Greenish light bathed Stormholden as he approached the train platform, a soaking, stinking, whimpering mass of exerted muscles and exhaust. A mounting pressure behind his eyes foretold of ache.

Feet shuffling across the platform's planks, he reached for a nearby lamppost and pulled himself forward. Leaning against it, he noted the broken lantern and lack of candle; the lamppost's very purpose for being, defeated.

If tethering one's value to that of their prescribed duty, the lamppost should not exist. The pressure behind Stormholden's eyes worsened as he felt a kinship with the lamppost, splinters of wood and rusty nails prodding at his back. Instead, the light that had tainted the captain's skin in sickly ills emanated from three overhead floating orbs, devilry, even so far out here in the middle of nowhere, inescapable.

Tired of such tricks and deception, the captain leaned more of his weight against the lamppost and closed his eyes, cutting himself off from the insanity this new change of scenery provided. His arms rested over his chest, as he breathed in and out, the succor of the air here much pleasanter and smoother than in the wasteland of the dunes.

"Wait here, Cap," Gideon whispered. The heat and stink of Gideon's breath and nearness curled the captain's chest hairs. Stormholden gave a small nod of acknowledgment, before hearing the dull thuds of Gideon's boots fade into the distance.

Left in his absence, Stormholden felt the familiar tug of his former self, a spark of fight that refused to be doused. Escape, it begged him. Escape, and find a way back. A way home.

His hand moved on its own, grazing the hardened leather of his empty scabbard, his sword swallowed by Gideon's madness at the Song. Perhaps, he never had a sword to begin with. Perhaps, Gideon's madness had been his own. He willed his arm back to his side, but his fingers instinctively went to his holster next, where he thumbed one of its straps. Empty. Even without an arsenal at his disposal, a part of him still wished to fight.

He snorted. Go home. Go to what home? The Retelling? One of the world's seven layers where all manner of the written word came to life? Where the unfinished stories were left to wander an endless whitescape, never eating or drinking or sleeping, but never dying? Living in a true, never-ending hell?

No, he couldn't go home; he refused to. How could he, after learning of his inception? How could he face the members of his crew? Or Matilda's children? The Scarlet Reef? How could he look into their eyes and not see the words dictating their every action, thought, and emotion? Them, every bit as blind and oblivious as he'd been.

He'd rather rot on this platform or die at Gideon's hand than face that. Something inside him, something that bespoke to an integral belief that made Stormholden, Stormholden, demanded the captain stand by the choice he'd just made. As if in response, he dug his bootheels deeper into the platform, wood releasing a pained wheeze underneath the weight of his newly solidified conviction.

Stormholden's eyelids flashed a bright white. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He snapped his eyes open. A sky as smooth as velvet stretched out before him, blushing a harsh purple, clouds nonexistent. How peculiar then, for a storm to have brewed without the necessary ingredients to do so. Turning, he saw it; a crackle of lightning slicing through the fabric of the sky. The thunder gods answered almost immediately shrieking their dissent.

On the platform, a shuffling of feet coupled with the murmurings of onlookers alerted the captain to a disturbance. Only one thought occupied his mind then, what had Gideon done this time?

Sensing danger mounting, his sword arm flew to his side, fingers closing around what would have been his hilt. He shook his head, realizing he grasped at nothing. He hurled a curse into the air. Not twenty and one handspans away, three men, who'd been there since Gideon's and his arrival, seated on a mound of rock and plucking the dirt from between their teeth, flitted to and from, grim expressions bogging down the corners of their lips.

They went for their belts and undid the clips around colossal, three-tongued whips. With a wretched crack that mimicked the overhead thunder, the whips slapped the platform, eviscerating the planks. Splinters of wood exploded through the air.

Stormholden winced, remembering the public whippings he'd seen at the capital, the leather digging into flesh, the buckets full of blood, the cheers of the crowd as they insisted heavier sentences be levied upon the criminals. The brother and sister, flogged together; their crime – stealing from the Royal larder to feed their ailing mother.

Whispered speculation of what was transpiring rose from the gathering crowd and roused the captain from his past. A hand landed on Stormholden's shoulder. He bristled and whipped around, arm out, fingers wide, ready to wrap around and crush his attacker's windpipe.

Gideon stood at his side, shoveling a handful of rainbow candy floss into his mouth, cheeks fat like a rodent's. Stormholden's fingers twitched as he played with the idea of strangling Gideon, of watching him turn red in the face while he flailed and floundered, unable to secure the air even a devil needed to live - he threw his arm to his side. What would be the point?

Gideon affixed his gaze on the scene, the boy's eyes housing his trademarked indifference. He ran sticky fingers down the front of his shirt. "They're sensing me," he said, before tearing back into his candy. "Can't go anywhere without those magically sensitive freaks getting all worked up." He waved his candy toward the captain. "Want some?" Stormholden shook his head. Gideon shrugged. "Your loss. The platform offers some of the best sweets in all the layers."

