Oh, no. My eyes widen as I recall what Paul told me back in the Spaceverse. He said that once Triad had really, truly given up on my ever working for them, they would begin to create new perfect travelers. People they could convince, or deceive, into doing Triad’s dirty work—namely, destroying universes.
What if that’s what happened here? What if something about my attempt with the Firebird signaled this other perfect traveler that it was time to begin the final countdown?
My gut churns, and I have to lean against the plaster wall. I try to talk myself down. This dimension is still here. The shaking ended. Sometimes an earthquake is only an earthquake.
Then the earth trembles again. Nothing falls. The lanterns hanging from the ceiling sway in only the shortest arcs.
“Aftershocks,” I say out loud. My parents nod, not overly concerned. Earthquakes have aftershocks. That’s normal.
But my hair is standing on end, and I know—I know—that I must find out what’s really going on.
“Mom, Dad, I have to go.” I put the broom down and grab my cloak.
“Where can you possibly be headed at a time like this?” Dad says.
I slip the cloak over my shoulders. “The Castel Sant’Angelo.”
My parents know what that means. Mom folds her hands in her lap. “Oh, sweetheart—I know how badly you must want to see him, especially after a scare. But is it safe for either of you? Is it kind to Father Paul?”
“The two of you chose to end this madness.” My father sounds grave. “Don’t let your resolve falter now. If you do, you’re endangering Father Paul’s standing within the church. Her Holiness may have agreed to protect our research, but if she ever learns you’ve tempted a priest from his calling . . .”
Me, a temptress. “I have to talk to Paul,” I say as I head out. “Even if it’s for the last time.” When I shut the door behind me, my parents don’t follow.
I ask for directions from some of the many people in the streets cleaning up earthquake-related messes in the last of the orange sunset light. Luckily, I soon come across a cart leaving the masons’ guildhall, whatever that is. Some of their members have been called to help with repairs at the Castel Sant’Angelo, and they offer me a ride and an earthenware cup of weak beer.
I drink it. Beer’s not my favorite, but I need some courage, even of the liquid variety.
When I see Paul again, he might be this universe’s Father Paul—tender with love for me, so greatly at risk because of the clandestine relationship we must have recently ended. But of course I’m hoping for my Paul. If he ran the final tests right away, and those tests worked, then he could have saved the Spaceverse already. Of course he’ll go back to the Londonverse and Egyptverse first, at my well-meaning-but-in-retrospect-unnecessary request. How long will it take him to construct the necessary stabilizers? It could be a while, especially in the Egyptverse, where Paul will have nothing more to work with than the few, low-tech materials my parents took along on their archaeological dig.
However, I have to think positive. Paul said the machine wasn’t actually that complicated on its own, so it’s possible he could put one together pretty quickly, right? Then he could show up here in the Romeverse at any moment.
Or hours from now. Or days.
I close my eyes tightly and hope against hope that I’m wrong about the tremors.
* * *
By the time we reach the Castel Sant’Angelo, dusk is falling. The castle guards are the exact same two guys I saw last time. Same mustaches, same brilliantly colored, striped costumes, and the same sarcastic looks on their faces: Seems like old times. One of them says, “The usual chamber?”
“Yes, please. And if you could let Father Paul know I’m here, I’d appreciate it.”
The other guard ambles off to find Paul, muttering under his breath, “Some people never learn.”
I’m shown to the same small chapel I visited last time. One of the stained glass windows has broken, littering the stone floor with green and scarlet shards, but the earthquake seems to have caused no other damage. If the iron frames holding the hundreds of small candles near the altar fell over, they’ve been righted, and all the little flames burn brightly enough to provide some light.
Each candle represents a prayer, I think. My nonreligious parents mostly taught me about various doctrines in a historical context, not about details like this. But I’m pretty sure you light a candle for someone when you’re afraid for them, praying for them, wishing that someone up there would take care of them. I take one small candle, devote it to the two lost Marguerites, and light it with the flame of another.
