Page 28 of Cursebreaker

Finally, the train lurches, throwing us all sideways. The shrill whistle and the squeal of the tracks were sounds I once dreaded, but at this moment, I couldn’t be happier to hear the steady chugging of the train.

I exhale, relieved. We made it. We’re one step closer to the Burning Lands. One step closer to a cure.

But the relief is tainted as Henry snaps his fingers, cradling a flame in his open palm and illuminating the railcar.

Sitting atop one of the wooden cargo boxes is a single playing card.

The knave of clubs—Owen’s lucky card.

I meet Margaret’s panicked gaze as I pick it up and turn it over.

Written on its face is a single word, inked in blood.

LIAR.

“You’re sure it’s Owen?” Jack whispers, squinting at the bloody message in the guttering lantern light.

“It’s just like the clues he left for me at Bludgrave,” I whisper back, clutching my knees tighter to my chest. “And it would make sense that the lion showed up just after I saw the raven. He could have easily transformed into both.”

We sit shoulder to shoulder, our backs against a crate on the far side of the railcar. To his right, Margaret snores softly, her cheek pressed to his arm, and to my left, Will lies flat, his head propped on a cloth sack, face twisted in restless sleep. At his feet, Henry slumps against a barrel, his fingers still stretched in the direction of the single lantern, as if ready to wake and extinguish the light at a moment’s notice.

Across from us, Gabriel guards the door, his eyes narrowed on Will’s unconscious form. He argued that Will should remain beside him in case he wakes in a frenzy, but I insisted he stay close to me. “I can talk him out of it,” I told him. “At the very least, he’ll attack me first, and the rest of you can defend yourselves.” Gabriel didn’t like that, but he nodded, dragging him to my side of the railcar. Still, he reaches for the hilt of a dagger strapped to his chest every time Will twitches or moans in his sleep, and he rests his other hand inside his worn leather jacket, ready to retrieve the cuffs made of Elysian Iron. Even though he knows—better than most—that if Will wanted to, he could snap every bone in Gabriel’s body before he could grab hold of the binds.

Jack’s forehead creases, the thrash of the flames casting shadows on his dirty face. “What does it mean?”

Liar. I can’t help but think about Owen’s warning to me that day on the train. William Castor is lying to you. A chill runs down my spine. Will had kept secrets from me—about his curse, about the things he was doing for the Order. But I know the truth now. There are no more secrets between us.

“I don’t know,” I say, but when Jack peers at me out of the corner of his eye, I realize he must suspect there’s something I’m not telling him.

“How’re you feeling?” Jack asks, nudging me with his elbow.

I blow out a tight breath, run my hands over my face. “I’ve been better.”

“Really? I would have thought you did this sort of thing for fun.” He shoots me a teasing grin, but it falters when Will shudders beside me, his chest rattling with another labored breath. “It’s strange, you know.” His expression turns serious, his eyes misty with memory. “I can’t stop thinking about my parents on a train just like this one, wondering what it would be like once they reached the border. Wondering how they would die.”

When I first met Jack, I learned his parents were conscripted into the League of Seven when he was only six. But I’ve never heard him talk about it. “What happened to them?”

Jack’s brows knit as he stares at the card in his hands, turning it over. “Gore attack, ten weeks and two days after they were conscripted,” he says quietly. “Killian broke the news.” He shakes his head. “When they first left, I remember thinking that they loved each other so much, surely nothing bad could ever happen to them.”

My heart sinks. If the Shifter has replaced someone close to me… it can’t be Jack. I’m certain of it.

He passes the card back to me, and with his hands free, he stretches his arm around Margaret’s shoulder. She nestles into his side, and he smiles softly at the small chuffing noises she makes in her sleep.

After we discovered the knave of clubs, Margaret retreated to the corner of the railcar, slid down the wall, and hugged her knees to her chest. Jack followed her, speaking to her in a hushed, calm voice as Margaret stared straight ahead, her gaze unfocused.

Henry stared, fist clenched at his side. He offered to take the first watch, but Jack insisted. After a little while, Henry and Margaret drifted off, but Gabriel, Jack, and I sat wide awake, rocked by the jostling train, the steady rumble like a familiar lullaby.

“If your brother knows you’re here,” Jack says finally, drawing me out of my thoughts, “does that mean Morana knows, too? I thought the whole point was to attack when she least expects it—where she least expects it.”

I scowl at the knave of clubs—at the message. “This is what she wants,” I say. “A willing sacrifice.” I flick the card. “I’m playing right into her hand.”

Jack nods slowly. “Should we turn back? Regroup with the Order and—”

“We can’t,” I say, my throat tight. “Will can’t wait much longer.” I lower my voice to a barely audible whisper. “The only reason Morana’s general hasn’t taken me is because I’m making it too easy for them both. If I were to leave now…”

“They’d slaughter the rest of us,” Jack says, his fist clenched in his lap. “So you’re just going to walk right into Havok and politely ask for a cure for Will in exchange for your life?”

I wondered what might happen if we were discovered before we reached Havok—feared it—but now that I’m certain Morana knows I’m coming, I realize it was always going to happen this way. Morana knew I would come to the Burning Lands. She’s counting on it.