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None of her siblings heard her While they had been busy translating their luncheon, the world outside the train had changed once again

The patchwork moors had vanished The train rocked frolass A city rose up all around thehley Not even a city like Leeds A city like London A city like Paris A city like everyone day, all cra towers and palaces and shops and pubs, sparkling statues and elegant houses and long, broad streets shaded by graceful trees, all shi brilliantly in the sun, all lass Branwell, even in his bloodiest dreained so many shades of red existed in the universe Scarlet, yes, but also criarnet and pink and blush and burgundy and a million billion others he couldn’t even think of nalass streets shot prised up along the edges of handsoh it all ran a river as wide as the Tha with deep red claret wine, all the way to the sea

A deafening boo to topple off the tracks and into the copper-colored stained-glass station house All four of theainst the other end of the car, were instantly buried in officers’ helue’s extreainst their table as the train righted itself, shattering the reestraight down the middle

Anne and E toward theue saw it on the other

It was a rooster

A rooster the size of their village church in Haworth A rooster made, not of rooster parts, but sether into the shape of a demonic cockerel, with fiery, insane eyes and a tail of a thousand enraged shattered china feathers streareen fla man no older than fourteen or fifteen rode the rooster down the scarlet streets of Port Ruby, screas in the rooster’s stirrups were long brass spyglasses He wore a bicorne hat on his head like an awful black half-reat e criain and again, into the towers, into the palaces, into the tall, elegant houses of Port Ruby But the face beneath that bicorne hat was bare, pure, white bone

“What is that?” choked Branwell, terror eating up his heart He reached for Charlotte’s hand and squeezed it awfully, though he would never ad later

Sergeant Major Rogue stulared out the ith ood eye

“That, my lad, is the local weather Napoleon bloody Bonaparte” The wooden soldier slaes and shouted down the train “Man positions! Forain already? Get him up! Give him a stiff drink! All hands on deck! Old Boney has come for us at last!”

PART II

In This Imperfect World

SIX

Out of the Train and Into the Fire

Port Ruby exploded around thelass alleyway after the squad of wooden soldiers in tight for their suitcases and each other for dear life Branwell and Anne scrambled close beh

ind them Anne held her hands over her ears as she ran Napoleon’s ireen fla drums The delass theater just ahead of theh it had been a living thing and not a building at all Shards of broken s fell into their hair One sliced through Branwell’s ear, but he hardly felt it It was finally happening, a real battle, all around hi round to see if he could catch another gli war-bird Charlotte could feel the heat of that rooster-fire on her skin as she ran past the s her hair She would never have confessed it to a grown-up person, but her heart burned with exciteray, cold shroud Now she, little Charlotte nobody, was running through ruby crystal streets after her old toys while a dead Emperor bore down on them like the devil come to life It was just like a story It was thethe truth had ever been!