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Charlie had never felt as sick as she did riding the train to Freetown. She wasn’t motion sick, but she did want to vomit. Her stomach was clenched so tight with fear that she couldn’t swallow even one bite of the stale bread they were given to eat.
Ozzy hadn’t spoken a word to her since they had been loaded into the passenger train in Precipice, and then he had only said, “This is your fault.”
Charlie hadn’t responded. He was right, after all.
The worst part, even worse than Ozzy being mad at her, was the look on Harry’s face when they had been marched by the guards from their tiny transport car onto the proper train. He went through so many emotions that he’s gone pale and green, like he might faint. He must be so disappointed in them, and in Charlie especially, for trying to run and making a spectacle.
There was no way either of them were getting their jobs back after this.
At least now they weren’t shoveling coal. Her arms still ached from the trip back to Precipice from the border. Charlie had never thought it was an easy job to do, but the reality was more difficult than she had thought it would be. But despite the ache and the exhaustion, Charlie could not bring herself to lie down in one of the bunks of the train car and sleep. Instead she sat at the small table, forehead leaning against the window, and watched the passing scenery. The sun warmed the glass, soothing her headache.
Was this a train that she had worked on in the Precipice Railyard? She hadn’t gotten a good enough look at it to tell. Anyway, she only would have worked on the engine, not a sleeper-car like the one they were in now. Charlie had always had a fascination with train engines, but not specifically with engines. It was the gears that fascinated her, and how they turned steam into movement. Every train engine she had ever worked on boiled water to make steam, then forced that steam through narrow pipes and into large cylinders, where the force of the steam expanding pushed a piston. The movement of that piston then, in turn, moved a drive shaft, which turned the wheels. It was a simple process: she understood it intuitively. Some engines had more cylinders, and some had fewer, but it was all, fundamentally, the same. It was the cycling of the pistons that gave steam-powered trains their distinctive chug-chug cadence. Like the train had a heartbeat that beat frantically and never stopped unless the engine did. She could hear this train’s engine now, chugging along.
Half-asleep as she was, Charlie let her mind wander. Sure steam-engines were great for trains, but they weren’t confined specifically to trains. You could use the same principles to power anything with wheels, assuming you had a way to heat the water, or had some other method of turning the drive shafts. It was an uncomplicated machine. Not like a clock or a watch, which required all kinds of gears set in specific positions to meticulously turn the minute uncoiling of springs into days of continuous and repetitive motion. She had never seen such a thing up close — they didn’t have a clock tower or a clock maker in Precipice — but she had learned the basics from Harry and travelers with wrist or pocket watches she had seen them winding up. Could you make a steam-powered watch? Probably not. It was too small and too complex. But could you make a clockwork-powered train? She couldn’t see why not, if you could figure out a way to wind it up.
The silence lasted several hours. Charlie fell asleep with her head leaning against the window. She only woke up when the brakes began to shriek and the slowing train jerked her awake. She sat up to look around, a blanket sliding from her shoulder, and a pillow that had been shoved between her and the window.
Ozzy sat up across the room, very pointedly not looking at Charlie, but out the window. She followed his gaze and saw that the train was pulling into a massive station. There were already two other trains pulled up to platforms that were loaded with travelers – far more than they ever had in Precipice, where the passengers were mostly seasonal workers or wealthy folks traveling into or out of Regalis for pleasure. A large part of the crowd, however, was being held back by a row of royal policemen. Standing behind the protective barrier was a group of 30 or so young people holding suitcases and looking anxious. Other invitees to the Remembrance Day celebration.
They boarded the train. Some of them smiled and seemed genuinely excited. Some of them looked very afraid. They stepped onto the train almost halfway up the train from where she and Ozzy were being kept near the back.
The car they were in was a bunk sleeper. It had 6 beds, one bathroom, and one table with 2 chairs. Most of the cars on this train were for passengers, but only a few of them were bunk cars like theirs, and she and Ozzy were in the only car that seemed to have both doors locked. It was a tiny, perfect prison cell.
Ozzy said, “We could be over there with them. I bet they get a separate observation car.”
Charlie rolled her eyes at him. “Screw off,” She said, “I messed up, I know. Not like we’re any more screwed than we were before.”
