Charlie leaned out the station window as far as she could and put her face into a plume of blue smoke. It smelled like winter: mint and cinnamon and pine wood. Her eyes stung, and she told herself that it was because of the smoke. There was no reason that the black and green train should fill her with nostalgia and longing.
“Charlie!” Ozzy shouted at her as he stomped into the locker room. “Shut that window! You’re letting exhaust in!”
Charlie pulled herself back into the station and slid the window down. It stuck halfway with a metallic squeak, and she had to bang the top of the frame with her fist before it clanged shut the rest of the way.
“Don’t you get enough smoke already?” Ozzy demanded, “or are you trying to get black lung?” He shrugged out of his shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into his locker. He was only 21, the same age Charlie was, but they’d both been working in the railyard for the better part of five years, and the muscles across his shoulders fairly rippled as he pulled on his coveralls.
Charlie glared at his back, “That’s an arcane engine. It would give me blue lung.”
Ozzy grunted. “Yeah, whatever, miss technically correct. Get your damn helmet on before Harry comes looking for us.”
Charlie rolled her eyes at him. She flipped her hair up and over her head as she leaned forward and pulled the untidy blonde mop into a tight bun. She held it in place with one hand while she pulled her metal safety helmet and strapped it down. Beside her, Ozzy buttoned his coveralls. Charlie had put hers on at home and worn them on her walk here. She liked the weight of the dense canvas, the smell of burning coal and grease baked into their weave. No one looked at her, let alone tried to touch her, when she was wearing her coveralls. If she could, she would wear them all the time.
She waited for Ozzy while he tied his boots, tapping her foot impatiently. When he slammed his locker door closed, she swung herself down the stairs using the banisters. She took the steps four at a time and was down the flight in three seconds, landing with a thud that shook the desks and set a metal bottle rattling.
“Charlie!” Harry yelled from his desk.
Charlie ducked aside just as Ozzy sling-shotted himself down the last few steps behind her. He landed with an even heavier thud. Harry’s thermos of coffee wobbled toward the edge of his desk.
Harry scowled at them. “You two are going to break your necks one day.”
“Good!” Ozzy grinned, “Maybe I’ll get born into a noble house instead of this dump next time.”
“I can only pray,” Harry shook his head at them, “Do it outside of work then. I don’t need the paperwork of you dying on the job.”
“We’re here and reporting for duty, sir,” Charlie gave him a salute. Harry groaned aloud and rolled his eyes.
Harold (Harry) Steamsmith, foreman of the railyard, was on his fourth lifetime as an engineer and in no hurry to be anything else. He remembered when the railyard had been built in Precipice, and he always wore steel-toed boots, even when attending a new engine’s Remembrance Ceremony, and he could look at any train in the yard and tell you where it was built and every time he had repaired it in the last 200 years.
Ozzy repeated, “Reporting for duty sir,” In a high-pitched mocking voice.
Charlie resisted the urge to elbow him. Instead, she pushed him aside so she could pull her toolbox off the shelf. “What are we working on today, Harry?”
Harry flipped through the papers on his clipboard, “Let’s see. King Regalton help me: who scheduled you two for the same job?”
“Someone with good sense,” Ozzy couldn’t keep his mouth in a straight line.
“Experience would say otherwise.” Harry pulled the order out of his stack and passed it to Charlie, “You’re both assigned to a repair and rune refresh on the Capitol Line Engine. Charlie, you’re taking the lead.”
“Hey!” Ozzy said, mock-offended.
Harold glared at him, “One of you actually has a head for spell-work, and it’s not you, Tadpole.”
“Fine,” Ozzy scowled. He hated being called “tadpole,” even though it was practically a term of endearment from Harold. If he didn’t like you, he called you, “maggot” instead.
Charlie glanced over the work order. It was the kind of thing she worked on every day in the railyard: refresh the enchantments on the engine car that had begun to fade, and do some mundane repairs while she was at it. With Ozzy helping, it would take half a day at the most. That meant she’d have time to do some tinkering of her own. “You’ve got it, boss,” She said.
“After you’re done with that, I’ve got another order lined up for you, so be quick about it.” Harold said.
Charlie groaned to herself, “Sure thing, Harry.”
“Good,” He tossed his clipboard down. “Now git! Get to work!” His words were drowned out by the blast from an engine whistle. The building shook as a steam engine rolled to a stop. Sparks flew so high into the air that they sprayed against the windows, and the row of toolboxes jangled and danced in time with the wheels of the locomotive. Harry’s thermos wobbled at the edge of the desk and then tipped, spilling sludgy dark coffee all over the concrete floor.
Harry’s cursing followed them while Charlie and Ozzy went out into the steam-hot air around the freshly-arrived engine. Doors slammed open down the platform. Conductors blew whistles. The hubbub of passengers filled the air. The luggage compartment, right beside the railyard’s office, thudded open, and porters began unloading the luggage for the passengers disembarking.
