“Juli?” I repeated. Well, I had my answer. He and Juliana had been close, close enough for her to let him call her by her nickname—but how close was close? Close like friends? Close like brother and sister? Or close like … I tried not to think about it. It wasn’t as if it mattered what their relationship had been. At least, it didn’t matter to me.
He cleared his throat. “Juliana.”
“What do you mean, ‘sees her as a threat’?”
“After what happened to the king, he’ll never be able to rule again. And when Juliana comes of age she can make a bid for the regency and she might get it, since Juliana’s claim on the crown is legitimate, and the queen’s is just a matter of momentary convenience. What will happen to the queen and her two children then? I think that’s what she’s worried about most.”
“Not the loss of power?”
“Nobody likes to lose power,” Thomas said. “But there’s more than one reason why the queen would be afraid of Juliana. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Do you think Juliana would really do that? Just turn her out?”
He hesitated, taking time to think the question over. “No, I don’t.”
“That’s good.” I didn’t like the queen much more than the queen liked Juliana, but of course she would do what was necessary to keep her family safe, even if it meant acting heinous most of the time. How could I begrudge her that while the desire to go home, and willingness to do anything to make that happened, burned in my chest like a bonfire?
“Anyway, believe it or not, I didn’t just come in here to chat with you about current political tensions,” Thomas said. “I’m going to accompany you to the dinner.”
“Do I have to go?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. I was dreading the dinner because I’d been informed that the General would be there. This would be the first time I’d appeared before him as Juliana, and I had no doubt he’d be watching me closely. The thought made my stomach churn. Pretending to be Juliana was one thing; pretending to be her while the architect of my situation watched, ready to pounce if I screwed up, was quite another.
“Your presence is mandatory,” Thomas said. “But you don’t have to worry. You can do this. You did it earlier with Eloise Dash, you can do it again.”
“You keep saying that,” I pointed out. “What makes you so certain?”
He hesitated for a second. “If I tell you, will you promise not to just assume I’m crazy?”
“At this point, there’s not a lot I wouldn’t believe,” I told him. When you wake up to find you’ve been transported to another universe, even your most deeply rooted skepticism tends to take a major hit.
“Okay. I think—now, I don’t have any proof to back this up, but—”
“Just tell me, Thomas!”
“When I was on Earth, pretending to be Grant, sometimes I felt like, I don’t know, I could sense what he would do in a given situation,” Thomas confided. “I prepared for my mission; I knew all kinds of facts about Grant and his life. But when you’re deep undercover like that, you learn pretty quickly that facts aren’t people. They’re just facts. That’s what makes what you’re doing—what I did—so difficult. Friends, family … they can just tell when something’s not right, even if they never figure out why. But, I don’t know. Sometimes, I’d get into a sticky situation—say the wrong thing to Grant’s mom, or whatever—and I’d get this feeling like I was being guided.”
“You mean, like hearing voices in your head?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It was more like getting swept along with a current.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve got this friend—he’s a scientist on the many-worlds project. This stuff is his life. And he thinks that the connection between analogs runs deep. Really deep.” He laughed at himself. “Forget it. You probably do think I’m crazy.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t, not at all.” I was so close to telling him about seeing Juliana in my dreams. My heart began to pound as I thought about the possible implications of what Thomas was saying. Could anyone, under the right circumstances, talk to their analogs across the tandem? What did that mean for Granddad’s theory about how the universes weren’t meant to come into contact?
But my lifelong visions of Juliana were a far cry from what Thomas was talking about. What if I told him and he took the information straight to the General? The likelihood of him just returning me to Earth when my six days were up if he knew I had this ability was pretty remote, and I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize my return home. But there was a part of me—a large part of me—that wanted to talk to this friend of his, the scientist with all the theories. I wondered what he’d make of me if he knew.
Noticing my distant expression, Thomas cocked his head at me inquisitively. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” I told him. “It’s just … I feel it, too. The current.” Because, funnily enough, I did know what he was talking about. It was different from my visions, so subtle and incomprehensible that I hadn’t even realized what it was until Thomas described his own experience as Grant. “Thomas, where
is
Grant?”
