A flicker of a smile crept across Jean's face that he quickly squashed as they crossed through the door and out into the open sky above November. An orange sunset light color shaded the sky above, though there was no setting sun in the Twelve Kingdoms. Soon, night would be upon the land.

"What is this?" Sayed furrowed his brow in his seat next to Jean as he looked out the main viewports to his left. "This is like no island I have ever seen."

"The Core differs greatly from the Fringes," Jean said, tapping a few buttons on his screen to bring up an image of the Core in all its glory. "The Core is a massive sphere that rotates around a central star. It is divided into layers, and each layer rotates in the opposite direction at different speeds."

"I see." Sayed nodded, though his stance said that he didn't understand.

"There are no islands here in the sense of the nightsea." Jean continued his explanation, raising one bony finger. "The islands are individual sections of the Core, and they stretch along the far side of the sphere."

"It's a Dyson Sphere," Alex said, pulling back from the controls. "The rotation creates an artificial gravity along the surface of the sphere and allows you to build on it. The size is what's surprising."

Jean raised one eyebrow as Alex introduced him to yet another idea he had never heard of before. Jean had no idea what Alex's home world was like, but if such a structure was also there, they must have had creatures on par with the Scions' power to create it.

"Oh," Wen said. "I think I've heard of that. Like the Death Star?"

"Close enough." Alex rolled his eyes before diving back into the controls.

Now a 'Death Star.' Jean shook his head.

Cough.

"Well." Jean cleared his throat. The 'islands' in the Twelve Kingdoms are much larger than the ones we are used to. They are made by combining multiple islands from the Fringes and drawing them into the Core. The largest city is usually the most central, and smaller towns and villages are formed from the less populated islands."

"I see," Sayed said again, rubbing at his oily black beard.

"Of course." A smile tried to creep across Jean's face before he remembered why he didn't smile. "From this point on, there will be checkpoints and guardhouses for us to pass through, and it might take days to travel across one of the Twelve Kingdoms. The Nighthawk is fast when it wants to be, but we can't simply rush to the end."

"Are there no secret paths, or hidden ways, brother?" Sayed turned in his chair. "This would be a great time to make the story shorter and the journey less. Perhaps a set of secret words that could gain us entry to a shortcut."

"No shortcuts," Wen said. "Not that I know of, anyway. The Military Police has the entire Core on lockdown. Travel's hard unless you're transporting goods."

"That is an option as a cover story," Jean said. "We could open a fake transport business and offer our services under a different name."

"That does not sound like a heroic path." Sayed frowned.

"Without guile," Alex grumbled, and a deeper pit than what Jean had been carrying inside of himself opened up. "Sorry."

Artur was still a loss to all of them. He had been a crewmate for such a short time, but had died on Grim Aegis. The funeral was still fresh on everyone's minds, and his rhymes completed themselves. A hero would smile.

Silence passed between them as Alex piloted the ship down toward the curving land below. The lower they went, the harder it was to see the rest of November in the distance. It was an odd effect of the curvature of the area. Jean understood it had something to do with how light was refracted and controlled by the island's systems. It wasn't his current area of study, though. A darker path was the focus of his current studies. Death and curses, and the nature of them were what he needed to answer.

Eliza demanded it of him when he was ready to face her again.

The ship sped at an angle to the land, and Jean got a good look at the length of the entire island before they dropped out of sight. A massive ocean opened up on half of the long slice of land, and in the distance, he caught sight of faraway land, massive and tall mountains. The side they were approaching was built around a large central city, visible even from their great height, with a massive clock tower and tall castle. Around it, connected by dirt and rocky roads, were smaller towns and villages. Most were dedicated to crops, with golden fields of wheat open around central villages. Some had massive structures that allowed slipships to dock on them near their center. Others were completely barren, too small for that.

"Did we pick a spot we want to land?" Alex asked.

"Binvieti," Jean said as he input the coordinates for Alex to see. "It's the furthest from the capital and closest to us. We should be able to make a plan there."

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The ship turned as Alex started their descent. They weren't the only ones headed for the small town, though. While most of the ships peeled off toward the main city, one wooden ship followed them down toward Binvieti.

"Should we be worried?" Erin asked as she pulled up the ship on her screen. "They're not after us, right?"

"They're not Military Police," Wen said, squinting at her own screen. "We shouldn't have a price on our heads over by those Fingers anymore either. We didn't leave them able to pay out, and word travels fast."

She was referring to the people they fought on Grim Aegis. Underground Lords, Hands and Fingers, were all ranks in some shadowy organization that they knew little about. It was the reason they had faced assault by brigands and pirates in the past, ever since they had picked up Artur.

