by Claudia Gray
He looks skyward, like he wants to laugh but can’t. “Big scary guy,” he repeats.
“Nope. That’s not you.”
“Glad to hear it.” That’s as close as Paul can come to banter. He’s so endearingly unsure of himself that it reminds me of my own Paul. The pain of missing him mingles with the strange delight of being with this world’s Paul Markov, and suddenly it’s hard to remember where one ends and the other begins. Is that glimmer of my Paul’s soul at work here, drawing us closer together? “I hope your parents aren’t upset with me. They might have seen my behavior as disrespect.”
“Of course not. My parents know you’re okay. They wouldn’t work with you otherwise.”
“We all have our duty.”
“It’s not just duty. Mom and Dad think you’re brilliant,” I say. It’s the truth in my world, and probably in this one as well. “She even calls you a genius. Which for most people just means, ‘someone really smart,’ but you know Mom. When she says genius, she means it.”
Genius isn’t just intelligence, she explained to me once. It’s the ability to see further than anyone around you, to put together different concepts in a way no one else has imagined. Genius implies originality and independence. It’s her highest compliment, and Paul’s the only one of her students I’ve ever heard her describe that way.
Paul ducks his head. But I can see his small, almost disbelieving smile. “That’s good to hear.”
“Tell me about San Francisco,” I say. The file Theo found listed Paul as having military housing here in the city; he must only visit the base in my hometown from time to time. “What it’s like to live here. Tell me everything.”
Paul is normally so taciturn that “tell me everything” is likely to get you about two short sentences, max. Either this Paul is more willing to talk, or Josie’s red dress has magic powers. Because he starts telling me how he came to the city in the first place—and since I’m able to read between the lines, he actually tells me a whole lot more than that.
He came here “after New York fell.” Apparently he was born in NYC, just like my Paul, only a few months after his parents immigrated. His military service began three years ago, “two years before the compulsory age.” The advanced weaponry program had recruited him based on his scores on the “usual mandatory tests,” which I’m guessing don’t have much in common with the SATs. When I ask him about music, he loves Rachmaninoff as much here as he does back home—but has never heard of anyone from the past fifty years or so.
Then again, Paul is so adorably clueless about pop culture in every dimension that he wouldn’t know any performer from the past fifty years anyway.
Even this more talkative version of Paul isn’t comfortable monopolizing the conversation. So I try to do the thing I suck at the most. I flirt.
“You ought to sit for me sometime,” I say.
“Sit for you?”
“As a model, for my sketches. You have the face for it.” My mind flashes back to one time my Paul sat for me—and showed off much more than his face—but if I start thinking about that in depth, my face will turn as red as my dress.
“A face like a model. Hardly,” Paul says, but I can tell he’s flattered, and so embarrassed about it that he doesn’t know what to say. Paul has no more game in this universe than in my own.
Might as well lay it on thick, have a little fun. “The lines of your face would work well, for an artist’s subject. Your jaw, your brow, your nose—straight and strong. Plus you have amazing eyes.”
Paul’s expression is caught halfway between disbelief and pleasure. Probably he’d be more comfortable if I changed the subject, but I’ve hardly even gushed to my Paul about how much I love every single inch of his face. Might as well enjoy this. If I’d known it was so easy to bowl him over, I might have tried it long ago.
“Your eyes are actually gray,” I say, more softly, so he has to lean closer to hear. “At first I thought they had to be blue, a very pale blue, but they’re not.”
“It says blue on my ID form.” He’s even worse at flirting than I am.
“But you know they’re gray, right?” Maybe he doesn’t. Paul has never been a guy to spend much time looking in a mirror. “What color does your ID form say your hair is?”
“Brown,” he replies, which isn’t exactly a wrong answer. But it isn’t exactly right, either.
“Light brown, but also a little red, and a little gold.” The hours I’ve spent mixing paints, trying to get the right shade. Paul is a difficult man to capture. “You have good shoulders, good skin—good everything, really.”
