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“Why don’t you open it and see,” Chrissa said mysteriously.
Rylin’s first thought was that the envelope was heavy, which signified something momentous, though she wasn’t sure whether to be excited or afraid. There was a familiar blue crest embossed on the back. THE BERKELEY SCHOOL, SINCE 2031, it read in gilded letters along the top. That was Cord’s school, Rylin remembered, up in the 900s somewhere. Why would they be sending anything to her?
She slid a fingernail beneath the crisp edge of the envelope and pulled out its contents, dimly aware that Chrissa had come to stand next to her, but she was too focused on reading the strange and surprising letter to say anything.
Dear Miss Myers,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Eris Miranda Dodd-Radson Memorial Award to Berkeley Academy. The scholarship was established in memory of Eris, to reward unrecognized individual potential in underprivileged students. The value of your scholarship is detailed on the next page. Full tuition is covered, as well as a stipend for academic materials and other cost-of-living expenses …
Rylin blinked up at Chrissa. “What on earth is this?” she asked slowly.
Chrissa squealed and threw her arms around Rylin in a breathless hug. “I was hoping this was a ‘yes’ envelope, but I wasn’t sure! And I didn’t want to open it without you! Rylin!” She took a step back and looked at her sister, her entire being suffused with a happy glow. “You got a scholarship to Berkeley. That’s the best private high school in New York—maybe even in the country.”
“But I didn’t apply,” Rylin pointed out, to which Chrissa laughed.
“I applied on your behalf, of course. You aren’t mad, are you?” she added, as if the thought had just now occurred to her.
“But—” A million questions rippled through Rylin’s mind. She seized on one, randomly. “How did you even find out about this scholarship?”
Rylin had known about it, of course; she’d seen it mentioned on Eris’s obituary video, which she’d watched dozens of times since that fateful night. The night her whole life turned upside down—when she went to an upTower party, way up on the thousandth floor, only to find the boy she loved with another girl. Then that girl had died in front of Rylin’s eyes, pushed off the side of the Tower by one of her drugged-out friends, who proceeded to blackmail Rylin, forcing her to keep quiet about what had really happened.
“I saw the obit video pulled up on your tablet. You watched it a lot of times,” Chrissa said, and now her voice was quiet and her eyes were searching Rylin’s. “You met Eris when you were with Cord, right? Was she a friend of yours?”
“Something like that,” Rylin said, because she didn’t know how to tell Chrissa the truth—that Eris was someone she’d scarcely known, except that Rylin had seen her die.
“I’m sorry, about what happened to her.” The timer beeped, and Chrissa scooped the pancakes into two fat stacks, handing the plates to Rylin.
“But—” Rylin still didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you apply to the scholarship for yourself?” Of the two of them, Chrissa was the one with real promise: she made straight As in her honors classes, and would probably play volleyball at the college level. She was the one who deserved a fancy upper-school scholarship. Not Rylin, who hadn’t even been in school the last few years.
“Because I don’t need it like you do,” Chrissa said intently. Rylin followed her to the table, carrying the plates of stacked pancakes. One of the legs of their table was broken clean off, causing it to wobble as she set the plates down.
“Between my grades and volleyball, I’m on track to get a college scholarship anyway. You, on the other hand, need this,” Chrissa insisted. “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to be the girl who dropped out of school to work a dead-end job, for my sake.”
Rylin fell silent at the flicker of guilt in her sister’s explanation. She’d never really considered what Chrissa had thought, when Rylin had dropped out of school to work full-time after their mom died. She’d never imagined that Chrissa might blame herself for Rylin’s choice.
“Chrissa, you know it’s not your fault that I took the job I did.” And Rylin knew that she would do it all again in a heartbeat, to give her little sister the chance she deserved. Then she thought of another complication. “Anyway, I can’t quit work now. We need the money.”
Chrissa’s smile was contagious. “Didn’t you see what it said about a cost-of-living stipend? It’s enough to keep us going, and if we get into a tight spot, we can always figure something out.”
