Amelia emerged from her bedroom after a restful night, dressed in a pair of black trousers and a blue, button shirt, because she intended to work hard on her new flying machine. With what she’d learned about vulcanized rubber from the locals, she was confident she’d found the solution to the landing issue. Vulcanized rubber was Dugaria’s chief export and the foundation of the nation’s wealth, coming from the rubber trees of the rainforest and sulfur from the volcanic land the Blackwell sisters had flown over.

Her long hair was currently in ringlets, a good look that really turned the heads of men, though she was usually far too busy thinking to notice. The daily work with her hair kept her personal attendant happy and Amelia didn’t want the poor girl to feel useless.

“Good morning, ma'am.” Three of the house maids smiled and spoke in unison, bowing their heads as she passed.

Each of the young women wore a black dress and white apron.

“Good morning.” Amelia paused and smiled as she greeted them, “Let’s see, I believe the three of you are Murie, Tibota and Yseulte, right?”

The maids smiled even wider and Murie bowed her head, “You honor us by learning our names.”

Amelia hadn’t actually wanted so many servants, but they’d sort of come with the house and if they were going to work there, then she was going to learn the names of every one of them. Besides, there was no way Amelia and her sisters could keep the house clean and in good repair without them.

She turned to the right and headed for the dining room, which was in an entirely different wing of the house.

The past six months had seen a massive change in the lives of the sisters. Davit’s little village had been quite welcoming, but the capitol city of Dugaria, Rimestar, was even better. Though it was a cold place, near some mountains that were gratefully not volcanoes, the city was at the center of dozens of trade routes, which brought raw materials and goods from all over the country and beyond.

Upon arrival, they’d been offered their choice of properties to settle in, with quite a few options, ranging from regular houses on up to mansions, though the bigger homes were not free. Ultimately, Amelia chose to purchase a mansion in the rolling countryside surrounding the city, though the big house hadn’t been what she’d been after. Instead, she’d been eyeing the land, because it came with forty acres, all of which was inside a defensive wall.

The land had come into her possession as a mixture of gardens and carefully-tended grassy fields, which were mowed to an exacting two inches height by a veritable army of gardeners, but Amelia had been quick to select a location for a workshop, which was in a usable state, though it was still under construction.

It had come as a surprise that the salaries of the house servants, including the butler, housekeeper, various maids, footmen, an army of cooks and kitchen servants, were paid for by the city, an added incentive for witches to settle there, though Amelia had no issue with paying the gardeners to maintain the land.

The people of Dugaria loved witches, a fact that Amelia still found a little jarring, because she’d been hiding her nature for a lifetime, but the other local witches wore pointed hats to set themselves apart from others, using the recognition to skip lines at markets and shows. Amelia didn’t care to advertise the fact, but rumor had spread all over town and everyone recognized her, because it had been impossible to hide their airship, which had brought the Blackwell sisters a measure of fame.

Amelia arrived in the dining room and sat at her accustomed place at the end of the absurdly long table. To either side were Iris and Marta, who looked exhausted. To one side stood the butler, Hobard, who was ever-ready to accept an order, dressed in a black suit and white shirt. The room was big enough to feed a small army, with everything decorated in stained wood.

“Good morning, ma'am.” Hobard stepped over, “What would you like for breakfast?”

“Scrambled eggs, bacon, and some grape juice.” Amelia answered.

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“Right away, ma'am.” Hobard made no obvious move to fulfill the order, but went back to his accustomed place.

Amelia had taken great pains to figure out that particular mystery, but it was a simple matter: the kitchen staff kept a boy with excellent hearing by the closest door, waiting for an order to be given, who relayed that to one or more of the waiting chefs, who prided themselves on both speed and quality.

Her juice arrived within fifteen seconds, carried by one of the maids.

She took a sip, then greeted her sisters and asked, “How was work? You look like you were both up all night.”