The captain gave him barely a second thought as the men with their whips, moved in a circle, slapping the platform in time with their steps. Another streak of lightning lashed the sky. "Are they looking for you?"

Gideon smiled as he stuck a forefinger into his mouth and sucked. He nodded. "Of course, they are. I'm an escaped convict." His candy exhausted, he tossed the stick onto the ground. "Though, why now? The blathering Council idiots knew of my escape months ago, I'm certain." He hummed. The beak of his bird skull parted, its eye sockets narrowed. "Mr. Pale must have prompted them to act."

Eyeing the captain's collar, he stretched forward and plucked a stray thread free. He smiled and blew it from his fingertip. It floated in the air, before getting caught under one of the whip's prongs which split it cleanly in half. Bile crept up Stormholden's throat. "Guess even they can't refuse him."

The men grew louder, their movements more agitated, their whips finding the ground faster, hitting harder, fiercer, gouging larger and larger sections of the platform. "There's nowhere for you to hide then," Stormholden said. "Succumb and desist. Turn yourself in, for, I warrant, whatever governs you, must be a formidable foe."

Gideon chuckled. "Formidable." His eyes went wide at the idea as though it were novel, foreign. He shook his head. "Maybe, to some. But they're not the most formidable, I'm afraid, and I certainly won't be detained by their lackeys."

"Then what will you do?" Stormholden asked.

Gideon's eyes turned black. "Not what I'll do, Cap." He inched closer, Gideon's stench washing over the captain. "What you'll do."

A gloved hand closed around Stormholden's face before he could protest, and the scream that had raced up the back of his throat at the beseeching of his terror, died before it left his mouth.

Though, why struggle if this was what he wanted? Could something with paper for flesh and ink for blood really die? The captain let himself slip into Gideon's darkness, the core of whatever made him, him devoured.

●

Gideon found his new form ill-fitting. Captain Ire Stormholden had been written to be of impossibly, impractical long limbs, broad chest, and washboard abs. His new body felt spacious and awkward. Like a pair of new gloves that would need breaking in before slipping them on became as natural as breathing. Gideon tried to move. He willed the captain's legs forward, uppercutting the air with Stormholden's left fist instead. Without a manual or proper instruction, Gideon might as well have been operating the captain's body blind.

At the least, the Council's guard dogs had stopped making a fuss. They'd returned to their rock to ferret out the remains of dust and sand caught between their teeth.

Gideon returned to the task at hand, puffing up his essence and expanding himself until he filled up the hole left by Stormholden's presence. In his mind, he envisioned moving the fingers of his right hand and this time, Stormholden's body complied. Gideon flashed a smile of the captain's dashing white teeth.

A Fae occupying the platform a few feet away, returned the gesture, cheeks an abysmal red. Her sisters, realizing something abreast, craned their heads in Gideon's direction and once they gazed upon Stormholden's husk, they fell in line - licking plumped lips, batting thick eyelashes, breasts heaving under corseted tops.

Gideon frowned as a familiar voice floated through his consciousness. "Let me," it hissed. "Turn them to goblins. Oh, they'd hate that, wouldn't they?" A pause, a smack of hungry lips, "Oh, yes! Let's do it; it'll be fun!"

He tried to snuff the voice out, though this proved harder without it residing inside his palm. But he focused and managed to keep the voice at the fringes of his awareness, where, like all annoying things, it could be ignored. He'd liked its idea though, perverting the fae. The darkness within him shuddered, making its desire known.

Under different circumstances, Gideon would gladly indulge such impulses, but for now, with the Council in play, he couldn't chance anything. Too much was on the line for him to risk it all on paltry fun. Getting to Reason, landing in Potter Oaks, reuniting with her, destroying his brother - if necessary - those were the things that mattered. Seeing Nep mattered.

Another whistle blared as the Reizen blew into the station. Gideon straightened the captain's shoulders at the expense of himself, which recoiled with pain. Angered, he compelled Stormholden's legs forward, his steps lumbering and heavy. Goddamned things were like tree trunks.

One of the Fae sisters broke away from the cluster, inching toward him, her allure on full blast, fragranced like overripened fruit and overpowering rose. She grazed his shoulder and cooed. "Need some help, handsome?"

He stifled a chuckle. As if he would need the help of some third-rate seductress, who couldn't even mask her true scent. Now closer, he smelled her form and it reeked of withered weeds.

Gideon quickly bit back his tongue before he could say something to add to his life's already difficult circumstance, and instead perused the captain's vocabulary. He came away disappointed after unable to stumble across a single instance of "argh" or "savvy."

The Fae batted her eyelashes.

Gideon cleared the captain's throat, and in his low, gravelly, baritone, spoke, "No need, Madam. Though I have all the appearance of lacking sure-footedness, I assure you I am fine. Seems a bug has laid claim to my stomach and found lodging for its friends in my intestines prompting, I warrant, a prolonged stop at a water closet almost certainly in my near future."

The fae's button nose wrinkled. Her allure dissipated. She nodded and stepped back. "I do appreciate your concern," Gideon added, and bowed.

