I take his hand, and he pulls me up. I crouch on the top of the engine. He whoops at the top of his lungs, and the whistle blares as if answering him. He’s standing. His feet are firmly planted on the top of the train. Slowly, I stand beside him.

And we ride the train out of the void.

Chapter Thirteen

The train sails out of the dust and lands between the houses. It continues to punch by them, powering through porches, running over junk piles, until it slams into the side of a house...a yellow house with a white porch and a deli sign over the window in the front door.

I scramble over the side of the train and lower myself down. Releasing, I drop. I crunch aluminum cans under my feet as I crash. Beside me, the engine sputters and then lets out a groan as if it were heaving a sigh.

The train is embedded in the side of the living room. My living room.

Peter leaps down from the engine. He lands softly beside me, like a cat, bent knees. He rises smoothly. “I told you I find the kernel of hope. You lose hope and I can’t find you.” His voice is low, intent, as if he’s angry, but I’m staring at the steam engine sticking out of my house, my sanctuary, the only place here that I feel safe.

Or sometimes feel safe.

I circle the engine. The train doesn’t have any cars, just the engine. Smoke is sputtering out of the funnel, curling black against the blueness of the sky. I feel a lump in my throat as if I want to cry, even though this isn’t my home. It’s just...I like this house.

“Little Red, what happened in there? Met a wolf? Failed to meet a wolf? Or were you Gretel, without bread crumbs to guide you through the forest?” He shakes his head. “You weren’t even in there that long! You should have trusted me to find you!”

The train shudders once more and then is still, as if it were a lumbering creature that just expired. Smoke from the funnel trails into a thin streak. I don’t answer Peter. Instead, stepping into the train, I poke my head into the engine cabin.

Behind me, Peter says, “I’ll always find you. But you have to exist to be found!”

Curled in the corner of the cabin is a man with an apron. His hands are balled into fists, and his head is tucked against his chest. He has brilliant red hair, and his bare arms are decorated with tattoos. I recognize him as the cook from the diner. “You found him?”

“You shouldn’t have tried!” Peter shouts. “You aren’t a Finder!” He’s radiating anger. It’s disconcerting. It’s such an ordinary emotion, and he’s never ordinary.

I face him, study his face. He runs his fingers through his hair as if he wants to yank it out. “I didn’t expect to find anyone,” I say levelly. “I expected you to find me, and then I was going to ask you to find him.”

“I nearly didn’t find you! You were fading! Do you have any idea what that means? I almost lost you! You almost disappeared! I thought you were stronger than that!”

I open my mouth to shout back and then I shut it. He cares, I think. His face is flushed red, and he’s flapping his arms as if he wants to hit something but doesn’t know what. I suck in a deep breath. “I like your train.”

He stares at me for an instant, lowers his arms, and I have the sudden, crazy thought that he’s going to kiss me. Then he breaks into a grin. “Yeah, she’s a beaut. Discontinued model. Probably scuttled to some kind of train junkyard and forgotten. Kind of feel bad that I broke her. Also, the house.”

“Maybe we can use parts of her.” I think he’s over being angry. Or he’s faking it. I can’t tell which. And I find I’m staring at his lips, wondering what it would feel like to taste them. “Add a few enhancements. It can be like a gazebo.”

“Or a playground,” Peter says. “Claire will like it.” He waves at someone behind me. I turn and see Victoria and Claire on the bike, coming toward us, steering around the junk pile. Victoria drops the bike as she reaches the yard, and both of them run toward the train.

Waving, Claire calls, “Sean! Hi, Sean!” And then she jumps into my arms. “You saved him! I knew you’d do it!”

“I didn’t. Peter did.”

Clambering out of the engine, Sean runs toward Victoria. They crash into each other’s arms. Victoria is checking him all over, running her hands over his head and down his neck and back. My eyes slide to Peter, and then I force myself to concentrate on Claire. “All I found was this.” I dig my hand into my pocket and pull out the blue ring. I hold it out toward her.

“Ooh, pretty!” Claire claps.

Peter swoops in and plucks it out of my fingers. He holds it up to the light, and a thin white star appears in the center of the blue. “Huh.”

Arms wrapped around Victoria, Sean twists to look at us and say, “Finder, I owe you my...” His voice dies and his eyes widen. “You found that?”

“Actually, Lauren did,” Peter says absently.

I jump. Peter has never called me by my real first name before. It’s usually Little Red or newbie or Goldilocks or some other nickname. I wasn’t entirely sure he even knew my name. I wonder when I became Lauren to him—when I became more than a tool for his vendetta. Just now? Or had it happened sooner, more gradually? He had saved me, even though I’d doubted him. And he’d been so angry, so beautifully angry. Peter studies the ring, turning it in the sunlight so the star brightens.

“Sean?” Victoria asks.

Untangling himself from Victoria, he walks toward us as if the ring is pulling him. His hand trembling, he reaches for the ring and then stops.

Peter twirls it around the tip of his index finger. “Lose this?”

“It’s a star sapphire. It was an engagement ring. I gave it to... Never mind who. She doesn’t matter anymore.” He swallows, and his throat bobs. “She never gave it back. I haven’t seen it in...a long time. Very long time ago.”

Solemnly, Peter hands him the ring.

Sean takes it wonderingly, fearfully, tenderly. He holds it pinched between his thumb and index finger. Victoria comes up behind him. “Sean?” There’s so much anger and pain in her voice that her eyes are nearly sparking.

He turns to face her. He’s still holding the ring gingerly. He tears his gaze up from the ring to her eyes, and I suddenly know what is going to happen next. Claire opens her mouth to speak, and I clap a hand over her mouth. She glares at me, and I wink. I lower my hand. Peter is grinning. He knows, too.

Sean drops to one knee.

Victoria flushes and then pales and then flushes again.

I pluck at Peter’s coat sleeve and draw Claire with me. Claire cooperates, though she’s clearly confused as we retreat around the engine. On the other side of the train, Peter says in a mild voice, “Every time I begin to wonder why I bother with you, you surprise me.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I ask. Beside me, Claire climbs up onto the side of the engine. I rise up on my tiptoes to peek through the engine window, watching as Victoria launches herself into Sean’s arms. They tumble to the ground amid the junk. I assume she said yes.

“Depends. Are you planning to say ‘thank you for rescuing me’?”

“Are you planning to insult me?”

A ghost of a smile passes over his face. “I never plan on insulting you.”

Claire drops upside down, her legs holding on to a bar on the train. Her pigtails dangle. “He teases because he likes you. He thinks you’re beautiful, clever, funny, and beautiful.”

I raise both my eyebrows. That’s not the kind of thing that Peter says.

He executes a flawless bow.

“She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

That’s much more like what Peter would say. And even though I know he’s teasing me, my breath hitches in my throat. His eyes, when they lock on mine, are dark and serious.