The thunderstorm, when it happens, is a relief. Just hearing the sound of the thunder is enough to make her relax substantially. Being belowdecks means that she can't hear the rain, though, so she wraps her comforter around her shoulders like a massive, puffy cape and slips out of the bedroom.

Her target is the couch up in the kitchen and lounge area upstairs, but when she arrives she finds it already occupied by Felix, in a sleeveless pajama shirt and loose cotton pants. His spine is straight and his muscles are tense, and he's tapping his fingers on the armrest. He doesn't seem to notice her until she's standing directly next to him, but when he does he just nods at her.

"I thought you went to bed," she says.

"I did. The thunder woke me up." He grimaces. "Storms make me nervous. Tried to go out there and take over the wheel from Piers, just to make my brain shut up, but he wasn't having it."

She nods, sitting on the couch next to him. The dim light of the candles exaggerate the dark circles under Felix's eyes as he stares blankly at nothing. After another moment of sitting in silence, she makes a decision, and (somewhat surprised at her own boldness) lays down on her side so her head lands on his lap. His hand immediately stops its fidgeting on the armrest, and when she looks up at him she can just make out the way his eyebrows are raised in surprise.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to sleep. You're going to be a pillow."

The corner of his mouth quirks up in amusement. "And I don't get to sleep?"

"Well you sure aren't sleeping now," she says. "Play with my hair, it'll help relax you." She'd been expecting him to say something like Don't be ridiculous, or Get off me, Sheba, hoping that teasing him a little bit would make him feel better, but he doesn't say either of those things. His hand slips into her hair and begins to gently massage her scalp, just barely brushing her ear. The fact that she's turned away from him with the side of her face pressed against his thigh makes things a little awkward, but it feels good anyway.

The thunder booms again, and she feels him flinch ever so slightly, hand twitching reflexively in her hair.

"Storms really don't bother you, even out in the middle of the ocean like this?" he asks.

She twists slightly to face him a little bit better, reaching up to brush her fingers against his bicep. "Of course not." A tiny spark flickers out to dance against the bare skin of his arm, and she thinks maybe she hears him gasp. "I can make them."

He meets her eyes in the dim light of the candles. His pupils are blown wide, probably thanks to the darkness of the room.

"I think you forgot who you're dealing with," she says, trailing her fingers down his arm and then turning to face away from him again, resting her hand on his knee.

"Yeah," he says, voice quiet. "I think I did."

She falls asleep with his hand still stroking through her hair, and the sound of the rain pattering on the deck outside.

Felix isn't there when she wakes up the next morning, and he'd somehow maneuvered a pillow underneath her head in place of his leg. In the back of her mind, she wonders if she'd managed to dream the whole thing as she sits up and runs her fingers through her messy hair.

But then Felix himself walks into the kitchen from outside, and smiles at her—she must look ridiculous. "I hope I didn't wake you up when I left. My leg fell asleep before the rest of me."

She can't help but laugh a little bit, half humor and half relief that she hadn't dreamed it. "No, you didn't wake me up. I don't know how, though."

"Quiet escapes are kind of a trade secret of mine." He opens one of the kitchen cabinets and digs around, finally unearthing a teakettle. "Jenna's a light sleeper, and she's not too friendly if she gets woken up before she's ready. As I'm sure you've found out by this point."

"You're damn right, I value my sleep," Jenna says, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen and rubbing her eyes. "Sheba, you left?"

"It was raining and I wanted to hear it," Sheba answers, and Jenna just nods in response. "Felix, what kind of tea is that?"

Felix turns the cylindrical tea canister around in his hands, then holds it out to her to display the lack of a label with a shrug. "No idea."

With an exasperated huff of breath, Sheba stands up and walks across the floor to grab the canister from him. "Well then, how do you know it's even tea? It could be some kind of freaky Lemurian drug."

