“When’s the next train north?”

“The Bain Flyer,” the man replied automatically. “But she’s an express. She doesn’t stop anywhere, least of all here.”

“When is it due to go past?”

“Ten-oh-five.”

Nick looked at the clock above the waiting room, but it was electric and so had ceased to function. There was a watch chain hanging from the stationmaster’s pocket, so he snagged that and drew out a regulation railway watch. Mechanical clockwork did not suffer so much from Free Magic, and its second hand was cheerfully moving round. According to the watch, it was three minutes to ten.

“What’s the signal for an obstruction on the line?” snapped Nick.

“Three flares: two outside, one on the track,” the man said. He suddenly looked at Nick, his attention returned to the here and now. “But you’re not—”

“Where are the flares?”

The stationmaster shook his head, but he couldn’t hide an instinctive glance toward a large red box on the wall to the left of the ticket window.

“Don’t try to stop me,” said Nick very forcefully. “Go back to your house and, if your phone’s working, call the police. Tell them . . . Oh, there’s no time! Tell them whatever you like.”

The flares were ancient, foot-long things like batons, which came in two parts that had to be screwed together to mix the chemicals that in turn ignited the magnesium core. Nick grabbed a handful and rushed over the branch line to the main track. Or what he hoped was the main track. There were four railway lines next to each other, and he couldn’t be absolutely sure which one Dorrance’s train had taken heading north.

Even if he got it wrong, he told himself, any engineer seeing three red flares together would almost certainly stop. He screwed the first flare together and dropped it on the track, then the other two followed quickly, one to either side.

With the flares gushing bright blue magnesium and red iron flames, Nick decided he couldn’t afford explanations, so he crossed the tracks and crouched down behind a tree to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. He had barely looked over his shoulder at the expanding pall of smoke from Dorrance Hall, which now covered a good quarter of the sky, before he heard the distant sound of a big, fast-moving train. Then, only seconds after the noise, he saw the triple headlights of the engine as it raced down the track toward him. A moment later there was the shriek of the whistle, and then the awful screech of metal on metal as the driver applied the brakes, a screech that intensified every few seconds as the emergency brakes in each of the following carriages came on hard as well.

Nick, on hearing the horrid scream of emergency braking and seeing the sheer speed of the approaching lights, suddenly remembered the boast of the North by Northwest Railway, that its trains averaged 110 miles per hour, and for a fearful moment he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. It was one thing to risk his life pursuing the creature, but quite another if he was responsible for derailing the Bain Flyer and killing all the passengers on board.