The rest of the day passed uneventfully. After the perfunctory getting-to-know-you topics—Destry was twenty-one and the oldest of two; Ruhen was twenty and the youngest of twelve brothers, and had a younger sister he’d never met—the conversation strayed to anecdotes of alchemical exchanges gone awry.

Reluctant to outshine the other two, Sepha tried to keep quiet; as grand as her successes were, her failures had all been correspondingly huge. Neither Ruhen nor Destry would let Sepha hold out, though. Soon, they were all goading each other on, trading one disastrous story for the next. By nightfall, the three of them had lapsed into an agreeable silence, friends, or something like it.

The train didn’t have a sleeping car for the passengers and didn’t stop for the night. They all slept as best they could in their seats, but Sepha slept too lightly to get any real rest. Her sleepless night made it more difficult, the next day, to force her mind away from her contract, her debt to the Magistrate, and the undead magician’s inexplicable attack. She retreated more into herself as the day went on. At last, she fell asleep.

But she wasn’t destined to get any rest.

That night, Sepha dreamed she was a mother. She was staring down at her infant with something like worship, something like terror. Someone she couldn’t see laid a hand on her shoulder and whispered, “You did it, Seph.”

At this, the infant glared. It opened its mouth and said, in a horrible, guttural voice, “You … will … die.”

Sepha gasped and wrenched her eyes open.

The passenger car was dark. In the faint moonlight that shone through the windows, Sepha could see the homunculus sleeping in his chair with his fingers interlaced across his abdomen. Beside him, Ruhen was easing upright in his seat, blinking sleepily at her.

Sepha’s cheeks went hot. “Sorry.”

Destry stirred in her sleep. Sepha loosed a relieved sigh when she didn’t wake up. When she looked back at Ruhen, he was still looking at her. He seemed more awake now.

“Everything all right?” he whispered. Half of his face was faintly blue from the light that leaked through the windows.

“Bad dream,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

Ruhen looked at her for a moment, then said, “Do you want to see something interesting?”

Sepha hesitated.

You did it, Seph, the dream-man had said.

Him! that voice had said.

Ruhen’s smile froze. “I mean,” he said, twisting his mouth to one side, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to,” Sepha said. Because she needed a distraction, and not because she wanted to spend more time with Ruhen. “Show me.”

He smiled a relieved sort of smile and stood. Sepha stood too and tiptoed after him.

The clatter of wheels on the tracks sharply increased as Ruhen slid open the door at the end of their car. He crossed the gap between their car and the next as if it was nothing and disappeared through the door.

Gripping the sides of the doorway, Sepha straddled the brink, the tracks whipping fast below her. The knifelike wind slicing through the gap felt like a jolt of living. She paused, letting the wind whip her hair back and forth. The air was fresh and cold and clean as it licked across her skin. Sepha only now realized how stuffy the car was, how deadening.

If Ruhen hadn’t been waiting, she might’ve stayed there all night, just breathing. But he was waiting, so she forced herself to move. She stepped into the next car, and the door slid shut behind her.

Ruhen was standing just inside the car, and there was a smile playing about his lips that Sepha couldn’t interpret. He tipped his head toward the other end of the car, and Sepha tiptoed after him. When they’d snuck through three passenger cars and two baggage cars, Ruhen slid open a final door. He held a finger to his lips as they entered the car, which was lined on either side with bunk beds stacked three high. Sepha recognized the ticket master and the engineer in two of the bunks and realized that this must be the crew’s sleeping quarters.

Ruhen led her to the door on the far end and eased it open.

Beyond the door was a small platform with a waist-high metal railing. Ruhen stood off to one side, smiling and spreading out his arms with the air of an illusionist pulling a rabbit from a hat. Sepha grinned back and stepped onto the platform, letting the door slide shut behind her.

Her mouth hung open as she stared at the night-washed landscape of grasslands receding into desert, the tracks rushing away behind the train. The sky was cloudless, swollen with stars whose light dusted the world with silver.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, bracing her palms on the rail.

The rail protested slightly as Ruhen leaned against it. “I came out here last night,” he said, his voice nearly drowned beneath the sounds of wheels and wind. “Thought you might like the fresh air.”

“I do like it,” she agreed, looking up to meet his eyes. They looked black in the dim light, and Sepha suddenly recalled the first time she’d seen them up close.

“Did I ever thank you?” she asked, as if they were in the middle of a conversation about the Wicking Willow.

