“Maybe they did.” And yet—Mom and Dad were excited about getting a good look at Jupiter tonight. As far as they were concerned, that was the evening’s number-one attraction. Is an eclipse too mundane for them to get excited about anymore?

Or is the increasing darkness in the sky evidence that my worst fears are coming to pass?

Shouting down the corridor means others are beginning to panic. Paul presses his lips to my forehead, one quick kiss. “I must speak with the others, learn whether this is a mere calendar error or—”

I kiss him back, on the lips this time. “Go. But come to my parents’ as soon as you can, okay? The very first moment.”

Paul takes my hand and presses it to his chest. I feel no Firebird, only the rapid beating of his heart. “Always,” he promises. “Always, Marguerite.”

He dashes from the chapel as I get to my feet and dust off my robe. Despite my fears, I try to remain calm. To think of rational alternatives. The darkness overhead could be only clouds rolling in before a storm. Or my parents could’ve gotten so caught up in their personal enthusiasms that they forgot to warn Pope Martha III about the coming eclipse—which is one hundred percent something they’d do.

All possible. And yet my inner voice repeats the mantra, I can leap out whenever I need to. The Firebird’s weight against my chest has never reassured me more.

As I go to the doorway of the chapel, I find myself remembering the last time I was here. All the candles flickered in their orderly rows. The stained-glass windows remained intact, carving light into spectacular imagery with frames of slender iron. Now it’s almost in ruins. I can’t help imagining my love for Paul lying here with all the other broken, abandoned things.

I hurry out of the Castel Sant’Angelo to find that the guards have abandoned their post at the door. Instead, they’ve joined the throng of people huddling on this hill, staring up at the sky in dismay. I lift my head to see that the moon has completely vanished—and now, in a widening circle around it, the stars are winking out one by one.

There goes my last hope that this was an eclipse.

Oh, God, I think. This is it. This is really it. If Paul doesn’t get here soon with a solution, the Romeverse is going to die.

At that exact moment, someone runs into me, knocking me down hard.

The stony ground bruises my flesh. Hot blood runs from a scrape on my cheekbone, but I have never cared less. I push myself onto my hands and knees, not even bothering to look at whatever poor panicking person ran into me. Who could blame them for freaking out?

Then a hand grabs at the front of my robes, pawing at me. In the first flush of shock I assume some jerkwad is trying to sexually assault me, which I would find terrifying if the frickin’ apocalypse weren’t about to descend. I pull back my fist to punch him in the face—and see Romola getting to her feet.

And she is now clutching my Firebird, the match of the one she’s wearing around her neck.

“Give that back!” I launch myself at her, but Romola knocks me to the side with the heavy staff in her other hand. I tumble down again but scrabble back out of her reach. “What are you doing?”

“Completing an experiment.” She smiles in total contentment. “One we weren’t sure would work. But it looks like it has.”

The earth rumbles beneath us again, enough to knock me off my feet. Romola stays up with the help of her staff.

If she thinks that stick can protect her forever, she’s wrong. I don’t care how hard she hits, how viciously she hurts me. The only thing that matters is getting my hands on that Firebird again.

“How could you do this?” I say as I struggle back to my feet. “How could you destroy an entire universe?”

“I didn’t,” Romola says. “You did.”

What are you talking about? I want to protest. That’s impossible. I didn’t do anything to destroy this universe. I never would!

But already my mind is taking me back to earlier today. To my first glimpse of Romola, which put me on my guard—but not enough. To that moment in the Vatican when Pope Martha claimed the Firebird from me.

“You took it from the pope,” I say to Romola as we stand there beneath the ominously darkening skies. The torches still burning around us are the only remaining light. “You touched it. And when you did that, you did something to the controls—something that—”

“Ensured you would instigate the destruction of this entire dimension the very first time you tried to leap out of it. Lucky moment, that. I thought I’d have to drug you and slip it off your neck while you slept. But between the papal meddling and your overeager first attempt—well. We’ve accomplished this even faster than we’d hoped.” Romola’s smile belongs on the cover of a bridal magazine, not at the end of a world. “Granted, we knew this could only work on one single occasion. Once you knew what to look for, the ploy wouldn’t fool you twice. But it doesn’t look like we have to worry about that, do we?”

This isn’t only about destroying the Romeverse. It is also Triad’s very specific, very personal plot to murder me.

Luckily, it’s a stupid plan. The Home Office’s sick plan to save Josie has told me what happens when someone’s in a universe when it ends. “If this universe is destroyed, my consciousness will just return home. Which means I can come after you the minute I get my hands on another Firebird.” However long that might be.

Romola laughs out loud, even as the crowd’s murmurs of dismay grow louder. “That’s what would happen to almost any other traveler. Even to a perfect traveler—after her soul had been shattered. If not, we wouldn’t be able to save Josie. But an intact perfect traveler with her full power, ah, that’s another story.”

Excuse me? “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve become used to being privileged, haven’t you? Comfortable in your talents. Everything’s so easy for a perfect traveler.” Romola makes a show of studying the Firebird, the prize she’s lording over me. “That’s because perfect travelers mesh more closely with other dimensions. But, you see, there’s a price to be paid for that. You’re so in sync with this universe that you can retain control—and so in sync that, without your Firebird when this universes blows up . . .”

Her voice trails off, making me wait for the rest. A rush of cold panic sweeps through me as I realize what she’s telling me. I say it first: “When this universe dies, I die with it.”