“You’re saying that everything I remember isn’t real?” Barve asked, clearly confused and a touch sceptical.
“No. It all happened in this timeline but there was a completely different reality this morning. It’s complicated.”
“I’m getting that.”
He looked sideways at Barve, who had always cared for him too much but had still been the most loyal person imaginable. “I know it’s a lot to ask but would you just accept that we’re friends. I really need someone I know I can count on.” He waited nervously, knowing that Barve had no good reason to even believe his story.
Barve stared out at the passing traffic, presumably wondering whether this was something he remotely wanted to do. He then turned back to face Elliot. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks.” His mood lifted at this show of trust. For a minute or two they just sat there and Elliot watched people go by, a mix of all three human species, all busy with their lives while he didn’t have one. He could begin again, he told himself. He somehow seemed to have Barve’s support and he still had his family, whom he loved, although his mother would be furious if he walked away from what she saw as an opportunity for him to begin a career that would lead to power and glory. “All I thought about was getting to this point, changing reality, and now that’s done I don’t know if there’s anything left for me.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t you get back what you had before?”
He hadn’t explained about him and Farlden but now he wanted someone to know how he felt, even if it was the wrong person. “I’m in love with Fal and he doesn’t know who I am now.”
“Oh.” Barve frowned. “You know about Callie?”
He laughed darkly. “Oh, yes. She and I were friends once – in that other timeline – but that ... didn’t last. How on earth did she and Farlden end up together here?”
“It was just random chance. We all met on a holiday in Dorset and I guess it was one of those love at first sight things for Callie and Fal. They’ve been dating for about a year and I think it’s pretty serious.”
Every word Barve said was painful to hear, making his heart clench. It hadn’t been chance, Elliot was certain of that. Time had brought them together and, if the Izient view of Time as some form of entity was true, then it had a cruel side. Farlden and Callie had loved each other because there must have been some recognition between them, even in this new world. But if that was true, could Farlden be drawn to him in the same way? Would something in him know Elliot even without any of their shared memories? For the first time, Elliot felt a touch of hope.
“I don’t know about you and Fal but I’d like to be friends with you,” Barve said. “Working for Dervyl is great; it’s a better job than I ever dreamed of, being able to see what life is like in the other earth dimension and learning how to see the world differently. Why don’t you give it a try and see if you can find a new purpose for your life with us?”
Us. That sounded almost painfully good to Elliot; enough to take a chance on. Making a snap decision that he hoped he wouldn’t regret, he said, “All right.”
Chapter Five
“AL GREELA works here?” Elliot asked, glad to hear of someone else he knew, even if he had had an odd relationship with the boy who had spent months pretending to be someone else so that he could date a girl he loved. With everything he was currently experiencing, Elliot found that he had more sympathy for what Al had done than he had before. The last time Elliot had seen him, Al had been chained up by the Magic Control Department, forced to use his magic to do what they wanted, and Farlden’s life had been about to become the same. It hit Elliot with intense relief that at least, whatever was wrong with his own life, the people he loved were no longer in danger. For the first time since discovering Farlden didn’t remember him, he was proud of what they had accomplished.
“Yes, he does,” Barve said. He had taken over the tour Farlden had begun, phoning Dervyl from the downstairs reception desk to explain that it had been too complicated for Elliot to continue being shown around by Farlden, given their history. Barve had asked Dervyl to let someone know he had been delayed but, when Elliot asked if he was keeping Barve from more important work, Barve had dismissed it as fine and now asked, “You knew Al in that other timeline?”
“He was briefly at Uni with all of us. I saw a few other people – Neans – with magic too, although I didn’t get a chance to find out their names.” Again, they had been enslaved at that awful government department.
“They’re probably here as well. Dervyl has brought together most of the magic users in this country along with a couple of us ordinary people.” He grimaced as he said the latter, as if thinking that his lack of magic made him less worthy to be here.
“I think extraordinary is a better word for you, Barve,” Elliot said fondly and was pleased to see the other teenager’s face brighten. “How long have you worked here?”
“Fal actually got interviews for me and Callie about two months ago.” Barve mentioned her name warily, clearly not sure how Elliot would react.
It was still difficult to know she was here but he would have to get used to it, although Elliot had no idea how he could ever work alongside her, knowing he couldn’t trust her. He remembered belatedly that she was the person who had gone to his mother and admitted what she had done, leading to his mother’s rescue of them all. Callie had clearly regretted spying on them or had had a change of heart about working for Miles Sandham and the Magic Control Department. He might have been able to forgive what she had done if he could have talked to her about why she did it and if she wasn’t now dating Farlden. That was something he didn’t have any right to be angry over but he couldn’t help but feel a surge of fury every time he thought of the two of them together, along with a lurching sensation in his stomach that reminded him over and over again that he had lost the most important relationship in his life.
