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CHAPTER EIGHT

Obviously, I didn’t want to take Other-me out on a permanent basis. I wasn’t a killer, and plus it would be annoying to have to dispose of her body and all that. It was far easier to just put her to sleep for a while. Though, easier was relative.

To drug her, I’d need access to her food or water, and the school was notoriously careful about that kind of thing. At least, in my world it was, and it was safer to assume things would be as difficult as possible. I could bonk her over the head, but that might raise questions, and it was hard to judge how long she’d be unconscious. But lucky for me, I hadn’t just been sitting around all summer and mooning over Tennyson. I’d been practicing with my powers. To be fair, I still wasn’t very good, but Hannah had taught me a few things with a view to pranking some of the annoying Tennyson fangirls from Green House, and among those things was a fairly reliable sleep spell.

I could do it from a distance but I had to have eyes on her. The safest bet would be to wait until after class. She’d definitely come back to her room to change out of her uniform, so I’d do it then. Hopefully she’d be alone, but if I had to give Nikolai a good old magical slap between the eyes, I was okay with that. He had all the details of the hunt and how to get wherever we needed to be for it, but I could wing it if I really needed to.

I spent the day nosing around Other-me’s room. I doubted she’d have details of the plot against her father just sitting around, but if I was lucky, she might have a handy bullet-pointed list hidden somewhere. I wasted the better part of the morning going through all her drawers and closets. I checked for loose floorboards, under the mattress. I even attempted a summoning spell, though all that did was singe a pair of expensive-looking boots. I put the fire out before the damage became too obvious. I hoped.

I went through every book on her bookshelf, looking for hidden notes or messages, and her many thousands of fashion magazines, but there was nothing. It was super suspicious how there wasn’t the slightest hint that she was anything more than a typical Amaris High student. She was good, this Other-me. Good at subterfuge, anyway, even if morally she was a bit gray. This was definitely not her first rodeo. Whatever she was plotting against her father, it had been a long time coming and she was well prepared for it.

It almost made me feel bad that I was going to mess it all up for her. Almost.

As I ran out of things to do, I began to worry about Sam. How long had he been here? I wasn’t sure if time moved at the same pace here as at home. It had seemed like I was only here for five minutes last time, and it had been almost two days. Was that because time was different here, or just because I’d been tripping on weird tea? Would I get back home only to find a hundred years had passed and everyone I loved was dead and gone, like in some old fairy story? I really hoped not. Apart from everything else, it would be super awkward to explain.

I didn’t dare venture out into the rest of the house. I had no clue what time she’d finish classes and couldn’t risk her seeing me. Even if I could explain everything and win her to my side, there was no guarantee she’d be on board with me rescuing Sam. She was obviously a super cautious person, but I needed to be even more so if I wanted to outfox her. I decided to settle in to wait.

Under the bed was no good this time, as I needed her in my line of sight for the spell to work. I had to be hidden though. She might not be alone, which would raise some uncomfortable questions. And even if she was, it was better if she didn’t see me. My main advantage right now was being able to pose as her, and if I was discovered – especially by her – that would be over. The best place was the closet in the far corner. Most of the room was visible if I left the door open a crack, though it still smelled pretty badly of burnt shoe.

The only problem was, the closet was boring. There was nothing to do but wait, and before I knew it, I’d dozed off.

I sat bolt upright and looked around. Hannah. Tennyson’s room. A delicious-smelling grilled cheese.

“I have to go back,” I said. “Hannah, can you put me back to sleep.”

“Jeepers, girl, take a breath,” she said, standing up from where she sat near the door.

“I can’t,” I said quickly. “Sam, he’s there. I have a plan to help him but I have to go right now .”

I was in a panic. What if I missed it. What if they went on this hunt and I got back there and they had Sam’s head mounted on the wall like some grotesque hunting trophy.

“Okay,” said Hannah. “Just give me a second to get ready.”

While she was getting her stuff together, I looked around the room. Someone, Hannah, I assumed, had been camped out in the comfy chair by the window. There was a stack of dishes and empty mugs piled up on the side table, next to a stack of books. I wondered where Tennyson had been sleeping, or even if he’d been sleeping. I wondered if he’d been to see me at all.

Then Hannah cleared her throat. “Are you ready?”

I nodded.

“Right,” she said, then blew a handful of glitter right into my face.

I spluttered and brushed it out of my face, and when I looked back up, I was in the closet again. There was no glitter, no grilled cheese, no Hannah. There was only a sliver of light from where the door stood ajar. It didn’t look as if Other-me had been in the room at all, and the smell from the scorched boots still lingered. I wasn’t sure how long that kind of smell would hang around. It might be the next day. It might be the next week, even, but nothing in the room looked different from how I’d left it before I nodded off.

I let out a sigh of relief. I hadn’t missed it. But she’d definitely be back soon. Even if she was the type to hang out for a bit after classes, she wouldn’t be more than another hour or so.

It didn’t seem like all that much longer when I heard someone approaching. The door swung open and she came in.

It was surreal. She looked so much like me, exactly like me, and yet, so not.

