Ten Thousand Skies Above You

THE FIRST TIME I TRAVELED TO ANOTHER DIMENSION, I
intended to take a life. Now I'm trying to save one.

But I can't do that unless I save myself. At the moment, I'm running through the winding streets of a near-medieval Rome, trying not to get burned at the stake.

Welcome to the nonstop fun of traveling through alternate universes.

“She is the sorcerers' daughter!” someone from the mob shouts. “She bears the tools of their witchcraft!” Her voice echoes off the cobblestones, just like the jeers from the crowd around her. A few of them hold burning torches, the better to chase me through the night.

My parents are scientists, not sorcerers. In this universe, looks like nobody knows the difference.

What I'm carrying in the pockets of my robe or cloak or whatever you'd call this shapeless red thing—it's not
witchcraft. It's a spyglass, a.k.a. a primitive handheld telescope. This six-inch-long gadget looks like a prop for steampunk cosplay: tortoiseshell sides, brass fittings, lenses ground by hand. But this might just be the tool that brings this dimension out of the Dark Ages—assuming it doesn't get my entire family killed first.

Panting, I dodge around every corner I come to, paying no attention to where I'm going. It's not like I have any idea where I am anyway. When I leap into one of my other selves—the other Marguerites, who live in these parallel dimensions—I don't get to access their memories. Some of their knowledge and ability carries over, but those are only the deeper, no-longer-wholly-conscious things. Knowing where the hell I am in this version of Rome? No such luck.

All I know is that I have to get away. Finding the Castel Sant'Angelo—and Paul, who should be there—well, that has to wait until I'm safe.

Of course, I could escape this dimension at any moment, thanks to the heavy weight on a chain around my neck. To anyone in this dimension, and virtually anyone in ours, it would look like nothing more than a large, fairly elaborate locket—if they even noticed it, which they probably wouldn't.

This isn't any old necklace. This doesn't belong in their reality. This is the Firebird.

The Firebird—the one and only device that allows human consciousness to travel through alternate dimensions. The invention of my mother, Dr. Sophia Kovalenka, with the
help of my father, Dr. Henry Caine. The thing that can instantly transport my mind out of this universe completely and send me back to my own body, my own home, and safety. Even as I run through an alternate Rome in an ankle-length woolen dress and cloak, my stiff boots sliding against the rain-wet cobblestones on the road, I keep the Firebird clutched in one hand; if I lose this thing, I'm screwed.

But I won't go. I can't leave this dimension until I do what I came here to do.

I must save Paul Markov.

A couple more twists and turns through dark alleyways, and I finally manage to lose the mob. Although I can still hear murmuring and shouting in the distance, I have a moment to catch my breath. The frantic thumping of my heart begins to slow. My back is to a wall the color of terra-cotta; the only illumination comes from a few lanterns and candles visible through windows that have no glass. And, of course, the stars. I look upward, momentarily dazzled by how many more stars you can see in a sky unclouded by artificial light.

The view around me could have been taken from any one of a hundred early Italian paintings I've studied. This is a world without electricity, where only fire shows the way after dark. A cart pulled by a donkey rattles along in the distance, stacked high with bags of something, probably grain. Forget Wi-Fi, tablet computers, or airplanes—here, even steam engines are centuries away. It's not that I've traveled back in time, though; the Firebirds don't do that. But some dimensions develop faster, some slower. I've already
been to futuristic worlds where everyone communicates by hologram and travels by hovership. It was only a matter of time before I reached one where the Renaissance is still in full swing.

Not that this is exactly the same as our Renaissance: The clothing looks more like tenth or eleventh century to me, and yet the telescope my parents have invented didn't come into being in our world until long after that. Also, somehow, there doesn't seem to be any old-fashioned gender roles in place, or any gender roles at all. The priest who condemned me to the mob was a woman. I'll cheer for equality later.

The man I spoke to told me I could find Paolo Markov of Russia at the Castel Sant'Angelo. I imagine Paul chained in a castle dungeon, being beaten or even tortured, and I want to cry.

