She lowered herself beside him, placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder. She expected him to swat her away, but he didn’t. He reached for her hand and gripped it.

“You—you never told me,” she said, her voice thick. “Why—”

But then Roman’s eyes shifted to something behind her, and his expression darkened. He dropped her hand and stood.

“What’s he doing here?” he spat, bitter.

Dorothy followed his gaze to the rain-drenched figure standing on the other side of the clearing, watching them. She saw soaked leather and dirty-blond hair against sunburned skin, and, though she recognized those things, she couldn’t make sense of them here, not until Ash took a step closer, his eyes moving to hers.

A feeling somewhere between excitement and terror flared through her.

Oh no, oh no, not here.

Ash seemed to understand that it would be a mistake to address her here, and so he turned back to Roman, hands held out before him, as though in surrender.

“Roman,” he said, taking another step into the clearing. “I didn’t—”

Dorothy would never know what he was about to say. Before he could finish, Roman had leaped forward, his expression twisted into a look of deepest loathing. He crashed into Ash with a grunt and the two of them went tumbling to the ground.

34

Ash

Ash flew backward, his head smacking into the ground with a wet thud. He’d been so surprised by the attack that he hadn’t been able to prepare himself for the fall. His arms and legs cartwheeled, cartoonishly, doing nothing to brace his body for the sudden impact with the ground.

He blinked, stunned. For a moment, all he could see was mud and gray sky.

And then, Roman was leaning over him. “Old friend,” he murmured. He fisted his hands around the front of Ash’s jacket, pushing him deeper into the mud. “How the hell did you get here?”

Ash didn’t answer but grabbed Roman by the shoulders and shoved him off. Roman tumbled back into the dirt, a grim smile on his lips. Ash was vaguely aware of a slight, white shape standing in the shadows just behind him. Dorothy.

He waited a beat, hoping she’d jump in and explain about their meeting behind the Dead Rabbit, and how she’d tipped him off on the possibility of traveling through time without any EM. But she only looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face, and said nothing.

“I followed you,” Ash said, not sure how else to put it. He’d reached the hospital quickly—it was closer to the shore where he’d washed up than he’d remembered—but he’d been too intimidated by the swarm of medical personnel gathered outside to try going through the front. Instead, he crept around back, reasoning that, in most cases, a back entrance was far easier to break into.

He hadn’t been able to put the theory to the test, though. The back door flew open before he got there, and Dorothy and Roman had come stumbling out, running. Ash hadn’t known what to do. So he’d gone after them.