I take my time exploring the train. Each car has its own distinct personality. There’s a café car with a beautiful wood bar and candlelit tables, and even a library car with shelves of books and comfy reading nooks. I take advantage of the emptiness of the library and fish out my cell phone. I want to see how far out I can still get service. As I wake the screen, the last bar is just blinking out. No service, no internet, no GPS.

I’m officially on my own.

I type up some quick notes with details of the train station and the train itself so I don’t forget, then stow my phone back in its hiding place and go to poke around more.

Near the end of the train, I enter a car not so different from where I left Michael, but the decor is darker and more severe, almost military in style. It’s empty but for two boys. One looks younger, with shaggy hair and splotchy skin. He’s wearing sweatpants—which makes me feel a lot better about my own clothes—and he’s fast asleep with his legs propped up on a teardrop-shaped instrument case. The other boy is seated at a desk writing with a fountain pen on parchment, and—

This. This is what I had expected people from Utopia to look like. He’s the type of exquisite specimen that I have rarely lain eyes upon in real life. His hair is a brassy shade of blond pulled into a short ponytail. The slope of his nose and the angle of his jaw are perfectly proportioned and might just as well be chiseled from stone in a museum. Izzy can call me thirsty all she wants for having a new crush every semester, but with Michael off the table, I deserve some eye candy. Not that this candy will ever be on the menu—I know out-of-my-league when I see it. I shouldn’t ogle him, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a certain tier of attractiveness that is so unattainable it excuses company manners.

The boy looks up at me, his ice-blue eyes aloof and assessing. An amber earring glints in his right lobe. He’s probably one or two years older than me—not that I have any trust in my age-radar anymore.

He stands and reaches out his hand to me. “Raphael Vanguard,” he says like I should recognize the name.

“Ada Castle,” I say, but when I extend my hand, instead of shaking it, he grasps it, and he bends to brush a kiss over my knuckles. Though his lips barely touch me, heat burns my skin, and the base of my fingers warm with that familiar prickle that I now have a name for—Ha’i.

His eyes widen then flick to my right hand, which he’s just released, then to my right ear.