11

“PLEASE.” I HOLD OUT MY HAND FOR THE FIREBIRD. “I NEED that.”

“To get back to the dimension you came from.” I’ve never seen Paul’s face like this. Most people grimace when they’re angry, as if the rage is twisting them up outside as well as inside. Not Paul. He goes still, turns cold. Right now he might as well have been carved of stone.

Paul always values honesty. So I just say it. “Yes. To go home again, and for lots of other reasons too. Don’t leave me stranded here.”

His jaw drops slightly, and I realize that he didn’t expect me to admit where I’m really from. And maybe, within his anger, there’s a hint of the wonder I felt the very first time I traveled with the Firebird. Realizing that it works—that travel between dimensions is actually possible—was one of the most mind-blowing moments of my life. It must be for him too.

Maybe I can use that. I venture, “Everything Mom and Dad thought they could do—everything you believed they were capable of—the Firebirds are all that and more.” He gives me a look; I can’t tell if he’s feeling less hostile or not, but he hasn’t moved. I hope I can take that as a good sign. “People are depending on me. I have to keep going; lives are at stake. Please don’t trap me here.”

“How long have you been in our dimension? Weeks? Months?”

“Only a few days, I swear.” The lone streetlight nearby paints the scene in chiaroscuro—deep shadows, and the stark lines of light that reveal his anger. I wonder what he sees in me. “I was forced to come here.”

Paul’s stare bores through me. I’ve never sounded less convincing.

So I change tactics. “Can we just sit down and talk about this? I’d never want to hurt you, Paul. Never. Back home—in my dimension—you and I got off to a better start, and—”

“How convenient.” The tone of Paul’s voice could lower the temperature by twenty degrees. “That we’re all such good friends.”

“Of course we are. The patterns between the dimensions, the way they bring people together, over and over again—it’s like destiny.” My Paul believed in fate even before we began traveling with the Firebirds. This one doesn’t.

He turns the Firebird over in his hand, even more curious than he is angry. Then it hits me: The very thing Paul’s been trying to create for the past few years—the thing he and my parents believe can turn the tide of this horrific war—it’s his now, not mine, and there is no way he’ll ever give it back.

“Please!” I take a step closer, but when he turns to look at me, I know I’d better not come any nearer.

“What was tonight about?” Paul says. “Coming on to me? Seducing me? What kind of game are you playing? Why are you here?”

“I’m here to save you. Not—you you. My Paul, from my universe. He’s been splintered. Have you guys discovered the risk of splintering yet?”

“Consciousness becoming divided during interdimensional travel?”

“Yes! Exactly!” Oh, thank God for that, because I’d never have been able to explain the science behind it. “My Paul splintered. I mean, he was splintered, on purpose, and he’ll never be able to come back home again unless I rescue him.” Talking about him in the third person, to his face, feels strange. Worse, it feels futile. My legs have begun to shake. This has to sound crazy, spilled out all at once like this, and I can tell Paul doesn’t believe me. In desperation, I say, “Couldn’t you tell? The way I was with you—I wasn’t pretending, not really. I love him so much.”

“So much you seduced someone else?” Paul tilts his head as he studies me, with distaste. “How touching.”

“I wasn’t going to sleep with you. Besides, you’re not someone else! A splinter of his soul is inside you, and—and it wouldn’t matter, even if it weren’t. You’re him, and he’s you.”

Paul flinches when I tell him about the splinter within him, but he doesn’t respond. “You were with me just because you missed him so much? You wanted the next best thing? Somehow I doubt it. You’ve confessed to being from another dimension. You have a fully operational Firebird—the technology we’ve been trying to create here for a long time. Technology we need very badly. If you’ve been in this dimension for as much as a day, you know how the war is going.”

I nod. “The air raid was my first night here.”

“Then you have no excuse. If you’re your parents’ daughter—and in love with another me, one so similar you find us interchangeable—you should have turned this technology over to us immediately.”

I remember the lesson I learned the hard way as a little kid, when I tried to sneak around my parents’ rules: Trying to outsmart a genius rarely ends well.

Paul takes one step toward me, reminding me powerfully of his greater size and strength. “Do you want to change your story? Or stick to the original lie? The latter technique works better during interrogations. That’s what they tell us.”

In this dimension, they prepare people for being captured and tortured. If I’m turned in as an invader or a spy, this is what will happen to me. Paul wouldn’t hurt me—I know that much—but he might report me to people crueler than he is. I’m so far out of my depth here that I have only one possible defense left: the truth.