I couldn’t believe the question hadn’t occurred to me until now. I tried to put it down to all the craziness that had happened, that I hadn’t had time to think of it when my life was in jeopardy, but I felt guilty for not asking sooner.
He sighed. “I was afraid you might wonder about that. The truth is, I don’t know.”
“You don’t
know
?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Thomas confessed. “We call it the ‘analog problem.’ Analogs can’t touch skin to skin. If they do, one of them gets thrown back through the tandem.”
“Why?”
“When you move something out of one world and into another, it creates an imbalance. But the universes want to be equal. Usually, the analog that doesn’t belong to the universe it’s in gets thrown back, but not if they’re wearing one of those.” He glanced down at the anchor on my wrist.
“What does that have to do with Grant?” I demanded.
“He touched me,” Thomas said. “Well, technically, he punched me. Right here.” He tapped a spot on his jaw.
“Why would he punch you?”
“You know about Juliana, but try to imagine what it might be like to see her face to face.” Thomas took a deep breath. “It’s a … well, it’s weird. I was shocked at how much he looked like me, even though that’s what I was expecting. He must’ve thought he was losing his mind. I guess he just reacted. As soon our skin made contact, he was thrown through the tandem.”
“Are you telling me that Grant is in
Aurora
? Is he here? In the Citadel?”
“No,” Thomas said, avoiding my eyes. “That was the plan, initially. I was going to send him through the tandem, and a team of KES agents in the Tattered City were supposed to retrieve him. They were going to hold him at a safe house until I brought you here, and then they were going to take him home.”
“But that didn’t happen,” I guessed.
“Libertas got to him first,” Thomas admitted. I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “They think it’s me they’ve got in custody. The General’s expecting a ransom request any day now, and when it comes, he’ll pay it, and send Grant home.”
“You know,” I snapped, “in the battle of KES versus Libertas, you guys are totally losing. They’ve kidnapped Juliana, they’ve kidnapped Grant, and they almost kidnapped me. What is wrong with you people that you can’t even do your jobs?”
Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Finally he said, “You’re right.” He sounded stunned. “You’re absolutely right.”
“Thomas?” I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind, but I couldn’t decipher his expression at all. I waved a hand in front of his face. “Are you in there?”
He nodded, blinking as if he’d just broken out of a trance. “We should go. You can’t be late for dinner, the queen will kill us all.”
“Not if Libertas gets there first,” I muttered.
EIGHTEEN
The Castle’s formal dining room was large and bright, with a long oak table that spanned its length. It was covered with candles that flickered in the slight breeze coasting in through the open windows. Crystal goblets threw rainbows of light across the place settings, each of which had more utensils than it seemed possible to use. Nathaniel Whitehall, the president of the Congress, sat near me, and he’d spent nearly the entire time telling stories from when he and the king, friends since childhood, had been young.
“And so I said to your father, if you can’t ride a horse properly, how the hell are you going to manage a kingdom?” Whitehall burst into a fit of red-faced laughter, and our entire end of the table followed suit, some more sincerely than others. The queen’s gaze darted to the head chair, which had been left empty in tribute to the king. I pretended to find Whitehall’s anecdote amusing, more for my sake than his. The General was keeping an incredibly close eye.
The air in the dining room was clotted with tension, and not just between the General and me. The queen laughed along with Whitehall’s jokes the same as everyone else, but I could see hatred blazing in her ice-blue eyes, and remembered what Thomas had told me—that Whitehall had been under consideration for the regency the queen now held, and he almost won it right out from under her, with considerable support from Juliana. Now, watching us get on so well together, she was visibly tense, as if she expected us to launch a campaign to overthrow her right there over the fish course.
For the first time since I entered Aurora, I was truly alone among the natives. Domestic staffers came in and out to serve and clean up after each course, but the KES agents—of which Thomas was one of many—were outside the room, presumably guarding the entrances. There were even a few agents on the balcony outside; I could see them out there in their black suits, pacing back and forth on high alert for any disturbances.
