Time passes like a snail in the dark train car, and this time Red doesn’t dare light even a spark of magic. Instead, sleepy like a lioness after a meal, the witch closes her eyes again and waits.

By the time she’s jolted awake by another knick in the line, hues of amber morning light begin to snake their way through the car’s corners, and the train is slowing down. Now, she can feel it: she’s close. Ravenheart. I wonder what my fellow stowaway is up to, she ponders for just a moment, but it’s a curiosity that fades quickly in the face of her main mission.

She’s never been to Ravenheart. Or, well, never been in recent memory - perhaps, someday, when she was a young and bright-eyed kid that never quite got along with any of the other kids she’d meet, her father may have taken her to the City of Ravens. But if that did happen, it was a long time ago, in a memory long forgotten. She’s got no idea what to look out for or where to go.

I managed in Torain, she says to herself. I’ll manage again.

At last, there’s light in the car greater than the meek little flame she could safely conjure. Enough light, even, to reveal the roof that had been, up until now, shrouded in darkness and mystery. And Red’s eyes light up seeing a trapdoor.

“Aha!” she clambers on top of a crate. The train is moving slowly by now, and she’s not stumbling through the shadows, so she can somewhat easily reach up and push open the trapdoor on the ceiling. A chill of cold wind bites through from the outside, before she haphazardly lumbers herself onto the roof. If anyone searches the car, all they’ll find are croissant crumbs and empty wine bottles, but no stowaway.

She keeps a low profile on the black roof, laying on her stomach, only occasionally hazarding glances over the edge, bathed in the thin light of morning. The train isn’t bound for the marvel of Saint Gallian Station - whose faraway brick silhouette and pointed clocktower can be seen even from afar, prodding over the low buildings of the capital’s outskirts. Instead, the railway curves around the city, towards the Avon River, bisecting the city north-to-south, and the riverside terminal in a snowy field just a smidge away from Ravenheart’s southern edge.

Slowly, the train begins to crawl to a halt, until Red at last feels comfortable enough to start cautiously hopping from wagon rooftops, towards a platform she can hop on and blend into the terminal scenery. There’s dozens of other trains cluttered across a few lines, and the shore of the river is speckled with tall dark warehouses that obscure the water’s view. The train stops fully, and immediately sullen-faced labourers begin to move to unload the cargo. Splendid for her plan, but just before she does hop off the car to make her escape, she hazards a final glance towards the locomotive, and the spot where she knows her fellow petty criminal is hiding.

Clustered at the entrance to the car, shouldering their way past a few labourers just looking to do their job, there stand the dark blue overcoats of couple constables. Their brown mits clutch batons, their round pinkish heads bear the custodian helmets with the silver Gallian scythes on them, and one holds his foot against the door to wedge it open while the other is shouting inside.

Oh no! You fool, what have you done?! Worries Red.

The second constable walks inside, and the scuffle sounds like it’s brief before he begins wrenching whoever it is out of the car. The witch sighs with disappointment.

Sorry, my fellow rat. I’m afraid I can’t help you, this time. She sighs. At the very least, they’re going to distract the constables for just long enough for her to get away. And then, the portly constable finally manages to drag the kicking stowaway outside.

He’s a pale and slender elf, wearing normal - if slightly ragged - clothes: a white blouse, black pants and boots, all with a patchy coat thrown haphazardly on top, and a woollen hat hiding a long mop of chestnut hair that reaches just below his shoulders. And he’s shouting some pretty interesting phrases at the constables too. Red, however, freezes.

“You idiot,” she utters, eyes wide.

Paul Sawyer: apprentice lumberjack, wannabe soldier. Longtime friend, part-time carer, full-time buffoon.

“Watch what you’re grabbing!” an indignant shout rings from Paul, and he tries to secure his footing to yank his wrists free of the constable’s grip, to little avail. “Bastard, I wasn’t doing anything!”

“Spare us the details, kid,” says the constable in a basso voice. “Law’s the law, so stop kicking and start following orders! Hey, get some cuffs on him.”

“I wasn’t doing anything! I just wanted to get to the recruitment office!”

“Like they’ll accept a twig like you! Stop struggling!” the other constable shouts at him, and from his overcoat he pulls out a chain of metal handcuffs, before slapping them over his wrists. Paul groans as he tries - and fails - to wrench himself away.

