“Damn you,” she said, hugging him hard. “I thought we’d lost you this time.”

“I’m okay,” Ash said.

“Okay is maybe not the word that I would have used,” Chandra said, nose wrinkling. “You look like death warmed over.”

Ash lifted a hand to his cheek, cringing at the feel of dry blood and raw flesh. He’d forgotten about the mess that Mac and his cohorts had made of his face. So much had happened since then.

“It’ll heal,” he said, and pulled away from Zora. He tugged his shirt straight, motioning to the wound below his ribs. “This is what I’m really worried about.”

It was sparking again, blue electricity leaping over his skin. And then it was seeping something thick and black. Ash looked away before it could change, again. It was giving him a headache. “Anyone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

Chandra was sitting on a barstool in the corner of the kitchen, anxiously braiding and unbraiding her hair, and now she leaned forward to get a better look.

“Gross,” she said, but she sounded excited. “What is that?”

“Exotic matter,” said Zora, frowning. She looked up at Ash, and he could see that she was making the same calculation he’d made back on the dock. “Do you think this is why you can travel through time without a vessel or any EM?”

“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”

Zora shook her head. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

“There’s nothing in your father’s notes?” Ash asked, urgent. “Nothing at all?”

“You’ve read all the same books I have. He never mentioned experimenting with this.”

“You said there were pages missing from his journal, didn’t you?” Willis said. “They have to be somewhere.”

“We could look through the notes in his office again,” added Chandra, hopping off her stool. “I could help.”

“Wait,” Ash said, before they could disperse. “There’s more.”

They all turned and looked at him, waiting. Now was the time to tell them, Ash knew. Their friend and former comrade, Roman Estrada, was dead. Ash saw the bullet hit him. He saw him fall to the ground.

But something rose in Ash’s throat, and he found he couldn’t say the words out loud. Not yet. He gave his head a hard shake and said, instead, “But, uh, it can wait.”

Leaving them, Ash made his way back to the small schoolhouse room that had been his home for the last two years. It wasn’t much more than what he’d had back in the army: a thin cot and a few blankets, a trunk to hold his possessions, a window that looked out on the water. Right now, the world beyond that window was black, either because it was late at night or very early in the morning. Ash couldn’t tell which.

There was a small slip of paper on the bed beside him, sitting on top of a tangle of sheets and blankets. Frowning, he picked it up.