Then it was my and Callum’s turn. The voice, which was coming from speakers placed high above the crowd, declared us as well: “Her Royal Highness Juliana, Crown Princess of the United Commonwealth of Columbia” followed by “His Royal Highness Callum, Prince of Farnham and the Western Territories.” My stomach turned at the sight of all the people watching with rapt attention, and for the millionth time I wished that Thomas was at my side.
Callum took my hand and squeezed it. Though I wished he was someone else, his touch was comforting. We walked into the grand ballroom and the throng of people set upon us.
The good thing about the fact that most of the gala attendees were strangers was that nobody expected Juliana to know who they were. They all introduced themselves, grinning from ear to ear, declaring themselves delighted at the forthcoming union between Callum and Juliana. Callum handled it better than I expected, switching on like a lightbulb and basking in the glow of all the adoration. So much for social anxiety.
After everyone had gotten to speak to us, dinner was served. The banquet table was as long as the room, and Callum and I had to sit at opposite ends, to spread out the honor of speaking with us, so I wasn’t able to talk to him. I spent most of the meal looking for Thomas among the group of KES agents patrolling the perimeters of the room, but I didn’t see him. Not that I thought I would. I only hoped.
When the meal was over, the dancing began. I wasn’t in a dancing mood, but I was forced to spend hours spinning across the floor with an endless stream of male guests. I tried as hard as possible to be cordial and captivating, but my mind kept wandering as they droned on about matters of state I couldn’t care less about.
When my last partner finally released me, I looked for Callum in the crowd, spying him dancing with a refined-looking old woman who was half his height. They made a ridiculous pair, and I couldn’t help but smile. He was doing his best to charm her, and she was laughing at his whispered jokes. I was about to go over and cut in when someone grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me through a side door into a nearby alcove.
“Hey!” I cried as a door shut behind me. The voices in the ballroom died away completely as the latch caught. I looked around in a panic, expecting to see Lucas or someone even worse. Instead, to my surprise—and great relief—I found myself facing Dr. Moss. He was holding a file folder in his hand, his eyes dramatically big behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
“Dr. Moss, what are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry to have scared you, Ms. Lawson, but I’ve discovered something very important and I thought I should show it to you as soon as possible,” he said, indicating the folder.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m just glad it’s you. What do you have there?”
“I finally got a hold of Dr. March,” Dr. Moss told me. “I was stumped as to the cause of your problem, but sometimes when Dr. March and I put our heads together, great things occur. For example, your anchor. I couldn’t have invented it without him.”
I gave the physicist a tight, insincere smile. If I ever met Dr. March, I was going to have a couple of things to say to him. “So? Does he know why I’m seeing the visions of Juliana?”
“He had a theory,” Dr. Moss said. He paused, carefully considering his next words. “How much do you know about your parents, Ms. Lawson?”
“What’s this got to do with my parents?”
“Possibly everything. Go on, tell me about them.” Dr. Moss regarded me with increasing excitement.
“Um, I don’t know. They were both physicists. Brilliant physicists,” I said with pride. “They died when I was seven, in a car accident. Is that what you mean?”
“Who do you live with now? On Earth.”
“My granddad,” I told him.
“Maternal or paternal?”
“Maternal. Dr. Moss, I don’t understand. Why are you asking me about my parents?”
“Have you ever met any of your father’s family members? Parents? Siblings? Cousins?” Dr. Moss pressed.
“No. His parents were dead by the time I was born. They were both only children, and so was my dad. His only family was my mom and me. Why?”
“What was his name?” Dr. Moss’s fingers worried the edges of the folder he was holding, bending and crushing it.
“George Lawson.”
“Did he have any other names?”
“Of course not.” Why would my father have had other names? He was a scientist, not a spy.
“Did you know that your father has no analog in this world?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thomas said that happens sometimes, that people don’t necessarily have an analog in every universe.”
“That’s true. But there’s another possible explanation.” Dr. Moss opened the folder. There was a photograph on top, clipped to a handful of documents, parts of which were blacked out. “Is this your father, Ms. Lawson?”
“Yes,” I breathed. The man in the picture was unmistakably my dad. “What is this? Why do you have it?” The file read: CLASSIFIED: OPERATION LOOKING GLASS.
“Dr. March and I concluded, after exhaustive analysis of the available data, that the only way in which you could be seeing Juliana through the tether is if you were born with a connection to both worlds,” Dr. Moss explained. “And the only way that we know of for that to be true is if you are a crosser.”
“What’s a crosser?” I demanded. “And why does the KES have my father’s picture in one of their classified files?”
“ ‘Crosser’ is a term I invented this afternoon to describe someone whose genealogy originates from more than one universe,” Dr. Moss said.
“This afternoon?”
He gave me a sheepish smile. “Well, you’re the first one we’d ever heard of. There was no official term for the phenomenon, but of course we needed one.”
“Of course,” I said in disbelief. “Go on.”
“In order for you to be experiencing the visions, one of your parents had to have been born in Aurora. It looks to have been your father. His real name was George Anderson, and he was employed as a research scientist by the KES. He was sent through the tandem on a top-secret assignment, to work with Earth physicists in order to sabotage their attempts to develop the many-worlds technologies that we were trying to perfect here at the Citadel.”
I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it’s more than possible—it’s true. He worked for the KES for several years,” Dr. Moss said. “Until he went AWOL.”
“My father was from Earth,” I insisted. There was absolutely no way he had any connection to this awful world.
“I’m afraid that’s not so,” Dr. Moss said with regret in his voice. “You see, I knew your father. I didn’t realize it when I first met you because he had changed his name, but before he was assigned to Operation Looking Glass, he worked with me in my lab. He was, as you say, brilliant. Beyond his years. I’m sorry to hear that he’s no longer with us.”
I was crying now, a stream of silent tears pouring down my face, surely smearing my makeup. But I didn’t care about that.
“Oh, there, there, dear.” Dr. Moss gave my shoulder an awkward pat. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, I don’t think so.” It was Thomas I wanted, Thomas I needed to talk to. He was the only person I could tell about this, the only person who would understand what it meant and how it made me feel. “I’m sorry, Dr. Moss, but I need to be alone.”
I kept thinking about my mother. How would she have felt if she knew that she had married an imposter, an invader from another world who’d come to Earth with the express purpose of destroying her work? Because that was where my parents had met, on a research project at Princeton University.
