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CHAPTER SIX

Althea was not only awake when we got back, she was sitting in the common room, stuffing her face full of finger sandwiches. She was normally so elegant, it was strange to see her eat like a normal person, but apart from that, she seemed no different. Well, apart from that and the shimmer on her skin where the goop from Other-me’s experiment had stuck to her.

“I’m absolutely starved,” she said as we came in and sat down. “They said I’ve been out to it for a few weeks, and it feels like it. I could eat a mountain of these!”

She didn’t say anything else until she’d polished off the whole plate. Then she daintily wiped her fingers on a napkin and set the plate aside.

“You’re all staring,” she said.

And we were. Tennyson and I, Nikolai and Hannah, Harper and Sam, even Other-me, we couldn’t stop looking at her, though I suspected it was mostly for different reasons.

“I missed you so much,” I told her.

She smiled. “You met the curator, didn’t you. That’s good.”

I blinked at her. That was a heck of a guess.

She pointed to the shimmer on her skin. “Apparently, I have visions now.” She glanced over to Other-me. “Thanks for that.”

It was the most sarcasm I’d ever heard in her voice.

“I’m also the one who woke you from your coma,” said Other-me. “You should be more grateful.”

I snorted.

“As you’re the one who caused her coma in the first place, I wouldn’t give myself too much credit,” Tennyson said coldly.

“Hold on,” said Hannah, turning to Other-me. “How exactly did you wake her up?”

It was a good question. “And why didn’t you do it sooner?”

Other-me shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I could. I was just playing around, really, taking these powers for a test drive.”

I could feel Tennyson prickling beside me, so I put my hand on his arm to calm him down. Not much got him truly angry, but putting his loved ones in danger was the best way to do it.

“This is why she needs to be restrained,” said Sam. “She thinks we’re all her guinea pigs to do whatever she likes with.” He glowered so darkly at her that I was pretty sure he didn’t just want her restrained, he wanted her dead and buried. It was almost scary, that look. Poor Sam, he’d been used by so many people, they’d twisted him into someone almost unrecognizable.

“We need her,” said Althea, with a sigh. “I foresaw something. I don’t quite understand it, but there was a ritual involving you both.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. A ritual to get back my power.”

Althea shook her head. “No. Well, yes. But no. This was something more… Something almost dark.” She rubbed her temples. “Sorry, I haven’t quite got the hang of precognition yet, it seems. I’ll need to research.”

“You need to rest,” said Tennyson. “You should go home for a few days, regain your strength.”

“The full moon is in a few days,” Althea said. “I’ll be fine after that. Don’t fuss, Tennyson. I’ll take it easy, but I need to be close.” She shot a look toward Other-me.

“I can help you research,” said Hannah. “Just point me in the right direction.”

Tennyson looked resigned. “Fine. Lucy also found something that you should look at. Your Latin is a little stronger than mine, but if it’s too much for you, I can work on it alone.”

Althea smiled at you. “He showed you the book? The curator?”

I nodded. “Yep, but…” I glanced over at Other-me. “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

“There’s actually something we need you to do,” Althea told Other-me. “Something only you can do.”

She went on to outline a plan that involved Other-me going to my father, pretending to be me, and spying for us. The rest of us were united in our opinion that this was the worst plan ever.

“I can’t pose as her ,” said Other-me. “She doesn’t even have a skincare regime. Look at her pores! Nobody would believe we were the same person.”

Harper snickered.

“We can’t even trust her when we’re watching her. There’s no way we should let her near him.” Sam looked like he’d prefer to murder Other-me than go along with this plan.

“We don’t even know if your visions are real,” said Tennyson.

None of our protests mattered to Althea.

“It’s just how it has to be,” she said.

“Is this psychic thing going to be permanent?” asked Tennyson. “Because I hate it already.”

Althea shrugged and smiled mysteriously, and I could see Tennyson’s point.

She told us the location of my father’s attack, and that Other-me should be waiting there for him when he arrived. She told us exactly what Other-me should say and what she should do.

“And then you’ll know that my visions are real,” she finished. “You just need to trust me.”

She seemed so sure of herself, but there was so much that could go wrong. My father could steal all the power from Other-me. She could steal the power from him. They could team up and cause an apocalypse. We didn’t just need to trust Althea, we needed to trust Other-me and my father as well.

“If she goes and he doesn’t show up, you’ll know I’m delusional,” she added.

“We’ll need people watching her to make sure she goes along with it,” said Tennyson. “And she should wear a wire.”

I shook my head. “He’d find that straight up, and then the whole plan would be blown.”

“Why are you talking as if this is going ahead?” asked Other-me. “It was hard enough to defeat him the first time, I’m not going through all that again. Nuh-uh, no way.”

