Putting on a brave face, Neomi answered bluntly. āI am not too sure. I can kind of manipulate air with my hands. It doesnāt do much, to be honest, but look coolā¦ā Neomi felt a little lame admitting this. She hoped she wouldnāt be sent back home for being too inexperienced, but skirting the truth never suited her. āā¦I guess I need some practice, or guidance.ā
I... I could feel it... if that makes any sense. Toni blushed a bit as she explained. I mean I can see them, but only vaguely,; they're like blurrs or clouds of smoke that are almost shaped like something. But it's the feeling that I get from them. She paused, staring out the window as if she expected to find something amid the glowing fireflies in the tunnel. Not looking away from the window, she continued. "Most of the time it's just a prickle through my skin. Hairs sticking up. Other times it feels more pleasant, like drifting on a cloud... but then... sometimes it feels heavy. Like a burden. L-like something is pressing against me. That's... that's when I'n sure they mean harm.
āItā¦ā A line appeared between Sashaās brows as she pulled them down in a frown. It felt unfair to be questioned like this, like theyā¦ like she had done something wrong. āIt was in front of the trainā¦ like it was trying to stop it.ā That seems silly, now that she knew the train was warded against them. But then, wasnāt the station supposed to keep out Rue entirely? Would it have been able to stop the train? What could a Rue even do to a person, if it got close? Sheād never found out. Sheād never asked. āYou said they would be coming after you, because of the plant.ā
āMost of the time, they just run from meā¦ the gun. I shot oneā¦ once. Theyā¦ the ones in the forestā¦ donāt get closeā¦ after that.ā
The tracks rumbled beneath them, and the car jostled gently back and forth at a consistent but respectfully moderate speed through the gleaming natural caverns. Yiya kept her knobby hands folded over the top of the cane while she wavered to and fro with the sway of the car. Her eyes remained sharp on each Howl in turn as they spoke.
Echoh, meanwhile, drooped dejectedly at the rejection of its fragrant tea and proceeded to put the cups and saucers back into the invisible storage underneath the vibrant terrarium. The robot scuttled deeper into a corner and sat in silence.
"Neomi." Yiya squinted thoughtfully, her chin raised.
"What you've got is the breath of the Rue. If you can mess with the air no matter where you are in that protected city, you might be a most powerful Howl." She tapped her cane on the floor and looked at each of them.
"What all of you are seeing and manipulating is another plane of existence. A dimension that overlaps ours. At some points the barrier between us is thinner: there the Rue can more easily manipulate our world, but our Howls can in turn manipulate theirs. You could say that to the Rue, you Howls are the strange shadowy visions." She smiled creakily.
"Now, Neomi. In a few minutes we'll be passing through the Gold Cathedral, where there's a wide hole into the Rue's plane: there's nothing like it in Oaken. Even all these wards on the train won't stop you from feeling the wind that blows in their skies. If you relax yourself, let yourself feel that other place, you might catch a little more of that air and pull it into our plane."Yiya's sharp eyes fell on Toni.
"Young Toni. You're a poet, I see. And you've experienced a kind of weight that I hope you never experience again." There was the faintest of sad smiles in her lined face.
"You've made some important observations, and I see now something in you. Have you heard the theory of auras and empaths? That our emotions radiate from us and touch the world around us, even if we outwardly appear as if everything is right? You're feeling the auras of the Rue. Each one of them is a different personality: like dogs and cats, like squirrels, like people. And each of them has a different disposition. When we get close to that cathedral, see if you can pick out how many Rue are around us, and maybe their intentions. I wonder if they can read you in turn -- and if that's so, whether you can decide what their sensation of you will be." She squinted thoughtfully, appraising Toni's face.
"And Sasha." Yiya sat up straighter and stomped her cane twice for attention. The red lights in the traincar flickered.
"Yes, I believe a Rue would try to stop that train. Stop the Trailing Bird from leaving. It might have gummed the engine or given the engineer a stomachache, or worse, if you hadn't scattered it with your weapon. That is an interesting thing. The barrel's clearly empty, we all heard it click, but the kickback and the danger to the Rue's plane is very real." Yiya tapped a finger on the cane, considering the possibilities.
"Let's conduct an experiment. You're obviously manifesting a bullet of some kind in the Rue's plane. The rifle in your hands and the familiarity of the weapon make that expectation a reality. Try focusing harder on making that bullet real. Imagine what it looks like, how cold it is, how heavy. Imagine the chemical reaction that sets it firing off. Imagine how much damage it'll do. But I do wonder. What else might you be able to conjure?"The train wheels screeched and the rails took a sharp turn, listing the traincar to the side while the red lights shivered. A stalagmite whipped past very close to the window, then the lights went out. Darkness pressed close like velvet over their eyes, but moments later the windows brightened with brilliant golden light from outside the car.
Shards of sunlight poked through the ceiling and reflected blindingly in the polished white stone of the vast cavern. Ripples of shimmering gold spidered up the bulbous walls and crackled through the white marbled floor and gathered at the tips of stalactites, giving the cavernous room the regality of a ridiculously rich cathedral.
The Howls would feel as if, on the other side of the dark corridor, they were in a different space, far bigger than the sheltered traincar. Neomi might feel a gentle breeze on her cheek, maybe the faintest smell of an unfamiliar flower and something distant burning. Toni might feel, all at once, a prickling at her back, a pull on her left pinky finger, a feather-light brush on her face, the hairs on her right arm standing up, and a pressure in her stomach as if someone were trying to push her into the seat.
A sharp noise over Yiya's head--
BANG! --made the old woman jump, and she looked up just as a skittering noise clattered along the outside of the moving traincar. Even she could hear it.
Outside the windows, in the gleaming stone and sunlight, a dozen nebulous and flickering shapes-- some bright and flitting, others shadowy smoke, still others like sinewy ribbons that danced overhead --raced with grave intention toward the train.
The train's wheels
ker-KLUNKED and the traincar veered violently as it hit something on the tracks, but somehow remained on course. The next time might not be so lucky.
"It seems," Yiya called out over the rumble of the train as it sped up with a rumble and roar, her thin hands clutched on the back of her seat,
"the Rue would very much like us to stop."
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