“Yeah, maybe. Except now we’re definitely gonna be locked up the entire trip.”
Charlie said, “As long as they let us out at the end I don’t care.”
Ozzy didn’t reply.
The door on the rear of their car opened with a bang, and a young woman was pushed into the car. A policeman held her arms forcefully behind her. He marched her in, and the door closed and locked behind him. He cast an eye over at Charlie and Ozzy, but made no comment as he undid the handcuffs on the girls’ wrists.
“Dinner will be served in an hour,” He said as she stumbled away from him, rubbing at her wrists. Then he turned around and banged on the door to be let out.
Charlie watched the woman. She looked angry more than resigned. She glared at Charlie first, then at Ozzy. She had fiery eyes, and a sharp chin that she jutted forward at them both, as if daring them to make a move towards her.
Charlie looked back out the window. Was it a good idea to try to break through one of the windows on their car to escape. But jumping out of a moving train was an even worse idea than jumping onto one, and the only time they would be guaranteed to land safely would be when the whole train was surrounded by witnesses. And she still had the tracking brand burned into her arm.
The stranger kept standing by the door, watching out the window. A guard stayed with his back to the door, until the whistle blew and the train began to pull out of the station.
“Damn it!” She yelled, slamming her palm against the window as the train began to roll. The glass didn’t even crack.
Charlie got up and threw the blanket and pillow back on the bunk Ozzy had taken them from. She pulled her woolen cap down snugly over her hair again, as it had ridden up a little.
“Hello,” she said as she sat down again. “I’m Charlie. That’s Ozzy.”
The stranger glanced at her, then back out the door as the train pulled out of the station. She stepped back from it with a sigh. “My name is Agnes,” She said. “It’s terrible to meet you.”
“This is awful,” Charlie agreed.
“It’s only bad because you tried to run away,” Ozzy said.
Charlie felt her face flush with anger. “You tried to escape with me!”
“Only you actually wanted to!” Ozzy yelled back at her.
“That makes her smarter than you, at least!” Agnes burst out.
Ozzy and Charlie both stared at her in shock.
“So shut up,” Agnes said, like they were both stupid for not saying it before her.
Ozzy grunted and rolled over in his bunk to face the wall.
Agnes sat down across the tiny table from Charlie. She pulled angrily at a strand of her own hair like she wanted to tear it out.
“Thanks,” Charlie said to her.
“No thanks needed. It was the truth,” Agnes said, “we’re probably all going to die. Or be tortured.”
Ozzy rolled back over noisily and sat up. He leaned over and put his elbows on his knees, “Both of you? Really?”
“God you really are dumb,” Agnes rolled her eyes at him, “The stupid mage is probably already ascended. They aren’t going to be able to find them, because they aren’t even here, but you can bet they’re going to go through everyone who is here anyway looking for them.”
Ozzy’s mouth fell open a little in shock.
“I never thought about that,” Charlie said.
“Really?” Agnes said, “cause it’s pretty obvious. The Steam-Powered Mage came to Regalis the year we were founded 253 years ago. By now, they’ve lived three lifetimes here at least. They might not be around at all.”
Charlie put her head against the window again. Outside, the city was going by. Electric lights, which weren’t available at all in Precipice, glowed. The Paradise Grand Hotel’s sign was even glowing green and red somehow. Maybe that was magic too?
She had never thought that it was possible the mage wasn’t alive at all. This train might truly be taking them all to their life-long imprisonment, if not their slow deaths. She had heard stories about what the Royal Police did to criminal suspects. Some innocent people came back from their interviews without fingers or toes. Some people came back and would never speak of what happened to them again.
“How do you know when the Steam-Powered Mage arrived in Regalis?” Ozzy asked,
“Because my parents were around back then, and they remember it,” Agnes said.
“Both of them?” Ozzy asked.
Agnes nodded, “They’ve been married in every lifetime.”
Charlie felt her eyes drawn magnetically to Ozzy. He was looking back at her almost guiltily, like maybe he was feeling bad for how he was acting actually.
“Wow,” she said to Agnes, “that’s special.”
She nodded, “Yeah. It is.”
