The girl standing before Emily pces her hand across her chest and gives a light bow.

  “o meet you, I’m Juliana Madonna and I’ve beeo wele you into The ant.”

  Emily quickly regains her wits, a cautious glint fshing in her eye unseen.

  Not a Mandrago? Does she work with them? Or is she ued a by The ant?

  Without pause, she returns the greeting with a bow of her own.

  “I’m Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago. What house are you from?”

  “Madonna!” Juliana says with a smile as she grabs Emily’s free hand and pulls her along. “Let’s go. If we hurry, we should be able to catch the rain!”

  Not a Mandrago then.

  Emily is too surprised to resist as Juliana hurriedly pulls her across the hangar into a narrow corridor with a shallow staircase. Juliana pauses as they reach the lowest step and turns back to look at Emily while releasing her hand.

  “Will you be alright oairs, or would you like me to take ygage?” she asks with obvious written on her face.

  “Ah no, I should be fine,” Emily reassures her with a smile. “My strength increased quite a bit when I awakened.”

  She starts moving towards the steps, but Juliana doesn’t follow. Instead, she looks at Emily with curiosity and asks her:

  “You’re already awakened? Have you been with the Mandrago family for long before bei here?”

  She doesn’t know?

  “Hm? No, they took me in six days ago, I awakened on my own before that.”

  Juliana’s mouth drops open as she stares at Emily in shock, before excitedly grabbing her hand with both her own and hopping on the spot.

  “That’s incredible! I’ve never met a self-awakened before. You must be really talented!”

  “Wait, doesn’t everyone awaken themselves?” Emily asks, seeing the ce to fill in her agical basiowledge.

  “No! Most kids from noble families like me are taught some basic magical theory from twelve, and then our elders help us awaken when we reach fifteen before sending us to The ant. As for kids we take in from oner households, they’re usually helped by a teacher in The ant to awaken after a few theory lessons. Awakening on your own without a proper education is super hard and practically unheard of. The only known self-awakeners in the Modo Kingdom are the King and the head of The ant!”

  Wait, they only awake fifteen? I guess it’s probably quite hard on the body of anyone younger if everyone has to gh pain like I did. It sounds like all noble families like to give their children a head start too.

  “If the oners aren’t self-awakened, how do you guys know who to take in?” Emily asks a question that occurs to her due to the odd nature of her own circumstances.

  “There’s a special magic crystal that reacts when it’s close to people with magical aptitude. I’m not sure about the process in other families, but we usually send one of our unawakened servants around our cities a few times a year with oo find any talents.” Juliana raises her h pride as she talks about her family.

  She seems awfully proud of kidnapping and brainwashing people. No, actually I don’t know if all families do that. Maybe I just met a particurly shitty one. She seems too io be bragging about that. Then again, there’s no guarantee she knows even if her family does braineople…

  “I see…” Emily sighs, pressing her doubts down and not letting them show on her face while asking with a sly smile: “Also, weren’t we meant to be rag to catch a train?”

  “Ah! Damn it, we’ll have missed it now.” Juliana’s shoulders slump as she begins pouting.

  “Heh, e on, we’ll just have to grab the one. You tell me all about your wonderful family while we wait.” Emily scoffs and slings her rge suitcase over her shoulder as she slips past Juliana and starts up the stairs.

  “Sure!”

  They fall into silence as they tinue up the stairs, moving at a rexed paow that there is no rush. The stairs climb at least forty metres, driving in a sense of scale for Emily.

  Calypso docked in the middle of the wall so we must be nearing the top by now.

  Just as Emily starts thinking this, the corridor evens out and she begins hearing people moving about ahead. She drops the suitcase bato its wheels and walks out inte hall. The hall has a tall ceiling made of crisscrossial beams holding up huge glittering panels of gss. Suspended in the tre of the room is a giant clock, its loud tig easily heard over the low din of the people’s movement. The hall is long and wide, with fe depressions on the floor separated by wide ptforms of steel and several arched bridges eg them.

  As Emily pauses and looks around, Juliana walks up beside her and starts talking with a smug grin.

  “You’re from Eimdht?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s your first time seeing a train station then, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh, I’ve only ever heard Dad talk about them. Are the els on the floor so the trains e in here?” Emily asks as she starts walking towards the edge of their current ptform.

  Juliana catches her free hand again before she walk too far and starts pulliowards one of the bridges instead.

  “Let’s get to the right ptform, you’ll be able to see the rails better from above anyway.”

  Emily allows herself to be pulled along again, w why Juliana ’t just tell her to follow instead ing her, but not resisting. They walk through the sparse crowd of well-dressed people and make their way over one of the bridges. As they move over the rge depression, Emily looks over the side and admires the uniformity of the steel track below. Juliana notices her i and asks her a question as they walk:

  “Do you like trains a lot or something? You mentioned your dad talking about them, is he an engineer?”

  “Ah, no. He was a aker, but he used to tell me about all kinds of maes he’d seen to help me e up with ideas for new creations,” Emily responds sadly.

  “I see. He sounds like he was a lovely man,” Juliana says, notig Emily’s use of the past tense and drop in mood. “What sorts of things did you make?”

  “Nothing too iing,” Emily responds, happy to ge the subject, “I was w on a meical bird a little while ago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get his wings right, so the poor little guy kept breaking himself against the ceiling…”

  Juliana giggles lightly before looking up at the rge clock above their heads as they step down onto the ptform.

