“Why?”
“Because in case I get lost, I don’t have a hundred years to spare waiting for someone to come find me.” She hooked the umbrella over her arm and slipped into the coat’s hood.
Icy drops struck Raya’s face. She fumbled with the umbrella’s button, her mind clinging to the rapidly shrinking possibility that she was caught in a downpour of leaky pens. The umbrella sprung open. Raya held it over her head as lightning lit the sky. She swore and ran.
She sprinted past the little hills of socks and wallets, slipping over the slick ground. She spotted her guitar among the instruments arranged near the whirlpool. A swarm of fluttering wings soared behind her. She caught her foot in a muddy hole and tumbled forward, landing on her knees and palms.
“Hiraya,” the stowaway said.
Raya pushed herself to her feet and looked its way. The stowaway stared back at her with Jace’s face. She steeled her jaw. “Enough.”
Jace’s face broke apart, scattering in every direction. The moths gathered and molded themselves into the shape of another man. Q’s gray eyes smiled at her.“Raya?”
“Stay away from me!” Raya sprinted to her guitar.
The stowaway glided toward her, a thousand wings keeping it from touching the rain-soaked ground.
Raya grabbed her guitar by its neck.
The moths scattered and re-formed ahead of her, keeping Q’s face. A tendril shot out from its body and yanked the guitar from her grasp. Rot spread over the wood.“Excess baggage is strictly prohibited.”
“No!” Raya screamed.
The stowaway broke into a swarm.
“Raya!” Olly waved by the whirlpool. “Over here.”
Raya ran toward him.
“I’ll hold it off,” Olly said.
“Olly—”
“Go! Hurry.” Olly dissolved into shining wisps of thought. They circled the black swarm like a windstorm, sweeping the stowaway away.
Raya closed her eyes and listened for a door’s song.
Raya clambered out of a taupe fedora.
“Raya.” Q rushed toward her. “Thank god.”
“The stowaway’s in the MMD.” Raya panted. “And it has your face. Another of its tricks. We need to decouple this car now.”
“Maybe we don’t have to. Get the raincoat.” Q grabbed a paintbrush from Rasmus’s satchel and painted a rough outline of a square on the floor. He set his fingers into an edge of the square, staining their tips with paint. He slid the square open. A void gaped beneath it. “Throw the coat.”
Raya dropped the coat into the hole. Q shut the door and painted a lock over it. They sat on their haunches, holding their breath. “Is it gone?” Raya said.
“I…I think so.” Q gathered Raya in his arms. “We did it. It’s over.”
Their tether had never bound them tighter, making Raya wonder if it was possible to ever let Q go. But she needed to try. She pulled away.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.” Raya shook her head, her eyes on the door Q had painted on the floor. The stowaway was gone, but the decision they needed to make before morning remained. She closed her eyes and cupped his cheeks, gliding her fingers over his skin. “I just want to remember this too.”
Q smiled and clasped her hand. Moths burst through the door, tearing them apart. The dark cloud of wings swarmed Raya, pulling her into the void, beyond Q’s screams and reach.
“Does the train have a disembarkation procedure?”
