Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night before Comfrey’s funeral is a party. Max has never been very good at those.

He drinks whatever anyone hands him, which is probably a mistake, but his dad and Hatwell are dead, and Wealwell is spinning a long and complicated yarn about how he killed Roywell with his rarest stance of all and used his second rarest stance to convince Johnwell to switch sides before Johnwell’s tragic demise at Brycewell’s hands—or was it Blainewell, he can’t recall—and the old guard of the Wind Riders are chatting about looking for some new mystical, far-off land beyond the borders of time itself, and Olethra is dancing on the plank, and all-in-all nobody needs him to be anything other than a drunkenly-smiling face, which he’s happy to do for one night.

Torse is thrumming with proud energy. Maxwell infers that twisting the head off of one of the Corrodi must have been a similar experience to his own satisfying patricide. Max stands a little closer to Torse to make sure he feels properly included in the festivities.

“So there I was,” Wealwell continues, “one leg on the deck, one on the mounted gun, Blacewell or Brinewell or whoever about to pick me up and throw me overboard—did you know, Maxwell, that he’d been secretly studying the martial art of picking people up and throwing them?”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Maxwell recalls the density of Hatwell’s forehead with a shudder.

“Shame that we haven’t all used our family’s powerful athleticism for good,” Samwell says solemnly.

“Quite true. I barely had time to shift into a resistance stance before he was upon me, but then,” Wealwell turns to Sylvio Dufresne, who is grinning ominously while swirling a glass of wine below his chin, “my boyfriend saved me.”

“Oh, think nothing of it, my dear,” Sylvio chuckles darkly, stroking a finger down Wealwell’s shoulder.

“I’m happy to hear my little brother has found someone so reliable,” Samwell says reasonably.

“I have to say,” Monty quietly comments in an aside to Maxwell, “I did not see that one coming. I understand the appeal, don’t get me wrong, Sylvio and I have—well, you know—a time or two ourselves. But we’re more… of an age, let’s put it that way. Adventure has a way of bringing about the most wonderful surprises.”

“Oh, this is the most normal thing Wealwell’s done since we got to Zood,” Maxwell replies. “You can’t take my brother anywhere without him trying to fuck the oldest man he sees. I’m honestly shocked he kept it buttoned up around Daisuke for as long as he did.”

“That was buttoned up?” Van says, entering the conversation as she wipes slime and blood from her tentacle.

“That was— For Wealwell, yeah, that was pretty buttoned up,” Maxwell says. “He’s really kept it together here in Zood. I don’t think he’s even barfed since he saw me deli slice that guy with the propeller.”

Marya laughs in fond reminiscence, suddenly part of this now too.

“Hm?” Monty makes an inquisitive sound. “Since he saw you do what?”

“Nothing.” Maxwell cuts off the line of questioning hurriedly. “He’s just, he hasn’t been sick. The Zoodian air, or something. It’s been good for him. Maybe he was super sensitive to Widow’s Breath back in Eisengeist, I don’t know.”

“So, you mean,” Wealwell pirouettes back into the conversation, “for the sake of my health, Maxwell, I simply must continue flying around the skies of Zood with this devilishly handsome Wind Rider?” He drapes himself over Sylvio’s shoulders as if about to faint. “That’s what you’re saying, Maxwell?”

Personally, Maxwell thinks his brother is laying it on a bit thick. There’s no dip at all to Sylvio’s posture; Wealwell is clearly totally supporting his own weight. No one on this crew would be stupid enough to ever assume Wealwell would need help standing.

“I’m saying, Wealwell,” Maxwell replies, “we get to do whatever the hell we want from now on.”

Wealwell smiles in that way he has that makes him look fucking evil unless you know his face is just like that.

“Oh, baby brother. I already do. Assisted Locomotion Stance!” He straightens his spine, then hoists Sylvio’s lanky frame into his arms, weight perfectly balanced for maximum efficiency. “I’ll be spending the rest of the evening looking after my health. See you all in the morning!” he sing-songs over his shoulder.

“Now this is what I call a hot exit, you gallant thing,” Sylvio purrs as he’s carried away. Maxwell decides, for the sake of his own health, he’ll spend the rest of his life pretending he didn’t hear that.

Samwell nods in approval. “Adventure has treated you both well, then.”

“Um, yes. Yes, I rather think it has.”

“I’m happy for you, Max.” Samwell puts a brotherly hand on his shoulder. “I spent so long worrying about you and Wealwell both, but you’ve grown up into fine men.”

“Grown up— Samwell, uh, how long have you been in Zood again?”

“About fifteen years. Why? How long were you here?”

“Like…” He glances at Marya, who checks the chronometer and grimaces. She and the other Wind Riders make a graceful exit from the imminent delivery of unfortunate news. “A few weeks, maybe?”

