of anything more painful than that, and it angered her that she couldn’t find the words to comfort him. She, too, had lost her entire family, but she didn’t think it was quite the same.
She glanced back at the anil one last time. How much difference would one day really make?
She set the time machine to hover and flew over the dark waves, toward home.
The Fairmont rose in the distance like a golden mountain, lit up and glowing against the otherwise darkening sky. Seeing it, Dorothy felt the anxiety inside of her still. Home.
Then, she marked the dark figures standing guard at its main entrance and frowned. That was strange. She didn’t recognize half the Freaks on duty.
She swiveled around in her seat as she flew past, trying to catch a final glimpse before rounding the corner.
“Wasn’t Donovan’s team supposed to be on guard?” she said, half to herself.
It seemed to take Roman a long time to hear the question. He blinked, as though coming out of a trance. “What?”
“Donovan,” Dorothy said again, more firmly this time. She deftly flew the Black Crow through the dark windows of the parking garage, waiting until she’d landed before explaining. “His team was on guard when we left this morning, wasn’t it? I thought you’d told him to hold until we returned?”
Roman nodded slowly. They always left the Fairmont in the hands of one of their more trusted teams when they traveled back in time, just in case something should happen to delay their return.
“I didn’t see him out front just now,” Dorothy said.
“He must’ve switched,” Roman murmured, but Dorothy could see his brows draw together. That didn’t sound like Donovan’s team. “I suppose it was a rather long shift; we’ve been gone for more than a day.”
Dorothy cringed, once again feeling guilty for missing their intended time.
They exited the time machine and found the door to the Fairmont’s basement ajar, a thin yellow light dribbling into the stairwell. Dorothy could hear the grunting sounds of work being done. It seemed like there was an entire team of people gathered on the other side.
This was . . . also strange. It was nearly evening, the hotel was usually quiet at this time of day. Most of the Cirkus Freaks took to the boats as soon as the sun set to patrol the waters around the Fairmont, while those who were lucky enough to be off duty headed to the Dead Rabbit for a drink.
“Did you assign a job you didn’t tell me about?” Dorothy asked. Roman shook his head. His eyes had lost their glaze and now he looked just as anxious as she felt. Frowning, Dorothy eased the door open.
No one saw them, at first. The boys assembled were new recruits, and Dorothy didn’t recognize most of them. They were dressed in work clothes rather than standard Cirkus black, and they were moving the solar panels from the corner where they’d been stacked yesterday morning and onto a cart to go . . .
Where? Dorothy wondered, eyes narrowing beneath her hood. She hadn’t ordered anything to be done with the panels just yet. She glanced at Roman, and he shook his head. He hadn’t ordered this, either.
An older boy looked up then, wiping the sweat from his forehead. She saw his eyes go wide as he spotted her and Roman at the door.
“Quinn,” he said, and a lump rose and fell beneath the skin at his throat. “And Roman. You’re back.”
Dorothy lifted her chin. “Where are these being shipped?”
“H-he didn’t tell us,” the boy rushed to answer, clearly worried he was in some sort of trouble. “We’re only supposed to prepare them for delivery.”
“Delivery.” Dorothy pressed her lips together, allowing her eyes to travel over the stacks, looking for any sign of where they might be going.
There was a propped-open door at the far corner of the basement, and, though the hall beyond the door was dark, Dorothy knew that it led to an old service elevator. The workers were likely taking the panels up the elevator shaft and through the parking garage. If they had a boat waiting there, they could take the merchandise anywhere in the city.
“Who asked you to prepare them for delivery?” Roman asked.
“Mac Murphy,” the boy told them. And then quickly, “But he said the order came from you.”
“Did he?” said Roman, cool.
Mac, Dorothy thought, and anger beat at her chest like a second heart. What right did Mac have to give orders to her gang, inside