“You make it sound as if I were very handsome.”
“You are.”
This gets me not a smile but a skeptical glance. “Most women seem to disagree with you.”
There was a time when I wouldn’t have agreed either. His beauty isn’t boy-band cute; he’s rougher than that, his appeal not as easy to see. Once I’d seen it, though, I became drawn to him on a primal, instinctive level I couldn’t deny.
I suspect Paul is feeling much the same way now.
We eat our chicken chow mein; it’s a messy meal for a date, but I’m pretty good with a pair of chopsticks, and so is he. I keep the conversation going, and Paul—well, he tries to flirt back, clumsy as ever, but for me it’s enough just to see how much he’s enjoying himself.
Halfway through the meal, though, it hits me. What happens after?
As soon as Theo and I have done our job here, we’ll leap out of this dimension forever. I’m not too worried about our other selves; they’ll be freaked out to find themselves in San Francisco, on the train, wherever—but they can find their way home easily enough. I doubt they’ll be in any more danger because of the war than they are already.
But Paul will probably guess what really happened. He’ll know that I wasn’t his Marguerite. All the hope I see in him now—this light in his eyes as he looks at me—that will be destroyed.
Maybe not. Maybe he’ll react more like Theo and take some satisfaction in knowing that in another world, I loved him. In so many other worlds . . .
No. Because he won’t only be dealing with a broken heart. He’ll be dealing with the catastrophic destruction of the Firebird project, and this nation’s last hope for winning this war.
You deserve so much more than this, I think as he tells a story about traveling through the battle lines that cover the continent, on his journey from New York as a boy. We all do.
The tragedy of this world is just one more sin to lay at Conley’s feet.
But I’m the one doing it. I’m the one prioritizing Paul’s life over that of an entire world.
No. I won’t think about that. I can’t. The war began a long time before I got here, and I don’t understand how they’d use the Firebird to help anyway. They’re clutching at straws, that’s all. I’m simply . . . taking the straws away.
So I tell myself. But the words ring hollow.
At least I’ve given this Paul tonight—one night when it seems like his dreams are coming true.
When we leave the restaurant, I slide my arm through Paul’s, for the two of us to walk together that close. The silence on the streets of San Francisco is almost eerie—to me, at least; Paul seems to expect the quiet.
Although I gleaned a lot from Paul’s dinner conversation, I didn’t get any information about getting onto the base. Theo acted like it would be no big deal for me to steal Paul’s wallet in the middle of dinner. It’s not like I took Pickpocketing 101 with Fagin and the Artful Dodger.
Only one solution presents itself: Stay with Paul. Take this further than either Theo or I was willing to openly discuss.
“Are you all right?” Paul says. “You seemed far away for a moment.”
“I guess I was.” Focus, I remind myself. I won’t get many other chances at this.
“Tonight—I’m glad this happened.” Then he pauses, trying to find the right words. “I mean, I’m sorry things went wrong between you and Private Be
ck, but I’m glad you called me. That we spent the evening together.”
He may not have game, but most of the time, simple works better than smooth. Paul’s clumsy, honest pleasure in my company charms me more than any player’s lines ever could. Even if this were the first time we’d ever met—if I weren’t already in love with him—I’d still feel an irrepressible smile spreading across my face. “Me too.”
Paul keeps struggling to find the right words. “This isn’t—I haven’t gotten to do this very much. Go out, have fun.”
“With women, you mean?” I toss this off lightly, knowing how utterly inexperienced my Paul is. Then I realize that might not be true here. What if he tells me about some other girl, some other relationship?
But he says, “With women, or with anyone. All of us have to work so hard; we seldom have time for anything else. You know as well as I do.”
Maybe I do. This Marguerite seems to have made time for Theo between shifts at the munitions plant, though.
