our relationship—which wasn’t really a relationship at all, just a series of brain-melting hookups—to be with my Simon. But like every other time I’d messed around with the multiverse, my plan went sideways. The Original Simon had seen the breakup. He’d seen everything. Half-Walker himself, he saw through his Echoes’ eyes any time they interacted with a Walker. All the times I’d kissed this Simon, the real one had experienced it as a dream; when he found out, I’d nearly lost him.
Now, maybe I could use it to find him.
“Simon.” I laced my fingers with his, star pressed between our palms. “I need you to wait for me.”
“I’m done waiting,” he snapped.
I ignored the words and focused on his eyes, a darkly gleaming blue. “Hang on a little bit longer. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
“I’m right here,” he said, confusion softening his expression.
“Listen to me. I will find you. I’ll figure it out, but you need to leave me some breadcrumbs.”
Tears gathered on my lashes, and he used his free hand to sweep them away. “Del . . .”
“I’m coming, I swear. I will find you, and we’ll fix this, and we’ll be good.”
“You’re crazy,” he said, but his fingers stayed twined with mine.
Was I? We’d done so much damage to the multiverse, his signal disrupting world after world . . . could my message get through?
I held his gaze, searching for some flicker of understanding, some sign he’d heard me. Nothing. I’d just have to believe.
We both would.
He slid his hand along my neck, drew me closer until our foreheads touched. “Tell me how to help.”
“Listen,” I said, dizzy from his nearness. “I’m not kissing him. I’m kissing you.”
I touched my lips to Echo Simon’s for the briefest moment—a promise more than a kiss, and my heart began to crack, a million tiny fault lines threatening to break wide open. And then, because I couldn’t bear to say good-bye, I ran.
• • •
Losing Simon had turned the music of the multiverse muted and flat. As I raced up the stairs, reality came rushing back. I’d Walked the Echoes since I was a kid, and no matter how changeable the ground under my feet, I’d always found a way forward. Now I had a destination: Simon, wherever he might be.
I skidded to a halt outside the library and slipped inside, heading for the stacks. Tucked amid the biographies stood the pivot I’d arrived through. The air shivered and hummed where the skin of the world had split. I reached for the rift, felt it widen as my fingers hooked along the edge.
The library doors banged open. “Del!” Simon shouted, only to be shushed by the librarian. Through a gap in the shelves I caught a glimpse of him, raking his hands through his hair in frustration. His gaze swept the room.
Time to go.
I lunged for the Key World’s frequency, and the pivot closed around me, the familiar sensation of too-weighty air pressing against my skin and filling my lungs.
An instant later I was home—same library, different books, and no Simon. For the first time in weeks, his absence didn’t fill me with despair.
I’d find him soon enough.
CHAPTER TWO
THE TRANSFORMATION FROM ANONYMOUS TO notorious is a surprisingly quick process.
Before I’d starting dating Simon, no one in my school cared who I was or what I did. I was marking time while my teachers marked me tardy, and the rest of the student body didn’t mark me at all.
These days, everyone knew who I was and what I’d done: the last girl to kiss Simon Lane, the one who’d driven him out of town.
They were right about the kissing, anyway.
The truth of Simon’s disappearance was as far beyond them as he was from me, so I let them believe the whole story and kept the truth buried alongside my grief.
Truth and grief and love, three cold, furious stars that set my course and sent me searching.
The problem was, I wasn’t the only one.
• • •
I kept my eyes down on the way to the music wing. Reminders of Simon lingered in every corner. Phantom voices, memories clinging like cobwebs, glimpses of people who had his height but not his heart, his long legs but not his laugh. No matter how hard I looked, he wasn’t here.
My footsteps reverberated down the curving hallway. As I reached for the doorknob of the music classroom, someone shoved me from behind. I went sprawling on the tile, banging my knee and slamming