Dinner was a sombre event that passed in silence. Leslie outdid himself again, with something that tasted good enough Clarissa was willing to believe in magic, but all five people at the table passed the time focused on their plates. The only sound anyone made was the gentle rap of a spoon against a bowl. Surprisingly, even without the captain — who was flying the ship — no one was willing to speak. Even Tonya and Anita, who hadn't been on the deck when they had shot down three bandit skimmers, weren't particularly interested in disturbing the moment.

It wasn't until Clarissa's bowl was nearly empty, and she considered breaking the silence by asking for seconds, that anyone spoke. To her surprise Leslie turned to her and asked, "Clarissa, when you took Yannick his lunch, did you actually get to meet him? Or did you have to leave his food at the door?"

Clarissa blinked, startled. Meeting the ship's navigator felt like it happened an age ago, to someone else. But she remembered the curly-haired boy, painfully awkward, terrified of people and their cruelty, and that shy smile that warmed her heart. "The captain wanted to talk to Yannick at the same time. He let us in, even showed me that strange model of his," she admitted.

Four people whistled in near unison at that news. Even Leslie, who had asked, appeared shocked. "I still haven't seen that damn thing," Tonya complained.

"It isn't a model," Anita said. "It's a sky map, built to scale, constantly mapping the journey of the isles. I helped build it, and I didn't understand a third of what I was making. We worked with a couple of clock makers from Olencia."

"Whatever it is, it's worth it. No one navigates like Yannick," Tonya agreed, and she pointed her finger at Clarissa. "There are people who fly like me, work machines like Anita, box like Leslie. Heck, from what I've heard of you so far, kid, you could compete with any of us in a few years. Except in boxing. But Yannick, that's a talent you'll never match. It ain't a talent the Monastery can teach. It ain't a skill the Academies of Vol Ayre will even believe is possible."

"He's that good?"

"We challenged him to find us a route from Ardene to Salencia without using the propellers once. It took him fifteen minutes to plot the course, and he only lost the bet because we had a couple of Corsairs who thought we were smugglers," Tonya explained.

"We are smugglers," Mercy said.

"They couldn't prove it," Tonya said.

"But Tonya is right, Clarissa," Mercy said, leaning forward and staring at Clarissa long enough to make her uncomfortable. "It says a lot about you that Yannick was willing to let you into his cabin."

Mercy grinned then, spun around in her seat, and stood up. She leaned over the kitchen bar and poured a bowl. She set a spoon into it and set the bowl in front of Clarissa. "Would you take that to Yannick? I think he'll want to work on the deck in a little while, and could use the food."

Clarissa nodded and shoved the rest of her food into her mouth. "Aye ma'am," she managed to mumble with a full mouth.

"Much obliged, Clarissa," Mercy said. On her way back to her seat, she stopped behind Leslie, and put her hand on his shoulder. "Let me know if you need to talk. Or just play cards for a while."

Leslie put his hand over hers. He didn't look up, but the gentle smile returned to his face and he looked more like the absurdly gentle giant Clarissa remembered. "Thanks LT."

"LT?" Clarissa asked.

"Short for lieutenant. I've been calling Mercy that for so long I forget at times she has a name," Leslie said with a wry grin, which earned him a gentle flick from Mercy before she went back to her own food. Clarissa stood up and was about to take her dishes to the kitchen when Leslie stopped her. "We'll get that. Yannick actually interacting with another human being is gift enough."

"What about the captain?" Anita asked.

"Captain doesn't count. He's less human, and more the personification of the idea of a ship captain. Minus the big hat," Mercy said.

Clarissa chuckled at Mercy's joke, picked up the bowl, and moved to the door. As she opened it she heard one more jest, this time at her expense.

"Does the captain know about our plan to report Clarissa as lost to the winds, and make her part of the crew?" Anita asked, to another round of laughter.

Clarissa shut the door and walked down the hall towards Yannick cabin in a much lighter mood than she had started dinner. She was humming to herself by the time she reached Yannick's door and raised her hand to it almost eagerly.