I can’t truly pray for people who are already lost, but at least I can remember them.
Then I hear my name spoken softly. “Marguerite?”
I turn to see Paul in the doorway of the chapel wearing his long, black priestly robes. The glint of gold around his neck pierces me with sudden hope. The Firebird. It’s my Paul! He’s saved all the other worlds and come here to save this dimension too!
No. The item hanging around his neck is a cross. It promises salvation, but not the kind the multiverse currently needs.
“You’ve come.” Father Paul steps closer to me, his hands clasped together as if to keep himself from reaching for me. “I didn’t think you would.”
He’s so different from my own Paul, and yet so familiar, too. When I look through the priest’s garb and longish hair, searching for traces of the man I love, I feel as if I’m seeing Paul again for the first time. . . .
A new grad student, a head taller than anyone else in the room, more muscular than a construction worker. His cheap, faded clothes, bought from Goodwill with the few dollars he had left over from his scholarship, because his parents had shut him out. He never even looked up from the floor except to talk physics with my parents, as though he spoke only in numbers rather than words. I looked at his strong jaw and hulking form and mentally dubbed him “the caveman.”
Songs and movies tell us that when you meet the one you love, the planet stops spinning, the clouds open up, and your heart begins to sing. Reality is messier than that. The truth is, we meet new people all the time, but we can never tell exactly what they might mean to us. You never know who you’ll forget, or who you’ll need forever.
Father Paul says, “You had told me we shouldn’t meet again.” The sorrow in his voice sounds too familiar. For the length of one breath, I’m back on the Astraeus, standing in front of the computer readouts that reveal just how shattered my Paul’s soul has become, and the pain is as fresh as it was the moment he told me to let him go.
We share this, Father Paul and I—the terrible knowledge of what it means to love someone more than life, and still to have to give them up.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. “But when the earth shook like that—it felt like the end of the world.”
Paul crosses the space between us in two steps and folds me against his chest. I hug him tightly, grateful for his comfort, and for his love.
Despite the holy vows keeping us forever apart in this dimension, Father Paul’s love for me is so pure. So uncomplicated. He doesn’t question why we care for each other. He doesn’t demand that the entire mathematical foundation of reality work out in favor of our relationship. No one has tortured him by splintering his soul. He remains whole, and gives his entire heart to me.
I imagine running endlessly through the multiverse, through world after world, finding the one where we know how to love each other, where no one is chasing us down or keeping us apart. Everything that can happen must happen, so there has to be a world like that out there. One perfect world where Paul and I get it right.
“Are you still afraid?” Paul murmurs against my forehead.
“Yes,” I admit. By now I’ve figured out that even in the worst-case scenario, this plan won’t kill me. If there’s any warning about the collapse of the dimension (and there would have to be, right?)—well, I’ve still got my Firebird. I can’t leap into the
same dimension where Wicked currently resides, but I could always head back home, or into another dimension altogether.
But I’m afraid for Father Paul. For the versions of my parents who are gazing at the planets through a telescope for the first time. For the Sistine Chapel that deserves to be finished. And for this Marguerite, too.
I already failed two other versions of myself. I don’t want to fail an entire universe, too.
“The shaking seems to have ended.” Paul’s voice can sound so soothing, so strong. “You know you cannot stay here.”
But if my Paul shows up, we might need to find each other in a hurry—and how are we supposed to do that in a medieval world where nighttime is impassably dark? “You have to come to me when you can,” I say. “All right? Come to my house. My parents won’t tell. They won’t mind.”
Father Paul hesitates, but finally he nods. “You’re finally ready,” he whispers. “You believe at last that I’m willing to leave the church for you.” The yearning in his eyes is as beautiful as it is painful.
Even in this world, with the entire Roman Catholic Church in the way, Paul and I have found a way to be together. I clasp his hands in mine. “You’re sure?”
