Next to me, Theo coughs into his napkin, trying to pretend he didn’t just aspirate his dessert. Mom seems to think it’s a natural question. “Not yet at the point of building a prototype, but I think we’re ready to start construction soon.”
“Depending on funding,” Wyatt says, and Josie squeezes his fingers. I can tell what’s coming next—the offer, the blank check he’s ready to sign. The power he’s about to seize over my parents’ research.
Then Dad surprises me. “Josie’s been hinting about this for a couple of weeks now, but I’m pleased to say that help is unnecessary. We just found out yesterday that we’ve been approved for a grant that ought to cover our next three years of research.”
This is Wyatt’s cue to start trying to talk my parents into letting him provide the funding. Instead, he grins and shakes his head. “I can see I’m going to have to invest at the IPO, like everyone else.”
“IPO,” Mom scoffs gently. “We’re not doing this to make a profit, Wyatt. We only want to prove what’s possible. To see some fraction of the infinite dimensions layered within the multiverse.”
Josie murmurs, “Like climbing a mountain just because it’s there.”
“Do people climb mountains for any other reason?” Dad says. He gives Theo a look. “However, our assistant here thinks more like you do. His rationale is that if we can bring back advanced technology from alternate dimensions, we should—and in that case, money’s going to be made and we might as well be the ones to make it. Right, Theo?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, that’s what I’ve always said. But lately I’ve wondered whether you and Sophia aren’t right after all.” Theo looks past us, at memories instead of the here and now. “Maybe the answer matters more than the reward.”
My mother takes Theo’s hand. “You’re getting philosophical on us.”
“Hardly.” He manages to grin. “You know the old joke—a philosophy major winds up on the street with a sign that says WILL THINK FOR FOOD.”
Everybody laughs, and the dinner tapers off into ordinary chitchat, like what everyone thinks of the sorbet, and Dad’s token attempt to wrest the check from Wyatt. When we walk out into the night, I’m struck by the halved sky above me—to my right, Central Park’s tall leafy trees are blacker than the sky above, and to the left, tall buildings reach upward, every window a sort of lantern. I think I’d like New York, if I ever got to visit for normal reasons.
My parents take it for granted that Josie’s going to the hotel suite she shares with Wyatt, which I didn’t. It’s not like I didn’t guess that if they were engaged, they’d probably had sex, but that doesn’t make me any happier to think about it. They stroll off alongside the park, enjoying a romantic evening in the big city.
Conley could get to my family here any time he wanted to, I think. All he’d have to do is travel here, take over “Wyatt” for a few hours and he’d be done. So why hasn’t he?
I begin putting together a plan.
As the four of us stand there near the front of the restaurant, my mother’s hand outstretched for a cab, Dad says, “I have to admit—she’s happy.”
“She is, and yet”—Mom shakes her head—“am I questioning it only because it seems too good to be true?”
“That’s not like you,” I say. “You should trust your instincts.”
She gives me a look—questioning, but not disapproving. “What do your instincts tell you, Marguerite?”
How do I answer this? I can’t let on how much I know; certainly I can’t tell them the truth, not when I have to sabotage their work tomorrow. “I think he really loves her, but—something about it—I guess it all seems too easy.”“Yes, that’s it.” Mom combs her fingers through my curls, like she used to do when I was little and she helped me to go back to sleep after a bad dream. “We’ll have to see. Of course, in the end, it’s Josie’s choice to make.”
“Still, worth checking out,” Theo says. “So. I ought to get going.”
“You mean, we should get going.” I improvise as smoothly as I can. “There’s this really cool performance-art piece happening downtown tonight, in about an hour. Theo said he’d take me if I wanted to go. It’s okay with you guys, right?”
My parents exchange a look. They’ve always been pretty chill, but my heading out into the wee hours is a little over their boundary lines. Of course, I’ll have Theo with me—and apparently they’re not sure what to make of that. Does that mean we’ve never flirted in this universe?
Or does it mean that we have?
Regardless, after a moment, Mom nods. “I realize not all art hangs in galleries. But text us when you get there and when you’re leaving, and wake us up when you get in.”
“And you’ll see her all the way back to our building, Theo,” Dad chimes in.
“Absolutely.” Theo grins, hands in his pockets, like these had been his plans for the evening all along.
A bright yellow taxi finally sidles up to the curb for my mom and dad. As soon as it pulls off, Theo says, “This had better not be about real performance art. Because no.”
I give him a look. “No. We’re going to Josie and Wyatt’s hotel.”
“Thrilled as I am to hear you inviting me to a hotel, I bet you’re going in a different direction with this.”
My cheeks flush with heat as I remember Theo and me in the hotel in San Francisco, and the way he rolled me over, kissed me passionately. Thank goodness it’s too dark for Theo to see my blush. “Conley hasn’t come to this dimension. He can’t have, or else he would have taken care of the sabotage himself.”
“Sure. But this world’s Wyatt Conley isn’t going to know anything about that.”
“No, but—he’s a genius, right? In every dimension. And he might not be involved in the research about dimensional travel, but he’s smart enough to understand it. If this version really loves Josie . . .” Still so weird to think about that, but I’ve begun to believe in his feelings for her. “. . . then maybe he could help us figure out why Conley didn’t come to this world.”
Theo frowns as we begin to stroll in the same direction Josie and Wyatt went. “Wait,” he says. “You want to tell this version of Wyatt Conley the truth? Because that is risky as hell.”
“The worst that could happen is Wyatt deciding we’re nuts.”
“No, the worst thing that could happen is Conley actually showing up in this universe, finding out we’re trying to work against him, and retaliating by splintering Paul’s soul into a thousand pieces instead of only four.”
Instinctively I raise my hand to cover the two Firebirds hanging beneath my dress, next to my skin. A thousand dimensions—including some where we live on different continents, where reaching Paul would be nearly impossible—I could spend the rest of my life chasing him. Hunting for him. Reassembling the essential soul of the guy I love, bit by bit.
If I had to, then I would.
But I won’t. “No,” I insist. “If Conley were ever coming here, he would have done it already. He wouldn’t have sent us. That’s all there is to it. And if there’s something unique about this dimension that keeps him out—”