“Oh, so I got here early early. Damn.” Samwell’s eyes go distant. “I remember you both being so young. I guess, if I’d done the math—”

“Yeah, no, I’m still twenty-nine.”

“Right. Well, I required those long years of experience to be the big brother you needed when push came to shove. Hatwell headbutted me so hard I died for a second, and if it hadn’t been me, it would have been you or Wealwell.”

“That’s so reasonable.”

“Thank you. I’m going to go get extraordinarily drunk now.”

“Also reasonable,” Maxwell nods. “Have a good night, Samwell.”

Having been left by both of his brothers and all of his crew, Max drinks in the cool night air in Zumhara. He takes a long swallow of his drink—something tart and sparkling, with a note at the back of his mouth that reminds him of the green scent of Oda—and sighs.

“Are you lonely, Maxwell?” Torse asks.

“No, not right now. Are you?”

Torse’s chest echoes with a resonant, thoughtful sound. He tilts his head back to watch the undulating curve of Zern overhead.

“For the first time in many years, no. My people are returned to me. You returned them to me, my friend. I will see them again soon. And then there will be much work to do.”

“I’m glad I could help.” Maxwell has to look away from the sky, a little unsteady on his feet after the drink. His gaze lands on Torse, ever a solid and steady presence. “How do your people celebrate, back home? This is your party too.”

“I do not know,” Torse replies bluntly. “We must have had traditions once, but there has been little cause for celebration in my lifetime. Are the Aganti Zernai a clan of warriors because it was always so, or did circumstances require us to build our children outfitted for battle? I am… grateful that I am able to fight as I can and do. And I have longed to see a world in which, perhaps, that is not all that defines me and my kin.”

“Some of them might know, might still remember.” Maxwell gestures to the sky, to the general idea of the Zernai. “And if not, maybe you make your own traditions now.”

Torse creaks, rocking on his joints in a manner that somehow communicates the shape of a smile.

“You have great knowledge of forging an identity for yourself. It is miraculous, the way you, like Marya, make something beautiful from scrap.” At Maxwell’s confused look, Torse explains, “Your father, and many of your brothers. You are the last in a lineage that offered little to pass on that was worth keeping, so you fashioned Maxwell Gotch alone.”

Maxwell might be tipsier than he’s outwardly letting on. He has to retrace his way through Torse’s sentences two or three times before he catches their meaning. Glittering in the center, once he unearths it, is a sentiment that falls humiliatingly from his mouth upon discovery.

“Did you just call me beautiful?” Max wishes he still had brass knuckles on so he could punch himself to death.

“Yes,” Torse says simply.

“Oh. Thanks. You’re… you’re incredible to look at, yourself.”

“Thank you.” Torse’s thanks are as earnest as everything else he says.

Maxwell stands with Torse at the edge of the celebration. There they stay, as quiet as the space between the twisted braids of Zood and Zern: two asteroids, floating pleasantly in an aurora-filled sky. In his mostly-inebriated state, Maxwell imagines himself and Torse as seen from the outside. A striking pair of silhouettes; light from the ebullient streets of the crystal city streaming from behind; everything blurry and out of focus but the sharp outline of two figures watching others’ joy and feeling it for themselves, too, in their own way.

It’s the best party Maxwell has ever attended that didn’t end in a brawl.

Chapter Text

The full extent of Maxwell’s plan for the future begins and ends with the plot to add insult to fatal injury by ruining his father’s reputation for good. That is Maxwell’s next step, his final task, the satisfying last chapter of one of the better LaMontgomery books.

Wealwell getting shot causes a slight delay.

“I just,” Maxwell does not whine, nor does he pout, because he is a gentleman of nearly thirty years who has seen more realms of existence than decades he’s been alive, “want him to do a little work on the forgery.”

Samwell gives him that Samwell look, sympathetic but firm, impossible to argue with. He puts a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder.

“Max, he’s recuperating. Getting back to Gath was already a strain. He needs peace and quiet.”

“You let Sylvio in there,” Maxwell points out.

There’s an ominous chuckle from the other side of the door that Samwell won’t let him through, which means Wealwell has said something weird that Sylvio finds impossibly cute. He’s probably stroking Wealwell’s hair while Wealwell rests his head in Sylvio’s lap. They’re always doing stuff like that. Reluctantly, Maxwell has to admit he admires Wealwell’s ability to weather his circumstances and come out only ever changed for the better, if changed at all.

“Sylvio isn’t trying to make our convalescing brother falsify legal documents,” Samwell says. “He’s feeding him soup.”

“I could feed him soup while he writes,” Maxwell suggests.

“Look, you’re great with your hands. Holding a pen is kind of like making a fist, isn’t it? Maybe you could give it a try.”

“No, Wealwell’s the one with the skills, because— Oh, right, you’d already left for university. Wealwell!” Maxwell bobs and weaves under Samwell’s arm to knock firmly on the mahogany door. “Wealwell, explain to Samwell why you’re the only one who can copy father’s handwriting!”

