After all that, Ash would’ve expected that some of what the Professor had told him might’ve stuck. But the equations meant nothing to him. He’d read over them and his mind would snag on some small detail—didn’t the Professor say something about energy acting differently in an anil?—but the thought would be gone a moment later, drifting through his head like smoke.

Ash couldn’t say how long he’d stayed there when the bartender appeared before him and slid a hand over his textbook. He looked up and saw that the blood had drained from her face.

“Something wrong?” Ash asked.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to say anything because you don’t look like you want any trouble,” she said, her voice low. “But you, uh, might want to be moving on.”

Ash regarded her uneasily. “Yeah?”

“Roman made us all promise we’d tell him if you came back.” The bartender’s eyes caught on something behind Ash’s head, and she swore, under her breath. “And, well, he just walked in.”

23

Dorothy

The Dead Rabbit was a hole. Black walls and black barstools and dim lights made the place look smudgy and rotten, like wood that’d been left wet for too long. The floors were perpetually sticky, and the smell of smoke hung thick in the air, courtesy of the few people rich enough to afford cigarettes and rude enough to smoke indoors.

Dorothy noticed all this in a detached way as she scanned the space for a place where she and Roman could talk in private. She had her hood pulled low, the stiff fabric covering her eyes and most of her face, so she could see only her own boots, and a few feet of dirty floor.

A cheer went up from the back of the room, and Dorothy lifted the edge of her hood.

“Blast,” she said, stiffening. Eliza and a few other Cirkus Freaks had already gathered at their regular table. They looked like they’d been drinking for a while and planned to continue for a good while longer.

“We’ll get rid of them,” Roman said.

“To toilet paper!” Ben was saying, toasting the others with a glass of Mac’s bourbon as Dorothy and Roman approached. “And sugar! And real liquor.”

Eliza and Donovan both echoed, “To real liquor!” and clinked glasses, sending bourbon sloshing over the sides.

Beneath her hood, Dorothy frowned. She’d been thinking of the dead, black world they’d just returned from, and it took her a moment to remember what they were celebrating. It came back to her quickly: wooden crates stacked on damp carpet, dozens of Cirkus Freaks watching as Eliza unloaded bourbon and peaches and bullets, courtesy of the very man who’d stared out into that black, dead world and smiled. She felt vaguely ill.

“We need the table,” she said with a sigh, and lifted her hands and pushed back her hood, revealing her scarred face.

Ben didn’t move but stared at her, huge-eyed. He didn’t seem to realize that he was still tipping the bourbon toward his mouth until he’d poured it all over himself.