Rylin looked again, and saw that Chrissa was right. “But why would they pick me? I’m not even in school right now. There must have been so many applicants.” Her eyes narrowed at Chrissa as she began to think through the odds. “What did you put on my application, anyway?”
Chrissa grinned. “I found an old essay of yours about working at a summer camp, and made some tweaks to it.”
Two years before their mother died, Rylin had applied to be a junior counselor at an expensive summer camp. It was all the way in Maine—somewhere with a lake, or maybe it had been a river; the kind of place rich kids went to learn useless things like canoeing and archery and braiding friendship bracelets. For some reason, maybe because she’d seen too many holos about summer camp, Rylin had always fostered a secret desire to attend one. Of course they could never afford anything like that. But Rylin had hoped that maybe, if she worked there as a counselor, she would still have a version of the experience.
She’d gotten the job. Though it quickly became irrelevant, because her mom had gotten sick that year and nothing else mattered after that.
“I can’t believe you found that,” she said, shaking her head in amused wonder. She would never cease to be surprised by Chrissa’s resourcefulness. “Though I still don’t understand why they would pick me.”
Chrissa shrugged. “Didn’t you see the description? It’s a weird, nontraditional scholarship, for ‘creative-minded girls who would otherwise be overlooked.’”
“I’m not exactly creative-minded,” Rylin argued.
Chrissa shook her head so violently that her ponytail whipped back and forth, a dark shadow behind her head. “Of course you are. Stop selling yourself short, or you’ll never survive at that school.”
Rylin didn’t answer that. She still wasn’t sure whether or not she was going.
After a moment Chrissa sighed. “I’m not surprised you were friends with Eris. From the sound of this scholarship, she was really cool. I mean, she clearly wasn’t like the other highliers, if this is how her family chose to honor her.”
Suddenly Rylin’s mind was alit with memories of that night—of breaking up with Cord, then trying to win him back, only to find him with Eris; of seeing Eris on the roof, yelling at the other girl, Leda, then watching in horror as Eris tumbled off the side of the Tower and into the cold night air. She shivered.
“You’re going, right?” Chrissa asked, her voice hopeful.
Rylin thought of how it would feel, being at an expensive highlier school with a bunch of strangers who wouldn’t give her the time of day. Not to mention Cord. She’d promised herself she would stay away from him. And then there was school itself—how would she handle being in a classroom again, learning and studying and taking tests, surrounded by a bunch of students who were probably a lot smarter than she was?
“Mom would want you to go, you know,” Chrissa added, and just like that, Rylin’s answer was clear.
She lifted her eyes to her sister’s and smiled. “Yeah, I’ll go.” Maybe something good could finally come of that night. She owed it to herself, and to Chrissa, and her mom—hell, even to Eris—to try.
CALLIOPE
THE TWO WOMEN strode through the entrance to Bergdorf Goodman on the 880th floor, their four sharp heels making satisfying clicks on the polished marble. Neither of them paused at the sumptuously decorated lobby, its holiday-themed display holos dancing around the crystal chandeliers and jewel cases; tourists crying out whenever the reindeer swooped down toward their heads. Calliope didn’t even glance in their direction as she followed Elise up the curved staircase. It had been a long time since she was impressed by something as prosaic as a holographic sleigh.
The designer floor upstairs was scattered with clumps of furniture, each of them partitioned by an invisible privacy barrier and equipped with a body-scanner. Real gowns were draped on mannequins in various corners, for nostalgia’s sake. No one actually tried on anything here.
Elise flicked her eyes significantly at Calliope before heading toward the youngest, most junior-looking employee: Kyra Welch. They’d already preselected her online, for the simple reason that she’d worked at the store a grand total of three days.
Just a few meters away from the girl, Elise made a show of sinking onto a pale peach settee. She crossed one leg over the other and began scrolling through cocktail dresses on the screen before her. Calliope stood idly to one side and stifled a yawn. She wished she’d gotten one of those honey coffees from the hotel this morning. Or even a caffeine patch.
The salesgirl predictably hurried over. She had alabaster skin and a perky carrot-red ponytail. “Good afternoon, ladies. Did you have an appointment?”
