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Prologue

October 1849

Edgar opened one eye to a slit

The passenger car jostled, and there arose fro metal-on-metal cry The sound squealed above the clatter of tracks, then faded with the hot sooty belch of sed, at last, with the staticky whispers that had awoken him

“Does he sleep?”

Edgar felt his muscles clench He took pains to stay cal steady, measured

It had been during the passage through the last tunnel, when the world had once again gone black, that he’d first become aware of their renewed presence The de him from this world into the other

A shudder ran through him He let his eye slip shut

“Watch him,” rasped another voice “He will take the next train”

Edgar’s hand on the armrest twitched The sweat of his fever now became the cold sweat of fear, and it beaded on his broad brow until he felt a trickle slide down his temple

He could not go back with the his link with their world— her world—forever

He heard the sharp slide of the compartment door and stealthily hazarded to raise his eyelid once more

A stoutuniform pushed into the compartment

“Arriving in Baltiar knew the rotesque grins, their fiendish claws

The ar seized his chance He stooped low,use of the conductor’s wide frame to shield his htened on Dr Carter’s malacca cane, the one he had taken such care to switch out for his own The one within which slumbered a sleek silver blade