Tandem: The Many-Worlds Trilogy

by Anna Jarzab

“I guess I’ll see you later,” Callum said, taking the stairs backward in order to keep looking at me. I gave him a little wave, and he returned it with a grin.

  Well, at least one person was happy about the impending wedding. It surprised me. Shouldn’t Callum hate the idea as much as Juliana did? Wasn’t he infuriated at having to live his life the way other people wanted him to? I would’ve been. I guessed I would find out, because Callum clearly had a lot he wanted to say to Juliana—alone.

  “What was that with the potato?” the queen hissed at me as soon as Callum was out of earshot. “You’ve never eaten a potato!”

  “I’m sorry, I—I thought I had,” I stammered.

  “Where? On some holiday to Farnham? You were just trying to show off. I won’t stand for it, Juliana, do you hear me? You promised me that you were going to behave yourself and I expect you to do that. This marriage is the key to peace, and if you endanger that …” She let the threat dangle in the air, but it seemed to me that it was the queen who was really frightened. “You should go back to your room. I’m going to sit with your father for a while.”

  The queen shook her head at me and left with her bodyguard. I was alone in the foyer. I sank down on the bottom step of the grand staircase and buried my face in my hands. Waves of powerlessness washed over me. I couldn’t seem to do anything right, even when I tried.

  Thomas took a seat beside me on the step and reached into the bag, pulling out the potato and cradling it in his palm. “Potatoes,” he said softly. “They don’t grow here.”

  “In Aurora? Then how did Callum—”

  “In the Commonwealth,” Thomas explained. “We can’t grow them. Something about the soil … but they’re a Farnham specialty. They import potatoes from their farms in the Mountain region all over the globe.”

  “But not to the UCC?”

  “No. Trade negotiations keep falling through. Another thing the peace treaty will fix, which is probably why he brought you one in the first place.” He stared at the spud in his hands. “This would fetch a high price on the black market. I wonder what it tastes like.”

  “You can have it,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly. It was a gift.” But he eyed it covetously all the same.

  My chin quivered and a tear slipped down my cheek. I hated to cry, but seeing Thomas holding that potato so gently, like a baby bird, broke something inside of me. Meeting Callum had made me aware, in a way I hadn’t been up until then, of the incredible realness of my situation, and how out of my depth I was. My allergic reaction the night before had been dramatic and alarming to everyone involved, but Dr. Moss’s confident—if biologically suspect—explanation seemed to have done its job of banishing any suspicions it had caused. And perhaps my most recent mistake would be written off as confusion, or even bad behavior, but I couldn’t keep making mistakes and drawing attention to myself. Yet that seemed to be all I was doing. Sooner or later, I was going to be found out, and thinking about what might happen to me threatened to send me right over the edge.

  “Hey,” Thomas said. “What’s wrong?” He reached out a hand as if to touch me, then took it back, obviously unsure how I would react to such a gesture. I would’ve been grateful for it, but I didn’t want him to know that.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said, struggling to keep calm. “But if I do, you have to promise not to tell the General.”

  Thomas shook his head. “Then you shouldn’t.”

  “What? Why?” I demanded. “You said I could trust you!”

  “You can trust me,” he said. “But if it’s a matter of national security, I have an obligation …”

  “Screw your obligations,” I snapped. “If the General finds out, he’ll keep me here forever. I know he will. He’ll lock me up in some cell and never let me go. Is that what you want? Me trapped here forever?”

  “No, of course not,” Thomas said, his voice low and hoarse. A stray hair fell across his forehead, and I had the sudden urge to smooth it back, but I didn’t. I couldn’t figure out what it was about him that made me so angry, and at the same time melted my insides like butter left out to soften. I wished things had gone differently between us; I wanted what had happened back on Earth to have been the real thing, and this whole experience in Aurora some sad, strange fiction. Because no matter how hard I tried to make myself see reason, all the feelings I’d started to have for Thomas when I thought he was Grant just wouldn’t go away.

  Whether I liked it or not, my relationship with Thomas was important. It had been the difference between life and death for me in the Tattered City, and it was the difference between success and failure at the Castle. I depended on him. I needed him. And despite everything, I wanted him to need me, too, if only so that we were even. If only so I knew I wasn’t as helpless or desperate as I sometimes felt. I had to tell him what I was seeing. I had to know that I’d done something to rescue myself. For whatever reason, I’d been given this ability a long time ago, as if someone, somewhere, somehow knew that one day I would need it. I couldn’t just ignore it and pray the General kept his word, and I couldn’t abandon Juliana to her fate because it was easier to let the clock on my time in Aurora run out—if it ever would. But I couldn’t do it without Thomas.

  “Please,” I whispered. I couldn’t fathom a scenario in which the General was aware that I could see Juliana’s life through her eyes and allowed me to return home. Best case, he’d keep me in Aurora and let the scientists who worked on the many-worlds project run test after test in the hopes of making more discoveries about the tandem; worst case … well, I couldn’t even say, and didn’t want to imagine. But I was certain that a man who had sunk so much money and so many resources into developing technology to travel from one universe to another wasn’t going to just let me waltz out of his clutches with a direct line to my analog’s mind.

