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sensation of hands resting on her
waist—and twice all the way around her when they ascended a steep
incline—was not...unpleasant but it made her think of things
unrelated to mechanics and steering. Things that were wholly
inappropriate, given that they were on a quest to find and kill
someone.
    “Do you still not trust me fully?” Cedar
asked. “Or are you simply unable to relinquish control over your
devices?”
    She smiled. The latter, of course, but...
“How can I trust a man with so many secrets?”
    “Are you referring to my name again?”
    “That and other things. Aside from those
brief revelations at my old workshop when you were trying to enlist
my aid against Cudgel, you’ve never spoken about yourself.
You—”
    A shadow fell across the trail—a large
shadow.
    “What’s that?” Kali slowed down.
    It disappeared as quickly as it had come, and
beams of sunlight found the forest floor again.
    “A cloud?” she asked.
    “No,” Cedar said.
    Yes, that had come and gone too quickly to be
a cloud. Eagles were common in these parts, but that had been too
large a shadow to indicate a bird.
    Kali stopped the SAB and dropped her feet to
the ground. Spruce and pine branches created a latticework
overhead, impeding the view of the sky.
    “An airship?” she asked, thinking of the
pirates who had attacked her in the dog sled race months
earlier.
    “I don’t think it was that big,” Cedar said.
“And it moved quickly for an airship. Listen.”
    With the chugging pistons of her vehicle
stilled, Kali could hear more of the sounds around her. No hint of
bird chattered cheered the forest. Something else sounded in the
distance however. Faint clacks and clanks.
    “Some sort of machinery?” Cedar
suggested.
    “Hm.” The sounds were already fading, as if
they belonged to a vehicle driving—or flying?—away. The idea seemed
preposterous. Who up here besides her made such things? The
townsfolk of Dawson, while not quite as quick to curse her and call
her a witch as those of Moose Hollow, thought her peculiar and her
inventions doubly so.
    The sounds faded altogether, leaving the
forest silent except for the soft rumble of her own vehicle’s
idling engine and the rush of the nearby river.
    “Maybe it’s nothing,” Cedar said. “We could
be close to a claim where people are using steam machinery.”
    “Or maybe somebody’s hunting me,” Kali said.
When she had left Moose Hollow, she had not told anyone where she
was going except her friend Nelly, and nobody had attacked her
since she arrived in Dawson. Given the proximity of the two towns,
and the size of the bounty on her head, she was surprised it had
taken this long for anyone to find her.
    “A possibility,” Cedar said.
    “Should we take any precautions?” she asked,
willing to concede to his wisdom when it came to matters of
battle.
    “Yes.”
    “Such as?”
    “You should let me drive so I can familiarize
myself with the workings of the vehicle.”
    She glared over her shoulder and found him
smiling.
    “Are you truly using the possibility of a new
and dangerous enemy to further your argument for why you should be
allowed to play with my bicycle?”
    “If we’re attacked,” Cedar said, his smile
widening, “and there’s an incident rendering you unconscious, I
should know how to work this contraption so I can port you back to
civilization.”
    “You needn’t look so excited at the prospect
of my incapacitation.”
    “I merely believe in being prepared. May I
drive?”
    “No.” Kali shoved the lever that controlled
the speed, and the SAB surged forward. “If I’m knocked out, wave
smelling salts under my nose. I’ll rouse myself enough to
drive.”
    They continued onward for another hour,
navigating around mud puddles and horse droppings on the trail.
Twice more Kali heard the clanking sound in the distance, though
whatever was making it did not venture close enough to be seen
through the evergreen canopy. Nor did another shadow