Faint steel lines coming from another place in this train car. They were moving.

Wax rushed toward them. Marasi followed, suddenly alert, her lamp held high. The lines were coming from the floor inside one of the rooms. Only no luggage was on its racks, and no litter was on its floor. It was a private compartment that hadn’t been rented out for the trip.

Wax entered and ripped open the luggage compartment in the floor. Wayne blinked up at him. The younger man had mussed hair, and his shirt was unbuttoned, but he wasn’t in any bonds that Wax could see. He didn’t seem to have been harmed at all. In fact…

Wax crouched down, Marasi’s light revealing what had been hidden to him by the overhang of the luggage compartment. MeLaan, shirt completely off, was in the compartment too. She sat up, entirely unashamed of her nudity.

“We’ve stopped!” she said. “Are we there already?”

“Well how was I supposed to know we’d get rusting attacked?” Wayne exclaimed, now properly clothed, though his hair was still a mess.

Wax sat listening with half an ear. The train officials had opened a room in the station for them to use. He knew he should be angry, but he was mostly just relieved.

“Because we are us,” Marasi said, arms folded. “Because we’re on our way to a dangerous situation. I don’t know. You could at least have told us what you were doing.” She hesitated. “And by the way, what do you think you were doing?”

Wayne bowed his head where he sat before her. MeLaan leaned against the wall near the door. She was looking toward the ceiling, as if trying to feign innocence.

“Movin’ on,” Wayne said, pointing at Marasi. “Like you told me to.”

“That wasn’t moving on! That was ‘Running on at full speed.’ It was ‘Shooting on forward like a bullet,’ Wayne.”

“I don’t like doin’ stuff halfway,” he said solemnly, hand over his heart. “It’s been a long time since I had me a good neckin’ on account of my diligent monogamous idealization of a beauteous but unavailable—”

“And how,” Marasi interrupted, “did you not hear the fight? There was gunfire, Wayne. Practically on top of you.”

“Well, see,” he said, growing red, “we was real busy. And we were down next to the tracks, which made a lot of noise. We’d wanted a place what was private-like, you know, and…” He shrugged.

“Bah!” Marasi said. “Do you realize how worried Waxillium was?”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Wax said, seated with his feet up on the next bench.

“Oh, and you approve of this behavior?” Marasi asked, turning on him.

“Heavens, no,” Wax said. “If I approved of half the things Wayne does, Harmony would probably strike me dead on the spot. But he’s alive, and we’re alive, and we can’t blame him for getting distracted during what we assumed would be a simple ride.”

Marasi eyed him, then sighed and walked back out onto the platform, passing MeLaan without a glance.