Thinking about the other Theo and the other me distracts me for a moment, but I’m snapped back to the present when I hear Paul say, “Where are you staying?”
Paul’s just asking, probably wondering whether he should walk me there, or wait for the bus with me. From any other guy, though, that would be a hint—suggesting he wouldn’t mind an invitation to my room.
Theo’s in my hotel room, so that’s out. However, if Paul and I could be alone—if I could distract him completely—I’d have all the time I wanted to go through his things, rummage through his wallet, and otherwise be the Mata Hari Theo told me to be.
But I’m not going to bed with him. No way.
With Lieutenant Markov, I thought I might be trapped in the grand duchess’s body forever; because of that, I acted for myself, not for her. And I’ve always known the grand duchess loved him, and she would have chosen to spend that one night with him, if she’d had the chance. But this Marguerite isn’t in love with Paul yet, and I won’t have sex with someone she wouldn’t consent to normally.
Even kissing is a step over the line. This Marguerite wouldn’t like that, and I’d sworn I would never steal another first kiss between any of the Marguerites and her Paul. But this is different, a necessity rather than pure desire. With this plan, I can slip the Firebirds in my purse so he won’t notice them, kiss Paul until dawn, and search for info about the labs once he falls asleep. This is the smart move, I tell myself. The tactical move.
Which it is. But I can’t deny that I also want to be with Paul so badly it almost hurts. If I could just hold Paul close, feel him against me, then for a little while I wouldn’t be afraid for him. I’m so sick of feeling afraid. Paul makes me feel strong. Whole.
And my Paul is within him—that one splinter of his soul.
“My hotel’s not far,” I say quietly. “But I bet your place is closer.”
Paul stops in his tracks. He stares at me, clearly astonished. “I—” It’s almost fun, watching him struggle for words. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t mean— I couldn’t spend the night. Not yet. But I’d like to stay with you for a while longer, if that’s okay.”
There are really gross guys who assume a woman would never go to a man’s room for anything but sex, and wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of someone alone with them behind a locked door. But Paul isn’t one of those guys, in this world or any other. “Whatever you want.”
I look into his eyes, and the hope I see there slashes across me like claws. If only I could keep him from ever learning the truth about tonight.
Paul hesitates before he says, “Is this about, well—revenge?”
“Revenge?” I want my vengeance against Wyatt Conley, but how would Paul know that?
I understand once Paul continues, “Against Private Beck. For leaving you alone in the city.”
“Oh! No, it isn’t.” Will he believe that? Would I? “Maybe that’s why I called you. But it’s not why I had such a good time tonight, or why I want to stay with you longer.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do anything you’d regret.”
Paul, do you have to be such a perfect gentleman right now? “I won’t.”
“It’s just—” He takes a deep breath, weighing the words he’s going to say. “Do you know when I first fell for you?”
I shouldn’t hear this. Only the other Marguerite should hear this, ever. Paul shouldn’t be saying it out loud to someone who’s tricking him. But there’s no way for me to tell him to stop.
He takes my silence as permission to go on. “You remember the warehouse in Miramar we used as the first makeshift lab? Concrete walls and bare rebar. I don’t pay much attention to how places look, but that place depressed me.”
“It would’ve depressed anyone,” I say, because that’s what it sounds like.
Paul smiles. “But there was that one skylight that hadn’t been painted over, remember? With the panes that had been broken and taped so many times?”
I nod, wondering why Paul would fixate on an old window.
“You probably don’t remember, but there was one day—back early on when we were cleaning out the warehouse and getting it ready, you and Josie too—this one day, I saw you staring upward. I asked you what you were looking at, and you said, the light. You told me to watch the pattern of the light.”
Paul’s entire expression has changed as he tells this story. The awkwardness is gone. It’s as if something is dawning inside him.
He continues, “The shafts of light cut across the top of the warehouse just so. You said it was beautiful—that you’d like to try and sketch that someday. And as long as we worked in that warehouse, I never forgot to look up at the light. Sometimes it felt like the one scrap of joy I could still have. And I thought, if Marguerite could find something, even here, that’s beautiful, she could make every day beautiful.”
