PAUL PULLS ME BACKWARD. HE HAS ONE HAND AROUND MY waist, the other over my mouth. My legs go watery, and I actually have to tell myself not to pass out.
What do I do? I always envisioned attacking him, not being attacked. How could I let him get the jump on me? How could I have been so stupid?
“What are you doing here?” he whispers. We’re just behind the curtain. “How can you even be here?”
I grab at his arm, though I know I’m not strong enough to pull his hand away—and that’s when I glimpse the bracelet on my wrist.
Defender.
Quickly I click the bracelet like the woman on the video. Instantly, a blue-white shock jolts into Paul’s hand.
Paul yells in pain, and I push myself free of him—and stumble through the curtain onto the stage. For a moment I stand there in the spotlight, in a state of shock, only a few feet away from Wyatt Conley. We stare at each other while the startled audience murmurs and I try to figure out what I can possibly say.
Then Paul’s hand closes on my elbow, and I scream.
“Security!” Conley yells as Paul pulls me offstage and people in the audience start shouting. But security isn’t around, because they’re busy throwing out Theo. That means it’s up to me.
I wrench myself away from Paul as violently as I can; he must still be weakened from the electric shock, because I’m able to get free. Then I run like hell.
How could I have been such a fool? How could I have questioned for one second that Paul was dangerous? He killed my father and I still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m never going to let a guy make me this stupid ever again.
I dash from the building into the rain toward the Tube.
From the footsteps on the pavement, and the shouts of people being pushed out of the way, I know Paul’s right behind me.
“Marguerite!” he shouts. “Stop!”
Like that would ever happen.
Raindrops spatter against my face; the sidewalks darken in front of me with every drop. The glowing 3D sign for the Underground spurs me on, giving me the strength to run faster.
I plunge inside, wet hair dripping, and don’t even hesitate before vaulting over the turnstile. If it gets the transit cops’ attention, great.
But even as I run I hear Paul jumping the turnstile behind me.
My ring begins to blink; only one person could be calling me. I manage to slap the ring on, and Theo’s face appears in front of me, shaking and blurry. “I heard—wait—what’s going on?”
“Paul! He’s right behind me! We’re at the Tube!”
Instantly the screen vanishes. Theo’s coming as fast as he can, I know, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to reach me in time.
The Tube corridor splits here into different tunnels, different destinations. I run into the nearest one, not caring or thinking which would be better, then curse under my breath as I hear a train pulling in ahead. While the crowds might protect me from Paul, they’ll also protect Paul from me.
But I keep running. I’m past the point of turning back.
The passengers swarm toward me, their holographic games and calls swirling around them like electronic fog. How can there be so many this long after rush hour? I angle my shoulders, turning that way and this to avoid crashing into someone—but then Paul’s hand grabs my shoulder.
Instantly I turn and slam my fist into Paul’s face.
Ow. Oh, damn. Nobody tells you that punching someone hurts as badly as getting punched. Paul stumbles back, and a few of the other passengers startle, realizing for the first time what they’re seeing.
Paul looks at me, his hand to his reddened jaw, and it’s as if . . . as if he doesn’t understand. How can he not understand?
Behind me the train slides out of the station with a rush of air and a roar that nearly drowns out his words. “Who brought you here?”
I don’t get a chance to answer as Theo shoves through the crowd, launching himself toward Paul and yelling, “Son of a bitch!”
Paul’s head whips from me to Theo in the split second before they collide. The remainder of the commuting crowd shatters in an instant; people scream and scatter, going in a hundred directions at once. A big guy slams into me hard enough that I bang into one of the metal-grid dividers.
Breathless, I stare through the grid to see Paul and Theo on the ground. Theo has the advantage at first, on his knees while Paul is flat on his back, and his fist makes contact with Paul’s jaw so hard that I can hear the crack.
Then Theo tries to hit him again, and in the moment that he blocks Theo’s hand with his own, Paul’s expression shifts from bewildered hurt to rage.
Red security alert lights begin to pulse. The grids cast strange shadows that seem to carve lines around and through us. Soon the metro police will be here. Shit.
