“You know . . .” His voice trails off.
“What?”
Theo shakes his head. “Better left unsaid.”
Normally I would let him get away with that. Tonight I don’t. “Tell me.”
His eyes meet mine. “I’m in this extremely weird position where I’m jealous of myself.”
It’s hard not to look away, but I don’t. Remembering London, I admit, “We came close enough before.”
“But that wasn’t me either!” Theo starts laughing, and I can’t help but smile. “Do you think we’re serious? This Theo and this Marguerite? Or is this just, you know, seize the day, seize the girl, because tomorrow never knows?”
At first I think I won’t even be able to say the words, but Theo deserves this much of the truth. “We’re in love.”
“You think so?”
“I know.” I fold my arms in front of my chest, one tiny barrier between me and Theo as he stands so very close. “During the air raid, I found a picture of you in my pocket. You wrote on the back, ‘with all my love.’”
Actually he said something about eternal love, but maybe I can leave that part out.
“I can believe that,” he says evenly. “Doesn’t mean the feeling’s mutual, though.”
“It is. I found my drawings of you. The way I sketched your face . . .” I switch out of first person. “She loves the Theo from this dimension. Deeply. Completely.”
“Lucky guy.”
When our eyes meet again, we’re both listening to the words we haven’t said. Even though I don’t feel the same way Theo does, he’s important to me—and apparently there was more potential between us than I ever realized. He wasn’t wrong to fall for me. Just in the wrong universe.
I summon the courage to say, “In the bomb shelter—right before the blast—”
“I said the kind of thing people say when they think they’ll never have another chance,” Theo says. “Let it go, okay?”
I should. I will. Just as soon as I figure out how.
10
NO TRANSAMERICA PYRAMID. NO COLUMBUS TOWER. Either Ghirardelli Square was bombed to oblivion a while ago or they never built it in the first place. People walking by me on the street seem quieter, more furtive, less themselves—it’s like I’m surrounded by the same hundred black coats with changing faces. This isn’t the San Francisco I remember.
Something of the city’s spirit survives, though. I’m able to take a cable car part of the way, and the place where Paul asked me to meet him is in the neighborhood still known as Chinatown.
I stand on the corner, my long dark coat pulled tightly around me. The temperature turned colder today—winter’s last futile howl against spring. I wonder if weather conditions are the same in alternate dimensions, if at home Mom and Dad have pulled their sweaters back out of the closet. Or maybe the “butterfly effect” holds up, and the tiniest possible changes in each world create new climates, new storms.
Meanwhile, Theo’s stuck in our hotel room, waiting for me to come back and tell him all about flirting with Paul.
I keep remembering that picture I found in my pocket, and what was written on the back. Theo and the other Marguerite love each other so much here. I guess—I guess I fell in love with him before I even met Paul.
The strange part isn’t that I’m with Theo. To myself I can admit that I understand how I could fall for him, with his sense of humor, devilish eyes, and the kind of full lips most girls would kill for. Despite the darker side of his character I’m still coming to terms with, Theo has a lot to give.
The strange part is that I didn’t fall for Paul.
This Paul’s love for me might as well be tattooed on his skin. Anyone near him can see it, no matter how hard he works to remain at a polite distance, to show me no more attention than he should. But he’s always paying attention to the details and emotions other people miss. Paul sees the real me in ways no one else ever has.
Did this Marguerite just not understand how much he cares?
I tamp down my frustration. You didn’t understand him either at first, remember? It took you nearly a year to realize who Paul really is. This Marguerite got involved with someone else first. So it’s going to take her longer. But she’ll get it eventually—won’t she?
The question, I guess, is how much this Marguerite loves Theo.
If our souls are the same in world after world, then Theo must in some fundamental way be the same person as the one from the Triadverse who betrayed us all. I’ve fought hard not to measure my Theo by the actions of another, but that silent judgment has lurked in the back of my mind.
Yet he stayed silent about his own pain. Came on this dangerous journey, breaking his own resolution never to travel between the worlds. Helped me come to San Francisco and set up a date with another man. The Theo from the Triadverse—I can’t imagine him being so brave. But, of course, we’re not only here to save Paul; we’re also after the cure for Nightthief. So far I have no idea whether this world’s Theo is more like the one from the Triadverse or more like mine.
At that very moment, amid the dull, faceless crowd, I glimpse Paul.
His uniform is different from Theo’s or even the one he wore to our house the other day: crisper, all in spotless white, except for navy and gold stripes at the sleeves—an officer’s insignia. The hat he wears has a brim and a small flag on the front. He could almost have stepped out of the 1940s.
It’s like Paul was built to wear uniforms. I remember how he looked in Russia, when he was a soldier and my guard.
Which makes it even sweeter to lift my hand and wave.
He stops short. “Oh, Miss Caine. I didn’t expect you to be—” Dressed up, maybe. Or smiling. But Paul says only, “—here so soon.”
This is the time we chose, almost to the minute; he’s punctual in a scary, inner-atomic-clock way. I let it slide. “Hey, let’s make a deal. If you’ll call me Marguerite, I’ll call you Paul.”
It takes him a moment to say, “All right. Marguerite.”
“All right, Paul.”
“Well,” he says, then doesn’t seem to be able to come up with anything else right away. I stifle a smile; Paul’s as awkward in this dimension as he is in mine. “So. Dinner. I made reservations.”
“Wonderful.” He must be taking me someplace special.
Then he adds, “Very few places are able to cook well with the new ration standards. This is an exception.”
Restaurants that have to feed you off a ration card? I remember the dismal meals at home—cheese on toast, canned peaches, eggs that are not real eggs—and lower my expectations.
Apparently cheesy Chinese-restaurant decor has the power to travel through dimensions unchanged. Red-and-gold fans unfold across the walls, and small paper lanterns dangle in the corners. They’re all a little faded, like nobody’s replaced them with new ones in a long time, but they still add color to the room. Paul and I are seated in a curved booth just beneath one of the lanterns. The setting is perfect—intimate, so I can ignore the noise and activity around us and just be with him.
And betray him, whispers Theo’s voice in my memory.
“At first I didn’t understand why you weren’t working at the munitions plant,” Paul says, instead of normal human conversation like what happened with Theo or how was your trip. “But it was destroyed in the air raid. I’d forgotten.”