“You don’t need to defeat him,” said Althea. “Just be yourself. And you will do it, because if you don’t, we’ll send you to another world. Not the world you came from, but one much, much worse.”

Althea stared at Other-me pointedly. I don’t know what Other-me saw in that stare, but whatever it was made her turn pale.

“Fine,” she said with a huff. “But don’t expect any heroics.”

She flounced out of the room, and immediately, I felt a tension lift from my head. I hadn’t even noticed it building, but when it lifted, I realized it had been getting worse since we got back from Wilde Manor. The feedback was getting worse; if I was affected by it even without physical contact, just from being nearby. That was one good thing about this awful plan, at any rate.

“I’ll miss her,” said Harper.

“You could go with her,” I suggested. That would be another headache gone.

With Other-me gone, it was safe to explain what I’d found in the library at Wilde Manor.

“That’s fantastic,” said Althea. “I’ll take a look at your notes. Though I’m surprised the curator let you photograph such an old book.”

“I don’t really know Latin, so my translation is very rough,” I said, dodging her comment. “But it seems like the stone sort of stores different energies and then guides them.”

Hannah seemed quite excited by that theory. “That would be perfect for you!” she said. “Well, you when you have your powers back. The main problem you’ve always faced has been controlling your power, because there’s so much of it. You’re either repressing it or it’s exploding out of you. You could use it kind of like a power bank.”

I wondered if it was the same for Other-me, after suddenly getting all my power. Maybe she was afraid to use it, and that’s why she wanted the lodestone so badly.

“In the ritual that I saw, the stone seemed fully active,” said Althea. “I wish I’d written my vision down; all the details have faded now, like a dream.”

Tennyson gave a little cough, as if to imply he thought it probably was a dream, but Althea ignored him. Either way, we’d know soon enough if she was right about my father attacking where she claimed.

Althea wanted to start on the translation right away, and Tennyson had to go and prepare for my father’s possible attack. I knew I should’ve gone to class, but I’d hardly slept, so I decided to go back to my dorm for a little nap. If I’d stayed at the manor, I’d be missing classes anyway, so if I made it to afternoon class, I was kind of ahead. Kind of.

Althea had been right.

I’d barely even begun napping when I was jolted awake by Tennyson in my brain.

Attack confirmed , was all he said.

I jumped out of bed, barely aware of what I was doing, and raced for the door. I needed details.

When I got back to the Golden House, only Althea was there. She was sitting in her favorite chair with her book. Her eyes were closed. She was so still that for a moment I was worried she was dead. Like, maybe the visions were too much for her brain or something.

She opened her eyes, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you having a vision?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, sorry. I must have nodded off.”

“Where is everyone? Tennyson said that my father has attacked.”

“Tennyson and Nikolai went along with your counterpart to do some surveillance and make sure she stuck to the plan. The others are all in class, as far as I know.”

“I hope they’re okay,” I said. I didn’t like the thought of Tennyson so close to my father.

“Harper has a history quiz that I’m sure she’ll fail, but apart from that, I think everyone is fine.”

I smiled, pleased that she felt well enough to make a joke. I’d never heard of people having visions before, not in real life. There was no end to the things I didn’t know, it seemed.

“Your visions, what are they like?” I asked her. “Are they like watching a scene from a movie, or do you just suddenly know stuff?”

She bit her bottom lip, thinking for a moment. “No, they’re more like a dream, even though I’m awake. It’s as if I’m there, a part of what’s happening, but I can’t do anything, only watch. Then there’s a pain, as if I’m being stabbed in the eyes, and then it’s over.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yikes.”

She shrugged. “I only had that one, right after I woke up. It might have been a one-off, because of whatever the other-you did.”

“Maybe,” I said. Though I had a feeling that as long as her skin still shimmered like that, the visions would stick around.

“There’s something else,” she said. “Something I didn’t want to say in front of the others.”

The tone of her voice told me that it was nothing good. I braced myself.

“She can’t stay here,” Althea said. “The two of you can’t exist in the same space. Having her here causes a kind of… dual soul paradox, I suppose.”

I nodded. “When I touched her, I was thrown across the room. Hannah said it was like a feedback loop.”

Althea looked worried. “It will only get worse. The longer she stays here, the more it will affect the world around us. Magic will destabilize, reality will fracture.”

I wasn’t sure what that would involve, exactly, but it sure didn’t sound good.

“I’m all for getting rid of her,” I said. “As soon as I get my powers back, I’ll shove her through that portal back to her world as fast as I can.”

Althea looked as if she wanted to say something else, then stopped herself. I was curious about what it might be, and would have asked, but I had a feeling it was something I didn’t want to hear.