My jaw drops. This Inventor, who I've never met or even truly heard of before today, has my key. Worse yet, that means it's practically unattainable. When I go to speak, my voice shakes. "This Inventor is not friendly, I take it?"

Cinda shrugs. "Well, he's a bit...mysterious, you know? None of us have ever seen him or spoken to him. He's not really mean, exactly. Just kind of ethereal."

Madison shakes his head vehemently. "No. He's not quite as good as you all think."

Vallagher blinks. "I thought he saved all of you from death by giving you those parts."

"Yeah, he did." Madison looks us dead on. His young gaze is intense. "All except me."

A stunned silence sweeps across the deck. The full meaning of his words hits me, and I shock. "You can't mean that, Madison. You must have been too young to remember. The Inventor would never-"

"Oh, and you're so sure of this? You didn't even know who the Inventor was until we told you!" Madison is about to explode, it seems. His metal eye is focusing on each of us in turn, seeming to hone in on our very souls. "There was nothing wrong with my eye, and yet he took it out and replaced it with his own invention!"

His small fists are clenched at his sides, and he's shaking with rage. His brows are furrowed, and the ship's course is but a fleeting thought to all of us. Vallagher looks merely a little concerned, but Cinda's eyes are glittering with tears. "Oh, Madison..."

I bite my lip and look down. I don't know quite what to say to Madison, how to comfort him.

"When did you find out?" Cinda's voice breaks a little, and she looks away from him. I notice that the question is not 'how' but 'when'. This only enrages Madison more.

"You knew?" His voice rises to a sound like a constable's whistle. His bottom lip trembles a little, and a tear runs its silver course down his cheek. "All this time, you knew and never told me."

Cinda's eyes grow wide. "No, no, Maddy-"

Madison holds up a hand. "Do not call me Maddy." He storms off across the deck and then climbs up to perch among the balloons. There aren't many places to hide on an airship. We all stand in shocked silence for a moment, and then Vallagher clears his throat.

"I hate to break up this moment of respectful silence, but this airship isn't going to steer itself, and I think these things have a tendency to be affected by gravity." He wipes his forehead with a hand.

"So, you're a pilot, right?" Cinda hefts a wrench out of her toolbelt. "Go and fly the blasted thing!"

Vallagher walks over to the controls with confident strides and begins to flip switches. "Cinda, drop those sandbags off the side. Sarah, make sure Madison's not going to fall. Sophie, do...something!"

I cross my arms and huff. "So I'm not good enough to help on the ship?"

"No, you just don't know how to manage one of these." He doesn't look at me.

"Yes, I do!" I reach over and experimentally flick a switch. "There. That doesn't do anything."

Vallagher rests his forehead on the dashboard. "Sophia, you just pressed the deflate button."

"What does that do?" I'm suddenly acutely aware of a strange whirring noise.

His dark-skinned hands fly up into the air. "God, Sophia, it means that you've taken the air out of our balloons!"