"Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on the marvelous, the stupendous, the world-famous FLYING MAN!"

The audience gasped when the lights focused on Quinn's little corner of the stadium, revealing Seth strapped to a giant wing constructed of wood and cloth. Quinn pulled the lever in his hand. In an underground chamber across the stadium, a weight dropped down a manhole into the city sewers. The cable attached to the apex of Seth's craft snapped taught and yanked him away. He flew.

At first he flew at an angle upward, the wings catching the air and inflating slightly. Quinn covered his eyes against the light and peered at his brother strapped to the craft. Seth released the cable perfectly, and then was moving without any force pulling him. Nose down, don't lose too much speed Quinn thought. Sure enough, Seth shifted his weight and pointed the nose below the horizon. He was no longer flying so much as falling slowly.

Seth banked over the crowd, casting a predatory shadow across the citizens below. Then he did a nose dive. His face pointed at the ground, he began to pick up incredible speed, enough speed to break a person apart. Ladies screamed. Quinn grinned.

Seth shifted his weight masterfully, barely missing the ground and entered into a vertical climb and then a full loop. He went upside down, seemed to defy gravity at the peak, facing the stars in the clear night sky. The audience was dead silent. He kept going, his head travelling backwards and upside-down in a gentle curve. He pitched up and the great kite wings caught the air, slowing him down before his legs impacted the ground.

Quinn made a sound he didn't know he could make. It was somewhere between laughter and cheering, but either it was so outrageous he was certain he had never made such a sound before. IT WORKED. He ran onto into the center of the stadium with an army of crazed men behind him. The men in the crowd were also pouring over the barrier and dropping into the field, sprinting towards Seth. They all sized Seth and raised him high over their heads, cheering and singing. Even Quinn found himself being carried upward.

"Brother!" he cried. "Brother it worked!"

"For the first time in history," the showman proclaimed, "Man has flown upside down! Never before has this act been performed. History has been made, and you are all witness!"

Quinn finally freed himself from the mob and escaped backstage. It was much darker, lit only by flickering lamps at the top of small wooden towers. Gantries, ropes, props and cages were scattered haphazardly. Men and even a few women walked around mostly in their smallclothes, some of them hastily preparing their costumes for the next act.

Quinn lingered until the giant wooden wing had been returned by the circus staff. He inspected it, carefully tracing every rope and piece of cloth under the lamplight, looking for damage. The rigging held fast as he tugged at it. Sailors knots ending in a loop and a spiral around itself, slathered in dry glue.

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When Seth arrived, he said: "Quinn, guess what?"

"Yeah?"

"The ladies are going to lining up for us tonight! Haha!"

"For you maybe," Quinn said. "You were the one everyone saw risking your neck up on that thing. How was it? Was it easier to control tonight?"

Seth shook his head. "I'm afraid not. It required all my strength to control it. The nose tends to want to sink."

"Still, there is something fundamental that needs to change." He stepped back from the oversized kite, looking it over up and down. "We would never be able to fasten a ship's propeller onto this thing, let alone an engine of some sort, and still remain in control."

Seth sat down on a bench by a spool of rope and took a flask out of his jacket. "For now, we should celebrate, yeah?" He took a swig and handed it to Quinn. "So what were you planning now?"

"If we are going to go further than we already have, I think we will need more resources. Academic resources, specifically. I still think we should quit the circus. Maybe try and enroll at the University up in Hightown? I hear it's the only school in the world that trains commoners like us." Quinn sipped from the flask. It tasted like vanilla and oak.

"We don't have auras," Seth said.

"We can lease them from the bank" Quinn said.

"That would cost a fortune every month. What we earn performing for these guys in an entire year, a hundred times over, every single month, just to lease the smallest aura the banks offer." Seth snatched the flask from Quinn and drank deeply.

"We can go to one of the Heritors."

For a moment it looked like Seth was going to lose control and spit the whiskey out. "You can't be serious."

"That Blue Wolf woman in the north is building an army." Quinn said. "At least that's what those priests are saying. Armies need information. Scouting. This technology could be perfect. We find a way to meet with her. Demonstrate the potential of a flying machine for scouting. Enemy army movements, supply line locations. It could completely change warfare as we know it. And if she refuses, we can simply go to her rivals in the Theocracy."

"How will they see through the fog?" Seth asked. "What do these flying machines do in a blizzard?"

"It's almost summer anyways. There are often clear days in summer. It just takes one clear day to get critical information on the entire enemy army. It could be enough of a difference to win."

Seth nodded. "I like the idea. Military men are real risk takers, gambling with their lives. And girls want more than words, they want real sacrifices. Speaking of girls," Seth said as he handed Quinn the flask again. "Finish this, there isn't much left. Let's head into town and try to pick up girlfriends, yeah?"

"I have to work on the design." Quinn said.

"Suit yourself," Seth said as he turned and walked away.

Quinn hoisted the kite off the ground and began to walk back to the workshop. As he was making his first step he realized the lamplight was casting a shadow.

A human shadow.

He looked up. A female figure stood above him on the wooden scaffolding of the backstage. She was just a silhouette against the light behind her. But the silhouette was not total darkness. Her eyes were glowing purple, and her face was scarred by glowing teal fractures radiating away from those purple eyes. She rotated slightly and he saw her face reflecting the light. She had a knowing smirk on a youthful faced framed by dark blue hair.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" He asked, loud enough for her to hear. But she did not reply. She turned away and vanished into the darkness beyond the lamps.

Who was that? he wondered. And those eyes. An oculomancer, he realized. Quinn frowned. How did she get backstage? The boss didn't have any oculomancers on staff. Why was that woman here? And how much had she heard?