food past the lump in my throat. Instead, I looked around the kitchen, cluttered and warm and familiar. If we won, we could come back here. If not, this was the last time I’d see the apple-green walls, the chipped sink, and the pictures of Simon stuck to the fridge. The last time I would see Amelia.
She frowned. “If you’re sure— Iggy! Down! Bad dog!”
Iggy dropped to the floor, mouth full of sausage links, too blissed-out to look ashamed. I cocked my head at Simon in a silent question—had he asked her about Gil’s part of the map chord?
He shook his head and reached down to pat Iggy, ignoring my scowl. We were running out of time.
And then I understood. The longer he put off asking Amelia for the frequency, the longer he could pretend this was his life.
“What is it?” Amelia said, glancing between us. Neither of us replied. I stared at the toes of my boots, unable to meet her eyes, hearing the quaver in her voice. “You’re leaving, aren’t you? But you just got here.”
The chair creaked as Simon shifted his weight. The tension smothering the room made it clear she wasn’t talking to me. Simon stared at his half-eaten stack of pancakes.
“Amelia . . . ,” I said, trying to catch Simon’s eye. He refused to look at me. “I told you that I found a message from Rose. Part of a frequency.”
“I remember.” She twisted her ring nervously.
“I thought Monty had the other half. But I was wrong. He had one third.”
Her hands fell to her lap.
“And so do you,” I said. “Gil gave you his key, didn’t he? To pass along to Simon.”
She tried to smile. “He knew you’d come for it eventually.”
Something clicked inside me, like a tile in a mosaic. If Gil had known, so had she: A Simon other than the one she’d raised would return.
“But we looked,” Simon protested. “We’ve checked everywhere.”
“All you had to do was ask,” she said. “I always loved to watch him Walk. He would reach into the air and find another world. It was like magic. You have his hands, you know.”
Simon looked at his fingers as if he’d never seen them before.
Gently she slipped off her wedding ring and ran her thumb around the edge. Then she held it out to him, a gold circle shining at the center of her palm.
“Your wedding ring?”
“I never take it off,” she said. “I’d imagine my Echoes feel the same way. Go ahead.”
He took it and inspected the inner surface. “The frequency’s engraved.”
She laughed. “The clerk at the jewelry store thought we were a very strange couple.”
“You played dumb when I asked you about the frequency,” I said, unaccountably hurt. “Why would you lie?”
“I’m tired of sacrificing the people I love. I thought if I kept quiet, you’d be kept safe.”
“What changed your mind?” Simon asked.
“You won’t change yours.” She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “I’ll sacrifice whatever I have to, if it gives you a fighting chance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE BEST LIES REQUIRE BELIEF—BOTH the deceived’s and the deceiver’s. You have to become the person you’re pretending to be, so that your actions are second nature, as smooth and fluid as a magician’s scarf. The barest hesitation will break the spell.
That’s how Monty had lasted so long. He wasn’t playing the addled grandfather—he was the addled grandfather. He’d found that facet of himself and polished it to a high gleam, blinding us to his other aspect, the Monty who was driven and desperate and shrewd.
Even now he was teaching me. When I entered CCM, I let myself be the Del I needed Lattimer to see: young, scared, and in over her head.
Because it was the truth. Just not the whole truth.
“I trust your parents have given the school a plausible excuse,” Lattimer said when he met me in the sublevel’s arctic hallway.
“Probably. School isn’t exactly my priority these days, sir.”
“Not a priority, but important nevertheless. We have neither the time nor the resources to devote to the more mundane aspects of your education.”
I could never figure out if Lattimer bought his own lies. Was he so convinced that the Walkers were doing the right thing, he genuinely believed the Free Walkers were a threat to the Key World? Or was he more concerned with keeping his hold on power, on letting his view of the world stay intact? It’s hard work, rebuilding your beliefs when they’ve been smashed into dust. I could almost—not entirely, but almost—understand how