The dock creaked and groaned as the Child was moored, sounds that suited the ache in Clarissa's chest. Every new knot as ropes tied the ship in place was one more fastening to tie her to her fate, taking her away from all the wonder she had lived over the last few days. And much like when she stood on the wharf to begin her journey, she faced steps she dearly did not wish to take.

"Tonya," Captain Locklear shouted. Clarissa turned to see him by the speaking tube. "Pass the word, all hands to the cargo bay. We need to prep the lifeboats."

"Aye, cap,"

In the meantime, Mercy was waving towards a small crew of people busy moving several large beams into position. All of them wore harnesses similar to the crew of the Ravens' Child, though rope and wood replaced much of the wire and metal used in the Child's equipment. They set them to rest against the cargo bay deck, and strapped them together with clamps set at the end of the dock. Once they did, an elderly woman Clarissa hadn't seen in the small crowd approached the newly made gangplank.

The old woman had the posture of a reed in a gale, though the hand gripping the walking stick only shook as much as the dock beneath her feet. Her heavy coat, made of a fur Clarissa didn't recognize, had several ornaments hanging from it. She wore a knit cap on her head, only partially covering her hair, which like Mercy had a collection of feathers decorating her right side. The feathers were smaller, light grey, and Clarissa couldn't place the bird by what she saw.

Around Clarissa, the rest of the crew silently gathered. Leslie and Anita stopped near the black box, and began to look it over one last time. Tonya stepped up next to Clarissa and put her hands in her short coat pockets, scowling at the cold wind.

Yannick stopped next to Clarissa and tapped her shoulder with his hand. "Have you, have you met the Wayfarers before?"

"No," Clarissa admitted.

"Neither have I," Yannick acknowledged.

The captain stepped onto the platform and strode forward until he was only several feet from the old woman. It wasn't until that moment that Clarissa realized neither of them were hooked in. If they fell, with Idlewind still above their heads, they would fall forever in the endless sky.

Both the old woman and Captain Locklear stopped and waited. They stood patient as stone, while as the wind swept at the old woman's heavy fur cloak and the captain's red and black coat.

"Lady of the furthest harbour, roof-keeper of the last sweet air at the edge of the sky. The Ravens' Child requests berth and leave to trade for supplies," the captain said, firm and formal, in the same powerful voice he used for giving orders.

There was another silence, and Clarissa was worried that something was about to go wrong. That is, until the old woman grinned up at Captain Locklear and poked him with her stick.

At which, both of them began to laugh.

"Vincent, you don't really want to go through the formal gifting of hospitality, do you?" the old woman asked as her laughter slowed. "That ceremony can take half a day."

"It would be an excuse to get Leslie to cook. But I doubt I have the time," the captain replied. "Come on. As always, you're welcome on my ship."

"Lovely," the old woman said, and she followed the captain across the gangplank. She stopped, though, when she reached Mercy, and smiled an impossibly warm smile at the ship's lieutenant. "Oh my dear, you look like the wind rides beneath your wings."

"Old crone," Mercy teased affectionately as she gave the old woman a hug. "It's good to see you again."

"And your crew. I recognize most," the old woman said. She stepped onto the deck and looked from one member to the next. Clarissa found the woman's scrutiny unsettling, as if she saw as keenly as Yannick did through a telescope. "Tonya, the fire in your eyes still burns. Leslie, with the war between your gentleness and the wolf inside you. Anita, never still. But I don't recognize the youngest two."

"Yannick, and Clarissa."

"No last names? Monastery children, the both of them?" the old woman asked.

"No. Yannick had no name when we found him, abandoned to the streets of Cair'ain. It's been a long time hoping he would rejoin the world, but he's found some courage lately. He chose his name," Captain Locklear explained. He then pointed to Clarissa, and still as formally, said, "Clarissa remains, currently, a ward of the Monastery. She stands as crew, her place earned, while she travels with the box to the Shield."

The old woman stared intently at Clarissa for a long moment. Beneath those grey, slightly milked-over eyes, she felt as if the old woman was reading her life's history.

"She's only just learned how big the sky is," the old woman said, eventually.

