She didn’t have to. Without permission or fanfare, Three scooped her up off the ground and carried her down the line, cradling her like an overgrown child.
“I can walk,” she said, fidgeting in protest.
“I don’t know. Pretty sure you got heavier since we got up here.”
He kept walking.
“Put me down, Three. I can manage.”
“Fine.”
He dropped her legs, and helped her upright. Cass made a show of adjusting herself, as if he’d somehow mishandled her and maybe owed her an apology.
“Where are we going?”
“Here.”
Cass looked around and sighed. They were standing at the edge of what looked like a very short tunnel. Six concentric rings of gray steel stacked tightly together along the track, forming an enclosure around the rail about nine feet tall and twice as long. It seemed to be emitting a faint, low hum, just at the edge of hearing; one that seemed imagined if you listened for it, but obvious if ignored. Cass ran a hand along its smooth curving surface. It was cool to the touch, not the cold she expected.
“This is a repeater?”
“Yeah,” Three answered. “Something about the magnets. Weir don’t like ’em.”
Nausea swept over Cass again, the strongest yet, and she thought for a moment she might actually faint. She leaned her head against the repeater wall until it passed.
“I don’t think I like them either,” she said, more to herself than Three. Cass leaned back and looked again at the repeater, the rail itself. Thought about the general state of disrepair. “I’m surprised this thing is still… doing whatever it does.”
Three shrugged in the moonlight.
“Me too. Lucky.”
“How’d you know it was running?”
“I didn’t.”
Cass thought that over briefly.
“Well, what would’ve happened if it’d been dead?”
“Nothing good.”
His tone was his characteristic brand of flat, matter-of-fact. Somehow understated, yet completely honest. Cass reflected back to their climb and wondered if maybe she’d been wrong, if maybe he really was a machine after all.
“Come on,” he said. “Might as well get comfortable. Not much left to do tonight except sleep.”
He walked down into the middle of the repeater, where it was darkest. Cass followed along one pained step at a time, her body ceasing to give her any localized sensations and having resorted to one generalized mass of hurt. She lowered herself to the ground, sat cross-legged, leaned her back against the repeater wall, surprised by how much she could still see with the moon- and starlight filtering in from both open ends. It might’ve been comforting if not for the void in her lap, where Wren usually slept. She felt empty.
Three slid in next to her.
“We’ll be safe here, don’t worry.”
He swept something heavy over her, covering from her shoulders down over her legs. It was damp, but extremely warm. His coat.
“Sleep. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
Deep down, Cass felt she should make some sort of protest, to remind Three that she didn’t need him or anyone else watching out for her. But deeper still, she knew that was fast becoming a lie. She let her eyes fall closed, and welcomed the embrace of dreamless sleep.
Three’s eyes snapped open, but careful discipline kept the rest of him as still as death. He counted to ten before shifting his gaze to check the periphery, letting his ears do the preliminary work. Nothing seemed immediately out of place. At some point, Cass had slipped sideways into him, and was now sleeping soundly with her head on his shoulder and a hand tucked just inside his elbow.
It hadn’t been a sound that had awakened him, but he felt the pumping adrenaline as if someone had called his name, or smashed out a nearby window. Instinctive alarms were screaming in his head.
Intruder.
Slowly, Three shifted his head ever so slightly to the right, just enough to take in the full view of the line leading off that direction. It was clear. Now, just as slowly, just as carefully, back the other way, checking left. He stopped. Someone was standing on the track.
Three waited. Judged. Let his mind run the calculations. Not a Weir. The idea was so bizarre, so preposterous, that he wondered briefly if he were still asleep, dreaming, or maybe hallucinating. But his gut told him he was wide awake, seeing what he was seeing. The silhouette of a man standing patiently on the tracks, maybe ten meters from the repeater, as if he’d been there all night.
Somewhere in an alley far away and far below, a Weir cried out in some unknown and unknowable emotion, if Weir could in fact be said to have emotion. The silhouette turned its head slightly in the direction of the sound, revealing a brief profile. It turned back as Three’s brain worked to identify the intruder from that momentary glimpse of features, and he noted from the movement that whoever it was, they were staring right at him now.
Thin, angular. Something in the posture seemed familiar. Three’s hand floated almost of its own accord up to the thin slash on his throat as it clicked.
Dagon.
There was no telling how long he’d been out there. Waiting. And there was no reason for him to be there other than because he had tracked them to their hiding place. If that was the case, why hadn’t he crept in and killed Three in his sleep? Taken Cass? If Dagon could evade the Weir at the height of their activity, that made him even more dangerous than Three already considered him. More dangerous than anyone Three had known before. And if Dagon had found them, what did that mean for the others? Were they waiting outside as well, ready to ambush him?
No. Something within told Three that the right thing was to go out to him. It didn’t make sense, but none of it did anyway. Dagon had some strange sense of honor, or some personal code. Three didn’t know much about the man, but he felt certain that whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t a trap. At least, no more a trap than confronting the deadliest foe he’d ever met could be.
Three slid carefully out from under Cass, propped her gently with the backpack as a pillow, and crept up to his feet. Dagon didn’t seem surprised as Three walked out to meet him. Three prepared himself, drew a deep breath, forced his body into a relaxed readiness. He cracked his neck as he walked the final steps, hands slightly stretched out to his sides, showing he was unarmed. For now.
As Three closed the distance, Dagon moved forward a few steps almost as though the two were old friends meeting again for the first time in a long while. Close enough for Three to see his half-smile. Close enough to whisper and be heard.
“Sorry if I woke you,” Dagon said, still smiling. “I was trying to be quiet.”
“Light sleeper.”
“Me too. Guess it’s not a bad thing. At least in these parts.”
Three didn’t respond. Just waited. Silence had a way of drawing more out of people than any question ever would.
“Is Haven in there?” asked Dagon. “Cass, I mean.”
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
Dagon chuckled quietly, shook his head.
“And Spinner?”
Three didn’t know why Dagon used different names, but he guessed correctly that he meant Wren.
“If I said no for that one?”
“I guess I wouldn’t believe you either.”
Again, Three just waited. The whole situation was surreal, like some sort of collision between alternate realities. Dagon didn’t belong here. But then again, neither did Three. None of them did. And certainly this didn’t seem like the time or place for small talk.
“What’s your name?” asked Dagon.
“Three.”
Dagon grunted. Then extended a hand.
“Three, I’m Dagon.”
Three hesitated, evaluated. But everything seemed sincere, genuine. He took Dagon’s hand, shook it firmly. A strange tradition that somehow managed to survive in a world where real, physical contact was practically indistinguishable from the virtual kind.