Wren could relate. High above them, the clocktower read 3:45. In twenty minutes, Hal would board a train to Vesria. Although she was certain she could get a letter to him eventually, the prospect of all of this fanfare, all of this nervous hope, amounting to nothing …

Wren bit off a hangnail, her spine tingling at the sting. “How far are we to the station, sir?”

“Another mile yet, my lady.”

At this rate, it’d take them another thirty minutes to go that far. That settled it. She could run a mile in ten minutes, even with her suitcase weighing her down. “Thank you for the ride! I’ve got to go now.”

“My lady?”

Wren opened the door to the carriage and launched herself out. Her knees absorbed the impact. She nearly crumpled at the pain—none of her wounds were entirely healed—but she was fueled by desperation. All of her attendants gaped at her, but she only weakly lifted a hand. “Sorry for the trouble!”

She ran faster than she ever had. Her lungs, still healing from the poison, burned with the effort. She dodged through the crush of traffic and over the slurry of rainwater and urine and ale. She wove through people making their way home from work and darted past the pubs serving honeyed liquor, past the market stalls in the square filled with early springtime produce, past women with woven baskets spilling with wildflowers and berries. All around her, winter had begun to give way. Tentative new growth budded on the trees, and the faint sounds of birdsong filtered through the air.

The clocktower tolled four times, each chime echoing in her skull.

Five minutes left.

The train station loomed over her, its steepled glass ceiling supported by iron beams. As she shoved through the front gates, elbows and shoulders and briefcases jostled her from every angle. But all she could feel was the wild, giddy race of her heart. All she could see was platform two ahead of her like the bright, guiding glow of a lighthouse.

Wren tumbled onto the platform, just in time for a train on the opposite side of the tracks to whir by. The clatter of its wheels rattled her bones. The gust of wind left in its wake whipped her hair across her face and filled her nose with the ashy smell of creosote.

She was here. She’d made it.

But her relief was quickly chased by dread. There were so many people, all drab and nondescript in dark hats and dark coats. They gathered in clusters like drifts of thick, black fog. How was she going to find Hal like this? What if he’d changed platforms? What if he’d already left on an earlier train? What if she never saw him again? What if—

But then, though faint, she felt the tug of the tether.

Look, it whispered. There.

Near the edge of the platform, she saw him.