As expected, traveling to Airspire was relatively dull, just as the flight to Cloudreach had been. Dan disappeared entirely into his lab with the Cloudreach research - both the research that they had stolen from the noble district and the copy they’d been given as a reward - and was doing who-knew-what with it.

  In the interest of socializing, Terrance had asked Dan some of the details asked once when the alchemist came out of his lab to eat, and visibly regretted it within minutes. It took a special sort of person to become an alchemist, it seemed. Maeryn’s father used to say that you needed “a steady hand, an analytical mind, a curious spirit, and a stronger desire for knowledge than you have for self-preservation”, and the memory made her smile briefly.

  Maeryn had long since learned just to ask Dan about the results, rather than his methodology. For her own peace of mind. She really didn’t need to know how often she’d been at risk of violent, painful death over the course of their flight. She trusted Dan not to kill them, and to help figure out the Mist problem, and that was enough.

  After Terrance learned the hard way not to inquire into an alchemist’s research, he took to accompanying Maeryn in her piloting shifts. He didn’t say much, obviously lost in his own head, but every so often he’d ask her about what life was like as a Geovan. He’d been stunned to learn that Geovans were expected to start living on their own and find their first jobs at the age of thirteen.

  Maeryn laughed at his befuddlement. “It’s not like we’re completely cut off from parental support, silly. My parents were just down the street, only a couple of minutes’ walk. It’s just training to be adults, and gives people a chance to figure out what they’re good at. Like, can you imagine spending your entire childhood thinking that glassblowers are amazing and wanting desperately to be one your entire life, and only getting the chance to actually try the life after you’re an adult and having a bunch of responsibilities? It’s not like it’s easy to get all the equipment you need to do it safely. And then what happens when you discover that it’s not the life for you after all. Now you’re floundering and trying to figure out what to do with your life.”

  “Put like that, it does sound kind of silly,” Terrance admitted. “So, what, you’re encouraged to try a bunch of different things, then?”

  “Yep. There’s a lot of cross-training, too. Like, I was a hunter, but I was taught to create and maintain my own equipment, so I got some training in smithing, leatherworking, stitching, runecarving… all sorts of things.” Maeryn smiled at him. “Turns out I was good at being a hunter, though, so I stuck with it.”

  “Huh.”

  “What about you? I mean, you called yourself a rogue earlier. Were you trained, or…?”

  “Sort of.” Terrance grimaced. “I, um, my history’s a bit complicated, and not really typical for Zephyrians. It’s not like I wanted to end up a rogue, but the adults who were supposed to take care of me kind of pushed me into it. It was… expected of me, I guess you could say.” He shrugged lightly. “It’s not all that bad. I had the talent for it. I’m sure that if I didn’t, I would’ve been pushed in a different direction.”

  Maeryn took a moment before replying, taking note of the wording Terrance had chosen. ‘The adults who were supposed to take care of me’, huh? Lorn was certainly among that number. But as she’d promised before, she didn’t press him on it. “Well, your skills were amazingly helpful back in Cloudreach. Have you given any more thought on joining us?”

  Terrance hesitated a beat, then nodded. “I’ll join the crew. On one condition.”

  Maeryn looked fully away from the sky in front of Stonewing, meeting Terrance’s gaze inquisitively. “I’m listening?”

  Terrance took a moment to gather his words. “I want to lend my skills to the people most likely to be able to solve the problem,” he said slowly. “Right now, that looks like you. But Airspire is the research capital of Zephyria. If a team exists that might do better, I’ll find it there. If I do find one, a team that has things in hand and is actually making progress… I’ll wish you luck and join them instead. But if I don’t, I’m all in with you and yours, no matter what ill winds blow. That’s my condition. I want a chance to make sure you’re the best shot.”

  Maeryn swallowed, trying not to let her disappointment show. Terrance’s words made sense, from a purely utilitarian perspective. It made sense to put his efforts behind a team that was showing results, if one existed. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to check that first before fully dedicating himself. But she had really hoped that he would’ve wanted to stay with them. They’d worked amazingly well together, and she enjoyed talking with him.

  Even so, it wasn’t like she could force him. “Okay,” she said simply. “Deal.”

  Neither said anything more for a long time after that, and Maeryn returned her focus to the sky before her.

  Eventually, Terrance cleared his throat, catching Maeryn’s attention once more. “So, what’s your plan when we get there?”

  Maeryn took a moment to think about it. “Mostly the same as what we did back in Cloudreach. Get Dan amongst the researchers, do some information gathering. Hopefully less sneaking around at night, though.”

  Terrance snorted in clear amusement, and Maeryn let a smile spread across her face as she continued. “Considering Airspire should have the most up to date knowledge on the Mist, this’ll probably be our last Zephyrian stop for a while. Once we have everything we need, we’ll probably set up camp midway up a mountain or something so Dan can have direct access to the Mist and run his experiments directly.”

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  Terrance sat up straighter, clearly startled by something, though Maeryn had no idea what. “Isn’t that dangerous? What about the Mistwarped beasts?”

  “I’m a hunter, remember?” Maeryn reminded him. “I can deal with them. And we’ll have Stonewing for a quick getaway if it’s necessary. It’s not like we’re abandoning our airship, you know. Frankie set it up to be our mobile base of operations, after all.”

