Vincent

The whistle of the wind had risen to a scream, rattling Vincent's teeth. The same wind shoved at him, in a vicious tug-of-war with the magnets in his boots. The rain was ice-cold, and the ship's balloon offered no shelter from it. The only thing keeping Vincent at his post, as his face and hands screamed in pain, was the scalding steam being pumped up from the overworked engine below.

"We need to get closer!" Mercy bellowed over the howling storm.

Vincent could see her standing on the side of the ship, poised to jump. One foot rested against the rails, the other on the hull, and her head was pointed towards the tiny island they chased. Her anchoring rope flapped and tossed about, and the brim of her hat pressed against her cheek.

Getting closer was risky. The wheel rattled in Vincent's hands, and the propellers whined in a ferocious cacophony only barely muffled by the storm. His fingers burned from the cold, and the rain was less falling and more flying straight across the deck. The metal lever at his right now rested beside the word 'overrun', the last and fastest speed he could push the ship into.

The last speed was called overrun because it was beyond what the engine was designed to endure. Every minute at overrun was a gamble, and the odds got worse the longer Vincent kept pushing the ship. But drawing closer was also a risk. A shift in the wind could swing the bow into the rocks, or twist the ship and throw them away from the isle they chased.

Mercy knew all of this, and by announcing the need, told him she was willing to play those odds. Vincent turned the ship into the isle, and kept his sight fixed on the rocks. The knife-shaped shards of jagged stone drew close, and the hazy glint of the ship's lanterns glittered on the smooth face of the island.

One tall outcropping of rock cut into the side of the ship, shearing wood for several feet until it crashed into a piece of steel plate. Stone cracked and steel screamed as the pillar shattered, shrapnel flying off behind the ship and disappearing into the storm.

Agonizingly long seconds passed as the Vincent kept the ship's propellers on overrun, and they began to keep pace. The island rushing spin seemed to slow and slow, until it looked so still Vincent could have fooled himself into thinking he was already moored to it. Finally able to look away, he turned back to Mercy just as she bent her knees, and leapt up at the ground.

Mercy crossed the distance slowly, only carried by the force of her initial leap. Whatever gravity the tiny isle had was handily countered by the wind, which yanked at the fringes of her coat and gently tugged at the rope tied around her waist. A dozen seconds passed before she reached the rocks, and she had to scramble across its smooth face to keep from being flung off.

She leapt from one crevasse to the next, slipping between climbing and the strange, leaning run that looked like she was climbing an extremely tall, narrow flight of stairs. She skidded to a stop near a large outcrop, scampered around it once, twice, before she untied the rope around her waist and secured it to the rock.

Mercy clipped her harness onto the rope, turned back to Vincent, and gave him a thumbs-up. Vincent smiled in relief as he pushed the lever up, out of overrun speed, and the scream of the engine quieted down to an indignant whine. The ship began to fall behind, slowly, trailing away from where Mercy waited until the anchoring rope ran out of line. Once it went taut, the rope slowly pulled Vincent towards the island.

Vincent turned the ship's propellers to counter the swing. It lurched twice, shaking for a moment until they passed too close to the isle to feel the full fury of the storm. The ship gently kissed the rocks, groaned once as it shifted and settled into a stable position.

One the ship was set against the rocks, Vincent disengaged the propellers and spun the engine down to idle. The engine coughed and chugged until it sputtered out into a quiet rumble. Vincent patted the wheel affectionately and smiled down at the machinery below his feet. "Sorry to run you so hard," he said.

Mercy climbed back up the bow of the ship a moment later, and Vincent climbed down the stairs to meet her at the chests holding the rest of the anchoring rope. "Careful when you get out there," Mercy said as she started feeding one end through the loops jutting out from her clip harness. "Some of that rock is viciously sharp. I cut my hands more than once on that landing."

She pushed her hat back, letting the light fall on her face. "A couple more scars to get used to wearing," she said.

Vincent couldn't help but look at the ghost-white scar that ran from her eyebrow to below her lip. And he knew he was meant to look at it. Mercy was usually content to let her hat shade the right side of her face. But on occasion, when it was just the two of them, Mercy would go out of her way to draw attention to it.

And Vincent was never sure why.

"We need three more tacks, to keep her secure," Vincent replied. "Aft, keel, and the balloon should be anchored down. Be careful as you go, I'd rather not try to find you in this storm."

Mercy finished winding the rope into a loop to rest around her waist, and took one of the lanterns off the rails. "I'll tack the balloon down," she said, tilting her hat back over the right side of her face and letting her scar fall back under the shadows. "And heed your own advice, cap. Neither of us wants me trying to use the ship to chase you ."

Vincent took the anchoring equipment and one of the ropes, and attached it to his harness. "See you soon," he said, and he walked across the deck, away from the rocks, until he reached the rails at the starboard side. He climbed over, walked down the hull from one strip of metal to the next, and stopped when he reached the keel. He tied the rope to the anchoring bars, wrapped the other end around his waist, and started looking for a suitable place to set up an anchor.

The broken stone cut into his boots quickly, fast enough that he started favouring his hands more as he scuttled across the rock face. Nearly every piece was sharp, and some of the shards were so fine Vincent could shave with them. Weather and time typically wears stone down quickly, blunting such edges. The only time Vincent could recall seeing rock this sharp was when it was newly broken.

A newly broken isle. More evidence to confirm his fears.

He found a crevasse a moment later and set to work. The comfort of a familiar task helped him to relax. In barely a handful of minutes, the anchor rope was taut and tied securely. He used the line to pull himself back to the ship, and went to set another anchor near the ship's propellers.

When he found an outcrop some ways behind the ship to set an anchor, Vincent stumbled over a thick shelf of wet clay on some of the rock. Mostly brown, some of it blue, it was nearly a foot thick. The top of the earth was scuffed and scarred, with gaping holes scarring the brown clay on top; as if something had only recently been yanked off.

When he returned to the ship, Mercy was already waiting for him. She looked, somehow, more unnerved than she had earlier. She was holding something in her hands, and she looked like she was both frightened and grieving.

"I think you might be right," Mercy said. She extended her arm, holding something out to him. At first glance, it looked like an odd bouquet, with leafy foliage partially obscuring bunches of small, white flowers. Vincent drew close and took it from her.

"I don't recognize it," Vincent admitted.

"It's buckwheat. There's a patch of field, just above the ballon, about fifty feet long. It's covered in these plants, and just these plants," Mercy explained.

"Fifty feet of only one plant? That's an odd thing to find," Vincent said. He tried to keep his tone light, but as he compared the evidence in his hands to the bits of clay and the newly-broken rock they were now anchored to, his fears seemed all but confirmed.

"Monoculture isn't an accident. You only find a lot of a single kind of plant on a farm," Mercy said. "And Grainglove grew a lot of buckwheat. This isle, which shouldn't be here, it's..."

"We're anchored to a broken piece of Grainglove," Vincent said, and his knees felt like lead. If they had been on an island with real pull, where he didn't need boots with magnets in the soles to stand upright, he wasn't sure if his legs would have supported him.

"Vincent, Grainglove wasn't so large, not like the inner isles, but it was one of the largest after them. It would take a dozen days as Volante counts them, a hundred hours of straight walking to make it all the way around," Mercy said. Her speech was slow and broken, as if she struggled to stitch the words together. "All the armouries in all the navies under the sky couldn't have ever hoped to crack an island like Grainglove in half. What could have done this?"

Vincent didn't answer. It wasn't that he had no answer to give, but he hoped Mercy would see it that way.