Pain prickled just below his ribs, where the piece of the Second Star had lodged itself into his gut. Cringing, Ash pressed a hand to his belly. He could feel the hard edge of his ship just below his navel, shifting inside of him, and he realized that the wound must’ve opened up, again.
He lifted his hand. It was damp . . . but not with blood. The substance that clung to his fingers was thicker than water, and silvery.
Ash blinked, and the substance changed, hardening into a solid, black mass that coated his hand like a glove.
And then it changed again, this time becoming gaseous and green. Ash watched, amazed, as it drifted into the inky-blue sky around him and was gone.
Exotic matter acted like that, he knew. It shifted and changed in that canister the Professor had built for it, so that he never really got a handle on what he was looking at. But Ash didn’t have any exotic matter in his body.
Did he?
It was true that, when they crashed the Second Star, he got a piece of something lodged inside his belly, just below his ribs. He’d thought it was part of his ship, but what if he’d guessed wrong? What if there was exotic matter inside of him, lodged deep into his belly along with the old piece of the Second Star? Would that explain why he’d been able to travel through the anil without a time machine?
Was it possible that he was the time machine?
Ash closed his eyes now, swimming hard toward the anil. The sound of shouting bounced over the waves, so near. He felt the spray of a boat on his cheeks.
The anil was just a few yards ahead. As Ash swam closer, he felt something, some faint pressure slip beneath his ribs, tugging him forward. It was so slight that he could’ve been imagining it. Just a needle’s prick of pain. A sharp tug. It took his breath away.
Ash had thought he’d understood time travel, but in all the years he’d flown through the anil, first in the Dark Star, and then in the Second Star, he had never felt anything like that sensation.
It was like fate, like magic.
He dove down into the water, and through time itself.
43
Dorothy
Dorothy lifted a hand, fingers trembling as she pressed them to the bulge of fabric at her neck. She’d tucked her old locket beneath her shirt and now she relished the chill of cool silver on her skin. It was familiar. The closest feeling to home she could conjure.
The locket had come with her on her first trip into the future. It felt fitting that it come with her for this trip, too.
They were in the Black Crow, flying low over the water on their way to the anil. Dorothy and Roman sat up front while Mac lounged in the passenger cabin, his bad leg propped up on the seat opposite him, as he carefully polished one of his guns. The rhythm was almost hypnotic. He’d hold the gun up so that the barrel caught the green light coming off the control panel and then shake his head and lower it again, spit, and rub the metal with the edge of his bloodstained shirt.
Roman, sitting in the captain’s seat, glanced at Dorothy and away. His hands were tight on the yoke, his shoulders stiff.
There hadn’t been another chance to kill Mac. The Freaks he’d wooed over to his side had surrounded him as they’d made their way through the twisting hotel hallways, and down the stairs to the parking garage where the Black Crow waited. The Freaks had stood outside the time machine’s doors while the three of them crawled inside and, once he was seated, Mac had pulled out his gun and busied himself polishing the barrel.
It had all felt carefully, perfectly planned, and now Dorothy stared straight ahead, worrying that she would only ever have that one chance, back at the hotel. She’d let it pass, and now there wouldn’t be another.
No, she told herself, focusing on the daggers beneath her sleeves. Once the three of them landed in the past, she would find another moment, or she would make one.
The Puget Sound anil yawned ahead of them. It was light dancing on the waves. A great, reflective bubble. A swirl of smoke and shifting color.
Roman aimed the nose of the ship toward the tunnel. Dorothy swallowed.