“When I was fourteen,” Wealwell warbles, muffled, from inside the room, “father said a true financier always writes his documents sitting down. He said no self-respecting venture capitalist has anything as silly as a standing desk. So I said, father, I’ll prove you wrong, and I spent seventy-three straight days copying every single page in his filing cabinet until you couldn’t tell the originals apart from the ones I’d done. All while standing completely upright!”

“He made me bend over to be his writing surface for a lot of it,” Maxwell adds.

“Johnwell was too tall!”

“You got ink on all my favorite shirts, Wealwell!”

“Boys,” Samwell interrupts, a calming hand ushering Maxwell away from the door. His voice lowers as they move further into the hallway until the conversation is only for the two of them. “There’s no rush. Father will be just as dead tomorrow as he is today. Let yourself rest for one night, Max. What are you running toward?”

“What am I running toward?” Maxwell repeats incredulously. “The… the last thing I need to do!”

Samwell crosses his arms, chewing on Maxwell’s words with serious consideration.

“The last thing you need to do before what?”

“Before I can—” Maxwell realizes how the sentence ends as he speaks it, “go back.”

It’s the only right answer, the only true thing. He has a duty here, a vow he made that needs to be seen through to the end, but he was only ever stagnant in Gath, dreaming of flight. A dream tastes sweeter as a memory. Who knew you could fail to realize you’re sky-eyed until you’re back on the ground?

“You want to go back to Zood.” There’s no judgement in Samwell’s voice, just a confirmation that he’s hearing Maxwell correctly.

“Yes.” A hot rush in Maxwell’s blood makes him feel a little manic. Trying not to show his teeth too much, he asks, desperately, “Don’t you miss it?”

Samwell takes a deep, pensive breath.

“Of course there are things I miss about Zood. I spent nearly a third of my life there. But I only went there in the first place to bring you home.” He smiles wryly. The wrinkle he’s always had at the side of his nose is so much deeper now. “I guess that was my last thing. And now there’s work to do here.”

“Not for me, I don’t think,” Maxwell admits.

“Maybe not. You know, it’ll take some elbow grease to dismantle Gotch Industries, but a generous severance package for every employee will probably drain the last of the family coffers. The only thing I can offer you and Wealwell is our one remaining Karakamachi blimp. And, of course, detailed instructions explaining how I got to Zood.” Samwell winks. “Grandfather wasn’t the only one who dreamed of funding eccentrics.”

Maxwell feels like he’s just taken an exquisite uppercut to the jaw. His heels are liable to leave the ground.

“What about you?” he asks, giddy.

“Kickboxing can be a lucrative sport, even at my age.”

“Samwell, you… you…” Maxwell throws his arms around his older—older—brother. “You rowdy.”

Samwell returns the hug, rubbing Maxwell’s back.

“As a very precocious boy once told me, I think we could all stand to be a bit more rowdy around here.”

“I’m fully twenty-nine,” Maxwell reminds him, face buried in his brother’s shoulder.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“I fear your brother is quite unwell,” Sylvio says at the breakfast table the next morning, voice low and round. Wealwell is still shut away in his room, abstaining from food due to a returned nausea.

“See?” Maxwell says. “What did I say? The air here is awful for him.”

Samwell hums, concerned.

“It sounds like we should try to get him out of Eisengeist as soon as possible. How was the air in Pilby, Max?”

“Dusty,” Maxwell says.

“In Bellenuit?” Samwell asks.

“Damp.”

“Damn.”

“There is,” Sylvio drawls, eyes darting between the brothers, “another option.”

“Zood, right?” Maxwell says. Sylvio nods. “We need to take him back to Zood. But—shit—the papers.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem for much longer.” Sylvio taps his nose, then reaches into a deep pocket in the bomber jacket he always wears. He pulls out a crisply-folded legal-sized page.

“What…?” Maxwell takes it and skims the document. It’s not the whole thing, but it’s the first page of a very competently-arranged fake eviction notice.

“Your brother’s injury has severely cut into his standing time,” Sylvio explains. “He’s been bored out of his very mind by having to lie down, even in our honeymoon phase.”

Sylvio swishes the last two words around in his mouth like rich, red wine. Maxwell obstinately ignores the salacious tone and focuses on the forgery in front of him.

“This is fantastic! I’ll go talk to him about the rest.” Maxwell looks to his eldest brother. “Samwell, how soon can we get the blimp ready?”

“It fuels up in a couple of hours,” Samwell says, “but the real issue will be finding a crew willing to take a one-way trip to a different world.”

“You’ve got my good self,” Sylvio offers.

“Yes, right,” Maxwell says, “and Freyja.”

Freyja Ildisdottir, former junior associate sworn to the House of Fehujar, current senior associate at Gotch Industries, has discovered guns.

