That same evening, Abbee spotted a continental train arriving in Ellerton without any passenger carts. Heading east. Time to go. First thing in the morning, she settled up with Varn. The innkeeper kept shooting her worried looks while taking her money, as if he’d discovered a rabid tiger in his establishment.

As she was walking out the door, Varn blurted, “Did you … in Graywall, did you really cut off …?”

“It wasn’t so much cut,” Abbee said, pausing on the threshold. “More like tear. Or rip. Yeah, rip.” She showed her teeth. “Had to bite to get it going.”

Varn looked ill.

Abbee found the eastward train in the yard. The drover crews were prepping to leave. She walked to the front of the train and found an older man with silvery hair sitting in the pilot’s seat on the lead cart. Not older. Old. Almost too old to be on a continental. It was a hard life and wrung people out early.

“I’m looking for the driver,” Abbee called up.

“That’s me,” the old man said.

“Where you headed?”

The old man looked her up and down. “Kiva, but not with you.”

“You don’t take passengers?”

“Not anymore.”

“You get a bad one?” Abbee asked.

The old man shuddered. “You have no idea.” He gestured at the next train over. “They’ve got a passenger cart. Go ask them.”

“They’re going in the wrong direction.” Abbee thumbed a sapphire. “I’ll ride in your gear cart and not make any trouble.”

The old man saw the gem. He regarded her. “You look like trouble.”

“I look like an easy fare who’ll pay handsomely.”

He shook his head. “No. I—”

Abbee pushed a ruby up next to the sapphire.

“—don’t want … What, you got a jewelry shop there in your fist? Are those even real?”

“You think I’m dumb enough to pass fakes to a continental full of drovers?” Abbee asked. “You don’t want trouble, and I don’t want to get thrown off a train a—” She had almost said again. “At speed.”

The old man unbuckled himself from his seat and clambered down the side of the cart. He moved with the assured grace of someone who’d spent a lifetime on trains. He dropped down next to Abbee and took the gems. Held them up to the sun and squinted at them.

A woman walking by saw him. She wore drover leathers and had goggles perched atop a shaved head. “What’s that?” she asked, stopping. “Wait, is that a ruby?”

“Looks like it,” the old man said. He gestured at Abbee. “She wants passage to Kiva. Wants to pay with this.”

The drover looked Abbee up and down. “That’s enough to buy a whole cart. You running from whoever you stole that from? What’s to stop me from turning you upside down and shaking out what else you’ve got?”

Abbee tensed. “You do not want to do that.”

“The gear cart, you said?” the old man asked.

The drover snorted. “You can’t be serious. We don’t—”

“A ruby’s a ruby, and it’s not like she’ll take up much space.” The old man pocketed the gems. “We leave in fifteen minutes. If you’re not back here with your bags—”

“I’m ready now.”

The old man’s eyebrows shot up. “Traveling light, eh? Don’t touch anything in the gear cart that’s not yours. This here’s Nulea. You cause even a whiff of trouble, and she’ll toss you off the train.”

“Got it,” Abbee said. “What do I call you?”

“Sir.”

Nulea led Abbee to the gear cart, spending the short walk listing off all the infractions that would earn Abbee a fast exit at speed. Abbee didn’t listen. She didn’t rummage through other people’s things for amusement, and gear carts weren’t exactly containers of lost treasures. Continental trains always had at least two carts. The lead cart housed the steering mechanism. The gear cart sat behind the lead cart, doubling as a sleeping space for the drovers during foul weather. Abbee climbed into the cart behind Nulea. It smelled of oil and fresh pine. Abbee had no idea why it smelled of pine in here. Two small windows on either side let in enough light for Abbee to make out a dozen hammocks hanging amid crates, canvas sacks, and a stack of spare axles.

“You can pick any hammock,” Nulea said. “I suggest one up front.”

“Why?”

Nulea gestured at a narrow door next to the exit in the back. “That’s the privy. It has a vent, but you don’t want to get close.”

“Got it.”

“One of our crew is like clockwork and will stink up this whole cart early afternoon.”

“I said I got it.”

Nulea walked past Abbee. “Next stop is Rudson. Should take us about twelve hours to get there. Don’t touch anything.”

“Got it.”

Nulea gave Abbee one last hard look before exiting the cart. She closed the door behind her, and Abbee discovered a lot of the light had come from the open door. She let her eyes adjust, found a hammock up front near a window, and climbed into it. Abbee spotted a door at the front of the cart. The driver’s cabin. She left it alone.

