The Glass Sentence

10 The White Chapel

1891, June 21: Shadrack Missing (Day 1)

Most people believe that The Chronicles of the Great Disruption were written by a charlatan, a false prophet: a man who called himself Amitto and who, in the early days after the Disruption, decided to take advantage of the widespread fear and panic. They contain little detail and little substance: vague words of war and death and miracles. But in some circles the Chronicles have acquired credibility, and Amitto’s followers, particularly those of the Nihilismian sect, claim that the Chronicles hold not only the true history of the Great Disruption but also true prophecies.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World

ON A HIGH hill surrounded by pines at the northern edge of New Occident stood a sprawling stone mansion bleached white by the sun. The mansion’s windows sparkled in the bright light, and the silver weathervanes on its peaked gables gleamed. A dirt road with a single rail track wove through the pines and up the hill, circling at the entrance. There was no movement along the track. A few crows flapped lazily up through the pines toward a stone cross on the mansion’s highest peak. At one end of the mansion, connected by a narrow archway, stood a chapel. The crows wheeled and cawed and then came to rest on its stone cross. As they claimed their perch, the entire scene became one of perfect stillness—even peace. The pine trees, the streaming sunlight, the pale mansion, all formed a serene landscape. But inside the chapel there was no stillness. In the cavernous vault, a purposeful movement was gathering momentum.

Shadrack sat alone, his hands tied behind his back, his ankles bound to the legs of the chair. He was staring up at the ceiling, his head resting against the cool stone wall behind him. The floor had long since been cleared of its pews, so that the chapel appeared more a workroom than a place of worship. Shelves weighed down by thousands of books lined its walls, and the numerous long tables were covered with piles of paper and open books and ink bottles. At the front of the chapel, where the altar would have been, stood a huge, black furnace. The furnace was, at the moment, unlit. It stood quietly in the company of its bellows and tongs and a pair of charred leather gloves. From the tools and materials scattered around it, the furnace appeared to have a single purpose: making glass.

Shadrack watched the furnace’s creations circling silently through the chapel vault far above him: hundreds of large glass globes in a gliding constellation, controlled by a single mechanism that rose up from the center of the floor. The metal gears connecting them—not unlike those of a clock, to Shadrack’s inexpert eye—must have been well-oiled, because they emitted no sound. He watched the globes’ smooth, endless rotations. He had been staring for hours.

The globes’ surfaces were not still. Each seemed to shiver with a perpetual motion that appeared almost lifelike. The light streaming through the stained-glass windows reflected off them onto the stone walls and ceiling. They were too high up for Shadrack to see clearly, but this delicate trembling only added to their beauty. As they dipped closer, the globes seemed at times to reveal subtle shapes or expressions. Shadrack felt certain that if he watched for long enough, the pattern they traced would become clear.

He was also trying with all his might to stay awake. He had not slept since leaving the house on East Ending Street. In part, he had been trying to work out who had taken him captive. The men who had seized him were Nihilismians. It was evident from the amulets that hung from their necks: small or large, metal or wood or carved stone, they all bore the distinctive open-hand symbol. But they were unlike any other followers of Amitto that Shadrack had ever known, and he speculated that they belonged to some obscure, militant sect; for apart from the amulets, they all carried iron grappling hooks. Shadrack could tell by the way they used their weapons in the rooms of his house that they were practiced. Most disturbingly, the silent men all bore the same unusual scars: lines that stretched from the corners of their mouths, across their cheeks, to the tops of their ears. They were gruesome, unchanging, artificial grins, etched onto unsmiling faces.

Once Shadrack had persuaded them that they had found what they were looking for, they had ended their assault on the house and retreated into unresponsive silence. The ride out of Boston in the coach had been a long one, and he had tried—with only partial success—to map the route. It had been difficult once they blindfolded him and placed him in a railway car, but his inner compass told him that they had traveled north several hours, and from the occasional gust of cold wind he suspected that they were no more than an hour or two south of the Prehistoric Snows.

All the anger he had felt when they first captured him had slowly faded during the day-long journey. It had changed to a sharp-edged attentiveness. The night air, as they emerged from the railcar, had felt cool but still summery. He had smelled pine and moss. The scarred Nihilismians had brought him directly from the railway car to the chapel, tied him to a chair, and removed his blindfold. Then they had disappeared. The slow movement of the globes had soothed the remaining sting of his anger, and now he felt only an intense curiosity as to his circumstances and surroundings. His captivity had become another exploration.

As he stared at the globes, he suddenly heard a door open somewhere near the altar. He turned to look. Two of the men entered the chapel, followed by a woman wearing a cream-colored dress with tightly buttoned sleeves. A blond linen veil hid her features entirely. As she approached with a quick, easy step, Shadrack tried to make out what he could from her bearing without being able to see her face.

The woman stopped a few feet away from him. “I have found you at the end of a long search, Shadrack Elli. But not the Tracing Glass that I sought—where is it?”

The moment Shadrack heard the woman speak, the meaning of her words became indistinct. Her voice was beautiful—and familiar: low, gentle, and even, with a slight accent that he could not place. Though her words betrayed no emotion, their sound threw him into a tempest of inchoate memories. He had heard her voice before; he knew this woman. And she must know him, too; why else hide her face behind the blond veil? But despite the rushing sense of familiarity, he could not remember who she was. Shadrack roused himself, trying to shake off the feeling that had taken hold. He told himself to concentrate and to give nothing away in his reply. “I’m sorry. I gave your men what they asked me for. I don’t know what glass you mean.”

“You do, Shadrack,” the woman said softly. She took a step closer. “You and I are on the same side. Tell me where it is, and I promise I will put everything right.”

For a moment, Shadrack believed her. He had to make a monumental effort to hear the meaning of her words and not just their sound. “If you and I are on the same side,” he said, “then there is no reason why I should be tied to this chair. In fact,” he added, “there is no reason why your Nihilismian thugs should have dragged me from my house in the first place.” As he spoke, he found the effect of the woman’s voice fading. “Why not let me go, and I promise I’ll put everything right.”

The woman shook her head; her veil quivered. “Before I do anything else, I really must insist that you tell me where it is.” She rested her gloved hand lightly on his shoulder. “You fooled my Sandmen, but you won’t fool me. Where is the Tracing Glass?” she whispered.

Shadrack stared as hard as he could through the veil, but even this close it revealed nothing. “I have dozens of glass maps. Or at least I did, before your ‘Sandmen’ broke most of them. Perhaps you should look through the pieces—the glass you want is probably there.”

The woman let out a small sigh and stepped away. “I thought it might be this way, Shadrack. Still, I am glad to have you here.” The woman’s tone was calm and only slightly troubled, as if she were discussing a trifling concern with a friend rather than issuing threats to a bound man. She indicated the swirling glass globes above her. “You may be the greatest known cartologer in New Occident—perhaps in the world,” she said. “But you will forgive me for saying that I believe I am the greatest unknown cartologer.” She gazed up at the globes and spoke to them, rather than to Shadrack. “I would have benefited from your company before now. Years and years of work,” she said quietly. “Trial and error—mostly error.” She once again looked at her captive. “Do you know how difficult it is to create a spherical glass map? The glass-blowing technique alone took me ages to perfect, and working with a sphere adds a whole new dimension—if you will—to the mapmaking. Still,” she said softly, “the effort was well worth it. Don’t you think?”

“I’d really have to read them for myself to determine their quality.”

The woman turned abruptly. “Yes—why not? I’ve wanted nothing more for quite some time.” She signaled to the two men, who were standing some distance away. “That desk,” she said, pointing. Without untying Shadrack, the two men snagged the chair with their grappling hooks and dragged it to a heavy desk that stood several feet away. It held a glass globe on a metal stand.

The woman untied his hands. “Go ahead—please. Look closely.”

Shadrack rubbed his wrists and, after a keen glance at his captor, turned his attention to the globe. It was slightly opaque—cloudy—and about the size of a human head. The metal base was intricately wrought—copper, it seemed—and the glass was perfectly smooth. It shimmered with the uneasy movement Shadrack had observed. For several moments he stared at it uncomprehendingly, and then he realized that the play of motion within the globe was created by grains of sand. They moved with some unseen power, circling gently through a kind of dance. They showered down, grazed the bottom of the globe, and arced upward again. Suddenly the sand fell into a pattern, and Shadrack saw an unmistakably human face gazing out at him.

He recoiled. “This is not a map of the world. It’s a map of a human mind.”

The woman inclined her veiled head toward him, as if conceding a point. “You are very close.”

Shadrack had not yet touched the globe. Now, with some trepidation, he placed his fingertips gently on the smooth surface. The memories that surged into his mind were more powerful than any he’d ever experienced. He was assailed by the smell of honeysuckle and he heard the ring of laughter in his ears; he had been tossed into a honeysuckle bush, and he felt the crush of leaves under his hands as he tried to free himself. He recalled getting up and running over a damp lawn and then tripping, falling headlong into the grass. He felt the wet blades against his cheek and the smell of soil in his nose. The memories were those of a child.

Shadrack pulled his fingertips away with a gasp and gazed again at the cloudy globe. He shook his head. “It’s remarkable.” His voice was frankly admiring. “I’ve never experienced such powerful smells, sights, sounds. I confess to being curious: how have you mapped such vivid memories?”

The woman leaned forward and touched her gloved fingertip to the globe. “You must know from having made memory maps yourself that no matter how much you try, people always hold something back. The memory is still theirs, after all. As the cartologer you only gather a dim echo.”

Shadrack shrugged. “Better a dim memory than none at all. All maps are like that. They only express an outline, a guide, to a far richer world.”

“Yes, but I do not want outlines. I want the memories themselves.”

Again, he stared intently at the blond veil. “That would be impossible. Besides,” he added, with a note of admonishment, “one has one’s own memories.”

The woman didn’t speak. Then she reached out and gently touched the globe again with a gloved finger. She lingered a moment, then pulled away and spoke, ignoring Shadrack’s last words. “It is not impossible. I have accomplished it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The memories are so vivid because they are complete. They are captured whole in those grains of sand.” She spoke as if describing something of great beauty.

Shadrack looked at the globe with consternation. “And what of the person they belonged to? The boy—or man—who had these memories?”

“The memories are no longer his.”

“You stole them?” The woman shrugged, as if she found the word clumsy but apt. “I don’t believe you,” Shadrack said. He faced the veil in silence. “How did you do it?” he finally asked.

The woman let out a quick sigh of satisfaction. “I knew you would be interested. I will show you the process sometime. For now, I can tell you that it involves submerging the subject in sand and then using that sand to make a globe. It is a beautiful method. But the results—even more beautiful. You see, the globe you are looking at is not the map. This”—she indicated the constellation of globes circling overhead—“is the map. This is the map that led me to you.”

“Then you will have to read it for me,” Shadrack said acidly, “because I see no map in that collection of stolen memories.”

“Do you not?” the woman asked, sounding faintly surprised. “Look more closely. See how they move—gliding, drifting away, suddenly drawing near. All those memories are connected. Someone passing someone else in the street. One person catching a glimpse of another through a window. Someone finds a lost book here, someone gives it away there. Someone discovers an old crate full of glass panes, and another person sells them in a market. Someone buys one of the panes and makes a cabinet of it. Someone steals the cabinet. Does this sound familiar? It may have occurred before your time. There is a story—a history—circling over your head, and the map it draws has led me to you. I have taken many memories to find the Tracing Glass, and you with it.”

Shadrack found it difficult to speak. “Then you have wasted your time.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I have learned much. Far more than I expected. You see—people’s memories are richer than they know. They ignore memories that seem unimportant, but to the careful reader they spring out, full of meaning.” She lifted the glass globe and turned it lightly, then replaced it before Shadrack on the desk. “This last one was the key. Read it again.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Shadrack pressed his fingertips to the globe. Immediately he recalled a study filled with towering piles of books. The musty smell of paper closed in around him, and a dim light shone through the window. At once he knew to whom the room—and the memories—belonged. He gasped in dismay.

As if to dispel any remaining doubt, the memory lingered over an engraved sign on the open door:

CARLTON HOPISH

Cartologer

Minister of Relations with Foreign Ages

A face that seemed simultaneously familiar and oddly distorted appeared suddenly beside the sign. It was his own face.

He wanted to pull away from the globe and the horror it implied, but he could not. He remembered this conversation, now, through the eyes of his friend Carlton, greeting Shadrack Elli and inviting him to sit. Shadrack grimaced; he knew where it was headed, and he suddenly understood with panicked clarity why the veiled woman had abducted him.

“Solebury is leaving next month,” Carlton said. “At first he was unwilling to say, but in the end I got it out of him.” He leaned forward and slapped Shadrack’s knee triumphantly. “He believes he has finally found a definitive indication of the carta mayor’s location.”

Shadrack frowned. “He is chasing an illusion,” he said gruffly.

“Don’t give me that,” Carlton protested. “You, of all people. One of the few who can read and write water maps.”

“It is nothing but a fantasy.”

“A fantasy? How can you say that? I thought you would want to go with him,” Carlton said with an injured air. “It’s not like you to pass up a chance for a great discovery—a chance to find the living map of the world, the map containing every moment, past, present, and future, a map that would show when the Disruption occurred—”

“There is nothing to discover.”

Carlton remained silent, studying the guarded, reluctant face before him. “You would be a great help. Particularly,” he added slyly, “if it’s true that you have the Polyglot Tracing Glass.”

Shadrack gave him a piercing look. “Where did you hear that?”

“It’s true, then!” Carlton exclaimed. “I would give anything to see it.”

“I have it.” Shadrack turned away. “And there is no pleasure to be had from reading it, believe me.”

Carlton’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But you could use it to find the carta mayor. It would be a great service to your country, Shadrack.”

“I said no! I will not discuss it further.”

“Come, Shadrack, don’t be angry with me,” Carlton said, in a conciliatory tone. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about it.”

Shadrack yanked his fingers from the globe as though it had stung him. The image of Carlton in his hospital bed, helpless and witless, a mere vacant shell, flooded his mind. “What have you done to him? Are you responsible for leaving him—ruined?”

“I treasure his memories,” the woman said, with what sounded like a smile. “And I always will. They led me to you.”

“You destroyed him for nothing.” Shadrack’s voice was hard with fury. “If you are seeking the carta mayor, you are wasting your time.”

“Why are you so vehement in your denial?” Her veil shook slightly. “I wonder. Could it be that you do believe it exists? Could it be that the very mention of it touches a sore spot, an old injury that has never quite healed? To think,” she said lightly, “that such knowledge might be just on the other side of this fragile wall of skin and bone.” She pressed her fingers against Shadrack’s forehead.

“You are wasting your time,” Shadrack repeated angrily, shaking her off. And he realized, with shock, that the woman before him could easily leave him as she had left Carlton: empty, helpless, hopelessly damaged. Shadrack made an effort to control his anger.

“Are you familiar with the last section of The Chronicles of the Great Disruption?” she asked.

As Shadrack stared at the desk before him, looking anywhere but at the globe, his eye lighted on a pair of scissors. “I am familiar with it, of course, but the Chronicles of Amitto are undoubtedly apocryphal. I consider them a work of manipulative fiction.” He rested his arm lightly over the scissors as he spoke.

“Oh no!” she whispered. “They are real. Everything in the Chronicles has come to pass, or will come to pass. Recall the lines toward the end—December twenty-seventh: ‘Consider that our time upon the earth is as a living map: a map drawn in water, ever mingling, ever changing, ever flowing.’”

“I recall it,” Shadrack said carefully, easing the scissors into his sleeve. “But it means nothing. It is empty poetry, like the rest of the Chronicles.”

She strode around the desk so that she stood across from Shadrack. “What would you say if I told you that I have proof—in the globes overhead—that the carta mayor is real: the living map of the world drawn in water exists. What is more, a skilled mapmaker could not only read it,” she paused, “but alter it: alter the world by altering the map.”

“No one has so much as seen the carta mayor,” Shadrack said tersely, “so it seems rather presumptuous to begin speculating about its properties.”

“You are not listening.” She leaned toward him. “I have proof. The carta mayor is real. It is not just a map of the world that was and the world that is. It shows all possible worlds. And if a cartologer such as you were to modify the carta mayor, he could change the present. He could even change the past—reinvent the past. Rewrite history. Do you understand me? The whole world can be redrawn. The Great Disruption can be undone.”

“It cannot be undone. Every cartologer, scientist, cosmographer will tell you the same thing: there can only be another disruption. The world is what it is now—its course has been set. To change the Ages would mean disrupting the world once again—the costs are unknown, unimaginable. The only manner of making the world whole now is through exploration, communication, alliances, trade. On principle, I object to the kind of change you describe. But my objection is of no matter; the task you have set yourself is impossible.” His voice was hard. “You are fooling yourself if you believe otherwise.”

“You are fooling yourself,” she replied, her voice dismissive. “Your faint curiosity in the other Ages. A sea voyage here, a trek across the mountains there. What do you hope to accomplish with such trivial exploration? What is exploration compared with the hope of synchrony, harmony? The hope of restoring the true world?”

“It can’t be done. Believe me, I have worked with water maps. I take it you have not, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. It can’t be done.”

The woman’s veil trembled. “But you have not yet seen the carta mayor. It will be different.”

Shadrack shook his head and hunched farther over the desk. As he did so, he dropped his right hand and felt with the scissors for the rope binding his ankle. The woman was still on the other side of the desk. The two scarred Nihilismians stood by the cold furnace, their grappling hooks hanging by their sides. He glanced quickly toward the other end of the chapel and saw a set of double doors that doubtlessly opened out onto the grounds. Then he leaned in close to the glass globe as if examining it. “Your work is impressive, and I admire your cartologic sensibilities—sincerely. But I can’t help you; and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

He had cut through the ropes binding his right ankle, and he leaned forward even farther to reach his other ankle under the desk. “I can’t help you because I don’t believe in the Chronicles or the carta mayor. And I won’t help you because I have no desire to see the Great Disruption repeated in my lifetime. I want no part of it. My only consolation is that the task you have set yourself is impossible to achieve.” Shadrack cut the ropes on his left ankle and quickly slipped the scissors back inside his sleeve and straightened in the chair.

“Ah!” the woman said, circling to Shadrack’s side of the desk. “Then shall we put your beliefs to the test? If you truly believe the carta mayor does not exist, tell me where the Tracing Glass is. You can prove to me that the Chronicles are nothing but empty poetry.” Shadrack sat in silence, his face expressionless. “I believe if the glass map is not here, there is only one place it can be. With your niece. Sophia.”

“I tell you—all my glass maps were broken on the floor of my workroom.”

The woman placed her gloved hand on Shadrack’s arm—the same arm that concealed the scissors in its sleeve. “I have not told you my name,” she said softly. “You may call me Blanca. Like the white of an unmarked page—of a blank map. Or of white sand. Or of fair, unblemished skin.”

Shadrack looked at her but said nothing. He glanced at the two Sandmen; they appeared lost in thought, considering the globes overhead.

“Sophia has the map, doesn’t she?” Blanca asked. “And all I need is something to persuade her to give it up.”

Shadrack suddenly pushed back his chair, flinging off Blanca’s arm. The scissors flew into the air and soared in an arc, shattering one of the globes. A shower of glass shards and sand rained down over them, but he had already begun running toward the far end of the chapel, racing for the broad doors at the rear. He heard the footsteps of the men behind him and the furious cry from Blanca at the sight of the broken globe.

The broad double doors ahead of Shadrack suddenly flew open and four Sandmen stepped into the chapel. Shadrack ducked to the left and ran toward one of the windows: he could climb onto one of the desks and leap, hopefully with enough strength to break through the stained glass. Then he felt a sudden, painful snag against his leg.

He was pinned to the floor, his chest crushed painfully against the stone, and in a moment they were all upon him. He tasted blood in his mouth as the men hauled him to his feet, wrenching his arms behind his back. The grappling hook had ripped his pant leg, leaving two long welts all the way down his thigh. Only chance had prevented the hook’s prongs from tearing deep into his muscle.

The Sandmen dragged him, struggling, across the chapel floor and back to the chair by the desk. “Bind his left arm tightly,” Blanca said quietly. “Hold his right arm but leave it free.” Shadrack’s shoulders ached as his chest was pinned back and his left hand tied. “And put the bonnet on him. Just the ribbon—I need his eyes open.”

The man standing before him held a small block of wood the size of a bar of soap threaded through with a thin piece of wire. Shadrack clenched his teeth and tucked his chin against his chest. The man standing behind him yanked his head back and hit his windpipe, just hard enough so that Shadrack was forced to cough. Before he could close his mouth, he felt the wooden block between his teeth and the thin wires against his cheeks. Then they were wound together tightly behind his head.

The wire began biting into the corners of his mouth. He knew now how the Nihilismians earned their scars.

“If you don’t fight it, the wire won’t cut you,” Blanca said sweetly. “You are going to write a letter for me.” She set paper and pen before him and leaned in. “Now.”

Shadrack took the pen unsteadily. Blanca had drawn back, but not soon enough; he had seen the face beneath her veil.

11 On the Tracks

1891, June 22: 11-Hour 36

The rail lines had begun as a government-sponsored venture, but private investors soon began to make their fortune laying tracks across New Occident. The idea of a national railway was abandoned, and by mid-century two or three private companies owned every inch of track and every train car. The millionaires of the rail lines became the most powerful individuals in New Occident.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

THOUGH SOPHIA HAD traveled every summer with Shadrack, she had never been farther south than New York nor farther west than the Berkshires, and poring over maps of train routes had not prepared her for the thrill of riding an electric train over long distances.

She felt light-headed as they sped out of Boston on the Seaboard Limited. She and Theo had a compartment for the entire journey to New Orleans; it had a long leather seat and two bunk beds that folded out of the wall, each with starched white sheets. Theo curled up on the top bunk and slept contentedly. Sophia wished she could sleep as well, but she could not even sit still, and she paced from door to window in the tiny wood-paneled compartment, willing herself to lose track of time. Her hand closed around the spool of silver thread in her skirt pocket and she gripped it hard, as if doing so would call the Fates to her side and make the train go faster. To distract herself, she began reviewing the list of things she had brought, consulting the train schedule, and calculating how long it would take to travel from the border to Nochtland.

As they neared Providence, Rhode Island, she opened the window to look out onto the platform. The city spread out before her like a maze of brickwork dotted here and there with white steeples. Like a dark ribbon, the Blackstone Canal wove its way through the brick buildings. Dusty green trees bordered it on either side and surrounded the nearby train station, providing the only shade on the crowded wooden platform. The air smelled of sawdust and canal water. Police officers and station agents scrutinized tickets and identity papers, herding people into different compartments. Foreign families traveling together, lone exiles weighed down by overstuffed baggage and expressions of despondency—they all waited at the platforms alongside ordinary travelers who looked on curiously, sympathetically, or sometimes indifferently. The scene in Providence was repeated an hour later in the lush green flatlands of Kingston, where cows clustered in the occasional shade; everywhere the sense of disquiet was the same. The train left southern Rhode Island and coursed on into Connecticut.

