Trading with Deltablue went better than I could have hoped.

  Thanks to Captain Marlowe’s advanced notice, the town was only reasonably nervous to see a giant dragon and a small platoon of harpies descend on their beach from a giant city in the sky. I kept an eye on things through Ollie, and Dizzi once more worked her charm on the locals until they were willing to get close enough to see what we had to offer.

  And what we have to offer is… not a lot. We’re still restricted to what Ollie can carry on his back and what the harpies can carry in their arms. But Dizzi and I are working on that problem. Hopefully we’ll have something serviceable before we reach Mount Haze.

  We have more woven linens to offer, but as we’d previously deduced, it’s the spells that become the real selling point. Dizzi had made a couple in the last few days. I worry that this will become a bottleneck for future trade, as Dizzi is really the only one currently capable of creating such intricate spell circle designs, but she’s been recruiting some of the watchtower researchers to help. I could easily see spell research and production becoming full-time positions for them.

  All told, between Dizzi’s spells and our other cargo, it’s enough to trade for several crates of fish (which unsurprisingly are pretty cheap for a coastal city), and, more excitingly, a fair supply of fruit and vegetables.

  These are all new to me. The fruit is called blueseed, which looks something like a black pomegranate with a blue interior. We receive two kinds of vegetables: a bean plant filled with slightly oversized peas, and something called ray peppers, which look and smell much like habaneros. I’m especially excited about these. The vegetables we currently have can be divided into two categories: root vegetables, like potatoes and carrots, and leafy greens—by and large moss, though it’s prepared and eaten in a similar way to salad.

  Not to mention, mushrooms. We have so, so many mushrooms.

  I can’t wait to see what our cooks will do with a bit of sugar and spice, and they seem equally ecstatic to start experimenting with them. Especially given tomorrow’s planned festival and feast.

  It takes a couple trips for Ollie to ferry all the items back up to the Fortress, though he doesn’t seem to mind. After he’s dropped things off, he descends back to the ground empty-handed—an opportunity which he uses to try to shake Meritis off his back. The two find this hysterically funny.

  At least we can feel confident in the harness, now.

  For this mission, Salvia stays behind. It’s part of their ongoing punishment for attempting to murder the Jorrians. They accept their orders without complaint or any sort of expression, which worries me. I can’t tell if they were humbled by how easily they had been subdued, or if they’ve simply accepted the discipline and are weathering it until they can return to their normal duties, or if they’re still harboring a festering anger that will once more build up until it can no longer be contained.

  I honestly don’t know how to address this. They’re hurting, and with good reason. Where else is there for them to direct their frustration save the imprisoned Jorrians? I am looking forward to getting them out of our city. Mount Haze is only another four days away. I hope we can make it that long without another incident.

  By late afternoon, we’ve drifted across their city and a good distance beyond. The townsfolk bid us a happy farewell, having warmed up to us over the course of the day (no doubt due at least in part to Ollie frolicking in the shallow waters of the beach like a terrifyingly overgrown puppy). Everyone is in high spirits as we unload, count, and divvy up the day’s spoils.

  That evening, I go looking for Dizzi, and am unsurprised to find her in the lab. It’s almost more her room than mine, anymore.

  “Hey,” I say, leaning against a workbench. Dizzi looks up from a chunk of rock she’s etching. “How’re you doing?”

  She grins, waggling the stone at me. “I think I made a breakthrough on our transport problem.”

  That doesn’t exactly answer my question, but I feel safe interpreting it as Dizzi’s version of doing very well.

  I hold out my hand, and she flicks the rock toward me. It floats like it’s in microgravity, and I pluck it from the air. The cloudstone is smaller than my palm, and flat like a skipping stone. The spell circles she’s carved in the surface are connected with more lines and circles, making a bigger spell circle. The etching is as fine as hair.

  “This is impressive,” I remark. “I don’t think anyone else in the Fortress can etch half as precisely as you. You might get stuck drawing spell circles all day if we can’t train up some helpers.”

  “I’d rather do that than play envoy.” She pushes her chair back, stretching her hands above her head and kicking her talons up on the workbench. She sighs dramatically, hanging her head over the back of the chair. “People are exhausting!”

  I chuckle. “You seem to speak with them easily enough.”

  “Just because I can doesn’t mean I want to,” she says. “I mean, it’s one thing if they know something I just have to learn more about—then I could talk for hours! But this trade stuff is a bore. And yeah, yeah, I know it’s important and all that.”

  “I think we can get you off negotiator duty,” I assure her. “Ollie’s harness did well today under significant duress. We should be able to start sending non-harpies down soon. And once we test this transport and scale it up, we’ll have even more options.”

