Oliver kept his hand away from the whistle cord as Mercy followed the black route east.
The tower fell behind them. Its two white flashes dwindled against the stone until the fragment’s curve hid them. Ahead, the underside sloped into shadow, ribbed with old supports and split by seams of open sky. The engine’s narrow line ran beneath it, separate from the rails that had ended at Otta’s tower.
Nadia watched the gauge through the cab window. “Still no mark.”
“I know.”
“You keep looking.”
Oliver let his hand fall from the glass. The needle rested where it had before. No fuel had been spent on the black route’s brief support at the gap, and the gauge gave no sign that the route had changed now. It showed only the known line and its end at the tower.
Tirra stood by the open cab door, listening toward the dark. “If you call again, that’ll be a different thing.”
“I’m not calling.”
“I know. I’m reminding you.”
Oliver gave her a nod. The reply beneath the fragment had not been addressed to him. Otta had sent a warning. Someone had answered it. He wanted to know who, but wanting to know did not make the answer his to summon.
The black line bent below a shelf of fractured stone. Mercy moved slowly, its engine lamps picking out dangling roots and the pale undersides of fallen blocks. Ahead, a low tone sounded once. Thin, uneven, and high at the end.
Nadia looked to him. He did not touch the whistle.
They waited. The sound did not come again.
“Same one?” Tirra asked.
“I think so.”
“Then it’s near.”
“Or it’s carried.” Oliver eased the throttle down. “We’ll see what the track gives us.”
The line narrowed as the fragment’s underside broke apart. A dark gap opened across their path. Beyond it, a shelf of stone jutted from the fragment, no wider than a small yard. Something metal hung beneath the shelf, a bell on a short frame. It swayed slightly, though the air was still.
The black route reached the lip of the gap and stopped.
Oliver shut off the engine. Mercy settled with a quiet shudder. The bell was close enough to see but not close enough to touch. On the shelf above it, a figure stood with one hand gripping a cable anchored into the stone.
Nadia unfastened her belt. “I can steady the nose if you want to try the crossing.”
Next
Oliver carries Ilyet’s message east rather than turning Mercy back, and must decide when and how to pass it on without making her answer into a summons.
Oliver looked at the gap, then at the figure’s cable. A crossing would bring the engine onto a shelf with no safe landing beyond it. The black route had supported Mercy once before; that did not make every break a bridge.
“Not with the core,” he said.
“I didn’t offer that.” Nadia’s voice went cool. “I offered to steady the nose.”
“I know. But we stop here.”
She studied the shelf, measuring the distance. Then she sat back, leaving the core alone. The crack in the brass panel remained visible beside her hand. “All right. We stop here.”
Oliver opened the cab door and leaned out. “Can you hear us?”
The figure looked down. A pale scarf was wrapped over her hair and throat. She raised her free hand, palm outward, then pointed at the gap. Her mouth moved. The wind took the words.
Tirra brought a signal lamp from the cab. She opened its shutter once, a brief white pulse. The figure answered with a small lantern of her own, then pointed to a narrow strip of stone below the shelf. It was not a path across the gap, only a ledge running back toward the fragment’s underside.
Oliver and Nadia stepped down from Mercy and followed the black line to where it ended. From there, they could climb to the ledge without crossing the break. The figure watched them come, keeping her hand on the cable. When Oliver was near enough to speak, she raised her palm again.
“Stop there,” she called. “The shelf won’t hold the train.”
“We weren’t bringing it over,” Oliver said.
“You looked like you were thinking about it.”
“I was. Then I stopped.”
She gave that a small nod. “Good.”
“My name is Oliver. This is Nadia. We came from the tower behind us.”
“I saw the flashes.” She lowered her hand, though she kept hold of the cable. “I’m Ilyet.”
“The tone we heard,” Oliver said. “Was that your bell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ring it in answer to Otta?”
“I did.” Ilyet glanced toward the tower, hidden now behind the fragment’s edge. “Two quick flashes. No landing. Someone listening.”
“She chose that warning,” Nadia said.
“I could tell.” Ilyet’s gaze shifted to her. “The old lamp used to mean come down and tie off. I saw it dark. Then I saw two flashes from her own lantern. I knew she wasn’t telling anyone to come here.”
Oliver looked at the bell below the shelf. Its clapper hung crooked, and a split along the rim showed silver through the bronze. “What does your answer mean?”
“That I heard.”
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing else. Not that the shelf is safe. Not that I need a train. Not that you should come across.” She checked the cable knot at her wrist. “I can speak for what I rang.”
The simplicity of it took some of the pressure out of Oliver’s chest. He had spent the last stretch imagining a voice hidden in the fragment, or a signal that had found him through a route he could not read. Instead, a woman had seen another woman’s warning and answered with the bell she had beside her.
“What happened to the landing?” Nadia asked.
“It went down with the lower stair. I came up here after the break.” Ilyet gave the cable another short pull. “The shelf is holding me. It’s not a landing.”
“You’ve been alone here?”
“Not the whole time.” Her eyes rested on Mercy’s lamps. “I heard your whistle earlier. The first time. Otta told me someone was coming along the underside. I didn’t know it was you.”
Oliver felt the whistle cord against his waist. “The whistle wasn’t a call to you.”
“I know that now.”
“I don’t want to make this into one.”
“Then don’t.” She looked at him plainly. “You asked who answered. I answered that.”
The black line behind them had not extended to the shelf. The bell had not made a route, and Ilyet had not offered to join Mercy. The train had come close enough to hear her because the path brought it near; the rest was a break in the stone that no signal could make safe.
Nadia glanced toward the engine. “We can’t take you across without the core.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I wanted to be clear.”
“Then we’re clear.” Ilyet’s mouth softened, but only slightly. “If you see Otta again, tell her someone heard. She might want to know her warning reached someone.”
Oliver looked east, where the underside rose and vanished into the next stretch of dark. Going back would mean turning Mercy around on a narrow route, and Otta had not asked him to carry a reply. He could keep Ilyet’s message without pretending it was urgent enough to make the choice for him.
“I’ll remember,” he said.
Ilyet nodded. “That’s enough.”
They returned to the engine. Nadia climbed in first. Oliver paused at the cab door and looked once more at the woman on the shelf, one hand on her cable, the damaged bell hanging below. She did not wave them on. She did not ask them to stay.
He eased Mercy back from the ledge. The black route resumed beneath the fragment, no wider than before. Once the engine was moving, Oliver let the whistle cord lie untouched.
Behind them, the bell gave one clear, low note. Ilyet had rung it again, and this time Oliver did not mistake it for a summons. He kept Mercy moving east, carrying her answer as something said, not something owed.