Charlie paused to wave to a little girl at the end of the platform. She was bouncing up and down in excitement, pointing towards the black and green arcane engine. Her father gripped her hand and pulled her back from the edge. The little girl saw Charlie waving and waved back so hard that her whole body moved with her hand.
Ozzy bumped into her back. “Watch it,” He hissed at her like he hadn’t done it on purpose.
Charlie glared up at him, tipping her head back as he towered over her. She pointed towards the arcane engine, “When did that train come in?”
Ozzy looked at it, frowning. He moved close enough that his arm pressed against her back. She elbowed him in the gut instead of leaning into him like she wanted to.
Ozzy grunted and took a step back from her. He gave her a wounded look as he rubbed at his stomach. “No clue,” He said, “it must have been sometime overnight. It wasn’t here yesterday.”
Charlie grunted. She would ask Harry later: he would know. He would probably know where and when every individual train car was built. If she was really lucky, he would know exactly where the train had been every day for the last hundred years. Harry kept track of that kind of thing when it came to arcane engines.
Ozzy poked her back, “Why?”
“Because it’s an arcane steam engine,” Charlie said.
He gave her a blank look, “And?”
“And nothing. Let’s get to work.”
“Oh come on, what is it?” Ozzy trailed after her towards the out-of-service engines.
“Nothing,” She said.
“No it’s not. Tell me what’s up.”
Charlie waved towards the arcane engine again, “I want to go look at it, that’s all.”
“We can’t do that until we’re done with this job.”
“I know that. That’s why I said it was nothing.”
Ozzy held up both his hands to ward her off, “Okay, okay, damn.”
Charlie rolled her eyes at him, “Moron.”
“You don’t need to be rude,” Ozzy grumbled.
“I’ll be as rude as I want when you’re being a moron.”
“You’re a nightmare.”
“You love me anyway,” Charlie retorted.
Ozzy choked and spluttered. “Hey!” He protested, “that’s not fair! We’re at work.”
Charlie turned into the narrow gap between two engines, laughing.
Ozzy chased after her, growling into her ear and sending shivers all down her back, “You can’t just break the rules to tease me!”
“Well,” Charlie said contemplatively, “they are my rules.”
“They are not your rules. They’re our rules,” he said.
Charlie was fully in the shadows between the engines now. She turned to face Ozzy. He boxed her in against the cold steel of the Number 22 steam engine that had been out of service for the last five years, almost to the day that they had been hired at the railyard as laborers.
Charlie gave him her best innocent face, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “Ozzy, what’s the punishment for breaking the rules?”
Ozzy’s serious gray eyes glared down at her. His frown was twitching, fighting to become a smirk. “I don’t think we ever decided,” He said.
“What seems fair?”
He thought about it, “What if I get to break a rule too?”
Charlie squinted at him, “What rule?”
“No kissing at work.”
Her stomach flipped and filled with butterflies. “I think that’s fair,” She said.
Ozzy smirked down at her. Damn him, but he knew he was beautiful. Even in the coveralls, with his lovely curly brown hair stuffed under the helmet that made his ears stick out. She stretched up to meet his mouth with hers.
The kiss was light, only lasting a moment, and then Ozzy pulled away, leaving Charlie’s mouth tingling with the remembered touch.
She stood there for a moment, shocked by his absence, and then annoyance surged. “You’re such an ass!”
“You’re just mad that you’re not the one teasing this time,” He said.
Charlie could only grumble under her breath.
Ozzy reached the engine they would be working on first, but only by a minute. Charlie joined him, and they set to work dismantling the outer casing of the engine to get to the guts beneath it.
If an engine didn’t have any runes on it, there was no metal shell on the outside at all, and they just welded it all together, but if you had any kind of magic built into the design, you needed to keep the runes protected, so the protective outer layer went on over them. It stayed there until the runes wore away or were damaged anyway, and then it was a total hassle to get back off so you could reapply them.
They got the metal off and Ozzy dragged it out of the way while Charlie examined the runes. They were weathered and scratched up after the train had gone barreling back and forth across the whole kingdom—plowing through snow drifts, fallen trees, and probably some cattle too—for years. After that long, even the most well-protected runes would begin to fail.
Charlie leaned in to look at them more closely. She licked her thumb and rubbed it over the crusty brown ink. It flaked away and there was no discernable dip in the metal underneath it.
“How’s the foundation look?” Ozzy asked while he dug into their tool box for the paintbrushes.
Charlie squinted at the steel. “Nonexistent.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure they never put a foundation down in the first place. Can you get the tools to make a new one?”
Ozzy groaned, but he ran for the inlay gear while Charlie went to get the rune manifest from the engineer. He was napping in the staff car right behind the engine, so it was easy enough.
Well at least Harold would be happy. He could charge extra for the foundation repairs.