I hadn’t realized how much I depended on Thomas—if not for help and advice, then just as a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings. I would’ve been so much more relaxed if he’d been there, watching from a distant corner while I played my part, rooting for me to succeed. I knew now why the General had trusted him with assisting me; it wasn’t just that he was a respected and talented KES agent, despite his age. It was that he had both the steely-eyed composure of a soldier and the ability to speak to me like I was a real person. Maybe that was why he and Juliana had become friends. I was experiencing firsthand how people acted around her. She was simultaneously above and below them; too high born to be treated like a normal teenage girl, but too young to be taken seriously as a political force in her own right. Thomas must’ve been a breath of fresh air, someone she could both rely on to protect her and also confide in. Again, I wondered how deep their connection had been, and, surprisingly, found myself hoping that friendship was as far as it had gone between them.
Of all the dinner guests, Whitehall was the only person who behaved like Juliana was a regular person. Thomas had told me earlier that Whitehall was Juliana’s godfather, which explained both his easy familiarity with her and the way she’d supported him when the regency was under dispute. He treated her like a beloved niece, and I did my best to act accordingly, even going so far as to call him Whit, which was apparently Juliana’s nickname for him.
“You remember how bad a rider Al was, don’t you, General?” Whitehall shoveled a few stalks of asparagus into his mouth and smiled amiably over at the General as he chewed. The General’s eyes widened just a fraction; he took a sip of wine, swallowed, and paused before responding.
You couldn’t have found two more different men than Whitehall and the General if you scoured the entire planet. Whitehall was a large man, loud and jovial and friendly. The General was smaller in height and in girth; he was lean and fastidious about his appearance, with a habit of speaking in a low voice so that you had to bend forward to hear him. Whitehall, the General, and the king had known each other since they were young, which made it all the more strange that Whitehall called the General by his title and not his name—something he didn’t do for the king.
“His Majesty was a fine rider from an early age,” the General said, his voice taut and dark with disapproval. “I’m surprised that you’re being so cavalier with your stories about our friend, Whitehall. Can’t you see how it’s upsetting Her Majesty?”
I glanced over at the queen; sure enough, her eyes were brimming with tears. Whitehall hung his head, duly shamed, and apologized to the queen for his mistake.
“It’s all right, Whitehall,” she said, lifting her chin imperiously. “But perhaps we should talk about happier things. Like, for instance, Juliana’s upcoming nuptials.”
I tensed as all eyes turned toward me. “What about them?”
“Prince Callum arrives tomorrow,” the queen reminded me. “Surely you must be thrilled, darling.” I had to restrain myself from visibly cringing at the bitter way she uttered the word “darling” and somehow managed to dredge up a smile.
“Oh yes.” The General’s eyes were on me, and all I could bring myself to say was, “I’m terribly thrilled.”
The queen laughed. “So shy! I was all nerves before my wedding. But there’s nothing to worry about, my dear.”
“I’m not worried,” I countered. “I hear great things about Prince Callum. I’m sure we’ll be happy together.”
“We’ve missed you here, Juli,” Whitehall told me, mercifully changing the subject. “I heard you were off relaxing at St. Lawrence. What in the world were you doing there for two weeks? I’m hardly at my country house three days before I’m restless and yearning for the city.”
“I like the country,” I said. “It’s peaceful. And I only have to change clothes once a day.”
That got a huge laugh from the table; the fact that Juliana was often photographed in multiple outfits on the same day was a well-worn joke in the tabloids. Yet another gem of wisdom from Thomas, whose knowledge of Juliana’s day-to-day was coming in handy even more than I would ever have expected.
“Fair point to you,” Whitehall said, tipping his glass in my direction. Just then, a phalanx of servers bustled in carrying covered silver trays in their white-gloved hands. “What’s this, then? Dessert?” He addressed the question to me with a dramatic wink.