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1. Onward

They cannot be stopped. They eat up the miles between the Wall and the first cities of the Russian Empire, their passing marked by the ringing of bells in wooden church spires and by glimpses of pale, frightened faces in the windows of watchtowers. They plunge through the barricades set up across the rail—through iron bars and barbed wire and the bullets of the soldiers. They cannot be stopped.

What happens next?They are past the point of knowing. They have left Rostov and his guide behind, they have traveled off the map, staying away from the cities where the might of the Russian army and the Company forces will be mustering. Here are places they do not know. Small stations with fading signs, priests standing on the platforms, holding up crucifixes; women dressed in black, their hands together in prayer. But others reach for the train as it passes, dangerously close to the platform's edge. They stretch out their hands, pull at the vines that hang around it, as if they want to take its strangeness for themselves.

Where are we going?They do not know. Only forward, forward. Weiwei can see them watching her, the passengers and crew, as if she has the answers they need. Even the Captain, hesitating before giving an order, is waiting for her word. "But I don't know anything," she tells them, "I don't know what we should do." Not without Elena, not with the line back to her lengthening, minute by minute, hour by hour. Stop, she wants to say. Go back. She watches the rail from the observation car, she turns at every flash of blue inside the train, as if she might see her stepping out from the shadows of the undergrowth, giving a bow—For my latest trick… Hasn't she always been adept at vanishing and reappearing? But there is no sign of a not-quite-girl.

The passengers gather together. They sleep where they want, on the moss-covered floor or on bunks where willow branches hang down like curtains. The Professor and Marya are collecting their stories—writing them down on sheets of paper that will become the next column by Artemis. A final outing for the old Artemis, says the Professor. Or the first outing for the new. They don't know anymore. All they know is that they have to keep moving.

Weiwei stands in the watchtower in the evening light. And she can feel the train, pulling them onward. She knows where it wants them to go.

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