  “The rain to the city tre should be here in ten minutes,” she tells Emily while ing to a stop at the edge of the ptform.

  They stand quietly, a fortable siletliween them. Emily smiles as she realises this is the first time since leaving home that she has felt rexed around another person. Even on Calypso, she remained cautious towards the crew, sihey were sponsored by the Mandrago family, and never lowered her guard fully.

  Ten minutes pass without a word said, aually, a low rhythmic thumping slowly grows closer. As the thumping grows loud enough for Emily t as pistons, it’s suddenly joined by a loud screeg hiss. Emily fli the unpleasant sound.

  “The brakes are really noisy.” Juliana leans over and speaks into Emily’s ear to be heard over the loud sounds.

  Just as she finishes speaking, the rge meical marvel rolls into the station and moves past them. Emily admires the long procession of ected polished metal carriages as the train es to a halt. A loud horn bres from the front cab and all the doors along the body of the train slide open simultaneously.

  “e on, you goggle from the inside, I’d rather not miss this ooo,” Juliana pulls Emily towards one of the open doors.

  They step into the carriage and Emily looks around, surprised by the ck of people. The carriage is wide and spacious, with a long corridor down the tre a booths, with enough room for four people in each, lining the sides. However, only two of the eight booths tain anyone and there are only three people between them.

  “Wow, it’s pretty empty in here.” Emily muses as Juliana takes her into one of the empty booths, shutting the door behind them.

  “Well, that’s to be expected. The carriage we are on only be used by nobles.”

  Juliana takes Emily’s luggage and tucks it uhe chairs as they sit down in the plush seats fag each other.

  “How is that enforced? There was no check before we got on.”

  “A ticket officer will e by soon and check all the booths for our crests. If anyone who isn’t a ries to use the front four carriages, they will be forcefully detained, so no one would risk it. Especially sidering being a ticket officer is one of the jobs offered to ant members to gain tribution. There are some not-so-pretty stories of people trying to sneak into the noble carriages and leaving mangled.” Juliana shudders as she speaks.

  Emily raises a brow with fusion and asks:

  “Wait, do the unawakened know it’s magic putting people in that state?”

  “Ah, no. Not uhey are servants of a noble family and sworn to secrecy. Most people just think it hysical violence, which seems to serve the same purpose,” Juliana responds with an unfortable frown.

  Emily nods and looks out of the window as she hears the train’s hain. The doors to the carriage shut, and the train shudders as the slow pumping of the pistons starts again. The view of the station slowly starts sliding by, and as the train picks up speed, they soon leave the building.

  She admires the passing sery as the train races through the city. From the high vantage point, she gets a clear view of the sprawling streets and the people busily moving about below. However, the further away she looks, the more her view is obscured by the mist, giving the city an eerie atmosphere.

  “What’s with the mist? I’ve never seen it in Eimdon before and we had a fair amount of steam output,” Emily asks after a few minutes.

  “It’s an entment pced over the whole city. I’m not sure exactly what it’s for in the rest of the city, but it stops pedestrians being able to get close to The Dome.”

  “You make entments act over a whole city?!” Emily asks with surprise.

  “Yeah, I don’t really know much about it though. If you want to learn about it, there are csses you take on entments and engraving. I’m sure the teachers will be happy to expin what the mist does.”

  I wonder if I could ent maes to add special effects to them.

  They tinue chatting, with Emily asking about the pces they pass and Juliana happily answering. The train stops at several stations and winds its way closer to the tre of the city until the rge ornate dome es into clear view. From closer, Emily sees that the body of The Dome is a bck metal, simir to the bck iron that the mana crystals formed in. There are silver beams at sistent intervals all around the structure. As Emily squints, she just about makes out a plethora of runes carved into the silver metal.

  If the bck metal acts simirly to bck iron, I’d guess The Dome is built to insute mana and those silver beams are what causes the mist spell. Fasating, I o sign up for those entment csses.

  As Emily admires The Dome, the train slows down and arrives at the station ected to it. She sighs with disappoi as her view is lost. Turning away from the window, she finds Juliana grinning to herself and staring at her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just cute seeing you get so excited about the city.” Juliana’s response causes Emily to blush and look away.

  “I’ve never seen a city so big and well-engineered, and magic’s really o me…” she mumbles as the train doors open.

  “Haha, there’s o be embarrassed. We all reacted the same the first time we came here. Unfortunately, you get used to it after a while and it loses its effect. e on, I’m sure you’ll love ihe Dome just as much as outside.” Juliana says while standing up and grabbing Emily’s luggage from uhe seat.

  That’s not what I was embarrassed about…

  Emily shakes her head and stands up to leave, once again finding herself being pulled along as they exit the train. The statioep out into is a lot smaller than the o the docks, only having a siform. She gnces back at the train ahat only the front four carriages have their doors open.

  Makes sehat this is nobles only for the base of The ant, not opening the doors for the others is an effective way to stop them from intruding.

  They make their way towards a rge operyway and step out onto a walkway between The Dome and the station. The walkway has a broallic floor, and the walls are a mix of bronze and gss, allowing Emily to look down into the thick, swirlihereal mist beloroag The Dome, they reach a smooth silver pa the end of the walkway. Juliana reaches up to pce her free hand against it while turning her head to grin at Emily.

  “This is where the real magic begins!”