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She tapped the warehouse wall behind her and looked through the iron gate. She stabbed the ancient lock with a very thin knife she’d pulled from a casing on her wrist. It fell away. Then they eased their way quietly through.
    Ahead by the rails, Smith strolled on beyond the warehouse. The two soldiers accompanying him saluted and then hastily jogged back the way they had come. Smith ambled on alone, his cane clicking continuously against the metal walkway.
    Jing and Drina hustled, albeit not quickly with the mechanic’s perpetual limp, alongside the building to the corner. The soldiers were congregating up on the other end of the train yard, shouting orders ahead, waiting on the arrival of the next train.
    The pair slipped around the corner of the warehouse, where Smith’s cane had been echoing. But the man in black was gone like a ghost into the mist. Behind them, the ground rumbled as the next Killing Train rolled into the station.
    ***
    The train cars rumbled along the tracks. Solindra swayed with the alien seesaw motion. Despite having lived her life next to trains, she’d never been on a moving one.
    Nor had she ever seen people packed in as livestock. She’d rarely seen any livestock cars roll through Pitchstone to stop for water, but she’d always remembered the stench of terrified cattle.
    It was the same here. Everyone tried to crowd to the center of the car. No one dared touch the door or the tiny, high vents. A scalding steampipe barred each opening to discourage any escape attempt. There was often a cry from someone pushed into the heated pipes by the sheer weight of the people.
    Solindra traced the trail to the front of the car where the master pipe connected to a coal boilerbox built on the outside of the car. She couldn’t see the box itself, but she knew exactly how it worked.
    She inhaled again. The air was too laden with the stench to breathe. Her hair seemed to be the only color in the room. Over in the far corner stood a knot of Steampower soldiers, gazes broken and shoulders slumping forward. Their black uniforms bore fresh tears and stains.
    “You have very strange eyes.”
    She whirled to Theo, almost slapping him. So, he’d made his way back over to her. How dare he! It was his fault she was here.
    He grinned, despite the hopelessness around him. “What’s your name?”
    She licked her lips. “Marissa Clifton?”
    “Right.” He rolled his dark eyes. “And I’m Boras Indecent Saturni.”
    She sighed. “I’m Cylinder.”
    He barked a laugh, raising a few faces directly around them.
    She blushed as red as her hair. “No, Solindra! Solindra Canon.”
    His grin curled toward the side of his face. “Well, Ms. Solindra Canon, we are going to die. I hear that when we arrive, they stick brush and logs underneath the cars and light them on fire. We burn alive in our very own oven.”
    Solindra jerked her face away. “Shows how little you know. That would warp the axles, and more. The cars would be useless afterward, and Codic is already reusing boxcars that should’ve been retired five years ago. I saw them at the yard.”
    He rocked back half a step and raised his eyebrows. “Who are you?”
    “Who are you?” she asked back.
    “Just another bricoleur.” He winked.
    “One of those traveling thieves? My father taught me about you.”
    “Itinerant tinsmith,” he corrected with that devilish grin. He glanced around. There were other bricoleurs on the train, too. They weren’t part of the war; it was just an excuse to get rid of them.
    The train rocked. Theo went with the motion and crashed into her. Solindra stared at him directly in the eye.
    He held up the faintly glowing red medallion in his gloved fingers. “What the hell is this?”
    The girl went for her skirt pocket. It was empty of its now familiar weight. “Give me back the sancta!”
    “The what?” He squinted at it and held it up to his nose. Around them, the train’s other unwilling occupants stared at the walls or