The crew spent the next few days on repairs as the ship limped slowly through the cloudsea.

  Time aboard a wounded skyship felt different from time anywhere else. Hours stretched long and tense, measured less by the sun and more by the rhythm of hammers and the constant low groan of the hull. The Skycutter no longer sliced through the cloudsea with ease. She drifted. She shuddered when the wind hit her wrong. Some days she seemed to sag, like an exhausted animal forced to keep walking.

  I spoke to Raela once or twice, and at first she seemed to be in pain. Considerable pain. She shook and grimaced at every nail and board they ripped up to replace, her wooden claws curled even when she tried to keep her composure. It was like picking at an infected scab. Necessary, but cruel.

  Yet as the repairs were finished, she renewed. The cracks in her voice smoothed out. The tremor in her wood eased. Still, she said that she had to remain steadfast, as the ship had been close to being destroyed in the attack, and that the damage ran deeper than even she knew.

  She was doing something to the ship. Healing it in a way. Or at least holding off additional damage.

  Captain Roan fed her handfuls of XP Cores at a time. They glittered briefly in his palm and then dissipated as Raela closed her claws around them, vanishing. Each time she took them, I could feel it in the deck beneath my feet. A subtle tightening. A momentary steadiness. Like the ship took a deep breath after a long lapse.

  Yet still… there were moments where the ship felt wrong. Sometimes the boards beneath me felt wobbly in a way a ship shouldn’t. Not the normal sway of sailing; this was off, like a loose tooth. I couldn’t tell if it was real, or if the island still had some hold on my head.

  Was there something wrong with the ship? Or was it just in my mind?

  I put the thought out of my mind. There was nothing I could do either way.

  And then one day, while eating in the mess, Finn and Vexa sauntered over and sat next to me. The mess was louder than usual as repair crews came and went in waves. People were eating fast before returning to work. Lantern-light swung over tables, and the smell of stew fought with the smell of wet rope drifting down from the deck. Somewhere a bucket of pitch had been spilled, and the sharp scent of it cut through everything.

  “Hey,” Finn said, already grinning. “We’re going to go see the quartermaster. He’ll divvy out the spoils from our little island adventure. You comin’?”

  “Aren’t you still on duty?” I asked.

  Finn looked over his shoulder as if he expected Roan himself to come storming through the mess hall and drag him away by the ear. “Pssh, no,” he said—an obvious lie. “So come on, quit your worryin’.”

  I glanced over at Vexa. She seemed to have recovered quite a bit over those days. Time had been a potent medicine. She still moved carefully sometimes, favoring her other arm when she thought no one was watching.

  “Let’s just get it over with,” she said. “You know he won’t stop nagging until we do.”

  “XP Cores!” Finn said. “More levels! Come on, you’ve both got to be excited about that.”

  During the battle, that additional strength had helped quite a bit. I’d felt the difference between helpless and capable, and it had lodged deep.

  I smiled, stood, and let Finn lead the way.

  I had thought we would go down toward the hull, yet instead we went up to the deck, then climbed toward the bridge. The air changed with every stair; it was warmer below and colder above. On deck, the wind cut through my shirt sending a chill up my spine. The crew was still repairing various things on deck. Someone was lashing new rope. Someone else was patching sailcloth. And someone was prying a stubborn serpent's spine from a plank.

  And then we stepped inside. Once again, the space did not match the outside.

  The corridor widened into something that felt too big to belong within the ship. The ceiling rose higher than it should have. Side passages branched off like veins. Crewmates, some I’d seen before and some not, scurried around, nearly missing each other over and over like some intricate dance. It was organized chaos. They moved like they’d lived inside this twisting, expanded reality their whole lives.

  But that wasn’t our destination either.

  We moved into a quieter hallway behind the bridge, a narrow passage where the air smelled of ink. At the end was a door.

  Finn knocked in the rhythm of some tune I didn’t know.

  “Don’t knock like that,” Vexa said.

