Simon always had a girl on his arm. Frequently blond, typically adorable, and almost never serious. Probably Bree was no different. Until I saw the way her free hand toyed with the collar of his shirt—playful on the surface and possessive at the core.
“No time like the present,” I said to Eliot, pushing away from our table. “Let’s take your new toy for a test run.”
“It’s not a toy,” he grumbled. “It’s a serious piece of scientific equipment.”
“It’s so shiny!” I trilled, bumping my hip into his. Turning away from Simon, I headed toward a group of drama kids abuzz about tryouts for the winter play. A dozen pinpricks of light sprang up on the screen.
“There,” he said, pointing to one of the circles. “Something’s different.”
“Somebody changed their mind about auditioning?” I murmured.
“Probably. Tryouts spawn a lot of pivots—so many possible choices.” He gestured to the twinkling display.
“It’s like a cheat sheet.” Only I wasn’t breaking any rules, for once in my life.
He zoomed out on the map and pointed. “Over there, see? This circle’s getting bigger.” I followed him out the doors to the water fountain. The rent in the air was easy to see, if you squinted. Without thinking, I brushed my fingers over the edge. The vibration felt as though it was calling to me.
“What triggered it?”
He peered at the map, then around the hall, nudging his glasses up again. “Not sure.”
“Let’s go look.”
Eliot groaned. “No way. What if we get caught?”
“Who would catch us?” The hallway was practically deserted, and it was such a strange sight—a person disappearing into thin air—most Originals assumed they hadn’t been looking close enough.
“We have class in five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” I said. “Add three more for passing period, that’s eight. Bet I could find the source in eight minutes.”
“Del . . .” He stopped fiddling with the phone.
“See you in eight,” I said, and slipped through the gap.
The Echo looked identical, and the frequency warbled, gradually shifting away from the Key World like a violin part played by a cello. As events here diverged from the Key World, the threads of this reality would settle into place, taking on their final resonance.
I scanned the room, looking for clues to explain why this world had branched off ours.
Finally I spotted it: Beneath the water fountain was a stack of note cards, right where Eliot had been standing. They must have fallen out when their owner stopped for a drink. I picked them up, and the key change traveled up my arm.
Notes for a test, I figured, looking at the neat lines of chemical equations in a round, cheerful hand. If there’d been words instead of symbols on the cards, little hearts would have dotted the Is.
I’d never tracked the source of a pivot before. Would it sound different from the rest of the Echo? Louder? Would it be unstable, like a break? Easy enough to find out, and I set off for the science wing, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Del!” Eliot called behind me.
“Glad you could make it.”
“It’s dangerous to Walk by yourself,” he said when he’d caught up. “What if something goes wrong?”
“You worry too much.” Eliot’s preference for navigation over Walking wasn’t only because his brain was wired like a supercomputer. His mom ran one of the Consort homes for elderly Walkers, the kind my mom wanted to send Monty to. Eliot had grown up witnessing the toll our abilities took. I looped my arm through his. “Besides, you’re looking out for me. Safest Walk in the world.”
“Why do I let you talk me into this?” he asked as we set off. He twisted to avoid the streams of people filling the hallway.
“Because I am irresistible. Who’s giving a chem test today?”
“Doc Reese,” he said. “I heard someone talking about it in lit this morning.”
“Time to see Doc Reese.” The bell rang, and we flinched.
“We’ll be late for music. Again. I hate being late.”
“Then we’d better hurry.” We dashed through the halls, until he pulled on my elbow so hard I staggered.
“Here. This is longer than eight minutes.”
People filed past us, and I wove around them, trying to avoid the contact that would draw their attention. Inside the classroom kids were settling into place, pulling out pencils, calculators, and . . . yep. Note cards.
Doc Reese stood behind the table at the head of the room, sporting his usual lab coat and bow tie. His bony hands clutched a thick sheaf of papers. “The sooner you’re seated, the sooner we’ll start,” he said, his voice doleful.
The cards vibrated in my hand, gaining strength as the frequency crescendoed. I peered through the narrow window, studying the back of every girl in the room. They were perched on their lab stools like brightly colored birds, arranging pencils and reviewing notes—except for one girl, crouched on the floor, frantically emptying her backpack. “Bingo. Third row, left side.”
Eliot checked the map again. “Great. Time’s up.”
I shook off his arm. “What if I gave her back the cards? What would happen?”
“We’d be even more tardy.”
“Five minutes,” I said. “Think of it as an experiment.”
He scowled, but didn’t stop me.
The room smelled of sulfur and nerves. I eased past the kids lined up at the pencil sharpener, dropping the cards a foot away from the girl’s backpack. Her pitch grew sharper as I waited for her to notice.
Panic must have blinded her. She dug through her bag with staccato movements. Her sniffles were audible behind her curtain of light brown hair. The second bell sounded, and Eliot waved wildly from the doorway, pointing to his watch.
So much for limited interference. I touched her shoulder. “You dropped something.”
She lifted her head, red-rimmed eyes startled. I pointed to the note cards, and she fell on them with a squeal. “Oh my God! Thank you!”
“No problem,” I said, but she was too focused on the cards to respond.
Doc Reese, on the other hand, spotted me. “Can I help you?”
“Just leaving,” I said, backing out the door.
“The pitch is changing,” Eliot said. Onscreen, the dot of light was folding in on itself like a collapsing star.
“Because of the note cards?”
“Must be. It started right after you handed them over. I didn’t think it was possible to alter an Echo’s frequency.”
“Me neither. It’s kind of cool,” I said as we headed down the corridor, my short legs struggling to keep up with his lanky ones. A strange quiver ran through the air.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, my steps slowing.
Eliot tapped the screen. “It’s reverting to the Key World frequency.”
I stopped. “Do not tell me we created a second Key World.”
“You’re good, Del. But not that good.” He scanned the hallway we’d come from. The lockers blurred and snapped back into focus, like adjusting a camera. The lines on Eliot’s forehead deepened, and fear sent a wave of dizziness crashing over me.
“Did I cleave it?”
“No,” he muttered. “It think it’s a transposition.”
Choices create worlds, but not every world is sustainable. When you decide between strawberry and blueberry yogurt for breakfast, odds are good your morning will play out exactly the same way. When that happens, the multiverse autocorrects, absorbing the new branch into the older, more established one. The same thing happened when Walkers made a choice—without an Echo to sustain the pivot, the branch reabsorbed into the Key World almost immediately. The effect was called transposition.