Emily lay in her bed aboard the Luna Moth. On passing observation, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but one would find on closer examination that this was not so. Her breathing was fast and shallow, here eyes were clenched and her brow was slick with sweat. From the outside, she was in the midst of a nightmare. The stone on her necklace hovered before her, but she was unaware of it. Her mind was too busy trying to dispel what her imagination had conjured up to notice.

But it wasn't her imagination; it was a warning.

Inside her dream, Emily's eyes snapped out. Before her stood a tree, dry and dead, on a lonely hilltop surrounded by rocks and snow. The sky was a grey mass of boiling clouds that looked ready to release their heavy load at any minute. She also saw her stone, hovering in front of her and gently tugging at the string that held it around her neck. It seemed to want something. "This way, Emily," it said.

She looked ahead, wondering what was going on. Her feet obeyed the stone's gentle insistence, and she let it lead the way. "Who are you?" she asked as she climbed the hill.

"You know who I am," the stone replied.

"Where are we?"

"This is our meeting place," the stone told her.

Emily looked at the tree, and felt a shiver run down her spine. "Not here," she said. "I don't want to meet here."

"Why not?" the stone asked.

"That tree. It brings painful memories."

"Of course. You can make it go away. You have as much control of the scenery as I do." The girl squeezed her eyes shut, and instantly the dreary landscape was replaced with a sunny white-sand beach and rolling waves. Seabirds called and dolphins frolicked in the water some distance offshore. "Ah, how pleasant," the stone commented.

"What do you want from me?" Emily asked.

"Let me show you." Suddenly, a figure of wispy black smoke appeared before her. Its face was a mask with the pattern on the gem, with hair like tentacles of ink. "This way." It made a follow-me gesture with its finger.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To see the future in the eyes of the elf king," the figure said. "To see what may become."

Emily followed it over the rise, then gasped and stopped cold. What she saw was a sprawling metropolis with towers of steel and glass. "This isn't Alledia," she remarked.

"No. It's your homeworld: Earth." It put its hand on her shoulder. "You must know by now that Alledia isn't the only world in danger. He wants you to go home, Emily; perhaps more than you do."

Emily looked at the smoky figure. "Why?"

"Because you can help me stop him."

She looked back at the city. "Then maybe I should go," she said. "It's what I want, too."

"If that were true, than why did you lie to them?" Emily snapped her head toward the figure, her mouth open in shock. "You told them I was forcing you to stay, but you know that you can come and go as you please. Why?"

Emily's mouth worked to retort, but nothing came out. She couldn't understand the point her stone was trying to make. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "The tunnel coming here closed behind us. There is no other way back home."

"There are always other ways, Emily," the stone told her. "To stay here was your choice. It has always been your choice."

The city was suddenly engulfed in a ball of white fire, and the dream dissolved.

Emily's eyes snapped open and she shot upright with a gasp. She felt cold and clammy. Her pajama shirt clung to her shoulders like a sheet of plastic, and her hair was matted to her forehead. After a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart, she became coherent enough to see the amulet floating before her face. Jerkily, she reached out and took the glowing stone in her hand, eyes wide with fear, wondering exactly what the dream portended.

She looked up at the patch of brightening light on the wall, and knew that the sun was rising.

Enzo stood at the navigation table in the pilothouse, propping himself on his arms as he and Leon Redbeard went over his map of the region. A green mass on the western edge illustrated the continent with its peninsulas and coastal islands, while a featureless expanse of blue showed the Eastern Sea as far as it was charted.

"That's the Golbez Cycle," he said, pointing to a large swirl of spiraling lines. "It's a massive storm system."

Leon studied the illustration. "Can we fly through it?" he asked.

"The Moth wasn't designed to ford such harsh weather," Enzo told him. He paused, then looked at the fox. "Are you certain the city will be there?"

"It has to be," Leon said. "The Cycle is where Silas left off before he passed on, and everything points to the eye of the storm."

