The Bridge That Remembered

By dawn, the eastern sea had risen into the sky.

Oliver watched it through the engine’s rear window as the Alchemist Train climbed the last iron grade out of Marrow Station. An entire bay hung above the continent, water trembling in a silver bowl between drifting cliffs. Fishing boats turned slowly in the air, their nets streaming beneath them like roots. Far below, the abandoned seabed shone in the morning light.

He looked away before the sight became a feeling.

The fuel gauge stood above the boiler, a brass cylinder filled with cloudy blue vapor. It had no numbers, only a sequence of painted faces: grief, fear, longing, joy, and at the top, love. A thin red needle quivered between longing and fear.

“Don’t,” Oliver muttered.

The gauge did not care. Stabilizer fuel was distilled from human emotion, and the train could sense every passenger’s heart more accurately than any priest. Oliver alone could read the gauge, which was why he had been made engineer—and why he had spent six years pretending the instrument was merely machinery.

Behind him, someone knocked three times on the engine door.

“I said the cab was closed,” Oliver called.

“Then I am trespassing with excellent timing.”

The woman entered without waiting. She wore a black traveling coat fastened at the throat with a silver crown, though the crown had been scratched nearly smooth. Her dark hair was cut short on one side, and a pale blue light pulsed beneath the skin at her collarbone.

Oliver’s hand moved toward the brake lever. “You’re Nadia Vey.”

“Formerly.”

“The warrant said you were headed west.”

“The warrant was written by my uncle.” She glanced at the gauge. “Is that the emotional fuel?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Everything on this train becomes my business if it keeps me alive.”

The blue light beneath her skin brightened. For one breath, every loose tool in the cab lifted from its hooks. A wrench hovered beside Oliver’s ear. Then the train lurched, and gravity seized the objects again.

Oliver stared at her.

Nadia placed one palm over the glow. “The core was put inside me when I was seven. My family called it a blessing. The continent calls it treason.”

“What does it do?”

“Among other things, it attracts attention.”

As if summoned by the admission, the warning bell began to ring.

Ahead, the railway ended at a broken bridge. The far half of it floated two hundred yards beyond the gap, suspended over a white cloudbank. Oliver pulled the throttle back, but the train did not slow. The stabilizer engine gave a low, hungry sigh.

A man stood on the last intact span.

He had not been there a moment before. He wore a brown coat buttoned to the chin and carried a pocket watch whose hands spun backward. His hair was white, though his face was young. He raised one gloved hand as the train approached.

Oliver hit the brakes. Nothing happened.

“Who is that?” Nadia asked.

“The passenger who appears at broken bridges.”

“You know him?”

“No.”

The man stepped onto the track. The train rolled toward him, iron wheels screaming. He opened his watch and spoke through the engine glass, though his voice arrived as clearly as if he stood beside them.

“Engineer, your train is early.”

Oliver’s gauge needle plunged from fear toward grief.

“Early for what?” he shouted.

The Horologist smiled sadly. “For the last departure.”

Then he stepped backward into the open sky—and the train followed.