The fae flashed him a tight smile. "Of course." She curtsied before hurrying back to her sisters. When next they eyed the captain, it wasn't with gazes pregnant with lust but glowers full of disgust.

A third whistle. A rush of steam. Gideon turned toward the mammoth steel locomotive and swallowed. He interlaced the captain's fingers together. Perspiration wet his brow. This was it, the moment that would define his fate. The Conductor descended from the train. Wearing a ragged cap, and striped overalls covered by a black rubber frock, he took the platform in big, hulking strides, planks buckling under his sheer enormity.

With an arm the length of an average Reflection creature, he waved the platform crowd forward. The Fae were first in line, prancing in their skirts, pouting lips and batting eyelashes, eager and hopeful to make their time under the Conductor's gaze brief.

Gideon stood fifth, after taking pains not to draw further attention, hunkering behind two Oxmen and a succubus whose blood-red lips kept smacking suggestively his way, undermining his earlier decision to go unseen.

The Conductor, a creature of deep pride, who bemoaned all attempts at flattery or bribery, snarled at the sisters' cheap attempts to win his favor. "You'll board the train like anyone else." The faes' faces fell, their natural luster, dulled.

The succubus in front of Gideon reached up and dragged a talon along the ridges of her horn. "Don't be shy, Darlin," she said, in an impish, southern drawl. "Like what you see?"

Gideon sighed and turned his gaze back toward the Conductor. The giant took a step forward, his gnarled red head splitting wide, rows of teeth protectively straddling a forked tongue. "The Checking will commence," he shouted, a geyser of spittle shooting into the air.

Gideon braced. The nearest Fae sister glided forward and outstretched her hand. The Conductor took it, his tongue rising into the air and flickering, tasting her magic.

After a few seconds, the Conductor shook her hand, and smiling a none-too-welcoming smile said, "Welcome aboard."

She entered the train, her sisters following her example - outstretching their hands so the Conductor could read their magics and determine their purpose for passage. Borrowing from the captain's lexicon, any "dastardly" "nare-do-wells" would be barred from entry.

The line swelled forward. One by one, hands outstretched and the Conductor tasted their magic, ensuring no one with foul intentions would find their way onboard. Gideon exhaled as he stepped forward. He tried to keep Stormholden's heart from racing, but the damned thing raged on, despite Gideon's insistent commands.

Though, what had Gideon to fear? If his information had been correct, Captain Stormholden, as a product of the Retelling, should have no color and should be perceived as the page he was. Using the captain as his vessel ensured the Conductor tasted none of Gideon's magic or darkness. And once aboard the train, Gideon would no longer have use of the captain, who'd turned out to be a very poor companion indeed, and he'd finally be able to make good on his promise.

Though Stormholden no longer seemed opposed to death, and what fun was to be had in giving a person exactly what they wanted?

It was Gideon's turn. He stood before the Conductor, whose hand was at the ready, moistened from the sweat of a half-dozen other layer-bound creatures. Gideon inwardly cringed but did what was required and set his palm in the Conductor's.

Breath held, he waited.

The Conductor's tongue snaked skyward. A low hiss escaped his throat as his fingers tightened around the captain's wrist. Gideon flinched. The heart in his chest seized. On his right, the Council's guard dogs stood and began unfurling their whips. One of the Conductor's yellowed eyes peeled open. Gideon called out to his magic, to his darkness. He would pervert every last thing barring his way before he let them drag him back to prison. The Conductor shot a look at the guards and shook his head. They stopped mid-stride.

Gideon relaxed as the Conductor turned his attention back toward him. "Son, you're of written composition, yes?"

Gideon gulped. "It is as you see, wise, toothy creature." He hoped his choice in lingo would help cement his image as the innocent, swashbuckling, righter-of-wrongs.

The Conductor nodded. Its tongue dipped, slid across its four front teeth, and then slithered outward, inches from Gideon's face and reeking of hot, stale ale and chili sauce. "You were summoned by your creator, then?" For how else could you escape the Retelling?

Good thing Gideon had prepared for this line of questioning. "It is as you say, sir. I was summoned by a girl in Reason. She is but recently acquainted with the know."

"Accidental or deliberate?" the Conductor shot back.

Gideon furrowed the captain's brows. "That is...yet to be determined. But a summoned creature, as I am to understand it, cannot, once it has attained sentience, disobey the demands of its creator."

He grunted. "Reason, you say?"

Gideon nodded.

After a few more select seconds of silence, the Conductor released Gideon's hand and returned its tongue to its mouth. He motioned toward the door of the train car. "Welcome aboard."

"You did it," the voice whispered. "See? I told you everything would go according to plan. You have nothing to fear, so long as you ally yourself with the King."

Gideon shuffled aboard the train and eyed the route pictured on a flat screen to his left. Third stop - Reason. He smiled a devil's smile, the captain's lips reluctant at first to bend to his will. As with all things he would encounter over the next few days, they relented. A usurped king and a Refracted, what could be more frightening?

The final whistle blew, signaling the train's departure.