Page 6

CHAPTER SIX

I said a very bad swear.

I stepped back from the tree and looked around. I seemed to be behind the Golden House, in the clearing where my magical tree stood in my world. Only, it wasn’t my tree or my world, and the Golden House wasn’t golden. It was a dark, dull grey, like some haunted Victorian mansion.

“There you are,” said a familiar voice.

I started guiltily and spun around to come face to face with Nikolai.

“What are you doing out here, you silly old thing? And wearing that .”

I looked down at what I was wearing. A pair of Tennyson’s old sweats and a t-shirt, nothing too out of the ordinary, though maybe not something I’d wear out to the opera. If I were to ever go to the opera.

Nikolai reached out and took my hand, pulling me away from the tree and toward the house.

I’d have blamed it on the trippy tea, only that seemed to have worn off the moment I arrived in this world. Or maybe it hadn’t, and this was all a very realistic hallucination. I could hope. Because Nikolai was swinging our arms together and grinning at me like a loon, and I did not like what that implied.

“You’re not really Marie Antoinette, you know,” he went on. “You don’t have to cosplay as a peasant, no matter how fabulously wealthy we are. But if you’re bored, we can go and throw peanuts at the scholarship kids. I know how much you love that.”

There were so many things wrong with what he was saying. He was wearing bright purple corduroy pants, a yellow shirt with roses embroidered on the back, and a floppy purple fedora, so at least his terrible fashion was consistent across all universes. I tried to focus on that.

“Where are the others?” I asked, hoping to get a read on whether the rest of the pack was here or if it was just Nikolai.

He waggled his eyebrows at me suggestively.

“Oh, don’t worry, we have the place to ourselves. Is that why you wore that hideous outfit, so I could take it off you?”

I tried not to gag, unsuccessfully, so I turned it into a cough.

He dropped my hand and took a step back. Nice. If he was a germophobe, I could get him to keep his distance without raising suspicion. I had no idea how this other Lucy might act. A Lucy who would date Nikolai and thought she was some sort of aristocrat.

“Sorry, I’m not feeling great,” I said. I decided to take a gamble. “I actually missed class and was hoping to get the notes off Althea.”

I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping this would pay off. From the look on his face, it didn’t.

“Althea Wilde?” he said, as if I’d said poopy boogers or something.

I stared at him impassively, not wanting to dig myself any deeper. Then he started laughing.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” he said, slapping my shoulder. Then he walked on, still chuckling. “Althea Wilde,” he muttered.

Well, that really cleared things up.

“Come on,” he called back to me when he reached the gate through to the not-Golden House. “You know your father hates it when we’re late.”

It was lucky that Nikolai had already passed through the gate and didn’t see the expression on my face because that would’ve been a total giveaway. It was bad enough that I had to be all cozy with Nikolai, but making nice with my evil dad was a step too far. I couldn’t fake that, not when the thought of him made my blood boil.

As I followed him through into the house, I faked a coughing fit.

Nikolai stopped, turned and stared at me. I gave another little cough. Had I gone too far? Was he onto me? Werewolves didn’t get sick, but maybe I didn’t have any powers in this world. I was working blind here. I needed to fall back, gather some intel. Scope the lay of the land, and all that.

“You’re really not well?” he asked, taking a small step toward me. He raised a hand as if he was going to touch me, maybe test my forehead for a temperature. I wasn’t sure, and instinctively, I stepped back. He gave me a strange look, almost a smile but not, as if he’d been expecting me to do exactly that but he wished I hadn’t. He was definitely onto me, right? I was cooked. I almost turned around and fled but he’d catch me before I got to the door.

It was a long, narrow hallway, as dark and gloomy as the outside of the house had been. There were dusty chandelabras hanging from the ceiling but they gave off only a dim, grey light, that flickered over the glowering portraits that lined the walls. It felt like I’d stumbled into Resident Evil 7 or something. I half expected something to jump out at me from a shadowy doorway. But the only sign of movement was from Nikolai. Which was scary enough, to be fair.

I had to be smart about this. In a way, I was lucky that I’d run into him straight away. He was a valuable source of information about this world, if I didn’t mess it up. I just had to play it smart. I knew a few things already, about this version of him and this version of me, I just had to take the next logical step from there.

“I’m fine,” I said. “My father… he’s waiting.”

“It will be worse if he thinks you’re ill,” Nikolai said. Which was interesting. “I can make the report. I’ll just tell him you got caught up researching for the project, at least that’s something he’ll understand. You go on upstairs and get some rest.” He gave me another strange look. This one seemed worried, though that didn’t seem a natural expression on his face. “Just let me know if anything else changes. We can’t be too careful.”

I shrugged. What would Other-me say to that? “You just want to take credit for my work.”

The worry slipped from his face, replaced with a much more familiar smirk. “Of course.”

It was tempting to follow him and eavesdrop on his meeting with my not-father, but if Other-me was meant to meet them there, it was too dangerous. Better to snoop around the house a bit with them distracted.

Without thinking, I headed straight up to Tennyson’s room. The layout of the house was the same, even if the vibe was more Addams Family. At least there were no severed hands creeping around. At least, that I could see. Though, that wouldn’t be nearly as bad as my creepy father creeping around.

Tennyson’s room was not actually Tennyson’s room in this world. It was very obviously Other-me’s room. There were selfies pinned up of me all over one wall, of me with Nikolai, me with one or other of the Stephanies, and a bunch of other people that looked familiar but I couldn’t place. That jerk Astor was in more than a few though, gross. And in them all, I was making an insufferable duck face. It made me want to punch myself.

The room itself was very frilly. Not so much of the goth princess vibe as actual princess. This me really thought a lot of herself. There was a rack of dresses where Tennyson’s bookshelf should be. A giant vanity instead of our favorite loveseat. A stack of fashion magazines beside the bed and ew I was on the cover of at least the top one, looking all pouty and pretentious, and about thirty years older than I actually was. I couldn’t imagine a version of myself that was into all this stuff.

Though, I could imagine a version of myself that was into that bed. And that version was me. That bed looked so soft, with giant pillows and silk sheets. I flopped down on it and within seconds, I was out.

And I was back at the tree.

I said another bad swear.