No, why would you do this?! Red still watches, gritting her teeth. Stowing away - why? The witch wracks her brain for ideas, ducking out of sight when one of the constables glances towards her.

“This is a Mordian train, too,” the portly constable comments. “Who are you, anyway? You’re a jerry, aren’t you, sneaking across the border? Y’can tell by the elf ears!” he says to his friend.

“Fuck off, I’m Lwennian through and through! I was born here! Let me go!” Paul shouts.

“You’re a spy is what you are! Chief told us to look out for you lot,” the other constable says, starting to try and tug him across the platform. “One of the fancy elves, too, I bet - probably used your magic to sneak past customs, didn’t you?”

But the constable doesn’t get to continue after Paul manages to catch the heel of his boot into a nook on the ground, using the leverage to suddenly tug backwards against him. And unlike the strong footing of his more heavy-set partner, the thinner constable loses his grip.

In less than a second, Paul turns, ready to run in the opposing direction, but the burly constable has other plans. He raises a baton above his head, ready to wallop it straight down on Paul’s. A sharp chill runs through Red, from the back of her head straight down her spine and into her fingertips.

The snow on the ground bubbles and explodes in a sudden haze of thick, glistening steam. Slick condensation forms all over Red’s skin, tingling against the pricking sensation she feels through her pores. Magic essence the shade of cyan and purple crackles like sparks around her fingertips. A shout goes up, and both constables lose their footing.

“Run!” she cries out without thinking. “Paul! To the warehouse!”

The brown-haired elf dashes through the impromptu-sauna in a shroud of wispy fog. He spares a glance upward, and Red notices his eyes widen and his mouth open as if he’s about to say something.

“Don’t just gawk at me you idiot, I told you to run!”

Paul stiffens up suddenly: “Yes ma’am!” He rushes ahead, leaping into the muddy snow between platforms, dodging and weaving through the confused-looking workmen.

“Witch! Witch! Sound the-!” the thinner constable stumbles through the steam and looks up, clutching at an ivory whistle. Red turns to look at him in return, and for just a second, her eyes lock with his. The man tenses up, eyes wide and suddenly bloodshot, and freezes with his fingers clenched around the whistle.

Red turns and runs as well, leaping across the train rooftops. Her booted soles squeak loudly against slick ice and threaten to slip, but the witch maintains balance. Behind her, the fat constable has sounded his whistle, and his friend has regained his nerve to start giving chase.

“Stop right now!” he shouts. “There’s nowhere for you to run from here!”

There’s about two hundred yards to the nearest warehouse: a wide building with faded yellow paint and a rusty corrugated roof. Red catches glimpses of Paul running between the trains and the crates of cargo being currently unloaded, but she can’t look at him for long before there’s the loud caw of a raven just next to her. Long, shaggy black hair whips through the cold wind as she turns to look.

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Running across the rooftop of the train stationed just next to hers, there’s a third constable giving chase, but one not wearing the simple uniform of the other two: their face is shrouded behind a long-beaked mask and white lenses, and they’ve got thick leather gloves pulled up to their elbows, sturdy enough to allow a large metal-beaked raven to perch on their forearm. A special constable - who train and use the capital’s titular ravens to catch those who evade their more rank-and-file counterparts.

They let out this long trill, and with a flourishing spread of its wings, the raven leaps from their hand and soars towards Red. The witch can do little more than flail her arms over her head in surprise, and within moments she feels talons scratching through her onyx hair.

“Stupid thing!” she shouts, eyes shut tightly. The raven’s on her head now, feet tightly clamping on her scalp, and suddenly a rush of pain hits her right on the top of the skull like an icepick into the cranium. And then another, and then another, and soon blood begins to drip down her forehead like a ruby waterfall. Adrenaline rushes through her again, and this time she has no idea what she does exactly - magic simply rushes through her arms like a wave of fiery electricity, and next she knows, the raven suddenly lets go and flaps into the air again, dodging the bolt of raw, unfocused energy that shoots from her palm.

But it’s too late anyway, because by the time she blinks her eyes open again, she already feels how her foot isn’t hitting the ground again. There’s a moment of weightlessness, and then she falls through the space between the wagons and lands with a wet, dull thud into the muddy ground.

