my hands, fashioning a transparent dome to cover our sandwiched bodies. I probably should’ve made it a tad larger so I could wriggle out from underneath Remo, but comfort hadn’t been my first priority. A cacophony of pings and clangs layered itself over the ringing inside my ears as more pieces of the train hailed over our shield.
Remo slid off me, but had to stay on his side, and me on mine to fit under my egg-shaped dome. His face glistened with sweat and trails of black smoke, but at least there was no blood.
Sand coated my lips. “Remo?” I raised my hand to his arm.
He winced.
When I lifted my palm, it was stained red. I tried to glimpse the rest of his back without touching him. But besides rips in the navy fabric, I couldn’t lever my head high enough to see anything in the cramped space.
“The shield”—his labored breaths struck the tip of my nose—“good call.”
If only I’d brought it out sooner.
Another cloud of detritus fell over the curved glass. I curled my head into my neck and my arm over the exposed side of my face, worried our defenses might crack, but Karsyn’s dust—Karsyn’s incredible, amazing dust—held steady.
I didn’t raise my head again until the banging and thumping came to a stop. And even then, I waited a dozen heartbeats before lowering my bent arm back alongside my body and peeking around.
Remo’s complexion had gone as ashen as when he’d been imprisoned in the cupola, and his eyes were feverishly bright.
“Are you okay?” My voice sounded like it was coming from another planet.
“Yeah.” His, too, sounded faint and distant. “You?”
I nodded. In spite of the confetti of tiny pulses beating in my eardrums, skull, waist, ankles, I was alive and conscious, so I was okay. Funny how standards changed when in survival mode.
“Do you think it’s over?” The air beneath the dome was so balmy that fog blurred the glass.
He looked over his shoulder at what he could see of the boulder platform, and then, gritting his teeth, he pressed his palms into the rounded glass and heaved it up so he could sit. Although my blood felt like it had spilled out of my body, I pushed up too. For a moment, all was gray, and then color returned in splashes, and the fuming crater crenellating the rock came into soft focus.
“It’s over,” he said, “but unless a new train appears, so is cell-hopping.”
A chill swept over my overheated body, icing the slickness on my skin. What if this world was the worst one yet?
“One down, one to go.” I didn’t think Remo was murmuring but it felt like he was.
“What?” I croaked.
“If this world works like the others, we only have one more fun occurrence in store.”
I returned my gaze to Remo’s, which was shadowed by the waving blue-green fronds above us. “Do you think it self-destructed by accident or did you press a button?”
His gaze tapered. “I didn’t activate any dead-man’s switch.”
“If I’d been the one manipulating the touchscreen, you would’ve asked me, too.”
His stony silence endured, pigheaded faerie that he was.
I pressed my lips into a thin line as I kneeled and reeled my dust back into my hand. “Let me see your back.”
When my fingers crept to the hem of his tunic, he said, “If you think you can get me naked after blam—”
I growled, which made him chuckle. I edged the fabric up, revealing a patchwork of little cuts. None looked particularly deep even though they all dribbled blood, thickened by clumps of sand.
“So? What’s the prognosis, doc?”
As gently as when I’d pulled the fabric up, I inched it back down his curved spine. “You’ll live, but we should get to the waterfall to wash out the blood and sand. Can you walk?”
He unfurled his long body. “The princess of Neverra just offered to bathe me. You bet I can walk.”
“If you weren’t already in pain, I’d slap you.”
“If I weren’t already in pain, I’d enjoy it.”
The temptation to roll my eyes took hold of me, but the heat still crisping the air made my eyes water and sting. I didn’t think tearing up would give my eyeroll quite the same clout. Remo offered me his hand but I didn’t take it, preferring to get up on my own. As I rose to my feet, my head swam, and my vision went so pixelated that I wondered if Remo had tossed a handful of sand into my face. I tried to