Val and Brufo let the way to the Stalwart Salvager Inn. It was not far. It was a rough-looking dockside inn that I would maybe not have wanted to stay at back on Earth. The downstairs tavern at this hour busy with crusty skyfolk drinking and carousing. Since we were broke we just went to our rooms. I slept fitfully.

  Morning found me, sunlight dripping into the room and the moss kitten flowering at the foot of the bed. I groaned and got up. I opened the window, and flew out straightaway to go to talk to Reed, my stomach rumbling.

  When I arrived in the glade Reed sat motionless in the patch of ripened strawberries that the moss kitten had apparently grown yesterday. I landed softly, breeze rippling about me.

  “The sweetness of cultivated blooms is something I believed I would never be able to experience.”

  He opened one eye.

  “Ah, young Daniel, you’re back. Where’s your friends? The lance and the cat?”

  “Sleeping,” I said curtly. “I gave my captain your offer.”

  “Ehn. Would you like some strawberries? I believe, though I’ll need to conduct some more research to be sure, that these strawberries are specially imbued somehow.”

  “Honestly if I could take some back for the crew that would be great. But listen Reed. We will accept your offer, but I--we--have some conditions. The first one is that our airship is in a really bad way and we need you to repair it. The second,” I glanced at him meaningfully, trying to size him up, “is that you will only have the moss kitten on a trial basis. I’m not some monster, I’m not going to give a kitten to a guy I barely know!”

  Reed seemed taken aback by that. Then he laughed heartily.

  “I suppose that’s fair. You know, in addition to being the Keeper of the Grove of the Heart, I am also the sitting Archdruid of the Grove of the Heart.”

  “I don’t care who you are! I’m going to check in the next time we’re in port!”

  In the end I invited Reed to the Fool’s Errand for dinner, then booked it back to the Stalwart Salvager Inn in time for breakfast. We ordered meager portions, supplemented with the basket of fruits Reed had given me. Not just strawberries but apples and tomatoes, too.

  “It’s done,” I announced, eating a tomato. “The Keeper dude Reed is going to come over to the Fool’s Errand for dinner, and I think fix the ship. We’ll let him have the moss kitten in return.”

  “If he comes through for us, this shall be a great day, Daniel.” Lorlux tipped his hat. “As I said, heartwood ships are greatly desired. It is a pity, but I cannot replace the original fungiwood of the Fool’s Errand easily, so it would always have had to be a different material.”

  Meanwhile, Brufo was in his own world, trying to figure out what he would serve for dinner. Once he roughly knew, he rose suddenly. “I’ll see you all at dinnertime. Bring your appetite.”

  “Where are you going?” I called.

  “To be a chef,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “He’ll find a street kitchen to work a shift in and sling some grubby meat,” Val confided.

  “I don’t know about you but I could go for some grubby meat.”

  Val and I spent the rest of the day preparing for the dinner. To start, we moved the table from the navigation room to the dining room temporarily and cleaned up the debris and the splattered bananas and mangoes.

  After lunch, Brufo arrived back out of breath, carrying some bags of ingredients. I tried to get a look, but he shook his head. However, I could soon guess by the smell coming from the kitchen what he was making. Marinara sauce has a particular scent that’s hard to forget.

  When Reed arrived at dinnertime, we were arrayed topdeck waiting for him. Lorlux made small talk as we took him to the dining room.

  “It’s best you know what you’ll be working with,” Lorlux remarked, pointing out the many damaged compartments as we went.

  In the dining room, we all took our seats, then Brufo served dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, sprinkled with cheese. I sat beside Lancie and Reed. At the head of the table we had set up moss kitten with a nice farewell meal, as the Archdruid would likely take the cat when he left.

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  “So Daniel,” he asked me as we ate, “how do you like these guys? Do they treat you all right?”

  I nodded. “Without them I’d be totally lost out there.”

  “Why don’t you have any acolytes?” Lancie blurted out.

  Reed chuckled. “It's a fair question. It’s because they all quit. Do you know how long it takes to become a druid?”

  “400 years?” Lancie said dubiously.

