Rivers of white mist fell into a gaping chasm in the face of The Ruins. The passing of an island the size of a city dragged the mists with it, creating a gaping maw trying to swallow whatever approach. And even from miles away, safely ensconced in the bridge of the ship, Clarissa could hear the roar of colliding boulders, and the groan of breaking rocks.

And into this storm of stone the Ravens' Child descended.

"Still a chance to back away," Captain Locklear said. The captain was standing in front of the bridge, almost close enough to touch the massive window that took up most of the ship's bow. His left hand rested on the pommel of the sword at his hip, and his right was holding a pocket watch. The only sign of his nervousness that Clarissa could see was the thumb of his left hand slowly rubbing the metal guard of the sword. "But that door is closing fast."

It wasn't Clarissa he was speaking to. Above and to her right, Tonya held the Child's wheel in a grip so steady iron might have envied it. "We'll make it, captain. All I needed was sleep, coffee, and smoke," she replied, and gestured to the lidded mug floating in the air next to her.

Clarissa grinned, seeing the mug drift in a slow spiral a foot away from Tonya's head. She found herself envying the ways the crew of the Ravens' Child took advantage of the weak gravity beyond the inner isles.

"Mercy and Leslie are already standing by on the top deck," the captain said, pointing straight above his head. "They have signal flares and smoke canisters aplenty, and the Banshee's prepped. Anita's in engineering, fire's been over-stoked to give you as much power in the propellers as the Child can give."

The captain smiled, shifted his googles up onto his forehead, and tied his scarf in place. "I'll be up top, directing the others and keeping watch. Tonya Hughes, the bridge is yours."

Tonya nodded solemnly.

The captain marched off in that awkward walk of someone wearing boots with magnets set into the soles. He reached the door, turned back, and added, "I will take crashing as a personal slight. Run my ship on the rocks and we stop being friends."

"That's cruel, captain."

"Don't hit the rocks, then," the captain said. But he was smiling as he stepped through the door and shut it behind him.

Tonya twisted in position and turned her head towards one of the nearby speaking tubes. There were several here, all long steel tubes that connected to various places on the ship. Clarissa recognized the one Tonya had turned to as the one leading to engineering. "Anita, how's the engine?"

"Purring happily. I'm going to run her pretty hot for the next few hours. She should keep up with anything you put us through," a voice shouted back through the tube.

"Glad to hear it," Tonya said. She pushed one of the brass levers forward, and her eyes rested on a nearby set of dials. "Increasing to two-thirds speed, prepping peripherals for frequent, intermittent use. And Anita, don't be bashful about any kind of engine trouble. Captain threatened to end our friendship if I crashed his ship."

"I have to second that," Anita replied through the tube. "Spent a good lot of my waking life working on this engine. You break it, I'd be mighty upset. Wouldn't even let you eat the cake at my birthday."

Clarissa, in the meantime, decided to step up to the window, to see as much as she could. She leaned over the rails in front of the massive window and tried to look to her left. "Are those pirate ships still following us?"

"Corsairs, kid," Tonya replied. "They're called corsairs. Pirates wouldn't try to take on a ship like the Child. And that's something I'll ask the captain in a minute, once he confirms he's on the top deck."

"Is it something you need to know to take us through the Ruins?" Clarissa asked.

"Yep. If those three are riding our wake, we'll have to take ourselves into the Ruins a fair bit faster than any of us want me to," Tonya said, and she set her gaze forward. "For the record, that does include me."

Clarissa turned and looked back at the Ruins. Tiny islands, rubbed smooth by centuries of wind and water, churned in the white rivers of mist like chunks of meat in a stew. This close, a few miles away and drawing nearer every second, the Ruins nearly devoured the rest of the sky for as far as Clarissa could see. Ahead of her, instead of the endless blue, there was only streams of mist and the islands they wound through.

"Tonya," the captain's voice came through the pipe. "Those corsairs are spitting so much smoke you'd almost worry their ships are on fire. They're moving to try to gain on us."

"Well, that answers my first question," Tonya muttered. Louder, and facing the speaking tube, she said, "I'll have to run us into the mists at cruising speed, Captain."

"Reckon that news ought to trouble me a lot more than it does," the captain replied. "But that'll keep them out of cannon range until long after we're out of sight."

Clarissa forced herself to breathe as she stood and waited. The seconds dragged on, as if time itself was reluctant to fly them into that deadly maze. The tense silence stretched on into minutes, listening to the muffled whirl of the Child's propellers as they pushed the ship towards a maelstrom of mist and stone.

Clarissa noticed Tonya move out of the corner of her eye. She turned around and saw the pilot had taken a small sphere and let it drift in the air beside her head. The sphere was clear glass, with some kind of coloured oil that slowly drifted about inside. It was tied to her wrist by a string, though the string hung with a fair bit of slack.