The windows of the railcar were wide open to let in the breeze, and Sophia leaned out to cool off. As the train made its way down the coast, she smelled the salt air and stared out at the small white sails skimming the ocean’s surface. It seemed to her that time had slowed to an unbearable pace. Sophia sighed. I have to make the time pass more quickly, she thought desperately, or this will feel eternal. She put aside all thought of East Ending Street, which she was leaving behind, and of Theo, with whom she had hardly exchanged a word since boarding, and she concentrated on the horizon.

As she watched, the landscape changed. The tracks drew away from the coast and headed inland. Slender maples grew close to the rails, and she could smell the dusty scent of leaves that had stood all day in the sun. The train slowed as it approached the final stop in Connecticut, and Sophia watched the trees thin to reveal a low platform and a small station. Only a handful of people stood waiting. Her worries returned as she saw the travelers’ anxious faces. What would happen if Shadrack somehow returned home after she had ventured into the Baldlands, where Mrs. Clay would be unable to reach her? She felt a gnawing in her stomach. There was nothing she could do now; if Shadrack returned to Boston, he would have to follow her south.

As Sophia fretted, she noticed two men speaking to the conductor by the station house. She could see only their backs, but it was clear that the conductor was afraid. He had pressed himself uncomfortably against the wall and was leaning as far away from them as his caved chest and the bricks would allow. As he listened, he fiddled with his bristly mustache, then adjusted his hat nervously. Suddenly, one of the men turned, surveying the platform, and his companion did the same. Sophia gasped. They were ordinary men, wearing nondescript clothing. But they had long, crescent-shaped scars across their cheeks. “Theo,” she called. “Come look at these two men.” As she spoke, the conductor blew the whistle.

Theo, who had apparently been awake for some time, climbed down from his bunk and joined her at the window, but the men were gone. Sophia exhaled with frustration. “They must have boarded the train. There were two men with scars.” She traced from the corner of her mouth to her ear. “And you said the ones who came to East Ending had scars.”

Theo sat next to her. “Well, if they’re on the train, we’ll probably see them. Unless they get off in New York. It’s probably just a coincidence. No shortage of scars in the world.”

“Yes, that’s true,” she said, not entirely convinced.

She took out her notebook and tried to distract herself by drawing, but this routine, which usually soothed her, made her more anxious: the book was full of Shadrack. The ordinary moments of their shared life—late-night meals after Shadrack’s long days, trips to the Boston museums, discussions about their new purchases from the Atlas Book Shop, scraps of paper with Shadrack’s rendering of Clockwork Cora—seemed heavy with the weight of things lost and irrecoverable. Quoted passages from his writings were scattered everywhere, speaking in a calm and reassuring voice about the way the world was and should be.

Instead, she took out the atlas and began absently thumbing through its pages. Sophia had, of course, read most of it many times before, but the atlas seemed to take on new meaning when she thought of it as a guide to places she might actually visit. The long entry on New York described its wharf and parks and the large, indoor marketplaces. The illustrations captured very little of the rumbling coaches and horses and the smell of fish that Sophia remembered.

She turned to the entry on the Baldlands. They were called the Baldlands, she knew, because of how they were described to the early explorers who ventured south and west from New Occident. “Tierras baldías,” the inhabitants of those places would say, meaning “fallow lands” or “unfarmed lands” in Spanish. But instead of translating the term completely, explorers translated only half, settling for “the baldlands.”

There were three major cities within the Baldlands: Nochtland; the coastal city of Veracruz; and Xela, farther south. Historians posited that all three had emerged from the Disruption as admixtures of three principal Ages: the seventeenth century, as it was known in the old manner of reckoning; an era one thousand years prior to it; and an era one thousand years after it. Small pockets of other Ages existed as well, but the theory of the three eras was well established, and the cities were described collectively as the “Triple Eras.” The people of the Triple Eras followed an old religion that understood time as cyclical; the cycles of time were carried like wrapped bundles on the backs of the gods, who trudged tirelessly with their burdens. They were accommodating gods, accepting sacrifice and tribute and granting indulgences where they could.

Beyond the Triple Eras, the Baldlands were far less cohesive. The man who had proclaimed the Baldlands an empire, Emperor Leopoldo Canuto, had cared little for conquest and exploration. Instead, in the early years after the Disruption, he had set about establishing a magnificent court at the heart of Nochtland, sparing no expense in transforming the chaotic city into a sprawling metropolis of splendors. His son, Emperor Julian, had followed in his footsteps, living in isolation with his courtiers and rarely leaving the city boundaries. During their rules, the remainder of the Baldlands had contentedly remained ungoverned. The collision of disparate Ages had unfolded in thousands of different ways, creating in some places peaceful havens and in others lawless expanses. These last had given the Baldlands their reputation for wildness, and it was true that roving bands of marauders had become powerful and greedy, owning entire towns as a farmer would own acres.

Julian’s son Sebastian was the opposite of his father. Wholly uninterested in exploration for its own sake, he was undoubtedly a conqueror. When his young wife died, leaving him alone with a daughter, he made it his mission to bring the entire empire of the Baldlands into his fold. For the past twenty years, he had sent his soldiers into every corner of the Baldlands, attempting to weed out those who had for so long ignored the rule of law. But Sebastian had found it more difficult than he had expected. He would stamp out one band of raiders only to have another spring up in its place. Meanwhile his daughter, Justa, remained behind, ruling in his stead. The entry in Shadrack’s atlas indicated that the royal family in Nochtland bore the “Mark of the Vine” and not the “Mark of Iron,” terms Sophia had never heard before.

“Have you ever seen Princess Justa?” she asked Theo now.

He looked at her with an expression of amusement. “Never. Not many people have.”

“What does it mean that she has the ‘Mark of the Vine’?”

Theo turned to look out the window. “It’s just a thing they say about family lineage.”

“Like a family crest?”

“Sort of.”

“It says in the atlas that there are more gardens than buildings in Nochtland,” Sophia said. “Are there?”

Theo shrugged. “Sounds possible.”

“You have been to Nochtland, haven’t you?” she asked somewhat acidly.

“Of course I’ve been there. I’ve just never lived there.”

“So if you’re not from Nochtland, where are you from?”

“I’m from the Northern Baldlands.” He folded his hands together. “But I’ve been all over.”

Sophia looked at him intently. “What about your parents? Are they in the northern Baldlands?” She paused. “Don’t you think they’re worried about you?”

“I’m getting hungry.” Theo said abruptly, opening the basket Mrs. Clay had prepared. “Do you want anything?”

Sophia narrowed her eyes. He was ill at ease, which made her more determined to find out why. “Isn’t anyone worried you ended up kidnapped in a circus, or does no one know?”

Theo looked like he wanted very much to say, “None of your business,” but instead he asked, “Is that the man you saw on the platform?”

Sophia turned in her seat. Standing in the corridor and clearly visible through the window of their compartment was a man with two long scars running from each corner of his mouth. “That’s him,” she whispered.

He was arguing with a portly man of similar height who stood in his way in the corridor. As Sophia and Theo watched, the argument grew louder, and they could hear it through the compartment’s thin door. “I reserved my room weeks ago,” the portly man protested, “and I don’t give a fig what the conductor promised you. The compartment is mine.”

The scarred man’s level response was inaudible.

“I certainly will not wait in New York for another train. The very idea! Do you think I don’t know the value of money? I paid a great deal for that compartment.”

The scarred man gave a short, quiet response.

For a moment his antagonist stared at him with growing indignation as his face grew red. “When we get to New York City, sir,” he said slowly, “I will summon the first police officer I see and report you. You are a danger to the other passengers on this train.” He turned on his heel and stormed off. The scarred man stared after him for a moment. Then he shot a malevolent glance into their compartment, making Sophia recoil against her seat, and walked away.

She sat for a moment in silence. “Definitely him. Was he one of the men from the house?”

Theo shook his head. “I don’t think so. Similar kind of scars. But his face is different.”

Perhaps it really is only a coincidence, she thought, but she could not entirely convince herself.

A few hours later, the train stopped in New York City. At first, it seemed only a busier version of the other stations. Police officers corralled the waiting passengers and herded them toward the trains; vendors with rolling carts squeezed between them. The platform was littered with loose sheets of newspaper. A tall clock with a broken second hand hung between two parallel rails. And then Sophia caught her breath. “Theo. Come and look.”

They watched in dismay as the man they’d seen arguing for his compartment was steered from the train by two men with scarred faces. Sophia gasped as they walked by. “Is that . . .” Her voice trailed off. She had seen the sharp glint of metal near the man’s ribs, and there was a look of suppressed terror on his face.

“They’ve got something on him. A blade or a revolver,” Theo said softly. He whistled. “They really wanted that compartment.”

Sophia watched in horror as the two led the man directly past a knot of police officers who were guiding passengers onto the train. One of the officers gave them a brief nod. “Did you see that? The police officer let them go by!”

Theo shook his head. “Guess what they say about the police here is true.”

“What should we do? Should we tell someone?”

“No way,” Theo said emphatically. “If the police wouldn’t help that guy, who would? Hey, just be glad they’re off the train.”

Sophia wrapped her arms around herself. “I am.”

—15-Hour 49: On the Train Heading South—

THE SEABOARD LIMITED left New York City near sixteen-hour. As night fell, Sophia finally unpacked a sandwich from the basket, forcing herself to swallow the bread and cheese. The porter came by to ensure they had bedding, and Theo climbed up into his bunk, asking Sophia for some of the maps to study. She eventually opened her own bunk and tried to read the atlas, but she could not get the terrified man on the platform out of her mind. Then her thoughts drifted to Shadrack, and her sense of anxiety grew even sharper. The ways of finding him had seemed fragile and uncertain in the daytime; at night, they seemed downright impossible. As she tried to read, she found she could not; her inner mind was trained on imagined horrors. Finally, with a sigh, she closed the atlas and held it tightly against her chest.

She awoke a little while later with her cheek pressed against the book. A nightmare she could not remember had made her heart race, and she stood up to look through the window. Theo leaned over the edge of his bunk. “Thought you’d gone to sleep,” he said quietly.

“I had. I’m not sleepy now.” She glanced at her watch; it was almost twenty-hour. Then she gazed at the full, pale moon that hung over the trees. “Do you know where we are?”

“No idea. The last few stations have been too dark to read the signs.”

Sophia rubbed her eyes. “I’m going to stretch my legs. We’ve been in here nearly the whole day.”

Theo sat up, bumping his head against the roof of the compartment. “Ow. I’ll come with you.”

“That’s fine.” Falling asleep full of worry and waking up in a strange place had dispelled her lingering resentment against Theo; she felt too tired, and there were too many other fears crowding the edges of her mind. She placed the atlas in her pack, shouldering it.

They passed the silent compartments on either side as they walked toward the dining car. Cool night air leaked into the passageways from the windows. No one else on the train seemed to be awake, and the dining car was completely deserted but for the faint scent of polished silver and boiled potatoes. The bright moonlight made flame-lamps unnecessary; the entire room, with its white tablecloths and brass-tacked leather seats, was bathed in silver.

“This is the longest I’ve ever been on a train,” Sophia said, taking a seat at one of the tables and looking out at the tracks.

Theo sat down across from her. “Me, too. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve been on a train.”

Sophia looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“I’d seen trains, but never been inside one.” He smiled wryly. “First time in New Occident, too. And right when they decide to close the borders.”

Sophia smiled back. “You were too much for them. The last straw.”

“Must have been. Too hot to handle.” He snapped his fingers and pointed the imaginary gun at her, closing the gesture with a wink. For a few minutes both of them sat in silence, staring out at the moon and the dark outline of the trees. Then Theo said, “Nobody’s worried.”

Sophia looked at him. He was still staring out through the window. “What?” she asked.

“A few people know Ehrlach got me, but they’re not worried.”

“Why not?”

Theo gave another smile, but his dark eyes, trained on the moon, were serious. “Every man for himself, like I said. I don’t have parents—that I know of. I lived with raiders on the western border, and they don’t care much if I’m there or in the circus or in the snows. It’s all the same to them.”

In the pale light it was hard to see Theo’s expression, but to Sophia his face looked more thoughtful than sad. “What happened to your parents?”

“I don’t know. Never met them. From the earliest I remember, me and the other kids lived with one raider or another.”

Sophia could not even imagine it. “So who took care of you?”

“Older kids, mostly. An older girl was the one who found me. Sue. She found me in an empty barrel behind some watering hole.”

“What’s a watering hole?”

“A saloon. A tavern.” Theo turned and met her eyes. “She got me clothes. Gave me my name. Fed me for years. Then I just took care of myself. It’s easier that way. They come and go; so do I. No burdens, no worries.”

His brown eyes looked back at her directly, and she had the sense that her whole idea of who he was had suddenly shifted. What was it was like to be alone—truly alone? “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Like when Mrs. Clay asked you?”

Theo tossed his head. “People feel sorry for me when I tell them. Older people, especially. You know?”

Sophia did know. “So how did Ehrlach find you?”

“We were trading on the border—selling horses to a man from New Akan. Those border towns are full of people buying and selling everything. Ehrlach seemed like just one more dealer trying to get something cheap. He bought a horse from Aston—that’s the raider me and some other guys had been living with—and asked me to bring it into his tent. Aston said, go ahead, deliver it. Moment I got in the tent, he had men standing around me with long knives. I’ve had my share of one-sided knife fights,” he said, holding up his scarred right hand, “and I didn’t mind another. I tried to get on the horse and go, but they weren’t having it. We were gone before Aston ever missed me.” He gave a flat laugh. “Not that he missed me.”

He spoke of it all so lightly, with the casual, almost sloppy diction of the Northern Baldlands that made the words seem thrown together every which way. But his easy manner could not entirely muffle the sharp edges of pain that lay underneath: shards of broken glass under a thin rug. Sophia felt something odd in her chest, like a surge of admiration and sadness all at once. His air of being above it all—above every danger, above every indignity—came at a price. “I guess you don’t miss Aston, either.”

Theo grinned broadly. “Nope.”

Now it was Sophia’s turn to look away. She kept her eyes on the moon as she said, “I can’t remember my parents, but I know a lot about them. I’m lucky. I had Shadrack to tell me. They left when I was little. To go exploring. And they got lost and never came back. Shadrack could have gone to look for them, but he had to take care of me.” Sophia didn’t know why she had put it that way, except that it had occurred to her for the first time that she had prevented Shadrack from going in search of Minna and Bronson. She had lost her parents, but Shadrack had lost his sister, and yet he had never even suggested that Sophia had stood in the way of finding her.

They sat in silence for a minute, watching the moonlight flicker onto the table as it hit the trees. “Shadrack was teaching me how to read maps,” Sophia continued, “so we could go find them together. But the truth is they would be strangers to me. Shadrack was my mother and father.”

“You mean he is,” Theo corrected her. “We’ll find him. Have you figured out how to read the glass map yet?”

Sophia reached for her pack. “How did you know this was a map? Most people only know about paper maps.”

“They’re not so uncommon.”

She drew the glass map from the pillowcase and placed it carefully on the table between them. As the two of them peered at it, something remarkable happened. The moon rose above the tree line, and its light fell fully onto the pane of glass. Suddenly an image sprang to life on its surface. The map had awoken.

12 Travel by Moonlight

1891, June 22: 19-Hour #

Among those maps that have made their way into museum collections and university libraries are certain maps of the New World that cartologers of New Occident have not yet learned to read. Either because they were crafted by ancient civilizations or because they reflect some yet undiscovered learning, they are simply illegible to even the most expert Western cartologers.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

“MOONLIGHT!” SOPHIA BREATHED, leaning in toward the map. “I should have thought of that.”

Theo bent forward. “What’s it doing?”

“The glass maps respond to light. Usually just lamplight or sunlight. It never occurred to me that there might be some made for moonlight.” She kept her eyes on the map, trying to understand the lines that were unfolding on its surface.

It was unlike those she’d seen in Shadrack’s map room. Apart from the mapmaker’s insignia, there were no clocks and no legend of any kind along the edge. Luminous, silvery writing filled the pane from top to bottom. Most of it was unintelligible. In the middle were five sentences in different languages using the Roman alphabet. The sentence in English read, “You will see it through me.” Sophia still remembered enough of the Latin taught to her by the diligent graduate student to realize that the Latin words a few lines down said exactly the same thing.

She shook her head. “I can’t even tell if this is a map. I’ve never seen anything like it. But if it’s a memory map we can read it, even if we don’t understand the writing.”

“It has to mean something.”

She glanced over the map, unsure of where to place her fingertip. “Try touching part of the surface.” They placed their fingertips on different points at the same time.

Sophia had never before experienced such violent emotions from reading a map. Before even seeing anything, she felt awash with an overwhelming sense of desperation and fear. Her heart was pounding; she kept turning her head one way and then another; but nothing was clear and the sense of panic gathered, making every detail around her meaningless, confused, and chaotic.

She felt surrounded by people who were clearly present, but indistinct. They stood to her left, as if lining a long corridor, and they stepped forward to speak with her. Each voice drowned out the next, and she could not make out anything they said. With a sense of mounting alarm she climbed upward, but she could not see the stairs below her feet. She pushed past everyone toward a quiet spot high above. The feeling of desperation mounted. She knew the memory was not hers, but it felt as though she, Sophia, were shoving against some heavy object with all her might. Then she felt it giving way, and then rolling, and then, quite suddenly, falling.

For a few moments she felt herself standing, immobile, as the tension of waiting made every nerve in her body tingle. And then the unseen structure around her began to tremble and shake. She knew without a doubt that soon everything around her would collapse.

She dove back into the corridor lined with people. She ignored them, her heart about to explode in her chest as she ran down along the spiraling passageway. The floor shook beneath her feet and she stumbled and scrambled back up and ran on. People appealed to her as she passed, but their words made no sense; she would not hear them—they were unimportant. Her running grew more frantic. A door awaited her—an unseen door that lay somewhere ahead—but she had not yet reached it and the walls around her had begun to fall to pieces. The fear was blinding. All she could see was the blank space in front of her where there had to be a door and there was not. She felt the steps crumbling beneath her.

Then, suddenly, she burst through a doorway—though the door itself was nothing more than a blur. Ahead of her, beyond the opening, there was no one and nothing. The world was empty. There was a faint glimmer in the distance that grew brighter: someone was running toward her. The memory faded.

Sophia pulled back abruptly and saw that Theo had done the same. “What did you remember?” she asked.

“I was in a place filled with people,” Theo said haltingly, clearly shaken. “And I pushed something, and then the place started falling apart and I ran out.”

“I saw the same thing.” She found that she was breathing hard. They stared at one another. Sophia saw her distress and need for comprehension mirrored in Theo’s eyes. “What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” Theo said slowly. “I guess someone destroyed this place—whatever it is. No way to know why.”

“I think whoever did it might have been the only person to survive.” Sophia said. “And this map is their memory of it.”

“But where is it? When did it happen?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell, because all we can see are the people. We can’t see the building or the area around it. We need the other layers of mapping to see those.” She shook her head. “There must be some reason why he left it for me. Maybe I’m not supposed to understand it. Maybe I’m just supposed to take care of it.”

“It’s not much fun to watch,” Theo said sourly.

“No, it’s horrible.” Sophia lifted the pane of glass and gently turned it over. As she slid the blank map back into the pillowcase, a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked up across the dining car at the glass porthole in the door that stood closed at the far end. Someone was watching.

Sophia stared back, frozen. The man who’d been arguing outside their compartment was looking straight at her. He held her gaze for a moment, menacingly, and then turned away. “Let’s get out of here,” Sophia whispered, returning the map to her pack.

“What’s wrong?” Theo looked over his shoulder.

“He’s there—the man with the scars. He didn’t get off in New York.” Theo quickly made his way over to the door and peered through the glass. “Don’t,” Sophia whispered fiercely.

Theo squinted into the corridor beyond. “He’s gone.”

Sophia shouldered her pack, and they hurried to the opposite end of the car. “He saw us read the map,” Sophia whispered anxiously, as they made their way through the train.

“So what? He doesn’t know what it is.”

She shook her head. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

They entered their car and Theo opened the compartment door with Sophia on his heels. Then he stopped in his tracks. Sophia bumped into him. A single lamp cast flickering shadows across the walls and upholstery. Scattered across the seat, a pair of revolvers and an assortment of knives glittered in the pale moonlight. A massive grappling hook with sharp points gleamed beside them. Sophia gasped.

Theo turned around and pushed her out through the doorway. They scurried out into the hallway and into their compartment one door down, where they stood in the moonlit room, catching their breath. “It’s him—he’s right next door,” Sophia finally managed. She felt as though it took all the air in her lungs to speak.

“We’ll go tell the conductor and get another room.”

“No, we can’t. He was talking to the conductor before. And I saw how the conductor looked. He was terrified. That’s how he got the room in the first place,” she whispered desperately.

Theo thought for a moment. “How much longer to Charleston, do you think?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t—I can’t keep track of time.” Her voice trembled.

“It’s okay,” Theo said reassuringly, misunderstanding her distress. He put his hand out to rest on her shoulder. “Look, he would have already come in here if he wanted to hurt us, right? Just now in the dining room, he could have easily barged in. If he hasn’t done anything, it’s because he doesn’t want to.”

Sophia nodded and took a deep breath. “We have to stay in the compartment,” she said. “Until we get to Charleston.”

—June 23, 9-Hour 51—

SOPHIA AWOKE TO find the compartment full of sunlight. She could not believe she had fallen asleep. The thought of their well-armed stalker only one room away had kept them both on edge. They had stayed awake until the early morning, too tense to sleep, talking intermittently and watching the door like hawks. Now Theo was folded up in an uncomfortable position on the bench, fast asleep. Sophia looked at her watch and saw with surprise that it was almost ten-hour. As she stood, Theo awoke. He rubbed his eyes and squinted groggily at the window. “Where are we?”

An overcast sky and a blur of foliage as far as the eye could see told her nothing. “I’m not sure.”

Theo groaned and got to his feet, stretching. His borrowed clothes were rumpled and his brown eyes had a foggy look about them. “Well, I’m glad we’re not dead.” Sophia gave him a stark look. He pulled out the basket and began hunting through it for breakfast. “We’ll have to buy food in the dining car after lunch.”

“After lunch we can wait until Charleston,” Sophia said. “We’ll be getting there around dinnertime. If the train is on time.”

Theo nodded, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of fruit loaf. Sophia had some as well, swallowing as much as she could and washing it down with water.

He stood up a moment later. “I have to go to the washroom.”

“I know; me too. I guess there’s no choice. I’ll go after you. Be careful.”

After he left, Sophia watched the passing trees, waiting for the train to stop at a station so that she would know where they were. She was preoccupied with something that had occurred to her as she was falling asleep; she could not quite remember it. The idea flitted at the edge of her mind, just out of reach. She pulled out her drawing notebook and filled a page aimlessly, hoping the idea would surface. As the train slowed, Sophia checked the sign on the platform. She consulted the train schedule and noted with relief that they were running on time.

