They sailed eastward, into the endless expanse of blue. With the sky wide above them and the open sea before them, it was hard for Piers to feel anything but optimism. The mapmaking had come along well thus far; Kraden proved a deft hand with a cross-staff, and Piers was grateful for his assistance.

The girls, meanwhile, competed with each other to see who could catch the most fish. As the sea grew deeper and the water cooler, their efforts finally bore some fruit. That is, until Sheba's competitiveness got the better of her.

"No fair!" said Jenna, dropping her line in disgust. "Mind-controlling the fish counts as cheating!"

"It's not cheating! It's called being clev—" Sheba froze, abruptly.

"Sheba?"

"There's something—" Eyes locked on the surface of the water, she reached down to pick up her staff from where she'd set it aside on the deck, and backed slowly away from the rail, weapon held defensively in front of her. She crouched, low, and Piers unsheathed his sword, ready to face whatever it was she'd sensed. Felix, next to him, had done the same.

They all stopped like that, braced and ready, as the decking creaked beneath them and the waves crashed against the hull, and Piers was just about to drop his weapon when with a thunderous splash three monsters heaved themselves up out of the water and onto the deck.

They might have been squid, once - they certainly had the tentacles for it - but squid shot ink, not acid, and squid couldn't breathe air. Dodging the tentacles was tricky work, and Sheba was best-suited to it, being lighter-footed than the others, but in the end the monsters were sent off to a watery grave. Piers conjured a jet of water from his hand to clean the remains off the deck and returned to the wheel, breathing a sigh of relief. "Well, that was certainly exciting."

"They'd better not have scared the fish away," said Jenna, taking up the line again. "I was ahead, if we don't count cheating." She stuck her tongue out at Sheba, who did the same in response, and shinnied up to the crow's nest, her brilliant fish-collecting strategy thwarted.

Felix resumed his customary post behind Piers, unsmiling and taciturn as usual. Piers's repeated attempts to engage him in conversation had borne little fruit. He always took the tiller when needed, but he seemed distracted, staring out at the horizon as though he were looking for something more than a new piece of terrain.

Perhaps he was impatient. For his sake, Piers hoped they'd come across something soon. Finally, after several more hours of nothing but open water, he got his wish.

Sheba spotted it first, from her perch up above. "Land, ho!" she shouted, and at everyone's confused looks she rolled her eyes, and pointed. "Look, there! An island!"

It took a moment for Piers to pick it out. A lump of brown rock patched with scrubby green grass - barely big enough to be called anything, at first, but soon he saw the thatched roof of a house peeping up from the highest point. At a nod from Felix, he steered them towards it. As the ship drew closer, a figure appeared on shore, waving at them.

They dropped anchor in the shallows and made their way to the beach, where a very tall, very handsome, very sunburnt young man waited to meet them. "Visitors!" he said, and held out a hand. Piers shook it, noting rough calluses and a grip like stone. "Welcome! My name is Bakti. I must warn you that if you seek to trade, we have nothing here of value. Unless you like rocks. In which case, you'll be delighted to learn that we have plenty. No? Well, that's all right. But I forget myself. You are…?"

"Piers," he replied, grinning, and gestured to the motley crew around him. "And this is Felix, Jenna, Sheba, and Kraden."

"Tell me, Piers," said Bakti, pleasantly, "Why do you sail this desolate corner of the ocean?" A corner of his mouth tilted, a little wryly, like someone expecting to hear a secret or share a secret in return.

"We're making a map."

Bakti's face lit up, a grin coming to his freckled face. "A map! Ah, you'll want to speak to Father, and Grandfather! Come, let me introduce you!"

He led them up the hill to the stout little house, and as they walked Piers noticed stacks of cut lumber in the clearing beside the path. From the other side, a cow stared at him through the slats in a low wooden fence, chewing placidly.

The house itself was cozy and well lived-in, with an open hearth taking up most of the middle. An old man - he must have been the aforementioned grandfather - sat next to an old woman, drinking tea. Meanwhile a younger woman - Bakti's mother? - stirred a pot of something over the fire. As soon as the visitors appeared over the threshold she began to pour out enough tea for everyone, pausing only to raise an eyebrow at the sudden intrusion, while Bakti ran to fetch his father, who appeared from the direction of the cow pasture, and accepted a tea mug of his own.

"Greetings, greetings. And what, may I ask, brings you to our humble abode?"

