Chapter 53 Atlas
Atlas
Zelda’s tent sat crooked at the far edge of the market, its faded red fabric flapping in the wind like a wounded flag. The whole place smelled like dust and incense. I hadn’t seen her since the night she came to visit Neve.
Zelda’s house was where I had sent Neve the night everything went to hell. Part of me had thought I’d never see her again. Part of me had hoped I wouldn’t—because seeing her meant facing the answer to a question I’d been bleeding over for days: where was Neve?
The flap opened with a slow creak when I stepped inside.
Zelda sat at her table, her bracelets stacked to her elbows, her silver hair pulled back tight. She looked older than she did weeks ago—tired in a way that was carved into bone. And when she lifted her eyes to mine, grief flickered across her face like a shadow trying to hide but failing.
Her breath caught. “Atlas. I wasn’t sure you survived.”
“I did. But to the world, I was dead.”
Silence stretched, thick and mournful. She nodded toward the chair across from her.
“Sit.”
I didn’t move.
“I need to find Neve.”
Her eyes closed for a heartbeat—a tiny collapse. And when she opened them again, that grief sat heavier, more pronounced, like the truth hurt.
My jaw tightened. My blood rushed hot.
“Tell me how to find her,” I demanded.
It took her a long moment before she spoke. And when she did, her voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.
“Paolo didn’t make it, you know.”
The words landed like a fist to my ribs.
I lowered my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She waved a dismissive hand, but there was nothing careless in it—only exhaustion. “You didn’t kill him. The Russians did. This…” Her voice broke for the first time. “This is the price we pay for the ugliness of the world we live in.”
My throat tightened around something ugly and familiar—rage.
“The Russians have paid.”
She lifted her gaze, eyes keen and wet all at once.
“All of them?”
“Every last one.”
Zelda exhaled, relief sagging through her shoulders—but grief still anchored her down.
“Good,” she whispered. “He deserved peace.”
Quiet settled again, thick as incense.
“Sit,” she repeated.
“I’m not here for—”
Her glare sliced through me.
“What do you have to lose, Atlas?”
Everything, I didn’t say. Everything I pretended not to feel. Everything I feared I’d already lost.
“A few minutes of your time… please.”
Neve’s face flashed through my mind—the fear in her eyes that night, the courage, the softness I didn’t deserve.
I exhaled, a slow surrender, then sat at the small round table with her.
Zelda gave a faint, knowing smile. “Good. Now let’s see what the cards have to say about you.”
She shuffled the deck—slow, deliberate, like she was coaxing something dangerous awake. The tent hummed with incense and tension. When she laid the first card down, she frowned.
“Hm.”
My brow lifted. “What does ‘hm’ mean?”
“It means the path is broken,” she said cryptically. “The traveler fell. The ground opened beneath them. But the light—the light pulled them home.”
I blinked. “English, Zelda.”
She flipped another card.
A chalice. A starburst. A figure wrapped in white.
She sucked in a breath. “My, my. Someone was spared. Someone you believe dead… still breathes.”
My heartbeat stuttered. Once. Twice.
“You’re looking for her in the wrong place,” she informed me.
More riddles. My blood turned to ice.
“Where is she?”
Zelda’s eyes softened—pity and wisdom, layered with a grief I didn’t understand yet.
“I don’t know where she is now. But I know where she would go.”
She pressed a hand to her heart.
“To the place where broken children return when the world breaks them again.”
My chest constricted.
“The convent.”
She nodded. “You took her there when she was small. You returned to see her again when she grew. That place is home to her in ways you will never understand.”
The words hit me with brutal clarity. Of course. Of course she went back to the convent. It was the only home she knew before me. And the only place she would believe she’d be safe from men like me.
“It’s too far,” I shook my head, the words scraping out of me. “She couldn’t have made it that far.”
Not on her own. Not with the world tearing at her from every side.
Zelda studied me with eyes that had seen too much pain to flinch from it.
“It is,” she agreed softly. “Too far for most souls. Too far for a body that has been broken and a heart that has been bruised raw.”
She paused, as if choosing which truth would cut the least.
“But Neve…” Zelda’s voice gentled. “Neve is stubborn in a way only the wounded are. When the world tries to erase them, they cling harder. They crawl. They bleed. They survive.”
Her gaze drifted, distant, like she was watching something only she could see.
I was already on my feet.
Every instinct in me was screaming now—move, hunt, find her, don’t waste another second while she was out there believing she was alone.
Zelda rose too, her fingers closing around my sleeve before I could tear past her.
“Atlas—”
I stopped, but only because her grip trembled.
Her hand was small against my arm. Fragile. Afraid.
“Be gentle,” she whispered. Her voice cracked, just barely. “When you find her… be gentle.”
My jaw tightened.
“She has suffered,” Zelda went on, her eyes shining with unshed grief. “More than you realize. More than she will ever tell you. Some wounds don’t bleed. They leave scars no-one knows how to touch.”
I swallowed hard.
Zelda looked up at me like she was entrusting me with something sacred and breakable.
“She will come back to you. But she will not be the same girl who left. Love her anyway.”
I nodded once.
And then I was gone.