Being back on the train is surreal. This car is filled to the brim with supplies—crates of grain, bolts of cloth, rope, and boxes upon boxes of metal nails line the walls. The five of us squeeze together. Seth closes the door behind us, pushing a crate up against the door to keep it from rattling open again.

Soldiers walk along the side of the train. Latches click shut. The whistle blows. From ahead of us, the donkeys shift and snort, unused to such cramped quarters.

Finally, the train lurches forward. I focus hard on the sound of it—thud, thud, thud. Like the ringing of bells, it gives me something to put my mind on that isn’t the danger of us being back on this thing or that I need to apologize to Ox. Across the train car, Callen smiles meekly at me. Ignoring the quickness of my heart, I pull the cure to my chest and keep it there.

We gain speed quickly, the track below us clicking in a steadier rhythm than the older tracks did. My spirits lift. With this machine’s faster pace, we could make it home before sundown.

Skies keep us. Everything was going to be all right.

The smell of smoke jolts me from a light sleep, sending my body into an automatic sense of alarm. Between the smoke is something else, too—gunpowder.

The train slows.

Io and I scramble up. She nudges the others with her foot. “Up. Now.”

I take a step toward an opening in the train’s side, where a knot of wood had long since fallen, leaving a hole. I lean close and am met with a blast of pine-scented air.

The unmistakable light of late afternoon catches on the trees as they disappear from my sight as quickly as they came. The sun is still to my left, but the angle is wrong. We’re no longer traveling due west.

“The train turned,” I say gravely. A moment later, I jump back, because not ten feet from my vantage point is a human watching the train arrive. “We’re in the northwest, near the mountains.”

Io crouches to the ground, face focused. “Everyone, pour out your waterskins,” she says. “Rowan, give me yours.”

Io undoes the cap of my waterskin, and my heart lurches at the sight of the precious panacea spilling onto the floor. A moment later, as she starts filling Sethran’s waterskin with it, I understand. She’s dividing the cure among all of us. “Only one of us has to make it to the prince. Whatever you have to do to escape, you do it,” she says. When she’s done, I take my share back and wrap the strap securely around my body. I think back to the maps I’ve seen of the humans’ settlements.

“We’re at the mines,” I say. “We must be.”