“Where’s Alamar?” Elise demanded, in her most dismissive tone.
“I’m so sorry—Alamar is off today,” Kyra stammered, which of course Elise and Calliope had already known. The girl’s eyes skimmed quickly over Elise’s outfit, taking in the designer skirt and seven-carat stone on her finger, so high quality it was almost indistinguishable from a real diamond. Evidently she concluded that this was someone important, someone Alamar shouldn’t have upset. “Perhaps one of our senior sales associates can—”
“I’m looking for a new cocktail dress. Something showstopping,” Elise talked over the younger woman, waving at the holographic display to project this season’s designs onto a scan of her body. She flicked her wrist to scroll rapidly through the images, then held out her palm to pause at a plum-colored dress with an uneven hem. “Can I see this one, but shortened?”
Kyra’s eyes unfocused, probably checking her schedule on her contacts. Calliope knew she was debating whether to abandon her restocking duties in favor of this new, most likely lucrative commission.
She also knew that at the end of the shopping spree, after the various dresses had been instantly woven and sewn by the superlooms hidden in the back of the store, Kyra would haltingly ask for an account number to charge it all to. “Alamar knows,” Elise would say, with her sorry but I can’t be bothered shrug. Then she would walk out of the store, her arms laden with bags, without a backward glance.
Technically, they could have paid for the dresses the normal way—they did have money squirreled away in a few different bancs all over the globe. Though at the rate they spent, it never seemed to last very long. And as Elise always said, why pay for something you can get for free? It was the motto they lived by.
Elise and Kyra dissolved into a discussion of silk paneling. Calliope looked up, already bored, and saw three girls her age crossing the store, wearing identical plaid skirts and white button-downs. A slow smile spread across her face. No matter what country they were in, private-school girls invariably made easy targets.
“Mom,” she interrupted. Kyra stepped aside for a moment to give them some privacy, but it didn’t matter; Calliope and her mom had long ago established a code for situations like this. “I just remembered an assignment that I need to go finish. For history class.” History meant a group con. If she’d used biology class, it would have meant a romantic one—a seduction.
Elise’s eyes lit on the trio of girls and flashed in instant understanding. “Of course. I wouldn’t want you to lose your place on the honor roll,” she said wryly.
“Right. I do need to graduate with honors.” Calliope kept a straight face as she turned away.
She muttered “nearby private high schools” under her breath as she moved toward the accessories section, where the girls seemed to be headed. It only took two search results before she found the right one; she could tell since the students on the homepage were wearing the same lame uniform. Bingo.
She stationed herself in the girls’ path and began to studiously loiter: picking up various items, studying them as if actually considering them, then setting them down again. She was keeping an eye on the progress of the group, but still, she couldn’t help relishing the feel of a cool leather belt or a slippery silk scarf in her hands.
When the girls were only a row away, Calliope stumbled forward, knocking a whole table of purses to the ground. They fell across the polished wood floor like pieces of spilled candy.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” Calliope muttered, in the posh British accent she and her mom had been using all week—not the cheap cockney one she’d grown up with, but a refined one she’d mastered after careful practice. She had purposefully tipped the table so that the clutches fell in the girls’ direct path; forcing the trio to either step carefully through them or kneel down to help. Unsurprisingly, they did the latter. Rich girls never left something expensive on the ground, unless they’d been the one to toss it there.
“It’s okay. No harm done,” said one of the girls, a tall blonde who was far and away the most beautiful of the three. She had such an air of sophistication that on her, the ridiculous school uniform was transformed into something almost chic. She stood up at the same time as Calliope, setting the last little beaded clutch on the table.
“You all go to Berkeley?” Calliope asked, in that crucial instant before they started to walk away.
“Yeah. Wait, do you go there too?” asked one of the other girls. She frowned a little, as if wondering whether she’d seen Calliope before.
“Oh no,” Calliope said breezily. “I recognized the uniforms from the admissions tour. We’re in town from London—staying at the Nuage—but we might move here for my mom’s job. If we do, I’ll be transferring schools.” The lines rolled easily off her tongue; she’d spoken them many times before.
