Q is the novel’s deuteragonist, a round and dynamic character whose journey parallels Raya’s. He begins the story in a state of deep anger and isolation, stemming from his father’s suicide and his progressive vision loss. This trauma shapes his worldview and his art; as a portraitist, he’s fixated on capturing the hidden truths in his subjects, a defense mechanism against being blindsided by deception again. His artistic signature, the scorched moth, is a recurring symbol of his self-destructive grief and his longing for the light he’s losing. This internal turmoil makes him emotionally unanchored, and he finds himself on the Elsewhere Express after nearly choosing to end his own life, believing he has no future without his sight.

For Q, the Elsewhere Express is a “miracle” because it restores his vision, giving him a powerful motivation to stay on the train at any cost. This initially makes him willing to accept the train’s strange rules and deceptions. However, his connection with Raya forces him to look beyond his own desires. The tether that binds them creates an emotional intimacy that compels him to confront his own vulnerability rather than just exposing it in others. He evolves from a solitary, cynical observer into a selfless and protective partner. His creative power also transforms; instead of using his art to reveal grim truths, he learns to use it for creation and salvation, such as when he paints a star out of thin air to help them escape the Sky Art Studio. This shift highlights his growing capacity for hope and connection.

Q’s transformation culminates in his act of ultimate sacrifice. Believing that he’s the source of the stowaway and a danger to the train, he chooses to save Raya by throwing himself from the boarding car, not knowing whether he will survive the fall. This act mirrors the moment he nearly died by suicide at the beginning of the story, but his motivation is inverted. His leap is motivated not by despair but by love and a newfound sense of purpose. This sacrifice breaks the cycle of his previous appearances on the train. He ultimately lands back in his own time, blind but no longer broken, having learned that true vision isn’t dependent on sight. His final act is to create an immersive art exhibit that allows him to process his experience and reconnect with Raya, demonstrating that he has found a new, deeper way of seeing the world and his place in it.

Lily, the conductor of the Elsewhere Express, is a complex character who’s a mentor, an antagonist, and a foil to Raya. She shows a potential future for Raya, one where she finds purpose by adhering to the train’s rigid system and erasing her past. Lily is a static character for most of the narrative, embodying the philosophy that one must shed personal history to keep the train safe. Her practice of wearing faces from others’ daydreams is symbolic of her detachment from her own identity as Hiraya Sia. She’s the enforcer of rules, driven by the belief that order and forgetting are the only ways to prevent the train from shattering.

Lily’s unwavering commitment to the train’s rules is rooted in personal trauma. As the first Raya to board the train with Q, her unprocessed guilt over his sacrificial death, in addition to her guilt over Jace’s death, manifested as the first stowaway. To prevent this catastrophe from recurring, she accepted the role of conductor and constructed a system built on forgetting. Her most significant deception, the lie about the Echoes, is a manipulation designed to ensure that passengers willingly drink Mr. Goh’s serum and discard their memories, which she sees as dangerous baggage. Her actions aren’t driven by malice but by a deep fear of her own capacity for creating chaos, making her a tragic figure trapped by her own solution.

Ultimately, Lily can’t escape her past. When the new Raya confronts her with the embroidered truth from the train’s records—that the stowaway is born from her own guilt—Lily’s carefully maintained reality collapses. Faced with the failure of her system and unable to reconcile her duty as conductor with her personal history, she makes a dynamic choice. She jumps from the train, an act that breaks the cycle of her own making. In doing so, she passes the responsibility of leadership, and the opportunity to find a different path, to the new Raya.

Rasmus is a key mentor and ally to Raya and Q. As the train’s former conductor, he’s a repository of hidden knowledge and acts as a counterpoint to Lily’s rigid adherence to the rules. While he understands the need for order to protect the train, his experiences have made him more flexible and willing to bend the rules when necessary. His primary motivation is to keep the train and its passengers safe, but unlike Lily, he hasn’t completely erased his past, as symbolized by his eyepatch, which suggests a memory that is obscured but not entirely gone.

Rasmus shows a balance between duty and individuality. He finds purpose not only in his official role as interim Archivist but also in his personal hobbies, such as building miniature crystal trains from passengers’ childhood memories. His connection to his mechanical spider, Abbie, reveals a capacity for loyalty and affection that has been suppressed in other long-term passengers. He becomes an essential guide for Raya and Q, providing them with the tools and information they need to hunt the stowaway, even when it means breaking the train’s most sacred rules. His willingness to retrieve a forgotten memory, despite the danger, demonstrates his commitment to finding the true solution rather than simply maintaining the status quo. His eventual collapse under the weight of the Archive after his tether with Abbie is broken emphasizes the theme of shared burdens and the high cost of keeping the train’s secrets.

The stowaway is the primary antagonist of the novel, a monstrous swarm of black moths that represents the physical manifestation of unprocessed guilt and self-destructive thoughts. It symbolizes the power of Unresolved Trauma as a Psychological Trap. The stowaway spreads rot and decay wherever it goes, symbolizing how unaddressed trauma can corrupt and destroy a person’s world from within. It’s not an external entity but is born from within the protagonist herself; it’s created from the guilt that the first Raya (Lily) failed to purge after Q’s initial sacrifice. The creature’s ability to shapeshift and take on the faces of lost loved ones, such as Jace and Q, highlights how guilt can weaponize memory, twisting cherished images into tools of manipulation and despair. Its ultimate destruction comes not from being thrown off the train but from being confronted and consumed by Q’s own dark thoughts, suggesting that such internal monsters must be faced with an equally powerful internal force.