Clarissa couldn't get an answer for Tonya's clue. Despite the discomfort drinking the brine had caused after several cups, none of the others were willing to give up that information. Even using puppy eyes on Yannick ended fruitlessly.

A few hours and entirely too much pickle juice later, Clarissa had gone to bed with an unsettled stomach, and a smile on her lips. Her magnetic boots — the clingy boyfriends as Mercy called them — stood upright on the floor in front of her bed. With the door closed and the electric light turned off, she fell asleep almost as soon as she slid inside the sleeping bag.

No one woke her up. No alarm, no frantic cry, and most disappointingly, none of Leslie's kitchen wizardry. Clarissa slid out of her sleeping bag, and this time put her feet into the magnetic boots before she did anything else. She got dressed, clumsily but safely tethered to the floor by one foot, and made her way out.

She poked her head into the kitchen, hoping to see food being made there, but the pots and pans were all safely ensconced and the counters bare. Clarissa chuckled to herself, as she recalled the mess she made of trying to boil water, and suspected it might just be ship policy to not cook in the air beyond the pull of the isles.

She went to the bridge instead, and found herself witnessing a new wonder.

Giant, snow-capped peaks rose from forests still so distant Clarissa couldn't tell the trees apart. Lakes — so blue they rivalled the endless sky — littered the shallow spaces below the forests, and massive winding rivers drew lazily twisting lines across the isle. Much of the forest was dusted with snow, and mist clung to the mountains.

Clarissa stepped slowly past the bridge, barely noticing she was making her way closer to the Child's massive window. She rested her hands on the rails and stared at what had to be the most beautiful thing under the sky.

"Don't drool until we dock with the Roost, it's easier to clean up," Tonya said, in a sardonic imitation of a reprimand. Though when Clarissa looked back, the Child's pilot wore a solemn but happy smile. "Though if I mock ya for gawking, it won't have a lot of bite. I tear up a little every time I see this place."

"It's beautiful," Clarissa agreed.

"It is. She's the jewel of the outer isles. The Wayfarers, Mercy's people, claim Idlewind wasn't a part of the endless sky a thousand years ago," Tonya said. She was staring at the glass ball tied to her hand as she spoke, with her other hand resting on one of the propeller levers rather than the wheel. "She drifted in from the void beyond the sky, a bare and blasted rock. Water from the slipstream carved her rocky skin, seeds snatched from the other isles took root, and the wayfarers themselves took to tending her growth."

"Is it true?" Clarissa asked.

"You'd know better than I," Tonya said. "Monastery has healers and teachers here, and I always remember them being keen to make sure the story was told. They say it was the first time we ever made things greener than they were."

"We made that? It almost doesn't seem possible," Clarissa said.

"The novelty might be why they're so keen for us to remember," Tonya agreed. She lifted one boot, and tapped it with her hand. "You won't need those boots in another twenty minutes or so. The pull of Idlewind is soft and gentle compared to Volante, Olencia, or what you lived with at the Monastery, but it'll keep you grounded."

"Yeah," Clarissa whispered. She looked for cities on the island, but only saw small, scattered settlements, most near the lakes. To her surprise, though, she could just make out the markings of rail lines that wound through the forest, as well as docks built on the peaks. The docks, strangely, extended up and beyond the peaks, some nearly half again as tall as the mountain they were built upon.

"What is everyone else doing?" Clarissa asked.

"Their jobs," Tonya replied. Clarissa could hear the smirk in the woman's voice. "Leslie's probably covering up the Banshee, Mercy and the captain are checking the lifeboats, Yannick's doing math, and Anita's attending to that giant baby of hers in engineering."

"The lifeboats? What do we need lifeboats for?" Clarissa wondered aloud.

"Asides from the usual reasons?" Tonya asked with a grin. "The lifeboats are how we grab fuel pellets. They're also how you and that box will be travelling from this point onward."

"Wait, what?" Clarissa asked.

"You didn't think the Ravens' Child was going to take to the void beyond the sky, did ya?" Tonya asked. "It's built for the task, to be sure, but the captain's rather reluctant to actually do it, for all the attention it'll draw. Better to use the lifeboats, looking like just another small fuel ferry heading to the Cauldron."