Yet none of that matters when I see Paul bodily throw Theo back. Theo tumbles over so far that he actually falls through one of the holographic signs, something about tourism in Italy. As Theo half vanishes behind a translucent version of the Colosseum, Paul leaps after him, kneeling above Theo’s crumpled form.
“You,” he snarls, clutching Theo’s T-shirt. I never knew Paul’s face could look like that—soulless with fury. “How did you follow me?”
Theo kicks Paul solidly in the chest, but it only holds him back a moment. Paul recovers within a blink and punches Theo in the jaw. Then again. Then again. It’s not like I didn’t know Paul was bigger than Theo, but somehow I never realized until now just what a giant he is. How impossible it would be for Theo to take him down alone.
But I’ve got my breath back. Theo doesn’t have to go it alone anymore.
I run toward them, jump through the holographic sign and land on Paul’s broad back. He grunts in surprise, and tries to reach for me, but I’ve got one hand around his neck and another in his hair. So what if hair pulling is a girl move? It hurts, and it works.
“What—” Paul tries to twist out of my grip, but as his hand closes around my forearm, he suddenly stills. “Marguerite, stop.”
I can hardly hear the words over the rumbling approach of another train.
“Go to hell,” I say.
My free hand is the one with the Defender bracelet. When I slam it against his side, it does its job, shocking him again, and he cries out in pain.
Theo’s back up, and he goes after Paul’s Firebird locket. That’s it, that’s it, all I have to do is hold Paul while Theo finishes him.
Then Paul angles his head back, and he looks at me. His gray eyes stare upward, searching my face, revealing a depth of betrayal and pain I recognize because it mirrors my own.
For one instant, doubt blots out everything else, and my grip weakens.
One instant is all Paul needs.
He twists free of me and slams his elbow into Theo’s face, knocking him back to the floor. I try to regain my hold on Paul, but it’s useless; he’s up now and using every inch he has on me, every pound, to hold me back.
“What are you doing?” he shouts. The security lights pulse above us, turning the line of blood along his mouth from red to black and back again.
“Stopping you!” I swing at Paul, but his massive hand blocks mine easily.
Theo scrambles to his feet; Paul sees it. Immediately he grabs me—literally picks me up—and shoves his way through the doors of the train car right before they close. I wriggle free of him just in time to see Theo press his hands against the glass door. But it’s too late. The train is moving.
For one moment I match my hand to Theo’s, separated only by the glass; he looks stricken, but says nothing. What can he say? Nothing can prevent the way the train speeds up, pulling away from him, leaving only his fingerprints.
The train slides into the tunnel, into the darkness. Nobody else is in this car. Paul and I stand there, breathing hard, illuminated only by the holographic ads overhead. He’s still wearing his Firebird. We are alone.
“How did Theo bring you here?” Paul says, voice low. “And why?”
I lift my chin. “Theo rebuilt the Firebird prototypes on his own. You didn’t think he could, did you?”
“The prototypes. Of course,” he whispers, and it’s almost like he’s glad to hear it. “But . . . but why did he bring you along? Do you not see how dangerous this is?”
“That doesn’t matter. If you thought you could kill my father and get away with it, you’re—”
“What?” His face pales so suddenly that I think for a moment he might pass out. “What—you said—Henry’s dead? He’s dead?”
The astonishment and pain I see are very real. Some people are good enough actors to feign shock, but shy, uncertain Paul Markov has never had that kind of game. There’s no way he could fake this kind of horror, or the tears I can see welling in his eyes.
It hits me then, a blow more stupefying than sharp: Paul didn’t kill my father.
“Oh, God.” Paul wipes hastily at his eyes; he’s trying so hard to stay focused. “How can Henry be dead?”
All those moments that have tormented me over the past few days—Paul smiling at his birthday cake, listening to Rachmaninoff, standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Those were real. Paul is real.
But then what the hell is going on? If Paul didn’t kill Dad, who did?
“Wait. You thought I killed him?” Paul says it with none of the anger I’d feel in his place. He’s just completely confused, like he has no idea how I could ever believe anything so weird. “Marguerite, what happened?”
