Prison. I bite back a retort, forcing myself to humor him. You have no idea what a prison is, Maven.
Without windows or any kind of bearing, I have no way to know where we may be headed or how far this infernal machine can travel. It certainly feels as fast as the Undertrain, if not faster. I doubt we’re heading south, to Naercey, a ruined city now abandoned even by the Scarlet Guard. Maven made such a show of destroying the tunnels after the infiltration of Archeon.
He lets me think, watching as I puzzle out the picture around us. He knows I don’t have enough pieces to make it whole. Still, he lets me try, and doesn’t offer any more explanation.
The minutes tick by, and I turn my focus to Ptolemus. My hate for him has only grown over the last few months. He killed my brother. He took Shade from this world. He would do the same to everyone I love if given the chance. For once, he’s without his scaled armor. It makes him seem smaller, weaker, more vulnerable. I fantasize about cutting his throat and staining Maven’s freshly painted walls with Silver blood.
“Something interest you?” Ptolemus snarls, meeting my gaze.
“Let her stare,” Evangeline says. She leans back in her seat and tips her head, never breaking eye contact. “She can’t do much more than that.”
“We’ll see,” I growl back. In my lap, my fingers twitch.
Maven clucks his tongue, chiding. “Ladies.”
Before Evangeline can retort, her focus shifts and she looks away, at the walls, at the floor, at the ceiling. Ptolemus matches her action. They sense something I can’t. And then the train around us starts to slow, its gears and mechanisms screeching against iron tracks.
“Nearly there, then,” Maven says, easing to his feet. He offers me a hand.
For a moment, I entertain the idea of biting his fingers off. Instead, I put my hand in his, ignoring the crawling sensation under my skin. When I stand, his thumb grazes the raised edge of my manacle beneath my glove. A firm reminder of his hold over me. I can’t stand it and pull away, folding my arms over my chest to create a barrier between us. Something darkens in his bright eyes, and he puts up a shield of his own.
Maven’s train stops so smoothly I barely feel it. The Arvens do, though, and snap to my side, surrounding me with exhausting familiarity. At least I’m not chained up or leashed.
Sentinels flank Maven as the Arvens flank me, their flaming robes and black masks foreboding as always. They let Maven set the pace, and he crosses the length of the compartment. Evangeline and Ptolemus follow, forcing me and my guards to take up the back of the strange procession. We follow them through the door, into a vestibule connecting one compartment to the next. Another door, another long stretch of opulent furnishings, this time in a dining room. Still no windows. Still no hint as to where we might be.
At the next vestibule, a door opens, not ahead, but to the right. The Sentinels duck through first, disappearing, then Maven goes, then the rest. We exit onto another platform, illuminated by harsh lights overhead. It’s shockingly clean—another new construction, no doubt—but the air feels damp. Despite the meticulous order of the empty platform, something drips somewhere, echoing around us. I look left and right along the tracks. They fade into blackness on either side. This isn’t the end of the line. I shudder to think how much progress Maven has made in only a few months’ time.
Up we go, ascending a set of stairs. I resign myself to a long climb, remembering how deep the vault entrance was. So I’m surprised when the stairs level off quickly at another door. This one is reinforced steel, a foreboding omen of what might be beyond. A Sentinel grasps the bar lock and turns it with a grunt. The groan of a massive mechanism answers. Evangeline and Ptolemus don’t lift a finger to help. Like me, they watch with thinly veiled fascination. I don’t think they know much more than I do. Strange, for a house so closely tied to the king.
Daylight streams through as the steel swings back, revealing gray and blue beyond. Dead trees, their branches splayed like veins, reach into a clear winter sky. As we step out from the train bunker, I take a deep breath. Pine, the sharp cleanness of cold air. We’re standing in a clearing surrounded by evergreens and naked oaks. The earth beneath me is frozen, hard-packed dirt beneath a few inches of snow. It chills my toes already.
I dig in my heels, earning one more second of open forest. The Arvens push me along, making me skid. I don’t fight so much as methodically slow them down, all the while whipping my head back and forth. I try to get my bearings. Judging by the sun, now beginning its western descent, north is directly ahead of me.
Four military transports, polished to unnatural shine, idle in the path before us. Their engines hum, waiting, the heat of them sending plumes of steam into the air. It’s easy to figure which belongs to Maven. The Burning Crown, red, black, and royal silver, is stamped on the sides of the grandest one. It stands almost two feet off the ground, with massive wheels and what must be a reinforced body. Bulletproof, fireproof, deathproof. Everything to protect the boy king.
He climbs inside without hesitation, his cape trailing behind. To my relief, the Arvens don’t make me follow, and I’m bodily shoved into another transport. Mine is unmarked. As I duck in, straining for one last glimpse of the open sky, I notice Evangeline and Ptolemus approach their own transport. Black and silver, its metal body covered in spikes. Evangeline probably decorated it herself.
We lurch forward as Egg shuts the door behind him, locking me into the transport with four Arven guards. There is a soldier behind the wheel and a Sentinel in the seat next to him. I resign myself to another journey, crammed in with the Arvens.