I OPEN MY EYES.
This time, there’s no sensation of force, no moment of disorientation. Instead it’s almost as if I nodded off for a moment, then gently woke. Slowly, I look around. Night has fallen here, but only just—the western edge of the sky is still a paler blue, tinted faintly pink at the horizon. I’m sitting on the steps of our deck, wearing my lace dress with my father’s cardigan over it, both hands clasping the Firebird around my neck. In other words, I’m in the exact same position I was when I left a month ago.
“I’m home,” I whisper. “I’m home.”
Quickly I scramble up the back steps and to the sliding glass doors. As usual, Mom hasn’t locked them, so I run inside. The sight of my own house fills me with almost delirious happiness: Piles of paper! Physics equations on the walls! Mom’s potted plants! Even the rainbow table—
—and, sitting on the sofa, Mom.
She gasps, “Marguerite!”
“Mom!” I run to her, but she meets me halfway. Her arms go around me so tightly that I realize anew how badly I must have scared her these past few weeks. “I’m so sorry, Mom, but I made it. We made it.”
“You’re safe? You’re well?” Tears spill down my mother’s face as she brushes my hair back from my face. “But you didn’t hurt Paul, did you? We decoded his note hours after we got yours—”
“Oh, my God, you’re back!” Josie comes barreling out of the kitchen to tackle me onto the sofa. “I’m going to kill you for scaring us like that. But first I have to tell you I love you, you crazy little brat.”
“I love you, too,” I say as I hug her close. “But there’s so much we have to talk about.”
“Triad,” Mom says, and her smile dims, but only slightly. “We know. That doesn’t matter now, sweetheart, as long as you’re home and safe.”
“You know? But how . . .” My voice trails off as a third person steps out of the hallway.
Theo.
He tries to grin at me, but it doesn’t quite work. “Welcome back.”
At first all I can feel is panic. He followed me here, somehow he got out of the sub and followed me here—and then I realize what this actually means. The guy standing here in his Mumford & Sons shirt and cargo pants is my Theo, the one Triad took over months ago so that their spy could act in his place. This Theo would never have done any of this to me or to anybody in my family.
I know that. I believe it. And yet it’s hard to make my heart accept it.
“You know the truth, then. I can see it in your face.” Theo grimaces. “You never used to be scared of me.”
Quickly I say, “I’m not scared. It’s just—it’s a lot to take in. And, yeah. I know.”
“Did he hurt you?” Theo’s voice breaks. “If that son of a bitch hurt you—”
“No,” I say, which almost isn’t a lie.
“And Paul? Is Paul okay?” At that moment, when I see that Theo’s as frightened for Paul as he was for me, I remember the love between them, and that even now, a dimension away, Paul is risking his life to save a Theo he doesn’t even know—and a Theo who tried to kill him.
“Paul’s all right. He’ll come back soon,” I say. Josie breathes out a sigh of relief, and I can see the tension in Theo’s shoulders relax the tiniest amount.
Mom interjects, “Theo came to us the moment Triad’s spy left. He told us everything. But by then it was too late—you were gone, and we knew Triad could get to you and we couldn’t, so there was nothing we could do or even say without endangering you. We’ve been working on our own Firebirds, hoping to follow you, but that work doesn’t go quickly. The last month has been hell.” She sounds more than four weeks older as she says it. “But now you’re here. You’ve come home.”
I wrest myself from Josie’s embrace, my smile returning to my face. “And now we have to go. All of us, right this second.”
“Go where?” Mom asks, frowning.
She doesn’t understand. None of them do. None of them know yet, the best news of all.
“To the university.” I take my mother’s hands to ease the shock, and look into all of their faces in turn before saying, “We have to pick up Dad.”
Despite everything that’s happened to me in the past couple of hours, I’m the only one calm enough to drive. So I steer Josie’s silver Volkswagen through the hilly streets. In the back seat, Mom and Josie are alternating between sobs of joy and horrible moments of doubt. They’re still overwhelmed, still afraid to believe.
Theo rides in the seat next to me, his expression stark as he stares straight ahead. Neither of us has spoken to the other since we got in the car. I don’t think we have any idea what to say.
