Dorothy was careful to keep to the shadows, peering carefully around corners and walking close to the walls so that the creaking floorboards wouldn’t give her up.
It was dangerous for her to be here. She couldn’t think of a single Cirkus Freak who wouldn’t give up her location on sight. But it looked like she was about to be on the run and, if that were the case, there were things she needed from the Fairmont. Supplies, money, food if she could scrounge up any. She would just have to be quick about it.
The hotel had the look of a place that had once been extraordinarily lovely but had long ago fallen into ruin. Ornately beautiful rugs covered the floors, but foot traffic had left them worn, the edges frayed where they met the walls. Dorothy touched one of the hotel’s mahogany doors and the once glossy wood was now dull and soft beneath her fingers. The scent of rot hanging in the air like a fog. Dorothy pressed her sleeve to her nose to block the smell as she turned a corner, the hallway opening into a cavernous room.
Her heart stilled as her eyes searched the shadows for movement. There was no one. Everyone would all be out searching for Ash.
Or for me, she realized, with a rush that left her head spinning. She walked a little faster.
Columns rose from the floor, and long-decayed chandeliers hung from above, cobwebs stretched between the bulbs. Murky water filled the courtyard below. If she squinted down into it, Dorothy knew, she could see a grand staircase, an old piano, and marble countertops.
She crept up to her room using the back staircase, ears peeled for the creak of footsteps or the distant roar of laughter. Her room was on the fifth floor of the Fairmont, but it looked exactly like the one she’d been kept in when she was kidnapped the year before. Two beds, each covered in a white quilt. Wooden furniture. White curtains. Blue chair. The only item that actually belonged to her was the small silver locket hanging from her mirror. Her grandmother’s locket. Her mother had given it to her on her wedding day, and it was the only object she still had from her own time period.
Dorothy slipped the locket off the wooden frame and looped it around her neck. And then she started to pack. Two pairs of extra clothes, her cloak and mask, the precious little money she had left—all of this she shoved into a duffel, which she hurriedly looped over one shoulder, eyes scanning the room for anything else she might need. Her heart gave a strange little twitch as she realized there was nothing. She’d spent a year in this hotel, and she’d been starting to think of it as a sort of home, and yet she was able to pack her entire life into a duffel bag and leave it all behind. The thought made her sadder than she cared to admit.
“Enough,” she said out loud, giving her head a shake. Now wasn’t the time to get sentimental. She had no way of knowing how long she had before a Cirkus Freak—or worse, Mac himself—wandered back down these halls. She had to move.
She removed the money from her duffel and quickly counted the bills. It wasn’t much, she was afraid, and it wouldn’t last long. There was enough to feed her for a week. Maybe. She would need to get used to skipping breakfast.
And after that? She supposed she could pick pockets, run a few short cons, lift a pocket watch or whatever other valuables people in this time still had. The thought caused a bitter smile to cross her face. She’d thought those days were behind her. Old habits certainly died hard.
She shoved the money back into her bag and slipped into the hall, easing her door shut behind her without a sound. There was still no one here, she saw, a relieved breath escaping from between her teeth. She’d been lucky, but she’d be a fool to press that luck any further. She started for the staircase . . .
And now she paused, an idea occurring to her.
Roman used to keep cash stashed away in his bedside table. For a rainy day, he’d always told her, ironically, with a glance at the perpetually overcast sky. In New Seattle, every day was rainy—both figuratively and literally.
Dorothy chewed her lower lip, considering. Was that money still there? she wondered. It seemed soulless