The trees beside the tracks nodded in the breeze, and suddenly a sparrow flitted past, swooped back, and perched on the edge of the sill. It turned its head one way and then the other, as if inspecting the compartment. Sophia slowly reached for her sketchbook. She opened it quietly, took a pencil, and began drawing. She lost track of time as her hand moved quickly across the page. The sparrow studied her. Hopping lightly across the sill, it fluttered abruptly onto the seat beside Sophia, seized a crumb in its beak, and flew back to the sill. Then the whistle blew, shattering the quiet, and a moment later the train lurched forward. The sparrow burst out into the air—it was gone. Sophia looked after it wistfully and glanced down at her drawing. And suddenly the idea that had been hovering at the edge of her mind flew directly into view.

She was sitting on the top bunk reading the atlas when Theo returned. He was not alone. His expression furious, he stalked into the room followed by four men: the scarred man they’d seen in the moonlit dining car and three others. Two of the others had identical scars across their faces. As they entered, Sophia noticed the amulets hanging from their necks. Two were wooden on leather laces; one was bronze on a slender bronze chain. They all bore the Nihilismian sign of the open hand. All three scarred men had grappling hooks, which hung from their belts on long, carefully coiled ropes. The fourth man, tall and well-dressed, had no scars, no grappling hook, and no amulet. With a thin mustache above a calm smile and a gray suit that seemed more fitted to a summer wedding than a railway heist, he seemed utterly out of place. His pale blue eyes settled on Sophia.

While Theo and the three scarred men, stone-faced, crowded uncomfortably near the drawn curtains, the tall man sat down and smiled at Sophia with an expression of easy amusement. The space around them seemed impossibly small, as if they had all squeezed into a wardrobe.

“So!” the tall man said, giving her a wide, thin smile. “You keep yourself hidden away, locked up like a princess in a tower.”

Sophia stared at him coldly. “I’m not a princess.” She was pleased that she sounded calm, although her stomach was churning with fear.

The man laughed, as if he found this a very good joke indeed. “No, you certainly are not, Miss Tims.”

“You know who I am. Who are you?”

“Call me Montaigne.” He folded his arms comfortably across his chest. “You may not be a princess, Miss Tims, but I hear you have a piece of treasure worthy of one.”

“I doubt it,” she said evenly.

Montaigne inclined his head to one side. “Come, Miss Tims. You know very well that it is no ordinary sheet of glass. Mortify here”—he waved at the man closest to him—“has seen it work. Moonlight, is it? Very clever.” He winked. “I understand how valuable it is, which is why I’m willing to pay for it. Name your price.”

Sophia shook her head. “It’s not for sale.”

“In New Occident,” Montaigne said, raising his eyebrows, “everything is for sale.” He reached into his jacket and drew out a long leather wallet. “Name the price, Miss Tims.”

“No matter what you say, I’m not selling it.”

Montaigne’s smile shrank at the edges. He stood up and put his hand to his head as if thinking. “Here’s the thing, Miss Tims,” he said. “Between the four of us, we have six revolvers. That makes three revolvers for each of you. A generous distribution, by any account. Added to which, you’re clearly not familiar with the ways of the Sandmen. For your sake, I hope you never have the need to know them better. You see, those fishhooks the Sandmen carry always snag the little fishes, however slippery they may be.” He tapped his cheek with a forefinger. “But I’ve never enjoyed taking things by force. It’s cheap. It’s distasteful. And,” he said, lifting the grappling hook nearest to him with one finger, “it can be so messy.” He walked up to the bunk so that his face was just in front of Sophia’s knees. Sophia recoiled, shifting farther back. “I would much rather arrange mutually beneficial terms. If you won’t take currency, perhaps you’ll be interested in an exchange. Does bartering appeal to you?”

“That depends,” Sophia said. “What do you have to trade?”

The smile was back on Montaigne’s face. “Just about anything. What would you like?”

“Shadrack. You can have the glass if you give me Shadrack.”

Montaigne’s smile broadened. “How did I know you might say that? What a good thing that I came prepared.” He reached into his coat once again for the long leather wallet, and he drew out a small piece of note paper. “I’m afraid Mr. Elli is ages away,” Montaigne said, “and I wouldn’t trade him anyway. But you might be interested in this.”

Without letting Sophia see what was on the paper, Montaigne carefully ripped it in half. He handed the top half to Sophia, who snatched it quickly from his hand. It read:

dear sophia,

There was no mistaking Shadrack’s handwriting. “Give me the rest of it!” she cried.

“Now, now,” Montaigne said. “As I said: I am willing to trade. You can have the rest of the letter when you give me the Tracing Glass.”

Sophia sat silently. The train was slowing down. They were doubtlessly nearing a station. The train lurched as it turned the corner, and she glanced down at the torn piece of paper in her hand. She wanted the rest of the letter. More than anything, she wanted to read for herself that Shadrack was safe. “All right,” she said.

“Sophia!” Theo burst out. “Don’t give it to him. Make him take the map if he wants it.”

Sophia glanced at him and shook her head. Montaigne nodded, smiling. “Smart girl.”

“Give me the letter.”

“The glass first, if you please.”

Sophia reached for her pack and pulled out the pillowcase. She drew out the sheet of glass that lay inside it and handed it over. Montaigne took it, held it up in his gloved hand, and peered through its clear surface. “Moonlight, eh?” he murmured again. “Very clever.” He turned to the other men. “All right, we’re done here.”

“The letter!” Sophia scrambled to the edge of the bunk.

“Don’t fret, Miss Tims—I always keep my word,” Montaigne said airily. He dropped the other half of the piece of notepaper on the bed.

Sophia snatched it up, and as the train slowed to a stop and the men began to file out of the compartment, she read Shadrack’s message:

T H Ey have said alL i cAn plaCe on tHis papeR Is your naMe.

—shAdrack

“Wait!” Sophia said. “That’s it?” She jumped down from the bunk. “You made him write it. It doesn’t even say anything!”

Montaigne winked once again. “I never said the letter was worth reading. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

Sophia grabbed his arm. “Where is he?” she asked, her voice near breaking. “Tell me he’s all right.”

Montaigne calmly freed his arm from Sophia’s grasp. “He’s not your concern any longer, little girl,” he said coldly. Every trace of amusement had vanished from his face. “You should bear that in mind.” He shut the door behind him.

13 The Western Line

1891, June 23: 11-Hour 36

New Akan: member of New Occident as of 1810. After the Disruption, the rebellion in Haiti ignited similar rebellions through the slave-holding territories. Uprisings in the former southern colonies of the British empire culminated in a second revolution that, after eight years of intermittent warfare, put an end to slavery and made possible the formation of a large southern state, named by leaders of the rebellion “New Akan.”

—From Shadrack Elli’s Atlas of the New World

SOPHIA RUSHED TO the window. As she’d expected, Montaigne and the other men were on the platform, walking away. They had gotten what they wanted.

“That’s him, Sophia,” Theo said. “Montaigne. I saw him outside your house.”

Sophia seemed not to hear him. “We should be in Charleston by dinnertime. But will it be dark by the time we leave?”

Theo stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

“I have to check,” she said, diving for the folded paper schedule that she’d left on the seat. “The connecting train for New Akan departs Charleston station at seventeen in the evening. We get in at near sixteen-hour, so we have about an hour before the connection.” She sat down with a look of frustration. “That’s very close.”

“I’d much rather not,” Theo said slowly, “but don’t you want to follow them? We can still get off. They might lead you to your uncle, and at the very least you can get the map back.”

Sophia shook her head. “No. I don’t want to be anywhere near them when it gets dark.”

The whistle blew and the train lurched forward. “Well, there they go,” Theo said. “And there goes your chance to follow them.” He looked out through the open window, and then he leaned forward abruptly.

“Hey—!” he said. He closed and opened the small window closest to him. It was set in a metal frame no larger than a sheet of paper and it shut with a small latch. The metal frame of the window was empty; the windowpane had been removed. “Sophia,” he said, the truth slowly dawning on him, “you gave them the windowpane?”

Sophia nodded. “I thought of it when you went to the washroom. I put the windowpane in the pillowcase. The map is in my sketchbook.” She bit her lip. “But once it gets dark and they look at it in the moonlight, they’ll know.”

Theo raised his eyebrows and dropped down on the seat beside her. “Not bad,” he muttered, under his breath.

“Maybe they’ll be too far from Charleston by that time,” Sophia continued. “Since they got off here. They might stay here or go north. They must not be going to Charleston. So we have a little time—depending on where they are when the moon comes out.”

Theo looked at her admiringly. “That’s a pretty slick move.”

“Yes,” she said, without enthusiasm. Now that Montaigne and the Sandmen were gone, she was starting to feel the weight of what she’d done. She clenched her hands tightly; they were trembling. “They will not be happy when they figure it out.”

“No doubt,” Theo said, leaning back. “Well, there’s nothing we can do until we get to Charleston. And at least now we have the train to ourselves.”

Sophia nodded. She felt no relief. She was thinking of the hooks that the Sandmen had carried, trying not to imagine how they put them to use. She shivered.

—16-Hour 02: Charleston—

THEY SPENT THE day in dread of the approaching evening. The train reached Charleston late, pulling into the station at almost two past sixteen. They unloaded their trunks and had time to eat a quick dinner of bread and cheese and cold meat in the busy station before the train to New Akan starting boarding. Sophia had written a letter to Mrs. Clay on the train, and she posted it hurriedly. The last rays of sunlight streamed in through the high windows. Pigeons filled the vaulted ceiling of the station, and the sound of train whistles cut shrilly through their low, incessant cooing.

Sophia had seen no sign of Montaigne or the Sandmen. There were businessmen traveling alone and families traveling in large groups. A small party of nuns waited patiently in the station atrium. The train to New Akan was fully booked, and as they waited on the platform they saw why: a long chain of police officers stood beside a waiting crowd of foreigners, all of whom were departing by train.

Sophia was struck by the defeated look of these unwilling travelers. Some seemed indignant or outraged. But most seemed simply bereft, as did one couple with resigned faces whose child cried quietly and ceaselessly, gripping the skirt of an old woman beside him. In between cries, he pleaded, “Don’t go, Grandmother.” She placed a trembling hand on the little boy’s head and wiped at her own tears. For that moment, as she watched them, Sophia could not think about the approaching darkness and the threat that might come with it.

“All aboard!” the conductor called, and the passengers began to file onto the train. Sophia followed Theo to the last car, dragging her trunk behind her.

Once they had found their compartment and her luggage was stowed, Sophia watched the station platform. The Gulf Regional was an older train, with a rather bumpy leather seat and dim lamps. It took several minutes for everyone to board, and then at seventeen-hour the conductor blew the whistle. The train glided out of the station into the falling darkness.

Sophia sighed with relief. “Good thing it’s summer and the sun sets so late,” she said, eyeing the pale moon.

They settled in and Sophia opened her pack to distract herself. She held the glass map up to the window, but nothing happened; there was still not enough moonlight. As she returned the map to her notebook, she saw the two scraps of paper from Shadrack’s letter. There was little satisfaction in having tricked Montaigne, she thought despondently, when Montaigne had managed to trick her as well. They had clearly made Shadrack write the note for the very purpose of deceiving her.

But as Sophia stared at the note, she realized that there was something a little strange about Shadrack’s handwriting. His hand was clear and assured, as always, but it was broken in places by strange capitalizations:

dear sophia,

T H Ey have said alL i cAn plaCe on tHis papeR Is your naMe

—shAdrack

She wrote the capitalized letters one by one in her notebook, and as she finished she gasped. “Theo, look!”

After a moment, his face lit up. “The Lachrima,” he said softly. “Let me see that.” He read it over. “Why would he write that?”

“I don’t know.”

“He could just be warning you about them,” Theo said.

Sophia frowned. “Maybe. It seems strange, though. Why warn me about something that everyone’s already afraid of?”

“But he doesn’t know you know about them.”

“That’s true, though I heard Mrs. Clay telling him about what happened to her. It still seems strange.” She took back the note. “Theo, tell me what else you know about them.”

“I can tell you what I’ve heard,” he said, his voice warming. The Lachrima were clearly a favorite subject. “Like I said before, I’ve never seen one, but there’s a lot of them near the borders. They usually hide—they try to stay away from people.”

“Why do you think there are so many near the borders?” Sophia mused.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe there’s something about the borders—something that draws them there.”

“Maybe.” But he was clearly unconvinced.

“Have you ever heard one?”

“It’s hard to know. Sometimes when you hear someone crying, people say it’s a Lachrima, but that’s just because they’re afraid it might be one. I’ve heard crying, but supposedly the sound a Lachrima makes is different—much worse. It’s a sound you can’t get out of your mind.”

“Poor Mrs. Clay,” Sophia murmured.

“A trader I met once said he’d come across one in his house,” Theo went on enthusiastically. “He’d been gone for a week and when he got back, he could hear the Lachrima before he’d even reached the door. He walked in really quietly and just saw this tall person with long, long hair going through the whole house like a whirlwind, pulling things from the walls and wrecking everything. Then it suddenly turned around and looked at him with that faceless face. The trader said he ran right out and never went back.”

“Shadrack must know something about them.” The Lachrima, the glass map, Montaigne, and the Nihilismians, she thought; what do they have to do with one another? “Montaigne called the glass map a ‘tracing glass.’ I wonder what that means.”

“Maybe it’s just another way to describe a glass map?”

“Maybe,” Sophia considered. She tried another tack. “Do you know anything about the people he called ‘Sandmen’?”

Theo shook his head. “I’ve never even heard that name.”

“They were all Nihilismians.”

“How could you tell?”

“Their amulets,” Sophia said, surprised. “The open hand.”

Theo shrugged. “I know about Nihilismians, but I’ve never met one. There aren’t many in the Baldlands.”

“They’re everywhere in New Occident. They think our world isn’t real. They use The Chronicles of the Great Disruption to prove that the real world was lost at the time of the Disruption and this one—our world—shouldn’t exist. The open hand is the sign of the prophet Amitto, who wrote the Chronicles. It means ‘to let go.’”

“So you’ve never heard them called ‘Sandmen’?”

“Never. They must be somehow different. But I can’t tell how . . .” Her voice dropped off as her mind worked to connect the pieces. What had Shadrack said to her recently about Nihilismians? She could not remember. He had told her something, and it had to do with maps. Maybe I wrote it in my notebook, she thought. But it held no clues.

As the train rolled west, the sky darkened and a yellow moon emerged, hanging low behind the trees. Theo climbed up to his bunk to sleep, and Sophia sat watching the passing landscape, feeling anything but sleepy. Hills with crests topped by pines gave way to flatlands dotted with farmhouses. Every time the train pulled into one of the small, rural stations on the westward line, she felt certain that Montaigne and his men would board, but the people who stood under the flame-lamps were invariably sleepy, harried travelers on their way westward. So far, Sophia and Theo were in the clear.

—June 24: 1-Hour 18—

IT WAS PAST one in the morning when the train crossed the border between South Carolina and Georgia. Sophia took out her notebook. Men with scars, a cowering faceless creature with long hair, and a small sparrow came to life on the paper. Clockwork Cora sat hunched in the corner, brow furrowed, contemplating the problem. Sophia looked at the page for a long time. There was a riddle there; a riddle she had to solve. She drew a line, making a border around the Lachrima. Her mind whirled wearily over the sketched images like the wheels of the railcar.

Turning the page, she moved on to a more solvable riddle. She wrote, “Where did T learn to read? He has traveled where else in the Baldlands?” She glanced up at the bunk overhead where Theo was sleeping silently. “And why no longer cared for by Sue?” However much more commonplace, the riddle that was Theo eluded her also, and Sophia closed her notebook with a sigh.

They moved steadily across Georgia. At each stop, the whistle blew into the still night. At five, the train passed into New Akan. The sun had begun to lighten the edges of the horizon, but the sky above was still filled with stars. The flat fields spread out like calm waters on either side of the tracks. As they pulled into the first station in New Akan, Sophia leaned out the window. The humid air smelled of earth. Only a woman with two small children stood next to the station agent on the platform. The three passengers climbed aboard and the train sat idly for several minutes. Two of the ticket collectors walked onto the platform to stretch their legs. They shook hands with the station agent.

“Bill. Surprised to see you here. Thought the mosquitoes would have eaten you alive.”

“They come near me, they’re liable to drown in sweat,” the station agent said, mopping his brow. “Most humid June I can remember.”

“My clean shirt feels like I’ve been wearing it two days,” one of the ticket collectors said, fanning the flaps of his uniform jacket.

Then the whistle sounded and the ticket collectors went aboard. As the train pulled out, Sophia saw the pink light of dawn rising behind the platform.

They traveled another half hour into New Akan. The sky was beginning to lighten in earnest when the train suddenly lurched to a stop—but there was no platform. As far as Sophia could tell, they were in the middle of nowhere. Toward the front of the train, she saw what appeared to be a cluster of horses. She leaned farther out to get a better look, her belly pressed against the sill, and in the gray light of dawn she saw that the knot of horses was, in fact, a coach. A number of people were emerging from it right there, beside the tracks, and boarding at the front of the train. Two, three, four men.

The Sandmen had caught up with them.

SOPHIA DUCKED BACK into the compartment. “Theo! They’re here. They’re boarding the train. Get up!”

“What?” he mumbled from the top bunk.

“Wake up!” Sophia was almost shouting. “We have to get off, now!” She stuffed the notebook into her pack, shouldered her pack, and tied the lower straps securely around her waist. As she pulled on her shoes, the train began moving once again. “Oh, no! We’re too late.”

Theo, rumpled but alert, was already tying his boots. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere in New Akan. Four men just got on the train. We weren’t even at a station.” Sophia could feel her heart pounding, but her mind was calm. All night she’d been preparing herself for the situation that lay ahead. Now it had arrived, and it was almost a relief. She opened the door and looked out into the corridor. There was no one in sight.

“You thinking we should hide?” Theo whispered.

“We’re going to jump off the train.” With Theo on her heels, she hurried to the rear end of the train and opened the door, stepping out onto the narrow railed platform at the back of the car. The tracks unfolded behind them, disappearing into the dawn sky as the train continued to pick up speed. Wind sucked at the sides of the platform and the wheels clanged against the rails in a quick, accelerating staccato.

“You sure about this?” Theo said into Sophia’s ear, over the noise. “I’m no expert on trains, but we’re going pretty fast.”

“If we don’t jump, they’ll find us. We should do it now before they notice we’ve gone.”

Sophia walked to the far end of the railing. Suddenly, Theo grabbed her arm. “Wait a second,” he hollered. He pointed to the narrow ladder that led up from the platform to the roof of the railcar. “Maybe we can just climb up there and wait them out. They’ll think we’ve jumped. We can watch from there and see when they leave.”

Sophia hesitated. She looked down at the blur of rocky ground beside the tracks and back at the ladder. “All right,” she called out. “I’ll go first.” Climbing deftly onto the railing, she swung around to grasp the ladder. The wind buffeted her, but she held onto the rungs and moved swiftly. When she reached the roof, she dropped onto her stomach and clung to the flat metal surface.

A moment later Theo appeared. They inched out carefully on hands and knees to the middle of the car and then lay flat, the slick metal vibrating against them. “This should do it,” Theo shouted over the wind. “Now we just wait them out.”

Help us escape them, please, Sophia implored the Fates.

For several minutes they lay silently, listening to the whir of the wheels against the rails. The metal roof was hard against her ribs and she palmed the surface desperately, feeling as though a sudden jolt or turn would toss her away like a crumb brushed from a sleeve.

Then she heard it, the sound she’d been dreading: the rear door of the railcar slamming shut. Someone had stepped out onto the balcony. A moment later, she heard the clang of boots. “They’re on the ladder!”

Theo braced himself. “We have to run.” He rose, stepped over Sophia, and put his hand out. “Come on!” She pulled herself up and tried to get her balance. Theo let go and began moving toward the next railcar.

Sophia took a few steps forward and then broke into a halting run. She turned to look over her shoulder, nearly toppling; Mortify was climbing onto the roof. “Run!” she shouted. “Keep running!”

Theo reached the edge and in one easy bound jumped to the next car. Though the distance between them was only a few feet, Sophia felt her knees buckle at the prospect of hanging in midair above the moving train. She looked over her shoulder again; Mortify was halfway across and he was somehow, despite the moving train, loosening the long rope of the grappling hook from his belt loop. Sophia crouched, her knees shaking, and then jumped.

Fly, Sophia, fly! A distant pair of voices reached her: the memory of her parents, holding her high above the ground. For a moment she did fly, or float, caught in midair by the wind. She looked down and saw the tracks, two long black smudges on a gray canvas, and then her feet landed on the other roof, as if the two hands that held her had let her down again gently, safely.

She ran haltingly across the whole length of the second car. The train moved under her each time she put her foot down, and every step threatened to pitch her sideways. She held her hands out rigidly, balancing herself. Mortify had jumped the gap between the first and second car, and he began closing the distance. He loosed the grappling hook and held it deftly in his right hand, readying himself to throw it.

Theo and Sophia jumped, one after another, onto the third car. The violent clang of metal striking metal sounded over the rushing of the wind. The grappling hook had struck the edge of the car and Mortify was hauling it back toward him like a fishing line. “We have to jump off,” Theo shouted.

“No, wait,” Sophia said. “Look!” A train heading in the opposite direction had stopped on its parallel tracks to allow their train to pass. In a few seconds it would be beside them.

“Perfect,” Theo shouted. “Get to the first car.” He took off, and Sophia ran with abandon now, her arms flailing at her sides, no longer looking to see where her feet landed. She kept her eye on the front of the train, covering three railcars, then a fourth, and then a fifth. They were almost at the front. The other train loomed, waiting.

“All right,” Theo yelled. “Let’s go!”

Then they were abreast of it. A burst of air shook the car. Theo quickly regained his footing; then he took a running start and jumped. Sophia glanced behind her. She had only a few seconds. She saw Mortify, a car-length away, launch the grappling hook. It seemed to hang in the air, suspended: a whirling shape that caught the light of the rising sun. The bright cluster of silver grew larger, swinging toward her, its sharp points glittering as they twirled.

Sophia yanked herself back to the present. Don’t lose track of time now! she told herself desperately.

She ran with all her might toward the edge. She jumped. A moment later she felt hard metal slam against her face, her back, her knees; she was rolling—rolling fast, like a marble over a table top. She could find nothing to hold onto, and the edge rose up before her. Suddenly something fell across her legs, pinning her down. She opened her eyes. Her head was hanging over the edge of the railcar, but she was safe. Theo had tackled her, and his weight was holding her in place.

She scrambled up just as the train jolted into motion, heading east. The other train was already far in the distance. “Where is he?” she cried. “Did he follow us?”

“He didn’t jump,” Theo said, raising his voice to be heard over the mounting noise. Sophia saw with surprise that he was smiling at her with frank admiration. “That was totally reckless, but it worked.”

“What?”

“Waiting until the last second so he couldn’t jump after you.” He pointed to the far edge of the roof. The grappling hook hung from the ladder like a snagged kite, its rope dangling.

“Right.” Sophia took a deep breath. The train began to pick up speed. “We have to get off.”

“Next station,” Theo shouted.

They lay against the cold roof as mile after mile of flat land passed by. Sunlight yellowed the fields around them, making fog of the humid air. The metal rattled painfully against Sophia’s chest, and the station seemed ages away.

