Chapter 29
In the next car, we find the walls lined not with faeries but with crates.
The Nomad pries one open with his bare hands, the nails creaking. Even before I catch a glimpse of the faerie dust, an effervescent glow peeks through the crack in the crate.
The Nomad looks inside, and his face tightens with disappointment. “Well, this is going to be a problem,” he mutters, almost to himself.
What’s wrong? I sign.
“See for yourself.”
I pad over as the train rumbles across the tracks. When I peer over the edge, I recognize immediately what’s wrong.
The faerie dust doesn’t look like the commercial stuff they use for lamps. The grains are too irregular for that. It’s unrefined. Exactly what Lars said we didn’t need.
I glance at the Nomad, though I’m not sure what for. Direction, I suppose, though it unsettles me to admit that to myself.
“We’ll just have to search the rest of the train,” he says. “Surely it’s just in another car.”
We move on to the next car. Inside, the Nomad opens three crates, each of their contents as unrefined as the first.
I watch him play through the options in his mind.
Say your thoughts out loud, I write.
“They could be toward the front of the train,” he says, “which would be a problem. There are likely more guards that way, especially since they’ll want the engineer heavily guarded.
” He exhales. “Besides, we’re likely to run into someone eventually.
The more boxcars we pass through, the greater our chances of getting caught.
” Then he pauses. “And there’s always the least fortunate likelihood. ”
That we came here for nothing, I write.
The Nomad shrugs in answer.
We could ask the others. Maybe they know something.
“I suppose,” the Nomad says. “It’s not as if I have a better plan.”
That does nothing to inspire confidence in mine, but we make our way back to the car with the faeries nonetheless.
The first faerie I unbound is still scurrying about, picking locks. It seems she’s woken others, who are now freeing their friends as well.
“You,” says the Nomad, pointing to her. “Are they only transporting unrefined faerie dust on this train?”
She glances at him halfheartedly. “I can answer your question once my friends are free.”
She tosses him a set of lock picks and pulls another from her pocket.
The Nomad doesn’t argue. Instead, he moves to the faerie beside her and begins working at her locks.
“What about a compromise?” he says. “You talk while I work.”
The faerie considers this, then begins to speak.
“They’ve panicked over the dust shortages,” she says.
“Strikes are what shut down the factories. There’s no one left to process it.
That’s why they’re sending it unrefined to the kingdoms, in the hopes that factories that make other goods can refine it themselves. ”
“So there’s no refined faerie dust on this train,” the Nomad says.
The faerie bites her lip, then moves on to the next prisoner. “There is some. I overheard some of the Company men talking. It’s at the front of the train.”
The shackles fall from the faerie the Nomad has been at work freeing. He shoves his set of lock picks into her hands, then stands.
“Let’s go,” he says to me, already heading toward the door.
“You’re fools if you think you won’t get caught,” the first faerie calls after us.
“Well, you may consider me a fool,” says the Nomad, “but I don’t dare speak for Tink here.”
“Wait,” the faerie says, grabbing his arm. “Please. At least wait until we’re unbound before you go alerting the guards.”
“It seems you’ve misread the situation,” the Nomad says, spinning on his heel toward the faerie. “I didn’t come here to free you. I came here to free her.” He gestures pointedly at me. “And it’s only because one of us has something resembling a heart that we woke you at all.”
The faerie glares up at him.
“You get yours out of here,” the Nomad says. “I’ll get mine.”
Mine. Something about that word raises the hairs on my arms.
The faerie looks between the two of us but doesn’t argue. Instead, she turns to me. “Thank you for giving us a chance,” she says, before hurrying back to work.
We can help, I sign to the Nomad.
“You already have,” he says, ushering me toward the door.
We pass through the next boxcar and are about to enter another when the door flies open.
Two Company guards step inside. Their mouths hang open, as if one had been mid-joke. He snaps his jaw shut, eyes widening.
The Nomad is fast. He goes for the man’s jugular, but not before the other guard grabs the rope hanging next to the door and yanks.
