“It’s okay,” the woman whispered back. She wrapped her arms around Lily and held her close. Lily tucked her face into her neck and relaxed. Whoever this other Juliet was, she smelled just right and her hug was full of the same familiar mix of worry and tenderness that Lily recognized as her sister’s. “Let’s get you back to your rooms.”
Juliet led Lily down the hallway to a spiral stone staircase that seemed to lead up to the top of the keep. Lily clenched Juliet’s hand in hers, urging her along. She wanted to wait for the two of them to be alone before she started to speak about what had happened—if she ever found the words to describe it at all.
They got halfway down the hallway of the topmost floor before Juliet stopped. She placed her hand lightly on the surface of a huge door. The small, pinkish stone on her neck flashed, its surface coruscating with lights, and the door, which was twelve feet tall and at least a foot thick, swung open effortlessly. Just like the portcullis had. Like magic, Lily thought.
“How did you do that?” The words flew out of Lily before she could snatch them back. Juliet’s brow furrowed, and she grabbed Lily’s arm with a rough shake.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice low.
“She is me,” croaked a worn-out but still hauntingly familiar voice.
“W-what?” Juliet stammered. She didn’t understand what was going on any better than Lily did.
“It’s alright. I brought her here, with her consent, of course. Couldn’t do it without her consent.…” The voice trailed off with exhaustion, and Lily saw a slender figure stand up from the edge of a giant gaping fireplace, which was easily larger than Lily’s garage back home. The fire had long since gone out, and the room was cold. Lily froze in the doorway, unwilling to enter.
“What have you done?” Juliet breathed. She looked at Lily, her jaw slack with fear as her eyes skipped over every aspect of Lily’s face and body.
“You’re not going to believe it, Juliet,” answered the girl. She picked up a silken robe and pulled it around her naked body. There was a sickly smell in the air, like flowers that had been left in old water for too long, their stems starting to rot. “I brought another version of me into this world,” she said, and then suddenly swooned.
“Lillian,” Juliet gasped. She crossed the room quickly to catch the girl and half carried her to the wide bed in the giant suite. Lily noticed that under the robe, the girl was covered in soot, as if she had been lying in the dirty fireplace. “This is insane. You are far too weak to go to the pyre. It could kill you.”
“As if I have a choice about that now. Which is why I brought her here.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Juliet asked in a strangled voice.
A tense moment passed between the sisters. The girl in the bed looked at Lily and waved for her to approach.
“Come in, Lily. That’s what you prefer to be called, isn’t it? I prefer Lillian.”
Lily entered the room as if drawn there by invisible hands. A creeping chill raised all the hairs on the back of her neck. Lillian had Lily’s voice, her hair, her body, even her way of moving. The clothes were different, and Lily desperately hoped that the cynical gleam she saw in Lillian’s eye was different as well, but apart from those small variations, there was no mistaking it. Lily was looking at herself. Not her mirror opposite, but her absolute double—right down to the swirl in her left eyebrow that made all the little hairs spike wildly in the wrong direction.
Lillian’s eyes darted down to Lily’s NO NUKES T-shirt, and she gave a wan smile. “I’ve watched you long enough to know that the important things inside of us are exactly the same.”
“You can’t be me,” Lily said, shaking her head as if that would change what her eyes were telling her. “I’m me.”
“You are me and I am you—we are versions of each other,” Lillian said. She raised a hand and held her thumb and forefinger apart by the most miniscule of distances. “In worlds that lie this close together, and yet never touch.”