  “Try twenty years. You’ve got to slow to the speed of plants. It takes about twenty years. It took me thirty! It’s still a long time, for humans, which you obviously are not.”

  “She’s my [Aether Weapon] companion.”

  “You’re just full of companions aren’t you Daniel? Well, I’m glad you’re sharing the moss kitten with us. Lancie, you would make an excellent druid, I believe.”

  “Thanks, but I only eat red meat.”

  After the meal, Reed cleared his throat. “I shall now commence the [Rite of Growth]. It will not replace your ship’s materials entirely, but should mend it all, if I perform it enough times. It may take several weeks.”

  Several weeks? I thought. But Lorlux merely croaked and nodded.

  Reed took a tiny pot from inside his robe. It contained a green sprig in soil. He used a paring knife to slice a strand from it, then knelt by the gaping hole in the wall where the Fool’s Errand had crashed into the sky jungle.

  The plant expanded rapidly, its roots and core growing at once in a rush of green magic to fill the space in the broken wall. It kept going, pouring over the ship and leaping past our feet into the halls. The magic kept pulsing.

  “Ughghghgh,” Reed groaned.

  He became greener, then he vanished in a trace of light. The glow faded.

  “Aether tracker,” Val cursed.

  “Is he just…gone?”

  Brufo gestured emptily.

  Sleipnir did a sensor sweep over the area. “[Spectral Scan] is nominal.”

  Lorlux stood suddenly and straightened his hat. “Get this place cleaned up. I need to speak with the Harbormaster.”

  “Did I just watch a man die?” I wondered.

  I looked at the moss kitten, innocently nibbling on a noodle. Although Reed had not fully explained it, clearly a [Carbuncle of Growth] empowered growth abilities. Would it have resulted in Reed--what--disappearing or being absorbed?

  “So, the cat makes his magic stronger, right? What if it made it a lot stronger? And what if he used more of himself as a result?”

  “He burned himself up,” Brufo muttered. “With cooking magic it’s all about having enough materials to use. Be it spirits for flambe, or broth for Broth of Mending. Come to think of it, my spirits did vanish awfully fast in the fight with Kola.”

  He seemed to be on a similar line of thought to me. I opened my mouth to ask Val what her abilities used, but snapped it shut as she’d told me to keep it to myself. But I’d seen her use [Blaze Radiance] in front of Brufo when we defeated King Kola, right?

  As I walked back to my room after cleaning up I noticed that not only had the dining room been mended, but the halls too, and my room too, both the doorway and the wall between my room and Val’s. Lancie had gone topdeck.

  Val was reading at her desk.

  “Hey Val.”

  She looked up, grinned. “Reed did a great job with the repairs. Look at this detail work.”

  She pointed at the wall. I examined it closer and found there were little figures wrought into the wood, little people and even a little airship!

  “I think I see myself here, fighting the Dream Fish.” Val pointed.

  There was probably a spot on my wall, deep in the reverse tree line of the sky jungle, where I was fighting the monkey king still.

  “When we fought King Kola, did your skill you used consume extra? Like how we theorized about Reed and the carbuncle?”

  “Yeah. But it wasn’t a big deal, since I was still pretty healthy.”

  “Oh. So your stuff--it uses your health then?”

  “Not all of us can be Driften Wakers and fly around all the time without wasting any resources.”

  “Whatcha reading?”

  I flipped upside down while gently flying to get a look at the book’s cover. She tried to hide it from me. Trials of Fate was the name of the book.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You mean you don’t have Fate where you come from? F.A.T.E. Foretold Angelic Temporal Entities? They are one of the main ways you can complete a Trial.”

  “We just have regular angels, and even then most people don’t believe they are real. But…” I paused, remembering the glitchy angel I’d seen right after I died in the car crash.

  Val’s eyes burned with a red flame. “...But…?”

  “I saw one, after I died, with a green and glitchy halo.”

  “Sure sounds like Fate.”

  “I guess I’m starting to doubt myself.”

  “Do you believe in angels?”

  “I believe in demons more.”

  Just then before I kissed her upside down the intercom came on. My heart was pounding.

  “Attention Fool’s Errand crew. Navigation Room meeting. Now.”