Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(36)

The engineers ceded control of the situation, the one without the head wound watching Leo with an expression of unveiled awe. Elsa hadn’t realized the mere mention of madness carried with it such gravity and expectation. How odd Earthfolk could be.

“We’ve got to slow down, or we’ll be off the tracks at the next sharp corner. If you’re a mechanist too, as I suspect, now would be the time to confess it,” Leo said, brisk and matter-of-fact, making Elsa flinch with surprise. He didn’t see, though, as he’d already turned his attention to examining the ruined controls. “Looks like there’s not much we can do from here, unless we want to try disassembling a steam engine while it’s running.”

“That sounds like an excellent way to get boiled alive.” Elsa hesitated to say more, but now was not the time to play coy with him about her abilities. “What’s our alternative? Can we access the running gear while we’re in motion?”

“I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘access,’” Leo qualified.

She snorted. “Well, let’s at least have a look at what we’ve got to work with.”

Elsa turned back to the entryway of the cab, lay down on her stomach, and inched forward until her torso hung down in the narrow space between the rail cars. The corset stays cut into her painfully and made the already awkward position nearly impossible. Leo joined her, his blond hair sticking up as if from an electric shock as he hung upside down.

Trying to ignore the awful corset, Elsa watched the complicated interplay of rods and levers that spun the wheels. After a moment, a picture resolved in her mind of how the pair of pistons must work together. “What a lovely valve gear!”

“Yes, I’m rather fond of this design. Quite clever. Invented by a Belgian pazzerellone, I believe,” Leo said with fresh enthusiasm. “Are you ready to admit you have mechanist tendencies?”

Elsa deflected his question with one of her own. “Could we find one of those valve gears to disassemble later? I’d fancy a closer look.”

“I don’t see why not. Of course, there is still a runaway train to deal with,” he said mildly. “Hurtling toward our untimely demise, and whatnot.”

“Oh. Quite right. We should probably do something about that.” The adrenaline was making her almost giddy. She thought for a moment. “Release the coupling that connects the locomotive to the passenger cars?”

“It’s under too much pressure. The couplings aren’t designed to be detached while the train’s in motion.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well,” Leo said, still hanging upside down beside her, “I can see good news and bad news. The good news is it’s an older model and doesn’t have air brakes.”

“Air brakes?”

“A centralized braking system for the passenger cars that runs on compressed air, powered by the boiler. So the good news is we can disable the boiler without compromising the brakes.”

“Ah.” From this description, Elsa could foresee the bad news. “No centralized braking means we might need to repair the brakes in each passenger car individually, if they’ve all been tampered with.”

“Precisely.”

Elsa shimmied back inside the cab and stood, then waited for Leo to follow. “You get started on the brakes, and I’ll shut down the engine,” she told him.

Leo’s brows drew together, and instead of rushing to get to work, he stood his ground. “First, I want to hear you say it.”

“Ugh, we don’t have time for this!”

His serious gaze fell on her with all the heat of a spotlight. “You’re right—and we don’t have time for amateur mistakes, either. Elsa, I need to know if you’re up to this.”

She huffed her frustration, but she was cornered and she knew it. “Fine, fine! I’m a polymath, all right?”

He nodded, the tense stillness of his body melting into motion. “Very well, then. I’ll see if I can pry the flooring up so we can manually engage the locomotive brakes.”

“Excellent.”

Elsa took her lab book out of her belt pouch, handed it to the uninjured engineer, and instructed him to guard it with his life. That done, she dialed the necessary coordinates and opened a portal to her laboratory.

“Elsa! Where are you going?” Leo, who was kneeling by the place where the brake lever used to be attached, called over his shoulder.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to find the right tools by standing here and wishing hard enough,” she said, and stepped through the cold blankness of the portal.

Her laboratory seemed especially solid after the shivering, jouncing motion of the too-fast train. In the main room, the wooden floor panels did not even creak beneath her shoes. Empty worktables stood at the ready beneath a broad, blank window.

She walked through a doorway to her raw materials room, where she kept supplies of every element found on Earth and a few that weren’t. Vats of molten metal lined one wall, and chambers of chilled gases lined the other. She had powders and crystals and fluids, all meticulously organized. Whatever item she was looking for would always be positioned closest to the entrance for ease of access.

She pressed her eyelids closed and envisioned the element she needed. When she opened her eyes, there it was, right in front of her: the vat of liquid nitrogen.