I CAN’T BREATHE. I CAN’T THINK. ALL I CAN DO IS HANG ON to this cable and stare down at the river at least four hundred feet below me. Nothing stands between me and death but a few nylon ropes, clutched in hands that are already slick with sweat.
Traveling to other dimensions can be scary—but I’ve never been thrown into anything as terrifying as this.
Panic clouds my thoughts and turns everything surreal. My brain refuses to accept that this is actually happening—even as the truth stretches my arms and pulls my muscles. Every pound of my body weight cramps my fingers and tells me how immediate my situation is. The city lights from the ground below seem so distant they might as well be stars. But still my mind cries, This is just a nightmare. You’re seeing things. This can’t be real—
But the Firebird locket hanging around my neck still radiates heat from my journey into another world. What I’m seeing—the mortal danger I’m in—is definitely real.
Then I realize that I’m dangling from a hovership, one projecting holographic advertisements upward into the dusky sky. My eyes finally focus on one detail from the metropolis beneath me long enough to recognize St. Paul’s Cathedral—and, beyond it, a futuristic skyscraper that has never existed in my version of London.
The Londonverse. I’m back in the Londonverse, the first alternate dimension I ever traveled to.
Apparently it’s also going to be the dimension I die in.
“Marguerite!” I turn my head to see my Aunt Susannah, who’s hanging out of one of the hovership’s passenger windows. Her dyed-blond hair whips around her face, blown by the same strong gusts that tear at my gray dress, exposing me to the world below. Not that I care who sees my butt while I’m on the verge of death. Aunt Susannah’s eyes are wide, and dark lines of mascara streak down her cheeks with tears. Other passengers crowd around her, pressing their faces to the hovership windows, eyes wide as they stare at the girl who’s about to die.
Okay, I think, trying to slow my breaths. All I have to do is climb back in. It’s not that far. Up four feet, over twenty?
But it’s not that easy. I don’t have the upper body strength to climb the rope on its own, and the nearest metal strut is out of reach. How did I even get here? This universe’s Marguerite must have tumbled from one of the hovership windows and grabbed a rope to save herself, which is why I’m now dangling hundreds of feet above the city of London. . . .
Panic seizes me again. Every inch between me and the river seems to elongate. Dizziness courses through me. My muscles go weak. And my grip on the ropes trembles, bringing me closer to death.
Oh, God, no no no. I have to pull this together. If I don’t save her, we’re both doomed.
Because if you’re in another dimension when your host dies, then, at the exact same instant, you die.
I could just get the hell out of this universe. My parents’ invention, the Firebird, gives me the ability to travel to a new dimension at any moment. Now seems like a really good time to check out some other reality—any other reality. But to use the Firebird, I’d have to hit the controls and leap out. Both of my hands are currently busy gripping this rope to keep me from plunging to my death. Kind of a catch-22 here. The hovership flies so far up that by the time I fell all the way down, my body would be traveling at a velocity that would make hitting the water as instantly fatal as smashing onto concrete.
“Marguerite!” another voice calls out. In astonishment I look over and see Paul.
What is he doing on this hovership? We didn’t even know each other in this universe!
I don’t care why he’s here. I only care that he is. My love for Paul Markov is one of the few constants in the multiverse. He would do anything, even risk his own life, if it meant he could keep me safe. If anyone can get me out of this, he can.
Normally I get myself out of my own perilous situations, but this, today? This is bad.
“Paul!” I shout back. “Please, help me!”
“They’re landing as fast as they can,” he calls to me. The wind ruffles his dark hair, and he edges out onto the metal frames for the hovership’s projectors with total assurance; he must go rock-climbing in this universe too, because the height doesn’t faze him. “Just hang on.”
Sure enough, I can hear the changing key of the engines. The propellers send new winds to buffet me. London below comes slightly closer, though it’s still mostly a blur of lights and murky twilight colors—dark blues and grays and blacks. My adrenaline-flooded brain refuses to make sense of the shapes below me any longer; I might as well be staring down at artwork by Jackson Pollock with its squiggles and blots and spills.
I imagine a Pollock painting with a huge red splotch in the center. Blood red. Nothing else will remain of me if I let go of this cable.
My fingers hurt so much. My shoulders. My back. No matter how badly I want to hold on, I won’t be able to manage much longer. Within minutes, I will fall to my death.
Sweat beads along my face despite the chilly winds blowing around me. I can taste the salt as it trickles into my open, panting mouth. As I try to readjust my grip, people on the hovership scream. One of my black shoes slips from my foot and tumbles out of sight.
“Marguerite, no!” Aunt Susannah sounds like she’s been screaming. “You don’t have to do this, sweetheart. Don’t let go! We’ll make it right, whatever’s bothering you, I swear it. Just hold on!”
I want to shriek back, Does it look like I need any more encouragement to hold on? But then I realize what my aunt just said. You don’t have to do this.
She thinks I’m attempting suicide. And since I can’t figure out any other way this world’s Marguerite could’ve wound up in this situation, I think—I think Aunt Susannah is right.
But it wasn’t this world’s Marguerite who tried to kill herself. It was the other one. The wicked version of me who’s working on behalf of Triad, even now. She attacked me at home and escaped into this dimension, but only in this instant—as I gulp in desperate breaths and hang on with the last of my strength—do I realize what her plan really is.
She’s trying to kill me.
She’s trying to kill every me, in every world, everywhere.