No, our answer is no.

Then, from behind them, a sharp gasp.

Mac’s smile grew triumphant. Dorothy felt suddenly cold. She knew, even before she turned around, that something had changed.

Eliza was holding a long, narrow package. Like the food, the package wasn’t labeled or marked in any way, but she’d opened one end and dumped its contents out to find—

Bullets. They lay on Eliza’s open palm, shiny as beetles. Staring at them, Dorothy felt something inside of her coil tight.

Guns were easy to find in New Seattle.

Bullets were trickier.

“Figured you could use ’em to hold the Fairmont,” Mac said, eyes glinting. “In case Graham or Chadwick give you any more trouble.”

Nothing in his words hinted at a threat, but Dorothy heard it anyway:

Look how easily I’m able to get bullets, he seemed to be saying. Look how I’m able to put them into the hands of your people, people whose loyalty can so easily be bought, people who don’t even like you. . . .

And now Dorothy was seeing Mac’s gift in an entirely new light. He hadn’t meant to win her and Roman over at all. He’d meant to win over the Cirkus Freaks.

The hair on the back of Dorothy’s neck stood up. Without the Black Cirkus, she and Roman were just two people. They didn’t have any particular power or strength. The only thing that set them apart from everyone else in this wretched city was their time machine—and that could be taken.

She swallowed, hard. For the first time, she realized what a precarious position she was in.

She glanced at Roman. His expression was impassive as ever, but he’d lowered his hand to hers and he didn’t seem to notice that his fingers had clamped vise-tight around her wrist. Dorothy cringed slightly, as her skin crushed against bone.

“How far into the future do you wish to go?” he said, voice hushed so the other Freaks wouldn’t overhear.

Mac’s eyes flashed. “Let’s start with something easy. How about five years from now?”

For an instant, Roman seemed to forget to keep his facial features so carefully arranged, and Dorothy saw a brief glimmer of the anguish he must feel inside.

A moment later, his face looked so perfectly at ease that it was hard for Dorothy to remember it was a lie. Dorothy felt a cool dread crystallize inside of her.

“Very well,” Roman said.

He paused for a moment and then added, “Although, I should warn you . . . you’re not going to like what you find there.”

MAY 2, 2082, NEW SEATTLE

They exited the anil into a world of perfect dark. There were no stars to illuminate the ghostly white tree trunks, no distant oil lamps flickering through the black like fireflies, no far-off buzz of electricity, no moon. It was as though someone had painted the outsides of the Black Crow’s windows black, leaving only the faint green of the control panel.