“You were born in the Ravens, no?”
“Yes, but—”
“How long were you there?”
“Fourteen years. But—”
“More than enough time to understand a safety valve,” he insisted.
“I left for a reason.” Florence chewed the inside of her cheek to keep herself from chewing out Anders and creating tensions before they’d even started on their journey.
Anders paused, sticking his head out enough to inspect her properly. “Do you understand it or not?”
“Not confidently…” The truth was Florencedidunderstand it, in principle. But she didn’t want anyone depending on her work when it came to anything but guns and explosives. And even when it came to those, she didn’t have the best resume for a gunsmith.
“We all understand things a little better when our lives depend on it.” Anders passed her a tool and Florence reluctantly accepted it before climbing up to where the safety valve was located at the top of the engine.
Her handiwork appeared to be sufficient, and within the hour they were chugging down the tracks, set along a southerly course. Florence, Nora, Derek, and Rotus took turns helping Anders manage the engine. For the most part, that involved shoveling coal and calling out numbers on gauges.
It was shocking to Florence how ineffective purely steam-based travel was compared to magically augmented vessels. The train was so old that there wasn’t a speck of gold on it, and the metal was too rare for the Alchemists to have invested in attaching some before they left. But Anders was an older man, Florence would guess in his late twenties, so he was raised in a time on the fringe of the wide proliferation of magic. Where Florence was unnerved, he was relaxed behind the wheel. Or as relaxed as one could hope to be in a rattling death trap.
Florence was surprised the train held itself together well enough to grind the wheels to life and pull the two cars day after day. It was an imperfect process that changed regularly. Things broke, and repairs had to be creative solutions. She was continually selected as the extra set of hands over Derek or Nora. Anders reasoned it was because of her birth guild. Rotus reasoned it was because she’d studied under a Master Rivet.
After the first week, she stopped all form of protest. She had worked with Arianna enough times on various clockwork gadgets to trust herself when given direction. Each morning she’d get up early with one of the two men and help them with any daily maintenance.
The trees towered around them, encroaching tightly on the untended tracks. Florence watched them whiz by in the fading light. Her eyes lacked focus that reflected her blank mind.
“What is it like in Ter.5?” Derek asked as he plopped down next to her, ungracefully due to the swaying of the train.
“The trees are smaller.” They passed the hours doing almost anything to stave off boredom. This was the carbon copy of a conversation they’d had before. But they’d have it again over the endless symphony of chugging metal and grinding wheels. “The land isn’t really flat, not unless you’re by the coast.”
“And Ter.4?”
“More flat land there.” Florence tried to dredge up memories of the Territory she was born in, but all that came to mind was the great, moving guild hall of the Ravens. A perpetually changing, ever-moving structure from all the tracks and raceways that curved through its many levels. “Though I haven’t ever really explored it.”
“Just the Underground?” He already knew the story.
“Just the Underground.”
“What’s that like?”
“Dark and terrifying.” Florence had no good memories of the Underground. She’d almost died both times she’d ventured beneath Ter.4.
“I can’t imagine anywhere more terrifying than the depths of the Skeleton Forest.” Derek followed her blank stare out the open door of the train car to the whizzing trees. Darkness remained nestled within them, uninviting.
Florence shook her head. “There’s light here. There’s sky, and up, and down, and headway to be made. In the Underground there is simply blackness. Inky, endless, blackness… and Wretches.”
“Perhaps the endwig are nothing more than forest Wretches?”
“You’d know better than I, Alchemist.”
“We don’t regularly find them in a state we can dissect. Or we would.”
Florence inwardly cringed at the idea. Her hands were kept busy with the revolver in her hands, diligently oiling it. Every day it had its turn, following the rifle slung over her back. “What are the endwig like?”
“Nightmare given flesh.” Derek’s tone was instantly grave.
“Have you seen them before?” Florence studied his face with fascination. It was an expression she knew, one of world-shaking horror—a death shroud pulled taut over one’s features, even if they escaped its clutches. She knew the answer before she even asked the question.
