Tandem

himself through partly on my behalf. But there was still Thomas, taking up so much space in my heart, and though in the end I couldn’t be with either of them I couldn’t allow Callum to continue to fall in love with the Juliana I was pretending to be.

But that conversation was for later. At the moment, everything was far too uncertain. I had yet to meet the queen of Farnham, and I was worried. Juliana’s stepmother sounded easy compared to Queen Marian, and I needed to hold my own against her.

The limo pulled over and the door opened. A man who could’ve been a KES agent if it weren’t for the fact that we weren’t in the Commonwealth anymore opened it for us and we climbed out.

I didn’t even get a chance to see the outside of Adastra Palace. The windows of the limo had been tinted so darkly that they only gave a vague idea of what the city looked like, although from what I’d seen I could tell that it was less grand than Columbia City.

The security detail that had met us at the car led us silently through the underground garage. “Her Majesty commands that we take you straight to the throne room, Your Highness,” the guard told Callum. “She wants to see you immediately.”

“I’m sure she does,” Callum muttered, so low that only I could hear.

“Cal!” A boy of about twelve came barreling around a corner and slammed into Callum. Callum wrapped his arms around the boy and gave him a fierce bear hug.

“Mother said you weren’t coming back,” the boy said. “She said you’d gone to live with the enemy forever.”

“They’re not the enemy, Sonny,” Callum said. “Well, not all of them. This is Juliana.”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” Sonny said, bowing his head a little and reaching out to take my hand. When I gave it to him, he kissed it. “Welcome to Farnham.”

Callum gave me a sideways glance, struggling to keep a straight face. “We’re well trained here.”

“I can see that.” I smiled at Callum’s little brother, impressed by his gallantry. “Hello. It’s lovely to meet you, Your Highness. Can I call you Sonny?”

He shrugged, blushing, both elated and embarrassed by the attention. “She’s nicer than I thought she’d be,” he said to Callum.

“Then you don’t know her yet,” Callum teased. I made a face at him, and he returned it. God, I was glad he was alive.

“Let’s go see Mother,” Callum said to Sonny. Now it was Sonny’s turn to make a face.

“Rather not, thanks,” he said, ducking out of Callum’s embrace. “It was nice to meet you, Your Highness.”

“You can call me Juli,” I told him.

“Nice to meet you, Juli!” he called back as he disappeared around the corner from whence he came.

“He gets to call you Juli after meeting you for two seconds?” Callum said in mock-exasperation. “Unbelievable.”

“What can I say? I like him better,” I said. Callum tugged on a strand of my hair and smiled. Then he sighed.

“Come on, Mother awaits.”

He led me into a cavernous room that was empty but for a throne at the far end. A woman was sitting in it, tapping her heel against the marble in agitation. She was surrounded by a half-dozen bodyguards, all of whom were stiff as rods. It didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

Queen Marian stood as we entered and watched as we crossed the vast distance between the door and the throne. Callum fell to one knee at the queen’s feet.

“Hello, Mother,” he said. “May I present—”

“Yes, yes, I know who she is,” the queen said. “Stand up, Callum.” She leaned forward as if to examine him, taking his chin in her hand and tilting it this way and that like she was mapping it. “I see there’s been no lasting damage from your exploits.”

“It would appear that way,” Callum said. There was a slight wobble in his voice.

“No thanks to you,” Queen Marian said. She was talking to me. She turned to her bodyguards and summoned them forward with a wave of her hand. “Take her to the Hole.”

“What?” Callum jerked up in alarm. “No, you can’t do that. She’s here with me! She’s my fiancee!”

“Not anymore,” Queen Marian said. “I’ve had quite enough of this whole royal wedding business. It’s very clear that the General never intended for the two of you to marry, or for the peace treaty to be signed. I know how to proceed.”

The bodyguards seized me, one at each arm. “Wait!” I cried. “You can’t do this!”

“She helped me escape, Mother,” Callum protested.

“No, dear, my agents helped you escape,” Queen Marian said. “Take her to the Hole and throw her in a cell with that other piece of UCC filth. I’ll decide what to do with them later.”

The bodyguards dragged me away. I struggled against them, doing all I could to resist, but it was futile. They were far stronger than me. Blood rushed to my face; I could barely hear Callum over the thump of my heart in my ears. He was screaming for his mother to reconsider, but Queen Marian was unmoved.

After pulling a sack over my head, the bodyguards took me down a seemingly endless flight of stairs. After a while I stopped fighting them. We reached the bottom of the stairs and proceeded down a long hallway before we finally stopped. I heard a metal key turn in a metal lock and a set of metal bars creak open. Then I was on the ground, the heels of my hand scraping against the rough cement floor. One of the men whipped the sack off my head, and I found myself in a large cell, harshly lit by fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. I turned sharply and watched them slam the bars shut. I reached up and grabbed them, hauling myself to my feet and banging my palms against them.

“Let me out of here!” I shouted. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“It’s useless,” a voice said. “They won’t listen.”

I turned slowly, not quite believing my ears. Against all odds, Thomas was sitting on the lower level of a metal bunk bed, his head hanging in defeat.

“Oh my God,” I cried, rushing to him. I knelt before him, my hands on his knees, but he pushed me away.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded angrily. Then he recognized me. “Hey, I know you. You’re … you go to my school.”

“Grant,” I breathed. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Yeah, well, neither can I,” he said, lying down on the bed. After a few seconds, he popped back up. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

That other piece of UCC filth, Queen Marian had said. I remembered something Thomas had told me about Grant. They suspected that he’d been taken into Farnham by Libertas and traded for something, that Queen Marian thought he was Thomas. I didn’t know how he’d gotten into Farnham, but at the very least it seemed as though the last part was true.

“It’s a long story,” I grumbled, falling into a cross-legged position on the floor.

“I’ve got time,” Grant said.

So I told him everything, from the tandem to the analogs to the peace treaty between Farnham and the UCC to Libertas to the arranged marriage between Callum and Juliana. He was silent for a while after I finished. I was afraid I’d scrambled his brain.

“So you’re saying that we’re in a parallel universe? Where there are people who look exactly like us but are not us?” He shook his head. “That’s crazy, Sasha, you know that, right?”

“I’m not crazy,” I told him. “Hello! Look where you are. This is not normal.”

“You’ve got that right,” Grant said. “And you’re saying I ended up here because my … what’d you call them?”

“Analogs.”

“Right. I touched my analog and that’s why I ended up here?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why a bunch of armed thugs grabbed me off the street and brought me