But visiting parallel dimensions is dangerous even for a perfect traveler. The rest of us had all been at serious risk during our trips, and Josie had died.
Not only died. Splintered.
Splintering is what happens when a traveler’s consciousness rips into two or four or a thousand pieces. Fortunately it’s very, very difficult to do accidentally. But in the past few days I had learned two ways a person’s soul could be torn into fragments. One was what had happened to Josie: her host had been seriously injured, and she’d tried to leap out in the last seconds before death—because if your host dies while you’re inside them, you die too. The Home Office’s Josie had nearly made it, but not quite. Instead, as she leaped, she splintered into countless parts, through dozens of dimensions, each so tiny and ephemeral that there was no putting her back together again.
This drove the Home Office versions of my parents to madness. And God only knows what it did to Wicked, because she’d been twisted into something I could never imagine being.
Yet this evil, too, had to be an essential part of me . . .
“You know where you need to go after we settle the situation here, right?” Theo said as I helplessly watched Wicked finish with my hair. “You’ve got the calculations?”
She rolled my eyes. “I don’t need calculations if they’re in my Firebird, and they are.”
“I want to double-check,” Theo insisted. The Triadverse version of him had learned to be more cautious. As he began taking notes, working through whatever unfathomable physics governed this, he said, “If you want to talk to Conley, seize the moment, before Sophia and Henry get back. Nothing will tip them off faster than evidence you’ve spoken with him.”
Wicked frowned. “Which Conley?”
“This world’s. But he’s on board with everything.”
Wyatt Conley: tech genius, business mogul, and America’s most powerful geek. I’ve seen him on newsfeeds wearing jeans and a blazer over an Iron Man T-shirt, his rumpled, boyish look as manufactured as his tPhones that took over the cellular market a few years back. Not yet thirty, people say, and he’s accomplished so much. If they knew what Conley’s really done, they wouldn’t smile when they said it.
“So, where’s her phone?” Wicked asked. Theo took it from his back pocket, where he’d apparently hidden it from me just in case, punched in the number, and tossed it to her. I felt its screen hard against my hand and wanted to cry. To need to speak so badly but to be unable to say a word . . .
“You’re here,” Conley said in my ear, as I hoped my hatred of this man would at least make Wicked Marguerite nauseated. I’d gladly puke if it meant she had to do it too. “Glad you made it. Obviously we need to get rolling. My thought is, start with Josie.”
“Always Josie,” Wicked said sourly.
Conley went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Tell Dr. Kovalenka and Dr. Caine that much about your home universe, nothing more. They’ll respond to hearing that their older daughter died in a world not so far away. That news will make them . . . sentimental. Once we have their sympathy, we can manage the rest.”
“I doubt it’s going to be that simple.” Wicked walked through the house, familiarizing herself with the layout. “Trust me, once Mom and Dad go after something? They make it happen. And right now, the Mom and Dad of this dimension are going after us.”
“But they don’t have access to our tech, and they don’t know the game plan. We’re a few steps ahead, Marguerite, and we’re going to keep it that way.”
It shouldn’t have jarred me so badly, hearing Conley call her by the name we shared. Yet it did. I didn’t belong to myself anymore.
She said, “Why doesn’t the other you just get started already? He’s a perfect traveler, so he can destroy dimensions and still get out alive.”
Only by destroying the dimensions containing each and every shard of Josie’s soul can the other versions of my parents get her back. They will kill her a thousand times over, unmake trillions of lives so that people were never even born, just to have Josie alive in their own world again. This is the cruelest, most selfish thing I’ve ever imagined—and yet, Wicked is right. Mom and Dad know how to accomplish the impossible.
“It’s risky, okay?” Conley snapped. Obviously he didn’t like the idea of any other version of himself being in danger. Too bad I wasn’t able to tell him that the Home Office had targeted our universe for destruction too, if my parents didn’t take their bait. “Besides, you know as well as I do that I’m not located anywhere near Doctors Kovalenka and Caine in some of the critical universes. So you’re more effective than I am even in the best-case scenario. And obviously we’d need you to slam the doors, if it comes to that.”