So close, too! She winces in pain. The warehouse is right there, less than a short jog away. Hopefully Paul’s made it there already.

Before she can start to crawl back up to her feet again, though, two hands clutch at her elbow and tug her back down. Not to be arrested, though, but to be pulled under the stationed train, under the axle and halfway-hidden behind the wheels. In a cacophony of huffing and footsteps slapping through wet snow, the two constables rush by, seemingly unaware.

“You alright?” a voice whispers. She doesn’t turn to look who it is.

“Let’s keep moving,” she utters, shuffling out and standing up as soon as the stern gentlemen pursuing them are out of sight. Red stretches sluggishly, cradling the bleeding side of her head - and there’s a pain in her hand, too, but there’s no time to take the glove off and check. Behind her, Paul stands as well, their clothes now soaked in snow and mud.

The run to the warehouse involves some limping until the pain from Red’s fall dissipates. Paul shoulders open a side door and the two practically fall one over the other to enter. Inside, darkly lit by flecks of light that can pierce inch-thick dust on the tall windows, loaded shelves and stacks of crates stretch in towers all the way to the high ceiling. Finding a spot to hide is as easy as finding a mish-mash of haphazardly left boxes, and the two duck against the first they see, to catch their breath.

“Are you okay?” Paul reiterates.

“What were you doing, hiding on a train like that?” Red is quick to snap her piercing gaze towards him, and immune to eyeshine or not, Paul nevertheless jolts backwards a bit. “Do you realise how stupid that was?”

“I had no choice!”

“What do you mean? If you had signed on in Torain, they would’ve just put you on a military train bound for Ravenheart. It’s that simple - you didn’t need to hide on some freight train to get here!”

Paul sucks in his lips at that, and his mouth turns into a thin line. Red raises an eyebrow.

“What aren’t you saying?” she demands.

“Look, how about we talk about it later, alright?” Paul answers hurriedly, but when he tries to stand up, Red stands before him and pushes him back down.

“No! What happened? Why are you being quiet? You’re not usually quiet,” she orders, and her tone grows sterner when he doesn’t answer: “Tell me!”

Paul gnashes his teeth: “They didn’t accept me!” he shouts upwards. “There! I told you! I went to the recruitment office, but they didn’t want me! I told them about dad, said I’m ready to fight, they turned me down! There, are you happy!?” he narrows his eyes, lifting up his forearm and wiping some spittle from his lip.

Red’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head in surprise.

Outside, there is the distant sound of a heavy riverboat, bound for the port. Some chatter rings in a different corner of the warehouse, from labourers that could care less about what the two are up to. There’s the mechanical whirr of a diesel-animite engine, as a forklift starts to pull out some cargo.

“That’s great!” She nods. “That’s perfect, then. Come on, we’ll hurry back to the estate at once, wait this out somehow until we--”

“No!” Paul stands up by himself. Tall as Red, his eyes glare into hers. “No, I’m not just going to leave! I’m trying again in Ravenheart, Red, and you can’t stop me!”

“Paul…” it’s the lady’s turn to grit her teeth at him, hissing the name out in frustration. A wave of heat suddenly courses through her, from her chest and down her limbs, warming up frosty fingers, until they suddenly go cold again and she feels a chilly sweat all over. Bruises pulse with aches all over. Her eyes narrow into a returned glare, but she stops when she hears the clattering of his handcuff chains. “...Let’s get those off, first. Then we’ll talk.”

“Hmph.” the lumberjack rolls his eyes. “How do you propose we do that? Maybe there’s a workshop around, we can file them off or something. Use a crowbar, pry ‘em off.”

“No, no. Look around, see if you can find some strip of thin metal,” Red begins, and her eyes begin to dart around the shelves and crates. “I read a book once - ‘Lockpicking from Beginner to Master’, by Egon Bornemann,” she trails off. “Lwennian handcuffs are especially easy to pick the lock on, they’re… they’re… agh.”

She pauses, feeling her fingers twitch. Paul’s head snaps back to look at her, and the witch holds up the hand that’s been hurting - except now, with fading adrenaline, the pain is intensifying, and the burning feeling is worse. And, from under the black glove, she sees drops of blood the shade of burgundy dripping down her wrist.