“No. I wasn’t with you only because I missed you. I do miss you—him, okay, him. I love him. That’s why I’m doing this. The only reason I’d ever do this.” The cold wind whips around us, making me shiver. We seem to be the only people on this entire street—otherwise deserted and desolate. “My Paul really was splintered against his will. The people who did it won’t give him back unless I do what they say. They told me to . . . to sabotage your work here. To ruin the Firebird project if I could. That’s the only way they’ll let me know the other dimensions Paul is hidden in.”

Paul believes me. I almost wish he didn’t. “You’re here to sabotage us?” His fist tightens around the Firebird; the metal corners must be cutting into the skin of his palm. But he doesn’t even notice it. “That’s why you cozied up to me tonight? To get information?”

I feel so cheap, so small. But I shout back, “To save my Paul? I’d do worse than that. I would do anything to get him back home and safe. Anything in the world—in all the worlds. And that means I need the Firebird.”

He stands completely still for a moment—long enough to give me hope—before he says, “Not as much as I do.”

“Paul, please.”

But already Paul has turned his face from me and begun walking away. No goodbyes.

I want to chase Paul down, plead with him, but I already know it wouldn’t do any good. If I could only prove to him how deeply I love him, how well I know him.

So I call, “You—you don’t get along with your parents! You think your dad’s a bad person, and your mom won’t stand up to him, so you try to stay away from them. You won’t even tell me anything else about them. You always sleep with one foot outside the covers. And you—you don’t enjoy porn that much because you think the men and women never seem to actually like each other, and that ruins it for you, which is basically the sweetest thing ever. But naked pictures are okay! You’re into those.” No—stupid subject to pick—it just makes me sound crazier. “Your favorite cake is chocolate with caramel icing! You like rock climbing—”

But he wouldn’t have any time to go rock climbing in this universe. Ration cards wouldn’t allow for much chocolate cake or caramel icing. I’m calling out things about my Paul that this one doesn’t remember or understand.

I’m calling to my Paul, really. The one who’s lost to me. The one hidden deep within the man stalking away into the dark, leaving me alone.

The entire walk back to my hotel, I feel like I ought to be crying. Or panicking. Instead, I trudge forward, almost numb with shock and despair.

I screwed up everything. My Paul is still in danger, and I may have just made it impossible to ever get him back. I would’ve thought that was the worst feeling imaginable—but the reaction of the Paul from this dimension burns it in deeper. Salt in the wound. He caught me trying to betray him, my parents, everyone in this entire world—and called me out about flirting with him, which now seems so cheap and stupid and small.

It’s one thing to fail, another to fail in a way that makes you ashamed you even tried.

The single Firebird hanging around my neck now is Paul’s—so I still have that sliver of his soul. It helps a little to think that he’s still safe. If this were the Firebird about to be disassembled and broken down into component parts for study, then I would have lost him forever. One Paul would have unknowingly murdered another.

But losing my own Firebird is catastrophe enough.

The old-fashioned clock in the hotel lobby says it’s after midnight by the time I come in the door. As I ride up in the elevator, I think, Theo’s our last chance. How would Theo be able to get close to Paul, especially now that Paul is going to distrust every single person he meets? How could Theo use the computer virus to tear the project apart? I don’t know, but he’s going to have to figure it out.

When I enter the hotel room, the lights are off. Of course—Theo went to sleep already. He’s lying on the bed, on his side, and somehow his face looks innocent. That’s a first.

I have to wake him up. He has to know how badly this went wrong, so he can help me figure out a Plan B.

Even though I still can’t fully trust Theo, I know I need him now.

Remembering his reaction to the red dress, though, I go ahead and change in the bathroom, wrapping myself in the white robe I brought. The robe’s fabric is as thin and cheap as I’ve come to expect in this universe, and the hotel doesn’t seem to consider “heat” one of the guest amenities. So I’m shivering as I sit on the edge of the bed and whisper, “Theo?”

“Mm.” He stirs slightly, but then snuggles back into the pillow.

I put one hand on his shoulder. The remaining Firebird dangles from my robe as I lean closer. Theo’s skin is warm through the white fabric of his undershirt. “Hey. Wake up.”

He half turns, opens his eyes, and gives me a groggy smile. Then he slings one arm around my waist and tows me down onto the bed.

I try to protest, but I can’t speak, because his mouth is covering mine.

Theo and I kissed only once before, and it was a pretty good kiss—but nothing like this. This is passionate, warm, searching. At first I’m too startled to react, and before I can even speak, he rolls over so that he’s on top of me. This isn’t my Theo.

“I was having the weirdest dream,” he murmurs as his hands press mine against the mattress. “Sorry I fell asleep. Let me make it up to you.”

