Mercy worked through cacophonous solitude and turbulent peace, as she rode like a kite atop her ship.

She was clipped in to the cables that held the ship's lift balloon in place. She was pushed backward, hanging on by her harness as she clung to the side of the bag. Her hat was pressed hard against the side of her head, her coat was so sodden from the moist air that it was hard to raise her arms, and her fingerless gloves leaked water whenever she made a fist.

And she was having the time of her life. She hummed as she pressed her fingers against the seams, feeling with bare fingers for a leak. She had no hope of hearing air leaving the ballon, not in the middle of the gale the ship was riding, so she had to climb her way around and feel for the warmer air inside.

She pulled herself back up to her clip and took it off. She then took a deep breath, and let go. The wind threw her back as the ship sailed forward without her. She held her hands out, kept her eyes open despite the water building up, and grabbed the next set of cables.

She laughed as she came to a stop, clipped herself back in, and checked the last seam. Another half minute of careful prodding, she pulled herself back up, wound in her harness, and used the clip to slide down the cable. The slide was stunningly swift, and carried her around the bag in seconds. She climbed up towards the front of the bag, the ship's deck above her head, and detached her harness.

She jumped up, throwing herself as hard as she could through the air, somersaulted, and landed on the deck. Her boots, with lodestone set in the soles, clung to the deck just enough that she didn't bounce off.

She clipped in, and made her way to the stairway hatch, whistling happily all the while.

A smell caught her attention, just after she sealed the outer hatch. A very pleasant smell, of bread and herbs and poultry. It was a smell Mercy associated with artisanal shops along the streets of Vol Ayre, bakeries in Olenica, or feasts among the Wayfarers when they were docked. It was not a smell she thought of as belonging on a ship.

Curious, she opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell, took a right, and opened the first door.

Sure enough, Leslie was working in the kitchen. His harness was clipped onto a rail set into the end of the counter, and he was crouched in front of the ship's oven, tapping the glass impatiently.

"You're baking?" Mercy asked, stepping inside. The smell had her salivating.

"At this point, I'm praying that I don't overcook it," Leslie said. "I lost track of how long it's been in the oven. Unless you take it out in time, too much of the sauce evaporates at once and the whole thing explodes."

"Explodes?" Mercy asked. She floated over to the other side of the counter, to take a look inside the oven. "Why would baking explode?"

"If it cooks too fast, or for too long, the steam inside builds up faster than the holes I poked in the crust. Or it can just happen by accident, if the filling blocks the air holes," Leslie said. "Baking a pie in free-float is a bit like looking for blasting powder in a dark room, when you're holding a torch."

Inside the oven, Mercy could see what looked like a ball, of golden-brown pastry. To the hunger gnawing at her stomach, it was like looking at the sun after a long storm. "You're a prince among men, Leslie. Even if you can't use your title."

Mercy flinched a heartbeat after she spoke, worried she had rubbed salt in an old wound. Leslie's earlier years, especially aboard the Hood, had involved a lot of unhappy drinking.

Thankfully, Leslie only grimaced a little. If stung, but only like an old scar could in a storm. "Gentleman is a title a man can relinquish, but is impossible to be stripped of. I got the idea from some folks back on the Roost. Now hand me a skewer and a metal bowl, and I'll try to get this thing out of the oven."

Mercy fetched the tools he had asked for. Leslie took the skewer, but left the bowl in her hands. He opened the oven, and carefully stuck the ball. He pulled it out gently, and pointed over to the table. Mercy took the bowl to the metal table, and set the bowl on top. It stuck to the bit of lodestone set under the table, and held in place.

Leslie set the skewered pastry on top of the bowl, and used a bit of string to tie it down. "Let the captain and Anita know dinner's on?"

Mercy nodded and drifted over to the nearby speaking tubes. She picked the one to engineering first, and shouted, "Hoffman, chow's hot!"

"Food?" Anita shouted back. Mercy didn't bother to answer, confident the woman was already throwing herself towards the stairwell. Instead, to the other tube connected to the bridge, she said, "Captain, Leslie cooked something. It smells edible."

"You mispronounced incredible, Lieutenant," Leslie said.

"Understood," the captain replied. "I'll be in when I can."

"So, Lieutenant," Leslie said as he held four bowls in one of his impressively large hands. In his other, he was holding a carving knife and a soup ladle. He set the bowls on the table, waiting for them to stick, and put a metal cup full of utensils nearby. "I've been meaning to ask, but what's with that hat of yours?"

Mercy reached up, and ran her fingers along the feathers set in her hat. "What about it?" she asked.

They were interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open again, as Anita stepped inside. Her shirt was newly singed, her grease-coloured shirt was wet with any number of things, and her hair was well matted on the sides of her head. But she looked jubilant as she stepped into the kitchen.

"Our baby runs hot!" Anita exclaimed as she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. She was about to elaborate, until she caught sight of the food on the table. "Leslie, what is that?"

"It doesn't have name yet," Leslie admitted. His voice sounded a little deeper, and quite a bit softer, when he turned to speak to Anita. It was a subtle thing "It's basically a pie, except it's round."

"Pieball?" Mercy suggested.

"Yes!" Leslie agreed, halfway to a shout. He laughed and pointed back at his creation. "Pieball. I like it."

"I'm not agreeing to that name until I taste it," Anita said.

"Care to do the honours?" Leslie asked, and he extended the knife towards her, handle first.

