"Did we miss our launch?" The captain asked, as he reached down and checked his pocket watch. His tone was as gentle as it ever was with Yannick, and he smiled as if something had gone right. "Make sure your answer's accurate. I'll understand if it takes a bit longer than usual."

"He wouldn't be the first person to put a ship off course because of a pretty girl," Leslie added. His remark broke the restraint holding the rest of the crew from laughter. Tonya's giggles came out of her mouth as if it had been pushing at her lips to escape. Mercy laughed so hard she had to support herself by resting her hands on her knees, and Anita leaned on the dock rails. Leslie looked rather proud of himself as he laughed at his own joke. Even the captain smiled, though he didn't join in the mirth. Instead, he waited near Yannick, his smile still gentle, one hand still holding his now folded pocket watch.

Yannick, to his credit, had worked through the laughter, though his face was a distinctly pink colour. "Nine, nine more minutes, sir."

"Mercy, Anita, get that suit on Clarissa before she tries snogging my navigator again. Leslie, Tonya, get the boat in place," the captain said, as he turned around and began to unfold a thick, heavy looking grey object.

Mercy guided Clarissa to a massive, grey suit spread out on the dock. Her boots were standing next to where the feet were, and Clarissa sat down to take off the clingy boyfriends. Once she finished, she stood up in time to see Tonya disassemble a brass clamp a bit larger than Leslie's hand.

"You can wear your boots inside the suit. Leslie could wear it in a pinch, so it will fit you better with the clingy boyfriends," Mercy explained as she did her best to bunch the suit up and hold the only opening open. "It's a Monastery void suit. It will keep you breathing and comfortable even when you and the captain are up above the sky. Monastery gave it to us years ago, and check it over every time we return. Feet first."

Carefully, Tonya and Mercy guided Clarissa's feet into the suit, then slowly pulled it over her waist, and tucked her arms through the holes. Once it was on her shoulders, they set the wide brass collar together, and used the clamp Tonya had disassembled to secure the rest of the opening, until the clamp rested like a piece of armour on Clarissa's shoulder.

Tonya and Mercy picked up the helmet and carefully set it around the suit's collar. It clicked into place with a single, firm twist. From the corner of her eye, she could see Tonya twist a latch on the side of the helmet.

Mercy tapped the glass with her knuckles, hard enough to rock Clarissa back. She stumbled to catch herself, and responded with a swing of her arm that flailed impotently in the air.

"Seal's good?" Mercy's muffled voice came through the glass. There was a small clang from somewhere behind her, and then she could hear the mechanical wheeze of a hand pump beginning to push more air into her suit. To her immediate distress, the suit became harder to move, ballooning up until the limbs were even stiffer than the suit's weight already made them.

Mercy lifted Clarissa's arm and began to feel around the suit. Behind her, Tonya said, "No air loss on the pressure gauge, LT. I'd feel fine riding in it."

"You also felt fine flying through the ruins," Clarissa mumbled irritably, just before someone twisted something on the back of Clarissa's head and the suit deflated a little.

The captain was also suited up, in a suit that looked less like Clarissa's ballooned form and more like a suit of armour. Where she was wearing half a fish bowl in front of a pressurized cauldron, the captain had a helmet that had two well-tinted glass lenses set on a steel helmet. Instead of an inch of fabric he had thinner material set beneath chainmail, with greaves, paldrons, and more arrayed overtop.

Strangely, the captain still had his sword, and the strange rifle, at his belt. And the necklace, the twin of the one Clarissa still wore around her neck, was in his hand. He was already standing in the lifeboat, and he was sticking the ornament into the engine of the lifeboat's ion thruster.

The captain waved at Clarissa, and gestured to a spot in front of him. She walked over, her gait rather ponderous with the suit, and sat down on the bench where he was pointing. The captain gestured for her to lean forward, holding a tube in his hand. When she complied, he hooked one tube, then a second. The captain then did the same thing to his own helmet, and Clarissa turned her head to see the tubes lead up into what she thought was the lifeboat's lift bag.

