“What are you talking about? Of course it’s possible. Mac told me that you stole the Black Crow, and I have the exotic matter, and I know how to fly a time machine—”

“I didn’t say it’s not physically possible,” Zora said, cutting her off. “I said it’s not possible. As in I won’t let it happen.”

Zora crossed her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing to slits. Dorothy felt the backs of her teeth grit together, a muscle in her jaw tightening. Of all the foolish things to be stubborn about.

“Can I ask why not?” she asked, as calmly as she could manage.

“If I let you go back in time, you’ll kill Ash,” Zora said. “Neither of us may know why, but we know that it happens.”

“It’s already happened,” Dorothy snapped. “Zora . . . Ash is gone. If we do nothing, he’s going to stay gone. Can’t you see that?”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I can,” Dorothy insisted. “Time is a circle. Meaning that whatever we do has already affected the world as it is now. I have to go back in time because I’ve already gone back in time. Chandra told me that Ash and I met in secret over the past week. Three times.”

Zora shot Chandra a furious look.

“And Willis backed her up,” Dorothy added, lest Chandra get into too much trouble. “I already went back, Zora. Ash and I spoke, and somehow, somewhere in the midst of all that something happened, those meetings resulted in him being gone. I’m not going to be able to rest until I find out why. Will you?”

Zora was staring at her very intently now, chewing on the inside of her cheek. After a while, she swore and looked away.

“Fine,” she said. “Come on.”

After what felt like an eternity, they drew up alongside a dock and pulled to a stop. Zora cut the engine, but the sound of a rumbling motor ghosted around them, not quite willing to die.

“Where are we?” Dorothy asked. As far as she could tell they were still entirely surrounded by black water and white trees.

“Hiding place,” Zora said. “Or, the best I could come up with on short notice. This area used to be Volunteer Park, but now it’s nothing, just water. I figured, what better hiding place than in the middle of a bunch of nothing?”

Dorothy still couldn’t see a thing beyond the pulsing darkness, but she felt the boat tip below her and then rock as Zora climbed out. There was a sound like a key being fit into a lock, and then a light flicked on, illuminating gleaming aluminum siding, a finned tail, the dark glass of the Black Crow’s windshield.