The Fortress in the Fog
The railway yard smelled of coal dust and rust, of rain that had fallen three days ago and never quite dried from the cracks in the concrete. Leo Hartley sat on the low wall behind the signal box, his knees drawn up, watching Danny Fitch try to light a cigarette against the wind and fail twice before cupping his hands like he'd seen men do in films.
"Give it here," Leo said, and took the lighter before Danny could argue, shielding the flame with his palm the way his uncle had shown him once, before the accident, before everything got complicated. The cigarette caught. He passed it back without taking a drag himself, though he let the smoke curl into his face and pretended he didn't cough.
"You're hopeless," Danny said, grinning around the filter.
"I'm conserving my lungs. Unlike you, I want to live past thirty."
Across from them, sitting on an overturned crate, Marcus Webb snorted. He was the oldest of the three by a few months, and never let anyone forget it. "You won't live past tonight if you go up to Blackthorn."
"Nobody said anything about Blackthorn."
"I'm saying it now." Marcus took the cigarette when Danny offered it, though he didn't smoke either, just held it…