“They named you after a train stop?” Simon said. “Wait. Addison? Montrose?”
“My family has a strange sense of humor,” I said weakly.
Simon raised his eyebrows. “Your family is strange, period.”
“All families are,” Amelia said, a hint of strain showing around her eyes. The teacup clinked as she set it down. “Chamomile makes me sleepy. I think I’ll turn in early, give you two some privacy.”
Simon clambered up. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “It was wonderful to finally meet you, Del. Promise you’ll come back again.”
Iggy padded along beside her as she left. Simon watched, worry etched around his mouth and eyes.
Finally, she’d said. As if he’d mentioned me before today. Before he knew the truth.
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah. She gets tired pretty fast.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” I said, and he dropped onto the ottoman, one leg on either side of mine.
“I’m glad you did. So is she. Besides,” he said, sliding his hand around my neck and drawing me in for a brief kiss, “she’s heard a lot about you.”
“You didn’t tell her about . . .”
“How could I explain it? And after you said it was impossible, there wasn’t any point.” He fit our hands together, his fingers twining with mine. “You said bringing back a treatment could do more harm than good. What changed?”
“Me,” I said. “If we do this, I have ground rules.”
He leaned back. “Never thought I’d hear you say that.”
Neither had I. “One, if it puts the Key World in danger, we stop. Two, if it puts either of you in danger, we stop.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Three, your mom has to be sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said quickly.
“Not you. Her. I can’t guarantee that I’ll find a treatment, but if I do, you have to tell her the risks, and she has to sign off on it. I won’t use my Walking to take away her choices.”
He bent his head, his words muffled. “Fine. Once we find a cure—if we do—how do we get it back here?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s fine to bring things from the Key World to Echoes. When I Walk, I leave stars behind. They’re so small, hardly anyone notices them—we call them breadcrumbs, because we can use them to find our way home if we get lost.”
“Does that happen?”
“My grandmother,” I said after a minute. “A few months before I was born, she went out for a Walk, and she never came back. That’s when Monty started to lose it. It’s why we left New York—to take care of him.”
He brushed his lips over the back of my hand. “I didn’t know it was dangerous.”
“We navigate by listening to the differences in frequencies. That’s why we’ve got such good hearing, but the sound wears us down after a while. It’s not bad in limited amounts, but if you stay too long, it starts to scramble your brain. The longer you stay, the worse it gets. That’s why we usually go with a partner.”
“Like Eliot.”
Not anymore. “My grandmother went out alone. People do it, especially on short Walks. But she disappeared.”
“You don’t think she left on purpose?” He sounded skeptical.
“No. We think she got disoriented, and the farther she Walked, the more lost she got. The Consort—our leaders—sent people to look for her. My grandfather is still looking. But she’s gone. There’s no tracking someone through the multiverse after so much time.”
He squeezed my leg, the contact scorching even through my jeans. “At least she didn’t bail on you guys.”
Unlike his dad. “How long ago did he leave?”
He grimaced. “I was three days old. I have it on good authority that I was a delightful infant, so I guess he wasn’t cut out for fatherhood.”
“I’m sure you were adorable,” I said.
“I really was.”
Something buzzed at the back of my mind, a warning prickle, and I tried to focus on it. But Simon kissed me again, and it slipped away like water through cupped hands.
“You said medicine from an Echo might hurt her. How are we going to get around that?” he asked.
“I think the trick is not to bring the drugs themselves. That way we’re not introducing a new frequency to the Key World. I could track down the formula, and then we could. . . .” I trailed off. We could what? Open an illegal pharmaceutical lab? Find a chem major at the university who was willing to experiment? And what if it wasn’t medicine, but a surgery? What if I’d given Simon a second round of false hope? “I’ll find a way.”
“We’ll find a way,” he said.
“You can’t go with me,” I reminded him. “And if there’s a problem with the frequencies overlapping, I’m calling it off. I can’t put you or the Key World in danger, even if it means you hate me for the rest of my life.”
“You’re risking your own life to help her,” he said. “How could I possibly hate you?”
I shrugged. Easy for him to say that when he didn’t know what I’d done. “Just so we’re clear.”
“Crystal,” he said, and kissed me again, pulling me onto his lap, one hand sliding along my back, his lips tracing my ear. “Take me with you.”
“You tried, remember?” I sat up, braced my hands against the wall of his chest. “You couldn’t follow me through.”
“You could help me,” he said. “Like a guide. Come on, Del. Pretend I’m a breadcrumb.”
“I’m not a guide,” I said, tugging the hem of my shirt back into place. “And you’re not a breadcrumb.”
Simon wasn’t the way home. He was home.
“What’s the worst that could happen? I get left in the equipment closet again?”
“I don’t know what the worst is. I don’t know how the frequency would affect you. The equipment closet was a terrible location, by the way.”
“It lacked ambiance, but I enjoyed it.” His hand inched along my thigh.
I smacked him. “For Walking. It’s easier when the pivots are established.”
“So we’ll find one that’s established.”
“You passed a bunch of them the other night at the Depot, and you never noticed. It won’t work.” But part of me wondered. I’d learned to Walk by holding on to Monty’s hand and letting him lead me through Echoes. My dad’s team had carried him back unconscious.
“One try. If I can’t cross, I won’t bug you again. If I can, and there’s a problem, we’ll come back right away.” His touch made me light-headed. “Let’s go break some rules.”
Twenty minutes later we were sitting in the Depot’s half-full parking lot, staring at the train crash’s memorial.
“How does it work?” he asked in a low voice.
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know. Felt like a whispering kind of moment. Clandestine.”
“Everything with you is clandestine,” I said.
“It doesn’t need to be. You want to announce to the school we’re together, I’m more than fine with it.”
“One thing at a time, okay?” Bree’s reaction didn’t worry me nearly as much as the Consort’s.
I climbed out, Eliot’s map in hand. The edges of pivot points caught on my coat, stronger than before. We needed a large, stable rift, one I could cross without much concentration. No sense making this more difficult than necessary.
“You have to hold on to me.” I checked the screen and headed for the far end of the parking lot. “Don’t let go, even for a second.”
“Got it.” He gave me a smile that tilted toward nervous, and took my hand in his.