"It's the hardest lesson to learn from the Monastery's libraries," the captain agreed. "Clarissa, Yannick, this is Tai'ik, elder and Storykeeper of Whiskeyjack's Roost. This port is her clan's ship, and home to her people."

"I suppose you won't be staying?" Tai'ik asked the captain, but she glanced at Clarissa in the middle of her speech.

"No. Clarissa and I will need to carry on, and soon. I'll need a dock emptied of eyes for a time. You know what we carry."

"The berth next to you, at the end of the pier, has been emptied. I have a cauldron's worth of unsettled emotions in my stomach every time you bring that box," Tai'ik said, and she glanced over at the corner of the cargo bay where the box was still stored. She shuddered and turned away quickly. "We tell the old myths of an island so big it boxed out the sky, you know. An island so big it blackened the blue and you could see the void laid bare. And we tell of how that world was broken, and the ancient misfortune that gave us the sky."

She turned back to the captain and poked him in the stomach again. "Every time that box is here, I'm reminded that I don't tell that myth any more. I'm past belief. Mercy, the rest of your crew is welcome to trade and feast with us. Go see to your captain."

The old woman gave Clarissa one last glance and smiled. "And I suspect the Monastery won't ask Locklear to ferry any more of its children."

The old woman turned and walked back across the plank to her dock.

Once she left, the Captain turned around and tapped his forehead, miming putting on a hat. Or a helmet. "Leslie, bring the lifeboat to the end of the pier. Anita, Tonya, the air pump and the suits. Yannick, go and scout out the pier we'll be departing from, since you'll be launching us. Mercy, you and I will move the box. Clarissa, grab your stuff and meet us at the end of the pier. First left once we step off the docks."

"Aye, cap," the others said, and turned to their duties. Clarissa turned and grabbed her bags and marched off the ship. The meeting with the old woman was strange enough that it helped distract her from the sorrow of leaving the Ravens' Child. But stepping onto the docking plank, for the first time since she left the Monastery, brought it all back. Tears welled up in her eyes, and a sob escaped her lips as she walked onto the pier, and followed it towards the far end.

The black box followed close behind her, in a quiet procession orchestrated by little more than the whisper of the winds, and the gentle groan of metal wheels pressing against the wood. Clarissa found herself starting up, again, at Idlewild's mist-shrouded and winter-dusted forests, and much like when she saw Vol Ayre, her heart ached to see it.

Ahead of her, Yannick had already set up a telescope, with a strange filter he had shown her before, pointing straight at the sun. He was taking notes on a small board in his hands as he looked through it, and Clarissa found herself rather taken with the sight. She had teachers back at the monastery who would have trouble managing what the young man did so effortlessly.

"He would have loved my childhood," Clarissa said to herself.

"He would have," the captain said. Clarissa wasn't surprised to find the captain was close by. But she was surprised by what he said next. "But at least he has wings now."

"Excuse me, kid," Leslie said gently as he passed. Clarissa turned and fell under the shadow of the small boat he was carrying over his head. It looked like one of the small bottom frames of a small skimmer, a short boat that could sit on the water, with comfortable room for only four people at the most. Wooden, well lacquered, what caught Clarissa's eye were the strange metal devices on the back, three circles about the size of dinner plates at the end of a familiar-looking engine.

"That's an ion thruster," Clarissa said. "But I thought only the Monastery had that kind of science."

"It isn't complicated science," the captain said. "At it's basics, you electrify an intert gas, and then let the newly ionized gas push your craft along. Yannick's convinced he could make one run on eight people petaling."

Leslie set the craft down on the dock, near the edge. Anita and Tonya joined him, with several items in hand. They set those down at the sides, and in a few short minutes, had set up a suspended frame that held what looked like a small, canvas lift bag to sit over top of the boat. They hooked a few tubes up, set a small hand pump near the lift bag, and fixed it to a corner of the boat.

Mercy and the Captain then brought the box ahead, and by carefully taking the wheels off two at a time, set the whole contraption securely inside the boat. Clarissa watched them work while Tonya began to pull out a heavy-looking suit.

"Well, let's get you suited up, kid," Tonya said, ruefully. Clarissa looked at the heavy-looking suit, and the half-dome shaped hemet, wondering what this next leg of her journey had in store for her.

