Clarissa found herself staring at the void for the first time in her life.

Beyond the endless sky, turned blue by the light of the sun, the true colour of the universe asserted itself in its patient, awe-inspiring grandeur. Black sky stretched out over her sight, an emptiness that felt as if it was trying to press itself against the glass of her helmet and snatch the air inside. Clarissa wanted to scream; a panicky, primal fear was clawing away at the back of her thoughts, and she was having trouble holding it in.

To keep it at bay, she focused on the sky below her. They had travelled so far that on her left she could see the sky curve. Idlewind was a speck so small she could blot it out with her finger, and despite the white and grey clouds she could see more. There was a ball of broken white mist she suspected was the Ruins. The distant island that looked like a fish opening its mouth to bite something was Olencia, not even as long as her finger.

She couldn't see The Core, where they had come from, but she suspected she could if the weather was favourable.

The sight helped calm her. To the point where when the captain took his compass in his hand again, and extended it all the way to his left, and then switched hands and did the same thing in his right, Clarissa was actually curious.

The captain gestured, then stood up, approached Clarissa, and pulled something on the top of her helmet. Something slid over her helmet, and instantly everything was darker. The captain then slowly set his helmet against hers. "I need to turn the ship. When I do, best to look out the starboard side and watch the sky. Looking at the sun with just that glass as a filter is hard on the eyes."

"Okay," Clarissa said. So she turned to her left, and the captain pulled on the controls. Slowly, gently, the lifeboat turned. The sky turned, drifting from behind the captain, and in a minute settling so far to her left some of it was hidden behind the walls of the box. She could see another aurora flicker somewhere in the distance, a blue shimmer of light that vanished nearly as quickly as it appeared. She settled into looking for the sight again, and tried to let the minutes pass without thinking about them.

Eventually, she felt a gentle knock against her helmet, and turned to see the captain pointing to her right. She shuffled in her seat, hauled the suit around and turned to free what the captain was gesturing to.

She could see a small speck in the distance, little more than a blot. But something about it made her lean forward and squint, wishing she could use the spyglass in the toolkit still belted to her leg. At first glance she thought what she saw was an island, stripped bare the way the rocks in the ruins were. But there was something built on it, tucked away in the shadow it made. A metal tower, at least as tall as the island itself, jutted from it towards the sky below them.

Clarissa gaped. "Is that?" She asked, and she looked to the captain for an answer. Despite not being able to hear her, he nodded.

And Clarissa turned to look back at the Shield.

As they drew closer over the minutes, Clarissa could see that much of the tower was moving. Entire square segments, complete with tiny windows along the outside, spun in lazy circles around the tower. There were several arms that extended from the tower, and each of those had several square blocks spinning around them. Each second Clarissa studied the station they were approaching seemed to unlock some new, complicated facet. The lights along the outsides were windows, the station was quite a bit bigger than any ship she had ever seen, perhaps even larger than Whiskeyjack's Roost. The entire station was sleek steel and brilliant artificial light.

To Clarissa, it was both beautiful and terrifying.

It took another half an hour to draw close to the station. By the time they approached, their lifeboat was dwarfed by even the tiny end of the tower that jutted out from the rock. Clarissa could see an open entranceway, so massive it might have been able to take the entirety of the Ravens' Child inside, left open like the waiting jaws of a massive creature.

A massive creature just waiting for someone foolish enough to fly into its mouth.

"We're actually going in there," Clarissa whispered, knowing she wouldn't be overheard.

The captain turned the lifeboat about, slowly, and pointed the bow into the maw. They drifted inside, into a cavernous space filled with bright lights, dozen-storey scaffolding, and so much space Clarissa imagined any ship under the sky could have been built inside.

Clarissa watched the massive doors close, slowly shutting out the sight of the sky below until the last sliver of blue vanished. Beneath the dim, harsh white lights, they carried on to the end of this massive cavern, until they reached what looked like a pair of tall, metal doors recessed into the wall. The captain spun the ship to the side, and began tying the rails of the lifeboat to the rails of the balcony in front.

It wasn't until halfway through tying the lifeboat to the rails that Clarissa heard the rope tightening into place. Her attention latched onto hearing that noise, which should be impossible in a vacuum. The captain also stopped tying the moment Clarissa heard it, waved his hand through the air, and turned to Clarissa.

"They're pumping the air back into the hanger," the captain explained. "Don't take your helmet off yet, though. Air's not thick enough to breathe comfortably."

"This is a hanger?" Clarissa asked, bewildered.

"Where do you think most of the Ravens' Child was built?" The captain laughed as he lowered part of the balcony's railing and folded the cargo ramp down on the lifeboat.

