“I’ll relish the opportunity,” I say, not mentioning the fact that if we get caught we’ll be dead.

The city is beckoning to us, and the thought of food is making my mouth water. As planned, we pick our way through the city via alleys and small side streets, staying out of sight like ghosts in the night.

Eventually we find a small café that seems to be open and still taking customers.

“Showtime,” Cole says, gesturing to Elsey.

I scowl, still not completely comfortable with my sister’s role in our operation, but I bite my tongue and manage to keep my thoughts to myself. Before I can even consider changing my mind, Elsey gives me a quick hug and sneaks away, sticking to the shadows, moving toward the café, which is conveniently located on the corner of our alley and the main street.

I watch as she spots a Dumpster and moves behind it, peeking out at the road.

A family of four passes her: a mom, a dad, two girls. They remind me of my own family in the old days. The girls look happy, holding hands with their parents and skipping along. It is good to know that even in the Moon Realm some people are still happy. Of course it helps that their parents haven’t been abducted and their city bombed, but still, happy is happy.

Elsey wisely ignores the family, waits for a better target. An old man with a bad limp and a rickety old cane hobbles past. Perfect. Elsey evidently thinks he’s a perfect candidate, too, because she sticks her head out a bit further and must make a noise, because the man stops and peers into the gloom.

He changes direction and moves toward her, taking ages to reach her behind the Dumpster. I tense slightly, ready to spring into action if needed. I’m not sure what I expect; I guess that maybe the old man is faking his injury and will suddenly smack her over the head with the cane and carry her away. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t.

Apparently, Elsey is able to convince him to help, because he hobbles off a minute later, and Elsey gives us the okay sign using her index finger and thumb. I reply with a thumbs-up.

Waiting for the man is as boring as watching rocks being eroded by the flow of an underground stream. He takes so long. I swear he must be in there negotiating a peace treaty, not just ordering some food. In any event, I manage to keep my eyes open until he reemerges holding big cloth bags. He struggles under the weight of the bags, readjusting his grip and switching arms several times before finally reaching my sister. I see her hand him the pouch of Nailins as payment. As we’d instructed her, she waits until the man limps onto the street and out of sight before tiptoeing back to where we are hiding.

Her eyes are wide with excitement and her smile gleeful. “How’d I do?” she asks.

“You were perfect,” I say, meaning it.

“You did really well,” Tawni adds.

“Your first solo mission was a complete success,” Cole says.

Elsey beams. By the way she looks at him, I think Cole’s compliment makes her the happiest.

It is amazing what money can buy these days. The spread of food is impressive, even with four of us eating. We each get a sourdough roll, two pieces of bacon, a sizable hunk of some kind of cheese we never could’ve afforded growing up, a sort of root we call hyro, a cinnamony potato dish, and a small flask of warm tea. The icing on the cake is literally the icing on the cake. We split two pieces of dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Down in the Moon Realm—at least in our subchapter—chocolate is scarce, and very expensive, so the fact that the café had it, that we could afford it, and that the old man thought to ask for it, is a small miracle. My only mistake: eating way too much too fast. By the time I finish eating I’ve crossed the line between pleasantly full and disgustingly stuffed.

“Uhhh,” I groan.

Elsey is nibbling daintily at the corner of her cake. “You okay, sis?”

“Other than being on the verge of throwing up, I’m fine.”

“Here, a little extra cake might help wash it down,” Cole suggests, pushing the chocolate toward my face. I don’t even have a chance to tell him how obnoxious he is, because the food is coming back up.

I barely have time to turn my head before I throw up. Although it is disgusting and unpleasant, I feel better afterwards. I even let Cole’s antics go without revenge.

When we finish eating, we pack the leftover food (which isn’t much), and begin the second phase of our plan: operation night train.

I’m still not very comfortable with the idea, but I’ve committed to it, which means I’m going to do everything in my power to help us be successful. It’s just the way I am. For me it’s all in or all out—no middle ground, no wishy-washy, no excuses.

Continuing to use back streets, we manage to get pretty close to the rail station. We hide in the shadows, performing reconnaissance, waiting for the right time to make a move. The area around the station looks pretty deserted, although every once and a while someone passes by and goes inside. In the entire subchapter, the lighting is the best in this area, which is good for most travelers. Unfortunately, we aren’t most travelers, and would prefer utter darkness.

After twenty minutes or so of no one passing us, Cole hisses, “We can’t wait here all night.”

“Now or never,” I agree. We each don the hoods attached to our tunics. It’s a cool night, so the hoods are unlikely to draw any special attention to us.

We leave the safety of the dark and stride out into the light. We walk side by side, at a normal but purposeful pace, eyes ahead, ears listening for any signs of discovery. With every footstep I expect to hear a shout, a whistle, alarm bells, something. Something saying We gotcha!

We make it inside the terminal without drama.

The ticket window is straight ahead. As we previously agreed, I take the lead on buying the tickets. I walk up, trying to appear confident, like I buy train tickets all the time, like I belong here. At the same time I keep my head lowered slightly, trying to cast a shadow across at least part of my face.

“Three adults and one child for the next train to subchapter twenty-six,” I say, attempting to keep my voice steady. I lock my knees to stop them from shaking.

At first the guy behind the counter—a short, grumpy-looking fellow with gray stubble and more nose hairs protruding from his nostrils than most people have in their nose—is indifferent to me, his voice monotone, like a robot.

“Three and one to twenty-six,” he repeats. “Next train available…”—he pauses, consults a timetable—“…departs in six minutes. Express train.”

He is just going through the motions, which is fine by me, but I know the hard part is still to come.

It comes. “I need travel vouchers for all adults,” he says, finally glancing up over his glasses at my face. His boring, emotionless face changes in an instance. It’s just a slight twitch, a flash of recognition in his eyes, but I can see that he knows who I am. Smartly, he pretends not to. I wonder if he’s got a big red security button somewhere underneath his desk. I can see both his hands, but he might be able to press it with his knees.

“Look, buddy, we don’t have travel vouchers, but you probably already guessed that. But we do have this.” I spill the pouch of shiny gold Nailins out onto his desk. “If you keep quiet you can have them all.”

At the sight of the money, the guy’s eyes light up and his fat lips twist into a greedy grin. “Done deal,” he says without hesitation. He stamps four tickets and hands them to me in a stack.

I know we aren’t out of the woods yet. Because the guy is willing to accept a bribe, he is also probably prone to dishonesty, like accepting said bribe while still planning to turn us in to the authorities. At least we have tickets.

With only a few minutes until the train’s departure, we don’t have time to bet on whether the guy will stick to our deal. Instead, we hurry through the automatic ticket turnstiles, praying he’s given us real tickets. With each swipe of one of the tickets, the gates open and allow one of us through.