“That’s exciting. What does your mom do?” The blonde spoke again; not pushy, but with a quiet, genuine interest. Her clear-eyed gaze was somehow disconcerting.
“She works in sales, for private clients,” Calliope couldn’t resist saying, with a deliberate vagueness. “So what do you think of Berkeley? You like it there?”
“I mean, it’s school. It’s not like it’s fun,” the third girl finally chimed in. She had tawny skin, and her dark hair was pulled into a chic fishtail braid. She quickly looked over Calliope’s outfit, taking in her cream-colored knit dress and brown boots, and her eyes grew warmer in evident approval. “You would like it there, I think,” she concluded.
Calliope hid a familiar flash of disdain at these empty-headed girls. They were so easily persuaded of anything, as long it fit within their narrow worldview. She couldn’t wait to con something from them—shave off a little of the wealth they hadn’t worked for and were clearly not entitled to at all.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Calliope Brown,” she declared, holding out a hand laden with stacked enamel bangles and a fresh dove-gray manicolor. After a moment, the girl took it.
“My name is Risha, and this is Jess, and Avery,” she told Calliope.
“We actually need to get going,” the blond girl—Avery—said, with an apologetic smile. “We have appointments at the facial bar downstairs.”
“No way!” Calliope lied, with a practiced laugh. “I have an appointment there in half an hour. Maybe I’ll see you on your way out.”
“You should just come now, with us. I bet they can take you early,” Risha urged. She glanced quickly at Avery for confirmation, and Calliope didn’t miss the slight nod of approval that Avery gave at the suggestion. So, Avery was the one who called all the shots. Calliope was hardly surprised.
She’d never been quite as good at faking friendship as she was a romantic attachment. Lust was so delightfully uncomplicated and straightforward, while female friendships were inevitably layered with conditions, and history, and unspoken rules of behavior. Still, Calliope was nothing if not a fast learner. She could already see that Risha would be the easiest of the three to win over, but Avery was the crucial one, so she focused her efforts on her.
“I’d love to come, if you don’t mind,” she admitted, smiling at each of them in turn, her eyes lingering the longest on Avery.
As they walked through the doors of Ava Beauty Lounge, Calliope took a deep breath, inhaling the glorious scents of lavender and peppermint and spa. Everything inside was done in shades of peach and cream, from the soft carpet underfoot to the delicate sconces hanging on the walls, casting pools of golden light on the girls’ faces.
“Miss Fuller,” said the store manager, snapping to instant attention. Calliope studied the other girl with markedly more interest. So, she was the type of person who got recognized at places like this. Was it for her beauty, or her money, or both? “I didn’t realize you were a party of four today. I’ll add another facialette station to your cluster.”
He began to usher them all forward just as another girl walked out of the inner lounge and froze at the sight of Avery.
“Hi, Leda.” Avery’s voice was distinctly chilly.
The new arrival—a thin black girl with wide eyes and darting, nervous gestures—pulled herself up to her full height. It wasn’t very tall. “Avery. Jess, Risha.” Her eyes lit on Calliope, but she apparently decided it wasn’t worth introducing herself. “Enjoy your facial,” she said on her way out, managing to turn the innocuous phrase into something almost vindictive.
“Thanks, we will!” Calliope said cheerfully, delighting at the three horrified expressions that whirled toward her. But she didn’t give a damn about these girls’ intra-clique drama. She was here for a free facial, thank you very much.
Soon the four of them were seated at the gleaming white facial bar, clutching glasses of chilled grapefruit water. A bot wheeled over and handed them each a pink-and-white-stitched apron. “To keep the facial products from splattering onto your clothes,” the facial attendant explained, in answer to Calliope’s curious look.
“Oh, right. We wouldn’t want the girls to ruin their fabulous uniforms,” Calliope deadpanned, and was gratified to hear Avery laugh.
A row of lasers on the opposite wall turned on, aiming beams of focused photons toward the girls’ faces. Calliope instinctively shut her eyes, though she knew the lasers were too precise to hurt her. She felt nothing but a slight tickle across her nerves as the laser skimmed over the surface of her skin, collecting data on her oil levels and pH balance and chemical composition.