There was an odd sight that caught Clarissa's eyes, a thin grey line that looked as if it rose up from the island, and ended at a blob of brown in the distance. She squinted, as if that would somehow make her see further into the distance. Behind her, Tonya chuckled. When Clarissa turned, Tonya patted the pouch at her leg, then pulled out a small spyglass. "Yours should have one too, kid."

Clarissa opened the pouch at her leg and discovered to her immediate dismay that Tonya was correct. Ruefully, she drew it out and extended it, to take a closer look at the odd shape they were approaching. She put the spyglass to her eye, played with the focus, and saw another of the sky's wonders.

The brown blob in the distance, floating what might be a hundred miles away from Idlewind, was a dockyard. A sprawling mass of wooden dockyards, causeways, and scaffolding. The small white dots of lift balloons dotted the expanse like snow capping the treetops of a forest. Strangely, all of the lift balloons, the rising scaffolding, and the roofs of the buildings, pointed towards Idlewind.

With a closer look, Clarissa followed the grey line that stretched from Idlewind to the docks, and saw it was a chain. A massive chain that, as far as she could tell, must stretch at least a hundred miles.

"Is that a dockyard? why is it like that?" Clarissa asked.

"Topside under?" Tonya said, and Clarissa found the expression both strange and strangely suited to what she saw. "That's the Roost, biggest shipyard that doesn't belong to Aventillia. And don't ask me how the damn thing works, or how they have pull that tries to yank you away from Idlewind. Yannick tried to explain it once, said something about centrifuge force trying to throw the docks into the sky, or some-such pseudo-magic."

"It's centrifugal force," Clarissa said, surprising herself. "The docks are too far away for the island to pull it back down, so the rotation of the island works to throw the docks into the sky. Hence, the tether chains."

Clarissa lowered the spyglass and grinned. "That's amazingly clever."

"High praise from a child of the Monastery," Tonya said. Clarissa could hear some mocking in the pilot's tone, but not a lot.

"Tonya," the captain's voice sounded. Clarissa whirled about, glancing around the room instinctively, before she realized he must be speaking through one of the tubes. "How far are we from the docks?"

"Probably twenty minutes, cap," Tonya replied. "Still waiting on their harbour master to signal me for a berth."

"Probably too busy gawking at the Child," the captain replied. "We're quite a bit more ship than the glorified rafts they're used to parking. Have Leslie remind the harbour-master that we don't need a tow into port. Is Clarissa with you, and if so, is she in earshot?"

"Yes and yes, cap," Tonya replied.

"Good. Clarissa, pack your belongings and meet me down in the cargo bay. I'll expect you in ten minutes."

Clarissa blinked, and stared at the spyglass in her hands, surprised they were trembling. Something she didn't understand choked at her, until she gasped and let out a little sob. She looked to Tonya to explain herself, but had to rub away tears first.

"I, uh, I should give this back," Clarissa mumbled, and she folded up the spyglass carefully. She dropped the spyglass once as she tried to put it back in its holster, and for the first time on the trip was relieved she wasn't very close to an island's gravity.

Tonya frowned as Clarissa began to unclip her toolkit, and forestalled her with an upraised hand. "You're crew, remember? That's a crewman's kit at your waist, and you don't surrender that for anything."

"But I,"

"It's a gift, then. But it's yours, kid. And it's right where it ought to be," Tonya said simply. She gestured with her thumb to the door, but her mouth was wrinkled as if she were fighting a smile. "Cap gave you an order, though. Best to get on with it. And don't worry, we'll have a proper moment for our parting ways. See you soon, kid."

Clarissa wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, only just realizing that crying without gravity was more annoying than under it. She nodded and marched out of the bridge to make her way to her room.

She had more tears to dab away by the time she reached her cabin, and wasn't sure if the muscles of her own face were trying to smile or grimace. Looking at her belongings; the single trunk still packed to keep its contents from drifting about in the free float between the isles, made her heart ache. The pouch tied to her thigh brought back the smell of the furnace and the distant ache of her hands after a day of shovelling. Seeing her bunk recalled the first hours of her voyage when Mercy comforted her until she slept. Even the cold metal around her neck reminded her of her captain's solemn promise to treat her like crew, despite having little reason to view her as anything more than unwanted cargo.

With tears in her eyes and lead in her heart, she picked up her trunk with comical ease, and walked down the hall towards the stairs. Grateful for the chance to move her luggage while it still weighed nothing, she made her way to the cargo hold, to find Mercy and the captain busy checking the wheel housing beneath the black box.