They all sat in silence for almost an half hour. Finally there was the click of a key in the lock of the front-facing door to their carriage. This was the door that led to the rest of the train, not right to the outside. It opened, and an attendant wearing an embroidered vest and a slightly strained smile came in pushing a metal cart with three covered domes on top. A guard filled the doorway behind him, keeping a watchful eye on all of them.
“Dinner service,” the attendant said in a sing-song voice. “Tonight, we have ham prepared by roasting with honey and spices, served with dinner rolls, potatoes, green beans, and a salad of tomato and lettuce.” He lifted a plate from the cart, set it in front of Charlie, and lifted the lid.
The smell alone made her mouth water. The meal itself was so perfect that Charlie could not believe it was real for a moment, but she used the fork the attendant provided to poke at the ham and found it juicy and soft.
The attendant produced a side plate from inside the metal cart and a basket of rolls, then a small dish of butter.
He turned towards Ozzy, “Will you take your meal in bed?”
“No,” he said, already standing, then he looked around and realized there were no more tables in the room. “Or, I guess I will.”
“I have an extra tray for you,” the attendant pulled a folded tray off the end of the cart and set it up like a miniature table in front of Ozzy. “Enjoy your meal. I will return for the dishes in an hour.”
The waiter and the guard both left the room.
Charlie picked up a roll and tore it open to smell the inside of the bread. It was made with butter, and she could not smell anything strange in it or in the rest of the food. She tasted it, but it was buttery and warm. Not even a little bitter.
Ozzy had already started eating in earnest. “Toss me one of those,” He said around a bite of ham.
Charlie tossed a dinner roll to him.
Agnes picked up her knife and fork.
Charlie ate greedily. It was one of the best meals she had ever eaten. She tried to savor it, but she was too hungry.
After a few minutes of nothing except eating, Charlie asked Agnes, “So your parents wanted you to escape Regalis?”
She nodded, swallowed a green bean. “They figured this would be a nightmare, and they wanted to spare me the pain.”
“And if you turn out to be the traitor, you’d be in the wind,” Ozzy said.
“I guess,” Agnes said, “but I’m not the Steam-powered Mage.”
“How do you know that?” Charlie blinked, “You haven’t had your Remembrance yet, right?”
“No I haven’t, but I don’t have the ability to use magic.”
“Oh.”
Agnes shrugged, “The mage will surely be able to at least move a coin with his magic.”
“Your parents had you try that?” Charlie was even more interested in this conversation than her dinner now.
“No. Every child in Paradise gets tested. A lot of stage shows use magic, so you can make a lot of money working for a theater.”
“Like conjuring flames?” Charlie asked
“Or like colored light, or music.”
“Why wouldn’t they just hire musicians for the music?”
“No idea. It’s probably cheaper?” Agnes shrugged. “Didn’t they test you in elementary school?”
“No,” Ozzy said from his bed.
“There aren’t very many uses for magic in Precipice,” Charlie said, “it’s the railyard and the logging camps and that’s about it.”
“Oh.” Agnes trailed off awkwardly.
“Charlie knows a few runes,” Ozzy offered into the silence that followed that.
“That’s just memorizing shapes,” Charlie said, “it’s not like I’m using magic myself.”
“How do you know runes?” Agnes leapt on the new conversation topic.
“Almost all train engines use them to protect the metal from debris or weather,” Charlie said. “I just know the shapes for repelling water and rocks because it was part of working in the railyard.”
“Oh,” Agnes said, “So not impressive magic?”
Ozzy let out a bark of laughter, “Not impressive at all. It doesn’t even glow!”
Charlie felt her face flush red, “I think it’s impressive. It keeps a lot of people safe and keeps a lot of trains running smoothly.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that’s more impressive than throwing fire around,” Ozzy teased.
Agnes rolled her eyes and tipped her head towards Ozzy, “Mages don’t throw fire. At least not the ones I know, but none of them have been very strong.”
“Isn’t that the test to see if you can use magic?” Ozzy asked, “conjuring fire?”
“No,” Agnes said. “Way less impressive. You have to move a coin without touching it.”
“That’s it?” Ozzy asked. “Seems easy.”
“Yeah, but they have you stand ten feet away. Then they have you prick your finger and move the coin.”
“There is a rune for ‘push’,” Charlie said. “It’s pretty simple. If you drew it in your blood, even a non-mage might be able to move the coin.”
“Really?” Agnes said.