Abbee listened to the drovers shouting to each other in preparation for departure. She picked out Nulea’s voice calling a word she didn’t recognize. No, a name. Thad. She assumed this was the old man’s name. A few minutes after Nulea had left her in the cart, Abbee heard a dull clank. Another, and another, from back to front, growing louder with each one. Trains started back to front, each cart driving forward until the whole thing got going. The clanks reached the gear cart, and her hammock swung as the cart lurched forward. The train eased out of the stopover yard and onto the main continental road.

Abbee watched the trees pass by at an increasing rate, until they blurred. She bunched up her coat’s hood like a pillow and spent all day looking at the curious silver ring she’d found on Ipsu. Following its unending pattern had occupied her during many evenings on her wilderness trek to Ellerton. She wished she knew what the runes meant, or who it belonged to. She knew it wasn’t Ipsu’s. The man hadn’t worn jewelry of any kind and had always talked about poverty as a virtue.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Napping was difficult. The train had at least fifteen carts. There were two drovers per cart, and the one privy for them all was in the gear cart. The door slid back three or four times an hour to admit a roar of wind and a drover in a hurry. Nobody stopped for a chat. That suited Abbee. Fewer lies to tell.

The train stopped in Rudson that evening. She confirmed the old man’s name was indeed Thad. He warned Abbee that they’d leave at first light, and if she wasn’t on the train, they’d leave her behind. She dealt with that by eating in town but sleeping in the gear cart. She bought enough food to keep from going hungry the following day. The train didn’t serve lunch.

The larger train towns were about a day’s travel apart on the continental road. A few smaller towns were scattered in between in case of trouble or to serve the townie trains visiting smaller clusters of farms. The continental road cut straight across the land where possible. Trains could go for hours without seeing anybody or anything. The world was big. Abbee often saw a small cluster of houses on the horizon. She knew from her trek to Ellerton that there were many small villages away from the continental road. Lots of city folk had the idea that the world existed in the larger settlements, but that was not the case. Plenty of people lived their entire lives without setting foot on a continental train or within any city. It took a lot of food to feed a place like Akken, and it all had to come from somewhere.

The days slid by. Rudson gave way to Sarcut, and then Mindge. Abbee found herself craving Leesa’s strawberry shortbread treats and looked for them in each town. She came up empty. She kept an eye out for network agents but didn’t see any of those either. On the morning the train left Mindge, Abbee hadn’t seen or heard of anyone who might be looking for her, and she knew she’d be in Kiva by nightfall. She finally started to relax.

They’d had good weather and bright sun the entire trip, but on the last day, a dark storm front rolled over them. The storm whipped driving rain and high winds across the train. It was too dark to see inside the gear cart. Abbee was antsy. She wanted to be in Kiva. She was all done with traveling. Every time the train hit a squall, it slowed down, and Abbee chafed at the delay. A few hours away from Kiva, it got so dark that Abbee couldn’t see her own feet at the other end of the hammock. She tried to use the silver ring again to keep herself occupied. It was too dark to see even that.

Abbee pulled out the thumb light. She’d been careful to keep it hidden. Nobody carried a magical lamp anymore, and if anyone saw it, they’d have more questions than they would for the gems she carried. But she was bored. And tired. Abbee tucked the thumb light into a fold in her coat to limit its glare and smothered the light whenever a drover came into the cart to use the privy. She knew she shouldn’t use it, but Abbee needed the distraction of the ring to keep from going crazy inside the gear cart. It was fine. She kept it in her coat, and nobody would see it.

Two hours of this lulled her into complacency. Or perhaps she drifted off to sleep. She never knew for sure, but at some point, the train jerked or Abbee jerked, and the thumb light tipped out of her coat. A thick beam of bright light lit up the gear cart, swiveled around like a spotlight, and shot out the cart’s window.

Abbee yelped and jumped. The light bounced off her lap and out of the hammock. It landed on the floor with a thump, pointing right down the cart at the exit door. She twisted in the hammock and reached for the light, but it was too far away. Abbee discovered it was tough to exit a hammock in a hurry. She ended up falling out of it, landing on top of the thumb light. She found it beneath her and closed it. Lay there for a minute, frozen. She hoped nobody had seen the light. Magical lights were brighter than any flame.

Abbee climbed to her feet and put the light away. She heard footsteps across the roof of the cart, heading to the back. Two sets. She was about to climb back into the hammock when the door slammed open. Thad entered the cart with another drover, whose face was hidden behind a leather mask and thick goggles. Both were soaked to the bone.

