They’re searching for something here. Karensa always is.

I shake my head at Jeran, then descend to him. My wings hurt so fiercely now that I have to clench my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering.

“We have to go farther north,” I sign.

Jeran points at the trees from where he’d been scouting. “They’re laying down new track near the river,” he signs back. “We can find a way to ride on top of the train and make it past this military campground.”

I follow him. It’s a cloudy night, and the darkness is all-consuming, swathing us protectively in her shadows. We make it to the train station without much trouble.

Here, they are loading something onto a train car—a cylinder maybe ten feet long, containing smaller cylinders inside. I frown at the sight of it. The artifact looks oddly familiar, although I’m not quite sure why. Hadn’t they been loading a similar object onto the train in Newage, the one we’d failed to stop? Is it the sleek design—or that there is more than one of them—that makes me uneasy?

“Careful!” I hear the shout go up repeatedly in Karenese from the workers struggling to move it. It must be heavy, much heavier than its size would belie. “Careful! Careful!”

Another of the workers is waving at the soldiers stationed nearby.

“They’ll be at it for a while,” Jeran whispers beside me. When I look at him, he makes a subtle gesture at the other soldiers. “Look at the backup they’re calling for.”

Sure enough, a trickle of guards is hurrying over to the artifact as it starts to roll off the train ramp again. Shouts of alarm come from the workers as they struggle with the chains thrown around the object, fighting to keep it from falling back to the ground.

I study the rest of the station. The number of guards left on patrol is sparse now as the rest have rushed to help with the loading effort. I glance at Jeran and nod.

As the remaining guards keep their attention on the scramble at the tracks, we make our way in the dark of night to the shadows of the train. There, we slip between two of the cars and wait in silence.

It’s not exactly a small object, but how in the world can something that size be that heavy?

Finally, the weight shifts in their favor and the cylinder groans onto the train car. Workers scurry to secure it, throwing new chains over its top and bolting them securely against the car’s platform. It’s difficult to tell in the darkness, but the object seems to have a strange, faint glow about it.

The other voice in me shifts uncomfortably. Something about it reminds you of the first time you saw yourself in the mirror after your transformation. The way your new eyes seemed lit from within. Something that shouldn’t exist.

After the artifact seems securely fastened, the soldiers go back to their positions and the workers return to the train. Half a dozen of them stay on the same car as the artifact, settling beside the object in exhaustion.