Tobias pointed at the railroad car that was puffing clouds of cold air out the open door. “There’s plenty of room in there for our five boxes.”

The handler closed the door. “We’re full up.”

<Wolf? I am Air. Do you need help?>

The female voice—and the offer—surprised him. He’d never dealt with any of the Elementals directly until the night they’d all gathered to attack the Controller’s compound. How many of them lived in Thaisia, let alone the rest of the world? Were there a thousand of them called Air? Ten thousand? More? Being a form of terra indigene, there were males as well as females. Was there someplace in the wild country where they gathered to mate and raise their young? Was there some lush valley where their steeds bore foals that played and grew until their natures were revealed? Was a wisp of a tornado a colt just learning what it was, while a lethal funnel was a stallion in its prime?

The Elementals called themselves by what they commanded and offered no other name—at least, not to anyone beyond their own kind. So while this female called herself Air, he didn’t think she had been at the Controller’s compound, and he was fairly certain she wasn’t the Elemental who lived in Lakeside.

Joe considered her question. <We want to send some meat to Simon Wolfgard and Meg Corbyn at the Lakeside Courtyard, but the humans are saying the car with cold air doesn’t have room for the boxes of meat.>

<We have heard of the Meg who lives near Etu. She likes this meat?>

<She has never tasted bison, so it will be a treat—if it doesn’t spoil before it reaches Lakeside.>

A wind lightly whipped around the platform. The door of the next car opened. <Put the meat for the Meg in this box,> Air said.

<That baggage car isn’t cold.>

<It will be.>

“We’ll put our shipment in this baggage car,” Joe told Tobias. “Come on, let’s get these boxes inside.”

“But that’s not—”

“Do it,” Joe growled.

They hauled the five boxes of meat into the empty baggage car, setting them to one side of the door.

The baggage handlers smirked—until the female who looked like she was wearing a long dress made out of clouds walked across the platform with a barrel-bodied, chubby-legged white pony.

“Gods,” Tobias whispered.

“Ssh,” Joe warned. <Thank you for your help.>

She smiled at him. Then she looked at the baggage handlers, and her smile changed to something sharp and feral. She and the pony entered the baggage car. She closed the door.

“What the fuck was that?” one of the baggage handlers said.

Joe didn’t answer. His sharp Wolf hearing picked up sounds in the baggage car that the humans didn’t hear or were choosing to ignore—sounds of a storm in the making.