She seemed to be having some internal battle with herself before, finally, she lifted a hand and brought her finger to Dorothy’s scar.

Dorothy felt the lightest brush of pressure. Her mother hesitated, her breath sucking inward, and then she dropped her hand, quickly, like she’d been burned.

“I don’t know how you did that,” Loretta said stiffly.

“It isn’t fake, Mother,” Dorothy said softly. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Loretta shook her head, still unconvinced. She stood and began to make her way to the door. “I’m going to attempt to smooth things over with Avery. If he throws us out now, we’ll have no choice but to take to the streets.”

Dorothy had to work hard not to roll her eyes. Her mother was exaggerating, as usual. There was always a plan B, a hotel that didn’t lock its back door, or a bar filled with businessmen whose pockets were heavy and brains were empty, or else there was an old friend who’d let them sleep on the couch. But she didn’t want to argue, and so all she said was, “Thank you, Mother.”

Loretta pulled the door open but paused before leaving the room. “I did all of this for you, you know,” she said, in a very different tone of voice. “To keep you safe and fed, to give you a different sort of life from my own. It may not have always appeared that way, but it’s true.”

Dorothy stared at her mother, taken aback. In all these years of cons and lies, it had never once occurred to her that her mother might be trying to give her a better life. Her chest clenched.

“Mother—” she started.

But Loretta had already stepped into the hallway, letting the door fall shut behind her.

24

Ash

Ash’s eyes fluttered in his sleep, images playing below his lids:

He was in the Professor’s workshop, standing before the Second Star, his time machine. He unlatched the door to the cargo hold and threw it open, grunting. “Back in the war, we had a word for—”

The rest of his sentence got caught in his throat. There, crouched in the Second Star’s cargo hold, was the girl from 1913, her wedding gown creased and muddy around her.

She pushed the sweaty hair off her face. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

And then she vomited on Ash’s boots.

The memory faded. In its place, Ash saw a rowboat surrounded by black water . . . Ghost trees glowing white in the darkness . . . A woman with a hood covering her head . . . White hair fluttering in the wind . . . A kiss . . . A knife . . .

The image changed again. Ash was in Fort Hunter complex, watching a girl on a video feed.

The girl shifted toward the camera, and Ash caught the sketchy, white curve of a foxtail painted over the front of her dark coat.