  She perks back up, eagerly leaning forward in her seat as she tucks her feet beneath her. “Great! Want to see where it’s at now?”

  I float the stone back toward her, watching the way it lazily rolls through the air with amusement. I wonder if astronauts find this as delightful as I do. “Be my guest.”

  Dizzi grabs the cloudstone with one hand, activating its spell circle, and picks up a miniature basket with the other. There’s a second flat volume in the bottom of the basket, which she slots the cloutstone into. She lets go of the basket, and it floats there between her hands.

  “Ta da!”

  I grin at her excitement. “That’s step one.”

  She scoffs in mock affront. “Please, Fyre, you don’t think I’ve already figured out step five?”

  She grabs a handful of pebbles from the workbench and drops a few of them into the basket. It initially dips with each weight that’s added, then levels off. I see she’s incorporated some of my negative feedback-loop equations. Using one finger, she pushes it back up to shoulder level, and when she removes her finger, it stays suspended where she left it.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  She gestures dramatically toward the floating basket, and I reward her with a teasing golf-clap. She holds up a finger to stop me, then reaches into the basket and removes the pebbles, one by one. Each time she takes one out, the basket bobs upward a little before dampening out. It doesn’t rise to the ceiling, however.

  “Okay, now you can clap,” she says with a grin.

  “Well done, Dizzi.” I reach out to pluck the floating basket from the air. I feel a faint resistance, like it doesn’t want to be moved, but once I’ve built up a velocity, it continue the motion frictionlessly.

  “A neutrally buoyant transport, independent from the amount of cargo it carries,” I say. “That really is quite the feat.” Something that wouldn’t have been possible on Earth. I’m continuously delighted by all the new possibilities this world and magic system has to offer.

  “For now, Ollie or some harpies will have to tow it up and down from the Fortress,” Dizzi says. “But all we have to do is add some wings and control surfaces, and it’ll basically be its own airship!”

  “I can synthesize a larger stone for the full-scale model,” I say. “I can make it a cloudstone, but I can’t put the wind arcana in it.”

  Dizzi waves off my concern. “I’ve got enough mana to top it off.”

  “And how long will it last before it needs to be recharged again?” I ask.

  She leans back in her chair, thinking. “A couple hours probably? Plenty of time to get between the Fortress and the surface.”

  I resist the urge to pinch my nose. “And what if it gets delayed on the ground.”

  “Er…”

  “Is there a way to tell how much time is left before the cloudstone’s mana is depleted?”

  “Well…”

  “Dizzi, what happens if it’s mid-flight when it runs out?”

  “Okay!” she squawks, fluttering her wings in agitation. “I’ll make a tracker for its mana stores, or something. And we can get a couple of harpies to help fill it up so it will last longer.”

  “Thank you.” She’s definitely brilliant. Once she learns to see past the invention and anticipate the application, then she’ll be a true menace to the world.

  I hope Mount Haze has some books we could trade for. Oh, how I’ve missed books!

  Mirzayael wanders in as I’m working with Dizzi on the dimensions for the full-size transport. I won’t be able to synthesize it in here, as the lab isn’t big enough, but we can still finalize the design. I suppose we’ll also need to construct a hangar of sorts, once we have a fleet of them. Or a dock—probably something we should create regardless, given the airships we’ll likely be engaging with.

  “Everything well?” Mirzayael asks, watching us work.

  “There’s a lot to do before we reach the city,” I reply, poring over the calculations. “But I think we’ll be ready when we get there.”

  “Good,” Mirzayael says. “Then we have other ways in which we can prepare.” Mentally, she adds, “There is time for more self-defense training before supper.”

  I grimace.

  Dizzi saves me from more pain and embarrassment by looking up in thought. “Oh! That reminds me. I wanted to talk to you two about the watchtower spells.”

  Mirzayael looks at her. “What about?”

  “Well…”

  It’s hard not to notice how Dizzi’s typical enthusiasm has all but evaporated.

  “Maybe we should discuss it in one of the towers,” she says. “Tower three, specifically.”

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  Mirzayael also seems to understand the seriousness of Dizzi’s tone. “Of course. Show us what it is.”

  Dizzi and I leave through a balcony, while Mirzayael takes a path on the ground. It will take her a few more minutes to get there, so Dizzi and I take our time, coasting and casually looping around the city. I’m getting the feeling Dizzi doesn’t want to draw attention to this tower in particular, and all three of us making a beeline for it could certainly stir suspicion in those observant enough.

  Since the orientation of the Fortress is not consistent enough to use descriptors like north or south, we’ve numbered the watchtowers, starting with the first one that was explored, and ending with the fifth broken tower. The third tower was also the third Dizzi’s team had investigated, though she’d quickly moved them on to tower four when she deemed the spell too complicated to practice deciphering.