He kisses me again, and I feel the weight of his Firebird against my chest. I pull back and turn my face from his. “Theo, wait.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He pulls back and props up on one elbow—even as his other hand trails down my body, casually curving over my breast before coming to rest on my belly. “Are you all right?”

“Hang on.” I grab his Firebird, quickly set a reminder, and—

“Gahh!” Theo shoves himself backward, slamming into the headboard. The pain of the reminder makes him clutch his chest, but it’s the sudden rush of memories that make his eyes go wide. “Oh, I—I just— I didn’t mean to—oh, crap.”

“It’s okay.” I’m so grateful to have him back with me that I don’t care about what just happened here.

Theo, however, does. “Listen, Marguerite, I’m so, so sorry about—the kissing, and the hands, and—I’m just really sorry I did that.”

“It’s all right. You weren’t yourself. Literally.” I straighten my robe as I sit up, trying to make myself forget it all.

“Right. Got it. Moving on.” Then Theo stares at my throat. “Wait. You’re missing a Firebird. Where’s the other one?”

“Paul has it. Theo, he figured it out. He knows everything, and he took my Firebird.”

I vent the story to him, holding nothing back; I tell Theo what I felt, what I did, from the first smile on the sidewalk to my brazen offer to go to Paul’s place, all the way to shouting out the things I knew about my Paul as the other one walked off. By the end, my voice is shaking—from fear, rather than any urge to cry. I’m so scared for my Paul now that it eclipses everything else.

Our eyes meet, and I know we’re both worried about the same thing. If I tried to travel home with Paul’s Firebird—the one storing a splinter of his soul—would I destroy it? If so, then my choices may be living in this universe forever or killing Paul.

“We have to think of something,” I say. “Some way to get to Paul, to get that Firebird back. I don’t know how we even start to—”

“Hey.” Theo takes my hand in both of his. “We’re going to figure something out. All right? Don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking.” Even as I say it, though, I’m trembling so hard my entire body shakes. “But I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s late. You’re tired, and you’ve had one hell of a night. Right now you need to calm down. Take deep breaths, try to sleep. We’ll tackle this in the morning.”

“How am I supposed to sleep? Even if we could get Conley to tell us the other two dimensions we need to search, we can’t save Paul and get home. Not without that other Firebird.”

The springs of the mattress creak as he leans closer to me, and his fingers tighten around mine. “If we figure out where Paul is, and we only have two Firebirds, then I’ll give you mine. You’ll be able to take him home.”

“But—you’d be left behind.”

“You’d come back for me,” Theo says simply. “Or Paul would. One way or another, I’d get home in the end.”

He says that knowing how strange it is to be lost in another version of yourself. Knowing how dangerous other dimensions can be. “I can’t let you do that.”

“The hell you can’t. You’re not the only one who loves Paul Markov, okay? Anything you’d do to get your boyfriend back, I’d do for my best friend.” He shakes his head; in the moonlight filtering through the window shade, I can see his rueful smile. “Or do you still think I’m the same as that other Theo? Always looking out for number one?”

“You’re not him,” I say, just as I’ve said many times before. Maybe I’m finally starting to believe it. “But . . . do we even have the right to do this? To sabotage this technology when they feel like it’s their only hope?”

“They don’t know that. We don’t know that.”

“If there’s any chance they’re right, then I’m basically prioritizing my Paul’s life over the lives of every other person in this dimension.”

Theo scowls in irritation. “I have two words for you. Global and warfare. We didn’t start the fire, Marguerite. The war going on in this dimension is bigger than the people we’ve met here. Bigger than this country. Could the Firebird help them? Maybe. But from what I can see, no one weapon could win it for them. So we can’t tie ourselves in knots worrying about these guys. We have to look out for ourselves. I need a cure, and Paul needs to come together and get back home. Right?”

I believe what he’s saying, mostly. Yet guilt still weighs me down. “I guess.”

More gently, he adds, “Now, come on. Try to sleep.”

Even though I want to argue with him, I can feel exhaustion creeping over me, dark and heavy. I ease down onto the bed, lying on my left side so that I can look toward the moonlight. The second my head touches the pillow, I know I won’t be awake long.

The mattress shifts as Theo moves toward the floor, but I reach back and catch his arm. “Don’t go.”

After a moment, he lies down behind me, spooning around my back as he wraps one arm around my waist. It could be a lover’s embrace, but it’s not. He’s simply here with me, close enough for me to hear him breathe, so even in sleep I’ll know I’m not in this alone.

Yet I can’t stop my imagination from wandering across San Francisco. I envision shabby military housing, and Paul sitting on the edge of his bed, alone. The Firebird is in his hand, and he’s mad as hell. But his heart is broken just the same.