A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3)

Although RISD remains willing to admit me in January, in the end I had to go after my dream. The Ruskin School of Fine Art holds portfolio reviews in maybe half a dozen cities around the country, during which dozens of applicants present their work for examination. Impressing the professor on the scene doesn’t guarantee admission—other faculty members will look at photos later, before the final vote.

But impressing the professor can’t hurt, right?

“Tell me more about this series of sketches.” He gestures to the papers I’ve set out on a table.

“Right. I guess you’ve seen on the news about my parents—”

The professor’s eyes take on a hopeful gleam. All the news media knows is that we’ve proved dimensional travel is possible, and that some of us have done it. We had actual paparazzi outside our house for about a week, which was hilarious. But the details of the alliance remain under wraps for now. We’ve learned how easily this technology can be abused, and until my parents can develop some safeguards, we can’t share too much. In the absence of hard knowledge, rumors have flown, and apparently this stoic, distinguished art professor from Oxford is dying to learn all about it.

Well, I can tell him a little. “I’ve gone on several journeys, and this is someone who’s close to me in many different worlds. So this series is an exploration of how his portrait has to change to reflect his unique fate in every dimension.”

Half a dozen sketches of Paul lie on the table—one angry, with dark lines of tattoo ink visible at the neckline of his shirt. Another in medieval garb, his expression gentler, his sorrow obvious. And in the center is the portrait of Lieutenant Markov. I’m proud of that one, because when I look at it, it’s as if I can feel his love for me all over again. Really, though, the emotion of the image comes from my love for him.

“Will you be doing any more work based on your travels?” Apparently that’s as close to prying as the professor will allow himself to go.

I nod. “I want to do a series of self-portraits, too. I changed as much as anyone in the different dimensions. I want to dig into the complexity. The strangeness. All of it.”

Already I know the hardest portrait to do will be Wicked’s, which is why it’s the most important one to get right. But I’ll paint her image as many times as I have to, until I can discover exactly how to show the ways in which we are different—and the ways in which we are the same.

Theo, meanwhile, will be spending his postdoc year at Yale, which offered him a fellowship he couldn’t refuse. He’s been tinkering with his muscle car, making sure it’s ready for the cross-country drive to come.

He’s not completely recovered from his exposure to Nightthief, but he’s almost there. Every week, his face takes on a little more color, his laugh gets a little louder, and his energy level rises. Before he leaves, he’s determined to show Paul yet more “remedial adolescence”—which mostly means them watching “important” action movies on Netflix, but okay.

Theo hasn’t spoken of his feelings for me since our goodbye kiss in the Cloneverse. I’m pretty sure those feelings are already changing. The wistfulness I used to see in him when Paul and I were together—that’s all but vanished now. He’s at ease around us, happy to hang out or to give us time alone. Theo being Theo, he has his own stuff to do. He’s even gone out a couple of times with this girl he met at a Lumineers concert.

“Nothing serious,” he says when I ask him about her. “I’m about to move to the other side of the continent. Kinda gets in the way.”

Theo wouldn’t even let a bomb come between him and the person he loved. I learned that about him, even if he’s only just accepting it about himself. “As long as you’re happy. That’s the main thing.”

He smiles over at me. “I’m getting there.”

Neither of us speaks of our counterparts in the Warverse, who are so passionately in love, or how devoted his scientist self has become to the grand duchess, even while she’s carrying another man’s child. Those worlds prove that we could have been together, that there are dimensions where I am his fate, and he is mine.

But in this world, we have a friendship so deep and powerful that I feel sure it’s going to last our entire lives. That’s a fate worth having too.

For some reason, the fact that my parents got married in so many dimensions has reminded them that they never got around to making it legal in this one. Mom phoned a cousin of hers who has a cottage in the French countryside, and now my dad is checking next year’s academic calendar to find the perfect date for him to whisk the family away for a destination wedding.

“At last,” I sigh one night, as we’re sitting together on the back deck with Rice Krispie treats. I clasp my hands together in melodramatic gratitude. “Josie and I will be legitimate. No longer children of sin.”

“You know we would’ve married long ago if it bothered you girls, but it never seemed to,” Mom explains. The tropical-fish lights glow orange and blue in the night. “We kept waiting to find the time. But there’s never enough time for everything you want to do. You have to prioritize. Henry and I have finally prioritized getting married.”

“We should’ve done it years ago.” Dad is lying on his back, his head against Mom’s knee. “Have you seen how much rings cost these days? Good God.”

Mom musses his hair. “Soon, we’ll be able to share more of our work with the scientific community at large. Then others will pick up the torch, make discoveries we never imagined. We won’t have to live and breathe dimensional travel any longer.”

“You know what that gives us time for?” Dad’s eyes light up.

Please don’t be talking about sex, I think. Please please please.

But it’s even worse than that. Beaming, they say in unison, “Time travel.”

Are they serious? I think they are.

Oh, God.

“I wonder what it’ll be like when we get to England,” Paul says as I fasten my seat belt on the plane. He gave me the window seat.

“You went to the Londonverse twice.”

“I mean, when we get to our England.” Just as he has been for the past few weeks, he’s torn between anticipation and worry. “Dimensional differences will be profound, not to mention the subtle changes in language use and social behavior—and yes, I’m becoming academic because I’m nervous.”