“Your king?”

“Yes.”

“I can take you.”

“No you can’t,” Dot said. She hugged the box cutter against her chest with two spotted arms, red spots on yellow-white flesh. “You die here. I’m not big or strong. Machines are. If I go for help then you dead before I’m back.”

“Please.”

“Tell me where my king is and I’ll be fast. Merciful.”

“I don’t—this isn’t about me. Can you—can you let them know the Machine Army is this far north? They shouldn’t be on this side of the Raleigh chasm.”

“They kill me on sight.”

“Find a way? Please? I’ll tell you where your king is, I help you, but you need to tell them. We need the Wardens to stop them before they get their roots in.”

Too late, Dot thought to herself.

The woman seemed to take it as assent, when it wasn’t. “The Wardens’ headquarters, probably. It’s—it’s on Gimel, where a lot of the trains go. The train nearest here goes there. You’ll want to look for a building with a statue of a knight with a sword at the front.”

Dot took a two-handed grip on her box cutter.

“Tell the Wardens. Let them know, so they can take measures. Tell them Burnish said it. It might save your King’s life.”

Dot paused.

“Yes,” she said.

Then she cut into the woman’s throat, until blood sprayed from the artery. She opened her mouth wide, until the teeth on the upper half of her mouth pointed in the same direction as the teeth on the lower jaw, and bit in deep, locking her mouth in place. She swallowed the blood, gorging herself.

Vitamins, protein, nourishment. She would fill herself here, then visit her brothers and sisters. Then she would set out on her quest.

A distance below them, machines washed away the blood. After the heroine had been kept up and out of the way long enough to ensure her power wouldn’t be a problem, she would be cleaned up too.

Dot felt energized, her focus as sharp as the box-cutter. She knew where their king was.

King Rinke. Nilbog.

⊙

She clung to the underside of the train. The ground was a blur beneath her, periodically studded with rocks and branches.

Those of her kind who ventured into the human’s civilization didn’t tend to return. She knew it was a risk. She knew she had a one percent chance when it came to this. She’d said her goodbyes accordingly.