The Masked City

‘Door bolt, open,’ Irene said. The last thing she wanted was to keep Lady Guantes in the carriage.

Lady Guantes stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her.

‘Are we pursued?’ Vale demanded.

‘Yes,’ Irene said shortly, ‘by the Rider - and multiple other Fae. They must be almost upon us now.’ She felt suddenly exhausted, her resources almost gone. She remembered the other person in the room. ‘Sterrington, are you a danger to us?’

Sterrington was clutching her wrist again, trying to stop the trickle of blood. ‘I’m scarcely your friend,’ she said. Irene could see her struggle to remain civil. ‘But I’m not going to hold a grudge because I involved myself in someone else’s affairs.’

Irene nodded. ‘Then we’d better just hope the Train gets us to our world before it’s too late.’

‘We’ve reached the disputed spheres,’ Sterrington offered weakly. ‘You might do better to jump from the Train - flee by foot. They know you’re here, after all.’

‘Winters?’ Vale questioned.

Irene shook her head. ‘They were close enough for me to see them. So if we jump now, they’d notice us. We’d never make it.’

‘Ah well,’ Sterrington said.

There seemed nothing to say to that, and Irene lowered her head wearily. Her whole body ached.

There wasn’t any noise from the corridor outside. Lady Guantes must have taken her guards with her. There was just the hammering of the Train. She was out of ideas. There was only hope left.

Sterrington’s words jogged a memory. ‘The disputed spheres?’ she asked, raising her head again.

Sterrington nodded. ‘Those spheres that fully belong neither to us nor to the dragons. Both sides can act within these lands.’

Irene had sent one distress call. Perhaps it was time to shout once more, in case someone was listening. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and levered herself up from where she’d collapsed on a couch. ‘Just to make sure we’ve done our utmost.’

She limped towards the windows, bracing her hands against a frame. ‘Window, open,’ she said, her throat still sore and bruised. The window slid down in its frame, revealing the passing landscape. It was a windswept forest now, full of dark trees and blowing leaves. She wondered if their pursuers would look like a Wild Hunt, if she could see them now.

She focused her mind as her hands curled tightly around the window frame. ‘AO SHUN!‘ she shouted at the top of her voice into the night beyond. ‘DRAGON KING OF THE NORTHERN OCEAN!’

The Train shook with a noise like thunder as a greater darkness than night or forest came roaring down on the wind, great wings outswept as it circled the Train. It was a long torrent of shadow, with a black serpentine body and ebony wings. Pale eyes shone coldly even from that distance, and it hovered above the Train as it ran along its track between worlds. Behind the Train, their pursuers fell back, the figure in the lead slowing as the dragon spread his wings.

Sterrington stumbled to her feet to stare out, her face white and her eyes wide with shock - and Vale moved forward to put a supportive arm around Irene’s shoulders. She needed it.

Irene could barely hear her own voice. What was left of her strength was scraped empty, and only Vale’s arm kept her upright. But she managed, ‘I think we have safe escort.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Train pulled into London with a screech and a shudder, just as it had arrived. Irene had watched through a window as people fled along the platforms, guards frantically waving flags. It was the pre-dawn rush and the pale sky was split with the first streaks of light, with the remains of the dying moon drifting in and out of the clouds.

Kai had recovered consciousness about half an hour before, but he moved and spoke like a man suffering from a bout of influenza - leaning forward as though his joints ached and constantly rubbing at his forehead. His skin was marked with bruises and red burn-like weals. Vale had filled him in on Lord Guantes’ fate. Kai had only nodded, but his eyes had become inhuman for that moment, savage and satisfied.

Irene herself had tried to sleep, but ironically she was too exhausted. The idea of a hot bath hung in the future like the promise of Christmas or a new book in a favourite series. She could imagine brandy, too. But first they needed safety.

The Train’s guiding shadow had left it ten minutes before London, when the landscape had dissolved from an unfamiliar urban cityscape into long shadowy fields, and then into the gasworks and factories that marked the outskirts of the city. Irene had seen those distant silver eyes again, as the long draconic form had pulled loose and lifted away, spreading vast wings that seemed to dissolve into rain-grey clouds at the edges. The future would contain an interview with a dragon king and she wasn’t looking forward to it, even if she had managed to save Kai.

‘I will be staying with the Train,’ Sterrington said. Vale and Irene had finally bound up her hand during the journey, and she held the bandaged limb protectively against her chest. ‘There’s nothing for me in this sphere.’

Irene nodded. No doubt Sterrington would be passing on the full details of what had happened to some other Fae, but for the moment Irene couldn’t bring herself to care.

Vale had opened the door onto the platform and London air flooded into the compartment, with all its smells of oil and humanity. ‘We should leave this conveyance while we still can,’ he said.

Irene followed Kai out of the compartment, with a final nod to Sterrington. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the Train as they left - not sure whether or not it was listening, but it had served them well in the end.