“Of course not.” Chandra laughed, but it came out sounding a touch nervous. “It’s just that we haven’t been alone together since you became, well, her.”

She gestured to Dorothy’s white hair and black cloak, and Dorothy felt her heart sink. She’d always thought Chandra liked her. Back when they’d first met, she’d asked question after question about Dorothy’s time period, her hair, her clothes. It had seemed like they’d been becoming friends.

But the girl standing in front of her now looked utterly terrified, as though she expected Dorothy to whip a blade out from her sleeve and kill her on the spot. Had she been fooling herself that Chandra might be an ally?

“I’m no different than I was when you knew me,” Dorothy said, raising her hands to show that she was unarmed. “I swear.”

“Well . . . except for that thing where you eat people now,” Chandra pointed out, taking a step backward. “That’s new.”

“For the love of . . . I don’t eat people,” Dorothy said, in a huff. “They’re just rumors. There have been dozens of rumors about me over the last year, but, for some reason, that’s the one everyone fixates on.”

“Can you blame them?” Chandra asked weakly.

“They’re silly,” Dorothy said. “Roman and I started them to convince the people of this city I was someone to be feared. There’s no truth to any of them, I swear.”

Chandra raised an eyebrow.

“Fine,” Dorothy snapped. She held up a finger. “I bit one guy, and that was only because he attacked me first. Happy?”

Chandra tilted her head, and Dorothy didn’t miss the look of grudging approval that crossed her face.

“So,” Chandra said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why are you here?”

“I just want to talk to you.” Dorothy kept her hands raised as she stepped forward and lowered herself into a chair. Chandra frowned at her, lips pursed. After a moment she sighed and sunk into the chair beside her, arms crossing over her chest.

“Okay, then,” she muttered. “What do you want to talk about?”

Dorothy thought of the look that had crossed Chandra’s face when they’d all been talking the night before, that slight frown, like she knew something but wasn’t sure whether she should say it out loud. That was why she’d come back here. She needed to know what that look meant.

“Last night,” she said carefully, “when we were all talking, it looked like you wanted to say something, but Zora—”

“Zora’s not your biggest fan right now,” Chandra cut in, glaring. “And I don’t blame her.” She shoved her glasses up her nose. “Ash’s . . . disappearance has us all really freaked out, but Zora’s taking it particularly hard.”

“So am I,” Dorothy murmured.