The furnace door sealed before Oliver could ask the woman another question. Its brass edges met without a click. The engine room returned around him in pieces: the red glow of the firebox, the trembling gauge, Aven Marr pressed against the wall, and Nadia bent over with one hand clamped to her side.
The child stood between Oliver and the furnace. He had one fist twisted in Oliver’s coat and the other held against his own chest, as if checking that something remained there.
“Are we out?” he asked.
Oliver looked at the sealed door. No sound came from behind it. “Not entirely.”
Aven pushed away from the wall. “That is an unhelpful answer.”
“It’s the one I have.”
Nadia straightened by degrees. A dark stain had spread beneath her hand. The crack in the core showed through her coat, no longer blue but the color of heated metal. “The bridge is still holding,” she said. “For now.”
Oliver turned toward the forward windows. Beyond them, the tower’s lower platform had broken into a long stone bridge suspended over the white gulf. Gravity had returned there. Dust lay on the stones instead of rising. A loose length of rail sagged toward the track, its bolts groaning under the new weight.
Farther out, the continent remained scattered across the sky. Villages, fields, and whole sections of road drifted above the clouds, held in their accustomed shapes but without any clear direction. Only the bridge beneath Mercy had weight.
The train lurched.
The child’s hand tightened on Oliver’s coat. Oliver reached back, then stopped before closing his fingers around the boy’s wrist. “Do you want to sit?”
The child looked at the floor, then at the narrow bench beside the furnace. “Yes.”
Oliver guided him there without touching him. Nadia took the opposite side, lowering herself with care. Aven climbed into the engineer’s position and seized the brake lever.
“Oliver,” he said, “the gauge is ordinary again, but the needle is not reading fuel.”
Oliver crossed to the panel. The brass needle rested between two marks, quivering whenever the bridge shifted. Below it, the inscription remained clear: NO ONE CARRIES ALONE.
“What is it reading?” Nadia asked.
“Choice, perhaps.”
Aven gave him a tired look. “You’ve become very comfortable with words that cannot be tested.”
“I’m not comfortable with them.”
Another jolt ran through Mercy. Outside, the bridge tilted. The far end rose several feet, and the near end dropped toward the tower. One of the spectral passengers appeared beyond the glass, standing on the stones with a bundle of old clothing in his arms. He stared at the train, then lowered the bundle and walked toward the tower instead of boarding.
Next
As Mercy rolls toward the approaching continent, the gauge points beyond its ordinary scale to a destination that does not yet exist.
“They have somewhere to take what they chose,” Oliver said.
“Do we?”
Oliver glanced at the furnace door. “We’re finding out.”
Aven pulled the brake harder. The wheels screamed against the rails. Mercy stopped with its front carriage hanging over a gap where the bridge had sheared apart. The rear cars remained on the tower platform. Between them, the middle carriage had begun to lift, held by couplings and the local pull of gravity.
Nadia’s core flared. The loose carriage settled a fraction, then swung sideways.
“Tell me what to do,” Oliver said.
She looked up sharply. “You’re asking me?”
“Yes.”
The question seemed to cost him more than the danger. Nadia studied the track, then the crack in her core. “I can hold the carriage level. I cannot pull it back. The core is too damaged.”
“Can you give me a place to lean?”
Her expression changed, though not into softness. “I can try.”
“Not try for me. Choose whether you’ll do it.”
Nadia’s fingers moved from her wound to the core beneath her ribs. “I choose it. But if it breaks, you do not make that my fault.”
“I won’t.”
“And if I tell you to stop, you stop.”
“Yes.”
She nodded once. “Then go.”
Oliver moved into the coupling between the front and middle carriages. Aven had already opened the side hatch, and cold air tore through the train. Below, the gulf was cloudless. The bridge’s restored gravity pulled every loose object downward, including the iron tools scattered near Oliver’s boots.
He clipped a safety line around his waist, though there was no guarantee the line would hold. The child appeared behind him before he could step outside.
“You stay inside,” Oliver said.
The child’s face tightened. “You asked me what I wanted before.”
“I did.”
“I want to come where you can see me.”
Oliver looked at the gap, then at the furnace door behind them. The boy had not asked to be sent into danger. He had asked not to be left behind again. Those were different things.
“Stand by the hatch,” Oliver said. “If I tell you to pull the line, you pull. If Nadia tells you to close the hatch, you close it. You decide for yourself if the train starts moving.”
The child swallowed. “All right.”
Oliver stepped onto the bridge.
Gravity caught him hard enough to bend his knees. For years, the ground had been a suggestion. Now it seized his boots and dragged at the safety line. He crossed toward the hanging carriage while Nadia extended both hands from inside Mercy.
The core answered with a low vibration. The carriage stopped swinging. Its windows filled with drifting faces: the spectral passengers still aboard, some carrying their recovered burdens, some with empty hands. None of them cried out. One elderly woman braced herself against a seat and began fastening a broken suitcase.
Oliver reached the coupling and found the release pin bent through the housing. He could not pull it free by hand. He wedged a bar beneath it and leaned his weight against the metal.
The child shouted from the hatch. “The bridge is moving!”
Oliver looked up.
The far end of the bridge had not merely risen. It was turning. Stone ground against stone as the entire restored section pivoted toward the floating continent beyond the tower. A vast slab of land, carrying a forest and the remains of a city, had begun drifting in the same direction. The bridge was drawing it closer.
Aven leaned out of the hatch. “Oliver! The continent’s coming toward us!”
“Can you stop it?”
“No!”
That answer was honest enough to be useful.
The coupling shifted under Oliver’s bar. The middle carriage rolled another inch toward the gap. Nadia cried out. Her core brightened until every seam in her coat showed.
“Stop!” she called.
Oliver released the bar immediately. The carriage settled, but the pin remained fixed.
Nadia’s voice came again, strained and furious. “I said stop. Not surrender.”
Oliver understood. He had mistaken obedience for retreat. He repositioned the bar, this time placing his shoulder against it instead of his full weight. “Tell me when.”
Nadia shut her eyes. “Now.”
The core pulled. Oliver pushed. From the hatch, the child hauled the safety line through his hands, adding his small strength where it could matter. Aven seized the emergency crank and turned it until the winch groaned.
The pin tore free.
The middle carriage slammed against the forward one. Its wheels found the remaining rail, and the couplings locked with a heavy report. Oliver fell onto the bridge, one hand scraping stone. The child shouted his name, but Nadia reached the hatch first and seized the line.
She did not pull Oliver in. She held the line taut and waited.
He rose under his own strength and crossed back through the hatch. Only then did she release him.
Mercy remained joined to the bridge, though the track ahead now pointed toward the approaching continent. Behind them, the tower platform had begun to crumble into the gulf. Returning was no longer a practical choice.
Aven stared through the front window. “My schedule has no passage for this.”
Near the broken end of the bridge, a man in a dark coat stood beside a brass travel clock. Oliver recognized him from the impossible crossings: the nameless passenger who appeared where roads failed. The Horologist lifted the clock, listened to it, and then looked toward Mercy.
“Your schedule was written for a train that carried passengers,” he called across the distance. “This one has begun carrying the road.”
Aven’s face went pale. “What does that mean?”
The Horologist closed the clock. “It means the next stop has not been built yet.”
The continent drew nearer. Forests rose beyond the glass, roots and soil still held in their floating mass. The train’s gauge needle moved one mark—not toward fuel, and not toward Mercy, but toward a blank space beyond the ordinary scale.
Oliver looked at Nadia, then at the child. “We go forward together.”
The child took his hand. Nadia placed her palm against the cracked core.