Chapter 10 · The Train Between Minutes

The whistle rose through the warehouse floor.

It was not loud. That was what made it worse.

The sound slid beneath Eve’s boots, thin and metallic, vibrating through the soles of her feet and up the bones of her legs. Dust trembled from the rafters. The dead thing on the table smiled with Memory-Eve’s mouth.

“Ask him,” the corpse whispered. “Ask Kieran what he carried onto the train.”

A second whistle answered from somewhere below.

Kieran moved before anyone else did. His hand closed around Eve’s arm, hard enough to hurt, and he dragged her away from the table. His coat pulled across his shoulders. Blood had soaked through the bandage beneath his ribs, black in the warehouse’s blue clocklight.

“Move.”

Eve jerked against him. “You knew about the train.”

“I know enough to keep you alive.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No. It’s the only one you’re getting while the floor is trying to open.”

As if obeying him, the iron plates beneath the warehouse split apart.

A seam of white light cut through the concrete. Not electric light. Not moonlight.