Then I realize the first thing I need to know. “What was it like when you were, you know—taken over?”
Although he still doesn’t look at me, he relaxes a little. “At first it was like I was just losing time. Blacking out or something. I thought I was working too hard on the Firebird project, skipping too much sleep, something like that. Didn’t mention it to Henry or Sophia, because I thought they’d tell me to take it easy and I might miss out.” Theo sighs. “If I had, maybe one of them would’ve realized what was going on. So, that was pretty stupid.”
“You couldn’t have known.” Inside I find myself thinking of every other Marguerite I inhabited. At the time, I felt as though I was making responsible choices—or that if I made mistakes, they were the mistakes those Marguerites would have made in my place. But now that I see Theo’s profound sense of violation, I wonder if that’s how they feel, too.
“After he started using that green stuff, everything changed. I was aware of what was going on, but it was—distant. Foggy. It reminded me of twilight sleep at the dentist. Then he’d leave. Go back to his own dimension to, I don’t know, report in or whatever. By the time I could feel myself sobering up, he’d be back.”
I remember now, back in the Triadverse, the talk about Theo’s time-consuming “internship” with Conley. Really Theo was traveling between dimensions as Conley’s spy—going back only often enough to maintain his cover story.
Finally Theo looks at me, though his gaze is hesitant. “Once the son of a bitch moved on for good, I could only remember the big details—that they’d done something awful to Henry, that I’d framed Paul for it, and that they were after you. They’d been after you the whole time, and I couldn’t even warn you. We had to wait here, not knowing if we’d ever see you again.”
As much as I sympathize with the pain I hear in his voice, I can’t let Theo keep beating himself up about this. “I made it back. Okay? You have to stop worrying about the past. Worry about the future, because Triad’s definitely going to keep trying.”
“Oh, I’ve been thinking about Triad. Trust me, I’ve been thinking a lot. They had their chance to surprise us, and now they’re going to get a few surprises in return.” Theo actually smiles, but it’s the scariest-looking smile I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to be Wyatt Conley right now.
We reach the university campus. It’s a still place between semesters, almost abandoned, with only a handful of the usual cars in the parking lots and a few forlorn international students wandering around. With a stomp on the gas pedal, I speed us toward the lab and pull into the closest spot.
Josie’s Volkswagen is so tiny that we must look like clowns spilling out of a circus car. As I peer through the darkness on the grounds, I don’t see anyone close by.
Mom steps in front of me. “Henry?” Her voice shakes as she calls his name again. “Henry?”
Then I see what she’s seen—the shape running out of the shadows.
“Sophie!” Dad shouts as he dashes straight into Mom’s arms.
Somehow we all wind up on the ground in a group hug, and everyone’s crying and everyone’s laughing and we probably look like crazy people, but I don’t care one bit.
And yet, down deep, I’m still afraid.
What about Paul?
As we disentangle ourselves and get to our feet again, Mom kisses Dad—and I don’t mean, like, a normal kiss; I mean, she lays one on him. I’ve always been glad my parents loved each other so much, but I never felt like I was watching anything quite this intimate. As I turn my head to give them a little privacy, Josie giggles. “That’s right,” she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You weren’t with me that time I walked in on them doing the deed. Seriously Freudian horror.”
“You saw your parents at their best,” Mom murmurs, before Dad sweeps her into another kiss.
“Go ahead,” Josie calls. “Mate in public. Tonight we won’t even mind. You deserve to break a few decency laws.”
I can’t bear it any longer. “I have to go. I have to find Paul.”
Slowly Theo nods. “Come on. I’ll take you there.”
Together we run across the dark campus, past enormous, empty buildings and then into a block of dormitories. They look nicer than I thought dorms would be—more like apartment buildings. The lock on the door is ultramodern: a huge black access-card reader that stops me in my tracks.
“ID reader,” Theo says as he fishes his student ID out of his wallet. One swipe, and the lock clicks, letting us in the building.
Together Theo and I walk up two flights of stairs and along the hallway until we reach Paul’s door. Hoping against hope, I knock and call out, “Paul?”
