Dorothy lay on the Fairmont steps, her eyes clenched tightly shut. Pain beat in her temples, but it was a shallow pain, almost like the beginnings of a headache. She felt a throbbing ache in her shoulder from where she’d smashed into the stairs, and she was pretty sure the fake blood was getting in her hair.

She opened her eyes a crack and saw that everything around her had gone dim and cloudy. People were blurry, unfocused. The edges of her eyesight seemed to pulse.

Blast. It was possible that she had a concussion.

She eased her eyes open just a bit wider, and now she could make out a glimmer of light in Ash’s hand. He was still holding the exotic matter. Good.

The sound of the gun shot came from far away, like she was hearing something that had happened in another room of a very large house.

The bullet hit Ash on the right side of his chest, jerking him backward. He swayed forward, landing on the ground cheek-first, plumes of dust and ashes billowing up around him. The canister of exotic matter skidded away from his body, rolled into the side of the Fairmont—and shattered.

There was a popping sound, and a small explosion, like a firework. Dorothy saw sparks of blue lightning, and then soft, crackling flames, and then the exotic matter disappeared in a cloud of thick, gray smoke.

The ashes obscuring Ash’s face cleared, and then he was staring at her, his eyes not quite focusing. He swallowed, with difficulty. Dorothy watched the slow rise and fall of his Adam’s apple beneath the skin at his throat.

And then—he winked.

All was going according to plan.

36

Ash

Playing dead was the hardest part.

Ash had to work to keep his breathing shallow so that no one would see the rise and fall of his chest. The air was thick with dust. His nose twitched. This was embarrassing but . . . he badly needed to sneeze.

He’d closed his eyes before the canister of exotic matter had hit the ground, and so he never saw the moment it smashed. He heard the sound of shattering glass, though, and that’s how he’d known that very last store of exotic matter on the planet was gone.

Something inside his chest clenched, painfully. It had been a bittersweet realization. He knew it had to be like this, but the exotic matter had changed his life. It’d changed a lot of people’s lives. He didn’t like thinking that there was no longer any of it left. That time travel was now a thing of the past.

Well, mostly.

Footsteps pounded against the dock, and, a moment later, Ash felt the toe of a boot nudge into his arm. He had to remind himself to keep still.