Finally, the train began to slow. It rolled up alongside the platform of the station they had passed at dawn. ROUNDHILL, read the wooden sign swinging over the station door. Sophia and Theo crawled to the end of the car and made their way off the roof.

14 The Glacine Age

1891, June 23: Shadrack Missing (Day 3)

In the chaotic political wake of the Disruption, the Vindication Party emerged as more stable and lasting than most. Founded on the philosophies of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, the party pushed aggressively—and successfully—for women’s rights. Perhaps without the Disruption the Vindication Party would have met with more resistance, but in such turmoil, it laid claim to certain territories that were never again contested. Suffrage became a stepping stone, and soon women could be found in parliament, at the head of major manufacturies, at the helm of universities, and in other seats of power.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

SHADRACK HAD SLEPT very little during his nights of captivity. Though they had given him water and a few scraps of food, he could only taste the wooden block. The damp wood, reeking of other men’s fear, left a horrible aftertaste that nothing could erase. His face had not been cut by the wires, but he did not want to test his luck a second time. He had good reason to believe that in Blanca’s mansion the bonnet was only one of several horrors.

They had moved him from the chapel to a small room in a high turret. His room—a low space that must once have been used for storage—contained only a basin and a ragged length of blanket. A narrow window, no wider than a forearm, allowed a view of the circular drive near the entrance. He used it to keep track of the passing time, doing his best to shake off the chilling influences of the stone walls and the conversation with Blanca.

She had destroyed Carlton, leaving him a mindless shell. Exactly how, Shadrack did not know, but it seemed clear that she felt no compunction and would easily do the same to him. Nevertheless, he knew that under no circumstances could he help her find the carta mayor. Much as he grieved for Carlton, he drew his mind forcibly to the problem at hand. He could not allow Blanca to succeed.

The problem of how to stop her kept him awake at night. But he could not concentrate; the mansion was full of peculiar noises. At times he heard a cooing or weeping, faint and ethereal, hovering above a louder and more jarring sound: a near-constant, high-pitched creaking, like that of a pulley or a wheel. It seemed to stretch through his room like a fine, caustic web, allowing him no sleep. It settled in the air, so that even when it stopped he continued to hear it.

On the second night of his captivity, one of the Sandmen opened the door and placed a cup of water and a rind of dry bread on the floor. “Please tell me what that sound is,” Shadrack said. He was sitting with his back against the stone wall, his injured leg, bruised and sore, resting on the cold floorboards.

“What sound?” the man asked.

“That sound—the creaking.”

The man stood silently for a moment, as if attempting to connect Shadrack’s words with a meaning. His scarred face worked slowly over the problem. Finally a dim illumination passed into his eyes. “It’s the wheelbarrow.”

“The wheelbarrow? For what?”

“For the sand,” the man replied, as if this were self-evident.

“The sand for what?” Shadrack persisted.

“For the hourglass.” The light vanished from the man’s eyes, as if the very mention of the hourglass had snuffed out his thoughts. He stepped back and slammed the door before Shadrack could speak again. The creaking continued, sharp as a saw.

The third morning dawned cool and gray, and Shadrack watched, through his narrow window, what appeared to be travel preparations. The journey to the estate by unscheduled train had suggested from the start that Blanca had powerful ties to one of the railways. The presence of private railcars in the drive with a distinctive hourglass insignia confirmed it. For several hours, the Nihilismians had been loading supplies. At midmorning, two of them appeared at his door and led him from the room.

Shadrack made no effort to resist. He could hardly summon the energy to stand. At first, he thought they might take him to the railcars, but instead they wound their way deeper into the building through long stone passageways. It was Shadrack’s first view of the artwork and historic treasures that filled the mansion. The paintings, tapestries, sculptures, and cultural artifacts overflowing the corridors put Boston’s museums to shame. “Tintoretto,” he groaned under his breath, pained both by his leg and by the brief sight of such a masterpiece hidden away from the world. Indifferent to the fabulous treasures around them, the Sandmen dragged him down several sets of stairs and finally entered a vaulted corridor that ended behind the altar of the chapel. Blanca waited in the center of the room.

“Shadrack,” she said quietly, ignoring his rumpled clothing and look of plain exhaustion. “You and I are leaving soon. Our errand is more urgent than you realize, and our time is running short. But where we go depends entirely on you.” She hesitated. “I know how much you disapprove of my plan at present, and I realize you need persuasion to assist me in finding the carta mayor.”

“I’m not sure ‘disapprove’ does it justice,” he replied.

Blanca walked toward him, the gray silk dress she was wearing quietly rustling, and she gently touched his arm with her gloved hand. “Once I explain, I have no doubt that you will be persuaded,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken.

She pointed to a large calfskin map of the New World that lay pinned to the wooden table. Scattered over the map and making odd patterns across it were piles of sand—black, nut brown, and white. Toward the southern tip of the continent, a handful of white sand blanketed all of the unknown territory still referred to by cartologers as Tierra del Fuego. It reached upward into Late Patagonia. “Do you know what Age lies here—at the very edge of the hemisphere?”

Shadrack shook his head tiredly. “No explorer has succeeded in reaching it.”

“It is another Ice Age, like the Prehistoric Snows that lie north of here.”

He was suddenly alert. “How do you know this?”

“I have been there.”

“How did you reach it? I know many who try and cannot succeed in traveling south of Xela.”

“That is not important at the moment,” she said. “Believe me; the Ice Age is there. What is important is this: the Great Disruption did not occur as you believe it did. You believe the physical earth came loose from time and then came together again, coalesced along fault lines that separated the Ages.”

“More or less, yes.”

“It did begin that way,” she said, tracing her gloved finger along the calfskin map. “But it did not end that way. For decades the fault lines have been still. Now, once again, they are moving.”

Shadrack stared at her in an undisguised mixture of astonishment and skepticism. “Explain what you mean.”

“It is simply this—the borders of the Ages are shifting.” She pointed to New Occident. “Perhaps you have not been far enough north before to realize that in some places the Prehistoric Snows are melting away before the advance of New Occident. Yes,” she said, before he could speak. “This very site was once bound in ice. But the ice has melted, and trees have sprung up everywhere. Now the air is warmer, and there are people native to your Age. Here, the change is piecemeal and decisive. The snows disappear and new states, contemporaries of New Occident, take their place.”

Shadrack gazed at the sand, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. Suddenly a set of images, like a scattering of impressions from a memory map, flashed through his mind. But the memories were not from a map; they were his own. He recalled the letter sent so many years ago by the explorer Casavetti, whom his sister and brother-in-law had set out to find: “In this place I thought I knew so well, I have discovered a new Age.” It was this discovery of a new, hostile Age that had led to his capture, which had prompted Minna and Bronson’s journey halfway across the globe.

In his mind’s eye Shadrack saw Sophia poring over the two maps of the Indies, only a few days earlier. She had asked how a convent could have been replaced, in only a decade, by a wasteland. She had seen the evidence of a similar change. And he had been too blind to recognize the significance of her discovery. With all of his training, experience, and intuition, how had he failed to see it? After a moment of stunned silence, he spoke. “Are all the borders in flux?”

She shook her head. “Not all—but many,” she said, with a note of satisfaction at Shadrack’s dismay. “And they are shifting at different paces. The border changing most quickly is this one.” She pointed again to Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of the Western Hemisphere. “The border of this Ice Age is the Southern Snows. It has been moving unevenly but consistently northward through Late Patagonia for the last year. Mile by mile, it is shifting toward the Baldlands, and every Age it touches disappears beneath the ice. I believe,” Blanca continued quietly, “your niece is traveling south, is she not?”

Shadrack felt the blood rush to his temples; in sending Sophia to the safest place he could think of, he had mistakenly sent her into terrible danger. “But then,” he asked slowly, “the people who are there now . . . ?”

“They will vanish,” Blanca said. “Or—I should be precise. The advance of the border is rather more . . . damaging. The glaciers do not approach quietly. Everything they touch is destroyed.”

“They must know of it—the people will flee the advancing border,” Shadrack said desperately.

“In fact, they have already been told that a powerful force is moving northward. But they believe it to be a weirwind—a destructive weather system and nothing more.”

Shadrack stared at her a moment, trying to comprehend. “You planted this belief yourself?”

Blanca shrugged. “I could not have the entire mass of humanity that inhabits the Baldlands rushing north like a torrent of scurrying ants. Princess Justa Canuto, whom I know well, is a typical monarch: she wants most what is best for her, not what is best for her kingdom. It was a simple matter to persuade her that Nochtland would survive the weirwind by staying put. Besides, it will make no difference whether they run or not.”

“How quickly are the Southern Snows moving?” Shadrack demanded.

“They began slowly, but the rate seems to be exponential. What began as an imperceptible shift, inch by inch, is now mile by mile.”

“There must still be some way,” he insisted. “Some way to stop it. What is causing it?”

“I believe we are causing it.”

Shadrack stared at her. “How?”

“The cause is unknown. You, with your spirit of empiricism, will doubtlessly dispute my theory, which is more speculative. I have come to the conclusion that we have caused it by failing to live according to a single time. Do you know how many forms of time-keeping currently exist in the world? More than two thousand. The world can no longer hold such disparate Ages. Time is quite literally being torn apart before our eyes.” She paused, seemingly weighing the effect of her words. “I knew you would be persuaded. Now you understand: unless we move quickly, the entire world will be engulfed by the Southern Snows.”

“Move quickly where?”

Blanca gestured at the map in frustration. “I do not know, Shadrack. This is what you must tell me. We have to reach the carta mayor before it, too, is encased in ice. Then you, the only living cartologer who can write water maps, must revise it. You must restore the world as it was before the Disruption.”

“But there is no such thing as a world before the Disruption! You are plagued by the same delusions as your Nihilismians. There can be no restoration of a lost past. Assuming there were a carta mayor, and assuming we found it, and assuming I could revise it in time, how would I determine the proper age of the globe? We do not know when the Disruption occurred. In our Age? Four hundred years after it? To what Age would I restore the world?”

When Blanca spoke, Shadrack could hear her smiling. “To mine.”

“That is pure hubris,” he replied impatiently. “We cannot know that our Age—”

“To mine. Not yours.”

“To yours? What do you mean?”

“We are not from the same Age, you and I,” she said. “What your Age is to man’s prehistoric past, my Age is to yours.” She paused. “Imagine an Age where peace holds sway over every corner of the globe; where there is perfect comprehension of the natural world and its science; where humankind has reached the apex of its endeavors. This is where I come from. You have not heard of it, Shadrack. It is called the Glacine Age.”

Shadrack listened to the fervor in her voice with astonishment. “Forgive me if I fail to be impressed. If the Disruption has taught us anything, it has taught us that no Age is perfect or inviolable.”

Blanca planted her gloved fingertips in the sand. “I don’t believe you understand, Shadrack—the Glacine Age is superior to all other Ages in every way.” She shook her head, and when she spoke her voice was pained. “Do you have any idea of the mistakes that humankind has made over the Ages? The terrible acts of destruction, the missed opportunities, the inane cruelties—the Glacine Age is entirely beyond them. Imagine a world without those horrors. In the Glacine Age, all of the world’s terrible mistakes lie in the past. They will vanish like specks of sand in the sea. It will be as if they never existed.” She paused and gave a little sigh of pleasure. “You will revise the water map, Shadrack, just as you would a paper map: erasing it carefully, line by line, to redraw a completely new map. You and I will draw the Glacine Age, whole and intact, so that it covers the world.”

Shadrack shook his head. “This is madness.”

“Is it?” Blanca asked softly. “You are a scientist—you know that time passes and the earth’s surface changes. All the Ages pass away. Do you not wish for the arrival of an Age in which there is knowledge, and ease of life, and peace? You are simply afraid of losing the world that is familiar to you.”

“Your arrogance is astounding,” Shadrack said with disgust. “I have never seen such blind faith.”

Blanca shook her veiled head. “It is you who are arrogant,” she replied quietly. “Think of the cost of preserving the primitive Ages you cling to. To satisfy such sentiment, you are willing to put up with petty tyrants, never-ending wars, widespread ignorance. You, who value scholarship so highly, should welcome an end to these dark Ages, where every piece of hoarded knowledge is false.”

“Without our ‘false knowledge’ and our ‘mistakes,’ your Age would never have come about,” Shadrack said sharply. “Every future Age owes a debt to its past Ages.”

“But the consequences of those falsehoods,” Blanca said. “Your blindness is more destructive than you realize.”

“Surely you overestimate me. In your vision, I am only an irritating speck of sand from the past.”

“That may be true. But you, in particular, are a speck of sand that matters.”

He laughed bitterly. “If this is meant to win me to your cause, it isn’t working.”

Blanca looked at the map. Then she took a handful of white sand from the nearby pile and carefully poured it out, covering every landmass. All that remained was ice and ocean. “These dark Ages will not survive, regardless. The Southern Snows are moving northward, Shadrack. We can dispute everything else, but not this.”

Shadrack looked hard at the veil, his heart pounding. He abhorred her entire vision, and in part he still did not believe her. But in at least one respect, he could not risk disbelieving her. If an Ice Age was truly descending on the Baldlands, and rapidly, he had to find Sophia before it reached her. He felt a momentary flash of fury at himself for sending her to Nochtland. Then he composed himself. “What do you plan to do?”

For a moment, she was silent. “I am in a difficult position. I do not know the location of the carta mayor, and you will not tell me.”

“Because I do not know it,” Shadrack said curtly.

“Nor will you tell me where Sophia is going with the Tracing Glass.” When Shadrack did not answer, she shrugged. “I might make a globe of your memories to find out.” She paused, waiting for him to protest. Shadrack looked down at the ground, disciplining his face into stillness. “But then I would be without your skills as a mapmaker.” She moved closer to Shadrack and took one of his hands between her two gloved ones. “I need more than your memories to revise the carta mayor. I need your hands. When you agree to help me, I can tell you more.” Shadrack stood silently. “Consider,” Blanca said earnestly, pressing his hand and then releasing it, “that the Ice Age is already advancing. It has begun here, and here, and here,” she said, indenting with her fingertip the sand spread across Late Patagonia. “It is no longer a matter of weeks—more likely days—before the border reaches Nochtland.” She touched the capital of the Baldlands, leaving a shallow depression. “Come,” she said encouragingly. “Tell me where you have sent the Tracing Glass.”

Shadrack wheeled away from her, struggling to control his frustration. There were few times in his life when he had been so entrapped by his circumstances, and he did not like the feeling. Blanca seemed to know Sophia was heading south, and she would pursue the Tracing Glass whether he assisted her or not. If he assisted Blanca, the glass would almost certainly fall into her hands, and Sophia’s safety would be all but irrelevant.

There was only one course he could follow. He had to escape as they traveled south and find Sophia himself. It was the only way to keep both her and the glass safe. He turned back to Blanca. “I will do everything I can to prevent you from ever seeing or touching it.”

For a moment, she did not speak. “Ah. Well, I have learned one thing. You believe the carta mayor exists. Otherwise, you would not go to such lengths.” Shadrack clenched his jaw, his eyes hard. “You should reconsider. It is only a matter of days before we find your niece.”

“I will take my chances,” Shadrack said hoarsely.

“If you agree to help me, I will be sure she is treated kindly when she’s found. I have fifty men at the stops along the railway route she travels. She cannot get off or on a train without my knowing.” She lifted one shoulder. “That is the advantage of owning the second largest rail company in New Occident.” Shadrack blinked. “Oh, the private train and rail line leading here weren’t evidence enough for you? Yes. You may appreciate the irony of it: I took the first step toward making my fortune on the gaming tables of New York, playing with parliament time. From there it was a simple matter to buy my first tobacco plantation—tobacco is such a vice in New Occident.” She shook her veiled head. “One plantation easily becomes ten. Ten plantations are enough to finance any amount of speculative investment. Steel, for example. And of course steel manufacturing is so useful for building rails. White Smoke Tobacco, White Anvil Steel, and the Whiteline Railroad Company. A neat symmetry, don’t you think?” Her tone was triumphant.

Shadrack pressed his lips together tightly.

Blanca gave a small sigh and turned toward the Sandmen, who stood waiting. “We leave in an hour. Put all of the items from Boston in a trunk—or more than one, if need be. Don’t let him near any scissors,” she added.

15 Safe Harbor

1891, June 24: 8-Hour 00

Roundhill Station: This station was built in 1864 by the Whiteline Railroad Company, only half a mile to the north of See-Saw, where the final Battle of See-Saw took place in 1809.

Station sign

THE GLASS MAP was unharmed, and Sophia still had her pack, containing the atlas, all the folded maps for their route, her sketchbook, and an assortment of drawing instruments. Just as vitally, the leather purse had remained attached to her belt; without funds, her lifewatch, or her identity papers, they would not have gotten far. The compartments on the train were sold out, so she bought two bench-car tickets for New Orleans and then she and Theo sat at the edge of the platform to wait a whole slow hour for the next train heading west.

All of the nervous energy that had carried her through the evening and early morning had dissipated like air leaking from a balloon. Her chin and knees were bruised; her ribs and back ached from landing on the roof of the railcar, and all she wanted was to sleep. Surely, she thought, we don’t have to worry about the Sandmen appearing here. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her skirt for the two talismans that gave her comfort: the smooth disc of the pocket watch and the spool of silver thread. Time was securely in hand, and the Fates were watching over her.

The humid morning air settled over her like a damp rag as the hour slowly dragged on. More people began appearing on the platform, their dusty boots rattling the floorboards in a wearying procession of shuffles and taps. Sophia leaned back against a trunk that someone had left unattended as Theo placidly looked out over the tracks. She closed her eyes, and it seemed to her they’d been closed only a moment when a shout jolted her awake.

Sophia looked up to see the most extraordinary woman striding toward them. Everyone standing on the platform stepped aside as they saw her coming. She was tall and extravagantly dressed in a billowing charcoal-gray silk gown trimmed with lace and a black plumed hat that covered most of her face. Strapped to her narrow waist was a leather belt with a holster and a silver revolver. Her white-gloved hands planted on her hips, she stopped before them; the scent of orange blossoms wafted toward Sophia. “Thought you could take it from under my nose, did you?” she asked with a look of hard-edged amusement. Her smile was not friendly.

Sophia looked up at the woman’s face. She was beautiful; her long, dark hair hung to her waist, and her black eyes glittered. Sophia felt a moment of panic—Mortify is on a train speeding west, so Montaigne sent someone else! She sprang to her feet and Theo joined her. Compared to this commanding woman, she felt very much a child. Her knees and palms were raw from having skidded across the roof of the train, and her skirt—plain striped cotton, even on the best of days—was ripped in more places than one. Her clean clothes, of course, were lost somewhere on a trunk heading west. She balled her fists and tried to wear, at the very least, a dignified expression. “It’s not yours,” she said, in a voice that sounded far less grand than she intended.

The woman laughed. “Is that going to be your defense? Because I don’t see how you hope to explain its contents.”

Sophia contemplated running, and then she looked at the revolver and thought of Shadrack. She swallowed hard and her voice trembled. “Where is my uncle?”

The beautiful woman’s expression abruptly changed, turning pensive. “You’ve misunderstood. I’m not that kind of pirate. And the trunk would make poor ransom,” she said.

“The trunk?” Sophia asked, confused.

The woman gave her a good long look, and then she laughed until her hat shook. When she was through, she gave Theo and Sophia a broad smile. “I believe I’ve misunderstood as well,” she said. “I’m referring to that trunk by your feet. And unless I’m mistaken, you’re referring to something else entirely.”

“You can have the trunk,” Theo told her.

“We just found it here,” Sophia said at the same time.

“Well, sweetheart, my apologies. But I confess to being intrigued. Has your uncle been taken by pirates?” She seemed genuinely curious, and her voice was full of warmth.

“No,” Sophia replied, before Theo could say anything.

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Secret, is it? Well, don’t worry about me; I know all about secrets. I’m Calixta,” she added.

“I’m Sophia. And this is Theo.”

“A great pleasure to meet you. I apologize that you had to see my vicious side first, and so entirely without provocation. Let me make it up to you properly,” Calixta continued, looking at something far in the distance, past Sophia. “Share my compartment, won’t you?”

Sophia followed Calixta’s gaze and saw a moving speck on the horizon; the train was approaching. “Oh, thank you. But we have tickets for benches in the main car.”

Calixta waved a gloved hand. “Bother the main car. I have the largest compartment at the front of the train, and it has far too much room for tiny me. Porter!” she called. A moment later, two men emerged hurriedly from the station house. “Decidedly not real porters,” she said in a lofty aside. “Who leaves a trunk by itself on a platform? But we’ll pretend. And such a pitiful little station, in the middle of nowhere,” she added. “Please bring my other trunks,” she told the men, who jumped to obey.

The moment the train stopped, the doors flew open and the ticket collectors emerged. Calixta walked directly to the front, followed by the porters, and boarded the first car.

“Should we really sit with her?” Sophia asked in a low voice.

Theo shrugged. “Why not?”

“She’s a pirate!”

“She’s harmless. Just a little extravagant.”

“I don’t know,” Sophia said, as they handed their tickets to the ticket collector.

The main car was packed. A woman with five children, three of whom were wailing at the tops of their lungs, was attempting to wrestle her brood onto a single bench. By the window, a heavyset man had rudely commandeered two benches by sitting on one and dropping the muddy boots he’d removed on another. The pungent smell of his socks was already drawing expressions of consternation from the passengers around him. Sleeping here would be impossible.

“Okay,” Sophia said to Theo. “Let’s find her. Don’t tell her anything about the map or Shadrack, though.” They walked through the noisy car and then two others before reaching the front of the train. The left-hand compartment was open, and Calixta was inside, supervising the placement of her trunks.

“There you are! Thank you very much,” she said to the two porters, handing them each a coin from her purse. “Ugh!” she sighed, sitting down abruptly. Her gown ballooned around her. “I can’t wait to escape this miserable swamp and get back to my ship. The air smells like dirt, everything is covered with dust, and the people! Is it me or do they never bathe?” She patted the seat beside her. “Sophia?”

Sophia closed the compartment door and sat down stiffly next to Calixta. Theo, across from them, seemed tongue-tied. “You’re sailing out of New Orleans?” he managed to ask.

“Yes, finally. The Swan will be at the dock—my brother will have it waiting—and then we head out from there.” She began unpinning her hat. “Give me a hand, won’t you?” Sophia succeeded in removing the last pin, and Calixta set her hat on the shelf above the trunks. She smoothed her hair into place as she sat back down. “What a day! And it’s only beginning.” She started pulling off her gloves. “Aren’t you hungry?” She continued removing them as she got up again. “Hello?” she called into the corridor, stepping out of the compartment for a moment. The whistle blew, and the train began rolling forward.

Sophia and Theo exchanged glances. Calixta abruptly reentered, closing the door behind her. “That’s settled, then—breakfast for three. Now,” she said, as the train picked up speed and the breeze whirled in through the open window, “I won’t ask yet about your fascinating uncle or what you insisted wasn’t mine, but perhaps I can ask where you are going?”

“Yes.” Sophia hesitated. “Theo has to get back to the Baldlands, and I’m going to Nochtland.”

“You’re also sailing out of New Orleans, then?”

