Kiera rose from her massive frilly bed at first light and watched the sun rise from within the half-hexagon turret window suspended beyond the edge of Spire Annatiki. The sky was the color of fire, and the fog rolled over the land like a tide of blood. The Sister World also seemed to be burning, her atmosphere streaked with crimson rivulets which disintegrated into the void as bloody mist. For a brief second Kiera could clearly see a thin sheen, a spider-web mesh of black fractures that enveloped both worlds. A moment later it was gone.

The door to her chamber opened without warning. Kiera flinched because she was only wearing a thin shift that was almost transparent in the morning light. It was only Fiona, however, and for a moment Kiera felt foolish. The entire spire was filled with women, after all. There weren't even locks on any of the doors.

Fiona was holding a few hangars draped with new clothes. "It's traditional to wear this when flying," she said.

The frilly dress was a lovely shade of blue, light and airy like the sky at noon, hued with a hint of purple. There was a matching wide-brimmed hat, tall and pointy.

When Kiera finished getting dressed, she found Fiona out in the hallway. "These fit perfectly!" she reported.

"Our tailors are thralls," Fiona said. "They've had plenty of time to perfect the craft."

"That is somewhat uncomfortable to think about."

Fiona led Kiera out onto the upper surface of the city. There was one of those predatory flying machines parked, similar to the one Kiera had seen on her flight to the spire. Half a dozen oculomancers fussed over the machine, walking around opening and closing panels and checking off boxes on long checklists. Their sharp movements and serious faces indicated that they were all well-trained soldiers. They saluted Fiona when she got close to the craft.

A pair of women drove a small motorized truck under the wing of the craft. There was a white tube-like device mounted on the truck bed. One end was shaped like a cone painted red, and the other end featured four fins arranged in a cross. The women on the ground lifted the heavy thing and mounted it on a pylon on the bottom of the airplane's wings. There were already at least three such tubes mounted on the other pylons. Fiona walked up to the new tube and unscrewed the red cone at the front. The cone slid off, revealing a glass dome underneath. Inside the glass there was an oculomancer eyeball attached to some tubes.

"Eww!" Kiera said.

The eyeball twitched. Fiona screwed the cap back on.

"Yeah, if you think that's gross, wait until you see how these missiles are made."

"I'm not certain I want to know."

Fiona began to circle the craft, checking off boxes on her own checklist. "It requires a human sacrifice," she began. "At the heart of this missile you will find the beating heart of an etherborne, kept alive with a life support system that only lasts a few hours. Of course, these things are relatively expensive. The Elder Saint could buy an entire kingdom worth of land at current market prices, and it would be cheaper than the cost of a single missile."

The oculomancers fetched a ladder from the truck and propped it up against the airplane. Satisfied with her checklists, Fiona climbed up to the glass canopy and climbed inside. She called down to Kiera, "Climb on up!"

Kiera slowly ascended the steps and awkwardly climbed into her seat behind Fiona. There was a stick jutting right up between her legs. Directly ahead, every inch of the dashboard was cluttered with glass gauges and switches. The cabin was cramped, but not quite as cramped as the first airplane. Like the first airplane, there were moving pedals at the end of each foot. Kiera stretched her legs and accidentally compressed one of the pedals.

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"Try not to touch anything," Fiona said gently.

"Should I take my hat off?" Kiera asked.

"Probably, yeah. We oculomancers can see straight through our hats, in fact we can see straight through the fuselage of the jet. But you don't have your eyes yet."

An oculomancer climbed up and closed the canopy. She saluted Fiona one more time then the ladder was taken away.

"Pay attention to what I do," Fiona said. "Try to feel the weaves. If you can manage it, try to replicate them."

It had taken several days for Kiera to adjust to the sensation of raw dream-ether pushing down on her from all directions. Once she had overcome that hurdle, it became relatively simple to repurpose her existing knowledge of ethermancy. At present, Kiera was able to use all of the weaves she had learned at the Eight Color Monastery. It was not difficult to sense Fiona's weave.

"Wind aspect," Kiera said.

"That is correct," Fiona said. "This weave is used to pressurize the air around my body. You will need to replicate the weave for yourself as well."

"Why didn't we need to do that on the other airplane?" Kiera asked.

"Excellent question. The reason is related to shape. The airplane that we used to fly here had a circular cross section. It could be pressurized without causing stress to the hull. This craft is a fighter jet, and it is not shaped with a circular cross section. We cannot pressurize the entire interior, so we need a weave to create a local pressure field around our bodies."

Kiera replicated the weave, and suddenly the sound of the women working and shouting outside the craft became muted.

"Excellent," Fiona said, her voice a distant whisper. "One consequence of this particular weave is that it will also protect your ears from the sound of the engine."

"It is difficult to hear you!" Kiera shouted.

"The alternative is worse!" Fiona shouted back. "There is one other weave that you will need to use."

The next weave was significantly more complex, and yet much easier for Kiera to grasp. In fact, it combined mild self-healing with a fairly intense form of pressure on the lower body to push blood up toward the head.

"Life aspect," she said.

"Correct. That is the last of the weaves you will need to use. I alone will use the other weaves required to fly this thing."

The first of Fiona's weaves required water aspect, and it appeared to pressurize the water in some tubes in every direction. The next weave used fire, lightning, and wind aspects for three separate purposes. There appeared to be an important piece of metal near the back of the airplane, and using metal aspect Kiera was able to explore its shape. It was a long shaft with funny blades jutting out radially from the center. The lightning caused the shaft to spin temporarily, the wind filled the space between the blades with compressed air, and finally the fire aspect ignited the compressed air in a chamber beyond the end of the shaft. Once the lightning and wind aspects stopped, the fire continued, powering the entire engine by itself.

"Please don't quest with metal aspect while we are flying," Fiona warned.

"Sorry!"

With the engine humming along, Fiona maintained only four weaves, using wind, water, fire, and life aspects. All but one of the oculomancers on the ground packed up and marched off. The last remaining oculomancer held two glowing batons, one green and one indigo. She waved them around and made funny gestures that Kiera assumed Fiona could understand.

"Why do you need so many weaves for this airplane?" Kiera asked. "I don't remember feeling anything when you were flying the other one."

"This airplane is powered entirely by magic," Fiona said. "The other airplane was powered by electricity and kerosene. And before you ask, it doesn't matter. Both of those technologies are unavailable on the surface. The reason why will become apparent shortly. Anyways, the other airplane was designed by Sophia, one of the witches left alive after the war. This fighter jet is much, much older. In fact, the design was ancient before the first settlers came to our world."

"I did not know the first settlers had airplanes like this," Kiera said.

"That is one of the things that was censured by the oculomancers after the war. I happen to have a copy of The Binding of Ashe, one of the books associated with the ancient Church of the Lady Ghost. As far as I can tell, it does not directly contradict any of my lived experiences. If the stories are correct, then this stealth fighter was invented by an aeronautical engineer named Vaska. I know that it is hearsay, but Reyndell once told me that Father Winter told him that the Tombs of the Founders were created by Vaska."

"I shall not enter into the Tombs of the Founders," Kiera recited.

"You shall," Fiona corrected. "In time, you shall."