always already

by howlikeagod

Summary:

Maxwell has never been good at parties. Torse has never been to one at all.

A story about three worlds, all worth going home to.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Summary:

In which we drink the water of life at a wake.

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.

Notes:

how 'bout that finale, huh? maxwell is going to deposit his dad's stupid corpse in a gutter outside a bar and then high-tail it to zern to hang out with his boyfriend, this is true brennan lee mulligan told me himself

Chapter 2: Act I: Sky-High Fly-Bys, Hellos, and Goodbyes

Summary:

In which we fly the nest.

Notes:

turns out i wasn't done scratching the direct-sequel-to-canon itch. i have plans and plots and schemes, if you can believe it! here's our first episode, getting the squad together.

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 LaMontgommery 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 afford to be a little 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 3

Summary:

In which we put our heads together.

Notes:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN *drops this chapter into your candy bucket*

“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.

Chapter 4

Summary:

In which we learn how to party.

Notes:

longest chapter so far, AND it worked out better to end it two scenes earlier than i meant to. i always curse myself with plot, but hopefully you're enjoying the ride!

The crew of the Gotch Show has the distinct honor of being the very first flesh folk to witness an Aganti Zernai party. They also have the honor of teaching the newly-partying Aganti Zernai that their festivities are incompatible with human life.

Dawderdale and Sylvio stumble out of the mess, hacking and coughing. Wealwell is draped over Sylvio’s shoulders, puking into a tin bucket someone was kind enough to lend him. Charcoal smoke billows out behind them through the open door.

“By god, these chaps know how to throw a shindig,” Sylvio wheezes as he gently sets Wealwell down, propping him up against the gunwale. “I haven’t had to skedaddle that soon since ‘67.”

“Where are Freyja and Master Gotch?” Captain Dawderdale looks around frantically. She peers through the haze hanging in the dark of the mess hall, lit here and there by the braziers burning so hot their light is nearly violet.

“Release me! I will simply not breathe until my direct report has finished his speech!” Freyja Ildisdottir shouts, squirming in the arms of an automaton. Her eyes are red and streaming, nose running, face flushed.

“You may listen from the deck,” the beleaguered Zernian says flatly. They set Freyja on her feet and then press a palm against her forehead, holding her in place as she tries to run back inside.

“Is Maxwell still in there?” Wealwell asks. He wipes his mouth with a handkerchief and then throws it over the side of the ship.

“I have seen a miracle,” Freyja replies. “Master Gotch, he is standing on a table and speaking to the gathered warriors of Zern as if he too has lungs of iron. Someone has poured him pure phosphoric acid and he is drinking it by the stein-full. I feel as though I have witnessed Rote Halvorson’s legendary ten-day ale chug.”

“That’s the constitution of a Revington man,” Wealwell chuckles. “Utterly horrifying.”

“We should get him out of there though, right?” Dawderdale says.

“LET HIM COOK!” Freyja screams.

---

Maxwell was right about Zernian parties. His eyes, throat, and lungs are burning. He can feel the enamel on his teeth being eaten away. Torse has a hand on his shoulder and everything is absolutely perfect.

“And I can only say again what an honor it is to have lit those beacons,” he says, raising his mug, “and know that their light will live on in the lands of Zern: in reality, memory, and tradition. No, no, keep that brazier burning! I’m fine.”

“Maxwell,” Torse says, low, into his ear, “you have a constitution unmatched in this world or any other. But it is my understanding that even you need to breathe.”

“I’m breathing,” Maxwell insists under his—almost nonexistent—breath. “Look, I couldn’t be talking if I weren’t breathing, could I?”

Torse rumbles skeptically.

As right as Torse might technically be, Maxwell has gunpowder sizzling in his blood. His head is light and empty. He speaks, and drinks, and digs deep to keep himself upright beyond the horizon of impossibility. A flow state like this is the most powerful high a man can dream of—mindless and full of heart. He never wants it to end.

The festive engine of the crowd of Zernai churns a thrumming pulse. There is clanking and hissing steam and laughter. Maxwell has made them all laugh, like he made Torse laugh. Can he make Torse laugh again? He wants to. He needs to. He opens his mouth to try.

An alarm shatters through his joy.

In the span of a heartbeat, the revelry switches gears to pure function. Automatons throw fire blankets over the braziers that burn in honor of the beacons. Pints of rust remover are abandoned, heads are dunked in vats of water to return to steam-powered sobriety, and retractable blades are unsheathed with an echoing series of shnks. Torse’s arm wraps around Maxwell’s waist and lifts him off his makeshift stage.

“What’s going on?” Maxwell asks. They reach the door and cool, fresh air hits him like a tidal wave. “Oh fuck, I was dying in there,” he gasps in realization as his lungs inflate.