Once upon a time, she only knew the concept as a specter haunting stories for scaring children, told in hushed whispers. The idea of the weapon was shunned violently by her kinsmen. It was called only by the darkest of names: Zernian witchcraft; the coward’s tool whose touch corrupts; that which is wielded by the most heinous of boogeymen, the bank robber.

Freed from her contract and loyalty to the House of Fehujar, Freyja now knows the truth. Firing a gun is fucking awesome.

“Blam! Blam!” she screams at the target set up on the manor lawn, a dusty old training dummy unearthed from the basement that once belonged to one of the many Gotch brothers with a rowdy secret. “Take that, bugs!”

“Don’t shoot me,” says a nervously jovial voice approaching her from the direction of the house, “it’s just your employer.”

“Master Gotch!” Freyja points her pistol directly at the sky.

“Yes, um. Those work better if you put bullets in them.” Maxwell Gotch folds his arms over his chest, eyeing the pistol.

“I already did!” Freyja insists. She squeezes the trigger once, and at the sound of the click, she shouts Blam! again.

Maxwell Gotch pinches the bridge of his nose in white-gloved fingers.

“You have to reload when the bullets run— Never mind, Sylvio is the one teaching you this. It’s not my problem.” He sighs and straightens his shoulders. “Senior Associate Ildisdottir, are you ready for your next assignment?”

“My thane!” She thuds a fist against her chest. It happens to be the hand with the gun in it. She forces herself not to wince when the barrel hits her collar bone.

“How would you feel about going back to Zood?”

Freyja hesitates.

“Master Gotch, permission to speak freely?”

“Um, sure. Yes. As long as you’re not rude about it.”

“Your Gath, it is… a land of wonders.” Freyja searches her mind and heart for the words to make her employer see what a perfect place he is threatening to ferry her away from. “Things I never dreamed would be possible. You just have them here, taken for granted. Ever since I was a small girl, when I would look out at the asteroids of Zood and wonder if there were worlds beyond my own, I did not dare to imagine such a place as this.”

Maxwell Gotch’s eyes soften. The corner of his mustache twitches as if he’s about to smile. Freyja knows this is the time to strike with all her most poetic power.

“You have that most incredible thing of all,” she says, starry-eyed. “Commerce.”

“What?”

“Money! And, and banks! So many banks ripe for a hostile takeover! And they don’t even expect it, they are hardly warriors. The eldest Master Gotch took me with him to the First Bank of Eisengeist to fill out a withdrawal slip, and they just let him! We could crush these pathetic bankers effortlessly and seize their incredible economic resources for ourselves!”

“Oh,” Maxwell Gotch says. “No, we’re not gonna do that.”

“Why? Because you want to go back to Zood?”

“Well, yes. And because my brother is going to liquidate Gotch Industries’s assets and dissolve the company.”

The world falls out from beneath Freyja’s feet. She collapses to her hands and knees, gun lying forgotten in the grass.

“My life has ended, then,” she intones. “I will be entombed with my direct report.”

“Freyja, get up. It’s…” He huffs out a breath that probably ruffles his mustache. Freyja wouldn’t know, too busy staring into the abyss. “Gotch Industries isn’t going away for good. We’re only shutting down the Gath branch.”

Freyja lifts her head, a sliver of light spotted on the darkest horizon.

“You mean…?”

“Yes, Senior Associate Ildisdottir.” Maxwell Gotch takes her by the arm and lifts her to her feet. “Gotch Industries is moving its headquarters to Zood, and if you come with me, you’ll be regional manager.”

Freyja grabs her pistol off the ground, aims it in the air, and fires bullets into the sky over and over, letting loose one long, unbroken scream until her face turns purple. “I ACCEPT THIS PROMOTION!”

“Great. I guess there were a few rounds in the chamber after all,” Maxwell Gotch mutters, hands over his ears.

Longspot Gotch spent the short few days immediately after his death chilling in the Gotch family root cellar while he waited to be exhumed from his temporary refrigeration and hauled by his youngest son up the ramp to the gondola of a blimp.

“Master Go— What the fuck?” Captain Miryam Dawderdale’s hand falls from her crisp salute at the sight of a corpse dangling from Maxwell’s shoulders.

“You saw nothing,” Maxwell hisses.

“So sorry, Captain Dawderdale. It appears there’s been a bit of a mix-’em-up,” Wealwell drawls, being bridal-carried by Samwell. “We were supposed to take a car to find a shady establishment and a ditch to deposit our father’s body in, but I still need to finish forging his signature. I’ve been—” he gags, retches, but doesn’t quite vomit, “under the weather since we returned, even without factoring in my wound, so the counterfeit is taking longer than any of us would like.”

“And we’ll miss our shot at the biangle if we don’t hurry up,” Maxwell adds, dragging his father’s bloody corpse past Dawderdale impatiently. Freyja follows behind him, toting an ominously Tommy-gun-shaped bag in one hand and a different bag full of gun-sized items clanking metalically in the other.