“So,” she asked Avery, who was sitting to her left, “what’s the deal with that Leda girl?”
Avery seemed startled by the question. “She’s a friend of ours,” she said quickly.
“She didn’t seem that friendly.” The lasers began to flash more quickly, signaling that they were almost finished with their dermatological analysis.
“Well, she was a close friend of mine until recently,” Avery amended.
“What happened? Was it about a boy?” It usually was, with girls like this.
Avery stiffened, though her face remained immobile as the laser traced across her poreless porcelain skin. Calliope wondered what they would even give her; she was so obviously already perfect.
“It’s a long story,” Avery answered, which was proof enough to Calliope that she was right. She felt a momentary stab of sympathy for Leda. That must suck, being the girl who had to compete with Avery.
A holographic menu popped up at Calliope’s eye level, with treatment recommendations. Next to her, she heard the other girls chatting in low voices as they debated which add-ons to select: a soothing cucumber mask, a hydrogen infusion, a crushed-ruby scrub. Calliope checked the boxes for everything.
A steaming cocoon dropped down from the ceiling before each of them, and the girls leaned forward and closed their eyes.
“Avery,” said the brunette girl—Jess, Calliope remembered. “Your parents’ holiday party is still happening this year, right?”
Calliope’s ears perked up a little at the mention of a party. She turned her head just slightly to the left, letting more of the steam hit the right side of her face, so that she could listen.
“Didn’t you get the invitation?” Avery asked.
Jess seemed to quickly back down. “Yes, but I just thought, after everything that happened … Never mind.”
Avery sighed, but she didn’t sound angry, only regretful. “There’s no way my dad would cancel. During the party, he’s going to announce the completion of The Mirrors—that’s what he named the Dubai Tower, since it has two sides that are mirror images.”
Dubai Tower? Suddenly Calliope remembered what the sales associate had called Avery when they walked in, and the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
Fuller Investments was the company that had patented all the structural innovations needed to build towers this tall: the ultra-compounded steel supports, the earthquake shock protectors stuffed between every floor, the oxygenated air that was pumped throughout the higher floors to prevent altitude sickness. They had built the New York Tower, the first global supertower, almost twenty years ago.
Which meant that Avery Fuller was very wealthy indeed.
“That sounds like fun,” Calliope chimed in. In her lap, she clenched one hand atop the other, then flipped them over again. She’d been to parties far more exclusive and incredible than this, she tried to remind herself: like the one at that club in Mumbai with the champagne bottle as big as a small car, or the mountainside lodge in Tibet where they’d grown hallucinogenic tea. But all those parties faded in her memory—as they always did—when confronted by the specter of some other future party that Calliope wasn’t invited to.
A puff of steam rose from the top of Avery’s cocoon as she gave the answer Calliope had been hoping for. “If you’re not busy, you should come.”
“I’d love to,” Calliope said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. She heard Avery mutter under her breath, and an instant later the envelope icon in the top of her vision lit up as her contacts received the message. Calliope bit her lip to keep from smiling as she opened it.
Fuller Investments Annual Holiday Party, read the scrolling gold calligraphy, against a black starry background. 12/12/18. The Thousandth Floor.
It was kind of badass, Calliope admitted to herself, that the only address they needed to write was their floor. Clearly they owned the whole thing.
The girls’ chatter moved on, to something about a school assignment, then a boy that Jess was dating. Calliope let her eyes flutter shut. She did love rich things, she thought with unadulterated pleasure, now that she got them for real—and usually on someone else’s dime.
It hadn’t always been like this. When she was younger, Calliope had known about these sorts of things, but never actually experienced them. She could look, but never touch. It was a particularly excruciating sort of torture.
It felt like a long time ago, now.
She’d grown up in a tiny flat in one of the older, quieter neighborhoods of London, where none of the buildings stretched higher than thirty floors and people still grew real plants out on their balconies. Calliope never asked who her father was, because she honestly didn’t care. It had always been Calliope and her mom, and she was fine with that.