Slamming doors? That made no sense to me. But I mentally filed it away, willing myself to recall every detail. Possibly Wicked didn’t realize I remained aware within her, unlike most people dosed with Nightthief, who were basically unconscious within their own minds. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been speaking so freely.
Unless . . . slamming doors . . .
My train of thought derailed when I heard the sound of my parents’ car pulling into the driveway. Wicked said, “Mumsy and Daddums are about to walk in. Let’s wrap this up. What we need you to do is stop Markov. He’s back, and he’s probably headed this way.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Conley replied, so easily it gave me chills. He wouldn’t hesitate to have Paul killed, and he had the money to pay off guys who would do it in an instant. “Besides, the guy’s been splintered. He’s never going to be the same. We can use that.”
Never be the same? Paul? I had just raced through the dimensions to collect all four splinters of Paul’s soul—to put him back together again. When I’d finally managed to do it, however, Paul had been depressed, angry, even fatalistic. I’d already sensed that some of the darkness from the other Pauls had seeped into him, but I’d told myself it was terrible but temporary, like the pain from a broken bone.
Had Paul instead been changed forever?
“Gotta go.” Wicked hung up the phone just in time to run to the front door, where Mom and Dad stood. They looked like themselves again—in their shabby sweaters, Mom with her messy bun and Dad with his rectangle-framed glasses. When their faces lit up with smiles, I wanted to scream. Please, no. It’s not me. You have to know it’s not me!
“Sweetheart, you’re home.” Mom enveloped Wicked in a hug. Unfortunately the thick cardigan I had on kept her from feeling the second Firebird locket dangling beneath the fabric. “Thank God.”
“And Paul?” Dad said, blue eyes wide with concern. “Paul’s all right, isn’t he?”
That took Wicked aback. Her head jerked slightly, like people do when they’re startled. In the Home Office, Paul Markov was my family’s enemy—a courageous rebel trying to stand up to the Triad Corporation’s evil. She had to know that wasn’t always the case, but still, she hadn’t been ready to see proof of how much my parents love him, nearly as if he were the son they never had.
Unfortunately, she covered well. “He’s back, and in one piece—his soul, I mean—but he’s not himself.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a look. “What do you mean?” my father asked. “Did the splintering affect him badly?”
See, that’s the second way a soul can be splintered: someone can do it on purpose, if that someone were a total bastard like Wyatt Conley. What happened to Paul wasn’t a terrible accident—it was an attack. Conley tore Paul’s soul into four pieces and held each part hostage, forcing me to do his dirty work if I wanted any chance to put Paul together again.
“The fragments of Paul’s soul went to some dark places,” Wicked said, voice tremulous. “Worlds where we both saw another side of him. A dangerous side. And I hate to say this, but I think the splintering has changed him. Maybe forever. Like the terrible things all those other Pauls did stained his soul.”
“Oh, no.” Mom’s hand went to her lips. “We’d realized splintering was dangerous, but—surely the
damage isn’t permanent.”
Wicked shook my head in dismay. “I don’t know. Mom, Paul . . . he scared me a little.”
How could she say that? She was the scary one. Paul was only injured, and lost. Overcome by despair. Fate brought me and Paul together time and time again—but we had learned that we didn’t always wind up with each other, that sometimes we hurt each other terribly. Our destiny had abandoned us, and Paul took it even harder than I did. Maybe he would have anyway, even without the damage from the splintering—but with it, Paul seemed to have lost all hope.
Wicked was turning Paul’s anguish into her weapon. My parents, even loving him as they did, would be suspicious of him immediately.
“Heya,” Theo called from the great room. “How did you make out on Firebird construction?”
“Better than you’d think,” my father began, but then his voice trailed off as a taxi pulled up in front of our house. At first I couldn’t imagine who would drive up in a cab, but then the door swung open and Paul stepped out.
