“Thank the Lord in heaven,” she murmured, uncorking the bottle. She downed half in a single swallow. The liquor spread through her like medicine.

She stood and took up Roman’s knife for a second time. She gripped the handle tightly and sucked down a deep breath, willing herself to hold it steady.

Die jumping or die staying.

“Our world has no place for cowards,” she said out loud. Gritting her teeth, she pressed the blade to her open wound, sliding the remaining EM into her body.

26

Ash

JUNE 10, 1913

A burst of light, too bright to look at directly.

Ash groaned and closed his eyes again. Much, much too bright. What was he thinking, opening his damn eyes like a fool? He was going to need to take this slow.

He focused on his breathing at first. In and out. His lungs pushed against his rib cage and something sharp and painful shot through his lower belly.

Well, he thought, grimacing. That was concerning.

Eyes first.

This time, he was careful. He opened his eyes enough to allow a needle-thin shard of light to hit his pupils, and then he stopped. When he was used to the light, he opened his lids a little more, and a little more after that. Eventually he was staring up at a ceiling.

Huh, he thought, blinking. It was quite an . . . ornate ceiling. The plaster was shaped like a starburst, radiating away from a light fixture at the center, the glass domed and cloudy, the actual light dim and flickering a bit. It was unlike anything he’d seen, either in his own time or in the future.

Which begged the question: What time was it, exactly?

He started to turn, and then thought better of it. There was quite a lot of pain humming through his body. He could place the primary source—the spot below his ribs where he’d been injured by a piece of his old time machine—but the ache he felt now seemed so much bigger than what he was used to. He’d need to go slow, then, just like with opening his eyes.

Head first, he thought, with a groan. He turned to the left and squinted. He was in a bedroom. Nice furniture, ornate, like the ceiling, and brand-new, even though it was all old-fashioned-looking. Persian rugs on the floor—new, like the furniture—and there was intricate wallpaper covering the walls. So, he was in the past. Fairly far in the past, from the look of those carpets and rugs. Ornate went out of fashion in the fifties.

With a groan, he turned his head to the other side—

And found a woman dressed all in black sitting beside him, staring.

“Oh,” he breathed. His voice was a claw raking at his throat. It made him start to cough.