Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

Dorothy said, suddenly awkward. All this time out here and she couldn’t have come up with a better line? Her cheeks flushed.

“I just meant that you got back here quicker than I expected,” Ash said.

Dorothy nodded, and began twisting her fingers around her braided hair, so that she had something to do with her hands. She felt more nervous than she’d expected, maybe because of that photograph, because she knew what was coming next.

“I know a shortcut,” she murmured. “I used to come out here a lot.”

Ash appeared to be waiting for her to say more and, when she didn’t, he crossed the dock, and rested his hands on the wooden banister just beside her, close enough that his hand grazed her hip. She felt a trail of warmth where he’d touched her.

This was it. He was going to kiss her now. Heat rose in her chest.

“I looked for you this morning,” Ash said.

Dorothy blinked at him. Her thoughts felt slow and confused. You, he’d said. But which “you” did he mean?

The bride who’d stowed away on his time machine? The woman with white hair destined to kill him? The bloodthirsty leader of the Black Cirkus?

I don’t even know who you are, Zora had told her. Are you Quinn? Or are you Dorothy?

“You looked for Dorothy,” she said carefully. “I’m not Dorothy anymore.”

What she’d meant to say was: What if I’m not Dorothy anymore? Would you still like me? Or would everything be different? But Ash drew back before she could correct herself, his brow furrowing.

“A new name doesn’t make you a new person,” he said.

“It’s . . . not just the new name, though, is it?” Dorothy shook her head, frustrated. She was explaining this wrong. How could Ash want to be with her if she didn’t even know who she was? That’s what she wanted to say.

“You mean . . .” Ash brought his hand to her face and she inhaled, sharp, a second before he touched her, already anticipating the feel of those rough hands on her skin. He froze, fingers hovering over the line of her scar. “Is this . . . okay?”

She closed her eyes and was quiet for a long moment. No one had ever touched her scar before. She even tried not to touch it. The feel of the mangled skin beneath her fingers disgusted her. It seemed to represent every horrible thing that she’d ever done, all the ways she’d failed. If Ash touched it, she was certain he’d see how different she was from the girl he knew.

And yet she said, almost without realizing she was speaking, “Yes.”

Ash lowered his hand to her scar, and every nerve in her face flared so that all she felt was spark and heat. She’d been holding herself stiffly, but now she released a breath that was almost a sigh. “Ash.”

He lowered his forehead to hers and, for a moment, she felt only the warmth of his skin, the softness of his hair.

“Come back with me,” he said, his voice urgent. “Please, you don’t belong here.”

Was it possible? Could she leave now and never ever look back? For a moment she considered it, to hell with time-travel logic and the future and all the people who were counting on her.

It was Ash himself who stopped her. It was the fact that he’d touched her scar, that he knew about her past, her sins, and he wanted her anyway.

Maybe I could be better, she thought. Maybe all was not yet lost.

“I wish I could.” She pressed a hand to his chest, frowning. “But that’s not why I came. There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Can it wait?” he murmured into her hair. God, he still smelled the same, like engines and fire and oil. She wanted to inhale him.

“It’s important,” she said, and pulled away. She didn’t know how long they had before Eliza stumbled upon them. She needed to be quick.

“I need you to think back,” she said carefully. “Did the Professor ever mention Nikola Tesla?”

Ash frowned and leaned away from her, clearly caught off guard. “What?”

“The Professor was doing experiments with Nikola Tesla.” Dorothy cast an anxious glance at the door behind Ash and then shifted her gaze back to his face. No sign of Eliza yet. “Did he ever say anything about that to you? Anything at all?”

“I don’t think so.” Ash frowned. “What—”

“They would’ve had to do with traveling through time without a vessel. Does that sound familiar?”

Ash scratched the back of his neck, frowning. “It isn’t possible to travel through time without a vessel. A few people tried, back before the Professor built his time machines, but the anil is too volatile, and they were all badly injured.”

“Yes, but the Professor went on experimenting with it, to see whether he could find a way.” Dorothy fiddled with the locket hanging from her neck, her fingers anxious. “Think. Maybe he wrote something in that journal of his? Have you read the whole thing?”

Ash was already shaking his head, then stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said, almost to himself. “There were entries missing. I don’t know where they went, but—”

He was interrupted by the sound of wood creaking, a footstep on the other side of the door.

Blast, Dorothy thought, her heart leaping into her throat.

Eliza.

She shifted back, into the shadows, a moment before Eliza stepped onto the dock. The other girl made a show of pulling a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches out of her pocket, and then slowly lighting the cigarette as her eyes traveled over the shadows, searching.

Dorothy glowered back at her. She wasn’t fooled. Everything that was happening on the docks could be heard through the thin door that separated them from the Dead Rabbit’s halls. Eliza came out here to show Dorothy she’d been made.

Eliza’s eyes moved over the shadows gathered thickly around the dock, casually, as though she were only glancing around her surroundings.

I don’t see you, she seemed to say, but I know you’re there.

Cursing her misstep, Dorothy slipped back into the shadows,