“That is—completely amazing.”
“I always wondered if you would laugh at me, if I told you that.” Paul’s crooked smile pierces me through.
Leaning closer, I shake my head. “I would never laugh at anything so perfect.”
“Marguerite,” Paul murmurs, his voice reverent, as his fingers brush under my chin, lifting my face to his for a kiss.
His mouth covers mine, strong and warm. All the voices inside me—guilty, afraid, unsure—they all go silent. There’s no room left in my head anymore for anything or anyone but him.
I’ve missed you so much. My hands fist in the lapels of Paul’s uniform jacket. He pulls me into his embrace as our kiss deepens, and I feel the safety and comfort that only comes when I’m in his arms. The silence of the night around us lets me hear the slight catch in his throat, the little sound of pleasure as we wind ourselves around each other. He slides one hand over my shoulder, fingers brushing against my neck. Any moment now, he’ll back me against the nearest building, and I want him to.
But instead he keeps caressing my neck, only that, which is so—chivalrous, and sweet, that it ironically only makes me want him more—
—until his fingers wrap around the chain of a Firebird.
I jerk back as he pulls; the chain snaps, stinging my skin. While I still have one of the Firebirds (which one? His or mine?), the other is in his grasp. Paul steps away from me, half turning to look at the Firebird in his hand. As he does, the expression on his face changes from disbelief to anger.
The Firebirds have that quality of things from another dimension—visible, tangible, but unlikely to be noticed by anyone in their home dimension unless their attention is called to it.
Or if you knew about them already. Like this dimension’s Paul, who works on the Firebird project.
“Give that back,” I say. If I’m going to get home and save my Paul, I need both my Firebirds. “Give it to me!”
“Earlier, I caught a glimpse—” Paul shakes his head. “I thought, it can’t be. If the Doctors Caine had completed a Firebird, they would have told me. Nor would they have given it to you. But now I unde
rstand. This Firebird came from another dimension.” When he looks at me again, his eyes are the color of steel. “Like you.”
Busted.
11
“PLEASE.” I HOLD OUT MY HAND FOR THE FIREBIRD. “I NEED that.”
“To get back to the dimension you came from.” I’ve never seen Paul’s face like this. Most people grimace when they’re angry, as if the rage is twisting them up outside as well as inside. Not Paul. He goes still, turns cold. Right now he might as well have been carved of stone.
Paul always values honesty. So I just say it. “Yes. To go home again, and for lots of other reasons too. Don’t leave me stranded here.”
His jaw drops slightly, and I realize that he didn’t expect me to admit where I’m really from. And maybe, within his anger, there’s a hint of the wonder I felt the very first time I traveled with the Firebird. Realizing that it works—that travel between dimensions is actually possible—was one of the most mind-blowing moments of my life. It must be for him too.
Maybe I can use that. I venture, “Everything Mom and Dad thought they could do—everything you believed they were capable of—the Firebirds are all that and more.” He gives me a look; I can’t tell if he’s feeling less hostile or not, but he hasn’t moved. I hope I can take that as a good sign. “People are depending on me. I have to keep going; lives are at stake. Please don’t trap me here.”
“How long have you been in our dimension? Weeks? Months?”
“Only a few days, I swear.” The lone streetlight nearby paints the scene in chiaroscuro—deep shadows, and the stark lines of light that reveal his anger. I wonder what he sees in me. “I was forced to come here.”
Paul’s stare bores through me. I’ve never sounded less convincing.
So I change tactics. “Can we just sit down and talk about this? I’d never want to hurt you, Paul. Never. Back home—in my dimension—you and I got off to a better start, and—”
“How convenient.” The tone of Paul’s voice could lower the temperature by twenty degrees. “That we’re all such good friends.”