Oh. The conversation died, Allik staring out the front of the ship, then making a few adjustments to their heading. Outside, the landscape was dark save for a few pinpricks of towns, now far to their left. Though they’d initially skirted the Seran Range, Allik had moved the skimmer into the mountains about a half hour back. Now they flew over the tops of the peaks, having ascended higher than they’d been when flying over the Basin.

“Allik,” Marasi said, resting her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond. And so, hesitantly—fully aware that she was probably doing something taboo—she reached out and lifted his mask. He didn’t stop her, and the motion revealed eyes staring sightlessly, a tear trickling down each cheek.

“I’m never going to see them again,” he said softly. “Brunstell is crashed; I’ll never serve on him again. Hell, I’m never going to see home again, am I?”

“Of course you will,” Marasi said. “You can fly there.”

“Wilg won’t last on the stone I’ve got,” he said, wiping the tears from first one cheek, then the other.

“The stone?”

“Fuel,” Allik said, glancing at her. “What, you think Wilg flies on clouds and dreams?”

“I thought it flew on Allomancy.”

“Allomancy Pushes the impellers,” Allik said. “But ettmetal is what supports it.”

“I don’t think that one translated either,” Marasi said, frowning.

“Here, see,” Allik said, kneeling down and opening the compartment where he’d put the little cube that Waxillium called an Allomantic grenade. It was attached to a metal shell, which glowed softly at the center. Allik pointed, and to the side she could see a greater light blazing with a pure whiteness. A stone, burning like a limelight.

Or like Allomancy itself, Marasi realized. “What kind of metal is it, though?”

“Ettmetal,” Allik said, shrugging. “There’s a little bit in the primer cube too, to make it work. A lot more to make a ship like Wilg go, and a lot, lot more to get Brunstell into the air. You don’t have this metal?”

“I don’t think so,” Marasi said.

“Well, what we have in Wilg, it’ll be enough to fly us a day or two. After that, we’d need an Allomancer Pushing full-time. So unless His Greatness the Drowsy One back there wants to fly with me all the way back, I’m stuck, yah?”

“You said there was more on Brunstell.”

“Yah, but they have it.” He grinned. “At first, the evil ones didn’t know how to care for it. Got some wet. That was a good day.”

“Wet?”

“Ettmetal explodes if it gets wet.”

“What kind of metal explodes if you put it in water?”

“This kind,” he said. “Anyway, your evil men, they got most of ours.”