No reply.
So we stand there in the hallway, with nothing to do but wait.
“You say Paul’s in danger because he’s saving my evil twin?” Theo leans against one wall, folding his arms in front of his chest.
“And the other you, the oceanographer from that dimension. The one who got pulled into this against his will, like you did.”
“Little brother,” Theo says softly.
“You know he’d never leave you when you were in trouble.”
“Yeah. I know. But even evil me?”
I take a moment to word this correctly, because it’s a hard thing to accept, and probably even harder if you’ve been through what Theo has. “Evil you is still you,” I say as gently as I can. “He actually thought he was helping me. The guy’s not a monster. He’s just a . . . slightly inferior version.”
Theo sighs. “If you say so.”
Silence falls between us. I keep staring at the door, willing Paul to suddenly appear on the other side and open it for me. Nothing happens.
The storm was getting worse. What if Paul’s sub wasn’t able to dock? What if he crashed like Theo and I did? Maybe they’re both drowning, even now, or being crushed by the impossible pressure—
“Tell me one thing,” Theo says.
I never stop staring at Paul’s door. “Sure, okay. What?”
“This other Theo—he cost me my chance with you, didn’t he?”
Stricken, I turn back toward Theo, who smiles at me unevenly.
“Because I did have a chance, didn’t I? For a little while there? Could’ve sworn I did.” He shrugs. “But now you’re standing here looking at Paul’s freakin’ door the way I always used to wish you’d look at me.”
A few months ago, if Theo had said something—would it have changed who I fell for? I don’t know; I’ll never know.
So I say only, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But if I have to let somebody else have you, at least it’s him.” Theo nods toward the door.
And within that room, something moves.
I suck in a breath. Theo and I exchange glances, and then I call out, “Paul? Paul, are you in there?” Quickly I knock. “It’s me. It’s—”
The door opens, and my fist makes contact with Paul’s chest.
In that first instant, I can’t speak. I can only stare up at him as he slowly smiles. I launch myself into his arms. Paul hugs me back fiercely, like he never wants to let me go.
“Happy endings all around, almost,” Theo says as he takes a couple of steps backward. “I’m going to head out, you guys.”
“Theo?” Paul never lets go of me, but he looks over my shoulder, only slightly less happy about this second reunion. “It’s really you?”
“The one and only,” Theo says. “Accept no substitutes. Which I realize is easier said than done, these days.” He sounds like his old self, and I have to grin.
Paul reaches one hand out to Theo, who clasps it in something that’s more than a handshake—it looks like old paintings of Romans swearing allegiance to each other, swearing to die by each other’s side. Their bond is too powerful to be destroyed by their feelings for me, or their rivalry.
But Theo can’t keep up the pretense that it doesn’t bother him, seeing us wrapped together like this. As he lets go of Paul and takes a few steps back, his smile is strained. “I’m gonna—I’m grabbing the good Dr. Kovalenka and the resurrected Dr. Caine and the soon-to-be-doctor Josephine and bringing them over this way. Soon we’ll have the band back together.”
I whisper, “Thank you, Theo.”
“You crazy kids have fun,” he says, and then he turns around to go.
For a moment we watch him leave—but then Paul pulls me into his room and closes the door.
As soon as he does, though, reality intrudes. Everything I know about Paul, everything I feel for him, is swallowed up in uncertainty. In the love I felt for Lieutenant Markov, who lies dead a universe away.
I don’t say a word, but Paul understands. He takes a deep breath as he steps slightly closer. “I’m not the one you loved. I know that.”
“How can you know when I don’t?”
He shakes his head, not denying what I’m saying but moving past it. “Something in us has to be the same, Marguerite. I know we both feel the same way about you. After the way you lost him, I don’t expect you to—to rush into anything, to know your own heart right away. But I’d like for us to find out if what you felt . . . if it wasn’t for him alone. If anything you felt was for me.”
Some of it was. Is. I know that; I always have.
Paul says, “Will you give me a chance, Marguerite?”
I feel the smile spreading over my face, lighting me up inside. “Yeah,” I whisper as I take his hand. “Oh, yeah.”