The bay doors opened with a soft hiss, and a dozen people dressed in monastery robes were waiting on the other side. All of them were smiling, and asides from the man in front, all of them shuffled about to get a better view of the lifeboat, the captain, and even Clarissa.

Captain Locklear made no move to acknowledge any of them. Instead, he stepped over to Clarissa and disconnected the breathing tubes, and unlatched her helmet. "There we are," he said as he twisted her helmet and lifted it over her head. "Might as well leave your suit on for the moment. It has clingy boots built into it, and it's yours."

"Another gift?" she asked.

"No no. It's a Monastery suit," the captain said. He hadn't taken his helmet off, and didn't look like he meant to, but he did disconnect his own breathing tubes. "They gave it to us years ago, for exactly this reason. If they need me to have another, they'll make it happen."

In the interim, the others had approached. Leading them was the man Clarissa had spied earlier. Balding, reed-thin, and bespeckled, the idea of him as a man in charge seemed absurd, especially contrasted with the Abbess' flint-hard demeanour. Or even the steel she had seen in the captain.

"Ah, Captain Locklear, with this most precious cargo. And the newest initiate spending her year at the shield," the man said, and he held out his hand to Clarissa. "Who are you, child?"

"Someone who's done being called 'child'," Clarissa said before she even knew she would speak, nearly jumping at the iron in her own tone. "My name's Clarissa. I suppose I can endure 'initiate', if you must."

The man smiled at that, though there was some trepidation in his gaze. "Very well, Clarissa. I am the Deacon, head of the Shield. Why don't we get you settled, get a meal in you, and then see how you're feeling. If you're up for it, we'll happily show you the facility as early as you'd like."

"Oh, well thank you," Clarissa said, as she unclipped the collar of her suit, to let it breathe a little more.

"I imagine the bathroom will need an early visit. I don't think many of us have ever made the trip in a little dingy like you did. You'll have to tell us about your trip when you can," the Deacon said kindly.

The Deacon clapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the other Monastery initiates. "Why don't you let them help you get that suit off. We have a bunch of pairs of magnet boots for you to try on," the Deacon said, but he wasn't looking at Clarissa. His eyes were on the captain, who still hadn't taken his helmet off, and was standing nearby with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

"I'll catch up, and I imagine you'll still want to say your goodbyes," the Deacon said. "But it seems the captain wants a private word."

Clarissa nodded, and was lead into the hall by a small group of people. Others stepped up to the lifeboat, and hooked the breathing tubes up to nozzles set into the wall. One of them even took the captain's necklace out of the engine and plugged it into a nearby wall console.

The captain stepped up next to the Deacon, and gestured with his helmeted head down the walkway. The two of them began to walk; the Deacon waving his hands animatedly, while the captain spoke too softly to be heard and moved very little.

"Clarissa," one of the girls, a young woman perhaps a year older than Clarissa was, said as she brought over several pairs of boots. "Did you really travel all this way with folks outside the Monastery? That must have been frightening."

Clarissa found herself looking at the girl in front of her, bewildered by the girl's question. She was older than Clarissa, true, but something about the question sounded like what a child might ask an adventuring relative come home to visit. Yes, Clarissa thought to herself, she had been frightened. At least once, nearly every day of the trip.

She had also crowed in excitement. Laughed in joy. Drank pickle brine to avoid telling secrets. Spent an afternoon with a nervous wreck of a boy she found she missed dearly. Had seen people die. Had been bait to catch slavers in the act. Had a promissory note in her bag for a one-seventh share of a prize so rare the Court of Olencia itself would set the bounty.

Clarissa had lived, in a way the girl worried about being frightened had no hope of understanding. It took a great deal of effort for Clarissa to keep herself from scoffing in derision. "It was frightening. It was also wonderful. I think those were the best days of my life so far."

The girl blinked and stared at Clarissa for a moment, then wordlessly turned back to the boots and set them down nearby. Clarissa took off the rest of her suit and stepped out of it one foot at a time, careful to keep one foot anchored in the clingy boyfriends.

Clarissa smiled again, at the memory of learning that particular lesson.

She looked around at the other monastery initiates, and something about most of them seemed, somehow, terribly strange. They went about their duties in a very mechanical, lifeless fashion, moving with sullen inattention from one task to the next. The girl looking at different boots to pick a pair for Clarissa to try looked as if she might fall asleep at any moment, not even noticing Clarissa's boots were magnetic. The duo working on changing the air in the Lifeboat's bag waited in awkward silence between their tasks, casting furtive glances about as if waiting to be excused.

It was almost as if there was something missing in these people, compared to the crew of the Ravens' Child. Anita would take every opportunity to check the condition of the engine parts if she were working on the lifeboat. Leslie would be whistling as he worked, Tonya's fingers would twitch near the controls. Mercy would likely have sized up everyone else in the room, looking for potential threats. And Yannick would have a notebook open.

