Roman cut his eyes at her. “Did he ask you to leave with him?”

So that’s what was bothering him, the thought that she might choose them over him.

“Yes,” she answered, wary. Roman made a sound of disgust and she added, “And I told him no. Obviously.”

There was a moment of tense silence. And then Roman’s shoulders drooped, the anger seeming to drain out of him.

“You don’t know them like I do,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You weren’t here during the mega-quake. Everyone thought the Professor was some sort of genius. But, when the earthquakes hit, he was content to let the people of this city die rather than do something to try to help them.”

“I know all that,” Dorothy said.

“You don’t know all of it.” Roman looked up, imploring. “Did you know that, after his wife died, the Professor went back again and again to try to save her? He did that for months, but when I asked him to—”

He shook his head, mouth snapping shut.

This interested Dorothy. In her year of knowing Roman, he’d never spoken to her about his life before the earthquakes. It was as though his life had started the day the Professor recruited him to be his assistant.

“Asked him to what?” Dorothy asked, taking a step toward him.

Roman ignored her. “I know you don’t think Ash and the others are bad people, but they stood by the Professor; they defended him. The only reason Ash came here tonight is to stop us from going back. They still think that this, all of this, is theirs.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. He left.”

“Did he?” Roman asked, his tone brittle.

Dorothy studied him. It was strange, but there’d been a second—not even a full second, but a fraction of one—when something suspiciously like disappointment had snapped across Roman’s face. And then the irritation was back, and anyone else might’ve doubted that the hurt had been there at all. But Dorothy knew what she’d seen.

“Roman—” she started, reaching for him.

He swallowed, audibly, and turned away from her. “If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I head to bed.” He was being careful now, weighing each word he spoke, like he worried they might betray him. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

And then he slipped down the hall, and was gone.

16

Ash

Ash sank deep, deeper. The water had the effect of a cold shower, calming his skin, clearing his thoughts. He saw only black, felt only the reverberating echo of his heart beating in his chest.

Dorothy was Quinn. Quinn was Dorothy.

In less than a week, Dorothy was going to kill him.

Dread built in his chest, crowding out these terrible thoughts. There’d always been some part of him that’d expected to have a choice, when the time came. He’d already accepted that he would fall in love with Quinn Fox, and he knew she would eventually kill him. But he’d still been waiting for something . . . for a moment, perhaps, when he could make the decision to walk into this future willingly.