“We were thinking of riding down to Nochtland from the border,” Theo put in.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that. Takes ages, and you get your horses stolen every other day. You should sail down out of New Orleans to Veracruz. Only a suggestion, of course, but if I were you, I wouldn’t want to stay on land a moment longer.” Calixta rolled her eyes.

“Why were you here?” Sophia asked, with what she hoped sounded like polite interest.

“Oh, I only came to negotiate a new contract with a merchant. Last chance, with the borders closing and all that. I tried to send my brother Burr, seeing as I am the captain, after all, and he is only quartermaster, but he says that I negotiate better. And, well,” she sighed, “my brother is a darling, but it is also true that he rarely seems to land the lucrative contracts I do.” She trilled with laughter. “Nor does he land the proposals! Had I known my trip would result in three highly ridiculous marriage propositions, I would have refused, contracts be damned. One was a banker who insisted on agreeing vehemently with everything I said. Charming, but not so much with his mouth full of food.” She wrinkled her nose delicately. “Under the mistaken impression that he would benefit financially from marrying me, no doubt. Then a lawyer who has quietly married and buried no fewer than three wives already; rather suspicious, no? And, lastly, the merchant’s son, who almost certainly proposed only to enrage his father. How well he succeeded! Men may irritate women entirely by accident, but I believe they infuriate one another wholly by design.” Calixta laughed merrily, fanning herself with her gloves. “Truly,” she said, with a hint of pride, “I am always far more trouble than I’m worth.”

Sophia couldn’t help it; she found herself smiling. “I wouldn’t say that. We really appreciate your inviting us to sit with you.” She knew it sounded very stiff and serious.

Calixta smiled at her. “Not at all, sweetheart. My pleasure.”

A knock at the door interrupted their conversation, and Calixta called, “Come in.”

A waiter from the dining car rolled a cart into the compartment. “Three plates of eggs, ma’am.”

“And they actually smell like eggs. Thank you,” Calixta said, reaching into her purse for a coin.

After the waiter had left, they ate breakfast, and soon Sophia realized that the warm food and the dull hum of the train were making her drowsy. “Why don’t you sleep in the bunk?” Calixta suggested.

“I should stay awake,” Sophia murmured.

“Nonsense. You need to sleep. Theo and I will keep watch.”

Sophia nodded, not bothering to ask what they would keep watch for. She climbed up to the bunk, put her pack next to her pillow, and put her head down, falling into dreamless sleep.

—12-hour 05—

THE TRIP FROM the town near the Georgia border to New Orleans took several hours, and Sophia slept most of the way. She woke gradually to Calixta’s low laughter, the sound helping to dispel her lingering sense of worry. Truly, Sophia thought, the Fates have been kind to place such a good-humored benefactress in our path.

The pirate’s mood was infectious. Usually it was Theo who charmed people, but in Calixta he had clearly met his match. He had dropped the cocky self-assurance and was readily answering her questions. “I grew up with a bunch of kids. No parents around. The bigger kids took care of me, and then I took care of the smaller ones. We all raised each other, you know?”

“How sweet,” Calixta said. “Regular band of pirates.”

Theo laughed. “Pretty much.”

Sophia rolled over onto her back and quietly checked her watch. It was twelve and five—well past midday. If she had read the schedule correctly, they would be arriving in New Orleans soon.

“Was it an orphanage, then?” Calixta asked.

“That’s right,” Theo said. “Run by nuns. They pretty much left us on our own, though.”

Sophia put her watch away, suddenly alert. Theo’s lying, she thought, with a strange sense of tightening in her stomach.

“Were you very young when your parents left you there?”

“Not so much.” Theo’s voice was light; he didn’t sound like he was lying. “They were traders. I was six when our house was crushed by a weirwind; killed them both. I made it, just barely.”

“What a sad story,” Calixta said, with feeling. “Is that how your hand was injured? When you were six?”

“Yup. The nuns took me in after that. All the kids called me ‘Lucky Theo,’ because our house was a pile of rubble, but I’d survived.”

“No doubt it was the nuns who made you such a little angel,” she said slyly. “Risking your life to help the girl you love. It’s charming. I suppose you’d go anywhere for her.”

Theo gave an awkward laugh. “Sophia and I just met.”

“Oh, you can’t deceive me, Lucky Theo,” Calixta said sweetly. I don’t want to hear this, Sophia thought, the tightness in her stomach giving way to a dull heaviness. “You may have just met,” Calixta went on, “but here you are, rescuing her uncle.”

“Nah,” Theo scoffed. “I’m not rescuing anybody. I don’t do that.” The heaviness seemed to move through Sophia’s whole body until she felt immobile. Or maybe he’s not lying. Maybe he was lying to me. He just says whatever people want to hear. And everyone believes him. She felt flooded with shame and her face grew hot. I told myself that I shouldn’t trust him, but I did anyway. What an idiot I am.

“Oh!” Calixta said with faint surprise. “Here I was, under the impression that you and Sophia were riding into the Baldlands to rescue her uncle. It certainly sounded that way.”

Sophia knew that she should sit up and put a stop to the conversation, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Theo went on. “Sophia’s uncle ran off a few days ago with an actress from Nochtland. He even left her a note saying the beautiful actress had stolen his heart and he would never return. Obviously,” he put in expertly, “Sophia mistook you for a beautiful actress.”

Calixta chuckled, acknowledging the compliment. “Is that what happened? Well, that makes it all clear.”

“If you ask me,” Theo continued, unstoppable now that his story had taken shape, “it’s a cruel thing to do. Abandon your niece, who has no one else in the world, for an actress?” Sophia’s face was so warm that it seemed to burn, and the heavy weight in her stomach had begun to ache. “But that’s the kind of man he is.” He sighed. “Of course this whole journey to Nochtland is hopeless. Sophia’s not going to find him, and if she does, he’ll just tell her to go home. I’m not sticking around to see that,” he grimly concluded. Sophia felt her eyes fill with tears—from the truth and the lie both—and she brushed them away angrily as the train began to slow.

“Well, better wake the poor girl. We’re finally getting to New Orleans.”

Theo’s head appeared at the edge of the bunk. “I’m awake,” Sophia said, her voice choked.

He smiled innocently. “Get up, then. We’re here.”

The train began pulling into the station and Calixta opened the door to the compartment to call for a porter. As Sophia climbed down, her pack on one shoulder, the man came into the compartment and began carrying out Calixta’s trunks.

“I’m taking a coach to the dock,” the pirate said, putting on her hat. “And, if you like, I’ll take you to the depot where you can negotiate for horses. If that’s really what you want to do.”

Theo was about to follow her out, but Sophia grasped his arm. “I heard everything you said about Shadrack.”

He grinned. “Pretty good, right?”

“Pretty good?” Sophia exclaimed, tears again filling her eyes despite her effort to control them. “How could you say that about Shadrack? An actress?” To her dismay, Theo laughed. “It’s not funny!”

“Come on, lighten up. You’re taking this way too seriously.”

Sophia felt her cheeks once again turning bright red. “I don’t see anything wrong with being serious. This is serious! I heard what you said about not sticking around. I never asked you to stick around. You can leave whenever you want. I’ll go by myself.”

“Hey,” Theo said, taking her arm. “Calm down—it was just a story I told her. You said not to tell her about Shadrack. I thought it was a pretty good way to distract her.”

“Were you lying? About all of it?”

“Of course I was lying—that’s what you said to do.”

“I didn’t tell you to lie. I just said not to tell her anything. How am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth?”

“Sophia, what I told her didn’t mean anything. Trust me.”

She gave a short laugh and looked away. “Right. Trust you.” She realized that new passengers were boarding. “We have to go,” she said tersely, turning on her heel to leave. Theo shook his head, then followed her.

Sophia stalked off the train and saw Calixta at the far end of the platform, directing the porters as they tied her trunks to the top of a coach. As Sophia started to walk toward her, she heard a sudden shout. She wheeled around and saw them instantly: three—no, four—men with identically scarred faces running along the platform. For a moment she stood frozen. Then she gripped her pack and burst into a run, her feet pounding against the wooden floorboards.

Theo soon reached and then passed her. It took Calixta, whose trunks were now securely tied to the roof of the coach, only a moment to grasp the situation. With one easy motion she threw open the door and drew her revolver. “Get in!” she shouted. Theo dove in first and Sophia scrambled after him. Calixta put her foot on the step of the open coach and grabbed the luggage rack with her free hand. “Drive!” she cried.

The horses sprang into motion and they jerked forward as Calixta leaned gracefully out and fired a single shot at the platform. Sophia watched as the men changed direction and scrambled toward the line of coaches; the horses were rearing in confusion, panicked by the pistol shot. Calixta ducked into the coach and closed the door. “Help me with my hat again, darling, would you?” she asked.

Sophia put her pack aside and tried, with trembling fingers, to pull the pins from Calixta’s hat while the coach jolted madly along the road. “They’re out,” she finally said, tucking them into the hat ribbon.

Calixta shook out her hair and leaned through the window. “Driver,” she called. “Triple the fare if you get us safely to the end of the dock. The ship with the red and white sails.” She pulled her head back in. “They’ll have gotten into a coach by now.”

The streets of New Orleans rushed past. The driver had taken them along the edge of the city, but there was still a fair amount of traffic, and the shouts of people dodging the racing coach could be heard clearly. Sophia glimpsed a fruit stand toppling unceremoniously to the ground as the horses sped by, and a number of yapping dogs set upon them in pursuit.

“Only another minute,” Calixta said, peeking out through the window. “When we get there, leave the coach at once and find the ship with red and white sails.” They nodded. “And watch my hat,” she told Sophia. “Don’t look so grim, sweetheart.” She smiled. “I’m an excellent shot.”

The coach jolted and then jumped as it suddenly reached the dock. “Get out of the way,” the driver shouted. The horses swerved around an upturned cart and a pile of crates collapsed behind it.

Suddenly a loud crack exploded at the rear of the coach, just between Sophia’s head and Calixta’s shoulder. “That’s them,” Calixta said. “Keep your heads down.” She leaned out the window and fired two careful shots. Then they came to a clattering halt. Calixta threw the door open. “Come on then,” she called. “The red and white sails. Tell Burr to come himself, because I’m certainly not leaving my trunks behind.” She stood with her feet planted firmly apart and her eye on their pursuers.

Sophia stumbled out carrying Calixta’s hat and looked anxiously for the sails. Where were they? Where was Theo, for that matter? He had vanished. There were crates everywhere, sailors, a horse with a gleaming black saddle pulling agitatedly on his reins, and two barking dogs with long red tongues. Was Theo hiding somewhere? Sophia crouched behind a pile of wooden crates and glanced down: sawdust and half of a dead fish. For some reason, the air smelled of rum: as if it had rained rum. She looked up; where was the ship with red and white sails? The sails were all red and white—and blue, and green, and yellow.

Then she saw a number of deckhands running toward Calixta; they had to be coming from her ship. A shot and then another rang out behind her, and she peeked out from behind the crates to see the pirate standing calmly, defending the coach with precise shots while the deckhands slid the trunks off the roof. Sophia stood and prepared to run after them.

But as she turned, she saw Theo some distance away, gesturing urgently to her with one hand; he held a pistol in the other and was walking backward, firing steadily, while a heavyset man beside him carried one of the trunks. Theo could shoot?

Then, suddenly, Calixta was no longer by the coach. In fact, Sophia realized with horror, the dock was nearly deserted. And there the pirate stood, on the deck of a ship with red and white sails. The ship had been anchored only a stone’s throw away, its sails tightly furled. Now they were catching the wind, fluttering like ribbons. Theo stood beside Calixta on the deck, pointing. He was pointing at Sophia, who was separated from the ship by a line of Sandmen.

I lost track of time! Sophia realized, aghast. Worse still, she noticed with agitation, she didn’t have her pack. She still held Calixta’s hat, but the precious pack was nowhere to be seen. I must have left it in the carriage, she thought frantically. The Sandmen fired toward the ship; they had not yet seen her. With the hat balanced on her head, Sophia began crawling on hands and knees back toward the coach. Theo, Calixta, and two other pirates were still exchanging volleys with the Sandmen, one of whom was readying his grappling hook.

To Sophia’s relief and surprise, she saw one of the pirates wearing her pack securely on his shoulders. Calixta must have found it. Now if I can only get to the ship. She could see the gangway. Five quick dashes would take her to it.

She stood up to run, burst forward, and collided with a tall, slim man wearing a hat even wider than Calixta’s. He held a revolver in one hand and a long sword in the other. With the tip of the revolver he pushed his hat back, revealing a handsome, bearded face and a wide grin. He looked Sophia over appraisingly. “When my sister said to keep her hat safe,” he said, “you really took her at her word.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Sophia stammered.

“Wisest thing you could have done,” he said cheerfully. He tucked the sword into its sheath, took Sophia’s hand, and led her, running, to the gangway of the ship with red and white sails. As they ran, the Sandmen sighted them and immediately changed course. Sophia heard footsteps pounding on the wooden dock, then a spattering of sharp cracks as something splintered. There was silence and then shouts from all sides. A grappling hook bit into the wooden board just beside her foot. Sophia found herself stumbling across the gangplank and onto the deck.

She turned, breathlessly, as the ship pulled away. The dock was abandoned apart from four strange figures: the Sandmen, mired in a thick, black syrup that had trapped them like flies in honey. Sophia squinted, not comprehending. Then a wave of violent dizziness washed over her. She reached for the deck rail and found it had vanished. She sank to her knees. Then her cheek lay against the polished wooden deck, and the whole world had tipped on its side.

16 Seasick

1891, June 24: 16-Hour 46

If the lands of the New World remain largely unexplored, the seas remain even more so. Philosophers of New Occident have considered the question: if a patch of ocean belonged to the thirtieth century, would we ever know it while sailing through it? Pragmatically speaking, there is no proven method to determine the various ages of the oceans.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World

AFTER THE INITIAL dizziness that pitched her to the deck passed, Sophia propped herself up and watched with queasy awe as the ship swung into motion: Calixta’s men trimmed the sails, shouting to one another across the deck until all the sails were taut with wind. The sun faded behind a passing cloud, and the smell of the ocean suddenly engulfed her. Sophia took a deep breath. When she could speak, she tried to apologize for having risked their departure by losing track of time, but no one seemed to think she had done anything wrong. “You’ll want to thank this lad here for spotting you,” Burr had said, throwing his arm around Theo with a grin, “as I’ve thanked him for being such a fine shot. Molasses, eh? You must have hit four barrels. Those are some sticky scoundrels you left behind on the dock. Natural-born pirate, you are.” Theo beamed, seeming almost bashful in the face of Burr’s compliments.

Furthermore, any inconvenience Sophia might have caused apparently paled alongside the tragedy suffered by one of Calixta’s trunks, which arrived on deck with two bullet holes. She vented her fury on the pirate who had carried it and on her brother for failing to carry it himself. Burr strode across the deck as they left the harbor, calling out casual instructions and shaking off the abuse that Calixta hurled at him.

“Would it make you feel better to put a few bullet holes in Peaches?” Burr asked. “Do, by all means.” He cheerfully gestured toward the unfortunate Peaches, an older man who was tugging on his frilled cuffs with a woeful expression.

“I should,” Calixta roared. “Do you know how difficult it is to find petticoats of the right length?”

Peaches shook his head disconsolately. “I’m sorry, Captain Morris.”

“Rather than telling us all about your petticoats, dearest,” Burr said, “perhaps you should check the damage.”

Calixta glared for a moment longer and then opened the trunk. She inspected the clothing in silence with Peaches standing warily in attendance, and finally she looked up with a mollified expression. “Well, it seems my powder-box stopped the bullets. Peaches,” she said icily, “you owe me a new box of face powder.”

“Certainly, Captain; the moment we arrive in port,” he replied, greatly relieved. Calixta went off to her cabin after her trunks. As the pirates moved about with easy laughter and efficiency, Sophia held her head and tried to control the waves of nausea that swept over her.

The pirates were not in the least as she had imagined them. They seemed more like wealthy vacationers, with their extravagant clothing and their nonchalant air. All of them spoke with the precise, almost quaint locution of the Indies. Even the lowliest deckhand seemed to Sophia more like a fancy footman than a sea-toughened bandit.

Theo was already a favorite after his display of marksmanship, and he had been pulled away into conversation with the deckhands at once. “Hey, you all right?” he asked now. Sophia, knowing it was petty but too angry to care, took refuge in her seasickness and would not speak to him. Finally he shrugged and drifted off.

She was rather more inclined to count on the pirates than Theo, since Calixta had saved her pack and Burr had saved her; though it would have been simple enough to leave her stranded on the dock. I’ll have to ask the pirates for help getting to Nochtland, Sophia decided, trying to quell the anxiety that only worsened her dizziness. She could only hope that in Nochtland she would find Veressa and that then, somehow, they would rescue Shadrack before something terrible happened to him.

Even after hours of sailing, the violent seasickness would not recede. She resigned herself to sitting inertly, watching the horizon and battling nausea. As evening fell, they reached a spot of calm weather and the air grew pleasantly cool. Calixta called to her from across the deck. “Sweetheart, dinner in my cabin.”

“I’m going to stay here,” Sophia replied. “I feel worse inside. I’m not hungry anyway.”

“Poor thing. All right, feel better.”

Calixta withdrew, and Sophia made an effort to rise so that she could get a better look at the sunset. Overhead, the stars were beginning to appear and the sky curved in one continuous descent from purple to blue to pink. Sophia stared hard at the pink edge of the sky and momentarily felt her nausea subside. A moment later she heard footsteps and turned to see someone walking across the deck toward her.

“They sent me up to keep you company, dear.” Sophia looked curiously at the old woman who stood beside her. She was no taller than Sophia herself and almost as thin. Though she held herself straight and spoke in a clear voice, she looked older than anyone Sophia had ever seen. Her white hair was braided and pinned up on her head in a long coil, and she wore a neatly pressed lilac dress with innumerable pleats in the skirt and sleeves. “I’m Grandmother Pearl,” she said, laying her wrinkled hand on Sophia’s. “Even though I’m nobody’s grandmother.” She smiled, holding Sophia’s hand in both her own. “And you, they tell me, are seasick, poor child.”

“Yes,” Sophia said. She realized suddenly, from the gentle pressure of Grandmother Pearl’s fingers and the way she held her head, that the old woman was blind. “It won’t go away.”

“Ah,” Grandmother Pearl said, smiling. Her small, white teeth shone—not unlike pearls themselves. “I know why. I can feel it here in your palm.”

Sophia blinked. “You can?”

“Of course, love. It’s plain to anyone who takes your hand. You’re not bound to time. Of course, the way you’ve heard it explained probably makes it sound rather worse. No internal clock, is that what they say? No sense of time?”

Sophia felt herself blushing in the growing darkness. “Yes. It’s true that I have—I always lose track of time. It’s not something I’m proud of,” she mumbled.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, love,” Grandmother Pearl said, still smiling. “It’s a rare gift to be unbound from time. Think of it—you are free to drift, free to float, like a ship with no anchor weighing it down.”

Sophia glanced down at the wrinkled hands around her own. “But sometimes you want an anchor.”

The old woman led her over to the chairs on the deck. “And you have one. Don’t you carry a watch around with you? Don’t people always remind you of the hour? Aren’t you surrounded by clocks, ticking away, telling you the time? Aren’t we all?”

“I guess that is true.”

“So what do you need an internal clock for? Trust me, love. You’re better off. In my ninety-three years I’ve met only three others not bound to time, and they were all exceptional people.”

Sophia absorbed this doubtfully. “But why does that make me seasick?” she asked as they sat.

“Why, because we’re sailing through a soup of all the different Ages. When the Ages came apart, the waters were in one place. Now different Ages mix in the sea, so that every cup contains more than a dozen.”

None of Shadrack’s explorer friends had ever mentioned this. Sophia held her face up to the briny air, as if testing the truth of it. “Is that possible?”

“I’ve lived on ships for most of my life, and I’ve seen mysteries that can only be explained in that way.”

“Like what kind of mysteries?”

“Strange cities built on the water’s surface that appear one moment and disappear the next. Selkies and mermen building pockets of sea to contain a single Age. Mostly, I’ve seen peculiar things underwater—fragments, you might say—that seem like broken pieces of many Ages, lost in the currents.”

“So you once had your sight?” Sophia asked, fascinated.

“Yes, I did—although, if you ask me, my sight was somewhat like that anchor we were talking about. Just as you are better off without your sense of time, I am better off without my sense of sight. I know it sounds strange to say it, but it was only when I lost my sight that I began understanding the world around me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take your palm, for instance. In my youth I might have taken your hand in just the same way, but I would have been looking at your eyes and your smile to get a good sense of who you were, and I wouldn’t even have paid attention to your hand. After I lost my sight, I noticed things I would never have noticed before, distracted as I was by seeing.”

“I think I understand what you mean,” Sophia said. She was suddenly conscious of how much she was relying on Grandmother Pearl’s appearance in order to get a sense of who she was: her hair, her neat dress, the deep wrinkles around her eyes. “So I have to think about what I notice, since I don’t notice time.”

“That’s right, love,” her companion said approvingly. “What else is there that no one else is seeing because they’re looking at the time? You’re not distracted by time, so you’re bound to notice something everyone else doesn’t.” She paused, letting Sophia consider this. “It may take you a while to discover it, mind!” she added, with a laugh.

Sophia smiled. “You’re right.” She looked at Grandmother Pearl’s wrinkled hands. “If you’re ninety-three, that means you lived through the Great Disruption.”

“I did, although I don’t remember it. I was only a baby then. Though I learned of it from my mother. In the United Indies, where everyone’s livelihood depended on constant travel to either side of the Atlantic, the shock was extreme. The old European ports vanished. The colonies in the Americas transformed. And the Baldlands plunged into warfare and chaos and confusion. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people all waking to find the world around them scrambled—all of them solitary exiles from worlds that no longer existed. It seemed the entire continent had gone mad. My mother always spoke of it as a dream—a deep, long dream that left the world changed forever. Then again, my mother was a dream-reader, and she knew better than most that the boundary between waking and dreaming is an uncertain one.”

“Was your mother a”—Sophia hesitated—“pirate, as well?”

“Ah, she was, but piracy was a different thing in those days. Dangerous, underpaid work. Not like now. My mother was raised on ships and never owned a pair of shoes in her life, poor thing. She made her fortune divining the weather and reading dreams. Her life was a hard one. But now—this is the great age of piracy.”

Sophia thought, hearing Shadrack’s voice, that in truth it was the great age of exploration. But she didn’t contradict her. “Captain Morris’s ship is certainly well-off,” she said mildly.

“She’s a good captain. We’re all well treated and we have regular holidays. Burr and Calixta make a good profit—no doubt there—but they’re not greedy; they share it with the rest of us. We none of us have reason to complain. Still, if you saw other ships, you’d see that this one is modest in comparison.” Grandmother Pearl shook her head. “More wealth on one of those than on some of the smaller islands, I swear. The larger islands, of course, are a different story. Have you been to Havana, dear? It’s awash in coins of every kind.”

“I’ve never been to the United Indies,” Sophia admitted. “I’ve never been to the Baldlands, either. In fact, before this trip I’d never been south of New York.”