“His car went into the river. Someone had tampered with Dad’s brakes.” My voice sounds small, not like my own.
“You have to believe me. I didn’t hurt Henry. I would never do that.”
“It really looked like it had to be you.” And as soon as I realize that, I realize something even worse. “I think someone framed you.”
Paul swears under his breath. “Why on earth did Theo bring you along?”
“Why do you keep acting like it’s all up to Theo? I chose to come. I have to find out who did this to Dad.”
Then it hits me—this wave of anger. I thought I knew who to blame for Dad’s death, before; I thought I knew who to hate. Now I don’t. For the past few days, my hate has been the only thing keeping me going. I feel naked, unarmed.
The train curves through the tunnel, and the floor beneath us rocks back and forth. All the ads flicker slightly. Paul’s face is half in shadow like the album cover of Rubber Soul.
“I’ll find out who hurt Henry.” Paul takes one step toward me. “I swear that to you.”
“If it’s not all up to Theo, then it’s not all up to you either! Okay, so, you didn’t kill Dad or trash the data. Then who did? Why did you run?”
He startles me again. “I didn’t kill Henry, but I did destroy the data at the lab.”
“What? Why?”
Paul puts his hands on my shoulders. I flinch. I can’t help it. He jerks away, as though he thinks he might have injured me. “Tell Theo I’m sorry. When I saw him earlier, I thought—I blamed him for something he didn’t do. I realize now he was only trying to do something for Henry—” His voice breaks again. Our shared grief pierces us at the same moment, an electrical shock of feeling traveling from him into me, or from me into him. “But tell Theo that he has to take you back home, now. The sooner the better. It’s the most important thing he could possibly do.”
“No. You have to explain.”
He says only: “Go home. I’ll fix this.”
Then the train rocks on its track hard enough that I stagger. In the second before I can catch my balance, Paul clutches his Firebird in his hand, and—
It’s hard to describe exactly what happens next. Although nothing moves, it feels vaguely as if a breeze has stirred the air around us, changing something indefinable about the way Paul looks. He lifts his head, as though startled, and he brings one hand to his torn lip and winces. When he sees the blood on his fingers, he doesn’t seem to remember how it got there.
Then I realize the Firebird is no longer around his neck. There were no crackling lights, no unearthly sounds, nothing like that; one instant the Firebird was there, and now it’s not.
Paul is gone. He’s leaped ahead, into yet another dimension.
Which means the guy standing in front of me now is . . . still Paul Markov, but the Paul who belongs in this world.
The train pulls into its next stop. I grab one of the poles to steady myself; Paul does the same, but clumsily, like he hardly understands what’s happening. Then I realize he doesn’t. He’s standing here on this train without any memory of how we got here, or even who I am.
“What’s going on?” says Paul/not Paul.
“I—” How am I supposed to explain this? “Let’s get off the train, all right?”
Although Paul looks understandably wary, he follows me out, through the station, and onto the street.
We’re in an entirely different section of London now, or so it seems; this part looks more like the city I remember, with more old buildings, no hoverships in the sky. It’s started to rain again. We duck under a storefront awning, and by now Paul looks less confused, more unnerved. “Where am I?”
“London.”
“Yes, of course,” he says, and the way his eyes narrow when he’s unsure and irritated is so familiar that it’s difficult for me to believe this isn’t my Paul. “I came in this morning for the tech conference. To hear Wyatt Conley. I’d been planning it for weeks—but I could swear I remember getting off the train. Then it all goes . . . blank.”
He was coming to the tech conference anyway. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t a physicist be interested in one of the innovators of the age? “Do you not remember anything of the past, I don’t know—two days?”
“I remember . . . some things,” Paul says. His expressions, the way he moves—it’s all slightly different from our Paul, the one I know, the one who just ran away from here. How strange it is to be able to tell the difference in how he tilts his head. “But who are you? Who punched me?”
I did that. Theo and I did that to you, and you’re a stranger who never hurt either of us. “There was a fight. It’s over. Nothing bad happened.”
“But—” He stares down at his broad hands, realizing his knuckles are bruised. His lost expression is suddenly so like Paul’s that it makes me suck in a sharp breath.