Enzo looked hard at the fox. "Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?" Not waiting for an answer, he continued on. "The Golbez Cycle is hundreds of miles across and has been raging for centuries with no indication of slowing. Nobody even remembers how it started! The winds on the storm's edge are gale-force, averaging eighty miles an hour, and only get faster the deeper in you go. The storm is manageable by certain routes, but the area's a known graveyard for airships. Dozens have been lost trying to navigate it and the wind isn't the only thing to deal with. There are dead airships, lightning, needle-tipped spires and a strange kind of bird that feeds on the gas we use to stay airborne. Most captains, including this one—" he jabbed a thumb at himself "—stay well clear of it whenever possible.

"I can fly you into the storm, but I need to know for certain Cielis will be there waiting for us. The risks are too huge."

"I can't guarantee that Cielis is there, Captain, but this guide is the best lead we've got."

"Another leap of faith, huh?" Enzo said, his tone holding a trace of joviality. "You know I'm still with you on this, Chief." He'd taken to calling the fox that since he seemed to be in command of this whole stunt. "But I'm starting to feel like we're drifting up a creek in a leaky boat without a paddle."

In the Moth's mess hall, Karen stood as a cutting board, chopping up a carrot into manageable slices for a stew that was bubbling on the stove. A white apron covered her front. She kept her eyes on the vegetable, her right hand steadily feeding it under the blade of the kitchen knife her left hand worked. She hadn't felt this happy since her husband had died that night. It seemed so long ago now, another lifetime on another planet. But she could still recall the event in all its ugly detail.

She shook her head and focused on the tune she was humming. It wouldn't do to let herself get distracted and the stew end up with a finger in it instead of a carrot.

"How are those carrots coming?" Luger asked.

She smiled. Had she known him before, she wouldn't have recognized him now. Or trusted him. Keeping her eyes on her work, she reported, "Almost done."

"Good, good." Luger walked over to the stove, where Rico was stirring a big pot of bubbling liquid. "How's the stew?"

Rico almost jumped. He'd always hoped he might have some other skill besides helping to fly an airship, but his time had always been taken up either by helping his brother keep their little vessel on course or maintaining its engines. This was the first time he'd had the chance to try his hand at something else–anything else, really–and he wanted to get it right. "Uh, well I–that is, it–" he stammered. He managed to stop himself long enough to take a breath. "I don't know. What do you think?"

Luger gave him a pitying look. "Have some confidence in yourself, Rico. And relax a bit; stressing out this much isn't healthy."

Rico took another deep breath, let it out slowly, and gave a small nod. "I think it's coming along okay. I mean, I hope it is." He sighed and looked sheepish. "I'm not exactly what you'd call a gourmet chef."

"This is your first time. Don't expect to get everything right; just try your best."

Rico's face lost some of its tension. "So just keep stirring?"

"Yes, yes. Keep after it. Don't let it burn." After a few minutes, he held out his hand for the ladle, and Rico passed it to him. He gave the brewing concoction one last stir and then lifted it out. After blowing on it, he brought it to his lips and took a tiny sip. He smacked them with a thoughtful expression, then said, "This could definitely use more salt."

"Okay, runts!" Enzo barked. He stood out on Luna Moth's starboard gangway, glowering down at the boy and two robots in front of him and shouting in a voice that would have done Navin's drill sergeant uncle proud. "Now that you're on my ship, you're gonna play by my rules!" He took the pipe from his mouth and held it in his hand, and Navin's young imagination slapped an image of a cranky British colonel on the sour-faced captain's form. "In order for us to survive up here, you all have to be able to trust each other. You'll work like one big machine, which means you're only as strong as your weakest link." He marched forward a step and shoved his face into Navin's. "Got that, son?"

Navin straightened and barked back, "Yes sir!"

Cogsley turned to face Enzo, his ever-grumpy face as indignant as it could get. "Do you know who you're talking to?" he demanded, and the airship captain turned to him. "This young man is the commander of the Resistance."

Enzo's face tightened and turned slowly back to Navin. "Is that so?" His voice was so low it almost sounded menacing, like he was contemplating wrenching Cogsley apart for insubordination and gutting him for spare parts. His arm shot out and grabbed a stick leaning against the wall and held it out to Navin. "Well, on this ship," he resumed his drill sergeant voice, "he'll be the commander of this broom!"

Navin looked halfway dismayed. Oh great, more chores.

"We'll begin our day by cleaning the ship!" Enzo continued, still shouting. "I want each of you to pick a spot of the deck and scrub it until it's clean enough to eat off of! Hop to it, pork chops!"