Felix shrugs. "It smells like citrus, and it looks like tea leaves. Jenna, stove?" Obligingly, Jenna shuffles over to light the stovetop with a snap of her fingers. Felix puts the kettle on the stove once she's moved out of the way. "And besides," he continues, "if they weren't supposed to be edible, they wouldn't be in the kitchen. It's a contamination issue, remember how I drilled him on food safety for the first week after we all moved in?"

"It's part of his plot," Jenna says, flopping down in Sheba's vacated spot on the couch. "He's going to drug us all and then drown us in the ocean."

Right on cue, Piers pokes his head in from outside. "Felix, did you find it?"

"What, the drugs?" Jenna says, and receives a confused look from Piers in response.

"I did find the tea, right where you said it would be," Felix answers. "Jenna says you're planning on drugging us with it and then murdering us."

Piers snaps his fingers, feigning disappointment. "Curses, I've been foiled."

Sheba holds the canister up towards the natural light outside, still trying to find a label. "What kind of drugs are they, Piers?"

He rolls his eyes at her. "It's orange spice tea. I bought it from one of those tiny towns in Osenia as we were passing through."

"Does it have drugs in it?"

"Hush. If you wanted drugs, you should've asked around in Shaman Village. I'm told they use that sort of stuff for rituals."

Behind them, the teakettle whistles, and Felix pours the steaming water into some cups he'd set aside for himself and Piers. Sheba pouts at him when he doesn't move to pour any others. "What, don't Jenna and I get any?"

Felix gestures at the kettle and remaining empty cups on the table as he follows Piers back outside. "I'm not taking responsibility for giving you potentially mind-altering substances, get your own!"

Sheba sticks her tongue out at him as the door closes. She does eventually end up helping herself to some tea, then sits on the couch next to Jenna as they both try to wake up. Kraden wanders upstairs after a while wanting tea himself, so Sheba heats more water as they discuss the upcoming lighthouse climb. Kraden is looking forward to seeing Contigo for himself after their experiences in Shaman Village, and Sheba has to agree. It's possible that Contigo, with its rich history and proximity to the lighthouse, might have ties to her past.

The problem, of course, is that until they actually reach Atteka they're pretty much confined to the walls of the ship. The lookout tower is Sheba's place to get away from it all, being the highest place she can reach, but sometimes even that isn't enough. She's constantly impressed with Piers's inability to tire of the endless blue water around him. Fighting sea monsters does give an occasional, welcome break in the monotony, but once the whirlwind is over it's more of the same, and time slows back down to a crawl.

So Sheba's caught a little off guard when Piers sticks his head into the kitchen one morning exclaiming, "Everyone, come look at this!"

Sheba follows him out, expecting to see some dolphins or something, but instead is greeted with what is clearly Jupiter Lighthouse, rising from the morning mist. "How much longer, Piers?"

"Another few hours, at least," he says, and she frowns in disappointment.

"Look, does it have towers coming off the sides or something? How did they build that?" Jenna says, squinting into the distance.

"Why are you acting like this is a new thing to you? This is our third lighthouse, Jenna," Felix says, looking for all the world like he has better things to be doing than looking at the mysterious ancient ruins of a civilization.

"I know, but it just catches me off guard," Jenna says. "It's like Lunpa said in Lemuria. No one in our time has ever been able to build anything like that."

"Well, it's only my second lighthouse," says Sheba. "And Piers's first. So we're allowed to be excited."

"You lived practically next-door to Venus Lighthouse for your entire life. Speaking of which, I don't remember you being this excited when we got there," Felix says, and Sheba shoots him a deadpan look.

"Gosh, I wonder why."

"Heeeey!" A shout from a passing sailboat, fairly close to them, stops the conversation and Piers leans over the railing.

"Good morning," Piers shouts down to the captain, who upon further inspection is using some sort of a horn to amplify his voice. "I hope you're not planning on boarding us from that thing, I can tell you right now it won't end well for you." The sailboat is mid-sized, but it's dwarfed in comparison to Piers's Lemurian ship.