  “Why?” Finn asked.

  “Because then people will know it’s you.”

  Finn stared at her curiously for a moment. “And why is that a bad thing?”

  “Because then they won’t answer.”

  “I’ll have you know—”

  Vexa walked by and slammed the door with her fist. “Tally!” she called out.

  In a moment, the door swung open, and a man who was taller than the doorframe itself blocked the entrance. He wore a frilly brown vest with rusted bronze buttons and yellow trim, as if someone had taken a fancy outfit and molded it to fit a giant. He was clean-shaven, yet he had multiple pale marks where he’d clearly nicked himself.

  “Vexa!” the man said cheerily. “Why didn’t you say it was you? Come in, come in.”

  “And I’m here too,” Finn said.

  He sighed. “Ah, so you are. Well, come in all the same.”

  Finn either didn’t notice the snub or ignored it as he sauntered inside. I followed… or I would have, if the man hadn’t stepped in the way.

  “Now you,” he said. “I don’t recognize you.”

  “My name’s Tor—”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “Let’s do this nice and proper. Come inside.”

  I stepped in and found a nice, cozy office that somehow felt like it shouldn’t fit inside any ship at all. There was a single chair and a desk, neat. Neater than any other room I’d been in. A bay window at the back let early morning light creep in, pale and gentle, casting long lines across the floorboards. Outside the glass, the cloudsea rolled by in soft purple waves.

  The room smelled of clean paper, and something faintly resinous, like the scent of freshly cut wood rubbed into a ledger.

  The man sat in the chair, which was at least three sizes too small for him. He folded himself into it anyway, as if it were normal.

  “Now then,” he said, holding a finger to his temple. He pushed against it. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. “For prosperity,” he said in a strange, flat voice, “my name is Dorian Mourn, but everyone calls me Tally. I am the Quartermaster aboard the ship Skycutter. What is your name?”

  “Uhh… what is he doing?” I asked.

  Tally was completely silent, eyes still pure white.

  Vexa grabbed me and whispered, “It’s an Echo Core of his. He’s a Manipulator. He manipulates his own memory. It’s perfect. He needs no paper. No ledgers. Everything is kept in his head. So just answer the questions exactly as he asks.”

  I coughed and said, “My name is Torren Skyrat.”

  “Acknowledged,” Tally replied in that same flat tone. “Torren Skyrat, designated as Changer. Two Echo Cores are out on loan: Claws of the Cockatrice and Mask of the Wendigo. Level 1. Changer Level 2. Question: are you the same Torren Skyrat who ventured to the island known as Glassblown Reef with crewmate Vexa Holloway and crewmate Finn ‘annoying’ Skyrat?”

  “Annoying?” Finn cut in. “My nickname is annoying?”

  Vexa laughed. “That’s better than the last one.”

  Finn pointed at her, then at me. “Neither of you had better call me that.”

  Tally just stood there, eyes of all white, waiting.

  “Yes,” I said. “That was me.”

  “Thank you,” Tally replied. “Total haul was three new unidentified Echo Cores and a total of 1,415 XP Cores. 5% is the captain’s cut. 10% ship maintenance. 30% crew’s cut. 2% quartermaster cut. 3% Raela’s cut.”

  Finn was trying to count on his fingers, but he was failing badly, lips moving silently as if numbers were a foreign language.

  “Half,” Vexa whispered. “It’s half.”

  Tally continued. “And 30% tax due to Skyreach. That leaves 283 XP Cores divided by 3, which is 94.333 infinite. In cases of split, rounded down evenly with the remaining going to the crew. Each crewmate on the island expedition designated Glassblown Reef is due 94 XP Cores each.”

  Tally’s finger moved away from his temple. His eyes flickered, then settled back to normal. He blinked once, as if surfacing after dunking his head in water.

  He smiled. “Well then, Torren, lad… nice to meet you.”