  I could see in his eyes that Thomas was struggling. It was against his training and his nature to keep vital information from his superiors. How could I have ever believed that he would be more loyal to me than he was to the KES, than he was to his own father? The worst part was, I understood it. The General had taken him in, had given him a family after his was stripped away from him. I knew what it felt like to owe someone like that. I’d go to the ends of the world for Granddad, do anything I could to protect him and make him proud, because when everything I’d come to count on had been lost, he’d gathered me in his arms and told me I wasn’t alone. How could I ask Thomas to betray the person who had done that for him?

  He reached for me again, and this time he made contact; his hand was a soft weight on my shoulder. “Okay,” he said, a sigh carrying his words along. I jerked my head up, shocked both by his touch and his answer. He glanced around. “Not here, though.”

  “The library,” I said. I grabbed his hand without thinking and stood, tugging him along in my wake. His eyes narrowed in surprise and his mouth hung open, as if he was about to say something, but apparently he thought better of it, because he followed me in stunned silence as I guided him by instinct to the one room in the Castle I’d always wanted to visit.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The library was empty. The door creaked as it slid open, and the air in the room had a musty smell, as if the windows hadn’t been cracked in weeks. The surfaces were dust-free—the domestics at the Castle were nothing if not fastidious—but the library had all the hallmarks of a space that was mostly forgotten. I got the impression that the room missed Juliana. It was one of her favorite places in the Castle, after the gardens; it had featured in many of my dreams. There was an enormous vaulted ceiling covered in sky-hued frescoes and floor-to-ceiling shelves packed tight with multicolored leather spines in various states of wear. The floor was parquet with an elaborate inlaid herringbone pattern, and the whole place was illuminated with warm light emanating from hidden sources atop the bookshelves. On the opposite side of the room there was a globe tall enough to reach my waist. I went to it, eager to give it a spin. I let my fingers w
ander over its miniature topography as Thomas stared at me, waiting for an explanation, but the words stuck in my throat.

  After a long silence, Thomas ventured a question. “How did you know where the library was?” He had that look in his eye again, the one that meant he was trying to decipher me like a code. He must have spent a lot of time doing that, trying to figure out what people were thinking and planning, searching for hidden undercurrents in their words and in their body language. It must’ve been part of his training; I wondered if he knew he was doing it with me, or if it was just instinct.

  I took a deep breath, pressing harder on the tiny ridge of the Alps to steady myself. “I saw it,” I told him. “In a dream.”

  “What?” He looked baffled, for which I couldn’t blame him. And yet, he’d seen plenty of unlikely things, and done some pretty unlikely things as well. I didn’t even consider the possibility that he might not believe me. “I don’t understand.”

  I laughed, a sharp sound that ricocheted off the ceiling. “Me neither.”

  “No, seriously,” Thomas said.

  “Maybe you should sit down for this,” I said, gesturing to a nearby armchair. Thomas’s face was easy to read. All his emotions—interest, concern, and slight anxiety—showed in his eyes, in the crease of his brow, in the grim set of his mouth. He could mask his feelings, of course; I’d seen him do it. But that was a choice. This was pure Thomas, shining out from within like the beam of a lighthouse.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m sitting. You’re sitting. Now talk.”

  “I think I know where Juliana is.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I could tell that it wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. His entire body pulled away and he raised his eyebrows in what could only be shock.

  “What do you mean, you know where she is? How do you know? Where is she?” The last question came out strangled, and I had to fight against a wave of jealousy. Of course he wanted to know where she was. She was his assignment—she was his friend—she was his … Of course he’d want to know.

  “I think she’s in Farnham,” I said.

  “What makes you think that?” His tone was accusatory, and I found myself insulted by it.

  “Because, I … I saw Callum’s ring just now, and it was the black phoenix on a red background, and I realized I’d seen it before, at the house where they’re keeping her, on a flag … The flag of Farnham, it must be … !” My voice broke under the strain of trying to say so much at once and not being able to say enough. I hadn’t realized until now how much this bizarre power—this extraordinary gift—frightened me, how deeply I feared I was going insane, and how desperately I wanted him not to mirror those same fears.

  “Hey, hey,” Thomas said, covering my hand with his own. I looked up and our eyes caught. He smiled tentatively, as if wanting to reassure me but not knowing how, under the circumstances. “Slow down. What do you mean you saw it?”

  I swallowed hard. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I … see her. See through her, really. Mostly when I’m asleep. Okay, always when I’m asleep, and I don’t usually remember very much, but sometimes details come back to me—”

  “Sasha,” Thomas said firmly. “I think you’re going to have to start from the beginning.”

  I took a deep breath. I told him how I’d always had these dreams of Juliana’s life, from a very early age, as long as I could remember. That I’d always assumed they were just my imagination running wild while I was asleep, that I never knew any of it was true before I came to Aurora and realized what I was seeing. And that I knew now where Libertas was keeping Juliana: in a large farmhouse somewhere in a foreign country, behind enemy lines. As I spoke, I watched Thomas’s thoughts pass over his face like the aurora sweeping across the sky, one emotion after another, none lingering long enough for me to catch hold and orient myself.

