Free Waterfall by Lauren Kate Page A

detect a two-way mirror: a regular mirror had a small space between the reflective surface and its glass covering; a two-way mirror did not. If you pressed a finger to the glass and saw no gap in its reflection, someone was on the other side, watching you.
    Eureka looked down at William’s finger. There was no gap. He looked up at Eureka in the mirror.
    A voice made them jump. “Who do you think you are?”
    Eureka held William’s shoulders as she spoke into the mirror. “My name is Eureka Boudreaux. We came from—”
    “I didn’t ask your name,” the voice cut her off. It was soft and deep—a boy’s voice—seasoned with the slightest German accent.
    It was odd to be looking at herself, addressing a disembodied voice, and discussing the nature of identity.
    “When who you are changes all the time,” she said, “the only thing you have is your name.”
    “Good answer.”
    The door creaked open, but no one stood behind it. Ander led them through the doorway, into a grand, circular room. Rushing water echoed off a distant ceiling.
    Eureka held her torch over the moth-wing bower. Dad had drifted to sleep, but his tightly clenched jaw told her that,even after the salve, his pain was severe. She hoped help was inside this cave.
    A vast tile mosaic covered the floor. Its design depicted the Grim Reaper grinning through bloody fangs. A sickle sparkled in his left hand, and where his right hand ended, a fire pit had been built into the stone. Its blaze emanated from the Reaper’s bony fingers.
    Between the stacks of skulls, the walls were decorated with dark murals. Eureka stared at one depicting a great flood, victims drowning in a violent sea. A day ago it would have reminded Eureka of the Orozco murals she’d seen with Diana in Guadalajara. Now it could have been a window outside.
    “We came all this way to end up in some freak’s bachelor pad,” Cat whispered in Eureka’s good ear.
    “Freaks can be valuable friends,” Eureka said. “Look at us.”
    Near the far wall of the room, a spiral staircase made of stone curved up, to a floor above, and down, to another floor below. But as they walked farther into the room, Eureka saw that the far wall was moving, that it was a waterfall cascading from an unseen source down white stone. The ceiling opened up and the floor dropped off and there was a gap of several feet between the edge of the ground and the waterfall. It made Eureka claustrophobic and she didn’t know why.
    Just in front of the waterfall, a dark green slope-back leather chair stood atop a sleek fox-fur rug. A man sat in it, his back to them. He faced the waterfall, reading an ancientbook and sipping something fizzy from a golden champagne flute.
    “Hello?” Ander called.
    The man in the chair was still.
    Eureka stepped deeper into the room. “We’re looking for someone named Solon.”
    The figure spun to face them, propping his elbows atop the studded back of the chair. He lifted his chin and surveyed his guests. He looked fifteen, but his expression had a serrated edge that told Eureka he was older. He wore suede moccasins and a maroon satin robe belted loosely at his waist.
    “You’ve found him.” His voice held an absence of hope. “Let’s celebrate.”
    Cat tilted her head toward Eureka and whispered,
“Schwing.”
    It hadn’t occurred to Eureka that the boy was hot—though, now that Cat mentioned it, he was. Very. His eyes were a pale, spellbinding blue. His close-cropped hair was blond with intriguing black and brown leopard-print spots. The slinkiness of his robe suggested they had stumbled into his boudoir.
    The Solon she’d heard about defected from the Seedbearers seventy-five years ago. Was this boy pretending? Was the real Seedbearer somewhere hidden away?
    “You’re Solon?” Eureka asked.
    “Read ’em and weep.” He glanced at Eureka. “Not literally, please.”
    They endured an awkward silence.
    “Please don’t take this personally,” Solon said,