“An attack is imminent,” calls a Zernian whom Maxwell was introduced to briefly. Axa or Ashe or something—whoever carried Freyja out of the room when she was about to pass out. They’re ringing a klaxon as the clockwork crew readies battle stations. Captain Sprong crosses the deck in great, leaping strides toward the helm.

“Torse!” she snaps as she passes. “Put down your key boy and place our guests where they will be either safe or useful.”

“How does she know about calling me key boy?” Maxwell demands in irritation. “You didn’t tell her that, did you?” The concept is unthinkable; Torse hates nicknames.

“Ah. No. It is… an unfortunate convergence of terms.” Torse’s neck clicks strangely. He sets Maxwell down.

“Where are we needed, my friend?” Sylvio asks Torse. Wealwell has gotten to his feet, still braced against the gunwale but actually standing again.

“If you would fight, you are welcome to the battle,” Torse replies.

“My guns are still on the Gotch Show!” Freyja yelps.

“You and I should go back to the blimp,” Dawderdale says to her. “I’m better in the sky, and two targets will be harder to hit.”

“If we’re fighting from range, you’ll want a keen eye.” Sylvio cocks his rifle. “My wounded dove, are you—?”

“I’m well enough for a gun support stance,” Wealwell insists. He turns to Maxwell. “Should we all return to the Gotch’ow?”

“Why are you saying the name of the ship like that, Wealwell?” Maxwell asks.

“I’m saying it normal! The Gotcho!”

“See, this was exactly the problem I was trying to tell you we’d—”

“I don’t know how much clearer I can be! We’re all going back to the Gotchu!”

“Alright.” Maxwell rubs his temples. All the smoke inhalation is giving him a headache. “I’d probably end up just jumping off the blimp back to the ship anyway, so I’ll stay here. Sylvio, you’re in charge.”

“Right you are, Maxwell. You can count on me.” He smiles, winks, and takes off after Dawderdale and Freyja.

“Maxwell,” Torse says, low and warm, “though it is foolish to wish for more violence than is inevitable, I have hoped to fight by your side once again.”

“Torse,” Maxwell replies with total honesty, shedding his shirt and flexing his fists, “I’ve thought about that every hour since you beheaded that Corrodi in my arms.”

Torse rumbles happily. The retractable saws in his arms unsheath and start whirring. To Maxwell, it’s better than music. The Zoodian sun falling over Torse takes on an iridescent sheen. It dances in flashing caustics, like the wavering lines of light through clear, clear water. Dazzled, Maxwell admires the complementary colors of the glow from within and without: the sky transmuting Torse’s metal to sterling filigree as his heart and eyes burn.

A moment later, Maxwell notices the massive, translucent crystal ship rising beside their vessel, refracting sunlight through its prow.

Oh, he thinks, right. Battle.

The Aganti IV shudders as a beam of pure force sears across the hull from a skycannon mounted on the crystal vessel looming beside them. The wailing klaxon is joined by another, and a churning sound drums beneath the deck like a heartbeat.

“Is that a Zumharan ship? I thought you were— You said you were in talks with them!”

“Not all Zoodians, individually, are as welcoming as their neighbors would like to imagine,” Torse says.

“Torse, you don’t have to gild your words with me.”

“They’re assholes,” Torse rephrases.

“They—Ah! God.” Maxwell ducks a second beam, escaping a face full of distilled light so narrowly it trims the curled end of his mustache. “They absolutely are.” He looks at Torse, grins, and asks, “The plan is to board, yes?”

“Yes.” Torse has no mouth to smile with, but Maxwell can hear in his voice the sense of bared teeth. “The plan is to board.”

Clawed iron feet and polished leather shoes pound in sync as they sprint together toward, and then over, the hurdle of the gunwale. Maxwell lets out a “Hup!” as he leaves the deck. Five thousand feet of emptiness fall away below him. He and Torse hang for a moment, two unbreakable stones suspended on an adamant chain halfway between Zood and Zern.

They land together with a ringing sound like a fork against glass. The crystal-clad crew members of the attacking ship spend a stupefied second processing that two of their opponents have jumped aboard, and then scramble for weapons.

“Zood’s power is Zood’s!” shouts a kid who can’t be more than eighteen, voice cracking, as he swings a club with a heavy gemstone embedded in the end. It bounces uselessly off of Torse’s body. Torse reaches out, lifts the young man by the collar of his shirt, and bowls him down a nearby set of stairs to a lower deck.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Maxwell yells after him.

“Zern wants to steal our life force or something,” the teenager whines. “Ow ow ow, I think you sprained my shoulder, dude.”

