He lowered his forehead to hers and, for a moment, she felt only the warmth of his skin, the softness of his hair.

“Come back with me,” he said, his voice urgent. “Please, you don’t belong here.”

Was it possible? Could she leave now and never ever look back? For a moment she considered it, to hell with time-travel logic and the future and all the people who were counting on her.

It was Ash himself who stopped her. It was the fact that he’d touched her scar, that he knew about her past, her sins, and he wanted her anyway.

Maybe I could be better, she thought. Maybe all was not yet lost.

“I wish I could.” She pressed a hand to his chest, frowning. “But that’s not why I came. There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Can it wait?” he murmured into her hair. God, he still smelled the same, like engines and fire and oil. She wanted to inhale him.

“It’s important,” she said, and pulled away. She didn’t know how long they had before Eliza stumbled upon them. She needed to be quick.

“I need you to think back,” she said carefully. “Did the Professor ever mention Nikola Tesla?”

Ash frowned and leaned away from her, clearly caught off guard. “What?”

“The Professor was doing experiments with Nikola Tesla.” Dorothy cast an anxious glance at the door behind Ash and then shifted her gaze back to his face. No sign of Eliza yet. “Did he ever say anything about that to you? Anything at all?”

“I don’t think so.” Ash frowned. “What—”

“They would’ve had to do with traveling through time without a vessel. Does that sound familiar?”

Ash scratched the back of his neck, frowning. “It isn’t possible to travel through time without a vessel. A few people tried, back before the Professor built his time machines, but the anil is too volatile, and they were all badly injured.”

“Yes, but the Professor went on experimenting with it, to see whether he could find a way.” Dorothy fiddled with the locket hanging from her neck, her fingers anxious. “Think. Maybe he wrote something in that journal of his? Have you read the whole thing?”

Ash was already shaking his head, then stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said, almost to himself. “There were entries missing. I don’t know where they went, but—”

He was interrupted by the sound of wood creaking, a footstep on the other side of the door.

Blast, Dorothy thought, her heart leaping into her throat.

Eliza.

She shifted back, into the shadows, a moment before Eliza stepped onto the dock. The other girl made a show of pulling a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches out of her pocket, and then slowly lighting the cigarette as her eyes traveled over the shadows, searching.