Charlie wiped off all the old runes before she began preparing the new paint. As always, when she cracked open the new container, the rotting copper smell of blood made her wrinkle her nose. It wasn’t a surprise. The main ingredient in the ink was blood.
Charlie would have preferred to use fresh blood, her own blood, but that wasn’t how the railyards worked. The blood was bought and paid for before it was mixed with preservatives and adhesives and made into the magic paint used for runes. People donated their blood to the railyards or factories or even libraries all the time for magical use. It was much safer than the workers draining themselves.
She heard Ozzy’s return before she saw him. His boots crunched across the gravel ballast and clunked against the wooden sleepers.
“That took you long enough,” She said, even though he had made good time really, “did you stop and have lunch along the way.”
“Charlotte Pupae?”
Charlie looked over her shoulder. Ozzy was standing there, holding a toolbox in one hand and a crumpled envelope in the other. Beside him was a giant royal police man. He must have been over seven feet tall, and he was huge and muscled. His shoulders strained the seams of his crisp blue uniform jacket. The gold badge on his chest gleamed in the light.
“It’s just Charlie.” Technically it wasn’t, but nobody except her mom ever called her by her real name.
The guard didn’t even respond. He just looked down at the paper in his hands, “Born on the 17th day of Autumn in the year of our King 231?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, suppressing her sigh. So that was what this was about: the cursed day that she was born. She looked at Ozzy. He raised his chin, but his eyes were scared. Their birth date was one of the many things that they shared.
“The King has invited you to his estate in Freetown for the first annual Remembrance Founding Day Celebration.” He held out the letter.
Charlie took the envelope. Her fingers left soapy patches on the heavy cream parchment. The seal was the King’s, but the name on the outside was wrong. That’s where the guard had gotten “Charlotte” from. She opened it very carefully so she wouldn’t crack the wax seal and fished out the paper inside. There was a train ticket in there too, presumably for her trip to Freetown.
King Wonard Regalton II Cordially Invites
Charcoal Pupae of the City of Precipice
To a Remembrance Day Celebration at His Majesty’s Estate in Freetown
On the 22nd Anniversary of her Birth, the 17th day of Autumn, 253
Festivities to begin on the 15th of Autumn and continue through the 22nd
Well, they had got her name right on the invite at least. She almost wished they hadn’t. If her name on the invite hadn’t matched the one on her identification papers, she might have been able to convince them that she wasn’t the right person.
Charlie looked up from the invitation at the guard. Her heart was jumping against her rib cage, but she tried her best to remain outwardly calm. “I have to decline. My family has a Remembrance Day ritual, and I cannot miss it.” It wasn’t a lie: everyone’s family had a Remembrance Day ritual, and oftentimes they extended for several days afterwards.
The guard didn’t raise an eyebrow or shrug or emote in any way. He just stared at her with a flat expression. “Your attendance is required.”
Charlie opened her mouth to insist that, No, she really couldn’t be there, but one of his huge hands jerked towards her. Before she could even flinch, he had grabbed her arm and yanked up the sleeve of the coveralls. His gloved thumb pressed hard into her skin, and pain spiked through her.
She fought his hold, but it was no use. He was four times her size at least. She smelled burnt hair and cooking meat, and then he let her go. Charlie fell back against the cold steel of the locomotive, clutching her burning arm. A black and red burn stood out against her skin.
Charlie spat onto her arm and scrubbed at the brand. The spit sizzled away, and even a light touch caused pain to snarl up her arm and sink into her shoulder. She rubbed at it anyway, hoping to blur the lines of the rune even a little.
It was no use. When she lifted her hand away, a familiar rune was burned into her skin. It was the same tracking rune that the railyard used to keep track of valuable tools.
Charlie looked up at the guard, who would know where she was until the brand healed, and maybe even after that if it scarred.
He blinked back, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. “I hope we’ll see you there,” He said before he turned and walked away.
Charlie climbed to her feet and reached for the blood-paint. She scooped up the brush and smeared it over her skin. It burned even worse than the original brand had.
“Stop that!” Ozzy grabbed her hand, but Charlie shook him off and kept the brush pressed over the brand.
“Shut up, Ozzy!” She growled. “Why the hell didn’t you warn me he had a brand?!”
“I didn’t know!”
“He didn’t do this to you?” She asked.
“No! I just agreed to go to the party and he let me go,” Ozzy glanced over his shoulder to make sure the man was gone before he crouched next to her. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? You should have just agreed.”
“I wanted to know if I was allowed to just not go,” Charlie lifted the paintbrush. It stuck to the brand a little, tacky dried blood and burned flesh sticking together.
Ozzy groaned, “You idiot. Of course we have to go. Now we really have to. You’re not getting out of it.”
“No shit, dumbass.” Charlie shot back at him. She staggered to her feet still clutching the brand burned into her skin. “I need to get this cleaned. Come on.”
Ozzy, finally acting like a gentleman, wrapped an arm around her waist to support her. Together, they limped back to the station.
