AT THIS POINT, THE INTENTION HAD BEEN TO SAY that it was such slippery western terrain as few trainsfolk ever see, such strange wrong rails, that the Shroakes, by then, had reached, & in which & on which they travelled. But the time is not yet right.
The instant it is feasible, the Shroakes will be found. It’s Caldera & Dero, after all: as if they could be ignored.
There are monsters under the earth, & in the trees above it, & swinging from those trees to the rooftop decks of trains, & there are creatures that can barely be called animals watching from the upsky, & any of them might find, might sniff for, might zero in on the Shroakes. It would be wrong to leave them forever. But though the rails themselves are everywhere in profusion, fanned out & proliferating in all directions, we can ride only one at a time.
This is the story of a bloodstained boy. The Shroakes deserve their own telling, & will get it. Though their things & Sham’s are plaited together now, inextricable.