“Yes,” Wealwell continues, “Sylvio warned us, even now that time is… what was the word, my sweet cabbage?”

“Unbefrumpled, moppet.”

“Unbefrumpled, we still need to make all haste to catch up to the biangle.”

“Time is swiftly running out,” Sylvio explains, twirling the end of his mustache. “If we miss this window, we’ll have to delay our departure by weeks, if not longer.”

“Then let’s go!” Maxwell’s voice echoes tinnily through the metal cockpit.

“Right you are, Master Gotch.” Dawderdale strides for the captain’s chair at a clip. As the last and most loyal Gotch family retainer, she’ll see them through back to Zood with all haste. “Let’s hit the skies!”

Samwell Gotch waves the blimp goodbye from the immaculate lawn of the Gotch Manor. He watches it shrink smaller and smaller, carrying the little brothers who always needed him the most toward the last gift he can give them before they’re big enough to do it all alone. He sighs, jams a FOR SALE sign into the dirt, and heads back inside.

A dozen klicks away, the blimp dips suddenly out of the sky, drops a corpse into a ditch from thirty feet in the air, and continues on its way. Somewhere high beyond the clouds, it leaves this world entirely.

Chapter Text

“I don’t consider myself a superstitious man,” Sylvio says, voice like a heavy pour of rich, dark liquor, as they swiftly bid farewell to the skies of Gath, “but you know what they say about an unchristened ship. Bad luck.”

“Can’t have that!” Wealwell agrees. “We’re all in luck that you and I can rectify this at once.” He begins untying his cravat.

“Wealwell!” Maxwell slaps his brother’s hand away from the cravat. “He didn’t mean—You meant the ship needs a name, right?” He clenches his teeth, desperately hoping. “Right, Sylvio?”

“Ah! Precisely so, Maxwell. Though I do love a more relaxed look on you, my dove,” Sylvio adds, aside, to Wealwell. “You can leave that untied for now.”

“Scandalous,” Wealwell gasps, smiling impishly. He pulls the cravat from his neck and waves it dramatically from one hand as if saluting a steamship.

“Well,” Captain Dawderdale says thoughtfully, “our last vehicle was Mr. Big Britches. We owe a great debt to your family for this trip as well, Masters Gotch…”

Maxwell sees the window of opportunity to head this off at the pass growing narrower and narrower. He makes a valiant last ditch effort.

“We are not naming the blimp the goddamn Go—”

“The Gotch Show!” Freyja declares.

“We’re not flying around in the Gotch Show.” Maxwell wants it to sound like an authoritative demand; it comes out as a plea.

“Maxwell, come on,” Wealwell groans like he has any right to be frustrated. “It’s literally the Gotch Show. You’re clearly the main guy of this thing!”

“I— What? You thought you were the main guy, Wealwell.”

“Obviously we’re doing a sequel.” Wealwell rolls his eyes.

“You put us all on this path, my boy,” Sylvio says, laying a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder. “It’s a high honor, having a ship named after you. You should be proud.”

“You sound like you’re going to kill me and name the ship after yourself,” Maxwell remarks.

“Sorry. Nasty habit. I’m only trying to be encouraging.”

“Right.” Maxwell pinches the bridge of his nose. “Clearly I’m outvoted. But isn’t the Gotch Show kind of an awkward mouthfeel? It’s going to slur together into—”

The entire blimp jerks. Everyone on board is knocked prone except Wealwell, who was already there, and Dawderdale, who is strapped into the pilot’s chair.

“Biangle incoming!” Captain Dawderdale shouts. A familiar light cuts a slit in the sky. Maxwell’s argument leaves his brain, Wealwell’s lunch leaves his stomach, and the crew leaves Gath in a turbulent tumble that sears their retinas.

“What a landing!” Sylvio chuckles, tangled in the seatbelts no one was wearing and dangling upside down against one wall. “To everyone on the Gotch Show, may I be the first to say, welcome back to Zood!”

They pop out of the sky over open ocean. If Zood is anything like Gath, Miryam should have expected that. Most of the surface ought to be water. Then again, who knows in what ways Zood is anything like Gath at all. Its places and people are familiar until they aren’t. The great, endless stretch of ocean is one of the familiar pieces so far, but that’s by sight alone. She wonders if it wraps all the way around the tube, vim to vex and back again. This blimp struggles to reach the altitudes needed to see the curvature, even on a world as narrow as this one. The question excites her. Miryam wasn’t doing much navigating on their last visit, as captain-on-the-ground, but she’s always had a head for geography.

She briefly mourns the lack of an atlas, then realizes she has the third or fourth best thing.

“Freyja,” Miryam calls.

“Ja?” Freyja Ildisdottir pokes her head in through the open door of the cockpit.

