Ten Thousand Skies Above You (23 page)

Theo's never been shy; he loves being praised. That's what makes it so astonishing when he actually blushes. “Thanks. You're not so bad yourself.”

“
Please.
I've been such an idiot.”

“Hey. None of that.” His laugh is sloppy from the absinthe, but the sincerity comes through. “Seeing you in action like this—Marguerite, it's been incredible. The way you jumped in after the bomb during that air raid; you were bandaging wounds while I was still pissing myself with terror.”

I can't help laughing. “Not literally.”

“Close. You don't want to know how close.” By now Theo has begun to smile, a lopsided, absinthe-tilted grin. “You size up these dimensions so fast. You hit the ground running. Hell, you got kidnapped by the freakin' Russian mafia and you escaped on your own!”

“You pried off the metal grid.”

“Okay, you only did ninety-nine percent of it.” He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, you drive me crazy sometimes. But you're amazing. I think you're the most incredible person I've ever known.”

This conversation feels like it's going in a direction it maybe shouldn't go in. So I say, “You're right. We should go on to the home office, so we can reach the last dimension with Paul.”

“Always Paul. You keep finding him in dimension after
dimension. That's got to be destiny, right?”

“Maybe,” I say, though it's hard for me to believe in destiny right now.

Theo's eyes meet mine. “But it seems like you find me almost as often.”

“Yeah. I guess I do.”

Suddenly I want to tell Theo about the pregnancy. Talking it over with someone would help, and he'd understand more of why I've been feeling so confused. As I open my mouth, though, Theo puts down the water bottle—sugar cube only halfway dissolved—and takes one of my hands in both of his. “Listen,” he says. “I'm just drunk enough to say this, so I'm going to say it, and then we can move on. Okay?”

Oh no.
But I can only answer, “Okay.”

“I love Paul as much as if he'd been born my brother. And—and I think you know by now that I love you too. Not exactly like a sister.”

“Theo—”

He holds up one hand, determined to finish. “Hopefully we're always going to be a part of each other's lives. You, me, and Paul, all three. If you and Paul work this out, if you end up together, then I'm happy for you. And I'll be your good buddy Theo forever and ever, et cetera.” Theo takes a deep breath, as if trying to clear his thoughts from the fog of absinthe. Nearby, accordions play and people dance, the hubbub swirling around me and Theo without ever touching us. “But maybe—maybe you and Paul don't end up together.”

Even two weeks ago, I would have laughed at the idea of Paul and me drifting apart. We were destined, I thought. Fated. Eternal. Now the future stretches before me, blank and unknowable.

Theo speeds up as he gets the final words out. “I'm not the kind of guy who'd try to break up someone else's relationship, even if the ‘other man' wasn't my best friend. And I am one hundred percent positive that you shouldn't split up with Paul because of what some other guy with his face did in another dimension. But—if that's not all there is to it, if your relationship with Paul isn't what you thought it was and you walk away—well. After the so-called ‘decent interval,' if you think you might be interested . . .” Our eyes meet again, and he smiles, and then his voice breaks. “I know I would be.”

People talk about their heart being torn in two, but I always thought it was a metaphor, no more. But it really feels like that, like something precious at the core of me is being ripped into halves, neither of them complete.

He lifts my hand to his mouth. The brush of his lips against my fingers is featherlight—the ghost of a kiss, over in an instant, and then he lets go.

“That's enough serious talk for tonight,” Theo says, suddenly glib again. He laughs—too loud and hard to sound real—as he resumes pouring the water over the sugar cube. “See how the absinthe is turning that milky color? Like an opal. That's how you know it's ready to drink. Can't wait to give you your first glass of this stuff.”

“I'm not drinking,” I say.

“Hey, no legal drinking age here. Or if there is one, we're both over it.”

I just blurt out the words: “I'm pregnant.”

Theo laughs again—but then his face falls as he realizes I'm serious. His jaw drops, and he whispers, “Oh, my God.”

The music and laughter around us seem to taunt me, and all I know is that I want out of here. I push back my chair and return to my guards. “Take me back to the Ritz immediately.”