  When I was finished, I sat back and waited for him to say something. He rubbed his face vigorously, as if trying to bring himself back to some kind of reality he could get a firm grasp on.

  “That was …” He paused, searching for the right thing to say. “… not what I expected you to tell me.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know.” He gave me a weak smile. “Not that.”

  “It’s a lot to take in, I know,” I said. “But you believe me, don’t you?” I tried to ask as if I didn’t care about the answer, as if I was so convicted about my story that not a doubt lingered in my mind, but the tone faltered, because I really, really needed to be believed.

  “Yes,” he said, with a finality that I found comforting. “I believe you. But I’ve got to be honest—I don’t know where that leaves us. Juliana’s in Farnham, but where? It’s a big country. And you don’t know what they’re planning to do with her?” He wanted more from me, and I wanted to give him more, but I couldn’t. I understood his desperation; I wanted more from me, too. This wasn’t a parlor trick; it was a real thing, it came from somewhere, and if it didn’t exist to help me—to help us, Juliana and me—then why did I have it at all?

  “At least we know she’s alive,” I pointed out. “That’s something.”

  “It’s a relief, for sure.” He kneaded the back of his neck with his fingers and I had to smile; in his unguarded moments, he was so predictable, you could set your watch by him. “Why did you tell me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know I’ve asked you to trust me,” he said. “But I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to. Good reasons. Reasons that you keep reminding me of. So why now? You’ve known this since when?”

  “Since the Tower,” I admitted. “When the General told me her name.”

  “And you didn’t tell me then.”

  “How could I? I knew that something was up, but I didn’t understand it. And even if I had … I couldn’t tell you until I was sure.”

  “Sure of what?” he asked, his voice going soft.

  “That you would help me,” I said. This was the point of it, after all, the reason I’d told him. Because I thought I finally had some useful information to bargain with. But you can only barter for your freedom with someone who wants something else more than keeping you trapped.

  “I see,” he said, a bit coldly. “Why don’t you just tell me what you were thinking, then? Get it all out in the open.”

  “Thomas, what if I could control it?” He looked at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Wait, listen. Obviously I’m connected to Juliana. I don’t know why, but I do know that it’s not an accident. It’s been happening my whole life. There has to be a reason. If I could control the visions—if I could force them to happen instead of just waiting for them to come to me when I was asleep—I might be able to figure out where they’re hiding her. And if I could do that—”

  “Then we could bring her back,” Thomas finished. “And you could go home.” His voice was flat, and I could see him pulling away, receding behind his KES mask. The way Thomas was reacting made me feel guilty, like I was turning my back on him, which was ludicrous. I didn’t owe him anything … did I?

  “The General’s not going to let me go,” I said. “I need to find another way.”

  “You don’t know that,” Thomas insisted.

  “Six days,” I reminded him. “Six days. That’s what he told me. That’s what he promised. But you said it yourself: the KES has no idea where Juliana is. How can he be so sure he’ll find her before my time is up? He’s planning something, Thomas.”

  “Like what?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. You’re the expert. You tell me.”

  There was a long pause while Thomas sorted through things in his head. Finally, he said, “So what do you want from me, then?” The connection I’d felt forming between us had all but vanished, and I sensed that he was creating the distance on purpose. He was talking to me like a stranger he was haggling with over a trinket, not … whatever I was to him. Maybe I was nothing. Maybe it was—and had alwa
ys been—just in my head.

  “If I can tell you where Juliana is—exactly where she is—I want you to promise you’ll get me home as soon as possible. No matter what.” I held my breath, waiting in agony for him to respond. This was it. The only chip I had to play. I hoped I’d played it right.

  “Fine. You help me find Juliana, I’ll make sure you go back to your own world, even if it’s against my orders.”

  “You’d really do that?”

  “It’d be worth it, to bring her back. To make things right again. Besides,” he continued, with a resigned shrug. “What can he do to me? I’m his son.” Something in the tone of his voice told me he didn’t quite believe that, but he was trying very hard to convince himself it was true.

  “Right.” I stared at my hands. “Now all I have to do is figure out how the hell I’m going to do it.”

  “Actually,” he said. “I might know someone who can help you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, and so do you. Come on,” he said. “We’re going to see Dr. Moss.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Dr. Moss … the doctor who treated me last night?” That incident seemed so long ago. I’d nearly forgotten it in the hubbub surrounding Callum’s arrival. I glanced at Thomas’s wrist, hoping to catch a glimpse of his watch, but he caught me looking and raised his eyebrows with a hint of comedy that I was glad to see.

  “I’ll have you back in plenty of time for dinner,” Thomas promised. “I’d rather face down a squad of ten Libertines than Gloria when her schedule’s been compromised.”

  I laughed. The tension that had gathered up in my shoulders melted a bit. I took a deep breath to center myself. We’d crossed over from the Castle to the Tower via one of the glass sky bridges that connected the two buildings and were now standing in a circular elevator bank. Each elevator was marked with the floors it served, but the one we were waiting for simply said DOWN, which struck me as more than a little ominous. When it arrived I stepped into it beside Thomas and watched him hit the button labeled SUBBASEMENT F.