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“Diminishing,” Joy said. “Not eliminating. And you have influence over your neighbors.”

“Ah, so you are ready to trample those smaller realms.”

“Aiya! You immediately see all proposals as hostile! Why? Do you hate me so much?”

As if Joy’s anger proved some obscure point, Corinna seemed serene. “It is because I have an obligation to see the future.” She gestured to Snow Pine. “You are the daughter of a mighty power, Joy. Perhaps,” Corinna continued, with a slight nod to Eshe, “the most powerful on the Earthe. And we were nearly conquered by other Easterners, the Karvaks. We will have to tread carefully. Even if you come in friendship, you may overwhelm us.”

“You misjudge us,” Snow Pine said.

“Intention is not all that matters. Potential must be weighed. Nevertheless, if you are merely advising that slavery be ended . . . I agree. But it will happen when
we
decide.”

Hekla said, “I lack Corinna’s fear of you, Joy. I hear your words. But thralldom is essential to our livelihoods. Oxiland lives on the edge of poverty as it is. We cannot give up our farmhands.”

“Don’t give them up then!” Joy said. “Free them! Pay them!”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Perhaps. It may be the Runethane’s job to be naive.” Joy took a deep breath. “Nevertheless, any escaped slave who reaches my island will be considered free and under my protection.”

The meeting broke up with a silent, stony sipping of tea.

Eshe came to Joy afterward. “You have the wolf by the tail.”

“You think I shouldn’t have pushed?”

Eshe shrugged. “I’m just a bureaucrat. I do what people tell me.”

“Including assassinating the Grand Khan?” Joy whispered.

“There are many conflicting accounts of that event.”

“Some of which you authored?”

“If I did have something to do with that,” Eshe said, looking directly into Joy’s eyes, “I hope the Runethane would note the positive effects. Any other way of ending the war would have cost even more lives. That is the burden of knowing things, and in a way I grieve for you, that you will share that burden. I have studied the
Chart of Tomorrows
, which might aptly be titled
A Journey to Kantenjord
, and I had the language skills to fully understand it. I have thus perceived how fragile the world really is, and how many alternate timelines lead to doom. I will give my agents their respite. But sooner or later, I will have work for them.”

Joy stared after Eshe as she left, wondering. But Snow Pine joined Joy and hugged her, dismissing thoughts of dooms.

“I am proud,” Snow Pine said. “And afraid. You don’t have to come with me. You’ve made a challenge you may have to back up.”

“Life is short, Mother. I want to help you get to Qiangguo. I want to see it at least once.”

“Well then, I will not presume to argue. On this matter. I look up at the moon over Kantenjord and know it for the same that shines upon our homeland. And I, who once hated Qiangguo, long to return. I hope Corinna’s fears are true in one respect, and that this truly is an Air Age—or Aeolian Age, as your stepfather-to-be would have it. Then we may see each other often, after you return.”

“Agreed.”

They descended the path. Looking down to the newly constructed harbor, they saw
Anansi
readying itself for departure.

“What?” Joy said. “So soon! They wouldn’t!”

“Go,” Snow Pine said. “You can get there much faster than I.”

Joy quickened her chi, leaping downslope as fast as she could.

She passed Eshe, glaring at the spymaster as she went.

She passed Steelfox, who stood beside Jewelwolf on a cliffside, Karvak soldiers thick around them. She couldn’t linger to discover the meaning of the gathering.

She passed Corinna, who had met Haytham ibn Zakwan. Joy nodded curtly and continued. She would always dislike the queen of Soderland, but from now on she would have to control her feelings.

Except with Innocence.
He
was about to get an earful.

“You will not stay with me, inventor?”

“I am tempted more than I can say, O queen. But I fear—”

“Yes? I think there is no fear we could not face together.”

“My fear is of a different nature than you think. There is a quote of a distant land that keeps ringing in my ears. ‘I am become death, the devourer of worlds.’ It was my inventions that brought war to these lands.”

“And your inventions that can ensure the peace! I will need vessels of the air to guard against those of the Karvaks. And sooner or later such craft will arrive from elsewhere, the Eldshore, Qiangguo, Kpalamaa. . . .”