“Surer than I have ever been about anything. God led me to the church, but he did not give me the charism of chastity. So I cannot be meant to be a priest. My prayers have led me to believe that God brought me to Rome because that would bring me to you.”
His shining faith in our destiny takes my breath away. If only my Paul could find this. . . .
I don’t want to steal a moment that should belong to this Marguerite, but I’m afraid the world might be ending. Even if she never gets to kiss him, he should get to kiss her at least once.
And maybe I need the chance to kiss my Paul goodbye.
“Come here,” I whisper as I slide my hands on either side of his face. Paul doesn’t make a move to respond, but he doesn’t pull away as I bring my lips to his. Our kiss is tentative at first—gentle—until the moment something catches fire inside him.
His mouth opens, just slightly, enough for me to capture one of his lips between both of mine. With a groan, Paul pulls me closer, and finally I’m back in the comfort of his embrace. I clutch the folds of his black robe in my hands as he kisses me harder, until the fever between us is as passionate as any moment I’ve known with any Paul, anywhere.
When our kiss breaks, Paul gasps for breath. I expect him to apologize or repent. Instead he squares his shoulders, newly determined. “I will come to you,” he says quietly. “Nothing will keep me from you again, Marguerite.”
“I hope not. I hope everything’s going to be beautiful from now on.” Oh, please don’t let me have messed things up for these two. Please let the timing of the earthquake have been a coincidence. Please don’t let me have failed these people’s worlds.
Father Paul doesn’t understand the true nature of the fear haunting me. He simply runs one hand through my hair as he says, “I’ve prayed about this for months. In the past days when we chose to part, I thought I would find peace. Instead, peace was farther away than ever.” Paul doesn’t look like a guy making excuses so he can finally get some. He smiles as if he’s experienced divine revelation. “Only with you does my soul find comfort, Marguerite. Whatever I must do to be with you—even leaving the church—that is the path I must follow. Nothing will keep us apart now, nothing in this world.”
Tears well in my eyes. Although I try to blink them back, one trickles down my cheek. “Good,” I whisper. If this universe survives, one more Marguerite and Paul will have a chance to be happy.
For now, I simply have to figure out how to stay with him until my Paul can reach this universe and explain what’s going on. . . .
A dog outside begins to bark loudly, every yip carrying clearly through the broken windows. At first I’m annoyed, but then I remember that dogs always know when earthquakes are coming. Scientists still don’t understand exactly when quakes will happen, not even with all their degrees and instruments and Nobel Prizes, but dogs always know.
This time the tremor jolts the entire castle, sends me and Paul toppling to the floor. The remaining windows shatter, and I cover my head as glass sprays in every direction. Paul shoves me roughly to one side, which I don’t understand until I see that the racks of candles have fallen over, only inches from where the edge of my robe would have been. We hang on to each other as the ripples continue for at least two or three minutes—in earthquake terms, a very long time.
Finally the tremors stop, but I continue shaking. “This is wrong,” I whisper as Paul and I huddle on the stone floor together. “This isn’t only an earthquake.”
“You’re right. This is something more,” Paul says, surprising me. Is he going to attribute this to our sinful kiss? No. Instead he points at one of the windows, and my gaze follows the line of his finger through the broken glass at the edges to see the moon—which is even now being blotted out by darkness.
“It’s just an eclipse.” After everything else, this is blessedly anticlimactic. “Eclipses aren’t supernatural, you know. Not God being angry or anything. You can ask my parents.”
Paul gives me a look. “I know this, of course,” he says, politely enough, but I realize that this dimension must at least be advanced enough to know a demon’s not eating the moon. “But no eclipse was predicted for tonight, was it? Surely your parents would have informed Her Holiness.”
“Maybe they did.” And yet—Mom and Dad were excited about getting a good look at Jupiter tonight. As far as they were concerned, that was the evening’s number-one attraction. Is an eclipse too mundane for them to get excited about anymore?
Or is the increasing darkness in the sky evidence that my worst fears are coming to pass?
