CHAPTER ONE
I sat at the table in my cabin, my sister’s letter in my hand, and read it for the third time. After that, it was hard to sit still. Part of my head was making a list of the things I had to do now. The other part still couldn’t believe Felicia’s message. I’d gotten a letter from her right after Christmas, a thank-you note for the deerskin jacket I’d sent her. Getting another letter this soon after the first one had been a surprise. As I’d walked out of the Segundo Mexia post office, I’d stuffed it in my pocket, figuring it was full of chatter about what the students had done for the rest of the holiday. Holy Russian stuff.
I hadn’t felt any need to hurry back up the hill to my cabin, and I’d put away my groceries before I’d opened Felicia’s letter.
Dear Sister, Felicia began. Thanks so much for the warm jacket. It is eligant!
Right away a bell had started ringing.
From eleven-year-old Felicia’s very first letter to me, every word had been spelled correctly (her handwriting had steadily improved, too). Her whole class had to write letters home at least once a month—at least, those who had homes—and they had to keep a dictionary beside them while they wrote.
Felicia had underlined the misspelled word. Just in case I didn’t notice.
Too bad I can’t use it now. It was lovely and warm. I know you spent a lot of time with it. It’s stored away in a box until you can repair it.
With it. Not working on it. She’d had to put away her deerskin jacket? Why? I knew winters weren’t really cold in San Diego, but surely a jacket … ?
I wish you were closer, so we could talk face-to-face. Maybe you could visit. Let me know! I remember when I met you in Mexico, and you sent me here to the HRE. That was a great day with good companions.
I hope you’re well and you feel like traveling again soon. Your sister Felicia
I hadn’t spent much time with my sister—hardly any, in fact. But I knew some things about her. Not only was she smart, she was devious.
Felicia expected me to figure this out.
All right, working backward. The “good companions” we’d had on the train platform in Ciudad Juárez were Klementina and Eli, both wizards from the Holy Russian Empire. Eli had been on a mission to find descendants of Grigori Rasputin, since Rasputin had died. The wizard’s blood had been keeping Tsar Alexei alive. Felicia was Rasputin’s granddaughter by one of his bastards. Klementina, ancient and powerful, had come to check on Eli’s progress. She wasn’t the only one.
A group of grigoris who wanted to topple the tsar had shown up to stop Felicia from reaching him.
The aged Klementina and I had held them off while Eli and Felicia boarded the train to the Holy Russian Empire. Klementina had been killed. I had survived. Eli and Felicia had reached the HRE.
So that left Eli. Eligant. Felicia was telling me that she couldn’t see Eli any longer. That now he was in a box. She couldn’t mean a coffin; I could “repair” it.
I stared at the letter for at least three minutes before I understood.
Eli was in prison.
Felicia hoped I could get Eli out. She wanted me to come bust him out of a cell. My mind raced ahead, much as I told myself to slow down.
I’d have to take a train, probably several trains. I needed to go to my mom’s house and fish my money out of the hidden hole in the wall in my old room. I hoped I’d have enough. I actually rocked on my feet, torn between running back to town to visit my mother and Jackson and packing my stuff here and telling my nearest neighbor, Chrissie, I’d be gone for a while.
In the back of my head, I knew the smartest thing to do was to sit tight. Eli was resourceful; he could get out of this dilemma by himself.
But I knew I wouldn’t do that.
CHAPTER TWO
My stepfather, Jackson Skidder, took me to the train station in Sweetwater the next day. I’d worked out my route on the railway timetables Jackson kept at his hotel. I had to travel light. I had two changes of clothes, some extra ammunition, my savings in New American dollars, and fifty dollars in HRE money courtesy of Jackson.
Jackson had always been good to me. This was the best. And he didn’t get all upset like my mother had. She was a calm and beautiful woman, but she hadn’t been calm when she’d found out what I was planning. Jackson, who understood me better, knew I had to go.
On the drive to Sweetwater, Jackson said, “Pretty dangerous in San Diego, from the papers. Lots of men out there who were let go when the armed services collapsed.”
I knew exactly what desperate men were like. I nodded.
“Bring Eli back here, when you got him.”
I’d get Eli out or die trying. I hoped I’d see Jackson again. He’d always been good to my mother and me. “I will,” I said.
As I got on the train with my leather bag slung over my shoulder, Jackson said, “Easy death, Lizbeth.”
My backbone felt straighter when he said the good-bye reserved for gunnies. I nodded.
And in ten minutes I was on my way.
I was scared shitless.
CHAPTER THREE
It took me four days and three nights to reach San Diego. We passed out of Texoma (used to be Texas and Oklahoma) and into New America pretty quick. The flat land and broad plains, the empty towns everyone had left to find a way to survive, poured past my window in a steady stream of sameness. Every now and then we saw buffalo, or a pack of wild dogs, or some little settlement clinging to life.
I ate the food I’d brought with me. There wasn’t such a thing as a dining car on most of these trains. Every so often, I got off at a stop and bought whatever I could find available—mostly tamales, at little stands run by children. I can’t say I was too hungry. The constant sound, the constant movement, and switching from one train to another as my route required shook me up.
At least the trains weren’t crowded until we got closer to the Holy Russian Empire, which used to be California and Oregon, my mother had told me.
I wore my guns the whole time, so only people who saw no other vacant place sat by me. They didn’t know what a risk they were taking. I was short on patience and long on aggravation. One man thought I might be posing as a gunnie, and he had a broken finger to add to his problems after he touched me while I slept.
After so many hours I’d lost count, I was on the final train, the one that would cross the border between New America and the Holy Russian Empire. A billboard announced it as HOME OF THE MOVIE INDUSTRY, ORANGE GROVES, AND THE TSAR AND TSARINA.
And right after I’d read the sign and gotten all excited, the train stopped. We were at the border. I’d expected this stop from hearing the other passengers chatter.
I didn’t expect two guards to board the car. The two men wore gray and red uniforms and black gloves. One had probably wandered for years with the tsar’s flotilla when he escaped from the godless Russians. I figured that because he had a gray mustache, and he just looked different. The other man? Probably born in the state of California, as it had been.
Both of the border guards looked bored until they saw my guns. They were checking passports, recording the name of everyone going into the HRE.
Lucky I’d had the time (while I was getting over my last gunshot wound) to get a passport, just in case.