Tether (20 page)

“I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It had been cut recently, probably when he arrived at the Labyrinth. He kneaded the back of his neck. I wished I could say something to make him feel better, assure him everything would be fine in a way that made some kind of difference. Thomas worried about me, and he worried about Juliana, and he worried
about the world and everyone in it. I wanted to be a source of comfort, not concern. I wanted him to know I could take care of myself and him, too.

“You do?”

“I trust your instincts,” Thomas said. “Sometimes I think I trust them more than my own.”

“So what’s the deal with this woman?” I asked. “Philomena Dryden.”

“Like I said, she was a KES agent. She retired a couple of years ago. When my communication permissions were reinstated, the first person I contacted was Dr. Moss,” Thomas explained. “He told me to go to her if I needed any help, gave me a code phrase that would prove to her we were on the same side. She lives here at Gorman’s Gate.”

“You keep saying ‘Gorman’s Gate’ like I’m supposed to know what that means.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget you’re not from here. Gorman’s Gate is the site of the last battle of the Second Revolution. It’s mostly just a field, but the property is privately owned, and Agent Dryden is in hiding here. That’s why I have to go alone. She won’t talk to us if she sees a whole bunch of agents pile out of a KES vehicle onto her front lawn.”

“Got it. How far is it?”

“Just up ahead, I think.”

“Why did you need me to come along?”

“What, that back there wasn’t a good enough reason?” He grinned. I touched my lips. I could still feel the imprint of his mouth on mine.

“You didn’t know I was going to do that.”

“Hey, if you hadn’t, I was going to. Besides, I always need you,” he said, smiling shyly. I gave him an affectionate shove.
“I think Agent Dryden had something to do with the many-worlds project. I figure she’s more likely to help us if I bring an analog straight to her front door.”

“So I’m the bait?”

“Well … sort of. Do you mind?”

“I guess not,” I said. I’d been used for worse things. At least this earned me some one-on-one time with Thomas.

“All we need is food and shelter for the night.” He seemed far away, suddenly, lost deep in thought. “We have to be at full strength when we go after Juliana.”

“And then what?” I still wasn’t clear about his goals in all this.

“And then you choose,” Thomas said, so quietly I almost asked him to repeat himself. “Whatever you want, Sasha, that’s what I want.”

“I thought you said you’d never lie to me.” He wasn’t giving me the whole truth. I knew him well enough to figure that out.

“I’m not lying.”

“Those people back there,” I said. “Your buddies. They’re not here to help me. They want to put Juliana back on the throne. But she can’t take back the crown and go to Taiga with me and Selene, not at the same time.” Not to mention the fact that from what I knew of Juliana, she wouldn’t want to do either of those things.

“Honestly, Sasha, I don’t care what they want. They’re my friends and my colleagues. I like them, and I respect them, but I’m on your side. Yours. No one else’s. I’m here to protect you. I’m here to help
you.
Because I
love
you.”

Love.
Love.
Thomas just said that he loved me. I knew I should say it back—I felt it, didn’t I? But for some reason I couldn’t make my mouth form the words.

“Why?” It was just one word, but it was so hard to get out. Saying it made me feel small and vulnerable. I needed to know what made me different from Selene or Juliana—or Adele or Cora or any other girl in any other world. It was embarrassing, but I did wonder.
Love
was a scary word, too. A big word, big feeling. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve it.

Thomas laughed. “Why what? Why you? I could tell you, but I don’t think we have that kind of time. It would take me—There are so many reasons. You’re brave and you’re smart and you’re fragile and you’re strong and you’re resilient and you’re so … beautiful. Sometimes I can’t even look at you, because when I do, my heart does this thing where it swells up and pushes against my lungs and I can’t breathe.”

“You know two other people who look exactly like me.” It was hard to keep my voice from trembling. I hated myself for feeling insecure about Juliana,
still,
after everything that had happened. But I couldn’t shake this horrible feeling that he thought he was in love with me because I looked like her.

“I wasn’t talking about looks.” He placed his hand over my heart. “I was talking about this.”

He bent to kiss me; the heat of our connection traveled through my body, warming me as the last of the evening light vanished. It was pitch black out there in the country, and the aurora waved like an old friend, stretching and gliding across the dark sky. We pulled apart, breathless, then fell together again. It all felt so urgent. Moments like this were few and far between, and even this one would end too soon.

“You’re my true north, Sasha,” Thomas said, kissing one cheek, and then the other. I closed my eyes. I knew what he meant about his heart swelling up so much he couldn’t breathe. It was happening to me right then. “You’re the only
person who’s never let me down.
That
is why I love you.” He didn’t seem upset that I wasn’t ready to say it back. He didn’t question me or try to coax the words out of me. He just kissed me. And kissed me. And—

And then a shot rang out, echoing like an explosion through the dark, dark night.

“You have five seconds to tell me who you are and what you’re doing on my property before I blow your pretty little heads off.”

Thomas and I put our hands up in surrender.

“My name is Thomas Mayhew,” Thomas said. “Dr. Moss sent me.”

There was a tense pause, and then a middle-aged woman stepped out of the shadows, brandishing a rifle. The bright, round moon made her blond pixie-cut hair glow almost silver. “Moss gave you my location?”

“He said to tell you he’d seen the face of God,” Thomas said.

What the hell did that mean? Thomas spoke the code phrase in a strange, uncertain way that made me think Dr. Moss hadn’t explained. Dr. Moss didn’t strike me as the type of person who believed in God—like Granddad, science was his one true religion—but the words meant something to Dryden. Her expression softened into something like relief, and she let out a stream of air through her nostrils.

“Mayhew? Any relation to—”

“I’m his son,” Thomas said. “But I’m not loyal to him. I’m
loyal to this country and to the people I pledged to serve. I think, unless I’ve been misinformed, you feel the same way.”

