Chapter 1
Night
The air on the Night Station’s platform smelled wet with rain. Clouds hugged unfamiliar jagged spires and rooftops of nearby buildings like a quilt over a bed of nails. This land was sharp and serrated, and not the land I’d been raised in.
Dark Ones—my guests—milled about the thousand-foot-long platform, glad to be allowed outside but wary too. I kept my smile as tight as my corset and clasped my hands behind my back to keep from wringing them.
Gerome had neglected to instruct me on what to do if the Night Station decided to move. Perhaps those lessons would have come had Jack not driven a railroad spike through his heart. In the absence of protocol, “winging it,” as my brother had suggested, was my only option. Opening the doors onto the platform had seemed like a good place to start. Hopefully, the platform’s white line, running parallel to the tracks, would continue to protect everyone from the wild things that lurked in the dark.
Guests needed to know they were still being cared for. I was armed with an array of smiles and reassuring noises that kept their panic at bay. I told them not to worry, to stay behind the white line, and I offered more food and wine, which the station seemed content to provide. For now, the big clock above the main hall clunked down the hours as it always had. Nothing had changed inside the station.
The fact we’d narrowly avoided meeting the vampire queen had bought me a few days and nights of goodwill from the Dark Ones, who no more wanted her near than I did. But without rapid answers as to where we were, I doubted the goodwill would last for long.
I stole a glance through the station’s high windows at the clock above the Grand Hall. Almost midnight.
Trains would arrive once the clock chimed. I’d greet the new guests while bidding others a farewell. But this was a new city on a new continent—I assumed from the architecture—and we did not yet know if trains ran on these tracks.
If no trains came, what use was a station?
The clock struck midnight. I waited for the whistle, for the strumming of the iron tracks or any indication that a train was inbound, but as the twelfth chime rang out and fell silent, it was clear there would be no arrivals tonight.
My guests seemed unconcerned. One night without a train might not be a concern, but what if two or three or more passed? What if trains didn’t run in this place? No trains, no people to save. I’d be stranded here.
“Ma’am.” Etienne jogged onto the platform, his long legs eating up the distance. In his Night Station attire of black trousers and a black jacket over a vivid purple silk shirt, he blended in with the staff, but he had a grace in the way he moved that I’d attributed to good genes. I’d been half right.
“Etienne.” I said his name more harshly than necessary. We were all still trying to find the right balance in this new world, and not just the physical world, but the mental one too. The station hadn’t changed, but the people inside it had, myself included.
“There was a gentleman at the door,” he said, his French accent adding a lyrical quality to his voice. His dark eyes flicked to the empty tracks. Was he recalling how he’d trapped me in a carriage with Jack, sending me off to what should have been my death? The elves had set him up. He claimed to have made a mistake. I’d been watching him closely to ensure no mistakes like that happened again.
“Which door?” I asked, still carrying the terseness.
He swallowed. “The front door, ma’am.”
I’d forgotten we even had a front door. Nobody ever used that entrance. From the roadside, the station appeared abandoned. Guests arrived by train, not foot. People didn’t wander abandoned cities at night unless they wanted to get eaten or whisked away to bloodfarms. At least, not in our land.
“A human man?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
He eagerly nodded.
The Dark Ones would be very interested to learn about a free-range human. No vampireguard remained inside the station to scoop the person up and bleed them dry, but plenty of other Dark Ones would happily take advantage of a lone human traveler.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“As sure as I can be.”
“Was he coerced? Did he appear nervous?”
“No, no, nothing like that. He seemed in good spirits.” Etienne stepped closer and whispered, “He asked for… the person whose name we do not speak.”
A stranger who happened to be wandering a foreign city at night decided to stroll up to an abandoned station and ask for my brother?
Coincidences did not stretch that far.
“Where is he now?” I turned away from the platform and all its unanswered questions. The lack of a train would have to be tomorrow’s concern.
“In the library.” Etienne followed beside me as we swept through the doors and into the station.
“You put him in my office?” I asked while tossing bright smiles to passing guests.
The Corvus sisters spotted us and veered to one side, eyeing Etienne as though he might steal the buttons off their blouses. He did have a penchant for collecting buttons, most of them procured from unsuspecting guests. Usually, the turnover of guests was so rapid that rumors seldom took hold, but I wondered if the elves might have been spreading information about Etienne. Or the sisters could have taken a dislike to Etienne the moment they’d learned they had competition for collecting lost things.
“I d-didn’t know where else to put him,” he continued, speaking under his breath. He’d noticed the way the sisters had avoided him, but he kept the dismay from his face. He was learning. “He knows more than most.”
“All right, I’ll meet him inside. Return to the platform and see to our guests.”
“Moi?” He tripped on the corner of the hallway rug and almost fell into the path of a pair of alarmed guests. After apologizing profusely, he raised his sheepish eyes to me.
“Yes, you. Someone needs to keep an eye on them, especially if no train arrives. Our guests need to know they’re safe and cared for, which means my staff must remain visible. Talk to them and tell them how beautiful they are. They’ll love you for it.”
He swallowed so hard I heard the click. “But… I…”
I met his frown with one of my own. “Etienne, you are uniquely qualified to speak to them on their level, remember?”
He blinked, and then his big dark eyes widened in realization. He and I had recently discovered he wasn’t human, although he had looked and acted the part for several years. He was, in fact, an elf changeling, hidden among humans so the VG wouldn’t scoop him up and bleed him or abuse him until he was of no further use to them.
We had a long way to go in learning more about Etienne’s changeling bloodline, but we also had a job to do. Beneath his humanity, he was an elf. The other Dark Ones were less likely to eat elves if said Dark Ones got frustrated by their lack of transportation.
“Oh. I see,” he said, shoulders drooping. “Yes, yes, of course…”
“I can leave the station in your care while I speak with our… uninvited arrival?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I left him looking forlorn in the hallway, ignored the pang of guilt at having to remind him he wasn’t human, and hurried to my office.