"We're mapmakers," said Piers. "Charting the Eastern Sea."

Grandfather leaned forward, interest piqued. "Mapmakers, eh? Are you a student of Yepp's?"

"Who?"

He thumped his cane against the floor. "Yepp! Surely you've heard of him? The master navigator?" When they only stared at him he shook his head and muttered something about the state of the children these days. Kraden made a sympathetic noise.

Father took an enthusiastic gulp of tea and saluted his wife with the tea mug, approvingly. She rolled her eyes, but couldn't hide the smile. "Yepp's brilliant, you know."

"He taught Dad everything he knows, and Dad taught me everything I know. Someday I'll be a great navigator too." At a pointed glance from his grandfather, Bakti rubbed the back of his neck, sheepishly. "Once I've finished the new boat, that is."

Grandmother rolled her eyes heavenwards, and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Ours truly is a cursed lineage."

Cursed or no, it didn't much seem to bother Father, who elaborated, "There's no current too wild or channel too deep for Yepp to handle. He even sailed the Sea of Time!"

The Sea of Time. It took everything Piers had not to drop his tea mug. His eyes went wide. "Did he?"

"You'd best believe it! Right through the fog, easy as anything. Used to go pearl diving off the rocks, he said. I've tried for years to make the journey and I just can't seem to do what he did. That man has a gift, I'll tell you what."

"That man also doesn't have a wife, or a son, or a homestead to manage," said Mother, giving his arm a playful smack. At his pout, she refilled the tea mug.

From the Adepts (and the Adept-adjacent) he excitement was palpable. Jenna fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, and Kraden leaned forward on his walking stick, eyebrows raised. Piers was pretty sure that behind him, Sheba hadn't spontaneously exploded into a shower of sparks, and yet…

Even Felix had perked up. "Where would we find this Yepp?"

"Yallam Village, of course."

"And that is….?" asked Kraden.

"Southeast of here, at the eastern edge of Osenia. I'd be happy to make you a map, but, well, my drawing hand is feeling a little light these days…" Bakti's father sighed, expectantly.

Without a word, Felix reached out, and dropped several coins into his palm.

"Ah, much better! That gives me the strength to go on. Now, as I was saying…"


A few minutes later, they had a small square of parchment on which was drawn a simple map - crude, maybe, but it told them more than what they had before, with a trailing ridge of coastline, and a couple settlements marked out. It seemed to have caught Sheba's interest, especially, and she watched intently as the map was folded and tucked away into Piers's pack for safekeeping. She stuck close to him as they bid their farewells and made their way back to the ship, and followed him belowdecks when they got underway.

Piers took out pen and ink, ready to add their new find to the master map he'd been drawing, and Sheba flopped down into the chair across from him. He paused before setting pen to parchment, bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught of questions.

Which never came.

"Sheba?" he asked, disconcerted. She looked up from the map in answer, but said nothing.

"Do you need something?"

She shook her head, and looked back down at the parchment, waiting.

"All right."

He began to draw, lightly, filling in the coast and working from there - none too easy, with her staring at him the whole time. And still not so much as a peep. When he'd finished the copy, he set the pen down and stoppered the bottle of ink. He reached for the little map, ready to fold it again and store it somewhere on the shelves amongst all the other detritus they'd accumulated, but Sheba's hand shot out, fast as a cat's paw, and pinned it to the table. She tugged at it.

"You want to keep that one?"

She nodded, eyes wide.

What had gotten into her? Well, they had the copy…"Go on, then."

Grinning, she snatched it up and skipped away without a word.


Yepp, whoever he was, had rapidly become almost everyone's new favorite person. Possibly even Felix's, if this lead proved true. As soon as the mapping was taken care of, and Piers returned abovedeck, Kraden spent the afternoon bending his ear about the Sea of Time, Lemuria, and alchemical theories. Jenna fished from the rail, listening to their conversation, and occasionally nodding along.

Only Sheba remained uninvolved. She'd retreated to the crow's nest without a word, and stayed there the rest of the day, without a word to anyone. Jenna had tried to lure her into another fishing contest—"I guess you can use Psyngergy, if you give me a head start!"—and had only been met with a silent headshake. She stood at attention on her perch, scanning the horizon, and Felix decided it was best to leave her to it.

