Paris. July 24, 1914. The Orient Express sits in the Gare de l'Est, bound for Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, and Constantinople. Gendarmes look out from a balcony as an announcer warns of the train's imminent departure. A worried American looks out the door of the train car as it begins to pull out of the station. With a look of disappointment, he returns to the car.

As the train speeds through a French field, a motorcycle pulls alongside it in its travel. Two people have squeezed onto its frame. The passenger stands up on the motorcycle. Grasping at the rails, he makes a leap across to the door of the train, as the motorbike's driver pulls off her cap to reveal her long, flowing red hair. You arePast: Just why does Robert want to go to Constantinople so badly, anyway? (The answer: he's a wanted man in more or less the entire Western world, and Tyler offered him a ticket out. Also, it's on the way to Jerusalem.)

Cath says the whole freedom-fighting and arms-dealing things were more Tyler's areas, but he was allegedly hanging out with the Irish independence movement just before the game begins. It's also not clear where Cath picked up the knowledge of herbal medicine (with Datura stramonium) or what appears to be a hypnotic ability he uses a few times, including on the Firebird itself.

Kronos is also particularly mysterious. His descent and what title he has to be addressed as "his excellency" is unclear, along with how he knows what's really