The Ritual of Blood and Bone

Chapter Seventeen

Seraphina had seen the long building with the glass roof attached to the Colosseum on the way in. Now, inside it, her mouth drops open in shock. She comes to a stop as they enter and the other students do too, their expressions similar to Seraphina's. 

The room is like nothing she has ever seen before. Great industrial metal pillars rise from the concrete floor to the roof. They cross over and interlock intricately on the ceiling. This creates the spectacular glass roof she had seen from afar. Large lamps on metal posts glow with something that isn't fire. The light is too white looking. The air smells of a mixture of soot and metal.

What really makes Seraphina pause is the giant train sitting in the middle of the hall. Calla had told her stories of the super trains, but she never could have imagined this. The engine is spectacular. It is a huge mass of dark green and blue metal with intricate, gleaming silver and gold piping. Various cogs and other metallic engine parts beautifully interlink on its side. From four giant, shining silver chimneys at the top, steam puffs into the air. Long, dark metal rods attach great metal wheels together. All of them are huge, perhaps five or six times her height. They sit on enormous, steal tracks that are much taller than her and are so thick, she can't imagine anything being able to damage them. 

Looking back at the train, she sees a dark silver metal staircase winding up its side to a tiny door near the top. She assumes that is where the train drivers control the engine. How anyone can get such a huge structure to move baffles her.

"Quite something, isn't it?" General Keller asks with a smile, patting her on the back. She can only nod her head. 

Along the platform, lines upon lines full of Ethereals cue up to get into the dark green carriages of which there are four in total. The Ethereals are tiny specks next to them. The carriages look as though they go up four floors, based on how many rows of windows they are. The windows at the top are a lot bigger and cleaner than those at the bottom. Some of the top floors even have small balconies where she can see some Ethereals standing now. The lower floors have much smaller windows. They are little circles, huddled tightly together and stained brown and black from the soot.

"Come on, we don't want to miss it," General Keller jokes. They start walking toward the train. As Seraphina gets closer, she sees different sets of doors. One is smaller and simple in design. They have no windows and a small step to get up into them. She assumes that those doors lead to the floors to the lowest levels. The other doors are accessible via beautiful golden staircases built into the ends of each carriage. They lead up to the third and fourth floors. It is toward one of those staircases the general leads them. 

This particular one is at the front of the fourth carriage. There isn't a staircase at the other end. They don't pass near the rows upon rows of other Ethereals waiting to get on. They also don't have to pass through conductors demanding to see tickets and then wait in line to get to their seats.

"Welcome, to the Narenna Express," one of the tutors chuckles and gestures for them to go up the stairs ahead of him. As they walk up, he continues his explanation. "Named that because this line travels across Narenna from top to bottom, left to right, and passing through every single city along the way, Ethereal and Stain. They come to a large green door and enter. 

Beyond it is some sort of entrance hall. It has an archway that leads to the third floor. The archway sits beneath two sets of mahogany stairs that meet up in the middle in front of a large wooden door. The shining wood of the staircase bannisters is carved in a way that reminds Seraphina of water. A deep red carpet runs up the middle of each set of stairs. Seraphina follows the others up it.

Beyond the door is a long, wide corridor. It has the same red carpet running through the centre of its mahogany floors. The walls are the same, shining wood. They have metal candelabras on them, holding little pointed glass bulbs with strange white light inside. The corridor is also lined with large wooden doors, sat opposite each other and equidistant apart.