The air was wet, as it had been since history first remembered.

For as long as the Empire of Olencia had been keeping records, it had rained on the city of Duolun. Above the city, rock stretched up and overhead, a mountain looming above the city like a cresting wave.

Duolun sat in the bowl of a crater, nestled inside like an egg in a nest. So the edges of the crater rose like a range of mountains. Above those mountains, due to Olenica's peculiar shape, a glacier sat, with a river that flowed up to the mountain's peak, and spilled over the edge. So far up, even the deluge that fell from the mouth of that high up river couldn't hold its shape, and landed as a misty rain.

Octavia Olen walked with am umbrella over her head, white as the snows that fed Duolun's endless rain. Held low, so that part of her face was covered, she had managed to walk for nearly a mile without being recognized, a feat she was sure some of her older siblings wouldn't have managed. After all, there is the Emperor's inner family, the peripherals, and the uncounted. And when were a hundred and eight beating hearts from the throne, you counted for little.

Nevertheless, the rains afforded an excuse to maintain a little more anonymity, and keep herself away from court. Away from the perfumed halls of the Olen, the rose gardens of the Empress, and the hundred-thousand different colognes the genties and officials felt obliged to wear, she could smell the rain. It smelled of soil, herbs, leather oils, smoke, all distinct and wonderful things that she would never find among the sterile dignitaries of her father's immense halls.

She smiled, tempted to fold the umbrella up and let her head get wet. The towers here in the Olentz, Duolon's greatest academy, were perhaps her favourite sight in the city. High stone towers and walls, covered in creeping green vines and white blossoms. The hard stone always twinkling in the light, glistening from the dew that always covered the buildings.

It was her great sanctuary. The Olentz had given her, if not quite freedom, the opportunity to have a real say in her fate. And she was going to see the woman she had to thank for that.

Her aunt. Not by birth, but by choice.

She approached the door to Grafford College, where a uniformed soldier gave her only a cursory glance before opening the door. Not that the soldier knew her, but the guard understood body language and expressions, and could readily separate those who felt they belonged from those who don't.

The outermost layer of security, in what might be the best guarded place in the sky.

She folded her umbrella and stepped inside, turning to the right and starting down the hall. She didn't look around, didn't gawk. She had been here before.

Inside, she passed dozens of older men and women, doughy academics fixated on whatever thoughts or research had occupied their interest. Pale, slow, plodding, but exceptionally clever, they were precisely the sort of people one thought of as teachers and scientists in a college.

But when Octavia stepped down to the next floor, the first basement, there was a subtle change. The waistlines shrank, the chests broadened, and the same academics carried canes and pistols on themselves. Every one that passed stopped to examine Octavia as she passed, each of them appraising her, most of them recognizing her, none of them overlooking her.

At the next stairwell, because the stairwells in the basement were not connected, another guard waited. This one looked her in the eyes before he stepped out of her path, and gave a polite nod and a tilt of his hat. "Here for the Olentz?" he asked.

"I am. Is auntie at her office?" Octavia asked.

"She is. I imagine she'll know more than you do about your last few weeks by the time you get there," the guard said.

"That sounds like her," Octavia agreed, and passed the guard to walk down the stairs.

To her left, and down a hall, into a door so unremarkable it might as well have lead to a storage closet. It was a strangely banal place to house the Olentz of the Conceptual, Olencia's spymaster.

Octavia pushed open the door, to find the room filled to the brim with lamplight. Nearly a dozen oil lanterns hung along the walls, above shelves packed not with books, but shorter reports and bundles of paper neatly packed away in boxes. Asides from the short maze of shelves, there was only a single desk in the corner of the room, where a reedy middle-aged woman was sitting back, reading something.

Looking up and seeing Octavia, the woman dropped her papers on the desk and threw herself to her feet. "Octavia, my dear. It is good to see you," she said, walking around her desk with her arms open.

"Auntie," Octavia said, hugging the woman and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Would you like some tea? There's a pot halfway done on the table. And I still keep those hard lemon candies you used to love as a child," the woman said, gesturing for Octavia to sit down before she returned to the other side of the desk.

The woman was a genuine, doting aunt. It was a side of Carla Reddel, Olentz of the Conceptual, that Octavia worried she was the only one to ever see.

"The tea sounds lovely," Octavia said, and opened a drawer to take out a cup.

"So, I heard you had a bit of fun during this last tour of duty," Carla Reddel said, as she picked up the papers again. "I've read the reports from the marine lieutenant. Your Captain Oal hasn't been as quick to write up a proper summary of events as I'd like. Only that you encountered a private actor hired by Volante's navy, managed to snatch the ship right out of their grasp, fended off some pirates, and chased that hired scoundrel all the way to the Roost. On the surface, it's a lovely story to tell at court. Your captain Oal should be getting a commendation, and you might even get the same treatment."

Carla leaned forward, set the stack of papers she was reading down on her desk, and tapped on it with her finger. "But the marine lieutenant lacks the brains needed to see past the simple strokes of events. And your Captain Oal, well, he makes a decent captain. Might even make a good one down the road. But he's the wrong sort of head for higher command."

"I'd hate to demean a man for being good at the job he's been given," Octavia said.

"A good attitude. Captain Oal has a good head, a good sense of how battles are fought, and a spine made of iron. He's a good fit for you to learn what the skies are all about," Carla said, and she poured both herself and Octavia a cup of tea. "But since I can get a more thorough report from someone who has the imagination to see past the obvious, tell me what happened out there."