It was just the little things. Her hair was shorter and stylishly cut, in a way that framed her face to the best advantage. She didn’t wear glasses, and it didn’t look as if she wore any make-up, though maybe she was just super skillful at applying it, in that way pretty girls seemed to be.

Because she was pretty. I wasn’t. I was average, on a good day. But this girl, with the same genetic makeup as me, she was a hottie. She even wore the school uniform well.

It was weirdly hypnotic watching her, trying to find the differences, but I had to snap out of it.

I didn’t have magic powder like Hannah, I didn’t need it. What I did need was to tap into that power inside me and I couldn’t do that if I was ogling my doppelganger like some creeper. I didn’t know how long I’d have, so I needed to work quickly.

I closed my eyes and felt for the power.

It seemed empty in there, without Tennyson, which made it both easier and harder to tap into my own power. It was easier to find, but harder to reach, somehow. I could feel it, but it took all of my concentration to draw on it.

Which is why I didn’t notice Other-me approaching the closet.

She opened the door and the light flooded in. For a moment, we just stared at each other.

“What the he–” she said, but in my panic, my power surged and cut her off as it blasted out of me, throwing her back toward the bed.

Luckily, she landed softly, and apart from being knocked out, seemed otherwise unharmed. I’d meant to keep her unconscious overnight, so that she woke up the next morning thinking she’d just been really tired and fallen asleep after class, but who knew how long she’d be out after the blast I’d hit her with.

And worse than that, she’d seen me. I didn’t know how to mess with people’s memories. I’d told Hannah I didn’t want to know that type of magic because I had a problem with the ethics of it. Which she’d said was hypocritical, seeing as how I was learning magic to use as a weapon, but that kind of thing just seemed super sketchy and I didn’t want any part of it. Now, though, I could kind of see how it might be useful.

Maybe I’d hit her so hard, her brain would be fuzzy when she woke up, or she’d think she’d just caught her reflection at an odd angle. At any rate, that was a tomorrow problem. What I had to do now was hide her, then go find Nikolai.

Until you’ve tried to move an unconscious person, you can’t understand how tough it is. They’re floppy and heavy, and super annoying. I tried to lift Other-me up off the bed in a bridal carry but I couldn’t even raise her off the mattress. I tried sitting her up so I could get her under the armpits, but she kept flopping back down. She was like a puddle of fish. In the end, I grabbed her by the foot and dragged her toward the closet. Sure, she thudded a bit coming off the bed, but she was tough, she could handle it.

Getting her up into the closet was another matter entirely, and I’m not ashamed to say I gave up pretty fast and just draped a blanket over her. She looked kind of awkward, so I put a pillow under her head.

With Other-me sorted, I had to try to look more like her. Nikolai had noticed something weird the last time, so this time I needed to make an effort. Luckily, Other-me had already laid out part of her outfit on the bed. Unluckily, it was just a black t-shirt, so I had to make up the rest myself. What would I wear to go hunt people if I was stylish? That wasn’t a question I ever thought I’d need to answer. I settled on some black tights, boots and a black cap. She was a size or two smaller than me, so the clothes were a little tight, which made me sad for her. She obviously had to hold back her love of food, which just proved we were two very different people.

I grabbed her phone but couldn’t see anything else she might take with her, so I took a deep breath and headed out the door.

Hanging out in Other-me’s room for so long, I’d forgotten the goth vibe that the house had in this world. At least I didn’t have to worry about how to navigate it – Nikolai was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

“What took you so long?” he said, then looked me up and down. “You’re wearing that ?”

I rolled my eyes. “ You’re saying that to me ?”

He was dressed head to toe in camo. Purple camo. He did a little twirl, that ended in a flourish. “What? This is my color.” Then he leaned in close to me and said in an exaggerated whisper, “did you get the… you know?”

I froze. The “you know” what ? Something to take down my evil not-dad? Something to do with their plan? I had no clue. The only things on the bed had been her clothes and her phone. Maybe there’d been some secret weapon in the closet where I’d been hiding and that was what she’d been about to get when I zapped her. To think that I might have been holed up with the one thing I needed to take down my dad and hadn’t realized was too much, but I kept my face straight.

“Of course,” I said, striding past him. “Let’s get out of here.”

I thought we’d be heading to the helipad, or at least the train tunnel, but instead, I followed him to the path behind the house that led to the lighthouse. We didn’t chat on the way there, which meant I was left with my thoughts, and just then, that wasn’t fun. I should have been pumping him for information, about the plan, about this world, about Sam, anything. Instead, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I was panicking. I felt like the moment I’d stepped into this world; I’d been thrown off kilter and it had been impossible to find my footing. I was terrified every time I opened my mouth that I’d put my foot in it.

When we reached the steps of the lighthouse, Nikolai reached out and took my hand.

“I hate this part,” he said.

I had no clue what he meant, until he opened the lighthouse door and pulled me through.

The entire world dropped away. For a moment, I thought we’d fallen into a pit, like some cheesy villain had in their lair, and we’d land in some kind of dungeon full of alligators, but it wasn’t a pit. It was just nothing .