The train deposited her passengers at the foot of the mountain, and from there they were escorted to a new railway, one like Belle had never seen before. A wide path had been cut up the side of the darkening mountain—almost straight up the side of the mountain—and running up the center of the path were two sets of tracks.

Despite that sucking void that waited on the other side of the mountain, Belle found excitement skittering across her skin like pond skaters. Had they actually managed to create a train that could haul its massive ass up a mountain? Had Aran’s genius actually managed to conquer the Dark Mother’s pull of gravity? It must require magic to work, Belle reasoned. No machine alone could do this. Right?

But then again, that’s what she’d thought the first time she heard of the steam locomotive, and she hadn’t believed otherwise until she’d seen one of the beasts in person, named the runes only for protection, not propulsion.

Mother Dark, she hated how incredible a practitioner Arantxa Earthbreaker was. How clever and skilled. Imagine, Belle thought, what good the woman could do with her genius machines. Why choose to make everyone’s life worse instead?

The railcar (and it was just a car, not a train, which made a little more sense but no less excited Belle) had been built at a slant, and a sharp one at that. To get to the back of the car, or truly the top of the car, Belle had to climb the steps that ran the center of the aisle before parking herself on a bench that sat at an angle to the floor. The car was surprisingly nice—a dark, expensive-looking wood paneled the floors and sides of the car, the same wood these benches had been carved from before they were topped with fat cushions of a fine, deep red. There was gold trim along the large windows beside each bench and across the ceiling, creating rigid, geometric designs.

Jac wasn’t nearly as excited to ride this contraption as Belle was. Under the guise of doing her duty to protect Belle, she interrogated the engineer and made him swear on both Mothers that this thing was safe. And even after that, it was with a begrudging scowl that she climbed the steps, one at a time with a pause in between like she was testing to see if the railcar would suddenly collapse or explode or something, to take a spot next to Belle.

Richard, Z, and their guards and attendants had taken the first car, so Belle had one last thrilling, Richard-free ride before they arrived at Toll and whatever horrors waited in the mines below.

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The railcar didn’t chug like the locomotive they’d ridden here, nor did it work itself into a thrilling zoom that had the wind whipping by. It moved at one speed, slow and steady, pulled along and up, up, up.

Belle slid her window open and, ignoring the hiss spilling from Jac’s lips like she’d sprung a leak, stuck her head out, smiling. The way the dark mountain fell away before her, the way the car climbed its side like a caterpillar, the fact that, should the cables snap, they were all sure to go plummeting to their deaths in one hell of a final rollercoaster, made Belle’s belly flip. It was Dark magic that welled in her belly and caught in her chest—the magic of unsteadiness, of Almost, of being somewhere one should not be. Of touching fingertips with Death.

Belle’s toes curled.

She looked the other way, further up the mountain, and gasped. Jac’s vice-grip clamped on Belle’s elbow in response. Her steady leak had not let up.

Above, the mountainside fell away—Belle couldn’t see how extreme the drop was from here—and only a small iron bridge supported the rails across the gap a few dozen yards long.

“What is it?” Jac leaked.

“Nothing,” Belle lied easily, and it earned her an appreciative squeeze on her elbow.

As they passed over the gap, Belle let herself dangle out the window, knowing Jac would never let her fall. The rocky mountain wall fell away in a steep drop, surely enough to kill all of them if the bridge collapsed, and enough to make Belle’s head spin even when it didn’t, but not as far as she had hoped. Still, she wasn’t complaining.

All too soon, they had reached the station at the top of the mountain.

Standing at the overlook just to one side of the railway station, Belle could look out on what seemed to be all of Lushale—and half of Ixhale too. The dry, dead, gray stone of the mountain finally gave to patches of scrubby brown and green far below, which bled out into stretches of flat, yellow-green plains to the northeast and swelled into rich, rolling hills back to the south. Beyond the mountain’s shadow, rivers and lakes sparkled in the last little bit of dying sun. Overhead, all the brilliant hues of sunset stretched themselves across the sky, great brushstrokes of violet, sugary pinks and creamy oranges.

But it was impossible for Belle to look at this and not feel it, behind her, far below.

That hole in the world. That hole in existence.

Finally, Belle had to turn and face it.