An alarm blares, and something tells me it’s not just blaring in this car.
“Oh, great,” says the Nomad, knocking the guard unconscious.
“Race you to the other side of the train?” the Nomad asks.
I shake my head. We can’t fight them.
“No, but if we climb and make our way on top of the train, we might reach the other end before they know where we are.”
I turn back, thinking of the faeries behind us, scrambling to escape.
They’ll find them, I sign.
“Good,” the Nomad says. “It’ll be a distraction. Better yet, they’ll think that’s why the alarm was raised in the first place.”
He reaches for the door, but I grab his wrist and shake my head.
There’s so much I want to say, but the signs I’ve learned so far don’t quite grasp them all, so I grab the pad and quill and write as hurriedly as I can.
They’ll endure worse punishment if they’re caught again.
Worse than if we’d never tried. I’m not leaving without them.
Irritation flares in the Nomad’s eyes as he searches my face for some selfishness to exploit. But I have no family to miss me if I’m caught, so he’ll find nothing.
He must realize this, because he exhales sharply then opens the door.
Wait, I start to sign, but he doesn’t step through.
Instead, he grabs a crowbar that’s leaning against the wall, one that is probably there in case a crate needs to be opened.
A moment later, and he brings the crowbar down on the coupling that connects the two boxcars.
Sparks fly, and the Nomad strikes again, this time revealing a dent in the metal.
For a brief moment, I allow myself to watch him. Allow my heart to soar.
But then noise carries through from the next boxcar. Guards shouting. Any moment now, they’ll burst the door open and attack.
“Tink,” says the Nomad, my name a scolding. “I do hope you have a plan to defend me.”
Right.
I grab another crowbar, sidle past where the Nomad is hunched over in the doorway hammering away at the coupling, and prop the crowbar between the coupling and the door just in time for the door to budge with the force of the guards’ efforts.
It won’t hold them off for long, and from the shape of the metal coupling, it seems it has more integrity than we would have hoped for given the situation.
The Nomad, sweating now, stops, staring down at the warped coupling, and grimaces. “Erm. I have one last idea, but it’s a very bad one.”
My hands sign something that I think is, Bad is good.
“Get back in the car,” he says.
I don’t wait to be told twice. Once I’m inside, the Nomad tosses me a coin purse. “Fill this with faerie dust,” he says.
I run over to a crate and do as I’m told, scooping it with my hand.
When I run it back toward the Nomad, he reaches into his satchel and pulls out a coil of wire, then wraps it around the coin purse, leaving a long strand of the wire standing up.
The rest of the wire he uses to secure the coin purse to the coupling.
Instinct won’t allow me to wait around. I race back over to the open crate, grab a clot of faerie dust, and slip it into my pocket. Lars is a genius. Surely he’ll have some use for it.
There’s a slam as the door budges again. Another slam, and the crowbar holding the door closed flies free.
“Run,” says the Nomad. Then he grabs a match from his pocket, lights it on the side of its box, then sets the flame to the end of the wire.
Before I can react, he scoops me into his arms and runs. Behind him, I watch as the guards throw open the door, then glance down at the burning wire, confused.
Their eyes widen in realization about the same time mine do.
The Nomad wrenches the door open, the wind whipping me in the face. When he opens the door to the faerie’s car, he throws me inside, jumping inside himself and slamming the door shut behind him.
The door has only just closed when…BOOM.
The entire car shudders. I’m launched forward, my neck snapping as I realize this car and the one ahead of it have been severed from the rest of the train.
But the explosions don’t stop.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
That’s when it hits me—the entire train is carrying faerie dust.
I look at the Nomad. Regret floods his face; he says nothing.
I run to the door and wrench it open. The next car is still connected to ours, but only barely, half of it blown away, leaving a gaping hole through which I get the perfect view of what’s unfolding on the rest of the tracks.
The front of the train still speeds forward, but it’s as if it’s being chased by explosion after explosion.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
I watch as the world’s supply of faerie dust is blown to smithereens.