After dinner that night, they cleared off the table and spread out the big map, and he and the others gathered around it, planning the next leg of their journey. Above them, a lamp hung from the ceiling beams, bobbing gently with the waves and bathing them all in its golden glow.

Felix sat sandwiched between Piers, who had an arm across the leftmost edge of the map to keep it from curling, and Jenna, who was busy tracing different routes across the continents with her fingers. He tried not to notice how several of them involved returning to Vale. Across the table, Kraden pushed his spectacles up from where they'd slid halfway down his nose, and Sheba glowered silently at the parchment as though she had a score to settle.

Felix found himself focused on her instead of the map, wondering what had happened. She'd been acting weird ever since they'd left the island, and he was never good at this sort of thing at the best of times. Passingly, he remembered that he'd heard of something called "female troubles" somewhere. Was this how that worked? Should he ask Jenna to check it out–?

"Do you really think Yepp will be able to help us?" Jenna asked.

Kraden nodded. "He never made it to Lemuria itself, but if he knows how to get at least partway through the Sea of Time…"

"If we can just get in, I'm sure I can make it the rest of the way," Piers said, and pointed. "The reefs are too dangerous around this coast, so if we're headed to Yallam Village, it looks like we'll need to make landfall here, and then—"

"No," said Sheba, the first she'd spoken in hours. Everyone jumped.

"Pardon?"

"No." She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the map, jaw set, and reached forward to plant one grubby finger on a smudge near the center of the continent. "That rock. We're going there first."

"Why?"

"The wind wants us to."

This earned her a round of stares, and with a sigh she put her hands up to rub her temples, looking simultaneously decades older and years younger than she really was. "It's like - it's like I can hear it. Ever since I saw the map. It's telling me to go there. We have to listen."

"Sheba…" Jenna began.

"No, listen," she said. "This is important. I swear. It's been making my head hurt all day. We can go anywhere we like afterwards but first we need to go there."

They all turned to Felix, who looked down at her, brow furrowed.

"Please."

He looked to Kraden, who raised an eyebrow at him, equally bewildered. Felix considered the map again, and the spot where Sheba had pointed. It would add length to their journey, but there were villages nearby. It would give them a chance to pick up more supplies, so they didn't have to keep dipping into the preserved stuff, or turn Jenna into a full-time fisherwoman. And while Sheba could be flighty, sometimes, this seemed like more than a child's daydream. The imaginary pirate hadn't given her headaches, after all.

He looked up at her, deliberating, and she stared back at him, chin up, narrow shoulders square. The wind wants us to, she'd said. Could the wind want things?

He supposed they had no choice but to find out. Female troubles, indeed. His face reddened, and he hoped no one saw. "Very well."


It turned out that 'that rock' was called 'Air's Rock', although it was more rock than air. Felix gulped water out of his canteen and tried to will some strength back into his arms. They'd spent the better part of the day climbing up and through it and still hadn't reached the top. Next to him, Piers used the edge of his headwrap to mop the sweat off his face. Jenna and Kraden had both sought shelter from the relentless sun underneath a rocky overhang, with Kraden fruitlessly flapping one of his sashes at Jenna in an attempt to cool her off.

Only Sheba remained undaunted. The climb had, if anything, given her even more energy. While the others rested, she skipped back and forth across the ledge they'd camped on, occasionally sticking out a hand to feel the patterns of the breeze.

After what appeared to be a particularly satisfactory gust, she stopped her skipping, and blinked owlishly at Piers. "It won't be long now," she assured him. "It says we're nearly there." With that, she flitted away, arms outstretched.

Piers stared after her, nonplussed. "Do Jupiter Adepts…hear things…often?"

"I don't know," said Felix. When Piers raised an eyebrow at him, he went on, "We don't know any other Jupiter Adepts. Maybe this is what they do."

She'd climbed the overhang above where Kraden and Jenna rested, now, and was waving at them encouragingly. Piers's eyes narrowed. "Where's she really from?"

"Saturos and Menardi kidnapped her from a town called Lalivero. She lived there with her adopted father Faran and his wife." He took another long drink of water, and shrugged. "They took her in after she fell out of the sky."


Sheba was right. It wasn't much longer until they found themselves in a hidden chamber at the very heart of the rock. After the baking heat of the climb, the rock's interior was blessedly cool. In the center, a massive column of purple stone loomed up out of the void, surrounded by equally massive stone platforms that hovered in midair, unsupported by anything that Felix could see. A plinth at the center of the column held a polished stone tablet, gleaming in a ring of light that Felix couldn't see the source of. Runes carved into the tablet's surface cast dramatic shadows across the granite. If this is what the wind had wanted, he was forced to admit that it seemed like the wind knew what it was doing.

