Roman stiffened, and Dorothy saw his eyes travel past Eliza’s head, narrowing in curiosity.
“Who’s in there?” Dorothy asked.
“No one you need concern yourself with,” said Eliza. Was it Dorothy’s imagination, or did she seem to hold the door ever so slightly tighter? “Mac can find you after he’s done.”
Roman made a noise in his throat. Mac didn’t give orders in their hotel, no matter what treasures he brought their Freaks. It’d been too long since they’d reminded the Black Cirkus who they were.
Dorothy removed a long, thin dagger from her sleeve. The blade was smaller in diameter than a pencil, and so sharp that Eliza would have to squint to see where its point ended.
“Do you know how much pressure it takes to rupture an eardrum?” Dorothy held the blade up to the light and a line of silver appeared along its edge. “I don’t know, myself, but I hear people used to do it by accident, with hairpins and cotton swabs. Imagine the damage this could do.”
Eliza stared at the blade and licked her lips. Dorothy imagined she was thinking of how the metal might scrape against the inner membrane of her ear, how it might pop, feeling hollow at first, and then wet as pus and blood trickled down her neck.
Dorothy smiled in a slow, practiced way that showed off all her small white teeth.
“Tell Mac I need to speak with him now,” she said.
Something flickered through Eliza’s eyes. Fear? Disgust? Dorothy couldn’t say for sure, but Eliza murmured, “Yes, ma’am,” and then pushed the door closed again, leaving Dorothy and Roman alone in the hall once more.
“Mac has become a problem,” Roman said under his breath.
“Do you have your gun?” Dorothy asked, slipping her dagger back up her sleeve.
A pause, and then Roman said, “Naturally.”
Dorothy pressed her lips together, her mind spinning. She’d never killed a man before, no matter what her reputation was, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of taking a life, even one as loathsome as Mac’s.
Surely there was still another way?
Another scream issued from the other side of the door. Dorothy felt as though the air had been sucked out of the hallway. She heard the muffled sound of voices and then footsteps.
She rolled her wrists, feeling the cold steel of her daggers beneath her sleeves.
The door opened, and Mac’s voice entered the hallway before he did. He was singing.
“Close your windows tight, little children, the Fox and Crow are scratching at the glass . . .”
Dorothy stiffened. It was the nursery rhyme the residents of New Seattle had made up about Quinn and Roman, and she’d always been morbidly proud of it. It had felt like proof that she’d made herself into a person to be reckoned with, even if it was in reputation only. Now, though, it felt like Mac was mocking her with it.
“I’m glad the two of you stopped by,” Mac said cheerfully, as though Dorothy hadn’t just threatened a member of her own gang to force him to speak with them. His leg was still bandaged and, though he limped a bit, he seemed to no longer need his crutches to walk. “I’ve been thinking it’s time we took another little trip.”
He held a cloth in his hands, and he was using it to wipe the blood from his skin. It wasn’t doing much good. There was simply too much blood, too little cloth.
Dorothy stared at him, momentarily taken aback.
Was he joking?
Roman was the one who spoke. “And why would we do that?”
“I’m afraid you aren’t in the position to be making such demands,” Dorothy said.
Mac blinked at her and said, as though baffled, “Aren’t I? I was under the impression that we were working together here. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
The idea of touching Mac’s back caused Dorothy to shudder involuntarily.
“Don’t worry, you’ll like my new plan,” Mac told her. “I’ve seen enough of the future. If that’s what this world is going to look like in just a few short years, then I want no part of it. I’d rather go back in time and live like a king.”
He lifted his fist, studying a yellowed fingernail. “All you have to do is take me back in time. I want to vet a few time periods before deciding on one. And then you can leave me there, and we’re all happy.” He looked back up at her, grinning. “What do you say?
Dorothy hesitated. His desire to go back in time seemed true enough, but