Thad carried a small oil lamp. He stripped off his mask and frowned at Abbee. “I saw that light. Lit up the trees alongside the cart as bright as daylight. That’s a magical light. Where did you get it?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Thad snapped his fingers, and Abbee felt bands of pressure around her entire body. Her arms pressed into her sides, and her legs squeezed together. Her feet left the floor as the drover behind Thad levitated her. A mover. No, no, no.

“Let me go!” Abbee commanded.

Thad walked up to her. He balanced the lamp on a nearby crate and pushed Abbee’s coat open. He squeezed the pouches on her belt. Rage flashed through Abbee at the idea of a man touching her without permission. She tried to move her arms but couldn’t.

“Get off me!”

Thad opened her money pouch and peered inside. He pulled out the thumb light. Flipped up the lid. Bright light illuminated the ceiling.

The drover whistled in surprise. “Kivan lamp, Thad,” the drover, a woman, said. Abbee didn’t recognize her voice. “Haven’t seen one of those in, what, ten, maybe twelve years?”

“Where did you get this?” Thad demanded.

“Found it,” Abbee said. She saw glimmermote sifting out of the drover’s sleeves. A lot. Abbee wasn’t that heavy, which meant that this drover was a Class Two or Three.

“Sure you did,” Thad said. He balanced the thumb light on the crate next to the oil lamp. The magical light’s brightness made the flame look sickly and weak.

Abbee watched the drover’s glimmermote turn to a stream. She’d been powering the train all day. She was tired. Holding Abbee up was wearing her out.

“What else do you have in here?” Thad asked, returning to Abbee’s pouch. He came up with a few gemstones. His hands froze. “What the—” He pulled out the silver ring. “This is—” He clamped his lips together.

“Do you know what that is?” Abbee asked.

Thad jerked back. His eyes darted to her face. Her clothes. Her arms. Thad pushed back Abbee’s coat from her wrists. Picked her right arm first, then her left. He hissed when he saw the bolt thrower. He swore, his curses rising in volume as he went. His gaze became distant momentarily. Abbee had seen that before. Thad was a speaker. Lots of trains employed a speaker for a driver, to give commands to the train’s entire crew without loss of context.

The drover’s chest heaved from the strain. “Thad, I’m losing my grip here.”

Abbee heard more footsteps on the cart’s roof.

Thad’s eyes refocused right as the drover’s mote stream ended. The pressure left Abbee’s body, and her heels thumped onto the floor. She buried her fist in Thad’s stomach. His breath whooshed out, and he doubled over. Abbee pulled the ring out of his hand and snatched the thumb light off the crate. She stuffed both into her pocket and grabbed the oil lamp. Abbee shouldered Thad out of the way and threw the oil lamp at the drover. It bounced off her chest. Didn’t break. But she raised her arms in defense.

Abbee brought up her arm, intent on shooting the woman. She couldn’t let a mover grab her again. The door snapped open. Wind howled, and another person stood in the frame. Abbee felt more bands of pressure all over her body, trapping her again.

“Hunter!” Thad roared. “Throw her off the train! Do it, Nulea! She’s a hunter!”

Abbee’s protest to deny his accusation turned into a yelp as she felt herself yanked toward the back of the cart. Nulea stepped off to the side and ripped Abbee out into the storm. Rain plastered Abbee’s face as the world spun and she arced up into the air. She heard the roar of the wind and the roar of the train. She felt the pressure leave her body. Felt gravity leave, and for a brief instant, she felt like she was flying.

Right up until she hit a tree.

***

Abbee sucked in a breath and woke up. Raindrops spattered her face. She rolled over, her muscles aching in protest. Her whole body hurt. Her clothes were soaked through, and mote ran from her wrists. She was still healing from her landing. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten thrown off another train. All that for a stupid light. Abbee opened her fist and found the thumb light and the silver ring. At least she’d held on to them. She pushed them into her money pouch and climbed to her feet, checking herself. Everything was intact, and she hadn’t lost any belongings bouncing off trees and landing in this ditch.

The drovers had thought she was a hunter. Not only that, but they’d thrown her off the train knowing such a thing was lethal. They’d tried to kill somebody they’d thought was a wizard hunter. It was like trying to kill a councilor or the first constable—it was simply not done. If the hunters found out, they’d execute every drover on that train, and nobody would think twice about it. Abbee wondered why Thad thought he could weather such an event.

She doubted she’d get a chance to ask him. His train would arrive in Kiva in a few hours, but continentals covered hundreds of kilometers in a single day. She had to walk. It would be days before she reached the city. Abbee couldn’t walk the road either—if Thad’s crew came back this way, they’d see her, and she wouldn’t fare well against a train full of drovers.

Abbee started running. When the road curved south, she kept going into the trees, keeping an eye out for bears.