"Not at all," the other captain responds. "Are you headed for Contigo?"

"We are! Why do you ask?"

"It's just, you won't be able to make it in this way. Your ship won't fit through the reefs there without sustaining some damage."

Piers glances back at the others, raising an eyebrow. "Where do you suggest we make land, then?"

"If you go around that way," the captain points off to the east, "there's a huge river I think you can fit through. Keep following it through the widest point, and you'll end up in Contigo's port."

"That's incredibly helpful, thank you!" Piers calls back down, and then turns the ship sharply to the east once he's sure that the sailboat won't get caught up in their wake.

"We really got lucky," Jenna muses, watching the smaller boat as it fades into the distance.

"It gives me high hopes for the people of Contigo," Piers agrees. "We're not even within a kilometer of the town, and they're already more hospitable to us than the Shamans were."

As the helpful sailor had promised, the river they eventually find leads them straight into a port where they can easily make land. Sheba notices the reefs the other captain had spoken of immediately, and winces. Even Piers's ship would've taken a beating if they'd run into those the wrong way.

Once they disembark, the first thing they all notice is a massive wing, balanced precariously on top of several wooden beams. Sheba stands underneath it and looks up, mesmerized by the muffled sunlight filtering through the canvas material. She wants to run her hand along the webbing and the boning structure, but doesn't think the people who had worked on it would take too kindly to her touching it. There are some people milling around, and a few of them are openly watching Sheba and the others as they come towards town. So she settles with just looking—it's still a very good piece of craftsmanship, even she can tell that.

The town of Contigo sits next to a massive crater in the ground. Sheba, rather than heading straight for town like the others, wanders off to get a closer look at the hole. Jenna notices and chases after her, sticking close to her side.

"What's this crater supposed to be?" Sheba wonders out loud, standing at the edge and staring down at it. There's something in the air that she can't quite place, pricking at her skin like static electricity.

Jenna shakes her head. "I don't know, but I'd feel better if you weren't so close to falling in..."

"I'll be fine," Sheba says dismissively, squinting at the dirt and rock. "It just doesn't make sense, you know? A giant hole next to a town. Why wouldn't they try to build over it, or at least level it out?"

"Maybe it's sacred ground, or something? Like Mount Aleph."

"Don't you think it would be better protected if that was the case? Even just with a fence..."

"It's apparently where Anemos lifted off," says Felix, coming up behind them and startling them both. "I just asked someone about it in town and that's what they said."

"Lifted off, huh," Sheba repeats, eyes leaving the crater and traveling up into the sky, shading her eyes against the sun. Suddenly that prickly, static feeling makes sense, and she feels something twist in her stomach. She must have a connection to this place. She'd fallen from the sky as a child, hadn't she? And who's to say Anemos hadn't moved after lifting off, depositing her as an infant in Lalivero? Faran said she herself had made a crater when she landed, and they were so shocked to find a living child in the rubble... The hair on the back of her neck is standing on end. This is it. This is it, Sheba!

"Sheba, are you with us?" Felix's voice, questioning, brings her back. She smiles up at him, trying to act as though she hasn't just had a breakthrough.

"Yeah. Sorry, let's keep moving." She turns on her heel and walks away from the crater, towards the center of town. Felix catches up to her rather quickly, gloved hand touching her shoulder.

"Are you sure you're okay? You looked really out of it there for a second, I was afraid you were going to faint again."

"Ha, no. No more fainting. I promise I'm okay, Felix."

"If you say so," he says. The expression on his face, all wide eyes and worry, reminds her of that morning in the Shman Village inn. He raises his hand and brushes his knuckles against her cheek, and then, seeming to realize himself, abruptly drops his hand and walks away.

Sheba stares after him for a moment, and then spins around, looking for Jenna. She finds her browsing a nearby food cart.

"Jenna, is something wrong with Felix?"

