“Friends,” Mac said, smiling slightly. He was a toad-like man, stumpy and short with thick lips and perpetually red-rimmed eyes. “Do not attempt to adjust your television set. This broadcast has taken over every channel. It is untraceable.”

Dorothy couldn’t speak. She knew those words. For heaven’s sake . . . she’d written them. This broadcast had been a pet project of hers over the last year, a way of telling the citizens of New Seattle the truth about what time travel was capable of, of showing the people that she and Roman were on their side, that they were working to make the city better.

And now Mac Murphy was the one standing behind the camera?

It was enough to make bile burn up the back of Dorothy’s throat.

Her fingers curled around her glass of hooch. It took every bit of willpower left inside of her not to pick the glass up and hurl it at the television. If Mac himself had been standing before her, she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.

Mac continued, voice solemn, “It is my great misfortune to tell you that our beloved Crow, Roman Estrada, has been murdered.”

A tense silence fell over the crowd, everyone turned toward the television screen. Dorothy had a feeling she knew what was coming next. She gripped her glass a little tighter.

By you, she wanted to scream. He was murdered by you.

“Roman longed to help the people of this city,” Mac said. “He managed the incredible feat of traveling back in time, and he used that power to provide us with electricity, heat, and much-needed medical supplies. Because of him, New Seattle is better off today than it was yesterday.

“Unfortunately, not everyone shared Roman’s desire to make this city of ours a better place. Late last night, during a trip to the future, two people plotted and executed Roman’s assassination.”

Mac and the woman in black suddenly disappeared from the screen, and a photograph of Dorothy and Ash appeared in their place.

Dorothy stared, openmouthed. She’d never seen this photograph before. It seemed to have been taken on the docks outside the Dead Rabbit, late at night. The colors had blurred together, almost as though they’d been rendered in watercolor, a hazy mix of dark purples and blues and blacks. And in the middle of it all, clear as day, she saw herself and Ash, leaning close together, like they were about to kiss. Ash had a hand raised to her face. Her eyes were closed.

Dorothy touched her cheek in the same spot where the Ash in the photograph was touching it. Her mind tripped, trying to figure out when she’d been there, when this could have happened.

But, of course, it hadn’t happened. Not yet.