Chandra released a great sigh and stared down into her tea, no longer seeming interested in drinking it. “I thought this last week of secret meetings meant he was trying to figure out a plan, some way to stop it from happening, but—”

“Secret meetings?” Dorothy said, interrupting her. “What are you talking about?”

Chandra’s eyes went wide. She took a quick drink of tea, her cheeks coloring. “It was nothing. Never mind.”

Dorothy leaned forward in her chair, suddenly alert. “Ash and I have been meeting in private?”

“Well, sort of, but I . . . I really wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.” Chandra anxiously turned her glass between two fingers, tea sloshing up against the sides. “You see, Zora thinks—”

“I don’t care what Zora thinks; Zora isn’t here.” Dorothy reached out, grasping Chandra’s arm. “Chandra, you have to tell me. When were we meeting?”

Chandra stared at her for a moment and then, with a sigh, she said, “It’s just been a few times over the last week, since the ball.” She lifted a hand to her mouth and started gnawing on her thumbnail. “Ash would sneak out to meet you when he thought the rest of us weren’t paying attention.”

“No,” Dorothy said, frowning. “That . . . that can’t be right. I saw Ash the night of the ball and once, briefly, at a bar downtown but, otherwise . . .”

Even as the words were leaving her mouth, she remembered a strange conversation she’d had with Eliza on the night that the Black Cirkus revolted. Eliza said that she’d seen Dorothy and Ash, together, outside the Dead Rabbit. Dorothy hadn’t thought much of it. Eliza had clearly been trying to frame her, to get the rest of the Black Cirkus to turn on her more quickly.

But, now that she thought about it, why would Eliza bother? Mac had already been well on his way to bribing the Cirkus over to his side. What more could Eliza have gained by making up stories?

“How many times?” Dorothy asked, when she could speak again.

“You’ve met three times, I think,” Chandra said. “Once, after the ball, and then again at that super-shady bar near the Fairmont, and then, you know, when you saved him.”

Saved him, Dorothy thought, a shiver moving through her. Of course. Eliza had accused her of setting Ash free when Mac had been holding him prisoner. Another lie that wasn’t a lie after all.

“Why didn’t Zora want me to know about this?” Dorothy asked.

“I think she was worried that telling you about the meetings would somehow set the whole chain of events that leads to Ash’s death into motion,” Chandra said. “But I don’t think time travel works that way.”