The train had fallen into a rhythm that could almost be called… domestic. Which was absurd, really. A train full of criminals, mercenaries, and half-feral demigods rumbling through a subterranean hellscape shouldn't have felt routine.
And yet, somehow, it did. We had checkpoints, meals that occasionally resembled food, and a conductor whose whistling had burrowed so deeply into my skull I could probably hum it in my sleep. Saints above, I'd kill for a silence that didn't come with percussion.
Each stop we passed was easier than the last. The guards waved us through with that brand of lazy authority reserved for men who've been paid too little to care and too much to die trying.
I could practically see the apathy radiating off them like steam. "Oh, another train full of mysterious cargo headed for the deeper shafts? Splendid, let's all pretend that's normal."
Bureaucracy was our guardian angel now, and she wore her halo as a noose.
After the third checkpoint, Brutus even started relaxing. And that, dear reader, was when I knew we were doomed.
He leaned back against the wall, crossed his arms, and said—actually said—the words, "I think we're in the clear." Which, as any seasoned fugitive knows, is the cosmic equivalent of shouting "Come eat me!" into the dark.
Still, for about half an hour, it was almost peaceful.
Then, of course, the universe decided I'd had too much fun. Because just as I was beginning to think about taking a nap, a sharp bang reverberated from the car next to us.
Not a polite thump. Not a clatter. No, this was a deafening, gut-shaking metallic clang, the kind of sound that could wake the dead and make them file a noise complaint.
Every muscle in my body tensed. My crew reacted instantly—Atticus snapping his head up from his book, Freya drawing her blade in one smooth, terrifying motion, Dregan nearly dropping his cigar, a tragedy he narrowly avoided, and Brutus pressing his hand against the wall as if he could syphon its secrets.
"What the hell was that?" Atticus hissed, eyes darting toward the door.
My instincts kicked in before reason had time to argue. "Hide!" I hissed back, waving my hands like a frantic mother hen. "Now! Behind the crates, under the crates, I don't care—just make yourselves invisible!"
You'd be amazed how quickly hardened criminals can move when properly motivated. Within seconds, the room transformed into what could only be described as a half-strung children's game of hide-and-seek—limbs crammed into barrels, cloaks thrown over faces, and the beastman crouched behind a pile of coal like a mountain trying to play peekaboo.
I ducked behind a stack of crates myself, heart pounding, every sense sharpened to a painful edge. The silence that followed was unbearable. Then came the soft creak of the connecting door opening.
I heard footsteps. Slow, deliberate, and oh-so-familiar.
The conductor stepped in.
He had that same lazy swagger as always, a pipe dangling from his mouth, his eyes half-lidded but sharp beneath the weight of fatigue. He paused, surveying the room with the casual suspicion of a man who'd spent too much time among liars.
And then he called out, "Dunny?"
I nearly choked on my own tongue.
From the other side of the car, I saw a small tuft of blond hair rise hesitantly behind a crate. The boy's eyes darted toward me, wide with terror. I shook my head violently. Stay down, you little gremlin, stay down!
But Dunny, Saints preserve him, peeked out anyway. "H-here, gramps!"
I closed my eyes and muttered, "Oh, I'm going to strangle that boy with his own overalls."
The conductor's expression softened instantly, his entire posture relaxing as he caught sight of the trembling apprentice. "There you are," he said, chuckling low. "Thought you'd gone and fallen off somewhere back near the last checkpoint. You hiding from me, lad?"
"N-no!" Dunny stammered, stepping out from his hiding place like a child caught stealing cookies. "Just—just checking the cargo. Making sure everything's, uh… secure."
"Secure, eh?" The conductor's grin widened. "That's a new word for avoiding work."
The boy smiled weakly, fidgeting with his hands. "Just trying to be useful."
"Useful's one thing," the old man said, stepping closer, "but sneakin' about's another. You'll give me gray hair."
"You already have gray hair," Dunny muttered, then winced like he'd just insulted a god.
The conductor barked a laugh, rough but warm. "Aye, that's fair. Comes with the job, I suppose."
There was a long moment then—a pause that felt almost tender. The man crouched down, reaching out to pat the boy's shoulder. "Listen, lad," he said, softer now, "we're takin' a detour soon. Orders came down from up top. Some new track repairs, test routes, the usual nonsense. You'll stay close to me, yeah?"
Dunny nodded too fast, his nervous energy almost palpable. "O-of course, gramps."
But I could see it—the flicker of fear in his eyes, the twitch of his fingers. The boy was unraveling, piece by piece. I wanted to scream at him to breathe, to keep calm, but all I could do was glare daggers from behind my crate.
The conductor tilted his head. "You alright, lad? You're twitchin' like a rat in the pantry."
"N-no! I mean—yes! I mean, I'm fine!" Dunny squeaked, his voice hitting a note I didn't know human throats could reach. "Just—just tired!"
The conductor frowned but let it go with a grunt. "Right. Don't work yourself into the ground, boy." He stood, giving the top of Dunny's head a fond pat that made the poor child look ready to burst into tears. "You're a good lad, you know that?"
Dunny's lip trembled. "Y-yeah."
Then, mercifully, the conductor turned and left. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving behind the faint smell of oil, tobacco, and my rapidly fraying sanity.
For several seconds, nobody moved. Then, from somewhere to my right, Dregan whispered, "Well, that was… adorable."
I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding and slumped against the crate. "Adorable? I nearly died of secondhand anxiety."
The sound that came next was small but distinct—a click from outside, followed by the heavy chunk of shifting steel. The detour had begun.
