The Hourglass knifed over the waves below.

Twila’s grimy fingers burned as she yanked on her ratchet wrench over and over. The Sunset Sea’s waters churned against gray-white cliffs a thousand feet below. Thirty feet above her, the wind whistled past an open hatch in the bottom of the airship’s hull.

The nut holding the compressor in place didn’t need tightening. Old Bitch’s Kid ran smoothly. It always did.

But she needed to tighten it. It was something she knew how to do. Every time she blinked, she saw Auntie Charlie’s missing hand or Carter sailing away on the Harpy’s Wing with Vayne. Or Vayne, or Harris, or the Marine in Shimmertower. And every one of those was confirmation that she didn’t have what it took.

“Rat Tighe, the skipper wants you up top!”

Twila ignored the crewmate’s call. Instead, she tied in on the rat’s nest’s rail and dropped off the edge, so the only thing between her and the Sunset Sea was three hundred feet of air. The condenser needed checking over in case some of its spheres cracked. If the Hourglass lost power, they weren’t close enough to coast into Iswixel, no matter how high it flew.

She hung from the rope, swinging in the wind; the skipper must’ve been pushing the airship as fast as it could go, because she had to hang onto the condenser to check the tiny brass spheres.

They were all perfect.

Someone jerked on the rope, dragging Twila toward the rat’s nest above. She scrambled up the rope, grabbed the wooden platform’s edge, and pulled herself up. It wouldn’t do to keep the skipper waiting, especially after ignoring orders.

Sure enough, Rosie stood there, glaring with one eye, the other just a patch. “Twi, this has to stop.”

“No, it doesn’t, skipper. I’m at my best down here or in the engine room.”

“You’re really not, Twila.” Rosie sighed and sat down on the rat’s nest’s narrow deck. Twila joined her. “I know what’s wrong with you, Twi. You’re doing a great job at following Auntie Charlie’s instructions. She told you to just bottle it in after you killed that Marine, didn’t she?”

Twila blinked and breathed. It wasn’t helping anymore. Not after Broken Rock. Then she nodded slowly, feeling everything crushing her again.

“And then you did the same thing after Three Peaks and again when Charlie got arrested, huh?”

“Yeah,” Twila nodded. Tears filled her eyes, and her throat tightened painfully.

“And then, when [Anton’s Pocket Watch] got stolen, Carter betrayed us, and Auntie Charlie lost her hand, you tried to push it down some more?”

“It’s not working anymore!” Twila snapped. “I can’t blink and breathe any of it down. It’s all there, all the time!”

Rosie nodded and reached out to grab Twila’s hand. “I told Becca how to fix it. Do you want to know?”

Did Twila want to know? Auntie Charlie’s method had been working. Maybe she could push it back down again if she just changed something.

But Rosie said she had a solution. It could be worth a try. Especially if it worked for Becca. If it relieved the pressure inside her, Twila was willing to try it. She nodded slowly.

“Alright. Tell me.”

Rosie ran through it all. How Twila bottling up her emotions for a little while had been fine. How that plan could work for a while or with a small amount of bad stuff. And that Auntie Charlie hadn’t said anything wrong—

“How is she?”

“She lost a hand, Twila,” Rosie said bluntly. “We’re doing our best with it, but it’s not going to get better, and it’ll take Becca a while to design a mystwork one if that’s even possible. It should be, but I don’t remember seeing any.”

“I should go see her,” Twila said. She put a foot on the ladder unto the hold.

“No. Not until we’re done here.” Rosie pointed at the floor next to her. “Auntie Charlie didn’t say anything wrong. She just didn’t tell you the next step. I doubt she knows herself. At some point, you have to let it all out. You can’t keep pushing it down, or it’ll get to be too much, and it’ll eat you alive.”

She held up her hand when Twila started to interrupt. “Twi, you’re a good skipper. You’ll be a good skipper. And right now, the Hourglass needs a good skipper. You’ve seen how far ahead the Harpy’s Wing is, but have you seen the other airship back behind us?”

Twila hadn’t. She peered toward the Hourglass’s stern, but whatever was back there, the mystsmog’s purple haze obscured it.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“We need a good skipper for this. So you have to let it all out. Do some screaming, cry as much as you need to, and then get your ass up to the wheel as soon as you’re done. That’s an order, and I hope it’s my last.”

