Page 168 of Keldori By Daybreak

I tried to bolt to my feet, but the cab lurched sideways and I fell back to the wooden floor, grunting in pain. Tamora took the movement in stride, shifting on her cushioned bench. The lethal-looking heel of her boot bounced next to my face as she sat with one leather-clad leg crossed over the other.

“Careful,” she crooned. “My healer did what she could, but you were in a terrible state when we found you. Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Her grin swam above me as I tried to gather my bearings. The room was cramped, and the movements of the floor unpredictable. Red light swirled in a glass fixture on the ceiling, turning Jonquil’s blonde coat a rosy hue in Tamora’s arms. Steam hissed somewhere out of sight, accompanied by a rhythmic clanking.

A sharp, herbal scent stung my nose, and I traced the smell to the bandages that wound up my arms and down my torso. The black fabric of the tattered bra I’d been wearing since coming to Skalterra peaked out through the gauze, and while the sheer amount of bandages spared my modesty, I wrapped my arms across my chest.

Tamora pulled my hoodie out from beneath Jonquil and threw it at me. I stared at the cat, breathing heavily through my nose. If Jonquil was here then—

“Where are my friends?” I demanded. “What have you done with them?”

Gruff hands lifted me from the floor and set me on the bench opposite Tamora. I recoiled, glaring up at Titus’s chiseled jaw and bulging, tattooed biceps. His muscles and stature were impressive in this world, but he was just a Nightmare, and I’d seen the true form of Tamora’s bodyguard in Keldori. His tattoos may have been the same, but everything else was a meek and shallow echo of this Nightmare version of him.

“Stanley,” I sneered. “How’s the bank?”

“How about ‘thank you for saving us from the middle of a lava field’ instead?” Tamora sang.

Another jerking movement nearly knocked me from my seat, but Titus held me in place with a meaty hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll thank you when I know my friends are safe.” I pushed Titus’s hand off me and gritted my teeth against the pain of pulling my hoodie on. Tamora’s healer had at least set all my bones and started the standard healing matrix to foster new bone growth, but my magick would finish the job. “Where’s Ciarán?”

“The boy and his dog-beast are fine. My personal healer is seeing to his injuries in the next cart.”

“Cart?” I looked around the compartment again. “Is this a steamcart?”

“Question after question!” Tamora slid to the side, pulling back a heavy velvet curtain behind her. “There. Take a look for yourself. Not a steamcart, but we will be at the station soon.”

Golden dawn washed over the plains and distant forests outside the modest window. The Sentinels rose in the distance, cutting into the breaking day with their craggy peaks. The landscape, in all its shades of purple, gold, and orange, was gorgeous, but it was hard to look away from the mechanical legs that dipped in and out of view.

I stood for a better look, my magick already burning in my chest and arms as I secretly mended my broken bones.

The strange legs outside the window were made of the same bronze that Tamora’s mansion in Vanderfall had been encased in, and they whirred in time with the hissing steam and clanking gears.

I could see the adjoining carriages, and the vehicle looked like a hybrid between a train and a massive, bronze caterpillar, with articulated segments making up each carriage, and each carriage sporting four legs. Metal gears, pistons, and steam pipes interlocked in a maze of craftsmanship to power the appendages.

It was an impressive bit of technology by Skalterra standards, and not at all surprising that Tamora had hoarded it for herself.

The legs navigated a small dip, and the sudden jolt sent me falling back into my seat.

“You were in rough shape, but the boy’s injuries were especially extensive.” Tamora let the velvet curtain fall back into place. “He’s alive, as are you, making you the first two known Magicians to make it through the strath. And all you had to do was douse the thing in magma.”

“Lava,” I corrected her. “It’s only magma when it’s still underground.”

Her smile turned strained, and another lurch of the carriage jostled us. “Whatever it was, it put on quite the light show, even from a distance. Luckily, I happened to be in the area and had a hunch I might find Skalterra’s newest Saergrim in the thick of the action.” She winked behind her monocle. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I want to see Ciarán.”

“You will once you help me.”

“I would never help you.”

“You will if you want to see your friends again.” She lifted Jonquil’s paw with her hand to make the cat wave at me.

“Where are they? What did you do to them?”

“That’s why I was in the area, actually. They were caught switching steamcarts in a nearby station, trying to travel to Ephitz Harbor. Unfortunately, you’re all wanted criminals because of recent trouble in one of my cities.”

“Willow’s Grave isn’t your city.”