The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,156

noticing the smile he evidently hadn’t hidden very well, and as the harsh shadows on her face moved, he realized he’d been wrong—she wasn’t anything dangerous, she was just a kid, out past her curfew, her terror split equally between the prospect of being crushed to death by carriage wheels and that of being busted by her parents.

“It’s all right,” the conductor said, trying a gentler version of the amusement that had leaked out earlier. “We won’t call them if you don’t want to. There’s a diner just up the street there to the left, won’t cost you much money either. Get some caffeine and some food in you, and you’ll feel better. They’ll have a com-station you can use once you figure out who you want to call. It’s right across the street from the constables’ station—it’s a very safe neighborhood.”

The girl seemed to change then, her manner softening, her wide eyes relaxing as her brows drew in. “I am looking for someone,” she said, her voice somewhat more distinct now. “Perhaps you could help me.”

The conductor fought the urge to look at his chrono—the girl had clearly been traumatized by the near miss, but his supervisor would have something to say about feeble excuses if the conductor didn’t start on toward his next stop.

The girl drew a quivering breath and said haltingly, “Please—I lost the chrono I was wearing, and I have none of the money for the diner. I don’t remember where I should go.”

She must have hit her head. A little flare of panic echoed back up at that thought, as he imagined his supervisor’s reaction if he learned she’d been hurt. The conductor would never work again. But then he looked at her face, her wide eyes, her trembling lips, the way she was starting to shiver in the bite of the night winds unbroken by clouds.

She was so young, after all, and still visibly afraid, the fingers of one of her hands twitching involuntarily in an odd, perpetual dance, as if weaving something out of the air. He could almost see something there, like a shadow condensed out of the night … like mist.

He knew then that he would help her. He wanted to help her. The urge was growing to do what she needed, and as he decided that he would, it was as if a kind of pressure eased.

He’d tell his supervisor … he’d make something up, some reason the last carriage of the night never finished its rounds, some reason he had to abandon it on the tracks. If his supervisor had a problem with it … drop it all, he’d just quit.

“Who are you looking for?” he asked gently.

“I have heard there was once a man who fell down into the darkness below, and returned here to the cloudlands. I wish to speak to him.” She really had very little accent after all—perhaps it was nothing more than fear that had made her sound so strange before. He’d never heard the term cloudlands to describe Alciel before—it was lovely. Like poetry.

The conductor blinked and then gave a nervous laugh. “They’re just stories. You’re old enough to know that—no one could survive a fall like that, and even if they did, they wouldn’t survive long in that wasteland. And they certainly wouldn’t be able to magically reappear back up here.”

“No,” the girl murmured. “To travel by magic into the sky is impossible, of course.”

For a moment, he remembered that first impression he’d had, that of something coiled and dangerous, sweet and dark and lethal.

Then the girl smiled at him, and the memory shredded itself with gleeful abandon. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I wish to speak to him. The one who fell and returned.”

The conductor hesitated, his mind racing, trying to think of any way he could help this girl find who she was looking for. “A thing like that, if it had really happened … the whole city would know about it. Unless he was close with the councilors, or maybe even the royal family, and they pulled strings to keep it quiet.”

The girl considered this. “Then take me to the king.”

“The … You mean the queen?” A cold sweat had broken out along the conductor’s forehead—a sweat not unlike the one he woke to after those nightmares with the crunching sound.

“That’s what I said.”

The conductor stared at her for a moment, aware that she had distinctly said king, and equally aware how strange it was that he didn’t care. He really