Ruhen seemed to understand. He smiled a lovely half-smile and said, “You did.”

“You did save my life,” Sepha admitted, frowning. Thank you wasn’t enough, and neither was anything else she could think to say.

“I’m just glad I was there,” Ruhen said.

“Me too.” With a fortifying breath, she asked, “What brought you to the woods that day? Were you lost?”

Ruhen smiled. “Nearly,” he said. “My brothers and I lived in the woods. I happened to be close enough to see you walk into that clearing. So, if I was lost, which I’m not saying I was, I suppose it was a good thing.”

Sepha laughed, but then frowned. “You lived in the woods?” He nodded, and she tipped her head to the side. “I didn’t know anyone lived in the woods.”

He shrugged. “We did, and we’re probably not the only ones.”

“Huh,” Sepha said in response. Like an idiot.

Around them, the grass grew sparser, and the air seemed drier. The silence between them went dry, too, and Sepha didn’t know how to fill it. The silence was awkward, but at least her contract wasn’t thrumming beside her heart. For now.

“So, tell me,” Ruhen said, “how Sepha Filens of Three Mills became a Lady Alchemist with her very own homunculus.”

Gods! Damn it!

Sepha’s heart skipped a beat, found that the anxious rhythm suited it, and skipped a few more for good measure. But she forced a smile. She’d have to get used to telling people a strategically altered version of the truth; she might as well start now.

Gritting her teeth against the guilt that reared up inside, Sepha told Ruhen about her disastrous alchemical demonstration and her catastrophic slip of the tongue.

When she told Ruhen just the barest bit about Father—not in search of pity, never that, only to explain why she’d been in such a stupid panic—his face went fierce.

“He hit you?” he asked, slicing through Sepha’s prevarications with three sharp words.

Sepha opened her mouth and closed it again. Father had hit her, yes, but it was the snide mutterings, the bellowed name-calling, the unwavering tight-fisted control over every aspect of her life—

Sepha nodded.

Ruhen lifted one hand to reach for her, but seemed to think the better of it and let it drop back to his side.

Then she came to it.

“I don’t know how the straw turned to gold,” Sepha said, which was technically true. She didn’t know a thing about how magic actually worked. Even so, she avoided Ruhen’s eyes as she continued. “Maybe it was only possible because I was so desperate. I doubt I could ever do it again.”

Ruhen nodded as if that was very reasonable. Relieved, Sepha continued the story with the truth until the Magistrate had disappeared from the courtroom antechamber.

When she finished, Ruhen stood quietly, twisting a curl around his finger in thoughtful silence.

Unable to bear the silence because she didn’t know what it meant, Sepha said, “What?”

Ruhen stopped fidgeting with his hair. “It’s unbelievable, that’s all.”

“Unbelievable how?” Sepha’s heart was in her throat, that howling panic only a few breaths away.

Ruhen tipped his head to the side in a shirking shrug. “You went through all of that and came out just fine. Then you were attacked by a magician while moving across the country with two strangers and a homunculus. And yet you seem … unfazed.” Sepha blinked. “You must be fearless.”

Sepha let out a loud, relieved ha. “I’m definitely not.”

“You seem like it.”

Sepha swallowed. Not quite sure why she was bothering to correct him, she said, “I’m afraid of lots of things.”

Ruhen studied her in the silver-lit dark. “Like what?”

Sepha leveled a look at him. “I’ll tell you one of mine if you tell me one of yours.”

He held her gaze, assessing. “Military Alchemists,” he said at last.

Sepha suppressed a smile, and he grinned and looked away. “Not fair,” she said. Everyone was afraid of Military Alchemists.

“A deal’s a deal,” he said, and her contract thumped once beside her heart.

Sepha took a steadying breath. Ignored the echoing voice that whispered, What if, just for a second, I forget that I’m not supposed to fly?

“Heights,” she said, and left it at that.

Ruhen nodded but frowned at the same time, as if this piece of information didn’t fit with what he thought he knew about her.

After a moment of silence, he asked, “So, what’s the plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“You spend all year doing research. You figure out why you’re so good at alchemy. The Magistrate renews your status as Lady Alchemist. Aren’t you still stuck?” When Sepha looked confusedly at him, Ruhen added, “I didn’t think you wanted to be a Court Alchemist.”

