Dylan collapsed against the wall and clenched his eyes shut again. He reached out with his vorpal. He flung out his hand in search of a wardrobe door, hanging clothes. Nothing.
“Are you drunk?” Hunter asked. “It’s two o’clock. And shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Leave me alone.”
“I want my blazer back.”
Dylan shrugged it off and hurled it up over the banister.
Hunter snatched it from the railing, held it out in his fist. “Stop doing that. Stop pretending to be me.” He went back into his bedroom.
Dylan’s mouth went dry. Hunter knew? He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants—Hunter’s pants—and then realized he had lost the library book, the one with the fish-girl illustration. Dropped it outside or left it in the Other Place? He checked the porch—wasn’t there. His head felt muffled, confused. How did Hunter know? He went up to his brother’s room.
It was cluttered with half-disassembled junk from the shop—DVD players and microwaves waiting to be repaired. Hunter sat at his desk, fiddling with a dinosaur of a radio that looked like it had time-traveled there from some unchronicled era. At his elbow was a framed photo of Chess squinting against the sunlight. A UW Huskies poster overhead was stuck with so many thumbtacks that Dylan wondered if Hunter was afraid it’d be stolen. Then again, he’d caught on to the fact that Dylan had borrowed his clothes, so maybe that wasn’t such a crazy idea.
Hunter jerked on some hazardous-looking wiring. “What do you want?”
“Did Chess tell you I was at Hevlen today?” Dylan asked.
“Chess?” Hunter looked up, his screwdriver clutched like a dagger.
“That I was wearing your blazer and . . .” Dylan looked down at the pants he was wearing.
Hunter seemed to notice them for the first time. His gaze darkened. “Did you think I wouldn’t hear about Conrad’s class?”
Dylan’s stomach dropped.
“Why do you do that?” Hunter went on. “Everyone thinks you’re crazy.”
A wave of dizziness hit Dylan. They knew? They had all noticed he wasn’t Hunter? He put a hand against the door frame to steady himself. “Sometimes . . . sometimes people think I’m you. Because of—”
Hunter stood, grabbed the blazer he’d discarded on the bed. “Because you wear my clothes? Funny how that works.”
Dylan shook his head. “It’s more than that. You know it’s more.”
The silence was thick with Hunter’s contempt. “Your vorpal.” He crossed his arms.
It sounded so stupid coming out of Hunter’s mouth. It always sounds stupid. Vorpals, a girl queen waiting for him in a palace—it sounded crazy.
“You’ve got to stop, Dylan.” Hunter jostled his arm. “Come back to reality.”
Dylan jerked away. “I’m not crazy.”
“Dad really screwed you up, didn’t he? Letting you believe all that stuff was real.”
Dylan felt the cold sting of windy Alki Beach, remembered the day he’d asked Dad the Last Impossible Question. The Impossible Question that had changed everything between them. And then right afterward, when Dylan had gone to the shed, hidden the bracelet . . .
He pushed the memory away. “It is real. Even Conrad—”
“Conrad is a thousand years old,” Hunter said with a snort. “He doesn’t know who’s supposed to be in the class and who got kicked out of school for cheating on a stats final.”
Dylan winced.
“Why did you cheat, Dylan?” Hunter sounded plaintive, almost angry. “You’re smarter than most of the kids in that school. Dad was so proud of you—came to all of your math competitions before you left Hevlen,” Hunter said. “He’s never even come to any of my basketball games.”
Wrong, Dylan thought.
At Alki Beach five years ago, Dylan had watched the boats and told Dad about the sails he’d seen along the river in the Other Place: shimmering membranes made from dragon wings. Mom doesn’t like to hear about those things, he’d told Dad. Can’t I come live with you instead?
The Last Impossible Question.
Dad’s whole face had changed, shifted like sand trickling down a steep bank. Not everyone’s fit to take care of a kid, Dylan. You’re better off with Mom. Dad’s voice was like water flooding his eardrums, like a wave crashing over his head.
It’s time to give up those stories anyway. None of it’s real. You know that, right?
“I hated those math competitions,” Dylan said, his throat raw. “They were all Mom’s idea. I never wanted Dad to come.”
Hunter shook his head. “What do you want, Dylan?” The air hummed, full of Hunter’s exasperation. Maybe it was just the radio. “What will make you stop this? Tell me, I’ll give it to you.”
Dylan’s gaze went to the photo of Chess.
Hunter noticed. He pushed Dylan against the door frame. “You’re living in a fantasy world.”
Dylan caught a metallic glint of fear in Hunter’s eyes, even though Dylan was the one with a doorjamb pressed against his backbone. Because he knows my vorpal is stronger than his.