Surprised, Jenna blinks at her. "Well, I think there's plenty wrong with him, but I'm his sister, so it's practically a requirement. What makes you say that?"

Sheba narrows her eyes, trying to think. Even though Jenna is her best friend, telling her about Felix's odd behavior seems like it would be more awkward than anything. "He's just been acting weird around me lately."

Jenna shrugs. "He's been acting weird around all of us lately. I think he's nervous about the lighthouse, but he doesn't know how to express it."

Sheba just nods in response, deciding to let the subject drop. Felix, Piers, and Kraden join them again a few minutes later, to let them know they'd made reservations at the inn already.

"Wait, we're staying the night? I wanted to go straight to the lighthouse," Sheba says, feeling a small pang of disappointment in her chest. Jenna seems to recognize that this will lead to a discussion, and herds the five of them off to the side so they can talk without easily being overheard.

"No, it's too late in the day for that. If we started for it now, we'd get there by nightfall, and I'd rather not climb it in the dark," Felix says.

"It just feels like a waste of time, is all," Sheba says, frustration seeping into her voice. "Why sit around when we could be doing something useful?"

"There's plenty to do in town in the meantime," Piers says. "Earlier we saw some sort of gambling tents. I think I'd like to try them out, myself..."

"And I wonder..." Jenna begins, and then shakes her head. "No, nevermind."

"What is it?" Kraden prompts, and Jenna kind of sighs like she'd expected him to ask.

"Well, I was just thinking... I wonder if the others have been through here yet."

Sheba snaps her fingers. "That's a great idea, we can ask around about Isaac!" Jenna whips around to glare at her.

"Sheba, I swear on the fires of Mars..."

"No, no, I'm being serious! That scarf he wears is pretty hard to miss." She shrugs. "If they've been through here, someone would have noticed him."

Felix snorts. "She's got a point. And it would at least be helpful to know if we're still ahead of them."

"Well they'd have to have a ship to get here, right?" Piers says. "I didn't see any at that beach we landed at."

"Perhaps they found a different spot to land," Kraden suggests. "They could already be waiting for us at the lighthouse."

Something darkens in Felix's eyes. "Then I guess we'd better prepare."

"No," Jenna snaps. "I'm not going to fight them. I refuse."

"I'm not planning on it either, but I will defend myself. Would you raise your sword against me, too?"

"Felix, stop," Jenna says, a little too loudly, and several people glance their way. She flushes and lowers her voice, but Sheba can still hear the sound of unshed tears in her best friend's tone. "I've had enough fighting. Can't we just talk to them like civilized people?"

"Who says they'll listen?"

"They will," Jenna protests, but Felix shakes his head.

"I went against everything Vale knew. Isaac and Garet were taught to hate people like me, and I'm sure they've told their new friends exactly how evil I am. If I let them, they'll kill me, and take the two of you," he gestures to Sheba and Jenna, "back home. Which is why I don't intend to let them."

"Now hold on just a minute," Sheba says. "Since when am I of any interest to them?"

"Remember Venus Lighthouse? The whole reason we got the Shaman's Rod was in exchange for your safety," Felix says. "And they were planning on taking you back to Lalivero."

"Yeah, I remember Venus Lighthouse," Sheba shoots back. "I remember you jumped off it to save my life. And they saw you do it, too. They must know a bad person wouldn't do something like that."

"And Felix," Jenna says, "Isaac doesn't know that his father is still alive. If we explain that to him, I know he'll listen. Just...please, promise me you won't hurt them."

Sheba watches as the two of them stare each other down, Felix with that darkness still in his eyes and Jenna's face still threatening tears. Eventually, Felix looks away.

"Fine." He turns to leave. "I'm getting supplies."

"For what?" Jenna says sharply, grabbing his wrist.

"Not for them. For anyone else we run into up there." He shakes her off and walks away. They watch him go, and Piers rubs Jenna's shoulder sympathetically.

