Roman continued, “. . . have brought back luxuries from the past, items most of you might only ever dream of.”

Quinn’s lips curved. They were red, just like the rumors said they would be.

Blood, Ash thought, and he felt something sour hit the back of his throat.

Turn and look at me.

Quinn lifted her head. She turned.

For a moment, Ash didn’t understand. It wasn’t Quinn Fox standing onstage at all. It was, unbelievably, Dorothy. Her skin was paler than he remembered it being, and her hair had turned white. And, of course, there was that awful scar twisting down the side of her face. But it was her.

Ash’s lip twitched and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether to smile or frown. He felt an instant jolt of ecstasy—she was here; he’d found her, finally—but it was followed immediately by confusion. Why was she pretending to be Quinn Fox? He looked around, waiting for someone else to notice.

Roman was talking again, and the crowd around Ash had started to cheer. Dorothy whispered something into Roman’s ear.

Ash started shaking his head. Something was taking shape in the back of his mind. A memory.

He was lying in bed after they’d crash-landed in New Seattle, and Zora was tucking a white braid behind her ear.

I think it has something to do with the energy in the anil, she’d said . . . Strange, right?

Ash blinked, absently reaching for his own lock of white hair, just below his ear. If someone had fallen through an anil, would all of her hair turn white?

He took a sudden step backward as the realization grew larger and larger in his head.

Dorothy wasn’t pretending to be Quinn Fox.

Dorothy was Quinn Fox.

His mind still felt sluggish, struggling to catch up with what his eyes were telling him. Dorothy couldn’t be Quinn Fox. Quinn Fox was supposed to kill him, and Dorothy would never kill him. None of this made any sense—

“No.” He said this out loud, but the crowd was cheering again, and he doubted anyone heard him. He said again, “No.”

He felt a hand on his arm. Someone was saying his name but Ash couldn’t form the words to answer. He didn’t think he could move.

He wasn’t going to fall in love with Quinn Fox tonight.

He was already in love with her.

He’d been in love with her all along.

11

Dorothy

Dorothy stood on a platform at one end of the massive ballroom, trying very hard not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. She wasn’t wearing her mask. She’d made the impulsive, last-minute decision to leave it behind.

It was meant to be a statement, a way of facing the paradox at the heart of her identity head-on.

Beautiful and hideous. Devil and saint. Monster and savior.

Both. She was, and always would be, both.

And, perhaps, there was some small part of her brain that thought Ash might be here tonight, that he might see her and realize that she’d never needed him after all. She’d become the most powerful person in this city all on her own.