Chapter 3: The Capitol Train and the Rules of Ascension

The Capitol train was exactly as offensive as Honoria had anticipated.

She had formed her expectations from the recruitment pamphlets distributed each Selection year — pamphlets she had read, in the spirit of comprehensive intelligence-gathering, with the same deliberate detachment she applied to the Court's official histories and the Provinces' mortality statistics. The pamphlets described the train as *the Grand Ascension's first gift to its participants*, which was the sort of sentence that communicated a great deal about the person who had written it and nothing of use about the train itself. She had therefore prepared herself for something aggressively luxurious, and she was not disappointed. The carriage they were ushered into at five past eight — the fog of Province Twelve still on their coats, their bags stowed by white-gloved attendants with the reverent haste of people handling objects of uncertain explosive potential — was draped in cream silk and lit with a warmth that Province Twelve's winters had never once managed. There were flowers in a crystal vase beside the window, provincial wildflowers arranged with the careful artfulness of something that wished to appear natural, and Honoria looked at them for a moment and then deliberately looked away.

"Cream biscuits," said Callum Ashby, with the tone of a man discovering scripture.