13

ROMOLA SWINGS THE FIREBIRD BACK AND FORTH LIKE A hypnotist’s pocket watch, taunting me. “I’m in so few useful dimensions, and Mr. Conley so rarely lets me undertake anything important. I think that’s about to change, don’t you?”

Billions of people are about to die, and this idiot is psyched about her promotion. Even my own survival hardly matters compared to that, but I’m ready to fight for all our lives. I ball my fists together and steel myself to take a blow to the head, a stab from a knife, anything. “Last chance, Romola. Give me back my Firebird.”

“Last chance,” she echoes. “And you just lost it.”

Romola drops the staff. I see her hand reaching for her own Firebird to leap away, and I launch myself at her—

—and land on bare ground as she swiftly dodges me.

I scramble up from the ground and look around desperately, sure I could see Romola even amid the gathering chaos—there! Her yellow velvet gown, bright in the darkness, reveals her in the crowd gathered just below. I dash downhill, ignoring the cuts bleeding on my face and arms, desperate to reach her. Amid the throng, I lose sight of her, glimpse her again, lose sight once more. But finally I catch sight of yellow velvet, focus on it, and start to gain. Once I’m within arm’s reach, I grab her by her shoulders, wheel Romola around, and snarl, “Give. It. Back.”

“What do you want of me?” Her smirk is gone, replaced by pure, honest terror. My stomach clenches as I see that she’s not carrying a Firebird in her hand or wearing one around her neck. This is the version of Romola who belongs here, in this universe. The one whose counterpart just betrayed her. “What is it you think I have done? I promise you—the strange portents in the sky, they are not my doing—”

“I know.” I back away, half in a trance. “I know.”

Romola just ditched this dimension, carrying both her Firebird and mine.

Meaning I’m stranded here at the end of the world, without any chance for escape.

I flop onto my knees, too stunned even to scream.

They needed a perfect traveler to destroy a universe, I think in a daze. They got one.

And now I’m going to die as far away from home as anyone has ever been.

There is truly, literally, nothing I can do. Without my Firebird, I’m powerless. I am trapped in a dying world.

Paul—my Paul—could still save me. He’s the only one who can. But in order to do that, he would have to have already tested his plan to protect a dimension against destruction, made it happen in three different universes, and managed to have traveled here in the nick of time. How many hours does the Romeverse have left?

Wait. No. My heart sinks as I realize Paul couldn’t save me. He would arrive in this dimension with only one Firebird—his own. I know him well enough to be certain he would try to put that around my neck, let me be the one to survive while he died. I also know that I would never let that happen.

For me there is absolutely no way out.

Someone cries out in horror. A few other people faint. I follow their panic-stricken gazes, looking up toward the Castel Sant’Angelo.

It’s . . . melting.

Literally, melting. The stone bricks glow with heat, then soften, then begin to sag and drip down over the others. A castle is turning into a volcano before our eyes. And as far as I know, Father Paul is still inside.

“Paul!” I shriek. “You have to get out of there! Paul!”

Crowds of priests and guards are escaping; my eyes can just make out the silhouettes of a few people dashing from a faraway exit. But for the rest, it’s already too late. As the lava begins seeping downhill toward us, radiating blistering heat in a wave ahead, the entire Castel Sant’Angelo collapses in on itself.

My scream feels as if it’s torn from me. As if nothing could be left inside my skin now that I can’t reach him again.

Now the lava is a wave, flowing faster, downhill toward us. Everyone around me picks up and runs. After one more moment, I do too. Tears blur my vision, but it doesn’t matter what I see. It doesn’t matter where I run. Even if Father Paul wasn’t killed in the collapse, we could never get to each other now. The thought of him, so tender, so kind, dying in that molten hell because of me—I would have died in his place rather than let that happen. It doesn’t matter if Romola and Triad tricked me—I should’ve known better. Been smarter, been braver.

He might have escaped the castle, I think. Yet that’s even worse. If Father Paul is still alive, then he has to die along with this world. Already I know that death will be horrible.

I ought to drop to the ground and let the lava burn me to death. I deserve to know how the people in that castle felt as they died, being charred to the bone. My death is inevitable now anyway. Only my Paul could’ve saved me, and whatever slim chance I had of that was lost with the Castel Sant’Angelo. At least if I let the lava claim me, the terror would be over.

Yet I keep running. Even though my brain knows it’s hopeless, some unstoppable part of my heart keeps demanding live, live, live.

The fleeing people in front of me suddenly stop short, sending me thudding into someone’s back. He shoves me back harshly, which I don’t understand until another person does the same thing a few feet away, and this time the person hit from behind falls—into the enormous crevasse that I now see just in front of us. It’s still opening wider as it swallows the woman whole. Her scream echoes a long, long way down.

“Satan’s furnace is revealed to us!” one man cries. “The final judgment is at hand!”

Most everyone scatters, running right or left, the only two directions that remain for us. Stupefied by terror and guilt, I stagger to the very rim of the crevasse and stare down into it. It’s depthless, an almost infinite black abyss gaping wide like the jaws of a monster. The distant fiery glow beneath must be the planet’s core.

Mom and Dad should be here, I think numbly. Then I could really explain plate tectonics. They’d understand if I could show them the planetary core. And then Mom and Dad would be here with me. They must be so scared and I want them here, I want my parents so bad—

“Take heart!” someone shouts. “I have found her, and we can yet be saved!”

I know that voice. It belongs to Wyatt Fucking Conley.

When I wheel around I see him standing there in red robes, a blazing torch in his hand. He’s Cardinal Conley in this world, and I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s only the Romeverse version. No way would any Conley from Triad be stupid enough to come to a collapsing universe.