His stomach churned.

  Enton wasn’t losing himself. He wasn’t broken.

  He was becoming aware.

  Bolton swallowed hard, shaking the thought away. He didn’t want to know what that meant.

  Not now.

  He stepped forward again, his knuckles aching, the heat of battle roaring through him. He didn’t care if he was still weak. He had to fight.

  And then, Aurous’ voice boomed across the chaos.

  "Pistol! If I don’t die, you owe me the recipe to that Golden Mead of yours!"

  Pistol barked a laugh, but his eyes gleamed with something deeper—something dangerous.

  “This is my train, I’m fighting too."

  Then, he moved his hands in a tearing motion.

  Bolton barely had time to process what was happening before the roof of the train was ripped open.

  The sound was deafening—metal shrieking, rivets popping loose, the very structure of the Midnight Train bending to Pistol’s will.

  A sharp gust of night air rushed through the car, sending shattered glass and loose scraps spiraling into the darkness beyond.

  Above them, the sky opened up—massive, endless, and impossibly celestial. A deep purple-blue canvas, streaked with silver clouds and constellations shifting in patterns Bolton didn’t recognize.

  But more than that—the train wasn’t on tracks anymore.

  And then—

  A voice, raw and strained, cut through the rushing wind.

  "I remember killing your friend! Bolton!"

  Bolton’s breath hitched. His pulse faltered.

  His body turned before his mind caught up, something primal seizing his chest. Heat rose to his face, fingers twitching at his sides. He barely noticed Sarah’s hand gripping his sleeve—a small tether against the raw, gut-deep instinct to lunge.

  It wasn’t just Vermolly.

  It was every loss. Every moment of helplessness.

  Every Yardrat whose screams had rung in his ears long after they’d gone silent.

  It was the fear that he was just like Enton—just another broken machine pretending to be whole.

  And now Enton wanted to be fixed.

  Bolton wanted nothing more than to tear him apart.

  Enton’s fists clenched at his sides, his frame trembling—not with fear, but with something worse. Something broken.

  "Yerro will fix this," he seethed, each word growing sharper, more dangerous. His voice twisted into a near snarl, his desperation curdling into something else.

  "Yerro must."

  The words hung there.

  The wind rushed through the broken train, cold and empty. The lanterns flickered.

  Bolton could hear his own breath, ragged in his throat.

  And then—

  Aurous laughed.

  A dark, knowing chuckle, carried by the wind.

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  "This beautiful WONDERFUL morning, I cut my hand open on a piece of paper," he mused, voice thick with something resembling amusement. "Small, shriveled things with a straight corner."

  His eyes gleamed as he dodged another strike.

  "And it was a wonderful thing."

  Enton lunged again, his movement deceptively fast for his massive frame. The air cracked as his fists swung through it, each strike brushing away the wind itself. He wasn’t just fighting—he was carving through the space around him, his sheer force distorting the air.

  Aurous met him head-on. He didn’t slip beneath the blows like a dancer but braced against them, absorbing the shock before retaliating with piston-powered punches of his own. Four fists struck in quick succession—each impact reverberating through the train car. His fingertips glowed orange-hot, the heat trailing behind his strikes like molten embers.

  Enton barely flinched. The blows landed, rattling the metal of his body, but he stood his ground, brushing off the force as if shaking off dust. His sleek military-style coat barely rustled, and his paperboy-style cap remained perfectly poised atop his monstrous frame.

  Aurous grinned, recognizing the challenge. He took a step back, his boots scraping against the shifting floor of the train car, and snatched a half-full mug of mead from a nearby table. He raised it to his lips, taking a long, exaggerated swig before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Sarah’s got my heart, boy!” he bellowed, his laughter booming over the chaos. “Ain’t just metaphorical!”

  Bolton barely had time to register the words before the Malice surged—flesh, metal, and something worse twisting into an amorphous mass that no train car could hold.

  The walls bulged, stretching like wet paper. Sinew-laced limbs shot out, twisting through steel beams, peeling back the train’s ribs.

  Bolton’s breath caught. "Where!?"

  Aurous' grin didn’t waver. If anything—it widened.

  Then—the Malice struck.

  Sinews snapped around him, yanking him into the chaos.

  His laughter didn’t stop. It grew wilder, more fevered, as the darkness swallowed him whole.

  "MOVE IT, BOY!"

  Pistol’s voice cut through the storm, sharp and commanding.

  The train shook beneath them, the clash of Aurous and Enton rattling through the air like a drumbeat of war. Malice swelled, an amorphous tangle of flesh and metal, writhing with unnatural hunger. A sinew lashed out—whipping toward Bolton like a razor-sharp tendon snapping loose.

  A deafening BOOM cut through the chaos.

  Bolton barely registered the motion—Pistol, wide as a boulder and twice as unshakable, had moved faster than the eye could follow. From beneath the bar, his massive hand had drawn something out—a cannon, thick-barreled and black as iron, its weight effortlessly cradled in his grip.

  The shot roared like a thunderclap. Not a bullet—something heavier, something denser, a cannonball of unknown make. It collided with the rogue sinew midair, obliterating it in an explosion of raw force, sending chunks of blackened, writhing mass splattering against the walls.

  Smoke coiled from the cannon’s muzzle as Pistol rested it back against the bar, unfazed, his broad frame casting a long shadow against the lantern light.

  "You don’t wanna die, do you?" His voice was steel, cutting through the madness. The train groaned as the Malice swelled again. Pistol didn't blink. "You’ll find some of your answers at the front of the train. As for the rest…" He smirked, flexing his grip around the cannon’s barrel.

  "Well, that’ll depend on our friends here."

  Bolton’s fingers twitched.

  His boots shifted—half a step toward Aurous, half a step toward the battle that still clawed at his chest.

  Aurous' laughter was still echoing, but now it sounded further away—distant, unraveling into the void.

  The train lurched beneath them, the air thick with gunpowder and smoke from Pistol’s shot. The Malice wasn’t stopping—it pulsed, shifting, adapting, stretching into something even larger. Aurous and Enton still clashed like living titans, the force of their battle shaking the very bones of the Midnight Train.

  Bolton clenched his fists. He couldn’t just run. Not yet.

  His voice cut through the chaos, raw and desperate. "And the Yardrats!? What about them?"

  His chest was heaving now, fingers twitching, torn between self-preservation and the sickening guilt of leaving others behind. He knew how this went. He’d run. He’d survive. But how many wouldn’t?

  Pistol didn’t even glance at him—just chambered another round into his massive hand cannon, jaw set, shoulders squared.

  "Go," he rumbled. "They’ve got their own fight."

  The words hit harder than the cannon’s blast.

  Bolton’s breath stilled. His muscles tensed. One more second.

  Then—Sarah yanked him forward.

  Her grip was ironclad, unyielding. The door to the next train car slammed open, swallowing them into darkness.

  She dragged him through the wreckage, past splintered booths and flickering lanterns. His feet stumbled beneath him, but she didn’t let go—cutting through the chaos with a determination that never wavered.

  The Malice roared, its form swelling, forcing itself into impossible spaces.

  Steel groaned. Glass shattered.

  Bolton threw one last look over his shoulder—at the chaos, at the fight still raging. At Aurous, vanishing into the dark.

  His feet twitched, the instinct to turn back screaming inside him.

  Then—Sarah pulled him forward, and the moment was gone.

  Pistol’s voice rang out one last time—

  "NOW GO!"

  The train lurched. The wind roared.

  Sarah shoved open the door to the next train car and pulled Bolton inside.