They begin shepherding me out under the watchful eyes of the elephant. Only once do I glance over my shoulder at Theo, just in time to watch him down the glass of absinthe in one gulp.

THE ENTIRE DRIVE HOME, I TALK TO MYSELF.
IT'S NOT LIKE
you didn't know Theo had feelings for you. He'd said so before.

I also argue with myself.
Not like that! Theo never laid it out there like that, not even once.

Theo's confession moved me, but it changes nothing. I hurt for him without longing for him; I love him without wanting to be with him romantically. Even when I reached out for him in London that one night, I just wanted comfort and closeness, and in my drunken grief, sex was the only way I knew to ask for that. His feelings tear me apart inside because they force me to hurt someone I care about so much.

But that's not the only reason I was so shaken tonight. Not the reason I reacted so strongly to the relationship between the Marguerite and Theo of the Warverse. It's not that I want to choose Theo instead of Paul—it's that I've seen another choice is possible.

Do Paul and I truly share a destiny in every world, every life? Or is he just one of a thousand potential paths for my life? Theo Beck may be another path, another choice made by Marguerites in other worlds; I understand that now, but my heart still tries to deny it. Paul believes in destiny. I want to believe too.

Even after the blood and the betrayal, the emptiness inside me yearns for Paul. Only Paul.

And the way I told Theo about the pregnancy—could that have been any clumsier? I don't think so. Not without my actually vomiting or something. At the time I felt like I had to say something, anything, to change the subject from Theo's confession. Well, it worked.

Maybe it's just as well that I got it over with quickly and left Theo to deal with it on his own. By the time we discuss my pregnancy again, Theo will have had time to come up with some jokes and some theories and all the other things he uses to shield himself. He's more vulnerable than he lets on.

What will Paul say when I break the news? Although I know him more intimately—more than Theo, more than anyone else—I can't imagine his reaction. But of course I have to tell him. My Paul was within Lieutenant Markov, a part of him, when this child was conceived.

“Your Imperial Highness?” my driver says. “Are you well?”

Only then do I realize I've started crying into my handkerchief. I just shake my head. Let the chauffeur make what he can out of that.

Walking back into the Suite Imperial at the Ritz feels like stepping within the walls of a gilded fortress. In some ways, I'm locked in, but at least the rest of the world is locked out tonight . . . or so I think, before I see the potted orchids on the desk next to a small yellow envelope. A card on the flowers says:
With regards.

I rip open the envelope. When I pull out the thin yellow paper inside, I realize it's a telegram, the first real one I've ever seen. Each word is written in flat block capitals. Yet before I read anything else, I see the name of the sender:
WYATT CONLEY, NEW YORK CITY
.

He's a millionaire inventor in this dimension, someone this world's Marguerite has never had the slightest contact with. So I know the sender isn't this universe's Conley, and the message isn't meant for the grand duchess. It's for me.

YOU FOUND A LOOPHOLE IN MY RULES -(STOP)- VERY CLEVER -(STOP)- DON'T TRY MY PATIENCE -(STOP)- COME TO MEETING AT THE HOME OFFICE WITHIN 48 HOURS AND THE FINAL SPLINTER WILL BE RESTORED TO YOU -(STOP)- DELAY ANY FURTHER AND WE WILL RENEGOTIATE TERMS LESS IN YOUR FAVOR -(STOP)- BETTER TO WORK FOR ME THAN AGAINST ME MARGUERITE REMEMBER THAT -(STOP)- GOOD WORK SO FAR -(STOP)-

The last sentence sickens me—or maybe that's pregnancy nausea again. I don't know. Maybe both.

It doesn't matter whether I feel ready. I have to save Paul,
and that means I leave tomorrow.

I'd go this moment, if I didn't feel like I should speak to Theo one more time before we face Conley again. We need to present a united front—and right this second, if I leaped out of this dimension I'm not sure Theo would follow.

No, of course he would. He'd do it for Paul.