"After," the captain interjected. "Yannick, do you have the numbers worked out?"

"I do, sir," Yannick replied.

"Good," Mercy said. She stepped up to Clarissa, clapping her on the shoulder. The Raven Child's Lieutenant was smiling, and her eyes were slightly wet beneath the shadows of her hat. "Because we need to say goodbye."

Clarissa sobbed once, turned her head, and blinked away the tears. She wanted to be able to meet Mercy's eyes.

"I'm still not going to call you 'kid'," Mercy said. "Even if you indulge the others. And you have a place here, if you find the Monastery too much of a cage. I've enjoyed having you here."

"I," Clarissa began to say. She took a deep breath to reach for the words. "Thank you for teaching me the world out here can be cruel. And kind."

Mercy nodded and stepped back, making room as Anita stepped up and gave Clarissa a warm and enthusiastic hug. Clarissa was more than a little surprised at how strong the ship's engineer was. "Gonna spend a year studying the deepest mysteries of the Monastery? Then come back and tell us all about it?" Anita asked.

"No, I can't," Clarissa began to say.

"Of course you can't. And I wouldn't be much of a friend to pry. But do me a favour and steal a few books on metallurgy or engine design, would you? That kind of thing they're just stingy about sharing," Anita said. As she spoke, she took Clarissa's hand in hers, and pressed something into her palm.

Clarissa looked down at a small, iron medallion. It was polished smooth on the sides with a ride along the round edge, like a coin. And carved on one was was a stylized engraving of a small girl, holding her hands out to meet a descending raven. "Anita, that's beautiful."

"Just a little something to remember us by. Had a bit of time, a lot of scrap iron, and the engine runs hot enough to emboss things if you're quick enough. Take care, kid," Anita said, and she stepped away. Just in time for Leslie to take her place.

Leslie held out a piece of paper to her, covered in extremely neat script, with language that Clarissa recognized quickly as some kind of legal document. "I took the liberty of drafting the legal document, giving you a one-seventh share of whatever we get from selling those silk worms. We'll probably end up selling them back to Olencian dealers. They won't pay as well, but the good will of maintaining their monopoly might persuade more future contracts. Nevertheless, your cut will be waiting for you once you're done your year up at the Shield."

"Leslie," Clarissa said. "Thank you. Especially for your cooking. I didn't know food could taste that good."

"She's not kidding. They managed to ruin jam and toast," the captain added.

Leslie laughed, gave Clarissa a hug, and stepped back. Tonya stepped up next, and pointed to the pouch at her leg. "Not entirely true that we had a bunch of extras kicking around. Anita might be missing her spyglass, but I won't tell her until about five minutes after you and the captain take off."

"I'm going to miss you, too. I'd like to learn how to fly from you, someday."

"We'll talk about it in a year, kid," Tonya replied. She stepped back, and glanced to her right.

A short ways away, close but distinctly separate, Yannick waited. He was nervously scratching the back of his head with his hand, and his gaze was fixed on the deck. He looked up as if he had just become aware of Clarissa's attention, blushed, and looked as if he were about to step backward.

Clarissa smiled happily and stepped up to him. He didn't flinch, or step back, even as she drew closer than she suspected he'd be comfortable with, and waited to let him speak.

"I, uh, I'm sorry I didn't get you anything," Yannick said eventually.

Clarissa's heart did a happy little jig. She tried her best to force it down, and took his hand in both of hers. "Will I see you again?"

Yannick nodded. "In a year."

Clarissa held his hand tighter, leaned up on her toes, and kissed him on the cheek.

And for the space of one long breath, everything beneath the sky was beautiful and right.

Clarissa sank back down on her feet and turned her head, her cheeks feeling hot. But she managed to say, "then you have a year to get me something."

Yannick was blushing, his curls half-covering his face, but he didn't look away from her. When their eyes met again, he nodded his head. And smiled.

That last smile of his might very well have been her favourite sight of the trip.

"Yannick, how much time do we have left?" the captain asked drily from over at the lifeboat.

"Oh, uh," Yannick stammered, and the smile vanished. "Oh no."