He’s here, I thought. He made it! Paul got here before Conley could even start to look for him.
That gave us a chance, unless Wicked had already screwed him over for good.
She opened the door and ran into the yard, eager to greet him. It’s what I would’ve done—but I would’ve leaped into his arms, told Paul I loved him, and began trying to talk him back from the terrible despair that had taken him over. Wicked, on the other hand, went right up to him and then stopped short, as if taken aback.
“Hey.” Wicked smiled sweetly, or tried to. It didn’t feel quite right. “Are you okay?”
“I feel fine,” Paul said, stoic as ever. “How I am isn’t important right now.” Then he walked straight past her, shoulders squared. This coolness would’ve wounded me at any other moment. Now it gave me hope. Already Paul had raised his voice to speak to my parents in the doorway. “Sophia, Henry, how much has Marguerite told you?”
My muscles tensed with Wicked’s fear. She hadn’t realized that I’d been able to explain everything to Paul before the end. Probably she thought I’d pieced his soul back together and come straight home. Her impatience was my one opportunity.
But if she could stall long enough to get Theo in on it, they had a chance to discredit Paul. To hurt him, even kill him, and make it seem like self-defense. By that point I knew there was nothing they wouldn’t do. She followed Paul inside, my heart thumping fast with her determination to take him down.
“She got us started, Paul.” Mom’s tone was tactful. “Come in. Sit down. We’ll take this step by step. All right? And how are you feeling?”
“Strange.” Paul shook his head. “Like . . . I have to choose who to be. Every moment.” My parents gave each other worried looks as Paul stepped inside—and then he stopped. Slowly he turned his head and looked back at me.
Has he guessed? How could he have guessed? But if anyone knew me, truly knew me inside and out, it had to be Paul.
He stared into my eyes, searching for something I couldn’t name. Wicked smiled back at him as she folded her hands around his arm. “Welcome home,” she whispered.
Please, I thought. Don’t be fooled. Look inside my eyes and see the difference. It’s our only chance.
Please, Paul. Know me.
And he did. He did.
“Marguerite . . .” Paul’s voice trailed off. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “You didn’t hurt me.”
My parents tensed at the idea that Paul had caused me pain, which was just what she wanted. But it was also the moment Wicked tipped her hand, because Paul knew there was no reason for me to say anything like that.
Paul slipped his arm out of her grip, then grabbed my wrists so tightly they hurt. Wicked gasped in shock. My dad took a step forward, hand outstretched, ready to act. “Paul, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know how this is possible.” Paul looked down into my eyes and saw through her straight to me. “But this is not our Marguerite.”
3
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” MY FATHER LOOKED back and forth between Paul and me, still more suspicious of his grad student than his daughter.
“I don’t know which world she’s from,” Paul said. “But Marguerite isn’t our Marguerite.”
Oh, thank God, I thought. I should’ve felt relieved, but my body was taking its cues from the Wicked Marguerite. The emotion surging through me could’ve been fear or fury. My skin flushed warm, and I pulled free from Paul. “I told you,” she said, and the tremble in the words was real. She kept backing away—deeper into the house, toward Theo—as she continued, “Paul’s been twisted, poisoned by his splintering. The other versions of him, where they hid his soul? They were some of the worst, most evil Pauls that could ever exist.”
“Evil?” Mom pronounced the word like she didn’t understand what that even meant. Never had she ever imagined thinking of Paul as evil. But if Wicked got her way, everyone would turn against Paul at any moment.
“One of them shot Theo. Injured him so badly he might have died.” Wicked’s voice shook. She even dared to imitate my grief. “Another one got in a fight with me in a car, and hurt my arm so badly I might never paint again. There was even a priest who violated his vows—”
Oh, come on! I thought. The gentle Father Paul from the Romeverse wasn’t evil, only conflicted. But Mom and Dad didn’t know that. They only heard that Paul was capable of hurting their baby girl.