However, that was all now over. Artur was dead, and they had moved on. It was just as likely that the ship was completely unrelated to them.

"They are not fighting us, so we should not worry." Sayed crossed his arms. "We are strong. If they attack, we will take them down!"

Jean shrugged his shoulders at Erin and Wen, but he knew that Sayed was right. They had shown time and time again that they could stand up to strong opponents. Their path into the Core had been far from a peaceful one. Each one of them was strong in their own right. All of them had access to the second level of their curse, even Wen, who they had trained on the trip to Grim Aegis.

"Just play it by ear," Alex said, not exiting his controls. "Let's get the Nighthawk parked and figure out where we're going from there."

The ship that had been following them pulled ahead as they approached the docs, taking a lower rung on the massive structure and anchoring to one of the many long bars that stretched out into the sky. Docks were tall and long, usually utilizing three towers for balance to run long lines of wood or metal between them. Out of that central structure, long planks of metal or wood stuck out into the air for ships to attach to. It didn't need to support the weight of the ships—lodestones did that. All the docks needed to do was provide enough structure to load and unload supplies and allow crews to disembark and embark.

Jean preferred the steel ones, though. They seemed more sound. Sayed had nearly burned down a wooden one with his curse when they had chased soldiers who had been spying on the ship. He still remembered the burn marks.

"See, nothing to worry about," Alex said as he chose one of the higher points to dock the ship.

Thump.

The ship shook as it rested against the padded side bars down the dock. They would need to get out and tie the ship off before they shut everything down. Only the lodestones would remain active once they were in docks.

"You're going to make us walk that far?" Erin sighed. "We could dock closer to the bottom."

"I like to see the ship from a distance." Alex shrugged as he pulled away from the controls and exited the chair to the side. "Mari, hold the ship while we tie it down, and then we'll head into town."

"You're bringing everyone?" Wen asked, as Sayed and Jean stood from their own chairs and started toward the exit.

"Every time we leave someone on the ship, we end up with trouble," Alex said as he followed them. "Let's let the locks do their job. We all need time away from the ship."

"Hah." Wen snorted out a laugh. "We end up in trouble when we're off the ship too."

"Is that not the truth of it?" Jean held back the smile that tried to crawl across his face again.

He just couldn't help himself. Even in his deepest darkness, he couldn't help making some joke. He wasn't the same as Sayed, who was jovial all the time, but even in his darkest moments, he saw the humor in things. It felt good to smile, and holding back on it hurt him far too much.

Yet, being happy made the fall when he was sad all the greater. His fingers ached to hold Eliza's hand again, even if he was uncertain. He just needed a little longer. Jean would discover the truth, one way or the other, and then he would face Eliza again. He would know if she was real, or some figment of his mind reanimated by his curse.

He did not know how he would react if she wasn't real, but he held out the hope that fate would be kind to him in that regard.

"Come on." Alex caught up with them both, slapping them on the back and walking out with them. "These things go better when we work together. We'll be back to pick up you guys and Mari in a few minutes."

If nothing else, Alex understood how to keep them all together and busy. There was a reason he was a captain to the crew. He was decent at managing people and respected their autonomy when it was needed. While he made mistakes on occasion, he did not deny them or try to cover them up. He was willing to put in with them when work was needed.

They went together up the stairs and out the back of the ship onto the flat deck, gathering the ropes from beside the door and carrying them out into the fading daylight. They didn't have long before nightfall. Their introduction to Binvieti would be the night life more than the day.

It didn't take them long to strap the long ship to the docks. The ropes would hold the Nighthawk in place against the winds that blew across the area. Once the ship was secured, Alex went off inside to gather the others while Sayed and Jean looked down on the town over the docks.

The sky was a full burning orange, and in the distance, on a sharp hilltop above the town, Jean spotted a sprawling stone castle. He could not see much of it, even from their height, but the shadow it cast over the town below unsettled him.

It would be the abode of the local noble, and they would be better off if the noble never knew they were in the town. He hugged his blue robes tight around his body, hiding his skeletal form. Doubt and desire warred within him.

"Do not worry, brother." Sayed patted him on the shoulder. "Do not forget that we are strong!"

Jean let a smile cross his face this time. Sayed was right about that, though he often forgot. They were strong. A minor noble wouldn't be a problem for the whole crew, if it came to a fight. The only problem was running from the consequences after the fight.

He just had to hope that battle wasn't their fate. Now more than ever, he needed to get to Magnus Hortus. Keita was heading to the Dark Meridian, the same as they were. Whatever answers he found about Eliza, that did not change that he owed Keita retribution for what happened on Grim Aegis.

Vengeance and understanding, those were why he carried himself forward.

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