He said she could only mimic human emotions and she wore the hood low over her face to hide her empty facial expressions.

She could learn anyone’s secrets by staring into his or her eyes.

She could kill a grown man with her bare hands.

With her finger.

With a look.

Dorothy felt foolish, that she hadn’t thought of this earlier. Quinn Fox was a cannibal. It was one of the first things she’d ever learned about New Seattle.

Where I’m going, there are entire cities hidden underwater, and gangs that steal little old ladies on their way to the market, and a girl who lives off human flesh.

Ash had told her that, when she’d first met him in the clearing behind the church where she was supposed to be married. Only, then he’d been the handsome pilot with the gold eyes, smelling of campfire smoke and faraway places. She’d thought he’d been exaggerating. She’d never, in her wildest dreams, thought he’d been talking about her.

If Dorothy still had any lingering hope that she could return to Ash and his friends, it faded as the rumors about her grew stronger. She saw Ash once more but, by then, it was too late. She was already Quinn Fox, cannibal, leader of the Black Cirkus.

And he hated her.

4

Ash

The pea-green sky followed Ash and Chandra around to the back of the motel, where their boat was rocking on the black waves.

It hung above them ominously, as Ash tugged on the pull cord—once, twice, three times—and the motor growled to life.

It seemed to hold its breath as they climbed into the old boat and steered away from Mac’s motel and down the narrow Aurora waterway, squat buildings bordering them on either side.

Not an omen, Ash told himself again, looking away from the sky.

They rode past a half-dozen motels just like Mac’s. Dark, run-down places with boarded-up windows and armed guards at the doors. Ash made himself picture the faces behind all those windows. Broken, terrified faces. Most of them were underage. Most of them were working against their will.

But, hard as he tried, Ash couldn’t see them. Dorothy’s face kept creeping in instead. Dorothy scared and Dorothy laughing and Dorothy looking up at him, leaning in to kiss him . . .

He gave his head a hard shake, disgusted with himself. It should bother him more than it did. He shouldn’t have been able to just walk away from those girls back at Mac’s, just as he shouldn’t be able to sail past these places without stopping, without trying to help.

Sometimes he felt that his capacity for empathy was a glass jar, that it had already filled to the brim with worry for Dorothy, for himself and his friends, and if he tried to cram anything else in there the glass would break.

He didn’t like what it said about him, that he thought things like that. But he could feel the cracks forming already. So he kept his eyes ahead, and he held his breath until the motels were behind him.