Chapter Fifteen
Luca Reyes entered the building for the first time as a five-year-old boy with eye boogers crusting his eyelids shut and hair greasy after four days of no washing and a shirt that was stained from the breakfast that had been thrust at him that morning and then promptly spilled straight down his front. He was carried in the arms of a man with a tweed coat and a bowler hat—back then, there was no one else suited to the task—and was ushered into a gray room a level beneath the ground. He was given a bed, a uniform, an identity, a purpose.
He was the seventy-third to be found, so they had it down by then.
The best age to find them, the best words to say to reassure them, the best time to test them, the best way to stabilize them.
Luca Reyes didn’t cry that first night, for which Dr. Dubose was thankful. Number seventy-two had been a screamer. But Luca Reyes also wasn’t leaving much behind.
That first time around, Luca Reyes found a sort of peace in living in the building, unlike most other residents. He felt a sense of belonging, an understanding between him and the building that went beyond their communal existence outside of typical conventions of space and time and all that. It was the knowledge that he was where he was meant to be, and even at five years old he had realized that he never would have experienced that anywhere but in that building.
The first time around—for Luca, at least—had also been when he first met Everly Tertium. Everything the first time around was imprinted on the building like a tattoo dug into the skin on the back of a wrist, like a sharpie message penned onto freshly painted drywall, like a pocketknife carved through the door of a bathroom stall: there once and then there forever.
Because Luca Reyes met Everly Tertium that first time, he met her every time.
Because Luca Reyes fell in love with Everly Tertium that first time, he fell in love with her every time.
And because Luca Reyes was killed by Everly Tertium that first time, he would be killed by her every time.
But Luca didn’t know any of that, at the start. Neither did Everly.
At the start it was always mysterious, unexpected, strange.
No one ever fell in love in the building.
No one except Luca Reyes and Everly Tertium.
Chapter Sixteen
When Everly found herself standing in front of the glass double doors of the Eschatorologic, she wondered, yet again, why she was here.
It felt wrong to be back, like she was intruding on someone else’s fate.
It felt right to be back, as that noose of inevitability was knotted around her throat and secured to the front doors that she now stared at.
She wasn’t here for herself, she reminded herself. She was here to learn about her dad. To finally learn the truth.
Everly took a deep breath, pushed open the doors, and stepped into the domed lobby.
The woman, Sophia, still sat behind her large desk dressed in the same dull, beige clothes. Ignoring her, Everly headed toward the elevators but paused when she realized that, once again, she had no idea where to look for Richard.
One hundred (and two) floors.
He could be anywhere.
Before she could decide what to do, she heard footsteps and, turning away from the elevator, realized someone was walking toward her.
No, not toward her. Toward Sophia. It was a young man who looked to be about her age, early to midtwenties, who was lean and wiry with unkempt dark hair that hung down in his face.
He could have been anyone. If it weren’t for the uniform.
He wore the same gray outfit as the other residents in the building—a matching pair of faded scrubs. The marker, Everly recognized, of someone who lived there. So, who was he?
The man was talking to Sophia, who seemed to be pointedly ignoring him. Everly couldn’t say why, but she felt slightly reassured by the fact that she was not the only one the woman was set on ignoring. She inched closer, wanting to hear what he was saying, but not necessarily wanting to be seen yet.
His voice reached her, soft and amiable. “It looks like the cooks really outdid themselves for you today, Sophia.” He glanced down at the plate that he had just set on the woman’s desk in front of her—what looked like some generic slab of meat and something green and wilted. “They clearly value your skill set above mine here,” the man continued lightly.
His eyes flicked up then and he caught sight of Everly across the room. There was an instant in which he seemed to freeze, and Everly felt something rising inside her, with his eyes caught on hers—dragonflies, molten lava, exploding bubbles of air. But then the man blinked, shaking his head slightly, and Everly had to take a step back as the strange spell broke.
“Who—” the man started, then stopped. With his eyes still latched on Everly, he took a breath, then started again. “Who are you?”
It almost sounded like he was asking the question to himself rather than Everly, though clearly it was about her. Everly frowned, then crossed her arms over her chest and walked a few steps closer to the man, recovered now from whatever it was that happened a moment before between them. Maybe it hadn’t even been anything, she thought. This building was good at playing tricks on her mind.
“I’m Richard Dubose’s granddaughter,” she said, frustrated that she didn’t have anything better to offer. “And who are you? I haven’t seen you in the Eschatorologic before.” She hadn’t seen anyone near her age—only older residents who had lost their minds (or had them stolen from them) and scientists (of the maddest variety).
The man leaned back against Sophia’s desk and crossed his arms. The secretary didn’t seem to take notice.
“Oh, I’m nobody,” the man said. “Just another set of eyes.” He said this with those very eyes still pinned on Everly—dark eyes, she noticed for the first time, dark-brown eyes—and she resisted the urge to shiver beneath their gaze. There was something about the way he was watching her, like he was afraid to look away, even for a second. Like she may vanish if he were to blink for too long.
“So,” Everly said, “you work here?”
He shrugged, watching her uneasily now as she got closer to him. “In a sense.” He nodded at the woman behind the desk. “I bring Sophia her meals. And do other . . . tasks, for the Eschatorologic.”
“Well, do you at least have a name?” she asked him.
He seemed to consider her question carefully before responding. “Luca,” he finally said. He raised an eyebrow expectantly. Everly took one final step toward him and stuck out her hand.
“Everly,” she said. The man—Luca—considered her hand for an instant before he took it, shaking it gently.