On the opposite side of the ship, Leon Redbeard and Emily Hayes stood a few feet apart. The fox regarded the girl how only a mentor could, his expression focused and his gaze intense. "Emily," he said, "you've shown that you're skilled in the use of the stone's magic to attack. But using it only to attack is easy to follow and predict. As your enemies grow stronger and smarter, you'll soon realize that simply attacking them will no longer win battles. You must remember that there are some fights were the ability to attack isn't yours, but your opponent's, and it will be your ability to defend that will mean the different between triumph and defeat."

"Defend?" Emily gave him a slightly confused look.

Leon's expression didn't change. "Your stone's magic is limited only by your imagination. It can be as devastating a weapon as it can be an effective shield. Do you remember what you learned at Demon's Head?" He paused to let Emily think back to what he was talking about, continuing only when she nodded. "The ability to hold things without destroying them. Now we'll take it to the next step." He opened on of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a club-shaped object made of green glass. "I want you to lift this bottle."

Emily focused on the bottle and reached out toward it with her stone's magic. It took a few minutes for her to get the hang of directing the energy rather than just lashing out with it, but eventually she wrapped the magic around the glass container. The thing began to rise.

"Good," Leon said. "Feel the contours of the bottle, how it's shaped and where the best grip is." He watched as she slowly did as she was bidden and the bright pink energy swirled around the bottle, tendrils of magic curling around its curves. "Use the magic to know the bottle, make it a part of yourself." He saw Emily close her eyes, and the magic began to sink into the bottle, weaving through the atoms of the glass. "Excellent. Now, protect it."

Before she could fully process what he'd just said, he drew his sword from the sheath on his back and brought down in a wide down-ward arc to the left. And the bottle was so much shattered glass, tinkling like fairy dust in a Disney movie.

"Hey, no fair!" Emily protested. "That was too fast! I wasn't ready!"

Leon held his sword up so the blade cut his face in half, its edge facing her. "Is that what you'll tell your enemies? That you weren't ready?" he demanded in a voice that shut her up right away. "That's what they'll count on to defeat you, Emily. Your unreadiness will get you killed." She took a deep breath and faced him fully. "Your magic is triggered by your emotions; that can be both good and bad. Good, because the intensity of your emotions lends the stone power, making your strikes stronger. Bad, because your emotions are unpredictable, undisciplined responses to adverse conditions. There will be times when fear, frustration and anger will become strong factors in a fight, and you tend to make mistakes when that happens.

"Frustration narrows your focus to a single point, and you're no longer aware of what's happening around you. Anger has the same effect, but in that you rush blindly. Fear will keep you at a distance and make you hesitate. Your enemies will use all that against you. Defense requires a more calculated approach. You must stay cool and collected at all times." He drew out another bottle. "Now try again."

Emily reached out with her energy and wrapped it around the bottle, feeling its curves and making it a part of herself. After a minute, she lifted it up from Leon's hand. "Okay, I'm ready." She waited for almost half a minute, and when nothing happened, she looked at the fox. "Aren't you going to attack?"

"Overconfidence. Another way to certain death." Emily glared at him, effort and impatience etched on her face. "Most enemies will try to attack when and where you least expect it. You must be aware at all times–even with your guard down–ready to defend from all angles. With practice, your ability to do both will improve, as will your patience." He brought his sword in the same wide arc as before, but in reverse. And as with before, the bottle shattered in half.

Emily half-growled and half-grunted. "Don't let your frustration get to you," Leon told her. "Ready to try again?"

Miskit came up, pushing a broom in front of her. "But what about Miskit?" she asked. "She's—"

"Ignore her." Emily looked at him. "Distraction can be just as lethal as everything else. Work past it." He tossed the bottle in the air. Miskit watched it.

Leon gripped the hilt of his sword, pulled it free of the sheath and swung it in a wide downward arc. Energy suddenly encompassed the bottle and lifted it just before the blade hit it. He stared at it for a second before what had happened registered. He turned and looked at her with a smile on his face. "Emily, you did it!"

Emily was looking at the bottle. "But I didn't do that, Leon."

"Then who—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt." Trellis walked up, still holding the bottle in his magic. "But Luger says it's lunchtime."