Revan spent the next twenty minutes counting heads.
Four of them, to be exact: the strangers the family had assigned to this mission. Sylvia had handed him their files the night before, more information than she had shared in weeks, so he had memorized every page.
The scarred man was Marshal Dain Ashworth, head of security for the transport and a decorated veteran of the Border Wars. He had already climbed aboard.
'A man like that doesn't guard cargo unless it's either priceless or apocalyptic.'
Next came Professor Mirael Thorne, who almost tripped over a trunk on her way up the steps. Her arms were full of rolled-up papers, her thick glasses were sliding down her nose, and she was mumbling to herself, not noticing the freezing wind at all.
'Archmage Thorne's younger sister. Elara's aunt.'
A headache was coming. Of course there was a Thorne on this train.
At the top of the steps, she glanced back at the sealed cargo carriage, and for a second her face changed. Behind the thick lenses, her eyes went sharp and cold, like a surgeon looking at a patient. Then she pushed her glasses up and hurried inside.
'Two people in one body. Dangerous.'
The third was Lyra, a maid assigned to the VIP carriage. When he handed her one of Sylvia's smaller bags, she gave him a bright smile and a cheerful "Welcome aboard!"
"Thank you."
Their hands touched, and her palms were rough. The calluses were in the wrong places for a maid: a hard ridge at the base of her fingers and another across the heel of her hand. Those came from gripping something heavy with both hands for years.
'Sword calluses. Something big, like a claymore or a greatsword.'
Her file had been spotless, which now seemed suspicious too. Smiling politely, he stepped back.
Lord Cassian Voss arrived last, and late, like he had planned it. Pristine white gloves, a tailored suit that probably cost more than Volkar's whole forge, and a neat, even smile with no warmth in it.
When he saw Sylvia by the VIP entrance, he gave her a small, dramatic bow.
"Lady Sylvia. A profound pleasure to be traveling with you."
Sylvia answered with one cold nod and turned her back on him, leaving his smile hanging in the morning air.
House Voss ran the biggest black markets and smuggling rings in the eastern corridor. Sylvia didn't have friends, only useful people, so if she had agreed to bring a snake like him to the Borderlands, this mission had a lot more to do with the underworld than the transport mandate said.
Saying nothing, Revan watched all four of them and decided how dangerous each one was.
***
With a jolt that rattled his teeth, the steel beast woke up.
The train started moving slowly, then picked up speed as the station disappeared behind them. Its wheels clattered on the tracks, and the air smelled like coal and machine oil. Before noon, Revan walked the whole length of the train, because he never trusted a battlefield he hadn't checked himself.
Behind the locomotive came the VIP carriage for Sylvia and Cassian, then the dining carriage, then the service carriage that held the supplies and Revan's room, a windowless box barely wider than the bed. After that came the research carriage, the security carriage where Dain and his guards stayed, and finally the sealed cargo carriage at the very back.
Six carriages. One door he wasn't allowed to open.
The research carriage had its door propped wide, and Mirael called out to him before he could sneak by.
"Oh! You're Lady Sylvia's attendant. Come, come, look at this."
Inside, someone had turned the narrow space into a small laboratory, with brass clamps, labeled drawers, and jars strapped into padded racks so they wouldn't fall when the train shook. Mirael was happily unscrewing one of them. A sharp chemical smell came out, bitter like lamp oil, with a sweet, rotten note underneath.
"Preservation fluid. It keeps crystalline specimens from breaking down during transport. Wonderful stuff, though the smell sticks to everything."
'It's sticking to the inside of my nose, that's for sure.'
He thanked her and escaped. For the next hour, he kept trying to forget the smell.
***
Afternoon turned into evening. When the windows went black, the first fight of the trip started at the dinner table.
The dining carriage was fancy, with velvet curtains, mahogany tables, and crystal chandeliers that swayed with the train. Everyone was there except Dain, who ate with his men. Nobody looked at the servant pouring wine in the corner, which was how Revan liked it, and from there he watched the people at the table.
Cassian swirled the wine in his glass.
"I must say, Lady Sylvia, it's a rare pleasure to share a journey with you. The Vespera family has always been so reclusive."
Sylvia cut her steak and didn't look up.
"We value our privacy, Lord Voss."
"Of course. Privacy is essential, especially when one conducts delicate operations. My family, for instance, has several interests in the eastern corridor. It's a messy business, but someone has to manage it."
Revan froze in the middle of pouring.
'The eastern corridor. He's dropping bait right in front of everyone.'
Sylvia's knife stopped above her plate. When she finally looked at Cassian, the air between them seemed to get colder.
"I wouldn't know anything about that, Lord Voss."
Mirael waved her fork, not noticing the tension at all.
"Oh, but the Borderlands are fascinating! The leftover anomalies from the Unification War, the mutated plants! It's a goldmine for my research. I can't wait to examine the samples we're transporting."
A small tightening showed in Sylvia's jaw, and Revan doubted anyone else noticed.
'She's annoyed. So Mirael just said something she wasn't supposed to.'
Lyra came by with the teapot to refill Cassian's cup. The train hit a bump, the spout jerked, and boiling tea splashed onto his gloved hand.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, my lord!"
While Lyra grabbed a napkin, Cassian didn't even look at his hand. His smile stayed on Sylvia as the hot tea soaked into his white glove.
"It's quite all right."
Revan's eyes went to the wet cotton.
'Boiling tea through thin cotton, and he didn't even flinch. Either his pain tolerance isn't human, or he's blocking it with Aura. I don't like either option.'
Dinner ended in heavy silence, and Sylvia went to her room without a word.
***
At midnight, the only sound on the train was the clacking of the wheels.
Dressed in his black combat clothes, Revan slipped out of his room. The bitter chemical smell reached him again as he passed the research carriage. Rather than walk past Dain's guards, he climbed the outside ladder onto the roof, where the wind was freezing and kept trying to pull him off.
Whatever they were carrying, he needed to know.
Staying low, he crossed the roofs and dropped onto the small platform in front of the cargo carriage. The heavy iron door was locked, and the lock alone he could have handled. What was painted on the door was another matter.
A complicated sealing rune glowed faintly in the dark, drawn in fresh blood mixed with mana. Revan's breath caught, because he recognized it. As a kid, he had "borrowed" some forbidden alchemy books from the Vespera library, and this exact seal was in them. Its purpose was to contain illegal mana catalysts.
His stomach dropped.
'House Vespera really is one of the people behind those crystals.'
'Absolute lunatics. What are they planning to do out in the wasteland? Build an army of freaks?'
His hands stayed away from the door, because the rune would set off an alarm the moment his mana touched it. Opening it wasn't necessary anyway. What he knew now was enough: they were all sitting on a powder keg, and his own master was holding the match.
The way back was the same route. When he dropped into the narrow hallway outside his room, his heart was still racing.
One step in, he froze.
Marshal Dain was leaning against the wall at the end of the corridor with his arms crossed. He had been standing in the shadows, and Revan hadn't sensed him at all.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The tracks thudded under their feet.
Dain didn't reach for a weapon or call the guards, only looked at the boy in the servant's uniform.
"You move quietly."
The voice was low and rough. Revan gave him nothing but a blank face.
"I'm a servant, Marshal. It's my job not to be seen."
With a snort, Dain pushed off the wall and stopped a few feet away, so tall that his shadow covered Revan.
"A servant."
The word came out like he didn't believe it. Then he really looked at Revan: his jaw, the dark circles under his eyes, his stance, ready to fight or run.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"You know, you're too much like your father, boy."
Revan's heart stopped for a second.