“Let me introduce you to some of our team,” Barve said, distracting him from the downward spiral of his thoughts. Dervyl’s group seemed to spend most of their time on the second floor of the building, which had rooms where they practised magic or learned details of what Izients knew of how the universe worked, including the idea of Time as something they could interact with. In other words, there were a lot of people sitting about as if meditating, the way Elliot had seen Izients behave when they used magic.
Barve opened a door to a nearly empty room, where two women, who were sitting on cushions on the floor, glanced round with a look of confusion Elliot suspected came from being interrupted in the middle of doing magic.
“This is Amy,” Barve said as the older woman stood up. Elliot shook the hand of the Nean woman he didn’t recognise, who looked about thirty. She wore a smart dress of vibrant colours and various items of Nean-style jewellery. “Her magical ability is to stop other people using magic.”
“It’s not a skill that’s in much demand around here but I’m learning to broaden my abilities,” Amy said and Elliot tried to remember if she had been in the group at the Magic Control Department, since this was a skill Dredhorn would have found useful, but her dark hair and shy gaze weren’t familiar to him.
“And this is Nariss,” Barve said. “She can read minds and get people to reveal their secrets, even when they don’t want to.”
The other Nean woman also got up and, as he got a clear look at her, Elliot stared, taken aback. This was the woman who had slit her own throat rather than use magic to force Elliot and Farlden to reveal the truth about Izients and the plan to change reality.
“That’s not something I’d do except in extreme circumstances,” she reassured him, apparently mistaking his shock at seeing her alive for worry over her ability.
“No. Of course.” He tried to calm himself, unsettled by the encounter. Dervyl had said before they performed the magic that people might be born to a different parent or have changed personalities but he had never imagined dead people coming back to life. “How long have you both
worked here?”
“Seven months,” Nariss said. She was barely over five feet tall, with silky copper hair and only a hint of the Nean brow ridge. “Almost from when the department was set up. I’m sure you’ll like it – Dervyl has amazing magic and she’s easy to get along with.”
He nodded, not correcting the assumption that he didn’t know Dervyl except, of course, that he didn’t know this reality’s version of her.
“I’ve just been here for three months,” Amy said. “The work’s definitely interesting and, as Nariss said, Dervyl’s good to work for. I’ve never seen her lose her temper or get irritated. Do you possess magic?”
“Yes.” Elliot explained what he could do, interested in the idea of learning how his magic would change when mixed with that of different people. He noticed Barve take a step towards the door and realised he was probably keeping him from what Barve was supposed to be doing today, so he ended the conversation, saying, “I look forward to working with you both.”
He let Barve lead him out to a nearby room with another woman who was working alone. She was an Izient who, once again, he knew from his own reality.
“Mosrra can manipulate Time, a bit like Fal but in much more sophisticated ways,” Barve said with a smile at the slender woman who, Elliot had been told, in that other world had kept Barve and Dervyl prisoner to stop the world being changed. Barve checked with her, “Do you know where Abbrin is?”
Abbrin: the Izient who’d worked with Mosrra against what the rest of the Izients and Neans were trying to achieve. These definitely weren’t people he would have expected to find here or wanted to work with, but perhaps it was unfair to judge them based on who they had been in a different timeline.
“I don’t think he’s in today,” Mosrra was answering Barve. She had that touch of formality and serious demeanour that was common in Izients but she greeted Barve and Elliot politely and she presumably wouldn’t work here if she disliked being amongst Neans and Sapiens. “He and Al are off looking into something for Dervyl.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Barve led them back out into the corridor. “That’s the whole team, although there may be more new recruits joining us: you, me, Fal, Callie, Amy, Nariss, Al, Mosrra and Abbrin, with Dervyl in charge.”
And of those people, Farlden was his ex-boyfriend, Callie had betrayed them, Mosrra and Abbrin had conspired against them and Al had deceived an entire university of people for months.
This was going to be an interesting experience.
Chapter Six
“WHAT’S WRONG?” his mother asked. “I thought you’d be ecstatic about getting this job but you hardly said a word on the journey home and you couldn’t show any less enthusiasm now.”
Elliot put down his knife and fork, his parents and brother sitting at the dinner table around him, both familiar and resembling strangers, like everyone else in his life. Nothing was exactly the same as it had been. “It’s complicated.”
“We’re hardly fools. Just talk to us.”
Elliot rubbed his face, feeling almost too tired to speak. He had wanted to have a quiet evening at home to process everything that had happened in the last day but his mother had insisted that they should celebrate his new job with champagne and had wanted to hear every detail about the work. He felt bad that he couldn’t give her the happy reaction she wanted, but his mind was whirring with so much new information that he apparently couldn’t put on a convincing act. Besides, his family needed to know the truth, so he may as well get the conversation over with now. “This life isn’t mine...” Or it wasn’t until this morning. Why had it been so much easier to explain this before to Dervyl and Barve? He tried again. “I come from a different timeline; a different reality.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Mum asked, her mouth pursing into a tight line.