Shouting down the corridor means others are beginning to panic. Paul presses his lips to my forehead, one quick kiss. “I must speak with the others, learn whether this is a mere calendar error or—”
I kiss him back, on the lips this time. “Go. But come to my parents’ as soon as you can, okay? The very first moment.”
Paul takes my hand and presses it to his chest. I feel no Firebird, only the rapid beating of his heart. “Always,” he promises. “Always, Marguerite.”
He dashes from the chapel as I get to my feet and dust off my robe. Despite my fears, I try to remain calm. To think of rational alternatives. The darkness overhead could be only clouds rolling in before a storm. Or my parents could’ve gotten so caught up in their personal enthusiasms that they forgot to warn Pope Martha III about the coming eclipse—which is one hundred percent something they’d do.
All possible. And yet my inner voice repeats the mantra, I can leap out whenever I need to. The Firebird’s weight against my chest has never reassured me more.
As I go to the doorway of the chapel, I find myself remembering the last time I was here. All the candles flickered in their orderly rows. The stained-glass windows remained intact, carving light into spectacular imagery with frames of slender iron. Now it’s almost in ruins. I can’t help imagining my love for Paul lying here with all the other broken, abandoned things.
I hurry out of the Castel Sant’Angelo to find that the guards have abandoned their post at the door. Instead, they’ve joined the throng of people huddling on this hill, staring up at the sky in dismay. I lift my head to see that the moon has completely vanished—and now, in a widening circle around it, the stars are winking out one by one.
There goes my last hope that this was an eclipse.
Oh, God, I think. This is it. This is really it. If Paul doesn’t get here soon with a solution, the Romeverse is going to die.
At that exact moment, someone runs into me, knocking me down hard.
The stony ground bruises my flesh. Hot blood runs from a scrape on my cheekbone, but I have never cared less. I push myself onto my hands and knees, not even bothering to look at whatever poor panicking person ran into me. Who could blame them for freaking out?
> Then a hand grabs at the front of my robes, pawing at me. In the first flush of shock I assume some jerkwad is trying to sexually assault me, which I would find terrifying if the frickin’ apocalypse weren’t about to descend. I pull back my fist to punch him in the face—and see Romola getting to her feet.
And she is now clutching my Firebird, the match of the one she’s wearing around her neck.
“Give that back!” I launch myself at her, but Romola knocks me to the side with the heavy staff in her other hand. I tumble down again but scrabble back out of her reach. “What are you doing?”
“Completing an experiment.” She smiles in total contentment. “One we weren’t sure would work. But it looks like it has.”
The earth rumbles beneath us again, enough to knock me off my feet. Romola stays up with the help of her staff.
If she thinks that stick can protect her forever, she’s wrong. I don’t care how hard she hits, how viciously she hurts me. The only thing that matters is getting my hands on that Firebird again.
“How could you do this?” I say as I struggle back to my feet. “How could you destroy an entire universe?”
“I didn’t,” Romola says. “You did.”
What are you talking about? I want to protest. That’s impossible. I didn’t do anything to destroy this universe. I never would!
But already my mind is taking me back to earlier today. To my first glimpse of Romola, which put me on my guard—but not enough. To that moment in the Vatican when Pope Martha claimed the Firebird from me.
“You took it from the pope,” I say to Romola as we stand there beneath the ominously darkening skies. The torches still burning around us are the only remaining light. “You touched it. And when you did that, you did something to the controls—something that—”
“Ensured you would instigate the destruction of this entire dimension the very first time you tried to leap out of it. Lucky moment, that. I thought I’d have to drug you and slip it off your neck while you slept. But between the papal meddling and your overeager first attempt—well. We’ve accomplished this even faster than we’d hoped.” Romola’s smile belongs on the cover of a bridal magazine, not at the end of a world. “Granted, we knew this could only work on one single occasion. Once you knew what to look for, the ploy wouldn’t fool you twice. But it doesn’t look like we have to worry about that, do we?”