Grandmother Pearl laughed and patted her hand. “Well, all the more to look forward to. The Baldlands will take your breath away; they always do, the first time.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Remember what I told you about a cup of water from the seas? Well, the Baldlands are just like that—only on land. All the different Ages, brought together in a moment.”

“I can’t imagine it,” Sophia said, frowning slightly.

“Well, you don’t see it that way, not all at once,” the old woman explained. “Perhaps just after the Great Disruption you could see the lines of where Ages collided; one street in one century, the next street in another. But now, after more than ninety years, the Ages have settled. In the Triple Eras, for example, the three eras have melded into one. You can’t tell that one building is from the past and another is from the future, or that someone is wearing a mixture of clothing from three different eras, or that an animal from the ancient Age sits beside an animal from a later one. Now it seems just what it is—a single, whole Age derived from three.”

Sophia leaned forward eagerly. “Tell me about the animals. I’ve heard it’s the creatures that are the strangest.”

“There are wondrous animals, it’s true,” Grandmother Pearl agreed “But in the Baldlands you have to be careful how you use those words—animal or creature.’”

“Oh! Why?”

“Because of the Mark of the Vine and the Mark of Iron.” She paused, hearing Sophia’s silence. “Have you heard of them?”

“I’ve read about them.” Sophia recalled the passing mention in Shadrack’s atlas. “But I didn’t really understand them. What are they?”

Grandmother Pearl settled back in her chair. “Well, I’m not surprised. People don’t like to speak of it. Particularly people from the Baldlands. But you won’t understand the place unless you understand the Marks. They’ve always been there, at least since the Great Disruption, but the cruel way of seeing them has come about over time. Would you like to hear the story of how it all started?”

“Of course.”

“It was put to verse by the poet Van Mooring, a man from Nochtland who became a sailor. Every mariner knows it.” She began a slow, mournful song in a voice that spun out over the deck like a fragile thread.

“At Nochtland’s gates of iron strong

The guard kept watch to block the throng

Of those who would have broken through

To see the palace so few knew.

A glimpse of peaks and shining glass

Amidst the gardens thick and vast

Was all the towering gates allowed

To passersby and city crowds

Until the stranger did appear

And with his hooded cloak drew near

Demanding to be ushered in

And claiming kinship with the king.

The guard refused; the stranger fought.

His hood fell back and as they sought

To pin him his arms and bind him tight

The stranger hurtled into flight.

His cloak fell free; his wings spread wide

And showed the stranger had not lied.

The emerald leaves with which he flew

Were Mark of Vine and proved him true.

The guard leaped up with mighty bounds

And tore the stranger to the ground.

He fell to earth with broken wings

And broken pride unknown to kings.

The Iron Mark had brought him low.

The cruelty of the Mark’s harsh blows

Was paid by all the guard in kind:

The cost of being metalmind.”

Her voice trailed off, yet the vivid images stayed in Sophia’s mind. “What does that mean—‘The cost of being metalmind?’”

Grandmother Pearl inclined her head. “Why don’t you tell her, dear, about the Mark of Iron?”

Sophia looked past the old woman’s chair and saw with surprise that Theo was standing on the deck in the near darkness, out of sight, but apparently not out of earshot. She realized she had briefly forgotten all about both her nausea and her anger. After a moment’s hesitation, he moved closer and sat down. “The Mark of Iron,” he said quietly, “may be any bone made of metal. Most often it is a person’s teeth. They are sharp and pointed, and they tear.”

Sophia recoiled. “They tore the man’s wings with their teeth?”

“They were defending the gate. They were only doing what was expected of them.”

Grandmother Pearl nodded. “It’s true that the guards argued in their defense that they had been protecting the gate. And there was, they claimed, no way for them to know that the stranger was in fact a nephew to the king, returning to Nochtland after years on the northern frontier. The king, however, declared that the Mark of the Vine should have been proof enough.”

“What happened to the king’s nephew?” Sophia asked.

“His wings were shredded by the guards but over time they re-grew, like new leaves.”

“But the guards were put to death,” Theo added.

Grandmother Pearl turned toward him. “The guards were sentenced to death, yes, and the long enmity between the two Marks began to deepen. It had been a mere dislike before, a suspicion, but with the execution of the palace guard the gulf between them grew. The Mark of the Vine is held to be a sign of privilege and aristocracy. Among the royals, the mark often emerges as wings. For others, it might be a patch of skin, a lock of hair, a pair of fingers. The palest weed, if you’re lucky enough to be born with it, is enough to make the humblest child a blessed one. Those who have the Mark are favored in the Baldlands, and those who don’t have it—ordinary people like you and me—attempt to emulate it. The Mark of Iron is held to be a sign of barbarism and disgrace. Today, no one with the Mark of Iron would dare set foot in Nochtland. They’ve all been driven out. The royal family have come to see conspiracy in the smallest piece of metal. It has gone from being disdained to being criminal.”

“Not farther north,” Theo put in.

“Very true,” Grandmother Pearl agreed. “The raiders in the north wear their iron teeth with pride, and they take no shame in baring them to all the world. You will even see them in Veracruz, and on the roads around the city. Still, they all avoid Nochtland. Fair to say?”

Theo gazed out toward the water. “For sure. People with the Mark of Iron have a way of ending up on the wrong side of the law, even if they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“And some will class those with the Mark of Iron as wild men—or worse. It’s not unusual to hear them called ‘creatures’ or ‘animals’ by those who are especially narrow-minded, which is why I warn you.”

“But are those with the Mark of Iron really so terrible?” Sophia asked.

“Of course not,” Theo scoffed. “The raiders I know are no worse than anyone else. They’re just people—some good and some bad.”

“So you see,” Grandmother Pearl said, “it’s a cruel way of thinking, that has divided people in the Baldlands over many decades.”

Sophia realized that the sun had set completely. The sky was dark and filled with stars, and a slender moon hung on the horizon. “So that’s what they mean when they talk about ‘creatures.’”

“Well,” the old woman said, “there are also what you and I would call creatures—animals from other Ages and strange beings you don’t see on land or sea.”

“Like the Lachrima,” Theo said. Sophia rolled her eyes in the darkness.

Grandmother Pearl was silent for a moment. “Yes, like the Lachrima.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t hold with superstition, but there are some on board who wouldn’t like to hear you say that word. It’s thought that naming them brings them closer.”

“Who would have thought? Pirates are afraid of something, after all,” Theo said, grinning, the somber air that had previously taken hold of him apparently banished.

“Oh, yes! We like gunfire well enough, but apparitions and Lachrima are another matter.”

“Have you ever heard one?” Theo wondered avidly.

“I have,” she said somberly. “The first time was long ago, in the Baldlands, but only a few years back, when we were in Havana, I heard one haunting a ship called the Rosaline.”

“They’re not just in the Baldlands, then?” Sophia asked.

“They’re most often found there, but you might hear one almost anywhere. This one had been aboard the Rosaline for weeks. The poor sailors were at their wits’ ends. When they came ashore in Havana, they abandoned ship, and the captain couldn’t convince a single soul to return. In the end, either the captain or someone else cut the ship loose, letting it drift empty with nothing but the Lachrima. If it hasn’t sunk, it’s out there now, sailing around the world with its lone passenger. Eventually it will no doubt fall to pieces—an empty vessel on an empty sea. The Lachrima will disappear and fade with time.”

“Oh, they disappear,” Sophia said with sudden comprehension. She thought back to Mrs. Clay’s story and the Lachrima’s abrupt vanishing at the border. “How? Why?”

“Hard to say. It’s for this reason that they appear to some as monsters, to others as phantoms, and to still others as only a distant sound. In Xela they appear most in the last form; people refer to the crying as el llanto del espanto, ‘the spirit’s lament.’ No one knows how they disappear. They are not understood well at all, poor creatures. But my sense is that they comprehend their fate. They know that they are disappearing. And they are terrified of it. Wouldn’t you be?” Grandmother Pearl pushed herself to her feet. “Well, with that I’ll leave you. Have I distracted you from your seasickness?”

“Yes, thank you.” Sophia said earnestly. “I forgot all about it.”

“Good. Tomorrow we’ll talk of happier things, no?” She rested one hand on Sophia’s forehead and then let her hand float until it found Theo’s forehead. “Good night, children.”

“Good night, Grandmother Pearl,” he said, taking her hand in his and kissing it gently.

“Ah!” she said, gripping his hand between both her own. She felt his scars almost tenderly. “That’s why you gave me your left hand before, dear boy.” She smiled down at him. “There’s no shame in this hand, Theo. Only strength.”

He gave a forced laugh, but didn’t reply.

“Only strength,” she repeated, patting his hand. “Good night. Sleep well.”

17 A Swan in the Gulf

1891, June 25: 17-Hour 41

After 1850, with the expansion of the rum and sugar trade between the United Indies and New Occident, piracy in the Caribbean grew increasingly lucrative. Plantations in the Indies were faced with the prospect of either continual theft along the trade route or costly collaboration. Most opted for the latter, and as the years progressed pirates saw many of their ships transform into legitimate businesses charged with managing the trade route. There resulted a widening gulf between thieving pirates and their more prosperous cousins in the plantations’ employ.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World

CALIXTA AND BURTON Morris came from a long line of pirates. Their parents and grandparents had sailed the dangerous waters of the Caribbean when every ship, regardless of its sail, was a potential enemy. No one who met Calixta and Burr, as he was known to all, suspected at first from their easy manner the tragedy that lay in their past. In fact, it was the tragedy itself that allowed them to enjoy life so fully; they knew it could be taken away in an instant.

They had been twins, two children among seven. Their mother had been the daughter of a pirate captain. Their father was the first mate of the infamous Typhoon. For years they sailed together, along with their growing family, until the captain of the Typhoon, in his zeal to maintain his ship’s reputation, attacked an ambitious rival. The battle was long and bitter, and when it ended the ships were nothing more than burnt shells.

Calixta and Burr, less than a year old at the time, lay together in their baby basket and drifted on the charred remains all the way to shore. Grandmother Pearl was one of the Typhoon’s few survivors, and though the fires caused her to lose her sight, she stayed with the basket and protected the infants with all her remaining strength.

It was Grandmother Pearl who raised them, and it was she who chose the Swan, the ship sailed by kindly old Captain Aceituna. Though Aceituna called himself a pirate, he had grown cautious in old age, and he sailed only the safer routes. He dedicated himself to shipping the rubber tapped in the southern Baldlands to the United Indies and New Occident, where the material was used to make Goodyears, boots, and other valuable commodities. The “weeping wood” grown on the outskirts of the Triple Eras had made many people, including Aceituna, quite rich.

Of course the tragedy of their family’s death hung over Calixta and Burr, but Grandmother Pearl and the others on the Swan made life for the two children as happy as they could. When Aceituna retired, leaving the ship in their care, Calixta and Burr vowed that the Swan would never become like the Typhoon. They did not aim for greatness; they aimed for prosperity. The Swan never attacked without provocation. The Morrises laughed good-naturedly when pirates from other ships mocked them as the “polite pirates.” “Better polite than dead,” Burr always replied. “Besides,” he would sometimes add, “why look for a fight when the best fights always come to me?” Calixta kept track of the routes sailed by other pirates and mapped the Swan’s path to prevent unexpected confrontations.

On her second night aboard, Sophia had occasion to study the ship’s nautical charts, and it gave her the opportunity she’d been waiting for. She had already decided to ask Burr and Calixta for help in reaching Nochtland. She had no choice, but even if she had been able to get there without them, she would have asked. The way that Burr had helped her on the dock in New Orleans and the fact that Calixta had saved her pack when she easily could have either left it or taken it for herself had paved the way. Grandmother Pearl’s kindness convinced her further. The pirates clearly had nothing to do with the Sandmen and Montaigne, and it could only help, she decided, to tell them what had happened to Shadrack.

She sat on the deck surrounded by lanterns, poring over the charts and weather maps that Burr had brought from his cabin. He and Calixta were a few paces away, attempting to teach Theo the rudiments of sword-fighting. Grandmother Pearl sat listening to them with a smile.

“Molasses, don’t stand there facing me like you’re asking to be skewered,” Burr counseled. “Turn your body sideways.”

“It’s heavy,” Theo protested, pacing backward with the sword in both his hands. “I’d rather just use a revolver.”

“And lazy to top it off,” Burr said, advancing toward him and rolling his eyes at Calixta. “Calixta’s half your size and she wields that sword you’re holding like one of her hat pins.”

“Half his size?” she exclaimed, whirling on her brother and disarming him with the wooden pole she held. “What do I look like to you, a fat fish?”

“Fish aren’t nearly as vain as you are, dearest,” Burr replied, dodging the pole and rolling across the deck to retrieve his sword. “And they don’t look as charming in ruffled petticoats,” he conceded, turning back to Theo. “Use your other hand,” he said, “the one you apparently like to use as a dartboard.”

Theo grimaced and passed the sword to his scarred hand. “I’m just saying, a revolver’s a lot easier.”

Burr quickly loosened a length of rope near him and Theo looked up, too late, and was trapped beneath a sprawling fishing net. “Agh!” he shouted, dropping the sword with a clatter and struggling against the knotted ropes.

“Pistol wouldn’t do much for you now, would it, Molly?”

“We just bought that net last month,” Calixta complained.

“He’s not going to cut through it. Look at him.” Burr chuckled as Theo fought to disentangle himself. “What were you saying about fat fish?”

Sophia, who had been entirely absorbed with the charts she was studying, suddenly let out a gasp. “Oh!” she exclaimed, holding up a paper map. “This is Shadrack’s!”

“Who, dear?” Grandmother Pearl asked.

Sophia collected herself. “My uncle, Shadrack Elli. He made this map.”

“Did he, now?” Burr said with interest. He and Calixta peered over her shoulder. “Ah, yes! Quite a map, that one. This island,” he said, pointing, “is so remote that most people have never even heard of it. Only pirates ever go there. And yet this map is incredibly exact. Every stream, every rock—it’s remarkable.”

“Yes. It’s a lovely map,” Sophia agreed, gazing down at the fine lines drawn in her uncle’s familiar hand.

“How does he do it? He’s never been there, I’m sure.”

“I don’t really know,” she admitted. Shadrack was an exceptional cartologer, of course, but even with all that she knew of his methods, there were many that still eluded her. “He probably talked to an explorer. That’s how he makes a lot of his maps.”

“But with this degree of precision?”

“He’s good at that. If you describe something to him, he can make a perfect map of it.”

Calixta shook her head. “But people never know entirely what they see. They always forget things or miss them. Are all his maps like this?”

“Well,” Sophia replied, hesitating, “he really has all kinds of different maps.” She paused a moment longer and then slowly reached into her pack. “In fact, this map he left me is very different. I still haven’t been able to make sense of it.” Sophia drew out the glass map, which she had left awake. Its etched lines shone faintly. “You see, Shadrack didn’t run off with an actress. He would never do something like that,” she said, giving Theo a scathing look just as he emerged from beneath the fishing net. “He was kidnapped. He left a note telling me to find a friend of his in Nochtland, and he left me this. The men in New Orleans—the Sandmen. This is what they were after.”

Burr gave her a keen look while Calixta sat down beside her.

“It’s a glass map,” Sophia said. “Have you ever seen one?”

Calixta and Burr shook their heads. “They won’t have heard of it,” Theo said. “They’re common in the Baldlands, but nowhere else.”

Burr raised his eyebrows. “Can we take a look?” She nodded, and the two joined her.

“Describe it for me, will you?” Grandmother Pearl whispered.

“It’s a sheet of glass,” Sophia said, “that in the moonlight becomes covered with writing. Most of it in other languages.”

“Here it says in English You will see it through me,” Burr said.

“But that’s just the writing,” Sophia said.

“What do you mean, ‘just the writing’?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the glass.

“It’s a memory map.” Now that she was confronted with it again, she felt reluctant to experience the memories she knew it contained. “Theo and I have read it before. I think it’s the same wherever you place your finger.”

“And then what happens?” Calixta asked.

“You see the memories that are in the map.”

For a moment the pirates stared at Sophia in disbelief, and then Calixta leaned forward. “Me first.” She eagerly placed her fingertip on the glass, and immediately her expression changed. She closed her eyes, her face still and thoughtful. When she took her finger away, she shuddered.

“Heavens, Calixta. What is it?” asked Burr.

“You try it,” she said shortly.

He touched the glass surface, his expression grave as the memories flooded his mind. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said slowly, when they had run their course. “What, exactly, is this map of?”

“We don’t know,” Sophia said. “My uncle left it for me. I’d never seen it before. And it’s strange that it’s all writing. I have no idea when or where it’s from.”

“I’d like to try it, dears,” Grandmother Pearl said, reaching forward. “If one of you will just guide my hand.”

Sophia did so, and as soon as she touched the glass, the old woman gasped. Sophia drew her hand away. “No—I want to see the whole thing,” she said, and Sophia placed her finger once again on the smooth surface.

“Did your uncle ever mention such an event in another context?” Burr inquired.

Sophia shook her head. “Not that I recall.”

Grandmother Pearl finished reading; her face was withdrawn, her brow furrowed.

“The thing is,” Sophia said with some consternation, “I don’t know that much about memory maps. I was only starting to learn about them. Shadrack said that they come from people’s memories of the past. That’s really all I know.”

“Are you very sure, love?” asked Grandmother Pearl.

“What do you mean?” Sophia asked.

“I wonder,” the old woman said. “It reminds me of something. The part in the memory when something heavy is rolled off the edge, and then everything is destroyed. It sounds so much like an old legend my mother used to tell me. Could the map be a story? Could it be something made up?”

Surprised, Sophia returned to the glass map. “I don’t know. Shadrack says a map can only contain what its author knows. I suppose that could be a story, as long as it’s true. It bears the mapmaker’s insignia, which means whoever wrote it swore to make an accurate account. What’s the legend?”

Grandmother Pearl leaned back in her chair. “It’s a story I never told you, Calixta and Burton, because it’s too sad and terrible. In truth, it was very foolish of my mother to tell it to me.”

Burr smiled at her. “Well, now we’re all grown up, Granny. Do your worst.”

Her face lit up with tenderness. “You foolish boy. This story strikes terror into any heart, young or old. It’s a story about the end of the world. I believe my mother told it to me because she was haunted by it herself. She called it ‘the story of the boy from the buried city.’”

—18-Hour 20: Grandmother Pearl’s Story—

“THE STORY GOES like this.

“In a city far away, in a time yet to come, there’s a boy—an orphan. The boy is an outcast; no one wants him because of a terrible burn on one side of his face. He doesn’t know where the burn came from; he only knows that it has left him marked forever, and that no one loves him because of it. He wanders the streets alone, and he is cast out of every doorway. Then, in great sadness and despair, he climbs all the way to the high temple, where, at the top of five hundred steps, the stone god that protects the city sits on a ledge. He asks the temple seer how he has come to be what he is and how he can change it. The seer stares for a long time at the bones that fall in a pattern before her, and finally she tells him this: ‘You are not from here,’ she says. ‘You are from an underground city. That is your true home. That is why no one here loves you and you do not belong.’ The boy asks her how he can get to the underground city, but the seer does not know. She too recoils from his burnt face. ‘All I know is that the stone god protecting us will fall before you find it.’

“The boy is haunted by this knowledge, and he searches through the entire city for some entrance, some doorway, some tunnel to the city underground. He never finds it. Finally, in desperation, he devises a plan. He will make the stone god fall. He will destroy the city and find the passage underground in the ruins. He has been too unloved, after all. Perhaps if there were one person in the city he could think of kindly, he would be unable to do it. But there is no one he can think of in that way. He runs all the way up the five hundred steps and from there to the ledge where the stone god sits. The boy is small, but the stone gives way easily and falls. The entire temple begins to crumble around him, and as he races down the five hundred steps, the fires begin.

“The city burns for a whole week, until nothing but ash remains, and the boy picks through the rubble, searching for the entrance to the underground city. What he finds surprises him. There are entrances to the underground city everywhere—in almost every building and on every street. But before the fire they were carefully boarded up; they were sealed and covered and hidden; it seems when the city was created, everyone was intent on keeping whatever lay underground out.

“The boy follows one of the passages deep into the ground. He travels for hours. And at the end he finds the city that the seer promised him. It is a beautiful city, built underground from shimmering stone. It has vast pools of water and wide walkways. Precious metals line the roads and jewels wink at him from the doorways. There is only one difficulty. The city is empty. As the boy walks through it, he hears his own footfalls echoing through the vast, deserted caverns. He spends many days exploring the empty city, and on the fifth day he discovers, to his surprise, another person. At the very center of the underground city he finds an old—very old—man, who says he is a seer. The boy sits down wearily before him. ‘I have had enough of seers,’ he says. ‘So I won’t ask you my destiny. But tell me. Why is this city empty? Where have all the people gone, and why are you still here?’

“The old man gazes at the boy steadily, and though it pains him to answer, he speaks. ‘This city was abandoned long ago. A seer told the city elders: “A boy from this underground city will destroy your entire city, and every one of you who remains in it will perish.” Fearing the seer’s words, the elders abandoned the city, and they moved to the surface, where they hoped to escape the prophecy. My mother was the seer, and she was the only one who remained. She was of the belief that words, once they are spoken, have a way of coming true. My mother has long since passed away, and now it is only I who live here.’ The boy listens to the words of the seer, and he realizes that in his attempt to find his home he has destroyed it. He weeps until he can hardly see, and his tears make a pool, not unlike the underground pools all around him. When he stops weeping, he opens his eyes and sees his reflection in the pool made by his tears. And then, as he watches, the scars on his face begin to vanish. They fade away, and a whole, beautiful face stares back at him. Those who had known him certainly would have loved him. But no one else survives. He remains underground with the seer, living in the buried city for the rest of his days. And that is how the legend says the world ends.”

They were all silent. “Your mother told you that as a bedtime story?” exclaimed Calixta.

Grandmother Pearl sighed. “She lived so much in the dream world, and she had a hard life. She was never very sharp on where ordinary life ended and tragedy began.”

“I should say,” Burr commented.

“But it’s not true, is it?” Sophia asked anxiously. “It hasn’t really happened?”

“Well that’s the strange thing about time in our day and age,” Grandmother Pearl said. “You never know what happened before and what happened after. I really don’t know. My mother always told it as a legend.”

“I don’t understand why that story would be on this map, or why the map would be so important.”

Grandmother Pearl nodded. “I might be wrong, after all. It just sounded similar. These memories could take place almost anywhere. There is no shortage of such destruction.”

Sophia turned the map over gently to still the images, and as she did so she glimpsed something through the glass. She held it before her and peered at the deck, where one of the floorboards seemed to shine as if lit from within. “What is that?” she asked. Without the glass, the floor of the deck once again looked uniform in the dim moonlight.

Burr looked at her curiously. “What?”

Sophia raised the glass again and the floorboard stood out clearly. “There,” she said, pointing. “One of the floorboards seems to have light coming out from behind it.” She put the glass down. “That’s strange. But only when I look at it through the glass.”

“Let me see that,” Burr said, with less than customary politeness. Sophia handed him the glass. “Amazing,” he whispered. “Calixta, look at this.”