And nearly struck Yannick in the face as he opened the door. "Clarissa, I wasn't expecting - oh food."

Yannick stared at the bowl in Clarissa's hands for a long, awkward moment. Clarissa noticed that the navigator's arms were laden with gear, including two different telescopes and a bag full of tightly collected paper. "How about I carry that, and you eat? I promise to take good care of it, and it won't leave your sight," she offered.

Yannick spent a moment considering before he nodded, turned, and to Clarissa's surprise, managed to disassemble the assorted items in his arms rather adroitly. He set the papers down gently, swung the telescopes until they were tucked under his arm, and his other gear rested by his feet. He grinned and held out his free hand towards the bowl.

Clarissa shook her head and handed the food over. "That was pretty suave," she said as she took the telescopes from him and cradled them gently in her arms. "It's almost like you've done this before."

"I'm doing measurements, of the island drift. To calibrate the sky map. The slipstream side of Volante is, well, the third best vantage near an island. And I like working without having to float," Yannick said, as he poked at his food with the spoon. He took a bite when he finished speaking.

"Wait, float?" Clarissa gasped.

"Yeah," Yannick said, and Clarissa thought she detected a hint of snark in his response. It was hard to tell, since his mouth was half-full of food. He swallowed, and added, "gravity comes from matter, and if you're far enough away from the islands, there isn't enough to pull you back to the ground. And when we get far enough out, the air gets too thin to breathe. It's why the Ravens Child has doors that seal shut. Once we're about two days past the ruins, we'll seal the ship to preserve the air pressure."

"That makes sense. We're going to the shield, after all," Clarissa said. "Can the ship go the whole way?"

"Yes, but it probably won't," Yannick said. To Clarissa's shock, Yannick had already finished his food, and darted back inside to set his bowl on a shelf. He came back out, shut the latch, and took the telescopes from her. He lead them up the nearby stairwell and braced his shoulder against the door.

"Hate that Leslie, can do this, so casually," Yannick grunted, as he forced the door open. The wind whipped through the doorway as soon as the metal parted an inch, and Clarissa clutched the bag of papers tightly so they wouldn't escape.

Yannick pushed the door open and set his back against the door to hold it against the wind as Clarissa stepped out. While Clarissa shut and set the latch, Yannick had already stepped up to one of the tool chests near the Banshee, and popped it open. He retrieved two tripods, only momentarily struggling with the orientation of his safety clips on the nearby rails, and stepped up to the middle of the deck before he unfolded the first.

Clarissa stopped next to him and asked, "can I help?"

Yannick paused, his mouth open, as if testing out words to respond with. After a moment, he pointed at a nearby piece of the deck. "It folds up. Into a table. Handle is by your feet."

Clarissa quickly bent over and spied a small fold near a long crease in the deck. As soon as she grabbed it from underneath something clicked, and a piece of the deck came up and away from her, until a desk as large as the mess table in the kitchen was in front of her.

Clarissa reached into the bag, and found a dozen mostly round metal balls, each with a flat end where about a quarter of the sphere was shaved off. Feeling the wind on her face, she set them out on the table in groups of four, and left the bag on the table.

Yannick looked back and smiled at her. "Paperweights, thank you."

"So how do you calibrate the sky map?" Clarissa asked.

"Measure the distance and speed of any island I can see from here, and compare it to the map," Yannick explained. He pointed off the port side of the ship, at a small speck of green so tiny Clarissa could barely make it out. "We'll start with Olencia."

Clarissa gaped. "That's Olencia? We can see it from here? But it's over a thousand miles away, isn't it?" Clarissa asked.

"Fourteen hundred and thirty-seven. At least that's what the map says. I'll know in a few minutes," Yannick said, as he picked up the telescope on the tripod and moved it into a marked position on the deck. He then reached into his pockets and set a few more things on the table.

"Would you, uh, like to use the other telescope?" Yannick asked, hesitantly.

Clarissa looked over, to see the boy was biting his lip, as if he were afraid of her reaction. And almost as if the captain were whispering in her ear, she recalled what Vincent Locklear had said about his navigator. 'A victim to every vagrant cruelty from small people looking to feel big for a moment'.

