“What?” Callie looked at her.
Penny shook her head in fast jerks. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “My mom always corrects my grammar. It rubbed off.”
“Wonderful. A fellow wordsmith.” Dizzy beamed, now pointing his phone at the ground with the flashlight function on. His jolly attitude indicated he was completely ignoring the coming danger.
“Dizzy, that is probably making it worse,” I told him, pushing his phone toward his chest. “Let your eyes adapt.”
“Easy for you to say. You can see in the dark.”
“You can see in the dark?” Penny asked. “Is that because of…” Her gaze flicked to Darius.
“Focus,” I said, and not just because of what she was alluding to.
The stacks of cargo ended and the tracks cut in—a wide expanse of space occasionally lined with a train waiting forgotime. “So far, not so good.”
I crossed the road leading to the other lots. The moonlight had a better opportunity to reach us—helping the others see and allowing me to pick up the pace. We passed more cargo, but I was still coming up empty.
“How big is this place, Callie?” I asked into the hush. I’d seen it from the car, but it had been impossible to judge the size at the speed we were going.
“Big. We’re not even halfway through.”
“Is the walking okay, Callie? Dizzy? You guys doing okay?” I asked, worrying about hips and bunions and whatever else they might have going on. “Penny, how’s the daintiness? Freaking out because you’re breaking a sweat?”
“I have run three marathons,” Penny said with heat to her voice. I liked it.
“Did someone fail to mention that I have healing magic?” Callie asked levelly. It was rarely a good sign. “Dizzy and I are like spring chickens.”
“As long as we don’t have to spring up from a crouch,” Dizzy amended.
“There’s the tower.” Callie pointed upward.
Over the lip of the cargo lining our way rose a building that had clearly been built to overlook the goings-on of the rail yard. I instinctively wanted to be up at the top. But to what end? It hardly seemed likely the mages would have peeled up the top of their workshop of horrors, allowing me to see inside.
“Then what?” I asked.
“Let’s see. The label says there’s some type of repair shop.” Callie squinted down at her phone. “I can’t read what type. Probably a little building. It’s just a speck.”
“And then?”
“The line of lots we’re in leads to the end of the yard. Then there’s side loader repair.”
I glanced into the crack between two containers to the open road. “Does that road lead all the way back?”
“Yes. It might connect with the freeway, but this isn’t much more than a cartoon map, so I can’t tell.”
After a while, we came to the end of the lots, having passed a couple of small buildings along the way. My hope was fizzling out with each step. Up ahead, the expanse of tracks, many now filled with parked trains, reduced down into a few bare tracks leading out of the area.
“That must be the side loader repair,” Callie said, pointing at a building at the end. “Which is the end of the line.”
I put my hands on my hips and looked around, myheart in my shoes. “He’s not here. I’m screwed.”
“We will find the shifter from the bar,” Darius said, suddenly pressed against my side. “We can ask him for more information.”
“Wait.” Penny leaned over Callie’s arm and pointed at the edge of Callie’s phone screen. “What’s over there?”
Callie scrunched her brow as she worked the screen. “More lots. Another checkpoint, another entrance. More railroad tracks.”
I shook my head, my chest tight.