"Clarissa, good timing," Mercy said. She was floating upside down, her hat still somehow resting with the same tilt, slightly covering the scar on the right side of her face. She was adjusting one of the cables holding the box in place. "Care to check to see if the magnetic clamps are still holding between the box and the platform it's sitting on?"

"I, uh, of course," Clarissa said. She wiped the tears from her eyes again, and tucked her luggage into one of the nearby shelves, pulling a strap over it to hold it in place. She grabbed the wall with her hands, lifted her feet off the floor until the magnets stopped pulling, and pushed off towards the others.

She skimmed the floor, her hands drifting close to the rails, until she stopped herself in front of the box. The captain was examining the control panel nearby and pointed to the nearby wheels without looking up. "Give the base a tug, see how much force the magnetic clamp is giving to the cart."

"On it," Clarissa said. She was surprised at how easy it was to put away her sadness when she had something to do. She wasn't sure if she should be grateful to the captain for it or not. She crouched down, put her fingers against the cart, and tried to pry the cart loose. She pushed hard, and managed to separate it by a finger's width after a few moments.

"There's some force, captain," Clarissa said. "But I could probably push the box apart myself if I tried."

"Potentiometer is cooked," Captain Locklear muttered to himself. "Short it, and you run the risk of dumping the box's power supply into the ship's hull. Which would be the end of all things. Good thing I've had coffee already. Well, if doing nothing won't break it, best to leave it alone."

The captain looked up to Mercy, and said, "We'll need to strap the box to the cart. Rather save myself the embarrassment of having to chase after it in the void. Clarissa wouldn't look up to me anymore if I did that."

"You sure she looks up to you now, cap?" Mercy asked.

"I've got over half a foot on her. Plus, I'm a debonair, swashbuckling airship captain. That gets a lot of traction at Trefail'i masquerades," the captain protested.

"You were the talk of the town during that grain run out in Fallowswitch. Helped that you brought a ship full of ale to a farming colony that ran dry," Mercy admitted, as she began to set the straps to the cart.

"That was a good weekend. Not that we can ever go back, I think Tonya was accidentally betrothed to the mayor's son," the captain said.

"Governor's youngest son. Official complaints are still being lodged to the Volante Admiralty over it," Mercy said, tying the last one off.

"Helm to cargo bay," Tonya's voice rang in the air. "I need to rotate the ship. Just wanted to check to make sure the cargo was secure."

The captain pushed himself through the air, did a lazy somersault, and stopped with his feet against the wall in front of the speaking tube. "The box is secure. Do what you need to to, Tonya."

"Sounds good. We should start docking in five minutes."

Clarissa swallowed. Five minutes. Five more minutes on the Ravens' Child. The thought did not sit well in her heart.

"Mercy, is everything else in here still secured to the ship?" The captain asked.

"It is," Mercy replied.

Clarissa was surprised when the Captain stepped up to her, and patted her on the shoulder. "Come on. We're going to open the cargo door a little early. It's quite the sight."

"I saw," Clarissa said as she followed. "It was beautiful."

"It's something else to see in open air. Especially when we're upside down," the captain said.

"Upside down?" Clarissa hurried to keep up as Captain Locklear reached their cargo bay door controls, and clipped himself into the rails. He rested his hand on the control, turned back to Clarissa, and tapped on the clip.

Clarissa nodded, and attached herself to the rail.

The captain pulled the latch, and with a low and heavy whine, the door began to open.

Clarissa looked up, through where the door opened first, and up above, saw Idlewind again. But this time, as the door opened, it was as if someone had painted it on a distant ceiling, with snow-shrouded treetops pointing straight at her, and mountains falling down and away to her left and right.

A wisp of mist rushed in through the door, and the sudden wash of cold, wet air made her shiver. She didn't look away, and she gasped when the door opened further. Straight ahead she could see a group of people standing on the docks, their heads facing the island above, as the ship drew closer, and they began to fit large metal hooks onto the ship's rigging.

A moment later, the dock crew stepped away, and one of them waved up to the top deck. He waved his arm in a large circle, then swiped his hand across his neck. A moment later, there was a gentle clunk and Clarissa was jerked to the side. She stumbled and fell to one knee.

Fell, because she had gravity again.

And that meant her time on the Ravens' Child was over.