Raya could think of only one person whose thoughts might have conjured an image of her, picturing her, silk scarf and all, as she looked today. “Did she get my face from Q’s thoughts?”
“You know what happened to Q,” Rasmus said.
“Do I? The Elsewhere Express doesn’t care about time. There are three versions of you on board the train to prove it. Maybe Q didn’t die when he jumped from the train. Maybe he leapt into the past. That’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain how this woman came to have the face, hair, and scarf I have now. Q is the only person who could have been the source of the daydream that woman took my image from. That means he survived the jump.”
Rasmus looked up at the sky, his gaze following a school of luminescent fish. “Do you know what those fish are made of?”
“No, but—”
“They’re made of truth. Pure, shining, blinding truth. They’re all the thoughts that swirled and swam through people’s minds when they considered lying but decided to be honest instead.”
Raya fought the urge to groan. “That’s interesting, but I—”
“Whoever came up with the idea of using it as lighting for the Lotus was quite clever, don’t you think?” He glanced around the bar.
“Yes. I get it. In vino veritas. Very clever. That’s not what I came here to talk to you about, Rasmus.”
“Isn’t it? I thought that was exactly what you wanted to know.You’re asking me who the woman in Dev’s photo is and why she has your face, and I am, as we speak, debating whether I should lie to you or tell you the truth.” Rasmus clasped his hands over the table.
Raya frowned. “Why would you even think of lying to me about this?”
“For the same reason you didn’t tell me that Lily crushed Abbie.”
Raya paled.
“You thought that the truth would hurt me more than a lie would, and you were right.” Rasmus emptied his sake. “And now I am in the same position as you were. You, however, do not have a jade dragon to reveal everything you wish to know if you ask nicely. I was less fortunate. I would give anything to be able to look at Lily and still see one of my oldest friends.”
“I’m sorry, Rasmus.” Raya lowered her eyes. “I know that nothing I can say or do will change things.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Rasmus said. “And neither did Lily. She was doing her duty as the conductor, keeping passengers safe. I can’t blame her for that.”
“But you still hate her.”
“Hate has nothing to do with reason.”
“What are you trying to keep me from hating, Rasmus? Who are you protecting with a lie?”
Rasmus stood up. “If you really want to have this conversation, we need to go to someplace more”—he glanced around the empty bar—“private.”
They rode the old-fashioned elevator in silence. Raya tried not to blink. If she closed her eyes, even for just a moment, she was going to imagine Q standing next to her.
“The tales this elevator could tell,” Rasmus said, his eyes ahead of him. “Did you know that it’s the only elevator on this train? It leads to at least a hundred different locations.”
Raya’s fingers traipsed over the side of the elevator. “Q and I took this elevator to our compartment.”
“Yourcompartment, Raya. Your accommodations were never meant to be shared.”
The elevator dinged and slid its door open. Raya stepped out into a large room filled with wooden looms and spinning wheels moving on their own. Swishes, taps, and whirs drifted across the room like murmurs telling a thousand stories at the same time. “What is this place?”
“It’s the passenger record room.” Rasmus made his way down a shelf that ran the length of the room, his eyes running over the embroidered tablecloths, napkins, and bed linens stacked on it. “We spin all the train’s manifests into gold thread. Every knot in this room is a passenger’s story.” Rasmus took a napkin from the top of a stack, showing off the eternal knot embroidered onto it. “See?”
Raya stared at the knot, struggling to imagine how it might hold a passenger’s story.
Rasmus returned the napkin and walked over to the opposite shelf. “It’s better than letting records gather dust. This way, they have some use. Just like the passengers they belong to.” Rasmus scanned a shelf. “Here it is.” He pulled out a set of bedsheets and set it down on a wide sewing table. He took a pair of silver scissors from a basket filled with spools of gold thread and pincushions and snipped the sheet’s embroidered knot with it. The knot unraveled quickly, eager to be free. Gold thread pooled over the table.
“Why did you do that?” Raya said.
“I’ve decided to do things differently this time around.”