  “Come to think of it, I’m kind of surprised you Geovans didn’t already have bases set up to study the Mist. It’d be less of an investment for you than it is for Zephyria, wouldn’t it?” Terrance commented thoughtfully. “How come you three are the only ones doing this?”

  “It’s been proposed before,” Maeryn informed him bluntly. “The problem is resource management in the end.” She could still vividly remember the Elders arguing about the feasibility of exactly what Terrance had proposed, and shook her head. “Basically, any long-term outpost for studying the Mist requires infrastructure and supply lines. Suppose you wanted to send three of your brightest to the front lines to study the Mist. You would need to establish an appropriate lab with all the bells and whistles, and then provide full-time hunter units to guard it. Then there’s the issue of getting food and drink out to them. There’s the option of creating an additional rail track to get there, of course, but adding a new rail line costs a fortune in materials and time. Without that, you need to have people physically deliver the goods, and those people need to be guarded, requiring even more hunters. You also need to make sure that the research lab is far enough away from our aboveground farmlands just in case of a catastrophic alchemic reaction, which just makes all of those issues bigger.” She sighed. “Long story short, we just didn’t have the people to make it happen.”

  Terrance blinked, stunned by the info-dump. “You… Wow. You’ve thought about that a lot, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been spying on my Elders since I was eight years old. Believe me, I have learned way more than I ever wanted to know about politics and region management.”

  “So how have you been able to study the Mist at all, then?” Terrance asked, leaning forward in interest.

  “Our alchemists use specially-prepared mana jars,” Maeryn explained with a shrug. “When they need more Mist samples, they pass them out to hunters, and we set them just beyond our mana barriers. Wait an hour, plug the jar, and when we’re done with our shift we deliver them to Greenstone.”

  “Huh. That… does sound simpler and cheaper than establishing a whole new outpost,” Terrance admitted.

  “Yep.”

  “So, why not go back to Greenstone with all the research after you’re done in Airspire? Having a bigger team of researchers with all the latest information would only speed things up, right?”

  Maeryn’s face fell. She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask that. “We, um… we didn’t exactly get permission to go on this mission. We’ve got our own Sipunds, I guess.”

  “Oh.” Despite her not going into detail, Terrance seemed to immediately realize what she’d left unsaid. “You can’t go back?”

  “I mean… we probably could. But the research we got wouldn’t be trusted. They’d waste a lot of time verifying and reverifying the findings. Too much time.” Maeryn sighed. “The three of us spent more than a year discussing the mission before we committed to it. A lot of the alchemists in Greenstone are more focused on eking every bit of efficiency possible out of the mana in order to make the mana barriers last longer. And nobody’s had a breakthrough on the Mist in a long time. This is kind of a last ditch effort, if I’m honest, but we really do think this is the best chance we have. And Dan says that sometimes it’s easier to understand stuff when there’s a large amount of it in one spot instead of just getting samples. Something about emergent properties. So we agreed to take the risk of getting up close and personal with the Mist, because there’s just not enough time left for anything else.”

  “Oh,” Terrance repeated softly. “So, in the end, the only way you can realistically go back…”

  “... is if we solve the Mist or mana depletion issues. Get rid of the Mist and we can buy time to properly research the mana depletion. Solve the mana depletion, and the mana barriers will be able to hold the Mist back long enough to solve it.” Maeryn grimaced, looking away from Terrance and fixing her stare outside. “Otherwise… in a year’s time, a year and a half at most, I probably won’t have a home to go back to. And even then, who knows if we’ll be welcome. We might even be seen as deserters unless we bring proof of our efforts or something. It’s not like Zephyrians have a monopoly on racism.”

  “I guess not.” Terrance’s expression furrowed, and he shook his head ever so slightly. “We’ll make it,” he stated simply, like it was a self-evident truth. “We’re both too stubborn for anything else.”

  His words drew a chuckle out of her, and she felt the mood lighten immediately. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Good. You’ll see your parents again. Hold to that.”

  “I will. You too.”

  Terrance grunted, and Maeryn frowned as she tried to parse it. It was one of the more ambiguous-sounding ones, one that could mean “I’m no longer invested in the conversation but trying not to be rude”, or it could mean “I vaguely disagree but don’t feel like putting it to words”, or “I want to be left alone now.” Maeryn eyeballed him, trying to figure out which one it was based on Terrance’s body language. He didn’t look particularly closed off or disinterested, and it wasn’t as though she could leave her position as a pilot - if he wanted to be left alone, he’d have to go away on his own. So… disagreement? Maybe?

  At Maeryn’s questioning look, Terrance let out a long sigh and looked away. “Orphan,” he said simply.

  Maeryn blinked rapidly as she suddenly made several connections that, in retrospect, seemed perfectly obvious. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize.” She should’ve, though, Maeryn realized. Terrance had never mentioned his parents, only ‘adults who were supposed to raise him’. By the Depths, she could be stupid sometimes, and always at the worst times.

  “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.” Terrance didn’t volunteer any more information than that. They stayed there in the cockpit, the silence this time companionable instead of tense, until Frankie arrived to take her shift.

  After ducking into the kitchen for a quick bite to eat, Maeryn went to her room and lay down, the conversation with Terrance weighing on her mind. For all that he’d said that he wasn’t sure about joining the crew, he certainly acted and sounded like he already was part of it. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that… but maybe, just maybe, Terrance just didn’t want to admit that he’d already made up his mind.

  The thought was comforting as Maeryn allowed sleep to take her.

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