Chapter 2
Two
Elodie
My mind swims back into consciousness slowly, with the impression that I’m wearing the scratchiest of wool outfits. Only worse than wool, because the scratchy sensation is coming from under my skin rather than on top.
My mouth feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton balls. There’s a distant ringing in my ears, like when you’ve just left a concert where the music was blared way too loud. The air is cool and crisp, with a whiff that’s oddly… meaty?
It takes what seems like an hour before I can locate my eyelids and force them to blink. When I open them fully, all I can make out at first is wavering whiteness.
With several more blinks, the haze fades and the mottled blotches condense into more definite shapes. I assess the situation cautiously while testing my muscles with subtle flexing.
I’m lying on my back on a flat surface, uncomfortably hard against my shoulder blades. Birch-pale bookshelves line the wall to my left. A matching cabinet stands a short distance beyond my feet. The domed light overhead is framed by what looks like an antique bronze fixture.
Memories of alien abduction stories I’ve read flit through my mind, but I can’t imagine a spaceship looking so ordinary. I don’t think I’m about to be probed, at least.
Where the fuck am I? We don’t have any furniture this sleek or lights that fancy in our apartment. I don’t recognize anything around me.
Or anyone. The guys—where are my matches?
I jerk upright, and my brain lurches as if it’s been thrown into a spin cycle. Swaying, I clamp my mouth tight against a surge of nausea.
Then I catch sight of what’s lying on the table next to me, and I can’t stop myself from doubling over.
Tomato-soup-red vomit sears through my mouth and splatters the light beige floorboards. My stomach heaves, and heaves again, until all that comes up is clear spittle laced with the acid that’s burning my throat.
A sunny but cautious voice pipes up from behind me. “I’m sorry.”
I jerk around, every muscle tensing, but whatever’s happened to me has screwed with my reflexes. Another wave of dizziness nearly knocks me off the table. All I can do is clench the smooth steel edge to keep my balance and stare at the woman who spoke.
She twitches her hand past her billowy hair, tawny as a lion’s mane. Her mouth twists into an apologetic smile. From the lines at the corners of her lips, I’d guess she’s around forty.
She doesn’t look like much of a threat, all wide eyes and skinny limbs, I think a little shorter than me. But appearances can be deceiving.
I should know better than anyone.
Her frenetic voice babbles on. “I figured the trip would be hard on the body, but there wasn’t much I could do to ease the way. I didn’t even— Well. Don’t worry about the mess, anyway, not at all. I’ll get it cleaned up later.”
As if what I’d be worried about is the vomit I spewed on her floor.
My defensive instincts scream at me to pull into a crouch so I’ll be in a better position to maneuver, but from the way my head is reeling, I suspect I’ll end up sprawled on the ground if I try. Instead, I brace my hands and feet against the table.
My voice stings my raw throat. “Where am I? Who are you? How did you— What did you do with the guys? What the hell is going on?”
Another instinct tugs at me. I need to search for an escape route, for potential weapons…
My mind balks at turning my head. At the thought of getting another glimpse of—
The woman holds up her hands as if I’m a wild animal she’s attempting to tame. A shadow passes through her bright brown eyes.
I don’t think she was expecting me to react like this. How the fuck would anyone else react to finding themselves kidnapped in a strange room with a strange woman and—and—?
The woman speaks before I have to wrap my head around the worst of the strangeness. “You don’t recognize me. I never considered— Well. Of course it was possible. Ellie, I’m your Aunt Daphne.”
I snap to stiffer attention, unnervingly grateful to have a more specific puzzle to latch on to. “I’ve never seen you before in my life. No one calls me ‘Ellie,’ and I don’t have an aunt.”
Daphne’s forehead furrows. “Elodie, then, if that’s what you’d prefer. I suppose it is possible… Where you came from, is your father an only child?”
“My father? My father’s dead.”
But as I spit out that last word, a shock of cold sweeps through my body. Way back, when Dad was still with us—didn’t he tell me stories about his sister a few times?
A distant memory wavers up: drying fingerpaint itching at my face and arms, Dad’s buoyant guffaw. “It’s not so bad. Your Aunt Daphne smeared paint across our whole hallway back home when she was your age.”
Her face has tightened at my words. She’s older than Dad was before he died, but… his hair was the exact same shade of brown, wasn’t it, just shorter and tamer? His eyes were a deep green that I inherited, but wide set like hers, and the shape of her nose and jaw…
My fingers curl against the tabletop. Even if it’s true, her being family doesn’t justify her dragging me off to wherever the hell this is.