“How far around the girth of Zood would you say this sea that we’re traversing now extends?”

“Uhh,” the regional manager of the Zoodian branch of Gotch Industries presses her face to the window, “probably pretty far.”

“You don’t know?”

“I can’t tell oceans apart from the middle of them!”

“Can’t argue with that.” Miryam’s brow prickles with sweat under the brim of her uniform hat. For all she knows, she could be floating them even further out to sea. They’ll be stranded, caught in doldrums and dead in the air, no land in sight. Provisions will surely run out soon—the youngest Master Gotch was in too much of a hurry to leave.

There’s nothing else for it; they’ll have to eat each other. With how ill he’s been, the middle Gotch will certainly go first. Miryam finds the idea of eating him in particular distasteful, but needs must. She prepares herself for the inevitability.

“Hellooooo, Marya!” The voice of the very same Gotch brother in question echoes melodically through the gondola. “We’ve made it to Zood, finally. It’s rejuvenating. I can already feel the standing power coursing through me.”

Miryam whips her head around, pulling her attention from the view in front of the blimp she’s currently piloting, to see Master Wealwell Gotch chattering away into the inside of the lid of his pocketwatch.

“How long have you had that?” his younger brother demands, leaning over the middle Master Gotch’s shoulder.

“Since a couple of days before we left,” he says flippantly. “Van threatened to kill me because I kept ‘stealing’ that piece of magic glass or whatever it was to talk to her father. And her grandfather. And several of her uncles. This was before she so kindly introduced me to my tall drink of water here, of course.” He pats Mr. Dufresne’s hand. “Then Marya decided to give me one of my own! I called her just now using a sketch I did of her shoes.”

“Hallo, Gotches!” Captain Marya Junková’s throaty voice is small through the slice of crystal, barely audible to Miryam. “Eh, Sylvio, how is the honeymoon phase treating you?”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, Marya, you old gossip.”

“That well, huh? Look, you actually managed to sweep Wealwell off his feet.”

“There’s only one man who has ever stopped me from standing!” Master Wealwell Gotch declares. “And we’ll never know who it was.”

“Should I be jealous this time, my dewdrop?” Mr. Dufresne chuckles.

“Always.” The elder of the two present Gotches tilts his head back to look up at Mr. Dufresne, besotted. Mr. Dufresne leans down and presses a kiss to his coif of golden hair.

“So what’s up with you, Marya?” Master Gotch the Younger pointedly cuts through his brother’s lovesick display.

“Playing third wheel to a couple of sky-eyed girls, mostly. I keep trying to leave them to their adventures and they keep almost dying the second I look away. Oh, speak of the devils—”

“Is that Max?” Olethra MacLeod’s voice overtakes Captain Junker’s. “Hey!”

“Hey, Olethra,” Master Gotch answers fondly.

“Did you finish throwing your dad in a dumpster?”

“It was a ditch outside a dive bar, but yes. We just got back to Zood.”

“Oh shit! We should meet up. Where are you guys?”

“Uh, good question.” Master Gotch turns to Miryam. “Captain Dawderdale?”

Miryam sweats even more profusely. Every inch of her is clammy.

“Coordinates are, er…” She turns back to the pilot’s dashboard, hoping the instruments will have something useful to say, and screams at the sight filling the windshield. “Fuck!”

A clockwork skyship emerges from a cloud, sharp bowsprit rising like an iceberg, dead on course to puncture the envelope. Miryam slams on the rudder pedal, yawing sharply, and spins the elevator wheel so hard it clicks like a slot machine. The emergency rise sends everything and everyone in the gondola tumbling ass-over-teakettle once again, but she buys them just enough air that the point of the other ship scrapes loudly against the metal hull below instead of stabbing through the gas bag keeping the Gotch Show afloat.

“What is happening?” Captain Junker asks frantically.

“Is that Goldbeard again?” the elder Master Gotch asks, sounding like he wishes he had his ground katanas back.

“It’s—” The younger Master Gotch laughs, the strange, wheezing, joyful thing that is forced out of him when he means it and isn’t just being polite. “It’s Zern!”

“Fucking Zoodian pilots,” Captain Sprong snarls. She slams the hailing signal once again, gyroscopic heart wobbling irritably, as the blimp hurtling directly into the Aganti IV’s flight path seems to finally notice them.

Torse readies himself to play peacemaker. This is the third time in as many days that a craft with a far more whimsical sense of air traffic guidelines than the Zernai are accustomed to has crossed the good captain, and now the nearest they have come to an outright crash. His diplomatic skills, honed as they are by long years learning to communicate in Zood, may yet be strained by this conflict. He mentally reviews the tried-and-true strategy of the feedback sandwich.

The hailing channel finally opens as a flustered voice with a Gathie accent says, “Hello? I mean, what’s your call sign?”

“This is the Aganti IV,” Captain Sprong replies. “State your call sign. Are you in distress?”