Mercy took a seat across from them, and waited. Anita took the knife, and carefully pressed the tip into the pie. Steam gushed out, and some of the filling tried to ride the small explosion of hot air and escape. Leslie covered the stab wound with the ladle, and waited a moment.

"Just cut yourself a square of the crust, and scoop out some of the innards," Leslie said gently.

Anita served herself a bowl, managing to keep most of it from floating into the air. Leslie followed suit after she sat down, and set finished bowl in front of Mercy. She plunged the spoon into the pie, carefully cut out a piece, and guided it carefully towards her mouth.

Eating without the pull of the isles required a little more finesse. Or you made a mess.

They are in contented silence for a little over a minute, and Mercy used the time to both enjoy the relieving warmth of a hot meal, as well as marvel over Leslie's culinary skills.

"I'm still waiting on the story about that hat of yours, Lieutenant," Leslie remarked, after he had finished about half of his bowl. Mercy scowled at him, but set her spoon down on the table.

"Isn't it a Wayfarer thing? Like the woman back on the Roost, who has that hat with grey jay feathers. The whole clan calls her their keeper," Anita said, between bites.

"Every clan has a Keeper," Mercy said, and she took off her hat, to hold it in the air between them. "We keep the stories the clan needs to remember. The ones that define a clan, their relationship to the skies, other clans, or even the nations."

"Don't you just write those things down?" Leslie asked. "I've seen the quartermaster's ledgers back at the Roost, the captain would have been impressed by all the calculus involved. Your people could easily keep written histories."

"True. But a Keeper is also a curator, making sense of history to tell it to the people growing up to become part of the clan. The clan itself is a story, in a lot of ways," Mercy reflected, looking at her hat.

"Do I get a hat like yours?" Anita asked.

"No. Bad enough I'm wearing one. The Wayfarers might not like it, but only a clan's keeper wears our namesake," Mercy said. To herself, in her own thoughts, she thanked the old keeper of Whiskeyjack's Roost, Tai'ik.

Anita nodded, and returned her focus to guiding the pie into her mouth. But Leslie was grinning, and pointed at her. "So you keep stories, then. I have one I wouldn't mind hearing. What happened with you and the captain, just after his court marshal? When the two of you left, I thought you were going to see the Wayfarers, visit your home after being away for so long. You came back a month later with a fire in your eyes, that hat on your head, and a desperate need for a lot of money."

Mercy sighed, and looked at the door. Part of her hoped the captain would walk through it. "It turns out the Monastery felt like it owed us. Between the captain's severance pay, the Monastery, and what you had saved, we had a lot of money. And the Monastery was also willing to help design the electrical work that went into this ship."

"Electric lights, a working oven, a gun the likes of which has never existed before under the sky, I'll not argue that we got our money's worth and more," Leslie replied. "But the Monastery is extremely careful about how it shares knowledge. Personally, I think it was the reason their ship was attacked in the first place. But it is mighty strange they would step so far just for us, even if we're now doing jobs for them."

"Just one job," Mercy said. "Every few years, a delivery run."

"Sounds mighty mysterious. But what troubles me most, Mercy," Anita said, as she finished chewing the last of her food. "Is that thing that happened to Grainglove, that big isle in the far skies that broke into pieces, happened while you and Vincent were gone."

"Grainglove was two hundred and fifty miles across," Mercy said. "You think Vincent and I broke it?"

"Nah. I just know machines well enough to know that everything happens for a reason," Anita said. "And there's no way you and Vincent being gone when that happened was wholly a coincidence."

"Anita," Mercy said warily.

"Relax, Mercy," Anita said, with a smile and a wave of her hand. "It's not like we think you and the captain broke an entire island. And whatever it is, it's probably something the two of you don't want to share. You'll tell us when you're ready to, or think we ought to know."

Mercy sighed. "Thanks, Hoffman."

"Believe me, we understand that. If it's something someone might attack a Monastery ship over, I don't want to know too much," Leslie agreed.

"That's probably for the best," the captain's voice was such a shock it nearly made Mercy jump. Anita nearly threw her bowl in the air, and Leslie whirled for the still-closed door. But the captain wasn't in the room.

"Anyway, the Corsair chasing us broke off a few minutes ago. I think I finally convinced them that they weren't going to catch up with us," Vincent said through the tube. A moment later, the door's handle to the kitchen twisted, and it swung open to admit the captain. "And since we're still a long way from any sort of land, I can actually stop and get some food."

Leslie cut up a piece of the pie and set it in front of Vincent, who sat down with a spoon and nodded in thanks. He also set a large piece of paper on the table, weighing it down with small pieces of metal. He tapped a small dog between the large islands of Olencia and Volante. "We're about five days out from Drummond's Spite. If we're the luckiest bastards to have ever sailed the skies, the ship we're supposed to find was only delayed by a navigator sloshed on rum, and we'll find the Sunward Matilda in port. If not, we ask around and see if anyone's heard anything about them."

"Drummond Spite's something of a port of call for a lot of the piracy in that area. Volante looks the other way as long as they're harassing traders in Olencian skies," Leslie remarked. "But I don't imagine we'll get a lot of help from the local authorities."

"The harbour master will keep records," Vincent said. "And if the Sunward Matilda's cargo is valuable or dangerous, we'll hear about it at Drummond's Spite first. So eat up, and we'll start taking flying in shifts. The sooner we can wrap this job up, the safer it will be for all of us."