The lounge of the airship was quiet in the particular way silence becomes once it's earned. No tension, no anticipation—just the steady hum of ascent and the faint vibration of a machine that knew exactly where it was going.
Within minutes, we were above the clouds.
"That spear looks really neat," Victoria said, lifting the weapon the Chairman had gifted her with both hands, as though afraid it might float away if she loosened her grip.
"It's called a qiang," I corrected, nodding toward the one resting beside me. "What's unusual is that he gave you… that."
She frowned at the unfamiliar spear, turning it slightly so the low cabin lights caught along its surface.
"It's called a—" She stopped, lips pressing together. "I don't know what it's called."
"May I?" I asked.
She handed it over.
The shaft was black—not painted, not polished. Black as structure. I ran my fingers along it and felt the subtle ridges beneath the surface.
"Interesting," I murmured. "The shaft isn't solid."
"It's a double helix," Victoria said, smiling faintly. "Like DNA."
"Mm," I replied, unconvinced but attentive. "And the head is wrong."
The blade wasn't flat. It split, branched—neither spear nor trident. More like a star that had failed to collapse.
"It looks like a 'Y'," she said, peering at it.
"Or a star diagram."
I checked the paper. "Trihedral," I corrected. "Functionally cruciform."
I flicked her forehead. "Close is not correct."
"Two metres," she added, reading from a folded slip of paper tied near the grip. Then she glanced at my weapon palm on her forehead. "Yours is two and a half."
She swapped them experimentally, hefting mine with a dangerous glint in her eye.
"I'd like to throw it."
I chose not to dignify that with a response and turned instead to the window.
The night outside was wrong.
Beautiful—but wrong. The sky was darker than it should have been, stars too sharp, too numerous. And there, half-hidden behind cloud, hung a red moon—partial, bruised, like an old wound refusing to fade.
Dinner appeared without announcement.
"It's a meal," Ezra said mildly, setting the table. Oatmeal, vegetable soup, scrambled eggs. Plain. Almost aggressively so.
"I'm not hungry," Victoria said automatically.
"You are," Ezra replied, already pouring milk. "Your body simply hasn't informed you yet."
Victoria stared back out at the sky.
"Ezra," she said slowly, "it was ten in the morning when we entered that forest. I've only been awake for four hours. Why is the moon at its peak?"
I looked to them as well. Something in my chest tightened.
"Because the world did not wait for your trial, Miss Victoria," Ezra answered, slicing fruit into the oatmeal with surgical precision. "It continued."
Not long after, Victoria pressed her fingers to her temple.
"My head hurts."
"You haven't eaten," Ezra said at once.
"Ezra," I asked, glancing at the wall clock—which had not moved since we boarded—"what time is it?"
"Oh," they said, surprised, producing a pocket watch. "A few minutes past twenty-two hours."
I nearly dropped my spoon.
I exhaled slowly.
At most, I had expected a delayed second meal.
It seemed I had misjudged the scale entirely.
Tea appeared in Victoria's hands. She looked paler now. Slower.
"Is she alright?" I asked when Ezra returned from bathing her.
"She is human," they replied evenly. "Humans cannot skip meals without consequence."
"And me?"
They looked at me, then handed over the eggs. "Miss Heiwa is a gold-core cultivator. More durable. That does not mean exempt."
Victoria returned in nightwear that looked too soft for someone who had rewritten law before lunch. Ezra pressed another glass of milk into her hands.
"Miss Heiwa," they said, "would you like to bathe?"
"Yes," I replied. "Alone."
They inclined their head and led me away.
Of course it was a pool.
Warm water, lavender and milk soap, lighting tuned to eternal sunset. I sank in and exhaled a sound I hadn't known I was holding.
"These are the kinds of things you brag about to friends," I muttered, submerging completely.
Then I surfaced.
Then submerged again.
When I finally emerged, Ezra's voice drifted in from nowhere and everywhere.
"Are you finished?"
"What's that sound?" I asked.
They gestured.
Victoria slept, curled into the bed as though she'd always belonged there. Somewhere, a piano played—soft, distant. Thunder followed, gentle and steady, like the sky practicing restraint.
"Twinkle, twinkle little stars," Ezra said lightly. "And a storm."
They handed me warm milk.
"Also," they added, as if discussing the weather, "someone is tracking us from the ground."
I stiffened. My hand went to my spear.
"It would be best to do nothing," they said, and calmly relocated our weapons out of reach.
I joined Victoria in bed.
She murmured something incoherent and wrapped herself around me, warm and real and breathing.
The thunder rolled. The piano softened.
The day had been impossible.
But the ritual of it—the enforced meals, the baths, the milk, the sleep—felt survivable.
And perhaps that was the most dangerous thing of all.