Tandem

The space around me expanded and contracted, stretching out infinitely in an infinite number of directions. Time no longer seemed to exist. The scene in the cell receded from me at an extremely high velocity, and I felt as if I was being pulled apart atom by atom.

Then, like the flame of a candle, I was snuffed out.

 

THIRTY-NINE

I was awake, but I couldn’t move. My body felt like one giant bruise. At least I was breathing. The air was sweet and clean, and smelled like … home. This will pass, I told myself, to keep from panicking. It was just the kickback from going through the tandem.

I waited for it all to drain away, and while I did I thought of Thomas. I’d known, in those last few seconds, what he was about to do. He’d decided that whatever unknown fate awaited me back on Earth, it was better than having Juliana steal my life. My life. The one I’d been born into. The one I missed so much I ached for it. But I ached for Thomas, too. I didn’t want to imagine what was going to happen to him, but I couldn’t help it. If Juliana and Lucas didn’t kill him, they would certainly leave him in that Farnham jail cell to rot. And what then? What would Queen Marian do with the spy she’d caught, especially when she saw that the princess she thought she had in custody had magically disappeared? Nothing good, I was sure of that.

Oh, Thomas, I thought. Tears rolled down my cheeks, dripping off my face and soaking my hair.

And what about Callum? What would become of him now that the wedding was off, the treaty broken, and the Juliana he knew nowhere to be found? And the war that was sure to come. How much of Aurora would be left standing once it was over?

Eventually I found that I could move my left hand, then my right. I rested until I had enough strength to open my eyes, to sit up and look around. I was in a vast field filled with the shoots of some kind of grain—corn, maybe? So I hadn’t landed in the foundation of a house after all. I wished I could let Thomas know I was all right, but that was impossible. He would have to live without knowing what happened to me, and I’d have to live without knowing what happened to him. This was the part of love I hated, the pain of losing the person you wanted to keep more than anything in the whole world. All the worlds.

I sat there for a long time, too weak to stand, too turned around to know where to go when I did manage to move. My hands were crusted with dried blood from Thomas’s arm; the anchor I’d worn around my wrist now lay scattered in pieces close by. Not knowing what else to do, I drew my knees up to my chest, buried my face in them, and wept. Like a child I wept.

As the sun rose over the horizon, I saw a figure coming toward me, one that I would recognize anywhere. Except it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. It would never be him. But it was someone. Someone I knew. Someone who understood at least a small portion of what I’d been through, because he’d been through it, too.

“Grant,” I said as he approached. My voice was hoarse, my throat as raw and sore as the rest of me. I wanted to cry at the sight of him, but I’d shed all the tears I had.

“I was hoping I’d find you here,” he said, helping me stand. “I knew it was a long shot, but I thought, maybe … I don’t know.”

“I’m glad you came,” I said. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t think I’d ever be all right. Not in a million years, not in an infinite number of lifetimes. But I had to go on. I couldn’t give up. Thomas had risked his life to return me to mine, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

Grant nodded. He got it. I was grateful for that, at least. “What do we do now?”

I gazed out at the horizon, at the sun climbing in the sky. “Let’s go home,” I said.

So we did.

NOT THE END; ONLY THE BEGINNING 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my family, my friends, and everyone who has dedicated time and energy to making this book the best it can be, particularly my agent, Joanna MacKenzie, and my editor, Francoise Bui. I’m incredibly grateful for the advice and/or enthusiasm offered by Emilie Bandy, Alex Bracken, Mary Dubbs, Kendra Levin, Ari Lewin, Eesha Pandit, Nicole Rodney, and Kim Stokely, all of whom read drafts along the way. Special thanks go out to Cambria Rowland, who styled Sasha like a boss, and Sarah Hoy, who designed Tandem’s beautiful cover.