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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There was no point talking to Other-me unless I could sweeten the pot somehow. She didn’t care if our whole world fell into an abyss, obviously. It was a lot that I was asking of her, not quite death, but not life either. If we knew for sure what would happen to her, that would be one thing, but none of our research had mentioned that in detail, and Nikolai’s uncle’s friend didn’t know either. It seemed like one of those things that people had assumed was common knowledge, so didn’t need to be written down.

For the time being, I decided to let her stew.

“We could torture her,” I suggested, for the thousandth time.

“It needs to be consensual ,” Althea replied, for the thousandth time.

“I could just do it for fun.”

They wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. I was stuck at school. I had nothing better to do than study, but I’d lost all enthusiasm for it. I stayed away from Tennyson. Every time I looked at him, I wondered if he was secretly communicating with her. Was she whispering inside his head? I thought about it constantly, even when he wasn’t around, but it was worse if he was.

It felt like a puzzle that I couldn’t solve. I just needed the key, that one thing that would unlock it all and show me exactly what I needed to do to convince Other-me that she should do the ritual. I turned it over and over in my head. What did she want, aside from the lodestone, from power? Even though she was essentially the same person as me, I didn’t really know her at all.

In the end, it was Tennyson who came up with an idea.

I stared at him, open-mouthed, when I opened the door to my dorm to find him standing there, hand raised to knock. He looked paler than ever. His hair was a mess, his clothes disheveled. It was a good look for him, honestly. A really good look. His top few shirt buttons were open to reveal the curve of his collarbones. The skin there looked very smooth.

I cleared my throat and took a step back. He raised an arm, leaning against the door jamb. He’d obviously caught me staring, if his smirk was any indication.

“What are you doing?” I cleared my throat again. My voice sounded husky; I was obviously getting a cold or something.

“I had an idea,” he said.

“Bravo,” I said, then moved to close the door.

He put his foot out to stop me.

I rolled my eyes and turned away. He followed me into the room and began talking again, so I moved over to the little kitchenette in the corner of the dorm room and turned on the tap.

“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t hear you, the water’s running.”

I didn’t actually want to waste the water, so I shoved a jug under the tap. Maybe I could find some thirsty plants later or something.

Suddenly, he was a warm weight behind me, enveloping me. His scent surrounded me, and I felt dizzy. His hand closed over mine and shut off the faucet.

“Can you just listen to me?” he said, voice rumbling in my ear. I felt the vibration right through my body.

I hated this. I hated being angry with him, being apart from him, but I didn’t know how to get past it. How could I get past that deep hurt, the sense of betrayal? All I wanted to do was sink back into his arms, but I knew that wouldn’t get rid of that gnawing in the pit of my stomach that I felt every time I thought of him. Of him and her .

“Do I have a choice?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

“Of course,” he said, stepping back.

I almost stumbled when he moved away, as if my body was magnetically drawn toward him.

I set aside the jug of water and went to sit down on the sofa.

“Fine. Say what you need to say and then leave.”

He sighed, then pulled over a chair to sit opposite me. He leaned toward me, his elbows on his knees. “I want you to use me.”

“Um,” I said. “What?”

“If she can use our bond to get to me, why can’t we use it to get to her?”

“Um,” I said again.

It felt as if my brain was malfunctioning. I couldn’t grasp what in the world he might mean. I stared at him helplessly.

“We need a way to convince her to do the ritual,” he said. He shifted in his seat, trying to think of a way to explain his thought process to me. “Do you remember when we first completed the bond, how there were no walls between us at all. It was as if we were one being – I knew all of you and you knew all of me?”

I took a deep breath. “You want to do that with her? To convince her to do the ritual?”

He almost looked as if I’d slapped him. “No! No, Lucy, of course I don’t want that.”

I nodded. “Right. Of course you don’t. But you’ll do it for the good of the world. I get it. Well, I don’t see why you need to tell me about it.”

