A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3)

“Mostly we adopted the names you chose,” Mom adds.

Okay, but there’s one name I’m sure I never chose. “Which dimension is the Berkeleyverse?”

Paul folds his arms in front of his chest as he leans against the wall. “Yours.”

“But—” My first impulse is to say something like, but my world is the real one, which makes no sense. Everyone’s dimension is as true and valid as any other. No one universe is the center. Now that we’re all talking, my home dimension needs a name too. Still, though—Berkeleyverse? “My parents teach at Berkeley in lots of universes.”

Dad raises an eyebrow. “I feel bound to mention that lots of universes also have wars, and yet we are the Warverse. Sophie and I also teach at Cambridge in many quantum realities, but there is only one Cambridgeverse. And while absolutely every dimension discovered so far has an ocean, we have nonetheless designated an Oceanverse. In other words, my darling girl, the names are all sort of arbitrary and rubbish and it’s not worth making a fuss over, is it?”

“I guess not.” Berkeleyverse is going to take some getting used to, but I’ll deal with that in my own time.

“As I was saying,” Mom continues, “experiments conducted by the Berkeleyverse Paul Markov indicate that we can, in fact, use the Firebird to stabilize dimensions past Triad’s ability to destroy them. So far, two such universes have been protected: someplace called the Spaceverse, where we first contacted him, and also the Londonverse.” She frowns and looks over at my father. “Those are the right names, aren’t they, Henry?”

“They are,” I reply. Paul kept his word—he protected those worlds first. The two Marguerites slaughtered by Wicked and Triad—we’ve repaid their losses in the only way we ever could. “And the Egyptverse?”

“He’s there now,” Dad says. “Harder to build a stabilizer device there, it seems. Markov’s working on it.”

It helps me to know where he is, to be sure he’s safe. However, I can only feel so much relief with the acrid smell of smoke from a dimension’s death still fresh in my mind. “But—the Romeverse—you didn’t save that one.”

“By the time we tracked you there it was too late.” Dad’s smile fades. “We barely had time for Lieutenant Markov here to leap in and rescue you. Another ninety seconds and it would’ve been too late.”

Ninety seconds. That’s going to give me nightmares—but what part of the death of the Romeverse won’t? I force myself to focus on the thing Dad said that I didn’t already know. “You tracked me?”

Mom explains, “Our dimension was ahead of yours in only one respect: We had already projected how to track travelers through the multiverse, both their Firebirds and their unique resonance patterns. Once we had learned the correct resonance for you, we were able to determine precisely where you were. Then we saw your Firebird leave the Romeverse without you, which seemed to be, at minimum, an extremely serious problem.”

My dad chimes in: “When Markov here realized the irregularity in the signal meant your dimension was collapsing—well, you lived through the rest, didn’t you?”

My memories aren’t even fifteen minutes old, and yet already I can hardly believe them. “I saw . . . claws ripping apart the sky. And stone melting to lava. Crevasses opened up in the ground, and when I looked down, there was the planet’s core. . . .” Shuddering, I wrap my arms around myself. “That can’t be real.”

“It wasn’t.” Warverse Paul’s tone becomes more stern and forbidding each time he speaks. “The disintegration of that dimension involved a complete collapse of the laws of physics. Your brain couldn’t possibly have processed the reality of what was happening.”

“Humans simply don’t have the capacity for that sort of thing,” Dad says, more gently. “It sounds like your artistic mind supplied a few colorful metaphors, shall we say, to make sense of what was going on around you.”

Mom folds her arms. “Henry, have you considered that a purely logical mind, or one with a more scientific orientation, might quickly have become overwhelmed in such a situation? Lieutenant Markov here only endured two minutes of exposure to the chaos, but if he’d been there longer—or if you or I had become trapped there—we would have attempted to process the information rationally, and so become overwhelmed. We might well have been rendered incapable of thought or function in short order.”

“Whereas Marguerite’s aptitude for symbols and images protected her?” Dad nods. “Fascinating theory.”

“I never want to test it, okay?” My voice shakes. I can’t stop imagining the fiery, surreal end of the Romeverse. “Because I never want to see another dimension die. And I didn’t just see it—I made it happen, it was me—”

My parents both go very still. Paul straightens, pulling away from the wall. “What?”

I explain what happened, wondering if they’ll hate me for it. Instead, they all look at each other darkly. “A bloody sneak attack, that’s what I call it,” Dad mutters. “Underhanded, even by Triad’s standards.”

“It will be all right, Marguerite.” Mom leans across the table to touch my arm. “Now you know what to look out for. They won’t be able to do that to you again.”

Please, let Mom be telling the truth. “What happens next?” I ask. “Do you—take me home, take your Firebird back?”

My parents and Paul exchange glances. It’s Mom who answers. “We intend to give you this Firebird. It’s a sacrifice because we still only have the two, but it’s worth it. You alone stand a chance of saving the other Marguerites and stabilizing the universes in time. We’ve tracked the Home Office Marguerite—”

“Wicked,” I say. “Call her Wicked.”

My father’s eyebrows couldn’t be raised any higher. But my mom smoothly continues, “We’ve tracked Wicked to her next destination. As soon as she moves on, you can pick up her trail.”

At that moment, Klaxon alarms begin to wail. I cover my ears with my hands as my parents and Paul all look upward, dawning horror on their faces. In an instant, Mom has grabbed my arm to drag me behind her as the three of them rush out of the room, leaving all their work behind. “What’s happening?” I shout over the shrieking alarms.