Pain exploded through his head. The world blacked out and the flickered back to life, like a candle flame near snuffed by the breeze. He clamped his hand to his mangled face. The boat fell away from him, or he from it. Bleeding, he tumbled through empty sky.

In the form of a galvatross, Bitterlich flew toward Fishers Point. The wind lifted him and carried him along almost without effort.

One Skaladin sloop and the brig had left the skyland’s vortex on a path to intercept the Thunderclap. They couldn’t possibly be planning on engaging the frigate, could they?

A dull thump like distant gunfire caught his attention. Neither the sloop nor the brig had fired. Over the headlands he could make out the topmasts of the sloop in the cove and see the haze of cannon smoke where the raiders bombarded the garrison, but the report he’d just heard was bigger, or at least nearer.

He swiveled his head around, and his heart nearly stopped. A few kilometers behind him, the Thunderclap wallowed and began to sink like a deflating balloon. Her spars twisted and her sails luffed as the wind wrenched her in its grip. Smoke or steam billowed from her hatches.

“Isabelle!”

Bitterlich wheeled on a wingtip and soared toward the ship, but this form was not fast enough. He reached within himself, pulled on the form of a falcon, and threw himself into a long dive. The wind whistled through his nares, and he scanned the deck for Isabelle. Where was she?

Down and down the Thunderclap spiraled like a wounded leviathan seeking the depths. The haze of the Miasma enveloped it. All through the rigging, men crawled like spiders in a storm, fighting to furl the sails or cut them loose. A rope snapped and a man slipped, shrieking as he plunged.

With a twitch of his feathered tail and a tuck of his wing, Bitterlich arrowed toward the man. He reached into the thickly woven tapestry of his Seelengewölbe, looking for strength and sinew, light but strong, weaving a half dozen threads into a new and greater chimerical form. His body lengthened, and his wings stretched out in great panels of leather and feather. His talons softened into leathery fingers. He snatched the aeronaut by his arms and spread his wings to their widest as they passed beneath the lowest turvy masts.

The murk of the Miasma engulfed Bitterlich, a thick green fog that smelled of new growth and old rot. He wished that he had hunted and skinned some muck breather for his repertoire. Instead, it was like breathing cold, wet smoke that made him want to cough and gag at the same time. He twitched his bat ears into place and chirped into the haze.