Hope had started slipping through her fingers when her attention was drawn past the doorman’s shoulder. Behind him, the elevator doors opened and a handsome boy emerged, walking while looking down at his phone. He glanced up after hearing the commotion, then cocked his head slightly. He slipped his own mask below his chin. “Schuyler?”
It took her a moment to finally recognize him. “Oliver?”
It was Oliver for sure, but also not Oliver. He was still tall and slim with an elflike face, but his hair was a dark, silky black and his eyes a deep brown. When he smiled, though, she knew it was him for sure. When he smiled, it was like the sun had come out after weeks of rain.
“It’s all right, Freddie,” Oliver said to the doorman while replacing his mask. “She’s a friend.”
“You sure, Mr. Golding-Chang?” Freddie, the doorman, asked. “Her?”
“Of course! Now don’t be rude; she’s turning blue! Let her in!”
Freddie unlocked the door and let Schuyler into the lobby. Oliver wrapped his arm around her as she shivered at nuclear level, and he led her back the way he’d come. “I was just about to call. You never answered my texts. I was freaking out! This explains so much. Did you lose your phone?” he asked. “Sorry about Freddie. . . . He’s new.”
Schuyler didn’t have the strength to answer his rapid-fire questions. Even though she was out of the rain, she felt like she had been carved from an ice block with a chain saw. Oliver took her up in the elevator, which opened right into his penthouse apartment.
While he fetched her a clean towel and a change of clothes, Schuyler waited in the gallery, dripping water on the rug, among paintings by Guy C. Wiggins and Chuck Close.
The familiarity of the penthouse reassured her, made her feel like she hadn’t totally lost her grasp on reality. The apartment took up the whole top three floors of the building, including one floor just for Oliver.
Geometric parquet de Versailles patterns lined the gallery’s wood floor leading to the living room, library, and kitchen; a vase of fresh Queen Anne’s lace stood on a mahogany console from Paris, as usual; and the grand floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides of the penthouse revealed the wraparound terrace that allowed her to take in the Manhattan skyline. It was exactly as she remembered.
Just like Schuyler, Oliver’s family had a lengthy legacy of wealth and prestige, a foundational element of New York City’s growing power through the ages. Even though Oliver was mortal, a Red Blood, he came from a long line of Conduits—secret keepers of Blue Blood history—and had been there for Schuyler even before she learned about her true nature as a vampire. And when he willingly became her Familiar, giving his blood to her in a sacred feeding, their bond had been sealed. Of course, when she chose to love Jack instead of him, it broke his heart. But their friendship was eternal.
She had spent most of her childhood running with Oliver down these halls. Ever since that fateful day in elementary school when he shared his lettuce-and-mayo sandwich with her after she had forgotten her lunch, they had been joined at the hip. She wondered how much of their history was still true. Because—2020? What? Why was she here? How had she gotten here?
When Oliver came back with the towel and fresh clothes in hand, she buried her face in the towel, convinced it was the fluffiest one ever made. It smelled like lavender.
Oliver asked, “Where have you been? You look absolutely knackered.”
“S-since when do you have an English accent?” Schuyler stuttered.
Oliver gave her a quizzical smile. “Hurry up, get changed, toss your clothes in the dryer. I’ll get the kettle going.”
She went to the laundry room and undressed. Oliver had given her one of his softest thermal undershirts, a beige Yosemite National Park hoodie with well-worn holes in the cuffs, and a pair of black joggers lined with fleece. She was tall, but he was taller, and she swam in his clothes. With her own clothes spinning in the dryer, she came back out to the gallery to find Oliver waiting for her with a pair of chunky wool socks and a face mask, which he handed her.
“Did you forget yours?” Oliver asked.
She gladly accepted the socks, but the mask? Schuyler looked at it curiously. First she’d seen the man at the house on Riverside with one, then the doorman, and now Oliver. She didn’t understand.
The kettle that Oliver had put on minutes ago started to whistle, so Oliver moved away into the kitchen to tend to it. Schuyler was about to follow when her attention snapped to movement out of the corner of her eye. At first, she thought she had interrupted Oliver while he was keeping somebody company. But an otherworldly chill set in when she realized the girl looking back at her was not a stranger at all.
Same Yosemite hoodie, same joggers, same wet hair.
The noise from the kettle seemed to shriek like an alarm. Schuyler blinked a few times, just to be sure, but the image never changed. She was looking into a mirror. But the face that stared back at her was not hers at all.
Different face, different hair, but same shocked expression.
As the kettle whistled, its shrill alarm fading, Schuyler fell down, down, down, and fainted to the floor.
Schuyler blinked awake once more. Disoriented, she tried to sit up, but Oliver was there and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, Sky,” he said softly. “It’s all right. Take it easy.”
Schuyler realized he had carried her to a chaise lounge in the living room. A fireplace crackled nearby, and he had covered her in a faux-fur blanket. The sky outside continued to swirl with storm clouds, and rain pelted the glass walls. It had only gotten darker since she’d last seen the storm.
“You passed out,” he said. “I hope it’s not pneumonia.”
Schuyler felt fine, especially now that she was curled up by the fire. But she remembered the stranger’s face she had seen in the mirror and tried not to panic. “Ollie,” she started, then stopped. This much she knew—she was in a different world. She, herself, was different. Looked different at least, but inside, she was still herself. How much did Oliver know about her? About her life? How much had things changed? How much of their shared history was still true?
“I’m not myself,” she said finally.
“Did you hit your head?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m just. . .” How could she explain it? Her memories didn’t line up. Why was Manhattan deserted? Why did she remember Oliver’s last name as Hazard-Perry but the doorman said it was Golding-Chang? Why did she remember a home that wasn’t hers? Her memories were like double exposures on a photograph. Which ones were real?
Oliver handed her a glass of water, and she sipped it gratefully. It helped her find the words. “Oliver, you have to listen to me. I’m not who I am.”
Oliver smirked. “‘Oliver’? You must be serious, then.”
“I am serious! I’m Schuyler Van Alen. . . but I’m also not.”
Oliver’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “What are you talking about? You’re Schuyler Cervantes-Chase.” He gave her an uneasy smile. “Is this some kind of game you’re playing that you haven’t told me about?”
Chase. As in Stephen Chase—her human father? Schuyler threw the blanket off her body and stood. Oliver didn’t stop her as she went to the mirror hanging over the fireplace.