She spoke with a pleasant sort of graciousness that made Bitterblue laugh suddenly, and want to trust her about the tea. What should I do? she thought. Giddon? And with that, the answer came to her easily, for if there was a tea that might comfort Bitterblue through some of the natural and unnatural terrors of her life, of course Giddon would want her to try it.

“I’ll have the tea,” she said.

“Good,” said Vera.

Thus, Bitterblue floated peacefully across the nighttime sky, letting an ocean of stars sink into the backs of her eyes. It was a new moon. She found it, its orb in shadow, and wished she could point it out to Giddon. Remembering her dizzy nights on the ship watching the sky with Giddon, she examined her present feelings. I’m stronger than the way anything makes me feel, she told Giddon. I miss you. I miss you. Stay alive, so I can tell you how much I miss you.

Then one logical, important, terrifying thought tore her mind away from Giddon. Lovisa. The girl stood across from Bitterblue at the edge of the little car, leaning out and looking down. Bitterblue didn’t like the tension in Lovisa’s shoulders, or how far she was leaning.

Standing was too scary, so Bitterblue scooted across on the floor. “Lovisa?” she said, literally sitting at Lovisa’s feet.

“What?” the girl said, in a voice like Bitterblue had woken her from a deep sleep.

“Would you come sit down here with me?” she said. “I’m scared.”

“I don’t believe you’re scared,” said Lovisa. “You drank rauha.”

Bitterblue wondered if maybe rauha made you un-scared of being blown away or crashing or other imaginary terrors, but left you free to see the real, truly scary things that stood in front of your eyes. “Please?” she said. “I was also hoping you’d explain about . . .” She grasped for a topic. “The history of proprietary technology in Winterkeep.”

Lovisa let out one long, irritated sigh. Then she slumped down beside Bitterblue like a rag doll, a girl stuffed with disappointments. For a while she said nothing. Eventually she began a monologue, expressed in a very bored voice, about Winterkeep’s proprietary attitudes toward airship and other technologies. She had a lot of opinions. Mostly her opinions were that all politicians in Winterkeep, and probably everywhere else too, were contemptible deceivers, motivated by money.

It was fascinating to hear someone so young speak so knowledgeably, and so cynically, about Winterkeep’s political parties. Eventually, Bitterblue forgot that she’d asked the question in order to keep Lovisa from jumping out.

—

In early morning, the airship landed in a field that looked like a piece of night sky as they descended, so thick was it with scattered lamps. Bitterblue didn’t understand the landing process. It seemed to involve people in the airship shooting small hooks at nets positioned on the ground.