“Yes. That is exactly it. I developed my balloons for exploration, and I dared hope they would bring a perspective that would literally elevate humanity. Instead they’ve become tools of death. I do not know how to respond. But building more warships is not the way.”

“Then do not build warships. Build art. Build toys. Build castles in the air. But build them near me, my dear inventor.”

“I . . .”

“I see. I am surrounded by people who now think I’m hateful. I’d hoped you were not one of them.”

“I . . . have wondered what you really think of me, Corinna. For I am, from a certain point of view, also an ‘alien.’”

“No one understands. . . . I saw the destruction of my land, Haytham. Not from any fault of ours. Because foreigners were simply much stronger. I do not fear Easterners for being different. I fear being erased.”

“Please try, Corinna, to see them as people, with their own quirks, wants, and needs, not simply as a threat.”

“If I can do that, will you stay?”

“Whatever I may feel, whatever my admiration . . . you tried to kill my friend. She who only wanted to help you. I am going, Corinna. For a long time. But I will listen for word of how you deal with matters in Kantenjord. Perhaps, one day . . .”

“I understand.”

“You got your way. You’ve come to gloat.”

“I’ve come to talk, Jewelwolf.”

“I will inevitably return to the homeland, sister. I will inevitably come out on top. I’ll determine how you killed Clifflion.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“And I will come for you and your rebel khanate.”

“That is what I get for sparing you. But I would do it again. You are my sister.”

“You are a fool.”

“Perhaps. I am summoning delegations. Swanlings. Followers of the Undetermined. Scholars of the All-Now. Many others. I think it’s time I considered the world’s faiths.”

“You abandon tradition.”

“No. But I am open to new ones. I need a way forward that includes mercy. I cannot do without it.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Perhaps. But it seems to be working so far. We will speak again, sister. I will never give up on you.”

Gaunt saw Joy approaching through a spyglass. She passed it to Innocence.

“She looks angry,” he said glumly.

“I would be too,” Gaunt said. “I warned you.”

“Women,” Bone said, “in my experience, do not like good-byes. But they hate vanishings much more.”

“I was
not
vanishing,” Innocence said. “I was respecting her new station.”

“You are in trouble,” Bone said. “I promise to morally support you, in silence.”

“Don’t taunt him, Bone.”

Joy leapt onto the ship’s deck. “You!” she said to the three of them. “You were going to leave without saying good-bye.”

Bone said, “It was actually all his idea.”

Innocence sputtered. “You said you would be silent!”

Gaunt said, “Innocence truly didn’t want to hurt you, Joy.”

“It is hard to say good-bye,” Innocence said. “I thought you would feel the same way.”

“Yes, I do. But—it’s all so much, Innocence. We never asked for those powers to toy with us. I don’t know what they wanted with us in the first place. Why choose champions from beyond their borders?”

Gaunt said, “We might never know. But good came of it, I think. At any rate, Joy, our family needs time to itself—away from powers, empires, wars. We are going to Oxiland. We will try farming for a little while, until Eshe decides to send us on a mission.”

“Which will probably be all of three days,” Bone said.

“Why Oxiland?” Joy said. “You spent some time there, Innocence.”

“I like the scenery. It suits me.”

“Is there a girl there?”

“Bone,” Gaunt said, “let’s go check in with Eshe.”

“But I still see her up on the mountain. . . .”

“Walk with me, Bone.”

They walked.

“There
is
a girl . . .”

“I knew it.”

“And I do want to speak with her again. Maybe it is something, maybe it is nothing. But that’s not the main reason.”

“I understand. I shouldn’t feel . . . jealous. It would be strange . . . if you and I . . .”

“We grew up together. I want my friend to remain my friend.”

“Then why do you want to leave, Innocence? Do you think we can’t be friends anymore, if you lack power?”

“Nonsense, Joy! I have all the power I need.”

“You speak of your bad breath?”

“Ha! Joy, we will be friends always. And we will meet again. But I have been driven near to madness. I need to be . . . just me. You know your mother in a way that I do not know mine. And my father is practically an imaginary figure for me, still. I need this time.”

“Promise me you will come back to the monastery, if you hear that I’ve returned.”

“I promise. The uldra-earl may be right; I will always be traveling. We will stick-fight on the heights again. And I promise more. If you do not return, I will come looking for you, all the way to the fairy isles.”