We waited in silence, the faint rumble of motion beneath us deepening as the train adjusted to its new course. The minutes melted into an hour, long and uneventful, the rhythmic clatter of the wheels becoming almost hypnotic. A part of me wanted to believe we were safe, that this bizarre plan had actually worked.
Then we reached the final checkpoint.
The train slowed, the air growing colder as the tunnel widened into a vast cavern. This place felt older, heavier—less like a prison station and more like a temple to exhaustion.
I took my chance. While the others stayed hidden, I let my body flicker in the span of eight heartbeats, the air bending around me with a shimmer until I was gone—vanished from sight. Then, careful as a whisper, I slipped across the train and into the conductor's cab.
Brutus was already there, looming like a very large, very concerned gargoyle. He didn't look pleased to see the air beside him shimmer into my shape as I took my position ducking behind a heap of coal. "You're insane," he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.
"True," I replied in a whisper. "But at least I'm consistent."
Outside, the guards approached. Their boots echoed against the stone, followed by a chorus of bored voices.
"Hold up," one said. "You're not supposed to be on this line, old man. Manifest says this track's been restricted."
The conductor leaned lazily against the throttle, unimpressed. "Aye, well, I got special orders this mornin'. Straight from the Warden's office."
"Funny," the guard said, "didn't hear about that."
"You wouldn't," the old man shot back. "Paperwork's slower than rot. Here—see for yourself." He pulled that strange brass contraption from his coat again, cranked it once, and handed the resulting card over.
The guard studied it, frowning. "This thing's barely legible."
"That's bureaucracy for you," the conductor said, exhaling smoke. "You lot gonna stand there all day, or you gonna let an old man do his job?"
The other guard chuckled. "He's got a point. Let him through."
The first hesitated, then shrugged. "Fine. Open the gate."
I exhaled slowly, my heart finally easing its death grip on my ribs. Maybe, just maybe, we'd done it. We'd fooled the system, again.
Then I felt it.
Something in the air shifted. It wasn't sound, not exactly—more like a vibration, a pressure, a wrongness. The hairs at the back of my neck stood up, my breath catching halfway to my lungs.
The guards outside stiffened too. One of them turned toward the far end of the cavern, his hand instinctively going to his weapon.
I followed his gaze. Then I saw them, two figures emerging from the darkness, moving with a grace that was anything but human. Their robes were black as tar, their faces obscured by smooth, expressionless masks. Even the air around them seemed to bend slightly, rippling like heat over stone.
My stomach didn't just drop—it plummeted, a dead weight free-falling through iron and stone until it landed somewhere far below the earth, somewhere I'd rather not follow.
"Oh, saints," I whispered. "No. Not them."
They were the High Warden's escorts. The ones I hadn't killed.
They moved in silence, slow and coaxing, their presence alone cutting through the noise of the checkpoint like a blade through silk.
Every guard on the platform froze mid-breath, the laughter and idle chatter dying so quickly it left a vacuum in its wake. Weapons lifted halfway, trembling hands hovering between duty and the instinct to flee. One guard—some poor fool with too much pride and too little sense—took a step forward.
"Halt!" he barked, his voice cracking through the stillness like a whip. "Identification!"
The two didn't stop. Their heads tilted slightly, as if listening to something distant, something none of us could hear.
The guard swallowed, puffed out his chest, and tried again, louder this time, voice straining to fill the cavern. "I said halt!"
Then he reached out, perhaps to grab one of them by the sleeve, perhaps just to prove to himself that he still existed. His gloved hand brushed the edge of the nearer figure's cloak.
What happened next defied comprehension.
A flicker—barely a shimmer of motion—then the whisper of air being torn apart. There was no visible weapon, no flash of steel, only the faintest suggestion of movement and a sound that didn't belong to the world: a thin, slicing hiss that made the back of my teeth ache.
Then came the scream.
It was high and raw, bursting from the guard's throat before his mind could even grasp what had happened. The sound of it echoed through the stone cavern, bouncing back in ugly, distorted waves.
He staggered backward, clutching his wrist, a bright fountain of red spurting between his fingers. When his knees hit the ground, the sound turned wet and desperate.
I saw his hand—or rather, what was left of it. The man's fingers—all five of them—lay scattered near his boots like discarded quills.
The cuts were impossibly clean, too sharp to have come from any blade forged by mortal hands. Steam rose from the wounds, faint and eerie, and for a one horrifying moment I thought I saw the edges of his flesh shimmer, as though reality itself had been sliced open in the escort's wake.
The cavern erupted into chaos.
Guards scrambled in all directions, the scrape of boots and the clatter of weapons turning into a discordant symphony of panic.
Shouts overlapped—orders, prayers, curses—but none of it mattered. The two masked figures kept advancing through the carnage, untouched, unhurried. Their robes trailed through the spreading pool of blood without so much as a stain, as if the world refused to touch them.
I ducked lower behind the mound of coal, my breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat.
Brutus stood beside me, face ghost-pale, every muscle drawn tight like he was ready to tear through the metal walls if he had to. I could see the whites of his eyes flickering toward the door—an instinct screaming to run—but neither of us moved.
Outside, a guard shouted for backup, another fumbled with his sword, the rest forming a shaky perimeter that would've looked brave if it wasn't so clearly suicidal.
The escorts didn't even draw weapons. They didn't need to.
And then it hit me—the awful, paralyzing realization that sank deeper than fear. This wasn't a mere patrol. They weren't here by chance.
They were looking for me.