a pawn forward and easily knocked her queen to the side, smiling at her as he did so. She felt foolish, a little girl playing a grown-up’s game.
Donovan and Ben were fighting about the bourbon now, talking over each other as each of them tried to remember how it tasted.
“It’s smoky, isn’t it?” Donovan was saying, turning the bottle so that amber liquid sloshed up the sides of the glass.
Ben shook his head. “No, no that’s Scotch.”
Dorothy bristled, tuning out their argument. How easy would it have been for her to purchase a bottle of bourbon during one of their trips back in time? It had never seemed important—they had alcohol here, after all, crappy though it was—but now that she could see how much it was doing for morale, she realized her misstep. Perhaps such a luxury hadn’t been necessary, but it would’ve been smart. Mac had seen that, so why hadn’t she?
She glanced at Mac, lips pursed. And now he’d been the one to provide it for them, and who knows how much he’d spent to get it shipped from the Center. A lot, surely. There was a reason no one had good liquor this far west.
“This is too much,” Roman said. He met Dorothy’s gaze and held it for a moment. “We couldn’t possibly accept.”
Donovan and Ben stopped fighting over the bottle, their faces falling. Ben opened his mouth, but then Dorothy turned her dark eyes on him, her expression severe, and he stayed silent, looking like a scolded child. She saw Donovan and Eliza exchange looks from the corner of her eye. This would not go over well.
“Don’t be silly.” Mac released a short laugh. “It’s a gift.”
Gift, gift, gift, Dorothy thought. Funny how every time Mac said that word it sounded more like bribe.
“We wouldn’t know how to repay you,” Dorothy said. It was as close as she dared come to rejecting his offer outright, but Mac’s lips drew back over clamped teeth, and Dorothy knew he understood her meaning.
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.”