Iris and Marta had been working as doctors and healers in a nearby hospital, which was a local term for a place full of witches that specialized in healing.

“There was a big accident in Silver Street, with lots of people hurt.” Iris yawned, “One of them was a fellow with a cracked skull. He was so confused, he thought I was his mother,” she smiled a little, “but that made it easy to get his cooperation, because his mother was apparently rather stern with him.”

“I wish we could have saved that poor kid. His mother cried so much.” Marta looked a little sad.

Iris agreed, “Yeah, that was hard to see. No one should have to see their child die.”

Amelia’s food arrived, after no more than two minutes. She ate and talked with her sisters. When they were done, Amelia headed for her workshop, while her sisters went off to bed.

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Amelia’s workshop was relatively modest compared to the warehouse in Macclesfield, but it would eventually make that one look small. She took a few minutes to inspect the work being done to expand it, then headed for the other end, where several of her apprentices were hard at work building small devices of a useful nature destined for sale in the local market, mostly custom tools, which had made her even more fabulously wealthy, though her best apprentices were hard at work building a lathe Amelia had designed for cutting the hardest of metals.

She stepped over to the corner where her current project waited: Blackbird II. She closed a set of curtains that dangled from the ceiling and hauled a tarp off the almost-finished aircraft. Currently, it hung from the ceiling, suspended from a chain hoist, because she hadn’t yet installed the wheels and the engine was currently a pile of parts on a bench. To one side was a wooden crate that had been delivered toward the end of work, the day before. Beside that was a wheeled, standing, wooden toolbox of Amelia’s own design, which held a number of shallow drawers, with a few bigger ones at the bottom, for larger tools.

Amelia had been experimenting with vulcanizing her own rubber, just to understand the process, but her own work wasn’t quite adequate for the stresses and strain landing would put on the wheels, especially if there were rocks. In the end, she’d opted to order a set of custom tires from a craftsman that specialized in them, to get the very best she could, which was what waited in the crate.

She’d been keeping her best projects mostly to herself, out of an abundance of caution and because it made her feel more normal to hide the details. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her apprentices, though. They were good people, but she kept the details of the enchanting work that went into her steam engines to herself. The locals seemed to have no idea how runic enchantments worked and that was one of the few edges she had over other witches, so she kept it secret from everyone but her sisters.

Amelia opened the crate with the crowbar she’d set on top of it the night before and gazed on a stack of three round, rubber wonders she hoped would make Blackbird II a success, where the original had failed.

She hauled one out and checked the dimensions with a ruler, quite pleased by the near-perfection of the work. The tire included the hubcap she’d made a week before and it was already inflated, a nice touch. After all, she’d asked for heavy testing, for a guarantee of durability and quality. She scratched at the rubber with a finger, satisfying herself that they were very hardy.

She hauled the others out and inspected them much the same way, before rolling the first over to Blackbird II, to get it mounted.

Amelia was happy and content like she’d never been before. Her needs were taken care of, people were always happy to see her and she had resources like she’d never dreamed of before. Iris and Marta seemed content and Iris was beginning to attract men that were hoping to court her. Even Marta had been occasionally commenting on the attention men of the city gave her, despite her age, hinting that they considered a witch of any age to be worth courting.

As she worked, Amelia wondered how long it would be until she reached orbit. She’d recently been having dreams about seeing her world from above, which shone like a blue and green jewel among the stars, though she truly had no idea what it would look like.

However, an aircraft was definitely the first step. If that worked out, then perhaps she would get more ambitious, but there was plenty of time to work out all the details.

She was just finishing with the tires, when someone cleared their throat from outside the curtained work area, before speaking, “I do apologize for the interruption, ma'am,” it was the voice of Hobard, “but you have guests waiting in the house, who were…quite insistent that they see you and your sisters at once.”

Amelia grumbled, “Fine, just give me a moment.”

She draped the tarp over the aircraft, then parted the curtains, following her butler into the house.