“Yeah. That’s what runes are for: they allow anyone to do magic. You still need to draw them in blood, so they aren’t free.”
“They’re also really limited,” Ozzy said, “There are only a few of them and only a few meanings.”
Agnes was chewing a chunk of ham, so she didn’t respond right away.
“We should test ourselves,” Ozzy said.
Charlie nearly choked on a bean. She coughed so hard her eyes started watering. “No!” She said, as soon as she had recovered. “Are you actually crazy?!”
“You’re the crazy one,” He scoffed, “if you hadn’t freaked out, we wouldn’t be locked up in here.”
“So you want to make it worse by discovering if we’re mages? “
“Well if we knew we couldn’t use magic, then we would be able to stop worrying about it!”
“What if we can? What then? Do we just turn ourselves in? Get even more attention from the police?”
“No,” he said, “but you would at least stop worrying.”
Charlie snapped. “Go ahead then!” She tossed her fork onto the edge of the table. “Go ahead. Test yourself.”
Ozzy squinted at her.
“Go ahead,” Charlie said, “You have a knife. Move the fork from there.”
He looked down at his steak knife. He took the bite of ham off his fork and chewed slowly, wiping the knife clean on his sleeve. He put the tip of the knife to his finger.
Charlie felt her stomach lurch. She hadn’t actually wanted him to test himself — she had just wanted to push him a bit, blow off some steam. “Ozzy,” She said, “don’t actually—”
But Ozzy had already drawn blood. He winced at the drop that slid down his hand before he pointed his bloody finger at Charlie’s fork.
Charlie looked down at it, holding her breath. She was praying for possibly the first time ever. “Don’t move. Please don’t move. Don’t let Ozzy have magic. Don’t let us have even more of a target on our backs.”
The fork rattled on the table as the train rolled along the tracks. Then, as if someone had placed a finger alongside the handle and pushed it, it spun in a slow circle, the handle around the tines. It didn’t stop either, just went around and around as if it was the hand of a clock.
Ozzy grinned, and then laughed, a sound of pure wonder. He looked like he was sixteen again, the day Charlie had met him, so boisterous and warm and excited about life.
Charlie’s eyes burned. She tried to yell at him, but instead she sobbed out, “You moron! What have you done?!”
Ozzy frowned, “But you told me to—?”
“I didn’t mean it!” Charlie yelled at him. “I clearly didn’t mean it! What is wrong with you?! Do you just do anything people tell you to!”
“When my girlfriend is the one telling me, yes! You gave me permission!”
“Why do you need my permission to do anything?!”
“Screw you!”
Charlie stood up too far. She felt like she was falling, uncontrolled, spinning through the air. “Why can’t you just listen the first time then? I told you it was a stupid thing to do! Why do you only believe me when you want to use me as an excuse to do something stupid?!” She didn’t care that she had knocked over her glass and water was all over her plate. She didn’t care there was a face watching them through the window in the door. All there was was Ozzy, and his bleeding finger, and the stupid fork still going around in circles. “You have no trouble at all listening to the stupid kin, but you don’t trust me at all!”
Ozzy’s mouth already turned up at the corner in a self-satisfied smirk before he opened it. Charlie didn’t want to hear what he was about to say because he was going to sound so smug and confident that even if he was blatantly wrong, she would think he was right for a split second. She couldn’t take the argument afterwards, or how everything would fall apart afterwards, so she did the only thing she could: escape.
She fled into a tiny bathroom, tossing the words, “I’m taking a shower,” over her shoulder as she went. She locked the door and leaned her forehead against it. The door rattled against her skin. She breathed hard, trying not to sob, but unable to stop the miserable tears dripping down her face or the panic scratching up the inside of her throat.
From the other side of the door, Agnes said, “For the record, I’m on Charlie’s side of that argument.”
Ozzy just scoffed. “Of course you are. Both of you are women who hate the king even though you’ve never met him.”
“You haven’t either,” Agnes pointed out.
Charlie turned the water on before she heard Ozzy’s reply.
She washed everything except her hair, which she put back up underneath her cap after a quick brush with her fingers. By the time she left the bathroom, Ozzy was back to feigning sleep in his bunk, and Agnes was nodding off at the table. They didn’t speak again until the next morning.
/