Paul tried to explain himself. “This isn’t about me. This Marguerite . . .” His voice trailed off. Not only was Wicked making my parents doubt him, she was also making him doubt himself. He finished, more quietly, “Something’s not right.”
Wicked slipped my hands behind me as if I were just going to lean on the rainbow table. But one palm covered my father’s old letter opener, an antiquated thing with a carved wooden handle and a metal blade. My fingers were close to the sharp edge. “Paul?” she said in my voice. “Come on. You’re still messed up after being splintered. I don’t blame you. Okay? I know it was hard. But I still believe in you.”
And dammit, that got to him. Paul hesitated, just long enough for my mind to scream, Come on, Paul, you know me! Don’t doubt yourself now!
I might have put Paul’s soul back together again, but there were still . . . cracks. Vulnerabilities. Although I’d recognized the emotional damage, I’d thought of it as something that would pass.
Only at that moment did I understand Paul might be changed forever.
Wicked knew. She’d always known. And her knowledge told her just where to strike. “Paul, just because things are, well, weird between us right now? That doesn’t mean I’m not me.” She pronounced the words as if confessing some terrible tragedy. Paul’s depression and doubt had become her weapons. If she could turn him against himself—make him pause before acting against me, even for one more minute—she would win.
My dad took a step toward him, hand outstretched as if he were about to check Paul’s forehead for fever. “The splintering—what happened to your soul—we hadn’t fully considered the aftereffects. Are you feeling disoriented?”
“Yes,” Paul admitted. But his eyes remained locked on my face. His body betrayed his inner tension. He didn’t trust his own judgment, but he didn’t trust Wicked, either.
This was when Theo stepped in, the Triadverse version within using his pale, weakened body as a marionette. “Hey, man, it’s okay. Marguerite’s okay, and so are you, and so am I. Just took my first trip through the dimensions, and wow, does that mess with your head. I get how you could be confused. Take a deep breath.”
“You drove us half mad with worry, you know,” Dad said to Theo. “As soon as you’re well, you’re in deep trouble, Mr. Beck.”
“I can live with that.” That roguish grin was Theo’s—in every dimension I’d found, everywhere—so the deception seemed complete.
My mother remained silent, her hands clasped in front of her. Then she said, “Wer
e you experimenting with the Nightthief treatment?”
I didn’t get why Mom was thinking about that at this very moment. Neither did Wicked. “We just got back, Mom.”
“But the Nightthief is on the table,” she said.
The vial of emerald-green liquid—the drug that had been used to hijack my body and Theo’s—sat on the rainbow table, bearing silent testimony to the crime.
My mother’s eyes went wide. Dad stood up straighter. Paul’s gaze sharpened from doubt into terrible certainty.
Theo lunged forward. Even though he was a good four inches shorter than Paul, he barreled into him at full force, driving his shoulder into Paul’s gut. As Paul doubled over, my parents ran toward me—and my hand closed around the letter opener. It was as sharp as any dagger. Horror flooded through me as I realized I might have to watch my parents die at my own hand.
But Wicked didn’t stab the blade at them. Instead, she held it to my—our—throat.
Mom and Dad froze. The point pressed against my skin so hard I could feel the pain increase with every beat of my heart.
“This is the carotid artery,” Wicked said. All pretense was gone. I could feel the contemptuous sneer on my face. From the kitchen, I heard dishes clatter to the floor and break, and a heavy thud against the cabinets. Paul and Theo’s fight had turned brutal, a blur of fists at the corner of my eye—but I couldn’t focus on it, because Wicked didn’t look. She was too busy drinking in the terror on my parents’ faces. “In other words, this is the blood vessel that leads directly from the heart to the brain. If I sever it, your perfect traveler bleeds out in about thirty seconds. Maybe a minute. Long enough for me to save myself with my Firebird, but short enough that nothing will save her. You’ll get to stand here and watch her die.”
“Please, no.” I’d never seen my mother look so afraid. So small. She held her hands out toward Wicked, as if to plead. “Tell us what you want, and why you’re here.”