  Dorian, or Tally, seemed to be an entirely different person now. Where before he had been dry and curt, now there was real personality behind his words. A warmth that didn’t feel fake. Like a man stepping out from behind a mask.

  “So then,” he continued, “you’re here to collect, eh? Not a problem; give me a moment.”

  He stood and walked to a back room. He had to duck, shoulders squeezing through the frame. I heard him rummaging through boxes. Sacks shifting. And the clink of something metallic.

  He returned with three cloth sacks, each tied tight at the top.

  “As agreed, 94 XP Cores each.”

  Finn was still trying to do the math.

  “80%,” Vexa said.

  “Eighty… perfect!” Finn yelled, jumping up. “This is robbery! And they say I’m a thief.”

  Tally scratched the back of his head. “Those are the rules, young Finn. Perhaps if you tackle some truly difficult islands and bring back something of real value, then we can talk. Until then…”

  Finn grabbed the sack and disappeared in a huff, stomping down the corridor outside hard enough to make the windows rattle.

  “Don’t mind him,” Vexa said, narrowing her eyes. “He’s… dumb.” She grabbed her own bag. “Much obliged.”

  I reached out and took mine. There was a decent heft to it. A weight. It felt good.

  It felt… earned.

  Tally smiled knowingly. “From the streets, eh?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You all have that same look.” His gaze softened. “Yes, you earned this. Breathe it in. And do try not to spend it in one place.”

  “Where would I spend it?” I asked.

  “Well, there are always card games afoot on board. But moreso, we are heading to the Freesky Archipelago. There will be all manner of things in which to spend.” His tone shifted into something almost fatherly. “You must balance that out with developing yourself. You don’t want to fall behind because you pissed it away on drink and women.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but only stammered.

  “Bah,” he said, waving me off. “Don’t listen to me, lad. All young people must learn lessons for themselves. Don’t let me keep you. On your way now.”

  I turned to leave, but then Tally called me back. “On second thought… a moment. Or more like a favor. I ask everyone this, so don’t feel singled out. If you happen across an anomaly on your travels looking like a large flat wheel, black with smooth grooves, do your best to recover it for me. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “Do you have one for me to see?”

  Tally smiled. The man was missing two to three teeth, and the gaps made the smile look friendlier somehow. “That I do, lad.”

  Once again, he disappeared. When he returned, he held a large black object exactly as he had described.

  “What’s it called?” I asked.

  “A record,” he replied.

  “A record? What does it record? How does it record it?”

  Tally ran his fingers across the grooves as if they were sacred. “Etched into the material itself. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen.”

  Curious, I asked, “And what does it do?”

  He smiled.

  Wordlessly, he crossed to a small square box sitting on a cabinet. He lifted a glass lid and set the record inside. He swung an arm with a spiked tip, like a needle, and placed it gently against the black circle. Then he closed the lid, pressed a button, and the record began to spin.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Until something odd happened.

  The box began to project sound.

  Soft and caressing.

  It was music.

  Raela had talked about this. She had asked Roan to bring it to her.

  The notes curled through the room and hooked into something deep in my chest. It didn’t sound like the shanties crew sang to pass time, nor like the harsh horns and endless noise of the city beneath the mist.

  It sounded… beautiful.

  I stared, entirely entranced. My foot tapped to the beat. My body swayed. My eyes followed the circular motion of the record as if it were hypnotic.

  Then the music cut out with a violent screech.

  I flinched hard and clapped my hands to my ears as the noise cut through my senses like a blade.

  “Ugh,” I said. “What happened?”

  Tally frowned. “It is damaged, you see.” He pointed to a long white scratch running across the deliberate etchings, cutting through the grooves like a wound. “It’s why I want to find more. There has to be more out there.”

  I nodded, throat tight. I was curious now myself, and suddenly I wanted to hear more than just that brief glimpse.

  And then, as if reading my thoughts, Tally asked, “Did you want to listen again?”

  I nodded enthusiastically.