“Uh, no. No distress. Apologies. Had a bit of a mix-’em-up over here. This is the Gotch Show.”

Torse’s gears whir in surprise.

“Maxwell?”

There is a staticky shuffling on the other end of the channel, and a deeper voice replies, “Torse? Is that you?”

“Yes. Hello, my friend.” Torse’s heart ticks with joy. When last they saw one another, Maxwell’s intention was to return to Gath. Whether he has not yet left or is newly returned, Torse is honored by the opportunity to see him in the skies again.

“Permission to board, Aganti IV?” Maxwell asks.

Before Captain Sprong can answer, Torse takes it upon himself to say, “Gotch Show, permission granted.”

She turns her gaze on him, humming with electric irritation. Torse placidly leaves the cockpit to instruct the rest of the crew to prepare to be boarded. The captain can hardly fault him for the insubordination; he’s always been a rebel.

Maxwell’s body thrums with excitement as the crew of the Gotch Show—ugh—boards the Aganti IV. He clenches his fists and teeth, recalling a life of the rearing that good breeding earns you: composed, in control, utterly tamped down flat.

He sees Torse, and all that goes out the window.

“How are you here?” Maxwell laughs. He grasps Torse’s hand in his own and pulls until their foreheads press together. “I thought you were heading back to Zern.”

“I was. I did. We are on a diplomatic mission—myself, and a number of my people. Ah,” he stands up straight, still holding Maxwell’s hand, and looks across the deck of the vessel, “my captain is coming over to yell at me.”

“Yell at you? For what?” Maxwell bristles protectively. How dare this captain press Torse under yet another yoke, when he’s just shrugged off the last one.

“Insubordination,” Torse says easily. “She should have been the one to grant you permission to board. I took the liberty on her behalf.”

Approaching them with long strides is another automaton, similar in style to Torse but even taller. She’s easily ten feet high. Her frame is less bulky than many of the other Zernai, and she lacks the blades most of them sport. Instead, her knuckles and head are partially made of stone, interrupting the otherwise-uniform iron of her body.

“Is she going to kick us off the ship?” Maxwell asks warily. He takes stock of the manpower on their side, should things go badly. Wealwell is still on the blimp; Sylvio remains halfway down the gangplank, eyes sharp, hands ready to grab his rifle at a moment’s notice. Freyja and Dawderdale have followed Maxwell onto the main deck, having had to jog to catch up with his abrupt sprint.

Torse hums a doubtful sound.

The captain joins the Gotch Show’s small crew. Her staggering height becomes even more alarming as she approaches.

“I am Sprong,” she introduces herself. “I see you are acquainted with Torse. Though it was not my doing, I bid you welcome to the Aganti IV.” She bows. Her joints clatter pleasantly when she moves.

“Captain Sprong, this,” Torse puts a hand on Maxwell’s back, “is Maxwell. My friend, and the man who lit the beacons.”

Captain Sprong’s entire body seems to coil and release its tension in surprise. She leans in toward Maxwell, blocking the sun in the sky and casting him in shadow. The violet light that must be her eyes brightens until Maxwell feels the sharp, concentrated beam of her attention like an ant beneath a magnifying glass.

“You are a great friend to the Aganti Zernai, then,” she declares.

“I am. Or, I hope to be. I didn’t really know what I was doing then. Ringing the bell just… felt like the right thing to do. But I’m glad that I could show my friendship to Torse’s people.” Maxwell squeezes Torse’s hand, and abruptly realizes he never let go of it after their initial embrace. He’s standing next to Torse with one of Torse’s hands on his back and the other in his grip like an awkward handshake, like he’s posing for a photograph after getting a prize from the mayor.

Maxwell lets go of Torse and clears his throat, stepping a scant inch away.

“You are welcome to join us for as long as your itinerary allows, so we might celebrate the serendipity of this meeting,” Captain Sprong says. After a brief pause, she turns to Torse. “Thank you, envoy, for permitting me to extend the invitation.”

Torse groans an embarrassed sound. Maxwell smiles.

“Master Gotch, will we be staying aboard long enough that I should secure the blimp?” Dawderdale asks.

“Yes?” Maxwell looks to Torse. Captain’s leave or no, this is the only person whose opinion of Maxwell’s company he cares about. Torse nods, gears whirring happily. “Yes, Captain Dawderdale!” Maxwell confirms. “And tell Wealwell he can come too, if he’s feeling up to it.”

Torse whirs less happily this time, but doesn’t outright complain. Maxwell is accustomed to this reaction to his brother. He’ll take what he can get.

Captain Sprong begins to gather the rest of the crew, leaving Torse to take Maxwell and Freyja to wherever the party is going to be. Maxwell expects a Zernian party to be more to his tastes than the majority that he’s been to in his life. At that thought, he reminisces—more fondly than he thought he would—on the last party he attended. Torse was there, after all. Any event is better in good company.