Calixta held the glass up and caught her breath.

“What is it?” Grandmother Pearl asked anxiously.

“Seen through the glass,” Burr said slowly, “one of the floorboards appears luminescent.”

“Aceituna’s floorboard?” Grandmother Pearl exclaimed.

“Yes. Captain Aceituna,” Burr said, turning to Sophia and Theo and lowering his voice, “left us all his paper maps and charts. He also left us a map that points to his—what would you call them, Calixta?”

“Emergency funds,” she said, returning the glass to Sophia with a thoughtful expression.

“Buried treasure?” Theo breathed.

“Well, not actually buried,” Burr said. “But yes—treasure. Emergency funds. In case of hostile takeover, he engraved the map in cedar and placed it—face down—in the deck of the ship. It is that floorboard—the one that shines so brightly through your glass, Sophia.”

18 Chocolate, Paper, Coin

1891, June 26: 2-Hour #

We accept ONLY cacao, silver, or Triple Eras bank notes. No stones, glass, or spice will be accepted. Bank notes from New Occident are accepted at a 1.6 exchange rate. To change other currencies see the money changer.

—Vendor’s sign at Veracruz market

IT TOOK ONLY a few experiments to determine why the Tracing Glass illuminated Aceituna’s instructions. Though she examined almost every inch of the Swan through it, Sophia found that only one kind of object shone: maps. The nautical charts that Burr had brought her shone like sheets of hammered gold; the map of the island drawn by Shadrack glowed as if alive with starlight; Calixta’s cabin, the walls papered with maps, seemed flooded with light that shone through a dozen map-sized windows. As a final experiment, Sophia asked Burr to draw a map on a blank sheet of paper while she observed him through the glass. At first, the blank sheet, Burr, and his quill all looked quite ordinary. But the moment the faint line he had drawn became a route, the paper took on a different aspect. When he drew a small compass in the corner, the sheet fairly glowed.

Clearly the glass map, whatever else its contents, illuminated other maps. Sophia pondered the significance of her discovery while Burr, Calixta, and Theo slept in their cabins and Grandmother Pearl sat beside her on the deck, snoring lightly. In most cases, of course, the glass would be redundant: Burr’s nautical charts were clearly nautical charts, and the glass did not make them any easier to read. But if one were looking for a hidden map, Sophia reflected, her mind whirring, the glass might be very useful. What if a glass map was disguised in a window? she thought. Or what if in a whole library there were only three maps? In such circumstances, the Tracing Glass would be invaluable. So tracing means finding, not outlining, she reflected. The multilingual instructions, which had once seemed so strange—“you will see it through me”—now made perfect sense. Anyone who could read would be told the purpose of the glass at first glance.

It brought her no closer to understanding the memories, but the discovery made her reconsider why Shadrack had entrusted the glass to her. Maybe it’s not to help find himbut to help me find another map. A map no one can else can see, perhaps? Is Veressa supposed to help me? Her thoughts drifted, and suddenly she sat up, electrified. She rummaged quietly through her pack and drew out her notebook. Flipping through the pages, she found the drawings she’d made after the confrontation with Montaigne.

All the different pieces of the puzzle were there: the Lachrima from Shadrack’s note, the glass map, Montaigne, and the Nihilismians who traveled with him. There had seemed to be no connection, but suddenly there was, at least for some of the pieces, because she remembered what she had been unable to recall before. Back at East Ending Street, while learning to read maps, she had asked Shadrack about a map of the world, and he had told her about something called the carta mayor: a memory map of the entire world, which he had said was a Nihilismian myth. Could it be that the Nihilismians believed the glass map would show the carta mayor? Maybe the map of the world isn’t really hidden, Sophia thought. Maybe it’s hidden in plain sight. She held the glass up before her and gazed through it at the dark night sky. “You will see it through me,” she whispered. The stars on the other side of the glass winked, fluttered, and stared like thousands of distant eyes.

—6-Hour 37: Port of Veracruz—

THE SWAN COASTED into port early the next morning. The city of Veracruz, eastern entry to the realm of Emperor Sebastian Canuto, gleamed like a white seashell. From the deck of a ship, Veracruz appeared like a jeweled promise; it belied the vast, fragmented landscape that lay beyond it. The cities—Nochtland, Veracruz, and Xela—preserved and even heightened their luster year by year, leaching all the wealth from the surrounding towns and flourishing in a state of exaggerated, heady splendor. Princess Justa, from her perch in the shining castle at the heart of the Canuto empire in Nochtland, could pretend that the entire land enjoyed such luxury. Her father, Emperor Sebastian, who had traveled north to pacify the bands of rebellious raiders, knew better. He understood that beyond the walled cities of the Triple Eras, the empire existed only as a smattering of besieged forts, impoverished towns, and miserable farms surrounded by wild, unexplored terrain. Sebastian had long since abandoned the goal of unifying his empire. He fought the northern raiders now less to subdue them and more to avoid the prospect of returning to a castle that he had come to understand ruled almost nothing. The thought of once again donning the meaningless robes, the glittering crown, the air of courtly gravity, depressed him and filled him with dread. He would leave such illusions to his daughter, to whom they were better suited.

Yet in the Triple Eras, to both visitors and inhabitants, the illusion appeared most convincing. Sophia stood on the deck of the Swan and looked out with trembling excitement: a cluttered dock; a sprawling town of white stone; and past the town, palm trees and sand as far as the eye could see. Gulls flew low, their cries hungry and urgent. She could see the muddled movement of a hundred ships crowding the shore. The discovery of the glass map’s properties had opened an unexpected door, and she had the sense that she was about to burst through it. The whole vast world of the Baldlands lay before her, its mysteries waiting to be uncovered. She was finally arriving—after what felt to her like one long, fevered age—and one step closer to finding Veressa. Her stomach jumped and then, to her great relief, suddenly grew calm as the Swan eased into port.

Burr gave the crew special instructions: apart from Grandmother Pearl and Peaches, who would be staying with the ship, they were granted a week’s holiday. Burr announced that he and Calixta would be accompanying some of their merchandise into Nochtland, and that he would carry parcels or messages for anyone who planned to avoid the trip inland. “We’ll be sailing at eight the night we return,” Burr told the crew. “And don’t forget we’re on the nine-hour clock here. So when I say eight, I mean eight on the Baldlands clock.”

The pirates dispersed, and Burr joined Calixta, Theo, and Sophia. “It’s market day. Why don’t I go in to find Mazapán?” he asked his sister.

Calixta gave him a look. “I think we should just hire a coach. You’re being cheap.”

“Is it expensive to get to Nochtland?” Sophia asked worriedly, realizing she had no idea how far New Occident currency would take her.

Calixta waved her hand dismissively. “You and Theo are guests of ours, darling, so don’t even think about spending a penny. The coach hardly costs anything anyway,” she said to Burr.

“Mazapán has a cart,” Burr said. “There’s no sense hiring a coach when he can take us. I’ll go find him, come back for the crates, and we’ll be off in an hour. You stay here and collect marriage proposals, eh, dearest?” Calixta walked off in a huff. Burr settled his broad hat comfortably onto his head. “Sophia, Theo—any wish to see the market?”

“Do you think we’re—is it likely we’ve been followed to Veracruz?” Sophia asked worriedly.

“Possible,” he admitted, “but unlikely. Your admirers in New Orleans may have discovered our intended route, but they can’t have gotten here before us.”

They needed no further persuading. “While we are there, would I be able to post a letter to Boston?” she asked.

“Best to leave it with Peaches. He’ll take it to the next paquebot bound for the Indies, and from there I’m sure someone will be traveling to Boston.”

As they crossed the crowded dock, Sophia found it easy to keep Burr in sight because of his enormous hat, but somewhat difficult to keep up with his long stride. He easily dodged men carrying crates on their backs, a swinging load of timber, and a runaway pig that was screaming its way to shore with its owner close on its heels. The Boston waterfront seemed a quiet and orderly place in comparison to Veracruz.

The tumult of leaving, loading, unloading, and boarding was made worse by the activity just beyond the docks, a dense network of stalls, carts, and makeshift counters. The mass of people around them seemed to be carried by a tide that flushed them through like grains of sand: streaming along quickly, piling up and clogging the way, and spilling over irresistibly. Beyond them and slightly to the right, a white border of stucco buildings—the city of Veracruz—made but a feeble dam against the market’s onslaught. As Burr pushed through the crowd, Sophia clutched her pack and at the same time took a firm hold of one of his coattails.

Once they had entered the market, it was difficult to see clearly, because Sophia was immediately sandwiched tightly between Burr and Theo. As they inched along, she caught glimpses of vendors selling tomatoes, oranges, lemons, cucumbers, squash, onions, and dozens of kinds of produce that she had never seen before, spread out on blankets or piled high in baskets. They passed a stall with bags of white and yellow powders that she realized were flours, and another that sold fragrant spices: cinnamon and clove and pepper filled the air. A woman with a small tent set up about her had cages full of chickens, and just past her was a man with pails full of fish. Sitting placidly beside the man, wearing an awkward collar around its slippery neck, was a toad the size of a full-grown man. Sophia’s eyes widened, but all of the people around her ignored it, as if nothing could be more commonplace. The vendors hollered as they passed, some in English and some in other languages, naming their prices even as they wrapped their wares for customers and counted change.

Beyond the wave of murmurs and shouts, Sophia could hear another sound: wind chimes. At least one dangled from every stall, and many of the vendors sold the chimes that hung along their tents’ edges. The air was filled with a constant melodic chiming and tinkling and ringing that reminded her of Mrs. Clay’s upstairs apartment.

Burr took a quick turn to the right, and they abruptly passed through a row of fabric stalls. One vendor after another called out her prices and displayed bolts of cloth colored in brilliant red and blue and purple. An old woman whose broad smile had a few missing teeth waved a flag made of ribbons to the passersby, jangling the chime that hung above her. The stalls that followed sold feathers and jars of beads and spools of thread. Sophia took it all in with wonderment, but Burr was quickening his pace and she had to walk briskly to keep up. He turned to the left, by stalls selling soap and bottled perfumes and incense, and then suddenly the air went from soapy to sweet, and she found herself surrounded by confections. Candies of all shapes and sizes were laid out in boxes: nougat and caramel and spun sugar and meringues. Many of the stalls sold candies she had never seen, and she only knew that they must be candy by the delicious smell that filled the air.

“We’re almost there,” Burr hollered over his shoulder.

Sophia didn’t answer—she could hardly catch her breath. Then Burr ducked into a cream-colored tent at their right. “Mazapán!” he shouted at the tall, pink-cheeked man who stood behind the cloth-covered table that served as a counter, surrounded by shelves of plates, cups, and dishes.

“Morris!” the man shouted back, his face breaking into a grin. He finished dealing with a customer, then embraced Burr. The two of them proceeded to yell at one another over the commotion, but Sophia had stopped paying attention. A woman handed her little boy a spoon that she had just purchased. With a look of delight, the boy bit off the end and walked away, following his mother, his mouth smeared with chocolate. Sophia stared at the contents of the cloth-covered table. Mazapán, she realized, was a chocolate vendor.

But his was not ordinary chocolate. Anyone who passed by the stall would have told you that Mazapán was actually a potter. His table was stacked high with beautiful dishes: plates, bowls, cups, pitchers, forks, knives, and spoons; a cake dome, a serving platter, and a butter dish; and a long procession of coffee pots with delicate spouts. They were painted with flowers and intricate designs of every color. Sophia was awestruck. She touched a small blue cup experimentally; it felt just like a real one. She looked curiously at the man who had created it all, who was still in loud conversation with Burr; then her attention was caught by the vendor at the neighboring stall—a tiny person with a fierce expression, arguing with one of her customers. “I take cacao, silver, or paper. I don’t know where you’re from, but here you can’t pay with pictures.”

The thin man holding out a small black rectangle said something, and the woman responded fiercely. “I don’t care if it’s a map reader. You still can’t pay with it.” She snatched back the man’s parcel and pointed over her shoulder. “If you want to talk maps, go see the woman who sells maps.”

Sophia watched, wide-eyed. The thin man, who wore a dirty overcoat, leaned forward to ask a question. It took him a moment to get the vendor’s attention; she had already moved on to another customer. When he tugged on her sleeve, the woman looked at him crossly. “Yes,” she said curtly. “The one selling onions.”

Turning to look behind her, Sophia caught a glimpse of a woman standing behind several baskets full of onions. Burr was still talking excitedly to Mazapán, who had begun to pack up his dishes. Theo was nowhere to be seen. She thought he’d been following as they wound through the market, but now she was not so sure. With one last glance at Burr, Sophia decided that his hat would make an easy landmark and dove into the crowd.

If it was difficult to squeeze through the market with Burr, it was even harder on her own. She was caught up and pushed along past several stalls. It’s like being on a trolley made of people, she thought. She glimpsed a basket full of onions. And here’s my stop. She wriggled out as hard as she could, using her elbows perhaps more fiercely than was necessary, and a moment later found herself pressed up against the baskets. Next to her, the thin man was leaning forward to talk to the vendor.

The woman shook her head as he spoke. “I’m sorry, sir. I only have onion maps. You’ll find the market in Veracruz thin on maps. All of the map vendors stay in Nochtland.”

The man turned away dejectedly and drifted back into the crowd. He seemed tired and haggard, as if he had been traveling for too long. An explorer from another Age, short on funds, Sophia thought sympathetically. She watched him go and then turned to the baskets full of onions. The one closest to her had a little paper pinned to the edge that said NOCHTLAND. Another basket said XELA, and yet another was labeled SAN ISIDRO.

“Where are you headed, dear?” the vendor asked loudly. “I’ve got maps to any place in the Triple Eras, many other places besides.” Her dark hair, entwined around half a dozen fragrant gardenias, was pulled back in a tight bun, and she had tiny leaves and flowers painted in dark green ink across her brow.

Sophia hesitated a moment. “Nochtland,” she said.

“They’re right in front of you, then,” the woman said cheerily. “But frankly, you don’t need it if you’re leaving from here. Just follow the main road. Can’t miss it. It’s about two days travel with good horses.”

They seemed to be ordinary yellow onions with coppery skins. “How do these work?”

“What’s that, dear?”

“How do these work? Are they really maps?” Sophia wished she could look at them through the glass map, but it was midday, and the crowded market was no place for something so precious.

The woman seemed unsurprised. “Not from here?”

Sophia shook her head. “I’m from Boston; from New Occident.”

“Well, these are Way-Finding Onions. Guaranteed to have been planted in their location’s native soil. Each layer of the onion leads you onward until you arrive at your destination.”

“What do you mean, ‘leads you onward’?” Sophia asked, fascinated.

“They don’t necessarily take you by the quickest or easiest route, mind you,” the woman said. “But they’ll get you there.”

Sophia reached into her purse for her money. “Do you take money from New Occident?”

“Cacao, silver, or Triple Eras paper. But I’ll take New Occident paper; I can change it at a better rate.”

Sophia was taking out her money when she suddenly felt a violent push from the crowd behind her. “Watch it,” she said irritably. Then she felt an arm around her waist, and someone pulled her away from the stall and into the crowd. “Hey!” she said. As she clutched her money and her pack and tried to keep from falling, she looked at the person who had grabbed her and saw with astonishment that it was Theo. “You’re hurting my arm,” she shouted.

Theo ignored her protests. “Come on,” he said, dragging her onward. He wove through the crowd, keeping his head low and holding Sophia’s wrist tightly.

“Theo, what is it?” she panted, when she had the chance. “Is it Montaigne?”

For a moment, he seemed to not recognize the name. He frowned, looked over his shoulder, and led them behind a stall selling leather goods.

“Is it Montaigne?” Sophia asked again, her voice rising.

“It’s not Montaigne,” he said brusquely. “It’s a raider I used to know.”

Sophia realized that, amid the usual commotion of the market, there was an even greater commotion coming toward them. Angry shouts erupted as two people toppled against a stall, sending it tumbling. “A raider?” Sophia asked, gasping for air as they ran along an empty stretch between two of the leather shops. “Why is he chasing you?”

“I can’t explain right now. Just have to get away from him.”

They burst out into a quiet part of the market where all the stalls were filled with baskets. “Here,” Sophia said, twisting out of Theo’s grasp. She ran toward one of the vendors. The tallest baskets were large enough to hold a whole wardrobe full of clothes—or the person who wore them. “Crouch down,” she said quickly.

“In that?” Theo exclaimed.

“He’s coming,” Sophia warned, hearing nearby shouts.

Theo stood frozen for a moment, and then he abruptly crouched down. Sophia took the nearest large basket and overturned it on top of him. It looked like just another among the many the vendor sold. “Don’t move,” she whispered. Then she ran to the astonished vendor and thrust out the bills she’d been holding. “Please—we’ll give it back in just a moment.”

The woman gave a small nod. She pocketed the money without a word and gently pushed Sophia toward the back of the stall. Saying something Sophia couldn’t understand, she handed her a small, half-finished basket.

A man burst into the quiet square. He looked in each direction, taking huge, heaving breaths. His blond hair came down almost to his waist, and his beard fanned out like the arms of a jellyfish. Both were laden with silver beads and bells that rang out every time he turned his head. His worn leather boots were coated with yellow dust, and the rawhide coat he wore trailed its ragged edges on the ground. As he turned toward her, his fists clenched, Sophia saw that every single one of his teeth was made of metal. They were sharp and made a jagged line, like the tips of old knives sharpened many times. They glinted in the sunlight, as did the silver in his hair and the long knife he drew from his belt. He stood staring back at Sophia—she could not take her eyes off him—and then slowly walked toward her.

He pointed the knife at her chest. “What. Are. You. Staring. At?” he snarled, jabbing each word at her like another knife.

Sophia couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t afraid yet; she was only fascinated. “Your teeth,” she breathed.

The man stared at her for what seemed to Sophia like an hour. Then suddenly he broke into laughter. He lifted the knife and slowly ran its edge along his teeth, making a dull clinking sound. “You like them, sugar? How about a kiss?”

Sophia shook her head slowly. She met his eyes, and the raider’s teeth disappeared into a scowl. “You can skip the kiss if you tell me which way the kid went,” he said.

She pointed to her left, away from the central market.

The raider smiled, and Sophia saw a quick glint of silver. A moment later he was gone.

Part of her still could not believe what she’d seen—the metallic glimmers from his hair, his teeth, his knife, and the silver clasps of his coat. The group of basket vendors had gone silent when the raider appeared in their midst. Now they began talking to each other in low voices. It seemed to Sophia that all of them were looking at her.

She put the half-finished basket down and hurried over to where Theo was hidden. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t see behind me. Is he gone?” he asked in a muffled voice.

“He’s gone. Come out, and we’ll find Burr.” She lifted the basket and Theo stood up. He glanced quickly around the square. Sophia turned to thank the vendor, and as she did so the woman handed her two straw hats. Her crown of braids, interwoven with long green grass, nodded as she patted her apron and spoke.

“What’s she saying, Theo?”

He was gazing distractedly around the stalls but turned back briefly. “She’s giving you those for the money you gave her.”

Sophia took the hats. “Thank you. Thank you for helping us.” The woman smiled, nodded, and returned to her tent. Sophia put on one of the hats and gave the other to Theo. “We’ll be a little hidden with these,” she said.

Theo donned the hat. “Come on—I know the way back. This way.” He put his hand on her arm and found that she was trembling. He stopped abruptly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sophia said, clenching her fists. The danger had passed, but only now did she feel the waves of fear washing over her. “That raider was scary.”

For a moment, his tense expression softened. He put his scarred hand in Sophia’s and squeezed tightly. “You sure fooled me. You looked like you weren’t scared of anything.” He pulled at her gently. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

19 The Bullet

1891, June 24: Shadrack Missing (Day 4)

Most firsthand accounts of the Great Disruption describe witnessing the passage of a year while time was suspended. But the prophet Amitto claims to have perceived all time past and present during his revelation, experiencing each day of twenty hours as any other. The Chronicles of the Disruption are thereby organized into 365 days: one day for each that he purportedly lived through. The days are commonly understood as chapters. Nihilismians follow the practice of naming themselves with the first word of the chapter corresponding to the day that they joined the sect.

—From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

SHADRACK HAD TRAVELED extensively by electric train, but he had never been on a train quite like the Bullet. It was, true to its name, quicker and lighter on the rails than any he had ridden. But it was also better-equipped in its interior. He had passed through a full kitchen and a well-furnished study before being forced into his improvised cell. Bound hand and foot to a chair, he sat in a small, windowless closet. The wooden slats of the closet door admitted bars of feeble light. When the light dimmed, his internal clock told him that it was past seventeen-hour.

His thoughts were moving as quickly as the train, keeping pace as the Bullet raced south. It was obvious to him now, in retrospect, that the borders were indeed shifting. The signs had been there for years, but his supposed knowledge of the Great Disruption had prevented him from seeing their meaning. He cursed himself for his stupidity. He had violated one of his most valued principles: Observe what you see, not what you expect to see.

Of what use am I as a cartologer, he berated himself, when I could not even reliably see the world around me? Now, because of his blindness, he had placed Sophia doubly in harm’s way. He had sent her fleeing the ambitions of a madwoman, into the path of destruction.

It was well past eighteen-hour when the door suddenly swung open. The Sandmen lifted the chair with their grappling hooks to carry it through the doorway and set it down facing the center of the adjoining room.

Shadrack blinked in the lamplight. He was in a study as opulently furnished as the rest of the Bullet, with broad windows, thick carpeting, and a variety of desks and chairs. The Sandmen stationed themselves at the doors.

Blanca sat in the middle of the room at a long table. On the table was a sheet of copper. Beside the table were the two trunks filled with Shadrack’s mapmaking equipment, which the Sandmen had packed when they took him from East Ending Street. “I won’t deceive you, Shadrack,” Blanca said, in her musical voice. “While I know the route your niece is traveling, she and her companion are resourceful; they have managed to evade the men I sent to meet her.”

Shadrack tried not to show his relief too plainly. Then he wondered: A companion?

“This makes your situation more difficult, because it means I am less patient.” Her veil shook slightly. “As you know, I need two things from you: Sophia’s destination and the location of the carta mayor. So I will give you two choices. One for each thing I need.” She lifted the square sheet of copper, which glinted in the yellow lamplight. “You can draw me a map of the carta mayor’s location and tell me where Sophia is going.” Then she drew her other hand from under the table, revealing the dreaded block of wood with its attached wires. “Or, you can wear the bonnet,” she said almost kindly.

Shadrack stared at his lap, using the last of his exhausted energy to hide the panic he felt at the sight of the wooden block and wires. After a few moments he said, “We’ve already discussed this. You have my answer.”

Blanca sat silently for a moment. Then she stood. “You make this very hard, Shadrack. I do not like having to play the bully, but you leave me with no choice.” Her voice was mournful. She turned toward the younger of the two men. “Leave his hands and legs tied, Weeping. If he nods, take off the bonnet strings and call me. If he hasn’t done so by twenty-hour, tighten them.”

