But you were the one I never really saw, I realize. Not until it was too late.
“Marguerite!”
I turn and stare into the darkness. Am I dreaming? No. It’s him. It’s Father Paul, running toward me.
A sob escapes from my throat. He escaped the destruction of the Castel Sant’Angelo, only to die along with the rest of us. Maybe I should have wished for him to have that faster death, the one where he would’ve suffered less fear and despair.
But I’m selfish, and I’m small, and I need Paul more now than I ever have before.
I leap up to run toward him, but the quakes are strengthening. It’s all I can do to cover more than five or six feet at a time before falling down again. From what I can see, Paul’s having trouble too. But we don’t stop. We keep running, crawling, struggling toward each other for nothing more than the chance to die in each other’s arms.
Distant screams rise in the distance as the light overhead glows brighter. I glance upward to see the sky ripping apart as if it were made of cloth, and that cloth were being shredded by claws of fire. It makes no sense, but maybe the laws of physics are beginning to collapse along with everything else. Gravity may let go of us at any moment and send us spiraling into the dying sky.
Just let me get to Paul, I think, or pray. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between those things anymore. If I can only have that, I can face the rest. I have to reach Paul.
As I stagger to my feet again, the quake stills—maybe only for a few moments, but those moments are all I need. I run as fast as I can toward Paul, who’s racing even faster toward me. We collide, embrace, and I’m crying and laughing at the same time, “We made it, we made it, we—”
And then I realize what I’m feeling against my chest: the hard edges of a Firebird. I pull back and gasp as I see Paul isn’t wearing one Firebird—he’s wearing two.
“How did you know?” I whisper, hardly daring to trust my own eyes. “You couldn’t have known—”
“We have to get out of here,” Paul says with his usual gift for understatement. He slings one of the Firebirds from his neck, ready to drape it over mine.
I still can’t believe it. In a daze I say, “You made it here to rescue me. . . .”
My voice trails off as I finally focus on the locket on its chain. I don’t know what that is, but it’s not one of our Firebirds. Now beyond shock, I gape at him in bewilderment.
This isn’t my Paul. Who the hell is it?
“Marguerite, please,” he says.
When he tries to put the Firebird around my neck, I lift my hands to block him. Where is this person trying to take me? What is this about? “If you’re not my Paul—then who are you?”
Paul looks down at me, his gray eyes searching. “Another one who loves you.”
I don’t understand any of this. Can I possibly believe him?
Do I have any choice?
But I do. The last time someone else from the multiverse deceived me, it was Romola, and the result of her trickery was the destruction of an entire reality. I can’t let that happen again, ever, not even if the cost is my life.
The ground trembles beneath us again. Buildings in the far distance begin to disappear and crumble, maybe collapsing into yet another crevasse that leads to the center of the Earth. A low, terrible, vibrating groan emanates from deep below—the death cry of a planet.
“Please,” Paul shouts over the ever-louder roar. “Trust me, Marguerite. Believe me.”
And I do. I believe him.
I duck my head for the Firebird. He drops it around my neck and wraps one arm around me to steady me against the tremors. “Take hold of the Firebird and hit the controls on my mark. Ready?”
“Yes.” Lines of fire have begun to race along the ground in intricate spirals, rising ever higher into an apocalyptic blaze. Smoke and sulfur bellow from the tears in the earth. William Blake couldn’t have imagined this hell.
“Now!” Paul shouts, and I leap away, leaving the end of the world behind.
14
I SLAM INTO MYSELF AND STUMBLE INTO THE WALL. SHAKING, I brace myself with both hands long enough to take a few deep breaths. I’m alive. I made it.
Paul—whichever Paul that was—rescued me from a world on the verge of collapsing into eternal nothingness and brought me here. But where is “here”?
Wherever it is, gravity works, the sky isn’t spiraling into fire, and the earth isn’t caving in with lava-filled crevasses, so I’ll take it.
I’m inside, out of any rain or wind or unholy flame. Lights are on, and I’m not in pain, and never before have I been so keenly aware that this is all anyone really needs. Everything else about human existence is merely . . . extra.
But I still need to understand exactly where I’ve been brought, and why.
My attention turns first to the Firebird hanging around my neck. The metalwork on this one has been more crudely fashioned—it has rough edges compared to the ornate curls of my parents’ handiwork at home. The locket hangs shorter, too, thanks to a more compact chain with thicker links. Even the weight is different—heavier, both the Firebird and the chain. What universe’s creation is this?
I step away from the wall and look around the room I’m in. First I see a bed, a simple metal frame with a plain black blanket, but nearby there’s a desk of battered wood, atop which sits an old-timey electric typewriter, connected to the wall with an absurdly thick black power cord. In one corner stands a metal filing cabinet. To judge from that and the uninspiring fluorescent light tubes overhead, I’d guess this is an office repurposed to serve as a bedroom. But why?
One door. I go to it and try the knob. It’s locked. At first I think I must have locked someone out, but that’s not how door locks work. Someone else has shut me in. Why?
The final step is studying myself, though there’s not much here to go by. I’m wearing slightly clunky black shoes, a plain, dark blue skirt that hangs just past my knees, a button-up shirt of cheap cloth, and—I lift my hands to my curly hair—a shorter style this time, maybe a bob.
This feels familiar. . . .
Two sharp raps on the door make me jump, but I pull myself together quickly. Whoever is on the other side of the door must be my captor. “Come in.”
Paul steps through, wearing a military uniform I recognize. As he looks at me, his expression shifts from the deepest relief to what he must hope looks like calm. “You made it.”