"We're all set," the Captain called out, though he pointed to a pair of straps by Clarissa's feet, and gestured to her boots. He then pointed at the safety clip on Clarissa's belt, and pointed at the rail. Clarissa tucked her feet into them, clipped herself in, and for good measure grabbed the handrails. "Yannick, time left?"

"One minute, four seconds," Yannick replied.

"Leslie, ready on the trapdoor?" The captain asked.

"Ready, captain. See you in about thirty hours?" Leslie asked.

"Assuming all goes well. If I'm not back in three sleeps, assume I missed the rendezvous, and we're sailing the void," the captain said.

"Three sleeps and the ship is mine?" Mercy asked.

"Pretty much."

"I still want to go on this part of the run, someday," Anita reflected. "I'd like to see those stars the captain mentions on occasion."

The captain sat down and put his own boots in the straps. He flicked a switch on the ion thruster engine, but left it alone and instead tested the cords tied to the lifeboat's twin sails still folded up on each side of the boat.

"Thirty seconds, captain."

The captain pulled a pocket watch out of one of his suit's pockets. He checked the time, put the watch back, and pulled another watch out. Except, as Clarissa looked closer, it wasn't a watch. It was a circle with a tiny needle inside, and where the twelve spot ought to be there was only an ornate 'S'.

"Twenty."

Clarissa took a deep breath, not at all knowing what to expect next. Worse still, she couldn't see the captain's face through his helmet, so she had no clues from him if anything was wrong, or if everything would be fine.

"Ten."

Yannick's countdown sent her heart hammering in her chest. Her hands were shaking, sweat was already beading on her forehead, and she was worried her teeth would start chattering soon.

"I meant to ask," the captain said suddenly. "This leg of the trip takes about four hours. You did go to the bathroom, didn't you?"

"What?" Clarissa asked.

"Five," Yannick said. "Four."

"Just remember, we're sharing that air," the captain said, pointing to the bag above their heads.

"Three."

"Pee in your suit, and I will cut you off."

"Two."

"One."

Leslie yanked on a lever, and the trapdoor folded away with ferocious speed. Before Clarissa could gasp, the ship plunged down, falling past the dock, and the crew vanished from sight. Moments later, and Clarissa could see the Ravens' Child, it's sleek hull beneath the massive white bag it rode beneath, getting smaller and smaller as it — and the dock — vanished from view behind their air bag.

Even the Idlewinds grew smaller as the moments passed. Clarissa watched breathlessly as the cresting of the edge of the island stopped swallowing her vision, and the winding rivers and forests blended into a blue-green blur dusted in white snow.

In front of her, the captain released a clamp on the side of the ship, and a beam snapped away from the ship. Clarissa spun in her seat to see what happened and caught the white sail just as it unfurled. As she watched, the captain unclipped one on the other side, and pulled on the ropes. The ship twisted in the winds until it caught both sails, and the sudden surge of air jerked Clarissa forward in her seat.

The captain pulled on the ropes, reeling one in while giving the other slack, until he was satisfied by how the ship looked. He took out the strange device, the one Clarissa didn't recognize, and checked it. From her angle, it looked like the needle was pointing straight at her.

"It's a compass," the captain said, shouting to be heard over the wind pummelling the air bag. "Not really useful to most people, mostly because it's always pointing at the Shield, which is always between us and the sun. But we're not most people."

"A compass?" Clarissa asked.

"A magnetic needle in a small bowl of water. The magnetic field the Shield emits is strong enough that unless you have another magnet close by, the needle will turn to face it. No matter where you are under the sky," the captain explained. His head tilted up, and turned slightly to the right. "And unless I'm off my mark, you should see what the Shield is for in about an hour."

Once the captain was happy with the direction the lifeboat appeared to be flying in, he leaned back a little to keep a comfortable grip on the reins.

Clarissa waited to see if he would offer any other kind of explanation, but the captain seemed to be quite comfortable in silence. Clarissa looked about, but asides from the fading sight of Idlewind and the clouds, there wasn't much to see. "I guess you won't just tell me now?"

