“What have I done?” she heard Mary wailing as storm clouds began to billow beyond the deadspot. Allie tried to advance on Mary, but the pain ended as abruptly as it had begun and everyone began to recover. Allie would not make the same mistake twice: Hurling herself at Mary now would result in the exact same situation she had been in a moment ago. She saw that Clarence was gone, and if she escaped, there would come another time, and another place, to battle Mary. Maybe next time luck would be on her side. And so Allie retreated, running along the edge of the deadspot, until she heard a sound peaking above the surge of the storm. It was the drone of engines. Something was approaching, still unseen behind the storm, and she knew it was headed her way.

High up in the catwalks and deep infrastructure of the Hindenburg, the crowded souls of Chitchén Itzá went about their perpetual party, for they had known nothing else for so very long. The mourning pang hit with such unexpected ferocity that they were broken out of the rhythm of revelry, and it took several minutes for them to get things going again. The warriors, crammed like sardines into the passenger promenades, used the pang to help fuel them for battle. “It is a strike against us by the Eastern Witch,” they told one another, “but we shall strike back with twice the force!”

Johnnie-O was at the helm—not because he could fly the thing, for he had never even been in the control room before, but having been trapped aboard for so long while the airship was adrift, it gave him “squatters rights” to pilot it now. Besides, his large hands appeared very confident on the wheel. King Yax had been with him for most of the trip, because the views from the control room were spectacular, but the king must have lost interest, because Johnnie-O hadn’t seen him for over a day. Instead, Nick, Mikey, and Jix were in the control room with Johnnie, getting their first glimpse of the Trinity vortex ahead, when the mourning pang struck.

“That was worse than before,” said Jix, understating the obvious, as he recovered.

“Do you suppose it was Mary who was extinguished?” Nick said, trying to mask his concern.

“No,” said Mikey with authority. “Remember, she’s my sister and we crossed into Everlost together. If she was extinguished, I’d feel it.”

None of them wanted to guess who might have been the victim of this extinguishing, for any speculation led them to answers they didn’t want to consider. Then, as if to give weight to their worries, a sudden rainstorm in the living world hid the view before them and penetrated the ship, pouring through their spirits with such severity it made them shiver. And yet, they could also hear the rain on the Ship’s skin.