below. He looked tall and imposing and woefully lost. The world felt instantly lighter.

“Max is here!” she exclaimed, and reached for Leda’s hand to tug her down the stairs. “Come on, I’m so excited for you guys to finally meet!”

“In a minute,” Leda said, gently untangling herself from Avery’s grip. “I need a breath of fresh air. Then I promise I’ll come find you both.”

Avery started to argue, then paused at the sight of Leda’s eyes, liquid and serious. “Okay,” she said at last, and then headed down the stairs alone.

When Max saw her, his entire face—his entire body, really—broke into a grin.

“You made it,” Avery breathed. Not that she had ever doubted he would. Max always showed up exactly where he’d promised to be, at the exact time he’d promised. Ruthless German efficiency, she supposed, even if he did usually look like a college professor who was running late to class. “You didn’t have any trouble finding the apartment?”

“Not at all. I chose the one with the girl throwing up outside,” Max replied. “Don’t worry, I put her into a hovertaxi home,” he hastened to add.

Avery shook her head in amusement. She watch Max glance around the room at all her classmates, dressed in wild assortments of sequins and neon spandex, their hair temporarily colored or lengthened thanks to the styler’s many custom settings. Compared to college parties, she realized, it probably felt silly and a bit affected.

“I’m sorry. I forgot to warn you that it’s a costume party.”

Max looked down at his own outfit for a moment, as if to check that he had, in fact, remembered to put on clothes that morning. “You’re right! What can we tell everyone I’m dressed as? A vagabond?”

Avery couldn’t help laughing. She felt everyone watching her, burning with curiosity about Avery Fuller’s new boyfriend. She knew they were all surprised that this was who she ended up with, after so many years of being pointedly single. Max was nothing like the boys she’d grown up with, with his floppy green shirt and clunky, unstylish boots. He was so lanky and European looking, that predatory hawk-like nose dominating his otherwise handsome face.

“You, of course, look stunning.” Max’s eyes skimmed over her outfit, a black sequined dress and feathered headpiece she’d thrown on at the last minute. “Who are you, Daisy Buchanan?”

“Absolutely not,” Avery said automatically. She had never liked The Great Gatsby . Something about Daisy’s isolation—cold and alone, surrounded by all her money—struck her with an odd sense of misgiving.

“You’re right; Daisy is far too frivolous. You’re more of a Zelda Fitzgerald, beautiful and brilliant.”

Avery waved away the compliment. “I’m so glad you made it. I’m dying to introduce you to everyone.”

“And I can’t wait to meet them all,” Max said heartily. “But I need to talk with you first, alone. Is that okay?”

His words sounded portentous. Avery wondered if it had to do with his mysterious errand from earlier. “This way,” she offered. She knew just the place.

As always at these parties, Cord’s greenhouse already contained a group of underclassmen trying to hotbox with their halluci-lighters. A heavy cloud of smoke hung around their heads. The moment they saw Avery, they scrambled to leave without being asked. She sighed and pushed the aerate button near the door, then leaned back as the greenhouse’s internal system cycled in new air.