Beyond the line of skeletal trees along the train tracks, everything was green. Shockingly green. And not just one color of green. I could make out minty-blue-green conifers and trees with bright spring-green leaves broader than my hand. Some had fine needles, and others had wispy leaves that seemed to shimmer in the wind.
And the sun.
The sun was not obscured by a layer of smog. It called to me, warmed me. My skin prickled with sweat under my dress, but it was worth escaping my coffin of a cabin and properly introducing myself to the wild and open place I’d have to call home.
Two middle-aged women made their way up the path behind me, walking arm in arm. As they came closer, I could see their matching wedding rings—vines carved in fine silver. For a moment, I felt an unreasonable pang of jealousy. Children of Industry were forbidden to wed. These women might have spent the majority of their lives together. Though, for all I knew, they were newlyweds. It wasn’t my place to pry.
And I knew better than to consider a life I couldn’t have.
“Good afternoon.” My voice was hoarse with disuse. How long had it been since I’d spoken? Maybe since I’d thanked the cabin steward on the first day of the train ride.
For a moment, I thought about Gertrude and how she’d laugh at how difficult it had been for me to follow the steep path up the hill. My stomach ached.
“Is it true you’re a Conductor?” the taller of the two women asked. Her deep-brown skin and tight silver bun reminded me of Professor Charles, who had taught us advanced mechanics. A dizzying wave of homesickness struck me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I managed. “An apprentice Conductor.”
“So, you can do magic?” the other woman asked. Her pale white fingers fidgeted with a brooch shaped like a bee.
“I am a Child of Industry. Radiance isn’t magic.” It was the first lesson I could remember, a lesson that had been beaten into me when I’d set the carriage house cat’s tail on fire.
“Magic is gone,” the taller woman said, her tone a gentle reminder to her wife.
The House of Industry had seen to that when the Animators refused to adhere to sensible regulations for their wild magic, putting everyone at risk. Radiance was logical and orderly. Magic was unruly and dangerous.
“Yes of course. I’ve forgotten again.” Her voice had a childlike, sing-song quality, and I realized that they held each other close because her wife was guiding her. I had heard of this—a decline in the senses of the elderly. But this woman seemed too young to be afflicted by it. Was this another form of the wasting?
“Are you traveling for pleasure?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the unease in my voice.
“We’ve been advised to leave the city for cleaner air, to put a bit of distance between us and … all that industry and Progress,” the taller woman said with an apologetic smile.
And here I was, Progress in a black dress. I had nothing to be ashamed of, but I struggled to lift my chin to meet their gazes. “I hope it does you both good.”
“I do, too, Apprentice.” She gave me a nod as her wife’s gaze tracked a murder of crows landing on the limbs of one of the dead trees by the tracks. The birds cawed incessantly, a mocking sort of laughter that made my bones feel raw.
I excused myself and hurried back to the train.
Something was wrong. I woke with a start, gasping. It took me a moment to place the unsettled hum in my bones until it struck me: The train wasn’t moving. We weren’t supposed to be in Frostbrook until well after sunup. Moonlight poured in through my window, and I sat up and pressed my face to the glass. Shadowed figures passed. One held a torch, and the rest followed like a pack of hounds.
As my heart beat faster, a soft crackle of radiance lit my fingertips pale blue. I exhaled sharply to focus and draw it back inside. But my restraint went only so far—I was already moving, shoving my bare feet into my boots and stumbling out of my cabin in my nightgown. There were others in the hallway already, some calling for the steward and others speaking in hushed tones.
“Could it be the resistors?” someone asked in a frightened voice.
I whirled on the old man. “Resistors? All the way out here?”
“They’ve been robbing trains all along the Western Pass. People say they’re against …” He took off his sleep cap and looked me up and down. “Well. The changes.”
“I heard they have wild magic,” a woman said from where she hid behind her cabin door, her voice tremulous.
I frowned. I’d never heard of sects of resistors outside the major cities. But no one in Sterling City talked about the country, unless it was to scoff at life without Progress.
“Surely it’s only train robbers,” I said, cross. Even if they wereresistors, there was no threat of wild magic. Everyone knew the last Animators had perished in the snowy mountains.
The old man stared at me, helpless fear etched across his face. I crowded him back into his room and called for the others to do the same. Though they seemed bewildered at a girl of all of five feet tall telling them what to do, each obeyed. With everyone out of my way, I ran in the direction the shadowed figures had gone.
The cargo on this train—copper wiring and lumber, even workers—was needed at the Frostbrook Mission. Theft would put us off schedule. And that would put my ambitions even further behind. I couldn’t impress my Senior if my only task was to wire up dead conduction boxes. I needed the Mission fully operational.
At the end of the car, I pushed the door open to crisp night air. Distant shouts rose, animalistic in the dark. I grabbed a crowbar hanging from the rack beside the door and leaped to the gravel along the tracks. It was heavy, and I doubted I could swing it hard enough to make a dent in a skull—but I hoped it made me look like I was prepared to kill.