“Wait,” Twila said, but Rosie was already pulling herself up the ladder. Had she been crying at the end? Twila couldn’t be sure, but she knew she was herself. The floodgates she’d held shut for so long had cracked open.

She sat in the rat’s nest, next to the levers that controlled Old Bitch’s Kid. Acrid smoke filled her lungs as the wind shifted, but she kept sobbing and screaming. She cried until she didn’t have any tears left, and the mystsmoke that stung her eyes left dry, black streaks in the last of her tears. And when she’d finished, she didn’t feel better. But she didn’t feel worse, either.

She felt emptied out. Not much, but a little bit.

Still, she didn’t climb up into the hold or hurry to take the wheel. Rosie was wrong about something. She didn’t need to rush. Wherever their pursuer was, it wouldn’t catch them today or even tonight. And they wouldn’t catch the Harpy’s Wing, either.

So she sat there and tried to make a plan instead. And she realized she had relied on Auntie Charlie for everything since they'd met her. Giving orders, suggesting courses, or even fighting—Charlie had done it all. But if the woman couldn’t fight and was recovering from her injury, Twila would have to go it alone.

And she could.

She’d held it together when they’d hopped back for Charlie, so she knew she could. And as she took stock of the Hourglass, she realized that for all Vayne’s bluster, the Hourglass outgunned the Harpy’s Wing, and it wasn’t close. Vayne’s single [Puckle Gun] couldn’t stand up to the [Long Fives] and [Puckle Guns] Twila had on board.

Twila stood up and pulled herself into the hold. She strode up the stairs, wiping smog-stained tears from her cheeks until her whole face was covered in purple-black ash. Then she took the helm and cleared her throat.

“Alright, ship rats, listen up. We’re catching up with the Harpy’s Wing before it lands, even if it kills the Hourglass to do it.” She ratcheted the speed dial to ‘Flank Speed,’ listening to the engines stop humming and start roaring, then angled the ship slightly so the wind blew the smog forward. “We’ll use the wind for an extra bit of speed, get in front of Vayne, and make him taste the [Long Fives]!”

Some of the crew cheered, but Becca pointed behind them. Now that the wind had shifted, Twila could faintly see a tiny black silhouette on the horizon. The other airship was back there. “What about that?” Becca asked.

“We’ll deal with them after we finish off Vayne and get [Anton’s Pocket Watch] back. And I want to have a word with Carter as well,” Twila said. “Becca, Rosie, and Sam, you’re on shifts in the engine room. If anything goes wrong, tell me, and we’ll drop speed. Otherwise, we’re running Leftie and Rightie hot until we’re caught up. Everyone else, make sure the weapons are in order, run drills on the guns, and watch so nothing breaks. We’ll catch them tomorrow, just outside Iswixel.

As Twila adjusted the wheel, letting the wind push her along, she stared at the Harpy’s Wing in the distance. She could lead her crew and helm the Hourglass, and she could do it without the pocket watch or Charlie’s help.

[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.33 (Myst 12/12, Hit Points 1/2)]

[Head - Empty]

[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]

[Chest - Platejack Coat (lvl. 2) Plated Coat (passive) +1 Hit Point]

[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]

[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]

[Gizmo #1 - Loaded Dice (lv. 2) - Roll the Bones (active, 1 myst/roll) - gain a random myst enhancement; Skill - Trickery]

[Gizmo #2 - Empty]

[Gizmo #3 - Nola’s Embrace (lvl 2) Unknown Effect]

[Gizmo (Belt) - Mystwork Lantern (lvl. 2): Mystlight (active, 25% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - start the light; Adjustable Light Aura (sustained, .5-2 myst/tick) - light a variable area; Skill - Perception]

[Myst Battery - Condensing Battery Mk. 2 (lvl. 1) Myst Storage (passive) - 12 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill; Condense Myst (passive) - Condenses 1 myst/6 ticks]

[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s Paired Pistols (lvl. 2) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Rapid Shots (active, 2 myst/shot) - fire twice/tick; Skill - Marksman]

[Weapon #2 - Heatblade (lvl. 2) Heat (active, 1 myst/tick) - cause the blade’s edge to superheat; Skill - Acrobatics]

[Weapon/Pair - Empty]

[Skill #1 - Trickery 2]

[Skill #2 - Perception 2]

[Skill #3 - Empty]

[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]

[Skill #5 - Acrobatics 2]