Sepha narrowed her eyes and rested her elbows against the rail. “You never asked,” she said, and he laughed. The wind carried the sound away, muffling it. “I’ve always wanted to be a Court Alchemist. I just thought I couldn’t, because I can’t draw alchems. I’m still not one now, but I suppose Lady Alchemist is as close as I’ll ever get.”

“Oh. Well, everything worked out, then.”

“It did.” Which was only partly a lie. Once she’d satisfied her debts to the magician and the Magistrate, everything would have worked out perfectly. “And what about you? What’s your plan?”

Ruhen twisted his mouth to one side and rested his elbows on the rail, matching her stance. His arm was so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of him through her sleeve. “I want to make something of myself,” he said. “We’ve moved around a lot, me and my brothers. They were content to waste away wherever we lived, doing barely enough to get by. That’s not enough for me.”

“Hence studying to become a Court Alchemist,” Sepha said, and he nodded.

The train pulled them past a few abandoned, half-toppled buildings, then through the outskirts of a proper town. Most of the windows were dark. One building, tall and domed and made of marble, stood taller than the rest. Its main entrance, visible from the railway, was an arch, framed by the statues of a man and a woman. The couple’s palms met at the keystone.

A shrine to Lael and Amin—it must be!

Sepha stared at the shrine, trying to memorize it. Three Mills, old as it was, was too new to have a shrine to Lael and Amin. She’d never seen one before and had until now been forced to subsist on stories.

Ruhen followed her gaze. “Are you a Dànist?” he asked, sounding surprised.

The Dànists were a small but vocal sect of Tirenians who still worshipped Lael and Amin. A millennium ago, everyone had worshipped the pair—sometimes called the Great Alchemists—as gods. But now, most people had resorted to a cold apathy. There was the here and now, which was for the living, and there was the After, which was for the dead. Two planes of existence, each as real and undeniable as the other. Since there weren’t any entities who could change that fact, there was no point in worshipping anyone.

“No,” Sepha said, smiling. “I just love their story, that’s all. The alchemy they did.”

Ruhen raised an eyebrow. “That’s the part of their story you like best?”

Sepha nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ruhen said, sounding as if he did know. “I mean, their alchemy—banishing evil magicians and evil magical creatures from Tirenia—it was amazing. But I thought everyone’s favorite part of the story was how, you know, they were … I don’t know. A pair.”

A slow smile spread across Sepha’s face. “You like the true love part the best?”

“I didn’t say that! Don’t make fun of me!” Ruhen cried, and they both burst into smothered laughter. “I can like whichever part of the story I choose.”

“But you chose the only fictional part to be your favorite!”

“Oh, Sepha, no. Tell me you aren’t that cold-hearted!” Ruhen stared down at her, dismayed. “You really don’t believe the true love part?”

Sepha’s smile faded. The truth was that, although Sepha had been young when Mother died, she’d been old enough to notice the wrongness between her and Father. The way Mother was a prize to Father and not a person. The complete and utter lack of love, from which Sepha had somehow sprung.

Forget two people fated by the cosmos itself to meet each other, fall in love, and save the world. Ordinary love was so impossible to Sepha that true love was, by extension, a fantasy.

To her dismay, she realized that, maybe, that did make her cold-hearted.

“I don’t think I do,” Sepha said. Ruhen gave her a look that made her feel as if she was being assessed, and she looked away. “Adding unnecessary parts to the story only takes away from what amazing alchemists they were.”

“Maybe so,” Ruhen said, sounding as if he disagreed.

Sepha hazarded a glance and found him staring back at her. For a moment, they studied each other, with the wind tugging at their clothes and the tracks blurring beneath them. That look, the one she was almost definitely imagining, crept back into Ruhen’s eyes.

Which made Sepha’s cheeks flush with pleasure.

Which made her contract thrum in response.

Godsdamnit!

Sepha looked away and pretended to be fascinated by the buildings beside the tracks. Forced herself to think of bricks and mortar and wooden beams until her interfering contract went still.

Although he couldn’t know why she was uncomfortable, Ruhen seemed to sense her mood. He let the conversation die, let the clack of the train’s wheels take over the night, let the world become sound and sight and the push of the chaotic wind. After a long time, he said, “The sky looks bigger here.”

“Lots of stars,” Sepha agreed.

“Millions.”

This time, it wasn’t what he’d said but what he’d left unsaid that set her contract to thrumming, and Sepha knew without a doubt that she was in trouble.