  Of course, she’d told Mirzayael and I both that she suspected the spell in watchtower three was a weapon; she just didn’t know what it did.

  I suspect we’re about to find out.

  Mirzayael joins us in the large room on the top floor where the room-sized spell circle is inscribed. All the rubble and dust has been cleared off its face, though cracks still run through the design, rendering it unusable.

  Dizzi paces around the room a bit, then lets out a breath, turning to us. “So, I was right. This one is definitely a weapon.” She uses the talons on her feet to point out a few nearby runes. “Fire.” She gestures to some other ones. “Concentration modifier.” She points out a few more. “Direction modifier. Of course, it’s a lot more complex than that, but the crux of it is a giant beam of fire capable of taking out a village in one go. Kinda terrifying.”

  That’s one way to put it. I can taste bile in my mouth just imagining the scene she described.

  “Good,” Mirzayael says. “We should repair it and connect it back to the throne’s circuit.”

  I look at her, horrified. “No, we shouldn’t! Such an awful weapon—no one should have such power.”

  “Even if it saves our people?” Mirzayael counters. “I’m not suggesting we look for a fight, but it would be unwise to not have such a weapon prepared, if it were ever needed.”

  “This is dangerous,” I say. “Not just the weapon—but having such a weapon. People might view us as a threat just for it being in our back pocket.” It makes me think of Fyreneth’s story. How, supposedly, the gods determined she was a threat that could not be ignored, and she was destroyed for it. A chill runs down my back.

  “Then we will keep its existence secret,” Mirzayael says, annoyance tinging her tone. Dizzi looks distinctly uncomfortable, and ineffectively attempts to melt into the wall. “Wasn’t that what we had originally agreed upon? We would investigate these spells so long as their nature is kept covert between those who can be trusted.”

  It was what I agreed to. But simply being covert doesn’t feel like enough anymore. What if a Fyrethian stumbles upon it? With the company we’ll soon be having, what if a non-Fyrethian stumbled upon it? Not to mention there’s the researchers, who already know of its existence, at least to some degree. Including Salvia. Do I trust them not to use such a weapon against someone they might see as an enemy?

  We will need to keep this tower under lock and key.

  Or I could destroy it.

  I’m not sure if she caught a hint of that thought, but Mirzayael’s expression darkens. “You can’t avoid conflict by ignoring it as a possibility. Not everyone we meet will be as congenial as the individuals we’ve traded with over the last week. We need to be prepared to defend ourselves.”

  “I know,” I say, looking down at the spell circle. But I’m not sure I can bring myself to repair it. I would have a hand in the creation of this weapon. If it’s used to kill, would I be able to divorce myself from the death it causes?

  “Just… give me time to think about it,” I say, unable to meet Mirzayael’s eyes.

  “How much time?” she asks.

  I don’t have an answer.

  “Fyre, this could go far toward increasing your Role Range,” she says, switching tactics. “Even if it’s not used, simply having it repaired could label our city as ‘better defended.’ Isn’t that enough reason to try?”

  I blow out a breath. “I don’t want to do this. I see the reasoning in your argument, but it still gives me a bad feeling.”

  “What would convince you then?” she demands. “Or is reason a tool you use only when convenient to your wants?”

  Her words stab into my heart. I look up at her in surprise, and her frown falters for just a moment. Is she right? Am I being hypocritical? It’s not as though I haven’t taken lives. I did what I had to do when we fought the Jorrians. Is this any different? We’re not even using the weapon—just arming it.

  Somehow, even this doesn’t reassure me.

  “Alright,” I say quietly. “I’ll repair the circle.”

  Dizzi nervously creeps back into the conversation to point out places on the floor that need to be fixed a certain way. I follow her instructions, and the Dungeon Core makes the spell circle good as new.

  “There,” I say. “It’s done.”

  Mirzayael’s shoulders dip. “Good. Thank you.” She pauses. “Did that change the Role Range at all?”

  I don’t check the stat. “No.”

  “Ah.” There’s a tense silence. “Well, it was worth a try. Dizzi, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  “Uh, no,” she says quickly. “That was it. I’ll head back to the lab, then, alright?”

  She barely waits for either of us to reply before she dives out the window.

  “I’m sorry if I was harsh,” Mirzayael says.

  I attempt to offer her a reassuring smile, but I’m sure it doesn’t reach my eyes. “It’s okay. I understand where you’re coming from.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  We head down the spiral staircase together, an uncomfortable tension still hanging between us.

  In no part helped by my guilt that I’m keeping carefully tucked away as I mentally run the Dungeon Core’s senses over the spell circle, and the broken circuit beneath the stone that I have not yet connected back to the throne.

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