—June 27, 3-hour: At the Inn—
SOPHIA AWOKE IN the dark, her heart pounding. The nightmare she’d been having still filled the edges of her mind like a fog. She could hear the weeping: the piercing cry of the Lachrima that in her dream grew louder and louder until it obliterated all other sound.
The inn was quiet; the delicate ringing of chimes, swinging gently in the night breeze, was all she could hear. She reached for her watch, and her fingers trembled as she opened the familiar brass disc to read the time, but the room was too dark to see it.
Sophia dressed and pulled on her pack. With a glance toward Calixta—a white shape under the sheets of the other bed—she opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air.
Padding along the tiled corridor of the inn’s courtyard, Sophia felt the nightmare dissipating. Night jasmine wound up along the beams, filling the air with intoxicating sweetness. Her watch, by the light of the night sky, read just after three-hour. She walked toward the courtyard’s entrance, toward the stables. The chimes hanging from the beams of the open corridors tinkled softly as she passed under them.
A rock garden with cacti and wooden benches divided the guest rooms from the stables. She stopped, surprised, at the sight of someone sitting alone in the moonlight. It was Theo. He had turned at the sound of her approach and slid over to make room on the bench. “Can’t sleep either?” he asked.
Sophia shook her head. “I was having a nightmare. What about you?”
“Yeah, can’t sleep.”
She studied him. His scuffed boots were untied. He looked out intently into the darkness as if waiting for something to emerge from it. “Are you worried about the raider?”
“Not so much.”
Sophia hesitated. She wanted to know more, but she didn’t want to hear another set of lies. She took in his thoughtful expression and decided to risk it. “Why was he chasing you?”
Theo shrugged, as if to say that the story was hardly worth telling. “His name is Jude. He usually stays pretty far north—near New Orleans. Remember I told you about the girl who kind of raised me, Sue? She was about ten years older than me, and she got to be really good at raiding—one of the best. She joined Jude’s gang a while back. I found out a couple years ago she’d been killed in a raid because Jude sent her in by herself and warned the people she was coming. He set a trap for her.”
“That’s awful,” Sophia said.
“He doesn’t like anyone being better than him. Smarter than him. Well, I knew it was just a matter of time before Jude wandered over to the New Occident side. In the Baldlands there’s no law to speak of and the raiders do whatever they like, but in New Occident . . . New Orleans has the biggest prison I’ve ever seen. I just made it my business to tell the law that Jude had blown up all the railroad lines they’d been building into the Baldlands.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Next I’d heard, they’d put him in prison for eighteen months.”
“Was it true?”
“Sure. Raiders don’t like the idea of having tracks into the Baldlands, because then there will just be more people and more towns and more law.”
Sophia examined him critically for a moment. “So you didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally said.
“I don’t care if what I did is wrong or not. I got back at him, didn’t I? He got Sue killed—he deserved it.”
“And you’re not worried he’ll follow you?”
Theo shrugged again. “Doubt he will.” He winked and snapped his fingers into a pistol. “Besides, Jude’s nothing compared to the guys hunting you.”
Sophia’s heart sped up again. “I hope they don’t know where we are.”
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them yet.”
“I think I might have figured out why they want the map, though.”
Theo looked at her with interest. “Why?”
“Well, you know how I told you the Nihilismians think our world isn’t real?”
“Yeah.”
“Shadrack told me once that they believe in a legend about a map called the carta mayor: a map of great size and power that contains the whole world. The Nihilismians think it shows the true world—the world that was destroyed by the Great Disruption—not just our world. But no one knows where it is.”
“And the glass you have might find it—the carta mayor.”
“Yes. If it’s something that doesn’t look like a typical map”—she remembered the onions at the market—“the glass would make it visible. But I have no idea what the carta mayor is supposed to look like or where it is. Shadrack made it sound like it wasn’t actually real.”
“But these guys think it is.”
“Clearly.”
“You know,” Theo said thoughtfully, “your uncle did go to a lot of trouble to keep them from finding it—the glass. Maybe he thinks the carta mayor is real.”
“I thought about that. But the glass map could just be valuable on its own. I mean, it could be useful for all kinds of things. Not just what the Nihilismians want it for.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
Sophia was silent for a moment. “Hopefully Veressa will know.”
Theo kicked off his boots and pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his socked feet on the bench. “Have you thought about how to find her?”
“Once we get to Nochtland, I’ll ask where the academy is. The one they studied at. I’m sure they keep track of everyone who went there. I think that’s the first step.”
“Yeah. And then she’ll know where Shadrack is for sure.”
She wished she could be as certain as he was. “I hope so. I really don’t know.” She paused. “Maybe we should have followed the Sandmen off the train when we had the chance. They could have led us to Shadrack.”
“No way; we did the right thing. Look, you’re doing what he said to do. Mazapán will know the academy. Calixta might even have heard about it—have you asked her?” Sophia shook her head. “Then you’ll find Veressa. And she’ll know what to do.”
Sophia didn’t answer, but sat quietly, listening to the chimes. “I like the pirates,” she said eventually. “We were lucky to meet them.”
Theo grinned. “Yeah. They’re solid. You can count on them.”
“I was lucky to meet you, too.” She watched him as she said it.
Theo’s smile flickered like a sputtering candle, but then his grin returned, easy and calm in the moonlight, and Sophia thought she must have imagined it. “They don’t call me Lucky Theo for nothing.”
—8 Hour 30: On the Road to Nochtland—
A STEADY RAIN had begun to fall, and Mazapán kept stopping to check that the flap over the cart was secure. “I’m sorry, Sophia,” he said more than once. “But if the dishes are wet, I’ll get an earful at home.”
“It’s okay,” Sophia said, curling up as tightly as possible under the cart’s narrow awning. She longed for the spare clothes that were in her abandoned trunk, probably stowed in a train depot somewhere along the Gulf line.
Calixta and Burr rode side by side under broad, colorful umbrellas, engrossed in conversation. Theo trailed behind the cart, seemingly unwilling even to ride with the others. When she did see him, he stared sullenly at his reins and refused to meet her eyes. He reminds me of me, Sophia thought, when I’m moping. She was baffled. When they’d parted, close to four-hour, Theo had seemed to be in good spirits.