and find a way to listen to their conversation, but the hallway went straight to the elevator with no bends or curves or alcoves to hide an eavesdropper, so she stayed where she was.
“I call the church room,” Esther said at once.
“Go for it,” Matt said, glancing at Sloane.
Surely he wouldn’t want to share one.
He turned and walked into the room filled with carved wood.
Sloane’s room, her only option, was white: white walls, white sheets, a wood floor painted white. But when she slid her fingers into the wide seams between wall panels, she discovered drawers, a small closet, and a hidden bookshelf. The last occupant had left a few books there: The Manifestation of Impossible Wants: A New Theory of Magic; A Society Divided: The Cold War Between Magic and Science; and The Mysterious Magical History of the Throat Siphon. Sloane was just weighing the last one in her palm when someone knocked.
“Team meeting,” Esther said. “My room.”
Sloane set the book down, leaving the white wall panel open. When she went next door, Esther was already sitting on the bed, her back against its elaborately carved headboard. Matt was tapping on one of the stained-glass windows as if testing its stability. His face was dotted with multicolored lights in the shape of the Virgin Mary.
Sloane leaned against the base of one of the flying buttresses.
“So,” Matt said. He looked weary. “Thoughts, anyone?”
The request was a cue for her to tumble right back into the person she had been when they first fought the Dark One. She found herself speaking.
“The overlap between our universe and this one seems to be substantial,” she said. “I saw a lot of familiar buildings on the drive to the Drain site. My guess is there’s a relatively recent point of departure between this world and ours.”
Esther looked lost, so Matt explained. “There’s a theory in quantum physics that there is an infinite number of possibilities for how any event might turn out, and each of those possibilities creates a different universe. Think of it like . . . a fork in the road. You could go down either path, so there’s a universe where you choose left, and another universe where you choose right. Slo’s saying that the fork in the road for Genetrix and Earth happened pretty recently.”
“Is that good?” Esther asked.
“I think so,” Sloane said. “It means a lot of things will be familiar.”
“Except—and I feel like this is a pretty crucial point that you’re downplaying right now—we don’t know how to get home,” Esther said. “And they do. So we’re trapped.”
“I’m not downplaying it,” Sloane said. “I’m saying it’s good that if we had to end up in a parallel universe, it’s one where people speak English and aren’t, like, growing a third nostril or sleeping in vats of goo or something.”
Esther snorted, and they all fell silent for a moment.
“They were surprised by how many of us came out of that river,” Sloane said. “They expected only one. A parallel Chosen One.”
“Yeah, could you have claimed that title any faster, Matt, by the way?” Esther said.
Sloane crossed the room and opened one of the windows. A gust of cool air hit her face, making her shiver. Across the street was a building made of brown stone with a row of columns set into it. City Hall. She heard the rush of cars across pavement and the roar of a distant train in motion. It sounded like the Chicago Sloane knew.
When she turned back, Matt was shrugging. “Sloane getting pissed didn’t seem to be helping, so I decided to be cooperative instead.”
“Sorry for being a little startled that we got sucked into another dimension,” Sloane snapped.
“Startled.” Matt raised his eyebrows. “That’s one word for it. Hostile is another.”
“Hey,” Esther said, sounding tired. “We need a united front if we’re going to get through this.” She bit her lip. “Are we really gonna do this?” Her stare was blank, fixed on the opposite wall—or something beyond it. “Fight the Dark One again?”
“We did it before.” Matt’s head was framed by the stained-glass window, so it looked as if the Virgin Mary were gazing down at him, her eyes half closed, the very picture of serenity. “And we learned a lot from it. We can do it again—better this time, maybe.”
“No,” Sloane said. “No, we won’t be fucking better at it.”
Matt was ready with an objection. “Slo—”
“No! I’m not going to stand here and let you give us a pep talk when we’re