A decent shot. Theo was about to take an incredible risk because it gave him a “decent shot” at avenging what Paul had done.
As funny as he’d always been, as flirty as we occasionally got, I’d sometimes wondered whether Theo Beck was full of crap underneath his indie band T-shirts and his hipster hat and the 1981 Pontiac he’d fixed up himself. Now I was ashamed to have ever doubted him.
“When people travel through dimensions,” he said, staring down at the prototypes, “they leave traces. Subatomic—okay, I’m gonna cut to the chase. The point is, I can go after Paul. No matter how often he jumps, how many dimensions he tries to move through, he’ll always leave a trace. And I know how to set these to follow that trace. Paul can run, but he can’t hide.”
The Firebirds glinted in his palm. They looked like odd, asymmetrical bronze lockets—maybe jewelry fashioned in the era of Art Nouveau, when organic shapes were all the rage. One of the metals inside was rare enough that it could only be mined in a single valley in the whole world, but anyone who didn’t know better would just think they were pretty. Instead the Firebirds were the keys to unlock the universe. No—the universes.
“Can you follow him anywhere?”
“Almost anywhere,” Theo answered, and he gave me a look. “You know the limits, right? You didn’t tune out every time we talked about this around the dinner table?”
“I know the limits,” I said, stung. “I meant, within those.”
“Then yeah.”
Living beings can only travel to dimensions where they already exist. A dimension where my parents never met? That’s a dimension I can never see. A dimension where I’m already dead? Can’t get there from here. Because when a person travels to another dimension, they actually materialize within their other self. Wherever that other version of you might be, whatever they’re doing: that’s where you are.
“What if Paul jumps somewhere you can’t follow?” I asked.
Theo shrugged. “I’ll end up in the next universe over, I guess. But it’s no big. When he jumps again, I’ll have a chance to pick up his trace from there.” His gaze was far away as he turned the Firebirds over in his palm.
To me it sounded like Paul’s best bet would be to keep jumping, as fast as he could, until he found a universe where none of the rest of us existed. Then he could remain there as long as he liked, without ever getting caught.
But the thing was, Paul wanted something besides destroying my parents. No matter what a creep he’d turned out to be, he wasn’t stupid. So I knew he wouldn’t do this out of sheer cruelty. If he’d just wanted money, he would have sold the device to somebody in his own dimension, not fled into another one.
Whatever he wanted, he couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later, Paul would have to go after his true, secret goal. When he did, that was when we could catch him.
We could catch him. Not Theo alone—both of us. Theo held two prototypes in his hand.
The cool breeze ruffled my hair and made the lights flutter back and forth on the deck railing, like the plastic fish were trying to swim away. I said, “What happens if the Firebird doesn’t actually work?”
He scraped his Doc Martens against the old wood of the deck; a bit of it splintered away. “Well, it might not do anything. I might just stand there feeling stupid.”
“That’s the worst-case scenario?”
“No, the worst-case scenario involves me getting blended into so much atomic soup.”
“Theo—”
“Won’t happen,” he said, cocky as ever. “At least, I strongly doubt it.”
My voice was hardly more than a whisper. “But you’d take that risk. For Dad’s sake.”
Our eyes met as Theo said, “For all of you.”
I could hardly breathe.
But he glanced away after only a second, adding, “Like I said, it won’t happen. Probably either of these would work. I mean, I rebuilt them, and as we both know, I’m brilliant.”
“When you guys were talking about testing one of these, you said there was no way in hell any of you should even consider it.”
“Yeah, well, I exaggerate a lot. You must have realized that by now.” Theo may be full of it, but I give him this: at least he knows he’s full of it. “And besides, that was before I got to work on them. The Firebirds are better now than ever before.”
It wasn’t like I made a decision at any one moment. When Theo came to sit with me on the deck, I felt powerless against the tragedy that had ripped my family in two; by the time I spoke, I’d known exactly what I intended to do for what seemed like a long time. “If you’re that sure, then okay. I’m in.”
“Whoa. Hang on. I never said this was a trip for two.”
I pointed at the Firebird lockets. “Count ’em.”
His fist closed around the Firebirds, and he stared down at his hand like he wished he hadn’t brought them both and given me the idea—but too bad, and too late.
Quietly I said, “You’re not to blame. But you’re also not talking me out of it.”
Theo leaned closer to me, and the smirk was gone. “Marguerite, have you thought about the risks you’d be taking?”
“They’re no worse than the risks you’d take. My dad is dead. Mom deserves some justice. So Paul has to be stopped. I can help you stop him.”
“It’s dangerous. I’m not even talking about the dimension-jumping stuff right now. I mean—we don’t know what kind of worlds we’ll find ourselves in. All we know is that, wherever we end up, Paul Markov is there, and he’s a volatile son of a bitch.”
Paul, volatile. Two days earlier, I would have laughed at that. To me Paul had always seemed as quiet and stolid as the rock cliffs he climbed on weekends.
Now I knew that Paul was a murderer. If he’d do that to my father, he’d do it to Theo or me. None of that mattered anymore.
I said, “I have to do this, Theo. It’s important.”
“It is important. That’s why I’m doing it. Doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Think about it. You can’t jump into any dimensions where you don’t exist. There are probably some dimensions I exist in that you don’t.”
“And vice versa,” he retorted.