Raven pulled out the three medallions she had taken from the Keswicks. She didn’t

know what one of them did, but one threw lightning and the other controlled wood

somehow. She put them away as she thought.

She needed to keep moving. North was the direction Eisen had gone. Her former boss

wanted her to catch up with the alchemist. That meant she needed to go north also.

The Keswicks knew she had been on the train. They knew the train made a circuit.

They also knew that she had two of the medallions. Did they know she had blown one

of their number from the train and taken his medallion? She had no way of knowing

that, but she had to act as if they did.

They had got on the train. They had vanished from the train. Someone would find the

body eventually. Then they would know for sure she had taken the wood medallion.

She expected to see bounties posted on her head in the wilderness. There were towns

between the large city states, but there weren’t any singular law for people. If a note

went up for her head, she could expect a number of bounty hunters trying to take her

for the Keswicks.

Would they want her alive? That seemed the most important question. She doubted

anyone would be told about what the medallions could do. The hunters would just be

told that she had taken them and she needed to be brought back for punishment.

And she knew that the Guard would not help her except in a cursory fashion. She

couldn’t count on them investigating any claim made on her by the Keswicks.

The Keswicks were rich. She was poor. The Guard always sided with the rich. She

would be lucky to reach Bern alive if she was captured.

She had the wood medallion. Maybe she could use that to cross the wilderness faster.

Once she reached the end of the tracks, she could ask about Eisen and the boy. The

kid would stand out with the markings on his skin. Anyone who saw him would

remember him.

She still didn’t see what Kobach thought they could do for her that she couldn’t do

inside the city. She admitted that she might have been trapped eventually if she had

stayed. Moving on had been the right choice the way they were chasing her around.

She wondered what the Keswicks would do when they found out she wasn’t on the

train.

They knew she had been going north. That was the only way the track pointed. They

could reach the end of the line and wait for her with the speed the train had over her.

She couldn’t catch up to it on foot.

So the best thing to do was circle around the end station and try to hit the flying

messenger service to be dropped off closer to Baldwin. Would they expect her to try

that?

Would they try to catch her trying to get a ride with a messengers?

And she still needed to ask about Eisen to make sure she was on the right track. Just

because he had stated he was going to Baldwin didn’t mean he was traveling in a

straight line. He might have been driven off course like her.

And she would have to avoid the Keswicks in the hopes they would give up and let

her keep the medallions.

How many losses would they have to suffer before they reached that point?

She decided to press forward instead of turning back. The Keswicks had influence in

Bern. She couldn’t hide from them in the city. Eventually someone would betray her,

and she would be caught.

She couldn’t depend on Eisen and his ward for protection, but once she handed over

the letter, she could decide what she wanted to do instead of constantly running away.

Maybe the alchemist knew someone up north that needed a dependable messenger for

deliveries.

She smiled as she considered having to learn new routes across a new city.

Raven pulled out the wood medallion. Could she use it to cross the forest? The

Keswick had used it to cling to the train. Could she use it to swing through the air?

It seemed too easy to be the right solution to her problem.

She pointed the medallion at a nearby tree. A vine formed a line to the tree. It yanked

her across the space. She landed by the tree and smiled. This could be what she

needed.

Raven started north after the train. It had left her far behind as it sped on. The other

passengers probably hadn’t seen her blasting the Keswick and jumping off the train.

If she caught up with it, she could hitch a ride as long as the other Keswicks didn’t

see her.

She wondered if they jumped off the train to look for her when they lost their kin. She

wished the medallions came with some kind of locator vision so she could just know

what they were doing. That would make things so much easier for her.

She decided they would know where she was going. It didn’t matter if she caught the

train, or not. The next big scene of contention would be at the end of the train tracks.

Then she would have to get clear and see if there was word of Eisen ahead of her.

She could be on an endless search for the alchemist if he kept moving around instead

of staying at Baldwin.

And she would be running from the Keswicks and their influence the whole time. She

didn’t like that at all.

She used the plant medallion to yank herself and her bag across the wilderness. She

saw animals and monsters roaming about but none got close enough to do anything

as she swung through the air. She spotted the smoke from the train ahead, but knew

she wouldn’t catch up with night surrounding her on all sides. She had to find a place

to settle before continuing her journey in the daylight.

Raven picked a place in a dip. Two hills formed a pair of walls on either side of her

campsite. She used the medallion to weave a roof of growth overhead for cover. She

didn’t know if anyone had tracked her from the air, but she could settle in for the

night and try to catch up in the daytime.

She hung a screen on either end of her cover to keep the casual animal from trying to

get inside. She had a little bit of food and a water jug in her bag. She could use that

and hope to find something at the end of the day tomorrow.

She cursed the Keswicks for invading the train. There were two days of good eating

there in the dining car. Now she was in the wilderness with the barest of preparation

and had lucked out to even have a water bottle.

They had ruined her train ride out of the city. She could have been able to ride in style

instead of using a stolen piece of magic to carry her forward.

Raven took a deep breath to calm down. She couldn’t do anything about her problem

right now. All she could do was hope the Keswicks kept riding the train and rode

it back to the city. If she could slip by them, she was on her way to Baldwin without

any more problems except some kind of bounty that could be placed on her head by

the old lady.

She settled in without a fire, drank some of the water to take the edge off her thirst,

and munched some of the dry food. Tomorrow should get her close enough to a town

that she could look for an easier way north. She still had to find Eisen when she got

to Baldwin.

There was a chance that he hadn’t made it to Baldwin. She knew he had problems

of his own. They might have caught up with him before he could get much farther

than she had.

Bern had a lot of problems that most people worked around. She never thought

they would bite her in the course of her day. She put it down to luck. If it hadn’t been

her, it would have been someone else.

She tried to let the thought console her as she wrapped a blanket of vines over her to

keep her warm. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep while she could. The next few

days could be one thing after another as she worked her way along the tracks to the

end of the line.

Raven dreamed of things chasing her in the shadows. They reached for her with

shadowy claws. They tried to bite her. She stumbled on a set of floating gears that

formed a hand to show her stairs leading away from the creatures behind her. She

woke up under her blanket of vines and just listened to the woods around her.

Birds sang as they went about their business. She heard something moving beyond

her den, but it didn’t seem curious enough to just barge in through the flimsy walls

she had created.

She lay there. She couldn’t catch up to the train. She didn’t really have any other

goals than catching up to Eisen and handing him his letter. She could stay where she

was for a bit.

She pulled herself together with an effort. She drank some of her precious water and

munched on the remains of her food. She pulled her bag out of the redoubt she had

constructed and looked around.

It was time to get started on her day. She would follow the tracks with the wood

medallion like she had been and make it to the end of the line. She had enough Bern

money to buy a ride with people heading north, or with the messenger service she had

heard about in the city.

She didn’t know what a bunch of Riordianians were doing so far from their ocean

home, but she wasn’t going to knock it if they could carry the rest of the

distance she had to cover.

Then she could think about tracking down Eisen without her enemies dogging her

trail.