Trimble comes to check on Gee’s condition after the slaver attack. The chamelin still has trouble breathing, though he shrugs off the advice to rest. The train is three days away from Cutting Gap, a dangerous pass, and Gee will need his strength to fend off bandit attacks.

The following morning, Piper is awakened by the steward. He is concerned because Anna is wreaking havoc in the train’s library car. Piper suspects that Anna is “organizing things” the way she did back in Piper’s shack, and she agrees to take care of the problem. Piper finds Anna seated on the floor with towers of books piled around her, claiming that this is the optimum way to read because she can see all the titles at once. She changes her mind when the train’s motion topples her book stacks. Then, she allows Piper to help her put everything back in the bookcases. Anna has an encyclopedic memory for facts of all kinds. She says she dimly remembers reading some of the books in the library before. She also recalls a kindly old man reading to her out of them. She also shows Piper a jagged scar on the back of her neck.