The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)

by Olivie Blake

The moral of the story is this: Beware the man who faces you unarmed. If in his eyes you are not the target, then you can be sure you are the weapon.

Really, there was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.

“Jesus. You can’t be serious.” Every now and then, Libby achieved a look that successfully withered his balls, and this was one of those instances. It was the kind of look that reminded him she’d set him on fire the first time she’d met him without even batting an eye. He’d like her more if she did it more often.

thinking about them ✨

Like, for example, wormholes. So far, Nico and Libby had managed to successfully create one wormhole, which had taken two weeks of research and an entire day of casting to accomplish. Ultimately, Nico had been forced to test it himself, because no one else was willing to take the chance they might accidentally wind up on Jupiter. (An impossibility, technically, as it would have taken at least ten thousand Nicos and Libbys to power anything even close to that magnitude of power and precision, but still, Tristan in particular had looked as if he’d rather eat his own foot than test it out.) In the end, it took Nico from the first floor corridor of the west wing to the kitchen. In typical Nico fashion, he now used it on a regular basis.

Nico was constantly and inconveniently disappearing and reappearing with snacks.

It was strange, obviously. It had all the hallmarks of Nico’s pre-established habits and customs while manifesting in a new and disturbing way. Not that Nico had ever been particularly devoted to wearing shirts, for example, but coming across him without one, dripping sweat and colliding with Libby in the hallway only to slime the front of her blouse with his perspiration, was now all too frequent an occurrence.

“Do you?” prompted Libby doubtfully. It wasn’t as if Nico had ever been notorious for his talents of perception. For example, he had somehow managed to miss that Libby’s best friend at NYUMA, Mira, had been sickeningly in love with him for the entirety of their schooling. (Before and after he slept with her. Fuckboys, honestly.)

That, of course, was met with a growl of frustration. “Haven’t you figured out by now that I want your problems?” Nico demanded, half-shouting it, and thankfully, Gideon’s mouth snapped shut. “Your pain is my problem, you idiot prince. You little motherfuck.” Nico rubbed his temple wearily as Gideon’s lips twisted up, half-laughing. “Don’t laugh. Don’t… don’t look at me, stop it. Stop it—” “What are these pet names, Nicky?” “Shut up. I’m angry.” “Why are you angry?”

also thinking about them ✨

“Gideon, for fuck’s sake, I’m rich and extremely handsome,” Nico growled. “Do you think I have my own problems? No, I do not, so let me have yours. Put me to use, I beg you.”

In Reina’s mind, they were binary stars, trapped in each other’s gravitational field and easily diminished without the other’s opposing force. She wasn’t at all surprised when she discovered one was right-handed (Nico) and the other left (Libby).

i am deceased really and truly i miss them so

“You insufferable manchild. You idiot prince.” Her fondest derivative for him, or at least her most frequent. So much so it felt like something he may have accidentally colonized and put to use. “You are not going to do something so utterly unforgivable as to waste your talent and die, I won’t have it,” Libby informed him, jerking his shoulders upright.

“True, but still.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t as if you didn’t know perfectly well I’d come.” Nico opened his mouth to argue that of course he’d known no such thing, but on second thought, he wondered if she wasn’t a little bit right about that. There was a safety net, whether he acknowledged it to her or not, when she was around. He couldn’t get away with much without her noticing, and surely he’d known that on some level, consciously or otherwise. “Thank you,” he said, or possibly mumbled. She looked pleased, or smug.

Much as he hated to admit it, Nico resented himself most when he made her feel small.

“Fucking Rhodes,” he muttered to himself. “I heard that,” came Libby’s reply outside his door. But by then Nico was already well on his way to sleep, dreamlessly out like a light.

“Men in particular are draining, they bleed us dry. They demand we carry their burdens, fix their ills. A man is constantly in search of a good woman, but what do they offer us in return?”

“He’s got a dick, if that answers your question.” He switched gruffly to her other foot, tugging punitively at her pinky toe. “Not that I—” More hesitation. “I’m just saying, I’ve lived with him for a long time. Things happen.”

“Men, conceptually, are canceled,” Libby said to her knees. “This Society? Founded by men, I guarantee it. Kill someone for initiation? A man’s idea. Totally male.” She pursed her lips. “Theoretically, men are a disaster. As a concept, I unequivocally reject them.”

Nico, of course, offered to help them. “I know exactly what shape she takes up in the universe,” he pleaded in explanation. “If anyone can recognize her, it’s me.”

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