This is no time for tears. Paul needs me. Crying can happen later.

And once I've handled everything else, I'll deal with Wyatt Conley.

The angry buzz of the crowd has faded. Where do I go now? I'm surrounded by dark, twisting alleys and a jumble of buildings filled with people I can't trust. They said the Castel Sant'Angelo was to the west, but which way is west? Without the sun in the sky for me to judge by, I can't guess what direction to go in. Still, I have to begin somewhere. One more deep breath, and I start toward a narrow street that leads down a seemingly quiet road—

—then gasp as a hand closes over my shoulder.

“Not that way,” a woman whispers. A noblewoman, I realize, her face all but hidden under her blue velvet cloak. “They may gather near the Pantheon.”

I don't know what that is, but if the mob is going to be there, I'll head in another direction. “Thanks.”

(The above conversation? Not verbatim. Both my new friend and I are speaking what I have to assume is either late-stage Latin or early Italian. I don't know what it is exactly, but thanks to the deeply ingrained knowledge of this world's Marguerite, I speak it.)

“Your parents are leading us to wisdom,” the noblewoman says gently. “The others fear what they do not understand.”

She steps forward, just enough for some of the dim lighting to illuminate her face—thick golden hair, strong square jaw—and it's all I can do not to gape at her.

We've met before.

Her name is Romola. If I ever knew her last name, I've forgotten it. I encountered her in the very first alternate universe I ever visited: a futuristic London where she was the daughter of a duchess. Spoiled, rich, high on drugs, and drunk on champagne—Romola dragged me from nightclub to nightclub while I drank as much as she did. I was exhausted, afraid, and heartsick; it was only two days after the police told my family that my father had died. Dad turned out to be fine—well, if “fine” includes “kidnapped into an alternate dimension.” But I didn't know that at the time. So those surreal, sick, miserable hours with Romola loom larger in my mind than they should. It seems like I
knew her forever, not just for one weird day.

I shouldn't be surprised to see her again. We've learned that people usually cross paths in many dimensions—that no matter how different the worlds may be, fate draws us together.

“Are you well?” Romola puts one hand to my forehead, like my mom did when I was little. “You seem dazed. No one could blame you, after what they've put you through.”

“I'm fine. Really.” I pull myself together for the rest of my escape. “I need to get to the Castel Sant'Angelo. Which way should I go?”

Romola gives me directions. Most of the landmarks she names are unknown to me (Via Flaminia?), but she points along the road. I thank her and wave as I start running again.

At home, I think I could run a few miles without getting winded. This Marguerite doesn't seem to get as much exercise. A stitch makes my gut clench; my breaths are coming too fast. Despite the cool air of early April, sweat slicks my skin. These thick woolen clothes feel as if they're loaded with weights. And my boots—let's just say shoemaking technology is a whole lot better at home. The blisters already swell at my heel and toes.

But I have to reach Paul as fast as I can. He could be in terrible danger—

Or he could be fine. Maybe he's one of the castle guards. He could even be a prince! You'll probably interrupt him at a banquet or something.

How long has he been here? We tried not to panic when
he hadn't returned to our dimension after twenty-four hours; after forty-eight hours, we all knew something was wrong. We got really afraid when we searched for him in the Triadverse and realized he'd left but hadn't come back home. Mom and Theo outdid themselves, coming up with a way to trace Paul's next leap, which was into this dimension.

Paul had no reason to come here. If he'd found what he was looking for—the cure for Theo—he would have come straight home. That was how we knew he'd been kidnapped. I haven't been able to sleep since.

Just get him back. We'll figure the rest out later—how to save Theo, how to defeat Triad. That can all wait until you bring Paul home.

I know the Castel Sant'Angelo as soon as I see it: an enormous stone structure at the top of a hill, lit by blazing torches. The firelight reveals the dull black gleam of cannons jutting from slots in the masonry. As I walk up, I see that the palace guards wear outfits simultaneously hilarious and intimidating: full striped breeches, brilliant yellow coats with puffy sleeves, metal breastplates and helmets, and swords that look like they could run through a human being in an instant. Although the soldiers come to attention as I step closer, obviously a winded teenage girl isn't their idea of a threat.