I moved to stand up. I wasn’t sure if I was about to cry or scream or what, but I knew I needed to put some space between the two of us. He caught me by the arm, pulling me back onto the sofa. He took the seat beside me, getting all up in my business so I couldn’t move away.

“Can you just listen to me for a moment? I don’t want anything with her, anything at all. I want it with you . If you use our bond to sort of… invade her psyche, then you might be able to find something to convince her to do the ritual. I would only be a bridge between the two of you.”

I stared at him for a moment. His face was so close, I could see the shadow that his eyelashes made on his cheek.

I closed my eyes. I needed to think without distraction.

When it came down to it, I had no better ideas.

“Fine,” I said. “How should we do this?”

I was surprised when he didn’t pull away. He took me by the hands, lacing our fingers together.

“Open your mind to me,” he said.

Once, it had been so easy. It had been almost impossible to close my mind from him, but the walls we’d built up over time seemed normal now. Some of the walls had been necessary, but others were defensive. They’d sprung up through hurt and anger. Those were the hardest to knock down.

In my mind, they appeared like castle ramparts, reinforced by flames and spikes. They loomed too large; I couldn’t see any way around them, or over them, or through.

I can’t , I told him. The walls are too high, there’s no way .

He didn’t speak. I supposed he didn’t want to clue Other-me in to what we were doing. But even without words, I could feel him close by. Not physically – I was barely aware of my physical body anymore. But he was there, just on the other side of the walls.

Then, out of nowhere, a door appeared. It was a tiny door, like something from Alice in Wonderland , but I couldn’t see a bottle saying “drink me” so I could fit through it.

The door swung open, and I could see Tennyson on the other side of it. I moved toward it, and as I did, the door grew, until, by the time I reached it, it was big enough for me to fit through.

He took me by the hand and we ran. I wasn’t sure why we were running, but wherever he was leading me, I followed. It was almost overwhelming, being in that place. It was pure Tennyson, more than just Tennyson essential oil, even. I couldn’t let myself think about it, or I’d overthink it, and this wasn’t the time.

We came to another wall. It wasn’t like the other wall. This was a sheer rock face on a mountainside. It stretched up so far, I couldn’t see the top, and the whole thing was as smooth as polished marble. I glanced at Tennyson in question.

He pointed toward a tiny crack at the base of the wall, so thin that an ant could barely climb through it.

You’re joking , I said.

There was no way I could fit through there. But it was no different than going through the tiny door had been. As I moved closer to it, the space got larger – or I got smaller. That had happened to me once before, and I looked back at Tennyson in a panic. He was the same size. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Come on, then , I said.

He shook his head.

I glanced at the crack in the rock, which now looked like a huge, dark cave. You’re going to make me go in there by myself?. I pointed to the cave to emphasize how creepy it looked.

He pointed to the cave and then back to me. “You,” he mouthed. He pointed to himself, then back at me, then made a heart with his hands. “Her,” he mouthed, then shook his head and made a cross with his arms. He seemed to take confidence from my understanding that part, so he got more complicated, with the pointing and the hand gestures and silent talking.

You’ve lost me , I told him. I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

His shoulders slumped, then he seemed to get an idea.

He moved so quickly that I barely saw it. He was just suddenly standing in front of me. He pulled me close to him and then kissed me. All of the anger, all of the betrayal, that faded away for a moment. There was nothing but the two of us, there, in that moment.

And I understood what he’d been trying to say. He couldn’t go with me. He didn’t want to do anything that might strengthen the connection to Other-me. Our bond was something sacred, something special, and it was only for the two of us. Having her use it had hurt him as much as it had hurt me, in a way. He hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t wanted it. It wasn’t something he did to me. It was something she’d done to the both of us.

She needed to be stopped.

I pulled away from him and turned toward the cave. I glanced back at him one more time before I entered it.

Be safe, he said.

And I hoped I would.