THIS PLACE WAS everything my father told me about and so, so much more. The sounds, the smells, the sights—it was overwhelming in the best possible way.
“Do you think they’re happy?” Nedra asked as we passed a Doishan food stall, charging far too much money for drizzled stick meat.
I moved Nedra quickly through the winding streets of the old city, even though many of the shop windows promised exotic wares from around the world, enticing us to stay and look. We passed pockets of areas that seemed to predominantly represent one culture or another—immigrants and refugees, no doubt, who’d turned a little piece of Miraband into the home they’d abandoned.
“Why wouldn’t they be?” I asked. The main thoroughfare into the city center was wide, but we shared the road with horses and palanquins, even wheeled carts that drivers operated with pedals to carry small loads.
There seemed to be a vibrant excitement as we neared the enormous doors leading to the wall surrounding the heart of the city. Nearer to the docks, the people in the stores and booths were settled; they had no intention of leaving their boroughs. But here, there was movement. Everyone was focused on farther up, farther in.
The wide stone entrance was slit in the middle, with giant iron doors hidden within the stone walls. But dirt clogged the tracks and rust peeked through the dark metal. It was clear that, while these gates could be shut, protecting the city heart, they had not been for a very long time.
Nedra lingered near the open gates, and I took the moment to recall my instructions. The Emperor’s travel secretary had told me to take a trolley to the city center, where a carriage would meet me. I’d been imagining a sort of fancy wagon, designed to carry as many people as possible, but on this side of the wall, where the streets were wider and more evenly spaced, I could see wires hanging over the roads and grooves cut into the stone path.
Ding! Ding! I whirled around, my eyes scanning the bustling crowd, just in time to see a metal, wheeled contraption roll past. A tall pole jutted from the center of the wagon, which had been fitted with bench seats. Atop the pole, a pulley connected the wagon to the wires in the street, sparks flickering as it gained speed. There was no horse or mule—somehow the wires drew the wagon.
“Looking for the trolley?” a woman asked me, tipping a lime-green hat at me. She wore the badge of the city of Miraband, a sun with six pointed rays encircled with a black border, and her eager expression assured me that she wanted to help.
“I’m to go to the trade authority,” I said.
“Ah, you’ll be wanting the blue trolley,” the woman said confidently. She started to lead me to a little stand I’d not noticed before, but I pulled back. “Nedra?”
“Just there,” the woman said, pointing to where I needed to go, then she turned to help someone else.
I found Nedra a few moments later, staring up at a street sign that had the name of the road in two different languages—Allyrian and another language, one I didn’t recognize. “Ned?” I asked.
“I think the person I’m looking for is close to here,” she said. Although we’d both studied the map on our journey, the old district had not been well labeled, and we’d only been able to guess at where her collector was. Nedra’s gaze was distant, then she shook herself as another trolley went by. “It’s like magic,” she marveled.
She wasn’t wrong. While the dusty yellow limestone that most of the buildings were made of seemed ancient, there were shiny bits of new technology jutting out in all directions. The lamps along the street weren’t stained black with oil; they glittered like crystal, and I wondered if they ran on the same sort of energy that operated the trolleys. A whistle blared distantly, and I recalled the rail lines connecting Miraband to the rest of the mainland. Although it had taken us a week by sea to reach the city, one could cross the same distance across land in a few days thanks to the steam engines that could go faster than any horse and didn’t rely upon the wind.
“Why don’t we have any of this?” Nedra asked me.
I laughed.
“Lunar Island is a colony of the Allyrian Empire,” she insisted. “We don’t have . . .” She struggled for the words. “We don’t have any of this. We should. The Empire should share its wealth, its technology, with all of its colonies. What else does the mainland have that we don’t?”
“Blue trolley, departing soon!” a voice called out. I cast my eyes behind me, to the trolley stand. “Lunar Island can’t afford any of this,” I said, thinking of my meeting with the trade authority. Silently, I promised, Yet. First, I needed to secure a strong trade agreement. That would give the north more jobs, which would give the area more security. But a rising tide lifted all boats. As employment increased in the north, prosperity would spread throughout all of Lunar Island. If I was successful today, then later factories would be built, trollies installed, and all the other wonders of Miraband would follow. I swallowed, daunted by the possibilities.
Nedra noticed my distraction. “Go on,” she said.
I gave Ned a quick kiss, then darted across the street, paying for a ride in the trolley. I was the last to board, crammed near a woman wearing peridot-green silk, whose hat kept bumping against my ear. The trolley lurched to life, and I could hear the hum of energy as the wires sparked and pulled us up and up into the heart of the largest city in the world.