Dorothy blinked. A passage from the Professor’s entries flashed through her head:

I would, essentially, need to use a piece of copper to connect the person with the electronic matter inside their body.

The motor shuddered beneath her, spitting up a stream of water that drew her attention back to the boat. She’d been studying the dagger instead of steering and now she shoved it back into her pocket. She needed to concentrate. This would all be over soon.

She saw Ash’s boat in the distance. And she saw Ash standing inside, his body silhouetted in the ever-changing light of the anil. She dropped her hand in her cloak and gripped the handle of her dagger tightly between trembling fingers.

Metal handle, she thought. Copper handle.

Her mind snagged on something she couldn’t quite catch.

It was strange, but she felt a sense of calm in knowing what was going to happen next. She’d tried to change things. Over and over again, she’d tried but, in the end, she’d been unsuccessful. Now there was only the thing that had to be done and an odd, shallow sort of comfort that came from realizing she’d never be able to alter it. Time was a circle. This had already happened. It had been foolish of her to think she had a choice one way or another.

Ash stood in the small boat, black water lapping at the sides. The trees seemed to glow in the darkness around him. Ghost trees. Dead trees. Water pressed against their hollow, white trunks, moving with the wind.

Dorothy pulled her hood up over her hair, breathing hard. The wind blew a few strands loose, sending them dancing in the darkness. She reached up, pushed those white strands of hair back under her hood with a flick of her hand, and then started the engine on her motor and sailed up next to the man she loved.

He looked like he had when they’d first met: that rugged sunburned skin and eyes that were such a light hazel they were practically gold.

Those lovely eyes fixed on Dorothy and, for a moment, she couldn’t speak.

“I . . . didn’t think you’d come,” she said. What she’d meant was I hoped you wouldn’t come. But she couldn’t say that. Her hopes didn’t matter anymore.

Ash looked at her, pleading. She saw in his face that he knew exactly what was going to happen, and, yet, he still didn’t believe it. It made her ache that he thought this could all be different.

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” he said.