The group stood at the edge, eyeing the first platform. Was it safe? There was nothing under it, but it was staying up, somehow—

"Oh, come on, then!" said Sheba, and before he could react, she jumped. She turned around to face them. "It's all right, it's solid! Look!" She hopped up and down a few times for emphasis.

Well.

He wasn't about to let her jump all the way over to the center of the chamber by herself, so there was only one choice…he gritted his teeth, and jumped, relieved to feel solid stone underneath when he landed. It felt like any other path, on the ground, in the mountains, perfectly placidly solid. He breathed a sigh of relief, and hoped it wasn't noticeable.

The others followed suit, and made their way across, until finally they stood below the gleaming plinth at the chamber's heart.

What now?

As if in answer an enormous gust billowed up, and Felix turned to see if he could see where it had come from, only to see the platforms they'd just jumped across—their way out—vanish into thin air, as neatly as if they'd never been there in the first place.

That wasn't ominous in the slightest.

"It's all right," Sheba said, calmly—too calmly—though as she spoke she wasn't looking at any of them, but staring straight ahead, at the pillar and the stone tablet. The light gleaming from it cast more shadows across her face, and he could have sworn he saw more than just a reflection of it in her eyes.

The hair at the back of his neck stood on end.

She tilted her head, just slightly, as she looked at the runes carved into the granite surface. "It's weird," she said. "I don't know this alphabet, but I can see…"

She held up a hand, fingers hovering just above it, and read, slowly, from the inscription. "Wielder of Wind's might, lay your hands upon this stone. We bestow upon thee the power to see the truth unclouded."

"Truth unclouded?" Jenna's brow furrowed. "Like telling when someone's lying?"

She shook her head. "But I can already do that."

Felix didn't miss the startled look on Piers's face.

Sheba pulled her hand back, suddenly hesitant. "Do you think I ought to touch it?"

Definitely not. He looked over at Kraden, who shrugged. "It brought us here. We ought to hear it out, at least."

Well. That settled it, then. His heart pounding, and his face schooled into an expression that he sincerely hoped was not a grimace, Felix gave her an encouraging nod, and stepped aside—though he couldn't stop himself from putting his hand to the hilt of his sword, for all the good it would do.

Sheba stared solemnly at the stone tablet, all traces of a smile gone from her face, and put both of her hands out. A scattering of purple sparks danced up to meet her palms. "Yes," she breathed, and closed her eyes.

A brilliant purple flash blinded them all, and when Felix's sight had recovered he saw her hovering a good ten feet above the ground, the tablet above her head, both of them caught up in a whirlwind. Purple lightning sparked and tumbled all around her as her hair danced around her face in a gleaming halo. She opened her eyes, which glowed electric violet.

Notgoodnotgoodnotgood.

Felix tried to draw his sword, to do what, he didn't know, and an enormous roaring gust buffeted him back, trapping him in place. He tried to step forward, and found himself immobilized by a wall of wind that felt nearly as solid as the rock he stood on. He could do nothing, only watch, as the stone tablet vanished in a purple shimmer and the whirlwind around her gradually stilled, lowering her gently to the ground.

They all stared, speechless.

Sheba blinked, once, twice. Her eyes had gone back to their usual green. At last, she spoke. "Wow."

"What happened?" asked Jenna, a little shakily.

"It talked to me." She wrinkled her nose, and tilted her head to the side. "It needed me to see…" She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, she was staring at an empty patch of air just ahead of them.

"Yes!" she said. "That's it! If I focus my power—I can see it! There's another platform here!"

For Felix, it looked like hundreds of feet of open air, and a painful death at the bottom. To his profound horror, she stepped forward before he could say anything—and she didn't fall.

"You just have to know how to look! See?" She held out her hand, and when he took it, she pulled him along after her. He still couldn't see it, but the platform felt solid enough beneath his feet. "Come on, let's go!"

So on they went. It was disconcerting, to step out into the air—but Sheba's newfound ability didn't steer them wrong. By the time they'd made their way back to the base of the rock, she was grinning from ear to ear, exhilarated. "I can see things that are invisible! We're gonna be unstoppable now!"