our parents . . .”
He swallows hard, and Ania lays a hand on his arm, warm brown fingers tracing soothing patterns on his olive skin.
“Anyway,” he says, pushing past it, “it’s impossible to live out there without maz now, for wards and barriers and all that, but if anyone could do it, Silva could, right?”
Remi hums their agreement. “I mean, he literally invented MMC’s maz scrubbers, so yeah, I imagine he could figure something out.”
“Nerrrd,” Jaesin says under his breath, and Remi gives him a none-too-gentle shove.
“But then he could be anywhere,” Ania whines as we pass a fading bulletin board still decorated for a lesson on weather with a calendar from six years ago.
“True,” I say, forcing myself back into the conversation. “But we have a starting point. The P.O. box at the university. We’ll find him.”
That effectively kills the conversation. I tell myself it’s because no one had anything else to say. End of topic. Moving on.
We exit the barely still hanging doors into the alley behind the school, then turn the corner out onto the main street. The looming entrance to the train station fills the end of the road with its gleaming steel face, full of rounded arch windows and tasteful neon accent lighting. It almost covers up the vague run-down feeling of businesses barely afloat that set in a few years after the spellplague. People were afraid to travel outside the protective wards around the cities for a long time, and even after travel slowly resumed, the volume of passengers has never quite been the same.
Even still, most people prefer to fly, to be far above any potential source of contaminated maz, but that isn’t an option for us. Security at the Kyrkarta Air and Space Port is thorough, including a nullaz barrier that would strip away any concealment spells we attempted to use. The number of trains running is way down from what it used to be, but they’ve managed to keep the doors open. Kyrkarta is still connected to the rest of the world by ground, if only just. Shockingly, not many people want to visit the city that was ground zero for the deadliest plague the world has ever seen. Can’t imagine why.
As we approach the station, Ania tenses beside me. One guard stands on either side of the entrance doors, casually observing every person that walks past. Okay, this is the hard part. Buying tickets online? No problem, thanks to Ania’s money. Actually getting on the train? Fine . . . unless the police have shared our photos with security to guard against us fleeing the city, like we’re currently attempting to do. Ania’s the only one of us who’s ever left Kyrkarta by train, and she said there would be two layers of guards to pass: one here, at the entrance, and another as we get on the train. No ID checks, but that won’t matter if they look too closely at our faces.
Jaesin does his emo shuffle toward the middle set of doors, as far from both guards as possible. Remi buries their face in their game, and I turn to Ania, letting my voice drift higher and my laugh come easier. Just two friends chatting about the latest season of a popular vid series. Nothing to see. Jaesin reaches the sliding door first, hesitates for a second on the threshold, then moves on without us. I hold my breath as the rest of us approach, closer, the door slides open . . . and we’re in.
Round one: uneventful victory.
The train station is as busy as it ever gets, the early morning crowd in line to present their electronic tickets for boarding, while friends and family stand off to one side to wait for their arrivals. I let myself relax just a fraction. With it being this busy, we’re less likely to get stopped. We shuffle into line together, our tickets loaded onto cheap throwaway decks completely disconnected from our regular net presence. No identifying information whatsoever, just a few games to make them look used, and a single train ticket each.
The eternal line works in our favor, like I thought. By the time we get to the front, the guard next to the ticket taker looks bored enough to fall asleep. With a grunt, Jaesin holds out his deck to scan, and the woman waves him forward without a second glance, eyes glazed over. Ania and I get similar treatment, and it takes everything I have not to