“Look,” Roman said, in a slightly kinder tone of voice. “You said yourself that he’s seen his death, right? He’s had a prememory?”

“Yes,” Dorothy said. She felt a sudden sinking in her gut.

“Well if he’s seen his death that means it’s already happened. A prememory is a memory. There’s no way to change it.”

Time is a circle, Dorothy thought. She suddenly wanted to scream.

“I don’t believe that,” she said, turning on Roman. “The future isn’t fixed, yet. You said it yourself—”

“Some things are fixed, no matter whether you want to believe in them or not,” Roman told her.

“You’re only saying that because of your stupid vendetta,” Dorothy shot back, suddenly furious. “If it were anyone else . . .”

In her anger, she couldn’t think of how to finish that thought, so she only shook her head, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging. She needed to be alone. She needed to think.

She headed for the door—

“Before you go,” Roman asked, stopping her just as her fingers were wrapping around the doorknob. “Do you mind telling me exactly how long I have left?”

Dorothy looked up. His voice had been painfully casual, but Dorothy wasn’t fooled. Roman was at his most vulnerable when he was pretending he didn’t have a care in the world. This must be killing him.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked.

“I’ve been seeing visions of my own death for the last year, little Fox.” Roman stared down at his own hand, studying his cuticles with a soft smile on his face. “I may as well know when it’s going to happen.”

Dorothy swallowed. She didn’t know how to talk about her best friend’s death without breaking down, but she could try, if that’s what he needed.

Her mouth was dry. “It’s been four days for me,” she said. “For you it happens in two.”

Roman’s face shadowed. He turned his back to her. She got the feeling that he wanted to be alone, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave.

“See,” Roman said, after a moment. “I told you there are some things you can’t change.”

The halls were dark, but Dorothy knew that didn’t mean she was alone. She climbed down the stairs to the Fairmont’s main floor, eyes peeled for movement. All the while, Roman’s words echoed in her head.

Some things are fixed, no matter whether you want to believe in them or not.

Not this, she told herself, gritting her teeth. She wouldn’t be the one to kill Ash, no matter what it meant. She would find another way.

The floors in this part of the hotel were perpetually damp, slicked with the sludgy water people carried in from the docks on the soles of their boots. The furniture was all black with mold.