Theo bolts through the door like he’s fleeing a fire. Most of the Theos are braver than this one, I decide. He seems like a total coward.

But if he’s as selfish as I think he is, he’s going to want to find one of those worlds we share. He’s going to want to keep it safe from Wyatt Conley. And if I can shove even one wedge between Conley and his number-one henchman—

—but I can’t. If anything could have stopped the Triadverse’s Theo from blindly following Wyatt Conley, it would’ve been the command to murder me. Instead he obeyed that order. So there’s no stopping Theo now. In fact, I bet he’ll justify himself more and more in an attempt to hide from what he’s done.

Will I be able to do anything in this universe but stall? Learn anything that will do us any good? Get any closer to the Paul who even now waits halfway across Quito, vulnerable and alone?

We’ll see, I tell myself as I sink, exhausted, back down into the chair. We’ll see.

 

 

17

I WAKE UP IN THE CANOPIED BED, BLINKING AND UNSURE. The sky beyond the windows is dark, though the horizon is beginning to brighten.

Dawn is a time of day I usually feel no need to experience. But instead of burrowing back under the feather duvet and trying to go back to sleep, I push myself upright and take stock. The nausea I felt yesterday has died down, and while I’m still slightly short of breath, it no longer seems like a crisis. So I’ve adjusted to the altitude well enough.

My belly rumbles, reminding me that I have no idea how much Wicked ate in this body yesterday, if anything. Although I don’t read much Spanish, I can make out the hotel info book well enough to know it’s still an hour before room service will start serving desayuno. Time for a nutritious breakfast from the minibar.

Jet lag really doesn’t sum up how unreal everything feels after you’ve jumped all around the globe in different dimensions, I decide as I choose a bag of trail mix and a Coke. We need another word for it. Universe lag? Firebird lag?

I hate waiting. Suspense wears me down worse than stress ever could. Even jumping into worlds where I know Wicked’s latest deathtrap is waiting doesn’t grind me down as much as this: sitting on a leather sofa, watching the sunrise against my will, eating junk for breakfast while I wait for Wyatt Conley to show up and be creepy.

I know our next conversation serves a purpose. I know how important it is to find out just how much Conley has learned about the alliance between the other dimensions. And yet when I am traveling, I am brave. I do what has to be done. When I am waiting, I only feel small and hollow and scared.

If Paul were with me— I think, but I stop myself before even finishing. Reaching out to him here in Quito would endanger him, maybe even lead Conley to kill him. At this point, honestly, I would settle for absolutely anybody I love. My own world’s Theo, even. Or Josie. Or Mom and Dad . . .

The caffeine must be hitting my bloodstream, because my eyes finally focus on what’s been sitting right in front of me this whole time: a landline phone.

I sit up straight. I’d tried my tPhone almost as soon as Theo left, but it had been remotely shut down, no doubt by Triad. In my exhaustion it hadn’t even occurred to me to think about a landline. And for Wyatt Conley, genius of the cellular age—I bet he doesn’t even remember landlines exist, even though every hotel room has them.

Swallowing the last of the Coke, I pick up the phone and examine it. I don’t see anything that looks like a listening device, at least not according to the few spy movies I’ve seen where they check for this stuff. If Conley tapped the line, well, there’s nothing I can do about that. Still, I’d bet everything he didn’t think about the landline. The only other people who continue to rely on them are eccentric, slightly absentminded people . . . such as my parents.

Our landline number is one of the few I know by heart.

It takes a little negotiation with the hotel operator to place the call. Then I hear the odd, purring double ring of an international call until, finally, a sleepy voice says, “Hello?”

“Mom! It’s me, Marguerite. I’m sorry, I know it’s six in the morning—”

“It’s five here, but never mind.” Already Mom’s wide awake again. “I take it this is the Marguerite from the Berkeleyverse?”

“Uh, yeah, it is.” They’ve been brought in on this too? Wow, the Cambridgeverse works fast.

I hear my mother shouting, “Henry, get out of bed! It’s the other Marguerite!”

In the farther distance, Dad says, “The good one or the bad one?”

“The good one,” my mom replies, and I have to grin.

When I hear her pick up the receiver again, I hastily say, “Listen, Mom, I’m so sorry about not telling you guys the truth the last time I was here.”

“Perfectly all right, sweetheart. I won’t deny it was strange when our Marguerite informed us of the situation—but uncovering the full truth behind Conley’s plans made your subterfuge worthwhile for everyone involved.”

While she speaks, another receiver picks up, and Dad interjects, “Honestly, we should’ve suspected it.”

“And you know it was Wicked who came here last, right? I mean, the Home Office me. You didn’t . . . listen to her, do anything she asked you to do?”

“Wicked,” Dad says. “An appropriate name. But no, we knew how to work around her. We’d been on the lookout for her more than twelve hours before she arrived, and we knew our own Marguerite almost certainly wasn’t at risk.”

“How could you be so sure?” Wicked hasn’t hesitated before killing any of the others.

“Because the last universe Wyatt Conley’s ever going to destroy is his own.” Dad’s voice has that tone that means, sweetheart, you haven’t been thinking. It irritates me, usually, but this time my father has a point. “He murders tactically. Not out of pure cruelty. Otherwise we’d all have been goners long before now.”

Mom adds, “Also Conley clings to the hope of working with a perfect traveler, particularly you. Your dimension has the technology and represents a threat. You’re the only possible way he has to ameliorate that threat, save destroying the dimension altogether.”

“He’d do that,” I say quietly. “He’s already destroyed at least one.”

My parents are both silent for a moment, as if paying their respects to the dead. Mom finally continues, “He still wants your cooperation. Wicked, as you call her, is so fanatically devoted to the cause that she makes him believe he can persuade you. And we must keep him focused on that goal—because it won’t be long before he realizes we’re tracking Wicked’s movements. He has to suspect already.”