What if Paul's a prisoner here? I have no idea how the guards are going to react, but there's only one way to find out. A couple of deep breaths, and then I say as firmly as I can manage, “I've come to speak to Paul Markov of Russia.”

The guards look at each other and say nothing. Crap. Should I have called him Paolo, the Italian version of the name? Or Pavel, the Russian version? Or maybe he is a prisoner—or he isn't actually here at all—

“Follow me,” says one of the guards. “You can wait in the usual room.”

The usual room?
I have to stifle a smile as I follow them to a small, stone-walled chamber. Of course Paul and I know each other in this world too.

Always, we find each other.

In my world, Paul is one of my parents' research assistants as he works on his doctorate at Berkeley. For the first year and a half I knew him, I mostly thought he was strange: silent, awkward, too big for any room he was in. When he did speak, he was blunt. Most of the time he didn't speak at all. But as time went on, I began to realize that his bluntness wasn't him being rude or unkind—that instead it was a rough kind of honesty, sometimes hard to hear but always true. His awkwardness was only shyness, Paul's belief that he had never fit in anywhere and never would. And the way he hung around my parents' house wasn't because he had no life and nowhere else to go. It was because nobody had ever accepted him before. He'd never been around a family who cared about each other, never had a real friend before he met my parents' other assistant, Theo.

And he had never fallen in love before he knew me. He just didn't know how to say it.

I've visited a few dozen dimensions by now. Paul and I
have known each other in most of them; in many, we're already together. Fate and mathematics bring us to each other time after time. Paul's doctoral thesis presents a series of equations that prove destiny is real . . . but I don't need the math to convince me. I've seen it for myself so many times, beginning in a Russia where the tsars never fell.

For a moment I think of Lieutenant Markov, the Paul I knew there, and my throat tightens. But that's when a figure in a dark cloak appears in the stone archway of the room.

Paul steps forward, looking at me so sadly that I ache for him without even knowing why. “You know you should not have come,” he says softly.

“I had to.”

Bluffing your way through alternate dimensions can sometimes be tricky. When in doubt, remain silent as long as you can, and let the natives do the talking.

And right now I'm only speaking to this world's Paul. A few cues tip me off to the differences—subtle things anyone else might miss, like the way he walks, or his ease in this medieval chamber. My Paul's consciousness—his soul—must be within this body, but semiconscious, unable to act, unable to think, hardly even able to remember. For the time being, he's forgotten himself. That's what happens to most people when they travel through the dimensions: they become absorbed into their other selves, unable to escape, or even think that they should escape.

It's like a fairy tale in reverse. The prince is the one asleep in a glass coffin. I'm the one who'll awaken him.

If only a kiss would work.

Paul steps closer to me, and the flickering lanterns paint his face in golden light. He's a big man, almost intimidatingly so—six foot two and broad-shouldered. This version isn't as powerfully muscled, or maybe I just can't tell beneath the black robes he wears.

Wait. Are these
priest's robes
?

“I have prayed and prayed,” Paul whispers. His gray eyes search mine, and I wish I didn't recognize how lost he looks. How alone. “Surely I cannot abandon the vows I made to God. And yet if he did not want me to marry as other men do—to feel desire, and love—why would he have brought me to you?”

Even without knowing any more of the story, this is enough to make me melt. This world's Marguerite must be as in love with him as he is with her, or else they wouldn't have had this conversation before. That makes it okay for me to say, “We're brought together by a power greater than either of us. Something bigger than our own world.”

It's not just a romantic saying; it's scientific fact.

Paul breathes out heavily like a man struggling. I wonder what his life has been like here—born in Russia, surely. Back in the Middle Ages, lots of children were more or less given to the church when they were small, so they had no real choice about whether to enter the priesthood or convent or whatever; if Paul's already taken vows one month after his twentieth birthday, that must be what happened to him. Perhaps he traveled to Rome to serve the pope. Then he met
the inventors' daughter, and everything changed.