“It’s all connected somehow,” Huck said. “I don’t know how or why. I just know that your Mr. Sarkany and his bloody Carpathian wolf dog are not our friends. And if anything happens to you, your father is going to chop me into a hundred pieces and scatter them to the four winds. I had one duty, banshee. One single duty to get back into Fox’s good graces. And now I’ve screwed it all up by leading this man right to you, and we’re stuck here—don’t you see how serious that is? We’re in a rolling prison, stuck here with someone who may be dangerous. We’re worse off here than if we’d stayed in Istanbul.”
“All right, all right. Let me think.”
“Why is this happening? I’m such a thickeejit,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut.
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s Father. Or me even—I saw the man in the lobby. I should have told you back in Istanbul. I just, I mean, with everything that happened... I forgot, I guess. But it’s too late to worry about that now. We just need to stay calm and figure out what we can do.” I pressed a palm against my stomach to steady my nerves. “We can’t go back out there.”
“Absolutely not,” Huck agreed. “What if he plans to take the journal by force? Likely he could. That beast of his looks as if got in a fight with a lion and won. How did they even allow it on the train?”
“No idea.”
“You still have the journal, right?”
I opened my handbag to check. “Still here.”
He exhaled heavily, relieved.
A knock sounded on the adjoining compartment door, causing us both to jump. But it was only the attendant. His muffled voice carried through the wall, informing our neighbor that the train was approaching the Danube River crossing. Once we stopped, we’d have to get on the ferry and wait for all the train’s luggage to be transferred. I glanced out our compartment’s small window to confirm, and an old brick building came into view. And then another. The train would be stopping any minute now.
“How big is the steamboat they use for the crossing?” I asked Huck. “Are we going to be forced to sit near Mr. Sarkany? Is he going to follow us all the way into Bucharest? Maybe he wants to hurt Father.”
“What if this man is the reason Fox left me instead of continuing on to Istanbul? What if he was trying to draw this Sarkany away from us?”
If so, it was a terrible failure of a plan. “I don’t like this.”
“You think I do?” Huck said.
I glanced around the room, frantic. I had no idea what to do. And then...
And then I did. “We need to escape the train,” I said.
“You’re damn right we do.”
“No,” I said. “I mean make a run for it. When it stops, we need to sneak out and leave. Run. Walk. Whatever. We take our chances out there,” I said, gesturing to the rolling landscape. “Father told you to keep these people away, yes?”
“You know he did,” Huck said miserably.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I damn sure don’t want to lead enemies straight to Father once we get to Bucharest. Because they are our enemies. That much I know. Better to ditch the man and his white wolf now.”
“You’reactuallysuggesting that we run away from the train? With no plan? No destination? Just run off into the fields? This isn’t the Pera Palace Hotel, banshee. That’s wilderness out there.”
“And a town—Ruse. Sure, it may be small, but we’re stopping at the Danube, a massive river. People have used it as a trade route for centuries. There must be more than one way across. Look out the window—we’re heading into civilization.”
“A few lonely brick buildings are not what I’d call civilization, banshee.”
“We’ll find a way to the Romanian side,” I assured him. “Then we’ll catch a bus or another train—something. It will be an adventure.”
He snorted a laugh. “Is that we’re calling it?”
“Look,” I said, frustrated. “All I know is that we’d be sitting ducks if we stayed here with that horrible man, and if we’re going to lose him, we need to do it before we get to customs, while everyone is getting off the train. Agreed?”
To my surprise and great relief, Huck didn’t need further convincing. He merely looked me in the eye, nodded firmly, and said, “Pack your things. Only what you can carry.” He turned his back to me and dragged both his canvas rucksack and my overnight satchel down from the luggage rack. “Here,” he said, tossing mine onto the bottom berth.
He opened the cabinet that hid our small sink and quickly dumped all the toiletries into his rucksack while I gathered necessities. A change of clothes. MyBatterman’s Field Guide. I shoved everything into my satchel. Atop all this, I crammed my handbag and passport—and all the crumpled notes I’d made trying to crack Father’s code.
A loud noise rumbled from somewhere inside the train.
Then I felt it.
