“Blast,” Dorothy muttered, beneath her breath. “All of history at our fingertips and we couldn’t have landed somewhere with a bleeding doctor—”

She stopped talking at once. They had landed somewhere with a doctor. Her fiancé, Dr. Charles Avery, was a surgeon. And not just any surgeon, but a good one. He was the surgeon-in-chief at Seattle’s Providence Medical Center.

And he was just inside.

Dorothy’s heart leaped inside of her. There was a chance. If she hurried, there was still a chance.

She leaned close to Ash, bringing a hand to his face. His skin was cold to the touch, shockingly so. It caused an uncomfortable shiver to move down her spine, making her shoulders clench. There was still time; there had to be time. . . .

“Hold on,” she told Ash, her voice a whisper. “I’ll be right back. Just . . . please, please stay alive until then.”

The church was smaller than Dorothy remembered, a squat, two-story building made of crumbling bricks, with tall, arched doorways and intricately stained-glass windows.

She was breathless when she reached the doors, and she struggled a moment with the heavy wood, hinges screeching when she finally managed to haul it open. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of incense. She could hear music playing in another room, something with strings. A cello, maybe, or a violin. Funny, she had no memory of anyone arranging for a cellist or a violinist to play at her wedding.

“Hello?” she called, turning in place. Her footsteps were impossibly loud, and her voice echoed off the stone walls, but that was okay, she wanted to be heard. “Charles—”

The church door thudded heavily behind her, drowning her out.

“Can I help you?” came a voice. Dorothy spun in place, heart hammering as her eyes landed on the petite, impeccably dressed older woman who was just descending the stone staircase.

And now Dorothy pressed her teeth together so tightly that her jaw began to ache. The woman had thick dark hair piled on top of her head in an intricate-looking bun and she studied Dorothy with her head slightly tilted, her black eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I’m terribly sorry, but this is a closed service.” She spoke in the sort of coldly polite voice someone might use with an annoying, distant relative. She gestured toward the door. “I’m going to have to ask you to—”

“Mother,” Dorothy interrupted, nearly choking on the word. Her mouth felt dry and sticky. She wet her lips and added, attempting a smile, “Don’t you recognize me?”

The woman turned her body toward Dorothy and looked at her fully, starting to speak before she registered what she was seeing. “I do not wish to call the authorities, miss, but you see, this is . . .”

She blinked, trailing off. The skin between her brows pinched together. “What . . .”