"He does have a point, you know. Karst, Agatio, and Alex are still around somewhere, and I'd say there's a large possibility they'll end up at the lighthouse with us."

"I'll fight Alex myself if it comes to that. Sheba, let's go." Jenna grabs Sheba's hand and pulls her along, and she follows without complaint, wanting to get away from the situation just as much as her friend.

They soon find themselves on the northeastern edge of town, where there are several people gathered around the skeletal frame of another large wing. Of more interest to Sheba, however, are the ruins nearby. The set of three doors immediately draws her attention, seeming too old, too out of place. She wanders up, trying to look casual while feeling that prickling on the back of her neck again, and presses her hand cautiously against the leftmost door.

The door creaks open slightly, and she jumps, jerking her hand back and looking around to see if anyone had noticed. None of the priests standing around give her a second look, though, so she more confidently pushes the door open this time and walks inside. It's a disappointingly empty hallway, and her footsteps echo as she walks down the dimly torch-lit path to an equally empty room. When she steps back outside, one of the priests nods to her.

"There used to be gold in these rooms—this one, and the one over there," he says, gesturing to the door on the far right. "But a man called Hammet came, nearly fifteen years ago, and took the gold with him when he left."

Sheba's heard of Hammet, of course—his name had even carried all the way to Lalivero. Faran had once given Sheba's foster mother a silk sash that he'd bought from one of Hammet's caravans. "Did he steal it?" she asks. Given that she'd fairly recently learned Lord Babi was a thief of relics as well, the same wouldn't have surprised her about the legendary merchant.

The priest laughs. "Oh, no. It was given to him, along with a child named Ivan. A sort of dowry, I'd imagine… Hammet vowed to use the money to raise Ivan well."

"Ivan," Sheba repeats, racking her brain. Where have I heard that name before?!

"His parents had special powers," the priest says. "They said Hammet would need him, and he would help fulfill a prophecy. Oh!" The man snaps his fingers. "And they gave Hammet a staff, too. That's the thing I never understood. What would a man like that need with a staff? I'm told he became a merchant and really made a name for himself out east."

Suddenly, it all clicks. Ivan was the Jupiter Adept in Isaac's party: that's where she'd heard his name. Did that mean, then, that they had been destined to take the Shaman's Rod from Ivan all along, and then trade it off in Shaman Village? She'd felt a little guilty that they'd had to use it in an attempt to gain her freedom, and that they had then traded it for something else without the consent of the original owner. But if that had been the intentions of some higher power, then maybe someone could be on their side after all.

She realizes a bit too late that the priest is looking at her funny. "Miss, are you all right? You look very pale."

Sheba shakes her head. "I'm sorry—I'm fine, I just... That's a little hard to believe." She smiles at him, trying to play it off, and he goes for it.

"I know what you mean. I wish I'd had the luck to be adopted by a rich merchant when I was a baby."

"Ha ha, yeah..." She clears her throat. "So tell me about these ruins."

His face lights up, like she hadn't just changed the subject in the most obvious way possible. "Are you interested?! I can tell you anything you want to know. Well... Mostly, anyway, we're still working on figuring out some things. You see those runes? We're working on translating them, but it's slow going."

"Some them are gates, some them are roads," Sheba murmurs, eyes flicking over the words carved into the doors.

"Sounds like you've already read the sign, then," the priest says, and Sheba blinks at him.

"What?"

He points, and she follows his eyes to a sign with the same text on it that she'd just read. Glancing back and forth between the door and the sign, it takes her a moment to realize she doesn't need the translation. Unlike before with the Shaman Village sign, where she'd sort of been able to see the lines as something that made sense, the words on the door come just as easily to her mind as they do when she reads the translated text on the sign.

"Er, um, yes. I...yeah, I read it earlier." She actually does feel a little sick, all of a sudden. "What language is that, originally?"

"Ancient Anemosian," the priest says, and her stomach lurches, pain spearing into her skull. Her vision blurs, and she barely feels it when her knees hit the dirt. Jenna's voice again, shouting...