And so Olivia did. In broad strokes, all the way from when they first heard cannon fire near Drummond's Spite, to their days at Whiskeyjack's Roost. Her aunt didn't interrupt, from start to finish, and didn't break the silence right away after Octavia stopped.

"Well," Carla said as she sipped he tea. "You were played."

"I figured," Octavia agreed. "That damn story about gifting the Wayfarers spyglass lenses was so out of character for the Volante Navy it was damn near laughable."

"So why did you buy it?"

"I'll admit, at the time, it helped that they ship relieving the Matilda of its cargo was a Wayfarer vessel," Octavia said in her own defence.

"What was it called?"

"The Ravens' Child," Octavia said.

"Never heard of it," Carla admitted, and the older woman looked genuinely surprised. "In fact, I rather thought the raven was a cursed totem for them."

"They were treated as a clan by Whiskeyjack's Storykeeper," Olivia said with a shrug.

"Ironically, they might have gained more by making goodwill with the Roost, than they would have if their mission had succeeded," Carla said.

"You know what their mission was?"

"It's fairly obvious, now that you've given me all the pieces. Volante found an island they're using to spy on us, on our side of the Shardwall. It's the only reason they'd hire a merchant ship to fly a military asset t. Judging from the heading you found the Matilda at, I suspect it's course is sun locked."

"Sun locked?"

"It's course is matched by the sun, so we can't see the island unless we're well away from Olenica. I'll have the fleet send a couple of sloops out that way in a few days. But even if we find the island, we won't find anything. By now, Volante will have evacuated the island and removed any evidence they were there."

"That," Octavia snapped her fingers. "I can't believe you saw through that so quickly."

"It confirms some suspicions I've had from months ago, my dear. And I've had quite a bit more practice looking through these sorts of issues," Carla said nonchalantly, as she reached into her desk to pick out a file. "So, you tell me you met Commodre Nottle at the Roost?"

"He was the one who hired that Wayfarer ship to look for the Matilda," Octavia admitted. "Absolutely riled up Captain Oal. Offensive git."

"You're alarmingly quick to dismiss him. That's probably the most foolish thing you've said in years." Carla dropped a file in front of Octavia, one with the commodore's name on the front. "After all, if you were inclined to marry for the sake of Olenican interests, he would be on the short-list."

"Really?" Octavia asked, surprised. She picked up the file and opened it.

"Ezekiel Nottle, third son of a moderately wealthy nobleman, like most of Volante's officer corps. A rising name in the Volante navy, as you'd expect from anyone given command of one of Volante's first-rate ships. Clever, good tactician, and a superb leader. Part of the reason I'd ask you to marry him, is to ensure the man never makes Admiral. The simplest way to prevent his promotion is to give the appearance of compromised loyalties, and noting manages that quite like being married to an heir to the throne of a different country."

"You're that worried about him?" Octavia asked.

"Like I said, he's clever and a superb leader. As it is, we're already badly disadvantaged against Volante," Carla explained.

"We're not behind them in military strength, are we?"

"Volante's navy is quite a bit better than ours. The last thing I want is a good leader who's allowed time to grow into the role of admiral," Carla explained. But once she stopped speaking, she leaned forward with her hands under her chin, and stared at Octavia for a moment. "Now, why were you so dismissive of the Commodore?"

"I was rather impressed with the Wayfarer captain. He managed to turn a potential treaty violation into a gesture of friendship with the Roost, and played it so smoothly I didn't have a way to stop it."

"He must be good, if Nottle asked for his help," Carla said. She reached into her desk, and picked up a blank folder. "I'll start a file on this Ravens' Child. What was the captain's name?"

"Vincent Locklear."

Octavia had never managed to shock her aunt before. Had never seen her aunt so much as surprised by anything in all of the years she had known the old woman. But at the mention of a single name, the woman's face grew pale, her eyes wide, and her hands fell to her sides.

Carla recovered quickly, but that moment of shock, of what Octavia might even have called fear in someone else, was etched in her memory as if it had been branded on the inside of her skull. "Auntie? You sound like I just told you ghosts are real."

Carla stood up, reached over to a nearby shelf, and took a folder off the wall. "Vincent Locklear. No family to speak of. No childhood acquaintances I've ever been able to find. It's almost as if he was just dropped into the streets of Vol Ayre when he turned fifteen. Made officer, despite the lack of family connections. Commanded a sloop of war called the Hood. A favourite of Volante's war games college. But what really stands out, was the day one of the crown princes attempted to seize a Monastery vessel."

Carla sat back down, and took a small sip of tea. Octavia suspected it was to calm her nerves. "To save that ship, this Captain Locklear ordered the Hood to attack the Victorious, a Volante first rate ship of the line. A hundred and thirty guns, seven hundred crewmen, the pride of the best navy in the skies, and Vincent Locklear tore it to pieces with a sixteen gun sloop."

"I don't mind saying that's terrifying," Octavia said.

"It isn't his battle performance that frightens me," Carla explained. "He did it to save a Monastery vessel. And no one sticks their neck out as far as they did, fighting a warship like the Victorious, without very good personal reasons."

"What are you saying, auntie?" Octavia asked.

"What possible personal motivations could this Captain Locklear have, to stick his neck out so far for the Monastery?" Carla asked, her eyes still fixed on the file in Octavia's hand.