Dorothy closed her eyes, the memory coming back to her in a rush. Ah yes. When they’d seen each other in the bathroom the night of the ball, Ash had asked her to run away with him and the rest of the Chronology Protection Agency. It had seemed impossible at the time. She and Roman had been on the verge of enacting their plan to save the city, and the idea of leaving and starting over somewhere else had been ludicrous. Now, though, she felt an ache, remembering.

She’d been so cruel, blowing him off the way she did, telling him that she didn’t want to go with him, that she’d found her own place, here, at the Fairmont and she didn’t need him or his friends anymore. She wanted to climb through the window Ash had just jumped out of and slap her past self. Why had she thought that working with Mac was a better idea? She should’ve left when Ash had given her the chance. If she had, Roman might still be alive. Ash might still be alive. Her chest clenched.

Stupid, stupid . . .

“I—I didn’t,” she said, swallowing. Her skin burned. “I just wanted to see you again. To tell you that I . . . I’ve missed you, too.”

Ash stared at her for a moment. What is he thinking? Dorothy wondered. Was he remembering their kiss?

“I imagined this going differently,” he said, instead.

Dorothy blinked very quickly. It seemed she was the only one thinking about that kiss. “Um, you did?”

His eyes moved over her face, something dark flickering through them. “Call me crazy, but I didn’t figure I’d be doing a lot of kissing when I found the girl who’s gonna kill me. ’Course, I didn’t realize it was going to be you.”

Dorothy caught her breath, her heart beating very hard inside her chest. She hadn’t expected him to come out with that so bluntly. The girl who’s gonna kill me. Despite what Willis had told her about Ash’s prememories, she’d still been holding on to some hope that there’d been a mistake, that Ash had seen someone he only thought was her, that all of this could be explained away, somehow.

She swallowed and said, very carefully, “You know that for sure, do you? That I’m going to kill you?”

Ash gave a little shrug. “Prememories are never wrong.”

“But how do you know it’s me?” she asked. “Did you see my face?”

“Nope. I saw this.” Ash twirled a strand of her hair around his finger and pulled it, like a bell. “White hair. The girl in my prememory has white hair. I realized it was Quinn Fox when I saw you running around the halls back at Fort Hunter. That’s when I finally put two and two together.”