Compared to the crew of the Child, all of these initiates seemed like they were half asleep, or like comparing a mouse sleeping in a field to the nearby birds pecking at seeds. And Clarissa suspected it wasn't just the people around her now. Most of the people she knew back at the Monastery now seemed strangely lifeless. Nearly everyone except for a few people, like the Abbess, or Tai'ik, or even in a strange way the Deacon, seemed like they hadn't learned something important about how to live.

Like they didn't have wings.

Clarissa snapped her fingers, stood up straighter, and laughed. "I think I have it," she said to herself, but loud enough that the girl nearby gave her a surprised and somewhat disgusted expression. As if she had just crushed a large bug against a window.

"Not sure I could explain it to you," Clarissa said, and she planted one foot on the wall and then stood up. The girl picking out boots for her stumbled backwards in surprise. "Not quickly, anyway. I only just saw it myself. You know what the proper word is for a group of ravens?

"An unkindness," the girl said. She looked over to where the captain and the Deacon were still talking. "What do you think they're speaking about?"

"Suspect it's the box. Captain said it's not new," Clarissa replied. She tried to sound nonchalant, but she studied the girl's face to see her reaction. It wasn't something Clarissa would have ever done before her journey.

The girl's face went pale, and her mouth hung open for a moment. Just a moment, before the placid calm mask returned, and the lies began to be told. "I'm sure it's nothing," the girl said.

Clarissa nodded and turned away. That last lie had settled something important in Clarissa's thoughts, and made a final decision for her. She took off the necklace she was wearing and walked over to where Captain Locklear and the Deacon were speaking.

"Clarissa, they don't want to be overheard!" The girl said, but Clarissa kept walking.

As she drew near, she could hear the captain saying something in that tone of unquestionable authority Clarissa had only heard once before. "I'll act as I see fit. The fact that the Abbess has done this is only more reason for me to trust my own judgement."

"You don't know the circumstances," the Deacon insisted.

"I know the circumstances she put me under. If any part of the internal circuitry failed, the explosion would leave Volante looking like the Ruins. The Abbess is cutting corners, and I am going to find out why," the captain said, and he turned to Clarissa.

"Ah," the captain said upon seeing her. "Good. It wouldn't do to leave without saying goodbye."

It was odd to see the captain still wearing his helmet, but Clarissa suspected it was because he planned on leaving soon. "Walk with me," he said.

"What were you talking about?" Clarissa asked.

And to her immediate relief, the captain actually answered. "We were discussing the reasons the Abbess might have to re-use the box, rather than make a new one to transport its contents. There are really only two possibilities. Either the Monastery is falling behind, or it's trying to get ahead. Either way, she risked more lives than just ours with her decision, and I have more to do once I leave."

"Which you're doing now," Clarissa said.

"I am," the captain agreed.

"Yeah," Clarissa said, and she swallowed. "I think I figured out why you called your ship the Ravens' Child."

The captain nodded. Clarissa took a breath and started to assemble her theory. "Children of unkindness. It's what the entire world is. We're the children living after something broke the world. But it's also about your crew. How each of them are flying now, despite what they went through. You named your ship for what being the child of misfortune gives you."

"Sorrow and wings," the captain said. "Nicely done, Clarissa."

Clarissa looked back to where the others were gathered, and asked, "Do I have to stay here a year?"

"You could always put your suit back on," the captain said, and pointed to the lifeboat behind him.

That small gesture somehow made everything better. Clarissa smiled and held out the necklace. "I'll give them the year. I've had a good childhood, and I should thank them properly for it."

She extended her hand out to him, with the necklace's ornament cradled in her palm. "You've been true to your word, captain. I have no reason to deny you this."

The captain took the necklace in two fingers and tucked it away in one of the pockets at his belt. "See you in a year, kid."

Clarissa wanted to hug him, but couldn't bring herself to. The Captain turned away and began reattaching the breathing tubes to his suit. "Would you ask the Deacon to suck the air out again? Ion thrusters only work in a vacuum."

Clarissa nodded and turned to see the Deacon was already waiting with the others on the other side of the cargo door. Clarissa stepped through with the others as the door shut with a quiet hiss.

The Deacon was saying something, but Clarissa didn't have ears for it. She went to the nearest window, and watched as the captain untied the boat from the rails, and set the necklace she gave him in a slot on the lifeboat's engine, next to his own. Even before the air had been sucked away the Captain kicked off the rails, pushing his small craft into the empty hanger.

Moments later, three blue circles appeared at the back end of the ship, leaving a short trial of colour behind the ship as it turned. The craft grew smaller and smaller, but Clarissa didn't lose sight of the ship until the hanger doors opened.

"See you in a year," Clarissa promised, as the captain sailed off to return to the endless blue sky.