After a moment, Books stood straight again, his coughs having faded away. He took a step toward the exit, but paused and gazed back toward the workshop.
“What?” Akstyr asked.
“Nothing,” Books said. “I just wish we’d had more time to look around.”
“Why? I mean, I know why I’d want to look around, but I didn’t think you cared about the Science.”
“I don’t. I merely wondered if there might be some trace of Vonsha Spearcrest.”
“Who?” Akstyr scratched his head. He thought that was the woman who Books had nearly been blown up with in the real estate library the spring before, but he’d never met her and couldn’t remember for certain.
“I never found out what happened to her,” Books murmured. “Her house in the city has been empty since…”
“Is now a good time to chat about women?” Akstyr waved back toward the workshop where the pink gas was oozing into the tunnel.
A wistful smile crossed Books’s face, but he said, “Doubtlessly not,” and headed for the mine exit. “The others are waiting for us. I’ll translate that schematic for you, and you can spend our travel day figuring out how to get those out of people’s necks.”
“What will you be doing while I’m doing that?”
Books’s smile grew bleak. “In addition to pondering the ramifications of us having stowaways and a mutinous pilot on board, I’ll be determining how to take off and get that dirigible to the Scarlet Pass despite my utter lack of formal aviation training.”
“Should I be worried?”
“That depends. Can wizards fly away if a crash is imminent?”
“If they can,” Akstyr said, “I haven’t learned how to do it.”
“Then worry may be warranted, yes.”
“Oh.”
Chapter 11
The train arrived in Forkingrust after dark. None of the town’s buildings rose more than two stories, and the neighborhoods seemed quiet and rustic to Amaranthe’s city-bred eye. After Stumps’ one million people, Forkingrust and its ten thousand permanent residents seemed… quaint. Still, thanks to its location at the convergence of the Capital-Gulf and East-and-West railways, the town could support a few thousand travelers at a time, and the brisk autumn air couldn’t keep everyone inside. Numerous people walked the streets and gathered in eating houses, and the thumps of dancers’ drums flowed from more than one tavern.
Inside the team’s dark freight car, Amaranthe had the sliding door open a couple of inches, and observed through the gap, waiting for an opportune moment to jump out. The clickety-clack of the wheels on the rails had slowed, and they only had a mile or so before the train would reach the station, where there would be more eyes to view its arrival, eyes that might spot a pack of mercenaries hopping out of one of the cars.
When they drew even with a few dark warehouses, Amaranthe pushed the door open. “Time to go, gentlemen.”
She jumped from the moving train and landed in a crouch on the gravel. The speed and her heavy pack threatened her balance, but she caught herself before succumbing to an embarrassing nose-first topple to the earth. Maldynado, Basilard, and Sicarius flowed out of the train without trouble. The team waited for the rest of the cars to pass, then crossed the rails and jogged into a shadowy street between two warehouses. The windows were dark, and few people roamed that side of the tracks.
Amaranthe turned onto a wide street parallel to the tracks. The log and timber-frame buildings had cozy hand-carved architectural details that gave the area more personality than the modern warehouses in Stumps.
Maldynado shuffled his feet, stirring the piles of dried leaves on the side of the street. “No snow. Good.”
“We’re out of the mountains,” Amaranthe said. “Forkingrust is at a lower elevation than Stumps, and it’s further south as well. It shouldn’t get too cold tonight.”
“I can see my breath, boss,” Maldynado said.
“I didn’t say it was balmy. We won’t have to wait long anyway.”
“Can we wait in the train station instead of outside?”
“No,” Amaranthe and Sicarius said at the same time.
“So nice when you two are in agreement,” Maldynado muttered. “They have a big crackling hearth in there,” he told Basilard, who walked at his side. “And there’s a lady who sells steaming-hot mulled cider inside.”
They passed near a streetlamp, and Basilard signed, What’s it mulled with?
“Wholesome stuff,” Maldynado said. “Spices, cinnamon, orange zest.”
Alcohol?
“Oh, naturally. Every mug is about half brandy.”
“Not a beverage I’d recommend given the calisthenics tonight’s mission will require,” Amaranthe said.
“You’re not much fun, are you, boss?” Maldynado draped an arm over her shoulder.
“Not really, no.”
Sicarius glared at Maldynado, and he dropped his arm.
Unfazed, Maldynado went on, “Don’t you think we should have a beverage to offer the emperor when we get him? We don’t want him to think we’re savages.”
Maybe Amaranthe should have tucked alcohol in with the blasting sticks she gave Books and Akstyr. She glanced at Sicarius, thinking of at least one conversation that might go easier under the influence of a bottle.
“I do want to check inside in case Yara is there,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius turned his glare onto her.
“No need to fret,” or glower, she thought, “I’ll go in alone.”
As she spoke, they reached the end of the block of warehouses, and the train station came into view. Amaranthe stumbled to a halt. No less than ten army vehicles were parked around it, including two steam trampers that towered over the brick building, their banks of cannons bristling like quills on a porcupine. Lanterns outside and chandeliers inside illuminated soldiers patrolling the premises, both the debarkation boardwalk next to the tracks and the big hall inside.
“What’s going on?” Amaranthe murmured. “Is all of this just because the emperor’s train is going through? He’s not even scheduled to get off here.”
“You told the enforcer woman there would be a kidnapping.” Sicarius’s tone was as cool and emotionless as ever, so it might have been her imagination that there was an accusing I-told-you-so in there… but she doubted it. “It’s likely she informed the authorities.”
“We don’t know that,” Amaranthe said, though a heavy feeling gathered in the pit of her stomach. Mistake, that conversation had been a mistake. One she might not have made if she hadn’t been thinking of ridiculously unimportant things like who was going to date whom.
“You did what?” Maldynado asked after a moment of stunned silence.
“I invited her to join us and help the emperor,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t tell her to alert the army to anything.”
“What’d you invite her for?” Maldynado sounded like a petulant boy whose parents had told him a neighborhood girl was coming to play in his treehouse.
“I thought she might be useful.” Amaranthe chewed on a fingernail, wondering if they should avoid the train station all together now. They did have a backup plan-hopping onto the moving cars from Akron Bridge three miles northeast of Forkingrust. That had been the reason for their bridge-jumping practice the week before. “If we have to, we’ll switch to our back-up plan, but I’m going in there to get information first. For all we know, this is some splinter group supplied with modern weapons and assigned the task of taking over the emperor’s train.” She looked at Maldynado as she said the last sentence, thinking of his brother, and he scratched his jaw thoughtfully. Sicarius’s expression, too, grew a little less icy, as he seemed to consider the possibility.
Amaranthe shouldn’t hope for such a thing-she didn’t want to witness a bloodbath as soldiers battled soldiers, with Sespian in the middle-but she did hope that these people weren’t here because of her own foolishness.