Page 177 of Keldori By Daybreak

I shook my head at a wooden lid, bracing myself against its lip as the train jostled us.

“Everyone thinks I’m some sort of god. They know the amazing things my grandmother has done, and they know my mother is powerful too. And they expect me to be like them. ‘My Lady’ isn’t a title, it’s an expectation, and not one I’m sure I’ll be able to meet.”

“You survived Mycastrath,” Tiernan said. “And you saved Willow’s Grave.”

“You don’t know my grandmother. She’s everything. There’s no one like her. But anyone expecting me to do what she can is going to be disappointed.” I tightened my fingers where I gripped the wooden crate and dropped my voice. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

“You couldn’t possibly disappoint me,” Tiernan assured me. “My opinion of you was very low when we first met. It can only improve.”

I pried the next crate open and grinned at the nails and scraps of metal inside.

“Don’t set the bar too low,” I said, “because I know how we’re going to fight the rotsbane.”

Bottles rattled against each other where we lined them up on the tables. We’d had to empty them of food, spices, and drink, and while Stanley admonished us, I was sure Tamora wouldn’t care about the wasted provisions as long as we got her train to the harbor.

Ciarán had fallen asleep in the prison carriage an hour ago, and I worked to the sound of him sleep talking in my head and mumbling something nonsensical about Jonquil.

“More nails, please.” I held my hand out, and Tiernan dropped a fistful of metal into my palm. I shoved the nails through the mouth of a narrow-necked bottle and gave it a rattle.

Stanley watched our project with feigned boredom. “This will never work.”

“Don’t worry, we still have Plan B,” I quipped.

“Which is?”

“Throw you at the rotsbane, remember?” I passed my bottle to Tiernan.

A golden spark flickered in the middle of the tangle of nails at Tiernan’s bidding, and then it grew into a pulsing orb that pressed at the confines of the glass and washed us in golden light.

Tiernan set it in the crate at our feet, adding it to our growing collection of nail bombs.

“Don’t worry,” I said to Stanley, already filling a new jar with sharp metal bits. “Tiernan’s explosive magick is very powerful. Ask me how I know.”

“I already said I was sorry about that,” Tiernan sighed.

“Don’t be. It’s going to help us now.” Apprehension mounted in my gut as the sky continued to darken outside. Indigo clouds suffocated the final pink and orange vestiges of day. We just had to make it through the night. Then we’d get our boat and get to Keldori.

“Keep your head, Blue,” Ciarán murmured in my mind.

“You’re awake,” I replied.

“And you made bombs while I was asleep. How cute.”

“They are, thanks.” I stooped to fill my backpack with explosive jars from the crate and said out loud to the others, “I’ll go keep watch over the engine. Tiernan, keep making them, and Stanley—”

I stopped when I noticed Stanley was staring blankly again, having slipped back out of Lucidity.

“I’ll watch him,” Tiernan grunted.

I nodded and shouldered my backpack, trying not to think about how one wrong bump could cause any of the jars inside to explode and riddle me with nails.

The engine was two carriages beyond where we’d set up our bomb workshop. I stepped out on the platform, flanked on either side by large, copper tanks and the tangle of pipes that connected to them. The main body of the engine sat one carriage ahead, and glowing steam trailed from its smokestack to dye the sunset in extra shades of red.

Ciarán’s presence pressed against my consciousness, and I pressed back, acutely aware of him taking in the scenery with me from behind my eyes. We watched the landscape fall into night together, and the two moons glinted as twin slivers in the sky.

A shrieking howl screamed in the distance, and I scanned the passing trees for the dark shadows of rotsbane. Ciarán’s anxiety washed over the tether.

“It’s still far away,” I murmured.