“Tell me,” Torse says, “did you return to Gath, or are we delaying your mission?”

“Oh, no, mission accomplished,” Maxwell replies. “We’re back in Zood to stay, I think.”

“You saw your solemn vow through to its end with great efficiency.”

“Thank you.” Maxwell preens at the compliment. “And look at you. Envoy, huh? I don’t know if diplomatic titles are different in Zern, but that sounds important.”

“It is accurate,” Torse says. “My long years traveling in Zood have prepared me to communicate with those of flesh more… effectively than many of my kin. I am also familiar with the geography and political structures. None of the Aganti Zernai but myself have left Zern in generations. My presence here eases friction that would otherwise make our mission difficult. Ah, here we are. The celebration will be held in the mess.”

It hadn’t occurred to Maxwell that there might be a mess deck on a Zernian ship, but the logic clicks when he walks through the door and finds that it smells like a boiler room. There are vats of coal where chafing dishes might be, oil and water in cans with spouts, and a row of hooks on the walls with dangling wind-up keys.

“Celebration,” Maxwell says softly. “Did you ever find out about those old traditions?”

“No.” Torse hums, an impish sound that tickles Maxwell like a smirk or a wink. “We are making it up as we go.”

“Good. Can’t recommend it highly enough.” Maxwell beams happily as he takes a seat at one of the long tables. The benches are wide and nearly too tall for him, built to accommodate beings of very different proportions. “So, what is this mission you’re on?”

“Rebuilding,” Captain Sprong answers, leading some dozen or so other Zernai into the hall. “We have lost much. Zood has much. It should be simple.”

“Willingness on the part of Zood is not the issue,” Torse says. Maxwell can’t tell if it’s an elaboration for his benefit, or a reply to Sprong. This may be a debate they’ve had many times, then. “Zern’s infrastructure was obliterated entirely over the centuries. The only remaining energy source for many decades was the Calefactory Biangle. With Straka gone and the biangle free, we must now face our energy crisis. It will take time to get the forges and engines up and running again, but that is not time that we have. There is… urgency to the problem that—”

“That Zood cannot conceive of,” Sprong interrupts. “They are incapable of understanding the concept of urgency.”

“They have no method,” Torse counters, “of instantly transmitting massive amounts of energy across great distances. The knowledge that created the Prime Disruption was intentionally destroyed. Zumhara and Oda are willing to help, but the logistical barriers at hand have delayed the fulfillment of our mission.”

“What’s the next step, then?” Maxwell asks.

“Our current plan is to journey to Tabira City. Marya is there. We require a great mechanical mind.”

“Really? We were just talking to her! Wealwell has a little mirror thing.” Maxwell gestures back toward the blimp. “We were planning to meet up anyway. Captain Sprong, would you mind if we imposed on you a little longer, since we’re all going to the same place? And we, uh, don’t have a map.”

“You are welcome for as long as your itinerary allows,” she repeats. “As honored guests, our envoy will host you for the week it will take to arrive in Tabira City.”

“Yes, great. Excellent.” Maxwell sighs, stretching until his shoulder pops. “It’s been a wild few days. It’ll be great for Torse and I to get a chance to catch up and unwind.”

There is a heavy clunk from inside Torse, like some vital mechanism has slipped its tread.

“Mhm. I see,” Captain Sprong says as if Maxwell has elucidated some mystery for her. “This explains Torse’s behaviors.”

Maxwell can feel Torse’s machinery rapidly heating up from a foot away. He’s never noticed that happening before; paired with the sound, it’s alarming. Wealwell, wherever he is, has the tinkers on the magic mirror line, but no one on the Gotch Show knows machines intimately enough to help in an emergency. Maxwell is about to ask if there’s a mechanic in the room when Torse speaks, and his cadence only worries Maxwell more.

“Captain, it’s— No,” Torse stammers, crackling with static. “I— He doesn’t—”

“Hey,” Freyja interrupts, “can’t we hook them up to Gotch Industries’ first Zoodian acquisition?”

“Wh— Huh? Freyja, what are you talking about?” Maxwell manages to wrest his attention away from Torse’s obvious malfunction, since none of the automata in the room seem concerned. He’ll ask Torse about it later.

“You are the administrator of Ramansu power station,” Freyja reminds him.

“Oh, shit.” Torse abruptly cools off by ten degrees. “Freyja Ildisdottir, that is a good fucking idea!”

“Ja, I have many of them! This is why I’m regional manager.” She puffs out her chest. “I’m so glad you murdered all those guys from my home that one time.”

“Which time?”

“You know, when I got captured by bugs and they made me eat more bugs.”

“Oh, right.” Torse pauses. “I didn’t know they were going to do that. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. They won’t do it this time because I know the password and the security question.”

“Goddammit,” Maxwell swears.