Clarissa was grateful, that much was genuine. But she needed Yannick to know it, and so she let some of the sorrow into her smile, and said, "I would indeed."

Yannick beamed in delight and brought it over to her. "If you don't know how to use it, I can help," he said.

Clarissa smiled at him, took the telescope, and pointed it towards Olencia. Yannick, meanwhile, had turned away and was walking around the Banshee, towards the aft rails of the ship. "What are you doing?" Clarissa called out.

Yannick paused again, as if surprised by her question and at a loss for how to respond. A moment later, he shouted back. "Reference measurement, I'm taking it from the Pillars. Then I need our speed and heading."

Clarissa nodded and tried looking through the telescope. Her first glimpse was fuzzy, though green, which was encouraging. She played with the focus for a moment, until the sight cleared up and she was looking at Olencia for the first time.

Olencia wasn't round, or even anything remotely resembling a sphere. It's shape, if Clarissa could decide on anything, was more like a massive letter 'c', with two long mountain ranges jutting from the ends of the large mass of island. Faintly, Clarissa could see cities, or at least the grey blots in the otherwise green island. Snow covered the mountains finning across the length of the isle. A waterfall spilled off one end, dropping a stream that turned into mist, that fell into a late in the middle of the island.

"Olencia," Clarissa whispered to herself.

"You've never seen it before?" Yannick asked, making Clarissa jump.

She whirled about, to find Yannick was only a few feet away from her, at the table with a pencil in his hands, taking notes. Clarissa recognized the trigonometry, and the speed calculations, but what Yannick had drawn in the last few minutes would have taken Clarissa hours. Staring at that paper, she understood Tonya's insistence that Yannick's particular talent in navigation had no peer beneath the sky.

"No. It's very misty around the core. We don't always see the nearby smaller isles, and I've only ever been to a few of those," Clarissa admitted. She hung her head a little, bothered and a little embarrassed by how much of the sky she had never seen.

"Like the quiet farm?" Yannick asked, surprising Clarissa.

She smiled at Yannick for that, and if she knew him better, might have hugged him. Yannick might have seen her shame, probably heard it in her voice, and his reflex was to find common ground in their travels. It was kind, and she was grateful for it. "Yes. I worked there, helping them expand their cabins. They take in people recovering from illness and addiction, especially deadgrass."

"We were there a few months ago," Yannick said. "It's, uh, very green. Tonya's always sad when we go there. Happy-sad, like she has reason to be both. She has family there."

"I, uh," Clarissa began to say, but hesitated.

"Oh. That's Tonya's story to tell," Yannick said, with an angry shake of his head. "Faux pas."

"A little. But don't let that stop you from talking," Clarissa said. "I rather like being out here with you. I haven't had much of a chance to see any of these wonders. We've been so busy."

"You," Yannick murmured, shaking his head and leaning down over his notes. With his mess of curly hair now hanging over his face, Clarissa couldn't tell how he was feeling. More worrisome still, she worried she had hurt him.

"Yannick? Did I overstep?" Clarissa asked.

"You like being here with me?" Yannick asked, and his eyes were wide with wonder.

Clarissa smiled, really smiled, when she replied to him. "I think this has been my favourite part of a voyage that has changed my life."

"So did you see Olencia's Endless Rain?" Yannick asked, excitedly. He rounded the corner and squinted off in the distance. "It's a hundred-mile high waterfall, too high to stay as a single stream, so it strikes that lake at the bottom as rainfall. That rain has happened for all of recorded history, as far as anyone can tell."

Clarissa recalled her lessons about the wider world, and reached into them for new questions to ask Yannick. He worked as they talked, and trained their telescopes on wonders both large and small, and Clarissa finally found herself able to appreciate the beauty of everything she was travelling through.

For Clarissa, standing on that windswept deck with this awkward, brilliant boy — whose sincerity made everything they saw all the more wonderful — finally made the voyage feel like a journey.