Daphne’s next words come out quiet. “He isn’t dead here.”
It takes several seconds for the statement to sink in. “What—what the fuck are you talking about?”
She’s insane. That’s the only explanation. I’ve been kidnapped by a madwoman, and radiants only know what she’s done with my matches, and—
Daphne steps closer to me but halts when I flinch. “I should have handled this better. It’s the first time— I’ve never stretched my magic anywhere near this far before. I wasn’t even sure it would work. Elodie, this isn’t the world you’re used to.”
Yeah, I’m still going with insane.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand.
Her tone turns almost breathless. “Did you know there are all kinds of parallel realities unfurling alongside our own? An infinite number, multiplying with every decision, every branch in a path—”
I finally manage to shift forward onto my feet without teetering. The briefest flick of my gaze shows me a door a few paces beyond the cabinet. “I don’t want a physics lecture. Just let me go.”
Daphne gives me a smile that seems impossibly sad. “I can’t, not until you understand. This isn’t your original reality. I reached through the strands, found you, and pulled you here.”
Not just insane. Batshit insane.
Sure, in my research into every oddity humanity has dreamed up, I’ve come across theories about alternate universes. That doesn’t mean I think it’s remotely possible a person could jump from one to another. We’re not in a Spider-Man movie.
My muscles coil, ready to spring. “Last chance. Get out of my way.”
My supposed aunt moves to the right. My gaze trails after her automatically, confirming the door that’s my likely way out—and snags on the mutilated form on the other table.
A fresh surge of nausea freezes me in place.
Somehow, Daphne’s face gets even sadder. “You saw before. Your mind had trouble accepting it. I needed her here to help me find you.”
Her. A twisted leg, a length of split flesh with fragments of bone poking through. Hips caved in on one side. Chest a mass of bloody shreds of fabric and gleams of splintered ribs.
The meaty odor congeals in my nose. Clenching my jaw so hard it aches, I force myself to look all the way to her face.
My face.
Whatever happened to this woman, it barely damaged her head. Blood flecks her cheeks, and more is matted into a patch of her dark brown hair, but she’s still perfectly recognizable.
Her vacant eyes, dark green muddied by an inner ring of brown, match the ones I see in the mirror every day. The slope of her nose, the curve of her cheekbones, the slightly knobby chin… She’s a perfect replica.
No, not exactly perfect. Through the blare of bewildered horror, my attention catches on the ashy highlights streaked artfully through this woman’s hair—a style I’ve never attempted. A plum shade of lipstick I’ve never worn darkens her lips.
Me, but not quite. A little different.
Like I might have been in some other reality that branched off in a different direction…
Daphne starts talking again. “It happened just a few hours ago. She was out—I don’t know what she was doing. She called me, said she thought someone was following her, that she was nervous. She asked me to come pick her up.”
Her voice falters. She drags in a shaky breath before she continues. “When I got to the corner she told me she’d be waiting on, I found her on the sidewalk like this. Hit by a car. It must have been on purpose. She was gone. There was nothing I could do. Nothing except… this. You.”
Daphne’s gaze flicks back to me with a bizarre sort of hope, as if she thinks I might have some idea what to do next after her explanation.
I’m still not discounting the “batshit insane” conclusion. I don’t want to believe any of this.
But… if she’s insane, and I’m seeing another version of myself lying dead and mangled on a table, have I gone batshit too?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Because no matter how far away she stole me from or by what magic, it doesn’t change that she did.
Anger surges up in my chest, searing hot.
It spills onto my tongue. “What am I supposed to do about it? This has nothing to do with me. You’re telling me you yanked me from my world, my home, my— You have to send me back!
My matches will be freaking out—I was right there with them—you didn’t hurt them, did you? ”
Daphne stares at me. “Your matches,” she says faintly. “You already sparked with them?”
How can she not—
My head snaps around. There were so many more horrific aspects to take in, I didn’t pay attention to the other Elodie’s hands before. But there they lie, limp at the end of disjointed arms.
Covered in delicate leather gloves, more crimson than dove-gray now.
I wrench my gaze to my own hand, whipping the right one off the table as if I’ve burned it. My breath stalls in my throat.
An unmarred palm meets my eyes. I can’t pick out any trace of my bond mark.