Paul was their research assistant for only a year and a half—but they loved him more than any of the others. He practically lived at our house or in their classes, 24/7. They loaned him books, fussed when he didn’t have a jacket in winter, even baked him a birthday cake—chocolate with caramel icing, his favorite.
Theo Beck worked just as hard for them. They were never unkind to Theo; I’ve always felt like he belonged, and he’s definitely more fun than strange, watchful Paul. Theo’s black hair is always a little bit wild, everything is a joke to him, and okay, he flirts with me some, but I don’t think Mom and Dad ever minded. I’m not even sure they noticed. So Theo should have been equally beloved.
But Paul is smarter. More unique. He’s one step over the line that separates “extraordinarily intelligent” from “genius.” I could also tell that Mom and Dad thought Paul needed them more. Theo is cocky; Paul is shy. Theo cracks jokes; Paul seems melancholy. So Paul brought out their protective side in a way Theo never could. Sometimes, I knew, when Theo saw how my parents devoted themselves to Paul, he was jealous.
Maybe sometimes I felt jealous myself.
Within twenty minutes of arriving at the luncheon, I’ve been introduced to the duchess’s niece Romola, the one at Chanel. She’s not a designer there, merely a publicist, but as Aunt Susannah says, “Every connection helps, right?”
Surprisingly, Romola doesn’t treat me like a leech; instead she latches on to me. “We’re going to have fun,” she whispers. “About time someone interesting showed up.”
Ten minutes after that, I’m in the bathroom watching Romola do a line of coke. She offers me some, and I decline, but I suspect this dimension’s Marguerite would say yes without a second thought.
So fifteen minutes later, when Romola offers me champagne—at two in the afternoon—I say yes. If I’m going to be convincing as this Marguerite I need to play the part.
Aunt Susannah watches me start drinking, and she doesn’t say a word. I guess she’s used to it.
This party is the weirdest thing, simultaneously upper-crust and tacky. Cosmetic surgery has warped the faces of every woman over thirty; they don’t look younger, just not quite human in a way society has decided to pretend not to see. Half of the people are talking more to the holograms from their rings or badges than they are to the people around them. What conversation I can hear is mostly gossip: who’s shagging who, who’s making money, who’s losing it, who’s not invited to the next party like this.
Maybe the technology is different, but the shallowness of the scene is probably universal. So this is the life my father escaped when he chose to go into science, to leave Great Britain and join Mom in California. He was even smarter than I knew.
Here’s to you, Dad, I think as I grab another glass of champagne.
Seven hours after the luncheon, I’m behind the wheel of Romola’s car—a shiny silver teardrop that actually drives itself, which is good, considering how tipsy I already am. Romola herself is telling me about the amazing clubs we’re going to hit tonight. We’ve hung out all day. She acts like we’re friends now, like she’s going to get me an internship at Chanel. I know and she knows that we’re both just using this as an excuse to get wasted. I don’t think she’d let me ditch her if I tried.
I hate this. I’d rather go home, throw up, and pass out, preferably in that order.
But every time I look out at the dark, jagged, futuristic London in front of me, I remember that Paul is here. I remember that we have to meet again, and what I have to do when that happens. There’s no way out—not for him, and not for me.
Paul would say it was our destiny.
“What are you trying to do?” Theo said one time, glaring across the table at Paul. The pieces that would become the very first Firebird prototype were strewn between them, across the rainbow table. “The minute Sophia gets vindicated, you want to turn her into a laughingstock again?”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. I’d come in from piano lessons, and I quickly ditched my sheet music so I’d look less like a kid. Theo is only three and a half years older than me, Paul only two; they were the first of the grad students I’d ever thought of as being more like me than like my parents. I wanted them to think of me the same way. “Why would people be laughing at Mom?”
Paul’s gray eyes glanced up to meet mine for only one second before he went back to his work. “It’s not her theory. It’s mine. I take responsibility.”
Theo leaned back in his chair as he gestured toward Paul with his thumb. “This one is ready to risk his scientific credibility—and his adviser’s, no matter what he says—by arguing that destiny is real.”
“Destiny?” That sounded weirdly . . . romantic from a guy like Paul.