After I climb into bed, and only the one glass-shaded lamp beside my bed is lit, I take a deep breath. Finally I pick up the grand duchess's sketch pad and open it. Drawn on the top page is the portrait I couldn't look at before: Lieutenant Markov. Paul. The man who made me fall in love.

She's etched him in the softest, most precise lines. Only hinted at color. Yet she has captured something in him that blazes with life.

I know the expression on his face; I even know where he's standing, from the quality of the light. She drew this thinking of Paul leading her to the Easter Room where she could admire the Fabergé eggs. The portrait of my mother hung in the heart of a wine-colored egg he placed gently into my hands; I remember looking up from the intricate gold mechanism inside to see his face—strong, yet uncertain. Just like this. Like my Paul, too.

The next page is Lieutenant Markov again, this time standing at attention beside my door, the military uniform he wears outlining his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the scale revealing how tall and powerfully built he is.

Was.

One evening last month, when Paul and I were alone at the house, I asked him to sit for me. Since I'd ripped up the first portrait I'd painted of him, I needed to paint another one—a better one, that would capture the man I now knew so much better than before.

Unsurprisingly, Paul wasn't a natural model. “I feel strange,” he said, sitting stiffly on the chair.

“Just relax.” I made sure the drop cloth covered my bedroom floor, then took up my pencil to start sketching. “It's only me. Right?”

“Right.” But he stared forward as if he were facing a firing squad.

Laughing, I said, “It could be worse, you know.”

“How?”

“In my Life Drawing class last year, we had nude models.”

I expected him to be relieved that I was sketching him with his clothes on. Instead, Paul's eyes met mine, and—very slowly—he reached for the hem of his T-shirt.

“Paul—” But my voice died in my throat as he pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the floor where it fell almost at my feet.

We'd taken things so slowly after the Russiaverse, and Paul had let me take the lead every step of the way. Or he had until this moment, when he began stripping down in front of me. I'd never imagined that shy, reticent Paul would take a step so bold—or that I'd find it so incredibly exciting when he did.

“You've already seen me naked,” he said with a shrug that
wasn't as nonchalant as it was meant to be.

“No, I haven't.” There's been a lot of touching since we got together in January. A
lot
. But relatively little looking.

“You've seen another me, then. And we're the same, aren't we?”

I started to argue with him, then wondered why I would do something so stupid.
Besides
, I told myself—
I'm just drawing him. That's all.

He continued, “You're only painting me from the chest up, like most of your portraits, right?”

That had been the original plan. But as I tucked a curl behind my ear and tried to act casual, I said, “In Life Drawing, we usually tried to, uh, capture the entire figure. The whole body.” Then, more boldly, I added, “If you dare.”

Paul raised one eyebrow, rose from the chair, and unbuttoned his jeans; I stood there, pencil in hand, my cheeks flushed with heat. He let his jeans drop, but kept his boxers on—at least, for the moment.

Before this moment, I'd been smiling. No longer. Difficult to smile with your mouth hanging open.
Don't drool,
I told myself.
Keep it together.

But Paul's body—he's a big guy, and well proportioned, but it was the rock climbing that did it. All those hours scrambling up cliffs had carved muscles into his back, his abdomen, his thighs. Not in a creepy bodybuilder way—in an
ohmigod freakin' hot
way. Even if he'd been some anonymous model from class, I would've been speechless at the sight of him all but naked, submitting to my gaze.

In Life Drawing, we sometimes asked the models for specific poses. At first it was awkward, but everybody got over the weirdness after a little while. Facing Paul that day, however, I wasn't as cool. “Um, could you—if—um, could you sit on the corner of the chair, your back toward me?”

“You get to look at me, but I don't get to look at you?” Paul said, even as he did what I asked.

“You get to look at me. Just—over your shoulder.” Slowly he glanced back toward me, gray eyes intense. When his face was at the ideal angle, I said, “There. Right there.”

For several long, silent minutes, Paul remained as still as any of the professional models. I sketched his perfect body with loving attention to every single detail: his broad shoulders, long-fingered hands, tapered waist. With my index finger, I smudged the lines slightly to create shadows and dimension; it was so easy to imagine really touching him.