“No – I mean it. Yesterday the history of the world was different and I wasn’t living at home – I was at university. Or at least, I was until...” No, they definitely didn’t need to hear about him being in a government prison. His mother would be appalled at the idea of him having been a criminal, even if it had been unavoidable. “I combined my magic with that of other magic users and changed everything because there were problems with the old world – bad problems – and now I’m the only one who remembers that timeline. That’s the reality I know, not this new one where everyone knows about the existence of Izients and it’s all changed.” He looked up from the table and found his family staring at him with frowns of confusion or disbelief.
“You didn’t hit your head earlier, did you?” Jasper asked. He was wearing a suit and actually had a job of some kind in this timeline, which made him seem like a different person he had been.
“No. I swear this is the truth.”
“Then you had better explain it properly, in detail,” Mum insisted, “because, at the moment, you really do sound delusional.”
He gulped down his glass of champagne so he could face going through it all again, with the pain that went with remembering things he no longer had. “I met Fal and his brother, Barve, when I was at Uni which, for me, was last year.” By the time he had explained not just how he had used his magic and why – as he had told Dervyl and Barve – but also what his life had been like before and the fact that Farlden was now dating Callie, nearly two hours had passed and that was still a massively condensed version of it all. He looked round again, trying to gauge their reactions and hoping his mother wouldn’t start booking psychiatric appointments.
“So you’re bisexual?” Jasper asked.
Elliot had just said how he had used magic to help change the world and this was what his brother commented on. Perhaps Jasper hadn’t changed much after all. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I’m bisexual.”
“You told this to M.P. Dervyl and she believes it?” his mother asked, the question revealing her own priorities where his life was concerned.
“Yes.”
That, if nothing else, seemed to convince her that he was telling the truth and, as always, his father and Jasper followed her lead.
“If the world is a better place now, that’s a good thing,” Dad ventured and Elliot gave him a smile of gratitude.
“Hopefully, yeah.”
“How can we help you with your memories?” Dad said. “Will you get back your knowledge of your life in this world in time?”
“Maybe.” He suspected that he wouldn’t and it was a depressing thought, making him wonder if he would ever fit in. It was all that he was left with, though, so he had to do all he could to claim this new life. “Could you tell me a bit about your lives and mine?”
Elliot soon learnt that his father’s company had a different name but, otherwise, was the same international business as before and was just as profitable. His mother was, of course, still an M.P., but she seemed to have a lot of respect for the Izients she worked with and had helped them in championing a number of positive changes that protected endangered animals and wildlife. Jasper had a job in a financial investments company, which he actually seemed to understand, and he was engaged to be married. This news – thrown casually into the discussion – shocked Elliot but apparently all the rest of the family liked the young woman who, according to Mum, “makes him take his life and career seriously”. This made Elliot picture the unknown woman as a younger version of their mother, which was a disconcerting thought. “What about me?” he asked. “Was I ever in a serious relationship?”
“You were fond of the Izient girl down the road from us,” his father said.
“Until she dumped you,” Jasper added, making Elliot smile with relief as much as amusement. He wouldn’t know how to fake caring for some stranger. “You never seemed to feel anything all that intense for anyone you dated and your friendships have been pretty casual too; nothing like the relationships you described from that other world.”
That made sense to him. He could remember loving no one before Fal and it didn’t feel possible that he could feel that strongly f
or anyone else. His strong Uni friendships, too, had been forged by the events of that other life, where he had had to rely on others in dangerous or difficult situations. It sounded as if he had never really found a purpose to his life here, not caring a great deal about anything.
“I’m not sure how I feel about you dating a Nean,” his mother said in, joining in with the conversation after a pause. Apparently she hadn’t changed in some of the ways he might have hoped for.
“We’re not together anymore. He’s involved with the girl who nearly got us killed.”
“She hardly seems like someone who will make him happy,” Dad said. “Where’s your fighting spirit?”
Elliot blinked at these unexpected words. He had been steeling himself to accept Farlden’s feelings for Callie or at least to accept that the decision was out of his hands, but perhaps his father had a point about Callie being someone who would end up hurting Fal if they stayed together. In that case, Farlden would clearly be better off dating Elliot again. It was what he badly wanted to believe, anyway.
“Think it over carefully first,” his mother said. “If this boy has chosen to be with someone else then perhaps his feelings for you were never as strong as yours for him.”
It was as if she had put Elliot’s worst fear into words. If Farlden decided to stay permanently involved with Callie there was nothing Elliot could do about it and Barve had already warned him that their relationship was a strong one. Perhaps, in this timeline, Elliot was destined to spend his life in love with someone he could never be with.
Chapter Seven
DERVYL CALLED a meeting the next morning to discuss the issue she had briefly already mentioned to Elliot. She had suggested that it might have been a result of the change to reality which made him feel, before he even knew what was wrong, as if it was his fault.
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