“Bakrabru!” Railing gasped, and almost let out a whoop as he started to leap up. Farshaun Req had taught all of them the most complex and useful tricks for flying airships, back when they were just beginning their education. Without his encouragement and patience, they might not be flying now—and this included Mirai. But in the process of helping them, he had run afoul of Sarys, who had since forbidden the twins to have anything to do with him.

“Mother won’t let us go,” Redden said, grabbing his brother and pulling him back down. “Not in a million years.”

Mirai gave him a look of incredulity. “Since when do you tell your mother everything you plan to do?”

Redden stared at her. “What does that mean? Are we supposed to lie to her?”

She made a rude noise. “Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to know how to do it properly. So I took care of it for you. I told her we were going to make a delivery on behalf of my father to people he trades with regularly in Bakrabru. You could tell her the same thing. Say you’re taking some of those skill masts you spend so much time fashioning.” She shrugged. “Don’t mention Farshaun.”

“But she must have already guessed just from what you told her,” Redden pressed. “Even she isn’t that gullible.”

Mirai shrugged. “Well, I might have mentioned that Farshaun was away for several weeks in the Sarandanon so she wouldn’t have to worry about us seeing him.”

“And she agreed to let us go?”

Mirai winked. “What do you think?”

When Sarys returned a moment later, Mirai was finishing clearing away the dishes and her sons were grinning at each other like mad fools. She shook her head in despair. Love was a terrible thing.

A little more than two hours later, Redden and Railing were flying west over the Duln, the last glimpse of Patch Run behind them. Working the radian draws and light sheaths, they bounded here and there across the deck of the big airship while Mirai stood at the helm. Quickening was the Highland girl’s ship, given to her two years earlier when she entered into the family transport business, a measure of her parents’ confidence in her abilities. Quickening was named for a fairy creature said to have been the child of the King of the Silver River, a young woman who possessed great magic. If the legends could be believed, she was created to aid one of the Ohmsfords in becoming successor to the Druid Allanon and in recovering a talisman called the Black Elfstone. A member of Mirai’s own family, Morgan Leah, had gone with them on their quest and fallen in love with Quickening. He had lost her in the end, but their love story had been passed down from generation to generation and Mirai liked it enough to name her transport for the girl.