She moved to the wheelhouse, where Gia stood at the ship’s wheel, white knuckled, her face a twist of concentration.

“How long do you think our journey will take?” Serina asked.

“Two days, give or take,” Gia said. “We can’t move too fast with this large a cargo, but we’ll get going a little faster as the fire burns hotter. We should have more than enough coal to get us there.” The worried look she’d worn since they’d first arrived had eased; it was amazing how much more relaxed all of them were now. They’d all shed years—the tense gray complexions of constant terror had been replaced with a hint of bright-eyed hope.

Serina was about to lower herself down the ladder to check on Val when they rounded the western point of the island and the full wide ocean spread before them.

Gia gasped, frozen at the controls. Serina’s hopes crumbled to dust.

Five ships. No, seven. Flying the Superior’s flag.

TWENTY-FOUR

NOMI

NOMI WALKED THROUGH Lanos City with her head down. Not like a woman, she hoped, but like a man who had no time or patience for interruptions. The hood hid her hair, and the night hid her face.

She had been to the Lanos City train station only once, when she and her siblings had departed for Bellaqua. In the dark, the streets lost their familiar colors and sounds. She couldn’t find the corner market with its bins of orangey-pink peaches and rich brown chestnuts, where they’d turned left, or the shop-lined street with the old man who sang and played an organetto near the entrance to the station.

Instead, she found a piazza filled with wrought-iron tables and old men drinking wine, their boisterous voices and expansive gestures undeterred by the chill midnight air. Nomi faltered. Should she ask one of these men for directions? Perhaps it was best to test her disguise now—if they saw her for what she was, despite the cloak and darkness, there was no way she could fool anyone at the train station.

She was about to step into the piazza, when a handful of soldiers spilled into the clearing from a side street. The men at the tables stopped talking as soon as the thud of boots sounded on the pavement. They buried their faces in their wine glasses. Nomi stepped back into the alley, out of view. Breath held, she listened and prayed the soldiers wouldn’t come this way.

They asked the men something—only a few words filtered through the dark: seen… the Superior… questioning. Were they looking for someone?

What if they were looking for Renzo?

Nomi’s legs trembled. Heart pounding, she backed down the street away from the piazza. She couldn’t ask directions, couldn’t draw attention to herself. If those soldiers were looking for someone, they’d take a close look at her, and that was dangerous.