"One more navigation tool through the Ruins," Tonya explained to Clarissa. Her hands returned to the wheel, squeezing it in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Clarissa suspected Tony was doing it more to steady her nerves than fly. "Because there's so little gravity this far from the inner isles, the only time this globe will move is when we're right close to a big rock."

"How close?" Clarissa asked.

"Too close," Tonya replied quietly. "Too close."

The crack of a sudden explosion jarred Clarissa's frayed nerves, and she jumped so hard she nearly pulled her magnetic boots off the floor. She grabbed onto a rail and looked out the window. "What was that?" She cried out.

Tonya had already turned to the speaking tube. "Captain?"

"One of those Corsairs is firing stick rockets," the captain replied. Another two explosions sounded in rapid succession just as he finished. In a muffled voice, Clarissa could hear him shout, "Leslie, get on the Banshee! Put some flak in their path."

"We going to make it without getting into a fight, captain?" Tonya shouted into the speaking tube.

"Calmoori stick rockets are wildly inaccurate at this range, but I'd rather not depend on good fortune," the captain replied, the cool professionalism in his voice an immediate relief for Clarissa's jitters. Though the next words he spoke set her back on edge. "At your discretion, give us as much speed as you can."

"Aye captain," Tonya answered, her childlike enthusiasm sending a shiver of terror through Clarissa. The Child's pilot shifted to the speaking tube leading to engineering, and she shouted, "Anita, overrun speed! Engaging peripherals for additional power. Give me everything you've got for three minutes!"

"Three minutes at overrun, aye!" Anita shouted back through the tube. "Better get friendly with that shovel, Yannick!" Clarissa's hands tingled, and she rubbed them together, remembering the pain of having spent a shift shovelling fuel into the Child's furnace.

Another staccato of explosions sounded from somewhere behind them. Clarissa had to take a slow breath to steady herself, and was unprepared for the howl of the Child's massive cannon, as the Banshee rocked the ship as it screamed its fury into the sky.

"Flak rounds are smart," Tonya said to Clarissa, as the quiet hum of the propellers changed. The sound turned deeper and louder, fiercer, as if the ship itself were only just starting to wake up. "Flak rounds create a cloud of shrapnel and embers, nasty stuff to sail through. Might even break the rockets if they try shooting through it."

"That is smart. Like you've all been in scrapes like these before," Clarissa said.

"Not so much, in my case," Tonya replied. "Not like Mercy and the captain, spending years in Volante's navy as Corsair Hunters. I only signed on a few years ago. Used to race. Windlasses, skimmers, and the like. Made my fame and fortune racing a slip through the Shardwall, that stretch of small islands between Volante and Olencia."

"You raced slips?" Clarissa asked. She had only read about slips; barely more than a lift bag, an engine, and a chair. Days long races where it was often a question if anyone would make it to the finish line at all. Only madmen, and the most daring, would even consider it.

"I didn't just race slips, kid. I was a champion," Tonya said.

Clarissa's seesawing nerves settled considerably, hearing the confidence in Tonya's voice. Even the approaching maw of the Ruins didn't frighten her quite as much as they had before, and the second roar of the Banshee didn't frighten her as much.

"Captain!" Tonya shouted into the speaking tube. "Are we going to gain a little breathing room?"

"They're veering wide," the captain said, his voice as steady as the thrum of the engines. "Slow us down as late as possible, and we should stay out of rocket range. They might try cannon shots at us, but at this range they'd just be wasting iron. Mercy's on standby with smoke, and I'll pull Leslie as soon as I think I can spare him."

"Aye, sir," Tonya said, and she fixed her sight and attention back on the rivers of flowing mist the Ravens' Child was about to ride.

This close, Clarissa could see the currents, as mists as white and thick as snow flowed over and around bare rock. The exposed stone was as smooth as any river bed, and the churning flow looked as wild as rapids.

"The current is your guide in the Ruins," Tonya said, with one hand on the positional lever for the peripheral propellers. "The mists don't flow through the rocks, only around them. Exactly the way you want to."

"Have you done this before?" Clarissa asked.

"Only once," Tonya admitted. "In a much smaller boat. But the general principle's the same. Follow the current, don't hit the rocks."

"The Corsairs have given up the chase," the captain reported. "Leslie's in position with a smoke launcher."

Tonya smiled and turned her head to the engineering tube. "Reducing speed to half, running peripherals to slow us down. Nice work down there, Anita."

Tonya then flung several levers and pushed the large one beside her until it clicked three times. The thrum of the engines quieted to a relaxed drone, and the ship seemed to sigh in relief as they slowed down.