No visions this time. Just flashes of light, murmurs of an ancient language in her ears—snippets of words she can just barely understand, but nothing that makes sense. A woman's voice, perhaps? My daughter, my daughter… She snaps out of it lying on one of their rented inn beds. Much like before, Felix is sitting by her side.

"What happened to you," he says as soon as she opens her eyes, voice sharp. She shakes her head, staring up at the ceiling.

"I don't know."

"Don't give me that, Sheba, this is just like what happened in Shaman Village."

She jerks upright, suddenly panicked. "What day is it?"

"You were only out for twenty minutes," he says, and she heaves a sigh of relief. She flops on to her back on the bed again, throwing her arm across her face to shield it from the late afternoon sun pouring in through the window.

"Sheba, tell me what happened," Felix repeats, grabbing her wrist as if to pull her arm away from her face.

"Felix," Jenna snaps, and Sheba jumps a little in surprise when she realizes that the whole gang's crowded into the room. She hadn't even noticed them. Felix's hand loosens its grip, but he doesn't let go.

"I'm telling you, I don't know," Sheba says. "I was talking with one of the priests... Oh!" She sits up again. "Ivan is from here."

"Who?" Felix's eyes are narrowed, watching her carefully as though she might collapse again at any moment.

"The Jupiter Adept who's traveling with Isaac. He was born here, and then he was adopted by the merchant Hammet, and they gave him the Shaman's Rod too because it was part of a prophecy."

"I heard about a prophecy too," Jenna says. "Apparently those wings they're building are supposed to be put on a massive ship that shows up when Jupiter Lighthouse is lit. Piers, did you happen to get a look at the geoglyph on the east side of town? It's life-size so they can build the wings to scale, and it looks a hell of a lot like your ship."

"They're not putting wings on my ship," Piers says, crossing his arms. "That's absurd. What would it do with those? Ships belong to the ocean, not the sky."

"We may not have a choice," Kraden comments. "What if they put the wings on while we're still at the lighthouse?"

"I'm staying with my ship, then," Piers says, and Felix shakes his head.

"Absolutely not, we're going to need all the help we can get up there. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in this prophecy, all right?"

"It would be nice if it was true, though," Sheba says. "It relies on us lighting Jupiter Lighthouse, which means you're doing the right thing, doesn't it Felix?"

The room goes quiet as Felix looks at her with something akin to surprise on his face. "Yeah, I... I guess it does. For once."

"For once?" Piers repeats. "Are you forgetting our meeting with King Hydros in Lemuria? He encouraged us to light the lighthouses as well."

"And we'll save our parents," Jenna says, touching Felix's shoulder.

He runs his hands down his face, and laughs a little. "This is the strangest feeling. I'm optimistic."

Sheba stands from the bed and, completely on impulse, kisses Felix on the cheek. "They had dice games in town, I'm gonna go play."

And without even bothering to wait and see his reaction, she skips out of the room. She makes it halfway down the hall before she hears Felix calling after her to please try and budget herself. Jenna catches up with her soon after, holding a small coin purse and shaking her head with barely-contained mirth.

"You should've seen his face. It took everything I had not to laugh."

"So the full-face blush runs in the family?" Sheba says, then has to swiftly dodge when Jenna moves to swat at her.

"Seriously, what was that about?" Jenna says.

Sheba shrugs. "I'm feeling optimistic too. Now let's burn some money."

"Ooh, I'm good at burning," Jenna says, and Sheba laughs. She spends the night doing passably well at dice games—well enough to do a little more than break even. Someone else might have been disappointed that they didn't make a bigger profit, but Sheba's time in Tolbi had taught her how difficult it was just to do that.

They return to the inn to find that Felix, Piers, and Kraden have already retired to their rooms for the night, so the two of them do the same. Miraculously, she falls asleep quickly, even though she'd expected to be up all night with nerves.