Just put everything down, take five steps, and then you can put your hands on him, ask him to put his hands on you—

As I looked into Paul's eyes, I could see the answering echo of my own desire. He was breathing faster, unsure but willing. I hadn't known I could want someone so much it made me dizzy.

But as I took that first step forward, I heard the front door—and Dad's voice. “Marguerite? Are you home?”

Shit. I threw Paul's T-shirt at him; he was already leaping into his jeans in a quick change worthy of Clark Kent. Through some miracle, he was fully dressed again by the
time my father got around to checking my bedroom. Luckily Dad couldn't see the sketch on my easel; I made sure to hide it afterward, too.

The grand duchess must hide her drawings of Lieutenant Markov. Even now, when her secret love for him has already been exposed, the tsar would be furious if he had to confront the evidence.

It's brave of her to draw these
, I think, flipping through a few rougher studies of Paul's hands, his profile.
Brave of her to keep them
.

Then I come to a drawing in an entirely different style from all the rest—far softer, the lines less certain, as if the grand duchess were trying to paint an image within a cloud. Paul again, but lying naked in bed, the sheet tossed aside, his arm outstretched toward the artist. Toward her; toward me. The memory comes back to life so vividly that I can almost feel the heat of the wood stove, hear the wind whipping outside the dacha, and taste Paul's mouth against mine.

Wiping at my eyes, I set the sketch pad aside. As I do so, one more letter falls out from between the pages. When I look at the envelope, it proves to be unimportant—a staggering bill from a couturier for the gowns I've purchased here in Paris. Yet seeing this makes me realize this universe's Marguerite has never received a letter from the person she needs to hear from the most.

I find the fountain pen and a blank sheet of paper, and begin:

To the Grand Duchess Margarita,

How do I begin to tell you how sorry I am for what I've done to you? I never meant to stay so long in Russia the first time, and I promise not to stay more than another day here.

I should not have spent the night with Lieutenant Markov. As much as we loved each other, his love was more for you than for me, and I never should have stolen your only chance to be together. Most of all, I should have been more careful. Causing your pregnancy is the single worst thing I've ever done in my life, and there's no way for me to begin making it up to you.

Maybe you don't care how awful I feel about it. I wouldn't blame you. But what I can promise is that, after this, I'll never return to this dimension again. (“Dimensions” are what you seem to have called “shadow worlds.”) From now on, I swear: Your life is your own. Your body is your own.

I'm glad that at least you've gotten to know Dad. Hopefully that helps, having someone who's always on your side. Because he is, in my world just as much as in yours.

Back home, Mom is alive and well. She's a groundbreaking scientist, happy with Dad and with her life. I don't have your siblings—who I miss so much—but I do have an older sister. Her name is Josephine, and I'm not sure what you'd make of her. She's another scientist, and so tough and strong she could probably outfight most of the cavalry officers. But I bet the two of you would hit it off.

And Paul—

I hesitate, pen in hand. What can I possibly say?

And Paul is alive too. He studies physics with Mom and Dad, which is how I met him. Although he and I were already close before I came to your dimension, this is where I realized how much I love him.

Writing down the words reminds me of a hundred beautiful moments: Paul and me standing beneath the redwoods, staring up at the canopy of green leaves so impossibly far overhead. Making out in his dorm room, hearing his breath quicken as he pulls me closer. His giving me a bouquet of pink roses on Valentine's Day, which I should've thought was cheesy but instead reduced me to a giddy puddle. Sketching him that evening, totally overcome by his physical presence.

Making lasagna together the night before Thanksgiving.

Talking about my paintings, and how he thought they always told the truth.

Learning that he'd risked everything to protect me and rescue my father.

Here, now, this moment, recognizing how much of what we are is truly between him and me alone.

As much as I loved Lieutenant Markov—what I feel for Paul is even more powerful. The love for him I'd tried to bury lives again inside me.

Shakily, I write the final paragraphs of my letter to the Grand Duchess Margarita:

You've given me so much—more, even, than I took from you. I don't only need to atone for what I've done to your life; I also need to thank you for some of the most beautiful days I've ever known.