Had Shadrack imagined it, or did Blanca speak to Weeping with particular favor? The young man’s face, he noticed with surprise, was unmarked. His brown hair was clipped short, and his cheeks were clean-shaven. He pressed his lips together as Blanca gave him instructions. As she left, she gently patted Weeping’s arm. The door opened, and Shadrack caught a brief glimpse of the interior of the next car: a wooden floor, dim lamplight, and a wheelbarrow piled high with sand.

He did his best to keep from gagging as they placed the wooden block between his teeth. He did not resist; they would only jam the block in more forcefully if he did. The wires tightened across his cheeks and he grew still. He concentrated all of his attention on clearing his mind so that he would not choke. If he choked or gagged, his face would pull at the wires, and they would cut him. Shadrack breathed deeply through his nose until his pulse settled. The moment he felt calm, he knew that he would not be able to wear the bonnet for more than a few minutes. He looked up at the two men, both of whom were watching him.

The older man bore the familiar scars and the blank expression that was also, by now, familiar. He held the grappling hook as if it were an extension of his own hand: casually, almost thoughtlessly. The scarred Nihilismians had none of the usual fervor Shadrack had seen in the followers of Amitto. They lacked the zealous passion that Nihilismians carried like bright flames; no, the eyes of these men suggested loss, confusion, and an aimless sense of searching. But the unscarred younger man, Weeping, was different. He seemed like a real Nihilismian: his eyes were focused and bright with conviction. Dark green, they gazed into Shadrack’s unflinchingly. Though no compassion lingered there, they seemed to suggest something else: a clarity of purpose.

Shadrack thought quickly. First he had to get the bonnet off. He would not be able to escape right away, but it might be possible to distract his guards, and that was as good a start as any. He locked eyes with Weeping and nodded. Immediately the young man loosened the wires and pulled the wooden block away. “Call her,” he said to the older man.

“Wait,” Shadrack said, turning in his chair. “Listen to me.” The older man was already walking to the door. “June fourth,” he said quickly. “Weeping is for the cursed, who bear the face of evil. All grief is of the false world, not of the true world. Trust not the weeping, and weep not.”

The older man stopped and turned and looked at him, as if the words touched the edges of something terribly remote that he had to strain to remember. The younger man clasped his medallion and murmured, “Truth of Amitto.”

Shadrack spoke in an urgent undertone. “Truth, indeed. But she is hiding the truth from you—the truth about the very passage for which you are named. Trust not the weeping, Amitto says.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, forcing the man to lean in. “I know you have heard the weeping, as I did, at the mansion. Can you deny it?” The man’s silence answered him eloquently. “I can prove to you that this weeping, this evil,” Shadrack pressed, “which she is hiding from you, is close at hand.”

The older man had not moved; he stared at Shadrack, troubled, as if still trying to work out the meaning of the words that he had quoted from the Chronicles of the Great Disruption. Weeping, looking intently at Shadrack, deliberated. “How?” he finally asked.

“Do you know what causes the weeping—where it comes from?”

The young man hesitated. He shook his head. “No one knows. If you know, tell me.”

“I cannot tell you. There is no way but to show you,” Shadrack said. “If you will give me my tools, I will map the memory that will allow you to see.”

“Don’t give him anything,” said the older man reflexively.

“Tell her I am drawing the map she requested,” Shadrack insisted. “I promise you, Weeping—I will show you Amitto’s truth.”

Weeping looked down at him, the force of obedience and the Nihilismian fervor warring like water and fire in his green eyes. He had obligations and loyalties in this world; but nothing surpassed his commitment to Amitto’s truth. The fire won. He leaned toward Shadrack and mouthed his words, so that the older Sandman standing by the door would not hear him. “Very well.” Then he straightened up and spoke in a loud voice. “You will draw the map she ordered or no map at all.”

Shadrack bowed his head, pretending to be cowed.

“Ashes,” the young Sandman said, turning toward the older man. “You may go and tell her that he has agreed. I will oversee his drawing of the map.”

20 At the Gates

1891, June 26: 10-Hour #

Welcome to Ensueño Inn. Please stable horses and anchor arboldevelas after checking in. Please do not bring your horses into the courtyard. Our floors will thank you!

Sign at the inn’s entrance

NORMALLY, MAZAPÁN RELIED on hired guards for protection on the route between the Veracruz market and Nochtland, where he had his chocolate store. His wagon bore the royal seal—a leaf encircled by its stem—which attracted highway bandits. But on this trip, Calixta and Burr could offer more expert protection. Burr hired horses for Calixta, Theo, and himself. Sophia, who had never ridden, sat in the cart with Mazapán.

She had been hoping for a chance to speak with Theo. The last of her anger had faded as they walked back through the market, his scarred hand in hers, and it had given way to a compounded sense of anxiety. For one thing, they were back on land and once again easy targets for Montaigne and his men. And now they had Theo’s dangerous raider to worry about as well.

She couldn’t help it; staying angry with him was impossible. She wanted to know who the raider was, and why he was chasing Theo, and whether he was likely to return accompanied by more like him. It was obvious to her, now, that Theo had been telling her the truth about his past—but he had told her too little of it. What she most wanted now was to sit down and hear everything, from beginning to end. But he rode separately, sometimes ahead and sometimes behind, and apart from asking an occasional question about the route, he seemed utterly uninterested in the journey.

Instead, the story she heard was Mazapán’s. He told her about his store in Nochtland and the winding street that led to it and the delicious pottery he made in the large, sun-filled kitchen. He spoke with the accent of the southern Baldlands, like Mrs. Clay. His clothes—thin leather boots, white cotton pants, and a shirt embroidered with vines—while apparently commonplace in the Baldlands, would have stood out in Boston. His sizable belly, wavy brown hair, and large mustache all seemed to shuffle back and forth when he laughed. Sophia was only half listening and kept turning around to see if anyone was following them. Only when Mazapán handed her the reins and said, “All right, concentrate now—keep them at a steady pace,” did she realize that the kindly chocolate vendor was doing his best to distract her. She felt suddenly grateful and a little ashamed. “Why do they call you Mazapán?” she asked. “Is that your whole name?”

He smiled. “Actually, my name is Olaf Rud. But no one here can pronounce it. You see, my grandfather was an adventurer from the Kingdom of Denmark—a place that today lies in the far north of the Closed Empire. He was traveling here when the Disruption occurred. It became obvious afterward that he could not return; everyone he had known and loved had disappeared.”

Sophia nodded, intrigued. She had read about such stranded travelers—exiles who lost their home Ages—but each case was different and uniquely interesting. “So he stayed.”

“So he stayed. And with him, his unusual name, which no one can pronounce. Everyone calls me Mazapán. It is the Spanish word for marzipan, and Spanish is one of the many languages still spoken in the Triple Eras. In the past I was known for making marzipan candy”

“Why in the past? Don’t you make marzipan anymore?”

His mustache drooped. “Ah, that’s not such a happy story.”

“I don’t mind,” Sophia said. “If you don’t mind telling it.”

Mazapán shook his head. “No, I am past minding. I’ll tell you, though I am afraid it will not give you the most pleasant impression of Nochtland. Still—I am sure you will discover its charms.

“You see, I learned to make marzipan with my teacher—a master chef who could have turned his talents to anything, but decided he liked candy best. From him I also learned to make chocolate and spun sugar and meringues—all manner of confection. Well, my teacher was not young when I began learning from him, and he passed away just a year after I opened my own shop. Much of his business passed to me, and I did what I could to match his high standards. I was fortunate to attract the attentions of the court, and I began serving banquets for the royal family—in the palace of Emperor Sebastian Canuto.”

Sophia was astonished. “Banquets of candy?”

“Oh, yes—nothing else. I suppose I could cook some beans if my life depended on it, but I have to rely on my wife for everything of substance. I am not much good at anything other than candy. The banquets were quite complete in their details, if I do say so myself. Everything on the table—the tablecloth, the plates, the food, the flowers—was made of candy. The plates were made of chocolate, like those you saw, but the food and flowers were usually made of spun sugar and marzipan. The pleasure people derived from the banquets was in how the candy was disguised. It all looked like real food, real flowers, real dishes. And it is one of humankind’s simplest and most eternal pleasures to be knowingly deceived by appearances. I, too, enjoyed the banquets; I created more and more fantastic feasts with more elaborate and detailed dishes.

“Unfortunately, someone used my displays of innocent deception for a less innocent purpose. For Princess Justa’s sixth birthday, the banquet was more resplendent than any I’d served the royals before. All the members of the court were there; the emperor and his wife and daughter were at the head of the table. I had made marzipan orchids for decoration, because the empress’s favorite flower was the orchid. You have heard of the Mark of the Vine?”

“A little. I don’t really understand it.”

Mazapán shook his head. “To my mind, it is simply one more of the infinite differences that distinguish us from each other. My hair is brown; your hair is fair; Theo’s is black. Simply different. In the Baldlands, there are some who take great pride in having a particular shade of hair or skin. I find it rather ridiculous. But to continue—the empress had the Mark of the Vine. Her hair was not hair like yours or mine; it consisted of orchid roots.”

Sophia wrinkled her nose. “Orchid roots?”

“To you, no doubt it sounds strange. The entire court considered it the height of beauty. They were thin, white strands, the orchid roots, which she wove and bound into towering designs. Naturally, it gave her a love and affinity for the orchid flower. Her daughter Justa inherited this trait.”

“She has roots on her head, too?”

“No, Justa’s hair also bears the Mark, but it takes the form of a grass—long and green. I have not seen her since she was a child, but I am told it is very beautiful.”

Sophia diplomatically said nothing to contradict him.

“I had created marzipan orchids particularly for the empress, and there were vases all along the table. As the banquet began, the guests sampled the food, the flowers, the utensils, and even the plates. At one point—I was watching from the side of the room, naturally, to ensure everything went smoothly—the empress took up a marzipan orchid and ate it. I knew she would; there were banquets when she ate nothing but the flowers! She had another, and another. And then—suddenly—I knew something terrible had happened. The empress’s face was horrible to see. She clutched her throat and then her stomach. She crashed forward onto the table, her fabulous hair cascading onto the plates. Immediately, the entire room was on its feet. A doctor came at once, but it was too late; the empress was dead. She had been killed by a very rare poisonous orchid that someone had placed among the marzipan orchids.”

Sophia gasped. “Did they accuse you?”

Mazapán shook his head. “Fortunately, no. I was questioned, of course, but they soon realized I had nothing to gain from the empress’s death.”

“How terrible,” she said sympathetically.

“Indeed. Though they did not blame me, the emperor never wanted another such banquet, naturally enough. And I, for my part, though I knew I had not been to blame, could not help feeling some responsibility. Had I not created the marzipan orchids, no one would have been able to plant the poisonous orchids among them.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Sophia exclaimed. “They just took advantage of how real the banquet looked.”

“Yes.” Mazapán shook his head. “But why invite such danger? I gave up the marzipan and the spun sugar and the meringue. I stayed with the chocolate dishes and utensils, because they, at least, cannot be used for ill. The worst that can come from biting into a plate or cup substituted for one of mine is a broken tooth!” He laughed.

“I suppose you’re right.” After a moment, she added, “Princess Justa must have been heartbroken to lose her mother.”

“No doubt she was,” Mazapán said, but his tone was uncertain. “As I said, I haven’t seen her since her sixth birthday, but she was a strange child. She was—how to say it?—cold. I could not tell whether she was truly emotionless or simply very shy, but she seemed so devoid of the usual charm of children that I confess I never warmed to her. If what I hear is true, she has become a quiet, withdrawn woman.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “We’ll be changing horses soon,” he resumed. “There’s a place up the road.”

The land they were passing through was flat, the vegetation cut away from the road to prevent thieves from hiding and ambushing travelers. They passed a few peddlers with wooden cases on their backs and a pair of riders.

Sophia had noticed that the wind chimes, so prevalent in the Veracruz market, also hung at regular intervals on posts at the side of the road. Their constant ringing had become familiar—almost comforting. “Are those to mark another path?” she asked now.

“Ah—no,” Mazapán said, following her gaze. “Those are warning chimes. They warn travelers of a weirwind. Do you have those in the north?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Weirwinds can be long or short, wide or narrow, but they are all deadly. Powerful walls of pure wind that draw you in with a force of a cyclone.”

“Like tornadoes.”

“Yes, very similar; like a wall of tornadoes. For weeks now, they have forecast the approach of a weirwind from the south. The chimes will announce its arrival so that people on the road and in the cities can take cover underground. Ah—here we are.”

They had a quick meal at the inn, which to Sophia’s relief was all but deserted. While Burr and Theo changed the horses, Sophia stood with Calixta and Mazapán by the cart, keeping an anxious watch on the empty road.

A strange shape appeared on the horizon, moving toward them at a tremendous speed. She was about to call Calixta, but then she saw what it was and her jaw dropped in disbelief.

It appeared to be a sailing tree—a slim wooden vessel twice as high as Mazapán’s cart, propelled by broad green sails. Enormous leaves grew from the base of the mast and were tied at its tip, cupping the wind. The spherical wheels, woven like baskets from a light wood, were painted gold. The ship seemed to float, gliding effortlessly on its tall wheels. A girl not much older than Sophia leaned lazily over the railing at the stern.

Sophia watched, enthralled, until it was no more than a speck. “Mazapán, what was that?”

“Ah! You’ve never seen an arboldevela.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Boldevela for short. It’s a vessel with living sails and a wooden hull.”

“Do you have one?” she asked eagerly.

He laughed. “They’re rather expensive for ordinary people. But they’re not uncommon. You’ll see more of them in Nochtland on the roads and in the canals.”

They changed horses twice more before stopping for the night at the halfway point between Veracruz and Nochtland. Sophia had been dozing off for the last several miles, resting her head against Mazapán’s arm. As the horses slowed, she opened her eyes and fumbled for her watch. It was one by the Baldlands clock and past two by the clock of New Occident.

“The innkeeper here saves a room for me,” Mazapán told her. “If we’re lucky, there will be another one empty. We’ll be tucked away and sleeping in no time.”

After stabling the horses, they made their way up the tiled walkway to the main building. The royal seal beside the door and an imposing portrait of the royal family in the foyer announced that the inn was a licensed lodging house. Mazapán lit a candle from the stack left conveniently on the foyer table and led them down the open corridor of the inn’s inner courtyard. Sophia and Calixta took one of the rooms that stood open and Burr, Mazapán, and Theo took another. As she stumbled sleepily out of her clothes, Sophia realized she hadn’t had a chance to speak with Theo all day. She shivered. The room felt cavernous, with its bare stucco walls and high, beamed ceilings, and the sheets were stiff from having hung to dry in the sun; but Sophia hardly noticed. She dropped into her narrow bed and fell instantly asleep.

—June 27, 3-hour: At the Inn—

SOPHIA AWOKE IN the dark, her heart pounding. The nightmare she’d been having still filled the edges of her mind like a fog. She could hear the weeping: the piercing cry of the Lachrima that in her dream grew louder and louder until it obliterated all other sound.

The inn was quiet; the delicate ringing of chimes, swinging gently in the night breeze, was all she could hear. She reached for her watch, and her fingers trembled as she opened the familiar brass disc to read the time, but the room was too dark to see it.

Sophia dressed and pulled on her pack. With a glance toward Calixta—a white shape under the sheets of the other bed—she opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air.

Padding along the tiled corridor of the inn’s courtyard, Sophia felt the nightmare dissipating. Night jasmine wound up along the beams, filling the air with intoxicating sweetness. Her watch, by the light of the night sky, read just after three-hour. She walked toward the courtyard’s entrance, toward the stables. The chimes hanging from the beams of the open corridors tinkled softly as she passed under them.

A rock garden with cacti and wooden benches divided the guest rooms from the stables. She stopped, surprised, at the sight of someone sitting alone in the moonlight. It was Theo. He had turned at the sound of her approach and slid over to make room on the bench. “Can’t sleep either?” he asked.

Sophia shook her head. “I was having a nightmare. What about you?”

“Yeah, can’t sleep.”

She studied him. His scuffed boots were untied. He looked out intently into the darkness as if waiting for something to emerge from it. “Are you worried about the raider?”

“Not so much.”

Sophia hesitated. She wanted to know more, but she didn’t want to hear another set of lies. She took in his thoughtful expression and decided to risk it. “Why was he chasing you?”

Theo shrugged, as if to say that the story was hardly worth telling. “His name is Jude. He usually stays pretty far north—near New Orleans. Remember I told you about the girl who kind of raised me, Sue? She was about ten years older than me, and she got to be really good at raiding—one of the best. She joined Jude’s gang a while back. I found out a couple years ago she’d been killed in a raid because Jude sent her in by herself and warned the people she was coming. He set a trap for her.”

“That’s awful,” Sophia said.

“He doesn’t like anyone being better than him. Smarter than him. Well, I knew it was just a matter of time before Jude wandered over to the New Occident side. In the Baldlands there’s no law to speak of and the raiders do whatever they like, but in New Occident . . . New Orleans has the biggest prison I’ve ever seen. I just made it my business to tell the law that Jude had blown up all the railroad lines they’d been building into the Baldlands.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Next I’d heard, they’d put him in prison for eighteen months.”

“Was it true?”

“Sure. Raiders don’t like the idea of having tracks into the Baldlands, because then there will just be more people and more towns and more law.”

Sophia examined him critically for a moment. “So you didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally said.

“I don’t care if what I did is wrong or not. I got back at him, didn’t I? He got Sue killed—he deserved it.”

“And you’re not worried he’ll follow you?”

Theo shrugged again. “Doubt he will.” He winked and snapped his fingers into a pistol. “Besides, Jude’s nothing compared to the guys hunting you.”

Sophia’s heart sped up again. “I hope they don’t know where we are.”

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them yet.”

“I think I might have figured out why they want the map, though.”

Theo looked at her with interest. “Why?”

“Well, you know how I told you the Nihilismians think our world isn’t real?”

“Yeah.”

“Shadrack told me once that they believe in a legend about a map called the carta mayor: a map of great size and power that contains the whole world. The Nihilismians think it shows the true world—the world that was destroyed by the Great Disruption—not just our world. But no one knows where it is.”

“And the glass you have might find it—the carta mayor.”

“Yes. If it’s something that doesn’t look like a typical map”—she remembered the onions at the market—“the glass would make it visible. But I have no idea what the carta mayor is supposed to look like or where it is. Shadrack made it sound like it wasn’t actually real.”

“But these guys think it is.”

“Clearly.”

“You know,” Theo said thoughtfully, “your uncle did go to a lot of trouble to keep them from finding it—the glass. Maybe he thinks the carta mayor is real.”

“I thought about that. But the glass map could just be valuable on its own. I mean, it could be useful for all kinds of things. Not just what the Nihilismians want it for.”

“That’s true, I guess.”

Sophia was silent for a moment. “Hopefully Veressa will know.”

Theo kicked off his boots and pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his socked feet on the bench. “Have you thought about how to find her?”

“Once we get to Nochtland, I’ll ask where the academy is. The one they studied at. I’m sure they keep track of everyone who went there. I think that’s the first step.”

“Yeah. And then she’ll know where Shadrack is for sure.”

She wished she could be as certain as he was. “I hope so. I really don’t know.” She paused. “Maybe we should have followed the Sandmen off the train when we had the chance. They could have led us to Shadrack.”

“No way; we did the right thing. Look, you’re doing what he said to do. Mazapán will know the academy. Calixta might even have heard about it—have you asked her?” Sophia shook her head. “Then you’ll find Veressa. And she’ll know what to do.”

Sophia didn’t answer, but sat quietly, listening to the chimes. “I like the pirates,” she said eventually. “We were lucky to meet them.”

Theo grinned. “Yeah. They’re solid. You can count on them.”

“I was lucky to meet you, too.” She watched him as she said it.

Theo’s smile flickered like a sputtering candle, but then his grin returned, easy and calm in the moonlight, and Sophia thought she must have imagined it. “They don’t call me Lucky Theo for nothing.”

—8 Hour 30: On the Road to Nochtland—

A STEADY RAIN had begun to fall, and Mazapán kept stopping to check that the flap over the cart was secure. “I’m sorry, Sophia,” he said more than once. “But if the dishes are wet, I’ll get an earful at home.”

“It’s okay,” Sophia said, curling up as tightly as possible under the cart’s narrow awning. She longed for the spare clothes that were in her abandoned trunk, probably stowed in a train depot somewhere along the Gulf line.

Calixta and Burr rode side by side under broad, colorful umbrellas, engrossed in conversation. Theo trailed behind the cart, seemingly unwilling even to ride with the others. When she did see him, he stared sullenly at his reins and refused to meet her eyes. He reminds me of me, Sophia thought, when I’m moping. She was baffled. When they’d parted, close to four-hour, Theo had seemed to be in good spirits.

It was some time past sixteen-hour on Sophia’s watch when she saw something on the road ahead of them. At first she thought it was only a group of travelers, but as they approached she realized that it was many travelers—hundreds of travelers—all stalled on the road. They had reached the outer limits of Nochtland. She could just barely make out the high profile of the city walls through the heavy rain and the falling darkness.

“They check everyone who comes in through the gates,” Mazapán explained with a sigh. “I’m afraid we’ll be here for hours. I’d forgotten the eclipse festivities are taking place in a few nights. Everyone from miles around has come to see them. They occur so rarely, and the astronomers say this will be the first total lunar eclipse since the Great Disruption.”

Sophia was too tired to engage him in conversation. She could see the sails of a boldevela far ahead of them in the long line. Calixta and Burr slowed their pace to ride alongside the cart, and Theo rode up briefly. “I’m going to see how long the line is,” he called out. Before anyone could say anything, he had spurred his horse and taken off. Within seconds, he was swallowed up by the darkness.

“Why is he checking the line?” she asked Mazapán uneasily.

“Who knows? Long is long. We’ll be here at least until nine-hour. Twenty-hour, for you,” he added, with a smile. “What a relief that my day is eleven hours shorter. I won’t have as long to wait.”

Sophia knew he was trying to distract her. “That’s not how it works,” she said with a faint smile, staring into the rain. Ahead of them were a large party of traders traveling on foot. They shuffled along slowly, hunched under their cloaks. As the line inched forward, Sophia saw Theo returning. He rode up to her side of the cart, and she realized that his expression had grown even more strained. He was pale, his eyes tense with anxiety. “What is it?” she asked immediately, thinking of the raider from the market. “Did you see someone in the line?”

Theo leaned toward her. “I said I’d see you safely to Nochtland, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Sophia said, even more uneasy now.

“Well, we’re here,” he said, his voice hard. “You kept your word, and I kept mine.” He leaned in farther, pulled her face toward his, and gave her a rough, awkward kiss on the cheek. “’Bye, Sophia.” He turned the horse away and galloped off in the opposite direction, back toward Veracruz.

Sophia stood up. “Theo!” she shouted. “Where are you going?” For a moment it seemed to her that he turned to look over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

“Let him go, Sophia,” Mazapán called up to her. He eased her back onto the seat. “I’m sorry, child, but you’re getting soaked. Take this cloak and try to keep warm.” He put his arm around her. “He rode away,” Mazapán shouted over the rain, by way of explanation, to Burr and Calixta, who were trying to ask what had happened. “No, he didn’t say why—he just rode away,” he repeated.

“Just like that,” Sophia said emptily.