Gravity loosened its hold the moment Farah popped the hatch leading out onto the top of the Ariomma. She took a moment to check that her magnetic boots were active before crawling onto the envelope and standing cautiously. Her steps stuck fast. Everything else, from her clothing to her arms, slackened like they'd forgotten that the ground was supposed to pull; the rules of physics became irrelevant in the magic-infused air out here at the edge of the world.

This was the essence of the Tideless. Oceans circled the flat world's fringes, hemming in the continent at its center. The water behaved more or less normally along the coasts. Scholars suspected terrestrial life forms—especially people—acted as lightning rods for it, absorbing it when they were young and suffering the consequences for the rest of their lives. Out here, there were no people.

The result was stunning. The sky in the Tideless was always clear: a vast, blue dome that arched overhead without any sign of a horizon. Farah never knew whether there was one; the view here stretched to a half-kilometer on a good day. The air was breathless. And all around her, the ocean took to the sky. Columns and blobs of water—some with fish in them—sparkled in the sun and mingled with the foggy clumps of clouds, merging and unmerging from the ocean below in a slow-motion waltz that lasted days. These were the waterdrops, in sailors' terms. They kept the ocean from pouring off the world's edges, but made sailing an airship out here akin to guiding a water one between shoals. Safe if you knew what you were doing, but only if you paid attention.

The sun was not the only thing that made the waterdrops around the Ariomma twinkle. Most were filled with fish of every colour, swimming up and down the columns, or around the spheres that hung suspended in the sky like huge raindrops that had forgotten how to fall. Some spheres were small as a merchant's tank, others longer than the Ariomma. Their surfaces rippled constantly. Fish with long, frilled fins dove in and out after ephemeral insects, themselves as incorporeal as the clouds. More daring fish came further. Farah finished clipping her safety line to the rails that criss-crossed the Ariomma's envelope, and grabbed the rusty garden edger from its hook inside the hatch. She could see at least four suckerfish clinging to the Ariomma's envelope, and one of her jobs was to dislodge them.

Sky-whale suckerfish were two feet long and stubborn as leeches. It was probably half an hour later that the last one got annoyed enough with Farah's prodding to release its hold on the ship, wriggling off into the Tideless in search of some other solid surface to cling to. Farah returned the edger to its hook. She checked her supplies again, then trudged towards the nose of the ship in search of the tear she'd been sent to patch. It took several passes to locate it. Contrary to the last watchwoman's report, it was not a tear at all. Farah recognized the finger-width holes as the work of a vampire crab, which, like the suckerfish, had mistaken the ship for a living entity. She hooked her feet beneath the safety rails in order to stay sitting beside them as she set to work.

The captain didn't come. After a time, a rattle and clinking from over the side of the Ariomma announced the separation of the gangways. The curve of the Nectamia's envelope rose beside Farah less than a hundred ticks later. She tensed. The thoughts of the crew buzzed at the edge of her ability's range again, and for once she didn't want to hear them. It was a relief, then, as the Nectamia stopped rising and pulled away. Its full body came into view as it retreated, carrying the crew's thoughts out of range once again.

The captain still didn't come. Unwilling to return to the claustrophobia of the ship, Farah finished her task and moved towards the stern of it, where the airflow of its flight was calmest. It was here that Kaz came to find her an hour or so later, when his watch ended. Farah remained on her back as he approached. He found her here often, one arm hooked beneath a safety rail and both her boots planted to limit the effort of staying down. This close to the envelope, at least, the magic-canceling properties of the airship's skeleton returned some semblance of gravity. Farah could respect—however begrudgingly—whatever engineers had developed an alloy that could offer such protection.

Kaz sat down cautiously an arm's length from her when he arrived. His shoulders curled down. He felt bad for earlier. Farah gathered up her line again and cast the hook towards the sky. The lure drifted in the sunshine. Several white fish swerved towards it in curiosity, fluttering like kites in a nonexistent breeze. Each time Farah jiggled the line, they fanned their fins and came closer.

Kaz opened his mouth to speak. Farah shook her head and glared at him. It was little use; the next moment was punctured by a clatter and a curse from near the ship's tail. The fish scattered. By the time Farah sat up, they'd vanished into the waterdrops, the clouds, or wherever else lacy-finned Tideless inhabitants went when they decided to disapparate. Farah glared down the length of the ship instead. The man on watch had slipped or tripped and been caught by his safety line. He hauled himself back to the ship and resumed his position as if nothing had happened, severely embarrassed. Farah curled her lip and shut off his thoughts again.

"I'm sorry for earlier," said Kaz, freed from his silence.

Farah lay back down, reeled in her sagging line, and tossed it skyward again. She didn't answer.

"I know the captain treats you differently," her brother continued. "And that was probably why she didn't let you come today. Or at least..." He paused. "Nevermind. You were right. I'm sorry."

Hearing him say it soothed the part of her that still chafed from his earlier accusations—at least partially. She was right, and she knew it. She'd heard the captain's thoughts too many times to think otherwise.

The fish weren't returning. Farah reeled in her line, but remained on her back, just watching the clouds, the waterdrops, the fish, and the sky. Kaz stuck both hands in his lap and rocked back and forth, looking aside. Farah's conscience twinged painfully.

"Thank you," she said.

He kept his gaze averted and didn't respond.

Farah fiddled with her fishing line. "I guess I was kind of harsh to you. And rough when I dragged you away." It wasn't an apology, but she had little to apologize for. "I was worried."

He swallowed hard, eyes more damp than usual. "I know."

She felt it in her chest. She always had; the old people said it was common for identical twins to feel each other's feelings, and she and Kaz had always been identical. The same face. The same build. The same ochre-brown skin tone, like the desert stone that walled the outer city. Farah had come into her own as a child, grown out her hair and changed her voice through years of practice, but no transition would erase the other similarities she and Kaz still shared.

Farah patted the envelope beside her. Her brother hesitated, then lay down beside her, resting his head against her shoulder. They'd done this ever since they were children. It was their own private ritual, wherever they could snatch a peaceful enough moment to just look at the sky: on an airship, a rooftop, the barren desert when it cooled in the evening. They'd stay out long past the recommended time, watching stars spangle the glass-clear sky.

After a moment, Farah felt Kaz's hand brush her own. His fingers snuck between hers, and she returned the motion with the resignation of accepting his apology.

"I don't like being mad at you," he whispered, voice still filled with emotion. "Can we not be mad at each other anymore?"

Farah sighed. She could never say no to that request. Not when she could feel the burn scars on Kaz's fingers and across the backs of his hands, a constant reminder of her failings. That even though it was her who got into all the fights, it was Kaz who wore the worst scars.

No word quite captured how she wanted to respond, so Farah just nodded. She hoped the captain would come ream her out later, when Kaz had left again. She didn't want to upset him any further. Even if she was right, he'd been through enough today.