“Are you alright?” Paul asks for a third time, eyes wide. He carefully grabs the tip of Red’s finger and peels the glove away, the leather stuck to her skin by sweat and the suction of blood.

“Damn it,” Red grits her teeth, feeling the chilly air stroking her bared hand. It’s a magical burn, and it’s large: like a bruise across her whole palm, where the skin’s gone purple-black as if frostbitten, and from the darkened veins beneath, blood simply oozes through the pores into red globules in the folds of her palm, thin as water. With a pained hiss, she balls up her fist and throws her other hand over it, holding both tight to her chest. “Agh… I knew it! That cantrip from earlier, it… Ow.”

“Red!” Paul snaps. “What was that!? Sweet Sol, it looked awful, are you alright!?”

“I’m fine! It’s… It’s from casting too strong a spell, don’t worry about it,” she groans under her breath. “It’ll heal with time, I just need to be careful, lay off the magic for a while. Damn it, I knew it’d be a bad idea - so close to Hexentag, too?” she bites her lip to stifle another groan. “We just need to focus on getting those cuffs off…”

“I’m finding you a bandage, wait here,” Paul insists.

“Don’t! Don’t… bastard!” she shouts for him, turning to look as he walks off. But as her eyes idly scan the warehouse, she notices that one of the windows’ top sections is open. And, standing on the pane, looking down at them, there are some beady eyes. “...Oh no. Paul!”

The raven caws sharply, and a door swings open - the door they came through. Hinges squeal, and a stocky constable’s silhouette waits on the other side. Paul returns quickly, snatches’ Red elbow to run away, but there are two others coming through the main entrance, and this time it appears the gentlemen mean business. Both of the normal constables aim revolvers at them from afar while their raven-masked counterpart approaches.

Paul’s fingers grip tight around her arm, knuckles showing white through his pale skin. At gunpoint, Red can do little more than glare, but the yellow shine reflects neutrally in the thick lenses of the mask. The raven swoops down elegantly, landing on the special constable’s shoulder, before they reach down and clamp a pair of cuffs around her wrists.

She’s turned around and she feels a knee pushing into her back, ushering her forward. Paul follows along, and the constables are careful this time as they escort them out of the warehouse, and onto a small road that passes by the riverside. A boxy blue police car waits parked between two half-loaded flatbed trucks, where workers watch the scene unfold from afar, forming a semicircle at an acceptable distance from the purring engine.

“We’re not spies, for your information,” utters Red, looking over her shoulder at the raven constable. They just shove her forward.

“Can’t you asses get something for her hand? She’s bleeding everywhere!” Paul shouts, and is promptly shushed.

“I’ll be fine,” Red says, calmly.

He groans. “You’re bleeding everywhere!”

There’s a fourth constable leaning against the car; she’s skinny, with sunken cheeks, grinding the filter of a cigarette between her teeth and watching with icy eyes as they approach.

“Ugh, witcheye.” She’s quick to turn away and shield her vision. “Deal with those, I don’t feel like her staring at me through the rearview mirror.”

“I’d never do that, especially if I’m in the same car as you,” assures Red, but her earnesty goes ignored. The special constable reaches into their coat and pulls out a black blindfold, before throwing it around Red’s head and tying it tight around her eyes. “Or that, that works too,” she says, immediately beginning to dart her head in all directions, trying to get her bearings in the new darkness.

“Are you sure she won’t try to use magic, too? It’s a witch call, and we haven’t got a thaumaturgist here,” asks the female constable. “What if she casts something?”

“Again, I wouldn’t do that. Especially with a cut hand! I’d explode or something, probably,” Red answers, casually. “Grow horns, maybe turn my hand into a tentacle.”

“You’re awful,” Paul whispers to her.

“It’s fine,” at last, the special constable speaks. Red hears the sound of the raven cawing softly, before suddenly taking flight. “I’m coming with.”

“Oh, yeah? Trained thaums you special division are, huh?” She recognises the voice of the portly constable.

“I am. Don’t know about the others, though,” the special constable answers.

“I’m freezing my arse off, people,” Paul grumbles through grit teeth.

“And I’m pretty sure I’m still bleeding,” utters Red.