But we were moving quickly.
And the ground along the tracks was littered not only with pine needles but dead, sharp-looking limbs.
My eyes widened as I took in the rusty blur of flowering bushes that should have been green and vibrant. I hadn’t thought of it before. I hadn’t considered it while traveling all the way here, all those days.
Allthe plants alongside the conduction line were dead.
How had I been so stupid? The thick cable was primed with threads of radiance.
“It’s because of us,” I said with a gasp, the sound of my horror carried away by the roar of the train.
Dizzy, I gulped a breath in and choked on the exhaust from the engine. My eyes watered. The train carried on, unfeeling and relentless. More than ever, I was certain that I could not return to the House. Whatever happened to me now would be my own choice. Even if that choice led to my death.
I had to jump. Nothing soft would catch me here.
I couldn’t breathe.
Jump.
Letting out a guttural scream, I heaved my suitcase and let its swinging weight carry me. It nearly yanked my arm out of the socket, and the awkwardness of my jump landed me not in a graceful roll with the motion of the train, but in a terrible tumble that cut my scream off with the impact. Gasping and sightless with pain, I did my best to flail into the dead underbrush before anyone on the back of the train saw me and raised an alarm.
Twigs as sharp as blades scratched my face and tangled in my hair like angry fingers, but I kept rolling and went limp once the brush more or less covered me. My suitcase lay open in the leaves. My underthings fluttered in the wind. But no bell or whistle sounded.
An errant suitcase wasn’t enough to stop a train for. Not in woods full of bandits.
As I tried to clear my swampy vision, the train turned a bend, leaving no trace but a distant rhythmic clatter.
“Ow,” I groaned, curling up miserably. I tested each tender limb, certain I’d broken nearly all of them. But the worst of it was a sharp pang at my side and a stinging cut above my brow that bled like hot tears down my face. My suitcase had fared far worse. I crawled up to it, unsteady on my hands and knees, and found the clasps broken. It would do me no good. I’d have to leave everything behind. Perhaps it would be better for people to find it full of most of my things. It would give anyone who discovered it the impression it had simply fallen from the train.
It took me a long time to catch my breath in the bed of pine needles. I shoved wrapped cheese and dried meat into my pockets and left the rest of the food with my clothes.
By the time I managed to stand, shadows had lengthened over the tracks. I pushed through the worst of the dead brush and entered the hush of the living forest. There, I allowed myself to acknowledge what I’d done by jumping so early. As much as I wanted to tell myself it was to avoid losing my courage, I knew it was really my unwillingness to travel too far from Frostbrook. Despite all I had yet to discover, Frostbrook was more known to me than the expanse that stretched from here to Sterling City.
And I still wanted to make this place a home. Somehow. Someday.
Harlington was only a few days’ ride away on horseback. Surely I could walk the distance. I’d steer clear of the town and head that way. If I was lucky, I’d find Henry there in another family’s care, and perhaps they’d be willing to employ me. I’d often tutored the youngest to arrive at the House of Industry. While that had largely been regarding the edicts and regulations of the House, I knew my letters and figures well.
“I could be a tutor,” I told the trees. “Or a proper teacher, even.”
The trees did not respond. A bird fluttered from behind a dead log beside me, and I let out a small startled yelp that silenced the birdsong around me.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. Whether Ezra could talk to the forest or not, I had to believe it was listening in some way. It had listened to him when he’d coaxed its vines and flowers to grow and when he’d asked the saplings to save my life, saplings that thrived by the river—unlike the lifeless brush all along the Conduction line.
A cold feeling grew at the pit of my stomach. Was it really true?
Had radiance killed those trees the way it had hurt Ezra?
Another question solidified in me, heavy in my throat, but I refused to give it a shape. Once I voiced it, I’d never be able to take it back.
I tried to walk quietly, aware of my surroundings in a way I hadn’t been while lost in my own head—or distracted by the back of Ezra’s where his hair curled with sweat at his nape. I tried to dampen my footsteps the way he did, but that was more difficult. Nearly every other step cracked a twig or set a small rock skittering. But I was more quiet than not, so when voices rose in the distance, I heard them clearly.
I fought the urge to dive into the brush, bolstered by Julian’s strange advice—I couldn’t give away every part of myself. I couldn’t let my fear rule my actions. Instead, I crouched slowly, the way a cat did in pursuit of a mouse under the cupboard. Finding the shallow hollow of a tree, I tucked myself close. The voices went quiet for so long, I was sure I’d imagined them. As I considered peeking out, I heard them again, much closer now. This wasn’t the sound of anger, but a quiet conversation laced with urgency.
I pressed my back closer to the tree, far more exposed than I wanted to be—especially if these were these the bandits Ezra had urged me to hide from.
“Did you take care of her?” a man asked gruffly.
“That damn boy snatched it away,” a woman said, her words snagging onto a memory that remained out of reach. “But it’s no matter. She’ll be long gone before word gets out that we burned the Mission.”