The woman’s eyes widened as they came to rest on me. “Your Highness,” she said softly, lowering her weapon. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that was you.”

Thomas began to speak, but I interrupted him. I wanted to say this for myself. “I’m not the princess Juliana, Agent Dryden. My name is Sasha Lawson. I’m Juliana’s analog. From Earth.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “I see. Come inside. We have much to discuss.”

“I have a team with me,” Thomas told her. “They’re waiting for us down the road. We’re all on the same side. We need sleep and food. We’ll stay with you for just one night, I promise.”

“This team,” Dryden said. “You trust them?”

Thomas nodded. I stared at him, wondering if that was true. But my instincts told me to have faith. There was still so much I didn’t understand about how his world worked and his place in it.

“All right,” Dryden said. “Bring them in.”

The house at Gorman’s Gate was smaller inside than it seemed from the outside. All nine of us, counting Agent Dryden—or Constance Winger, as she called herself now—crammed into the tiny kitchen, sitting at the table or perched at the edge of countertops. Thomas stood in the doorway, watching everyone with incredible focus. Dryden couldn’t take her eyes off Selene and me. We’d explained as much as we could, and because of her work on the many-worlds project, she understood what we were, but knowing isn’t the same as believing. It was weird, but I was getting used to being stared at like that. As if we were something more—or less—than human.

“So what’s your plan?” she asked.

“The princess is in the Tattered City,” Thomas said. “With the prince of Farnham. They’re hiding at the house of one of Juliana’s friends, but she’s made contact with the Castle, so we need to get to her before they do.”

“Why? If the whole point of this escapade is to put Juliana on the throne, isn’t the Castle exactly where she should be?”

“Not while the General is still in command,” Adele put in. “If she takes over the regency now, he’ll just use her as a puppet. We need to protect and hide Juliana while the Rowanites work to destabilize him.”

“Rowanites?” asked Selene. All eyes fell on her. “What are those?”

“People loyal to the Crown. The General has been taking advantage of the king’s weaknesses for decades in order to get a stranglehold on the country,” Dryden said. “It’s worsened since the queen’s regency. The only way to end this hideous war is to remove the General from power and place it in the hands of someone who can really lead us.”

“And you think that person is Juliana?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure she’s your best bet.” She had no more desire to rule the UCC than I did—less, maybe. At least I’d given it a shot, insofar as I could. But apart from Thomas and maybe Selene, nobody in that room knew that Juliana had betrayed her country, and it was probably for the best that it stay that way.

“She’s our only bet,” Rocko said, scoffing at my stupidity. “Eligible heirs to the throne aren’t exactly thick on the ground.”

“Well,” Dryden said, more as an afterthought than anything else, “there is the bastard.”

Rocko rolled his eyes. “I said
eligible
heirs.”

“Wait, what? What bastard?” I asked.

“That’s just a rumor,” Thomas said.

“Oh no, it isn’t,” Dryden replied. “The king had a child out of wedlock, long before Juliana was born, before he even married her mother. A son: Christopher Turner.”

“Not Kit Turner?” Thomas came closer and put his hands on the back of my chair, leaning forward with sudden interest.

“So you have heard of him.”

“Uh, yeah, everybody’s heard of him,” Navin piped up. “I wouldn’t exactly call him regent material.”

“Who’s Kit Turner?” I asked.

“Only the biggest traitor the KES has ever seen,” Tim said. “He was a legend in the Service, probably one of the best shadow agents we ever had—until he got caught leaking intelligence to Libertas and the General locked him up in the Labyrinth indefinitely, with no trial. He was there for years, but eventually he escaped.”

I remembered Thomas’s saying that only one person had ever escaped the Labyrinth before. “Do you think the king helped him?”

Dryden barked out a laugh. “Certainly
not.
Turner was always making trouble for the king. He was … ambitious. He thought he should be crown prince, ahead of Juliana. He practically blackmailed the king into securing him a spot in the KES and helping him advance quicker than he should have, and then he spat in the king’s face and sold the country’s secrets to the highest bidder. Likely he thought that if he couldn’t have the throne, no one should have it.”

“Does Juliana know any of this?” I asked Thomas. Juliana had also given up her country’s secrets—one of them, at least—to Libertas in exchange for something she wanted.
I wondered if he was the one who’d given her the idea in the first place. “Has she met him?”

He shook his head. “She knows he exists, but the king never let Turner anywhere near her or his other children.”

“What happened to him?” Selene asked.

Thomas shrugged. “Nobody knows. He just disappeared.”

Dryden stood. “All right, I assume you’re hungry, and most of you look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet. Let’s get some food in you and call it a night. Can’t have you searching for the princess on half speed.”

I was halfway done with my sandwich when I looked over at Thomas and realized I’d never actually seen him eat a meal. When I was in Aurora before, he lived and slept and did all his normal human things in the Tower, far away from me. There was so much I hadn’t done with him and didn’t know about him. There are a million different little things that make up a person, and I felt that I had missed so much.

Thomas noticed me watching and smiled, touching his knee to mine under the table. I wished I could spend more time alone with him. If I went along with Selene’s plan, it meant separating from Thomas, at least for a while. Selene had no interest in bringing strangers into her universe. Who knew when we would see each other again?

After dinner, Dryden showed us where we’d be sleeping. Her bedroom was on the first floor, and there were three spares on the second: Cora and Adele were assigned to one, Selene and I to another, and Navin and Tim were sharing the third. Rocko and Sergei flopped on couches in the living room, and Thomas took the tiny attic alcove, which was big enough for just one person. We took turns showering. The hot needles of water worked miracles on the knotted muscles in my back and shoulders.