I find myself wishing I could explain.
So I say, as gently as I can manage, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Just—go home. It’s all right. You won’t see me again.”
Although he clearly wants more answers, Paul must want to get the hell away from the crazy stranger even more. He backs away, out from under the awning, until raindrops patter against his long coat and his disheveled hair. Then he turns and walks into the London crowd, lost again in an instant.
Only then do I realize my ring has been vibrating for a while now. I hit it, hoping to get Theo. When his face appears before me in three-dimensional light, I’m hopeful—but then I realize it’s a message.
“Marguerite, I hope to God you’re okay.” His face is stark—afraid for me. Theo continues, “Paul jumped out of this dimension a few seconds ago. I’m guessing you already know that. We have to go after him. Don’t worry—I set your Firebird to follow him wherever he leaps, exactly like mine. I feel . . . beyond strange, going on ahead of you, but I know you’d tell me not to let Paul get away, no matter what. Justice for Henry, that’s what matters most.”
I nod, as though his message could see me. But it’s only a hologram talking into the void.
Theo smiles, tense and nervous. “We’ll meet in the universe next door, all right, Meg?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Next door.”
Although I take my Firebird in hand, I don’t set it for the next jump right away. First I look out at the grimier London in front of me, the one with technological marvels pinned to or floating in front of every person, and each one of them too distracted and careworn to notice. I try to imagine how this Marguerite will feel when she comes to alone in a few seconds, wondering why her heart is pounding.
It seems that she won’t remember much. But—I don’t need the reminders the way Theo does, the way Paul appeared to. The experience of traveling is different for me than it is for them. So maybe this Marguerite’s experience will be different too. Possibly she’ll retain some fragment of this, an image or a sensation that belonged to me and now is shared between us both.
So I flood my mind with thoughts of my parents, the ones she lost so long ago. I think of them laughing while I painted the rainbow table. Of Mom holding me on her shoulders at the natural history museum so that I could look right up into the skull of a triceratops. Of Dad taking me around town on his bike when I was still little enough for the kiddie seat—one of my earliest memories—him laughing with me as we swooped downhill together.
I hope this Marguerite can remember them a little. That it will make some dent in the terrible grief that has walled her into this life . . . and maybe give her enough hope to break free.
Then I begin manipulating my Firebird, turn the final gear, and think, Oh, God, what’s next? What’s next?
I collide with myself—my other self—and this time I lose my balance entirely. In the split second I’m wobbling in midair, I realize I am descending a staircase. Apparently this is a very, very bad moment to have a cross-dimensional traveler hop into your body, because then you miss a step and—
I manage to get my hands in front of me as I fall, which doesn’t keep me from landing on the stairs hard, but at least lets me brace my roll down the next several steps until I catch myself. A necklace around my neck breaks, and I hear beads rolling in a dozen directions. All around me, people cry out and hurry to my side. Dazed, I lift my head.
The first thing I notice is that these stairs are carpeted in red velvet. Which is a good thing, since they seem to be marble beneath; that would’ve hurt. The second thing I notice is that all the beads clattering and rolling down the steps aren’t beads at all. They’re pearls.
I put one hand to my aching forehead as I look up. My fingers make contact with something in my hair, the band of this heavy thing atop my head. . . .
Is that a tiara?
Finally I see the people crowded around me—one and all in incredibly elegant evening dress: men in unfamiliar military uniforms resplendent with medals and sashes, women in white, floor-length gowns, not unlike the one tangled around my legs.
“Marguerite?” says a kindly man only a few years older than me, one with hair as dark and curly as mine, though his is cut short. From his concern I can see he knows me well, but I’ve never seen him before. Though—something about his face is oddly familiar—
“I’m all right,” I say. I have no idea what else to do, other than reassure them. I put one hand to my chest to steady myself, then gasp as I look down.
The different layers of the Firebird lie scattered in my lap and on the steps around me. Only its clockwork locket shell still hangs around my neck.
It’s broken.
The Firebird is broken, and I have no idea how to fix it.
Oh, shit.