"No," the captain replied.

"Willing to tell me why you named your ship Ravens' Child? And it is plural, ravens, not just one raven, right?" Clarissa asked,

"No. Yes." The captain said.

Clarissa's hopes dwindled a little, as that last mystery seemed to be slipping further and further away. She thought back to the last clues she had been given, and recalled another question she still didn't have an answer to. "Captain, what's the proper name for a group of ravens?"

The captain tilted his head a little, and Clarissa could swear she could see him smirking under his helmet. "An unkindness," he said eventually. "And take some time to ponder that, give yourself a chance to see if you can pick it out."

Clarissa took his advice and sat back in silence, letting the minutes pass by as she tried to tie unkindness to the hints she already had. She found herself thinking back to the stories the crew had told her. Mercy's story popped first into Clarissa's thoughts, as did Yannick's. But as painful as begging and slavery were, both of them had climbed out of it, and flew now. As did Anita, escaping from her Corsair's island. As did Tonya, losing a race to finally win the one that mattered. Even Leslie now flew, despite his misfortune.

As she pondered, and the minutes passed, she noticed the sky around them had changed. It was still blue, but that blue was darker, thinner, and when a speck of silver shimmered for a moment in the distance, Clarissa realized why.

"The sky, we're..." Clarissa said.

The captain put his hand to his ear as he began to wind in the sails. Clarissa watched him somewhat angrily, half-convinced he was doing it on purpose. But as soon as he finished he stood up, stepped up to Clarissa, and leaned forward until his helmet was touching hers. "There is no air asides from what we're breathing, and the same thing muffling the noise of the pump also muffles our talking. So if you need to say something to me, our helmets need to be touching."

"Okay," Clarissa said.

"Now, for the moment, look out to your left, until you see it," the captain said.

"What's 'it'?" Clarissa asked.

"You'll know," the Captain said cryptically.

But as the captain sat back down again, he flipped a switch and took the lever controlling the ion thrusters. They gave a very gentle nudge, but Clarissa could feel them begin to push the ship, gathering momentum as they travelled from the sky into the void.

Clarissa stared out for a few more minutes, until she saw a streak of pale green light swirl out somewhere in the distance. It was followed by another, and then several more. The dancing green glow lasted nearly a minute before it faded away.

"Wow," Clarissa whispered. Excitedly, she turned to the captain, stood up slowly, and crouched down so they could touch their helmets together again. "What was that?"

"An aurora. Radiation from the sun slipping past the fringes of the Shield and striking the outermost edges of the sky," the captain replied. "That's what the shield protects us from."

"Beautiful green light?" Clarissa asked.

"Solar wind. The Shield is an electromagnet, extremely powerful, and just enough to keep the worst of the solar winds from striking the air bubble we all live in," the captain said. "Without that shield, the naked sun would hit us like a tidal wave, and wash everything but the bare rocks out into the deep void. That's what you'll be helping protect the world from while you're here," the captain said.

"You're only telling me this now?" Clarissa asked. "Why?"

"I'm telling you now, where I think it's safe to let you know. Where we can't be overheard."

"But technology isn't, it isn't something that always existed," Clarissa said. "The Monastery keeps old technology from being lost, but even the people before couldn't have always had the Shield. But without it, you say we wouldn't last very long."

"Not long are all."

"But how did we survive to build the shield?" Clarissa asked.

"The Wayfarers believe that before, we all lived on one island. The Abbess is rather convinced that's true, and that the island was big enough that it made a natural magnetosphere," the captain said. "A world with its own oceans, a world so big it blotted out the light in the sky, so that people slept beneath those."

The captain pointed out at the stars. "It's a lot to ponder, but you'll have an entire year to think. Now sit back down. It's almost time to turn around."

"Turn around?" Clarissa asked as she took her seat. "What do you mean, turn around?"

But the captain only gestured with his hand on the side of his head.