Six months.

Twila, Rosie, and Auntie Charlie had lived in the Silver Circle’s suite, far above the bustling town, for six months. From their window, Twila could see Iswixel’s chimney smoke far below on the spire.

The first few weeks had been nerve-wracking. They’d stayed in their room or taken turns leaving when they needed food, always careful to avoid the Gibson patrols that crisscrossed the town, looking for someone. Looking for them.

Wanted posters hung on every street corner. The Gibson Company wanted them, dead or alive. The reward was too much for anyone to turn down: ten thousand Crowns. If they hadn’t found Kerr’s treasure, they’d never have been able to pay off the innkeeper.

But they had. The coins they spent every week to keep his silence would have bankrupted any other pirate, but [Sky Captain] Kerr wasn’t any other pirate, and now, neither were Twila, Rosie, and Auntie Charle.

The patrols slowed down week to week—rumor had it the Gibson Company thought they might’ve died below Iswixel—and gradually, Twila relaxed. Twila spent her portion of Kerr’s treasure the first day they left their suite together—save for a few crowns. It’d take every mast and wheel to make her dream fly.

Then, she finally opened the box. The one she’d blinked and breathed shut.

For three months, she’d talked about everything she’d done. About the people she’d killed, and the adventure she’d had. She had to. Blinking and breathing held it inside, but the pressure had built too high, and she had to let it out.

The first few times, it’d been disastrous.

She’d spent hours crying; the let-down was worse than when she’d collapsed after Broken Rock—worse than when she’d shut down entirely after the Gibson Foundry heist. But slowly, she learned how to let her feelings out over time. And gradually, over time, Auntie Charlie found herself talking, too, about the things she’d done, the people she’d killed, and the crimes she’d committed.

Twila didn’t notice herself change. But Rosie did.

And now, after six long months, today was the day.

She couldn’t contain herself. She’d been serious for so long—first as a ship rat, then as a skipper, and finally as a fugitive.

For a moment, Twila’s heart dropped. It wasn’t the Hourglass.

But the Hourglass was gone, its wreckage cannibalized by the villagers in Iswixel or strewn across the sea mountain’s side. Its salvaged remains had gone into this new airship instead.

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And even though she wasn’t the Hourglass, the Sundial was everything Skipper Anton had wished his ship could have been.

It ran narrower than the Hourglass had—barely wider than it was tall, but long and thin. Its stern was adorned with brass-and-glass windows, each almost as tall as the hull itself, while simpler round one dotted each flank. Even the airship’s keel looked like the Hourglass’s, but more sleek. More graceful. Faster. She dashed through the skywright’s shop to the gangplank and hurried aboard.

A pair of [Long Fives] lay in their carriages at the bow, and two more at the stern, each covering one of the Sundial’s sides. Their polished brass barrels hung over the little airship’s rails. She’d asked for it to be over-gunned, and Ternport’s skywright had delivered.

Auntie Charlie climbed aboard, with Rosie following. “How about we put her through her paces, skipper?” The woman asked.

“Not yet. Soon, but not yet.” Twila dropped through the floor, taking the steps two at a time. Two massive engines hummed—no, purred—under the deck, their gears glistening with oil and their belts fresh and springy. The SSundial’s cooling systems poured water into the engines, and she could hear myst running through lines from below.

She hooked her harness on, falling thirty feet to the rat’s nest. She landed next to Old Bitch’s Granddaughter—the myst condenser had died at Seapike, and her daughter lay somewhere in the ocean below Iswixel. Every brass-and-copper sphere crackled with a thin layer of ice, condensing as well as any she’d seen before. She nodded and climbed up to the inner deck.

“Where to, skipper?” Auntie Charlie asked, glancing into the air below them. Twila didn’t look; she’d asked for one more thing, and it had to be there.

“Just…hang on a minute!”

“Twi, we don’t have a minute!” Rosie said, pointing. Something was in the sky, but Twila barely spared it a glance.

“Get the engines ready, then, but we can’t leave unless it’s there.” Twila ran into the captain’s quarters. It had to be here. It had to be.

And there it was.

The silver engine. The mass of silver gears was twisted and bent, missing gears and wheels, but the captain’s quarters of the Sundial had been built for it—even its mass didn’t cover the windows. Its belts and axles hung loose, but Twila would re-mount them to the ship’s ceiling in time. In time, the brass pendulum would swing again. It sat quiet, its parts unmovable. But that would change…in time.

She turned, leaving her room. There’d be time later. Right now, she had a nervous crew to wrangle.

“Get those engines running! Pull us out of here! We’ve got adventures to have! Rosie, you’ve still got the notebook. Find us another lead, and we’ll hunt some treasure!”

Rosie jumped and headed for the engines. Auntie Charlie shook her head and joined the thirteen-year-old belowdecks. And Twila took the helm. She cranked the speed to ‘Flank Speed,’ and the Sundial shot forward, past the two incoming Gibson Company gunships. As the wind whipped through Twila’s hair and her feet shook from the myst engines’ roar below her feet, she grinned and laughed.

The Sundial steamed away from Ternport, purple mystsmoke trailing behind it.

It was good to be home, and the horizon awaited.