“Who fed you this lie?” Torse demands. He takes a step toward the kid and is blocked by a pair of crystal spears, crossed in his face by a couple of fighters who look like they’re made of sterner stuff than their younger crewmate.

“They’re not stealing anything! The energies between worlds are just in harmony again. Not everything belongs to you!” Maxwell punches a spear out of one of their hands. There is a satisfying crack beneath his knuckles. Whether it was the pole of the spear that snapped, or one of the many fiddly bones of the man’s hand, Maxwell doesn’t give a shit. He feels his own eyes going glassy and dark. If these selfish morons want to start a fight, he’ll happily finish it.

Maxwell registers his vision going sideways a second before he feels the pain.

“Maxwell!” Torse shouts in alarm. Three spearheads clatter against the deck of the ship as he slices straight through the poles in one furious swipe.

“I’ve always cautioned against being too hasty,” says a voice pantomiming reason, somewhere to Maxwell’s left where the pain is coming from, “but this time, I’ll make an exception.”

Maxwell catches himself against a railing before he hits the deck. Just barely still on his feet, he puts a hand against his left temple to check if he’s bleeding. He feels a hard, cold sliver half-embedded in his skin and pries it out. It comes away hot with blood.

“Better out than in, my grandfather always said,” Maxwell jokes deliriously at the sight of a three-inch needle of crystal that, one second ago, was in his head.

“Holy fuck, what the hell is your skull made of?” says Zinnia Gathborn. Oh, so that’s who they’re fighting.

“Are you kidding me?” Maxwell whines. “The Eyeless Hand? Your whole thing is over. What more do you even want?”

“Hey, no! First of all, that should have killed you.” She holds up a wrist wrapped in a crystal bracer that extends in a sharp point to the length of her fingertips. It is, like the chunk of it that just barely didn’t pierce Maxwell’s skull, dripping with his blood. “Not fair. Second, we’re fighting for the conservation of Zood’s natural resources. That’s the ethos of the Eyeless Hand, okay?”

“What? Bullshit,” Maxwell says.

“Bullshit,” Torse echoes, holding two Zumharans in the same chokehold at once.

“It is! Hands of Zood,” she calls to her crew, “show them what we’re made of!”

Sheer annoyance at how stupid this fight has turned out to be aside, Maxwell is happy to be fighting alongside Torse again. Much of the Zoodian crew is preoccupied with their ship-to-ship stations. The Aganti IV has made her own weapons ready and is methodically splintering spiderweb cracks in the crystal hull with cast iron harpoons; the rest of Zinnia’s followers are dodging sniper fire from the Gotch Show overhead.

“Nice, Sylvio!” Maxwell calls up to his own vessel. He hears Wealwell’s voice distantly echoing the praise, but his tone is flirtatious and sounds a lot like a promise based on how well a certain Wind Rider of a previous generation is taking out targets below, so Maxwell is grateful that he can’t hear the substance of his brother’s statement.

Torse is covering Maxwell’s back. The hum of his gears and the heat of his engine are a soothing presence as Maxwell throws punch after punch at Zinnia Gathborn. He didn’t go into this fight expecting to one-v-one anyone, but it might as well be her. She’s irritating enough to deserve it.

She takes another stab at stabbing him, but misses and chips the pointy end of her bracer against Torse’s back. Maxwell pats Torse soothingly where the blow has left a tiny scratch in the metal.

“Brace against me, Maxwell,” Torse rumbles. The clawed spears on his feet pierce the deck with a sound like a trap springing shut. Maxwell takes the leverage, pushes off of Torse’s solid frame, and finally gets Zinna down in a pin.

“Lying to your own crew, striking me from behind,” Maxwell grunts, hammering 12-6 elbows against her stupid crystal bracers with every word, “it’s just! Un! Sporting! How did you even get here?”

“I ran away from the Rehabilitation Field and they were too slow to catch me!” she cackles, bicycle kicking Maxwell in the stomach. Dirty, underhanded tactic. Hatwell-like, even. “And I’m not lying, you’re just trying to slander our good work! Sure, the founders of the Eyeless Hand had some different ideas, but they were products of their time! They meant well, and if you look at all they accomplished, it was unprecedented in the world! We honor the things they—”

“They literally didn’t do anything!” Maxwell interrupts, incandescently furious. “Comfrey MacLeod created the barrier between Zood and Zern in the first place, Van Chapman released Tazgw’agwa, and Mordecestershire wasn’t a product of his time, his time was like two weeks ago and all he did was die!”

From the gondola of the Gotch Show, Sylvio calls out, “He also killed Haunch Saxon!”

“Right,” Maxwell acknowledges, “and killed Haunch, who I never met but I hear he was a pretty cool guy.”

“Ehh,” Sylvio says. He fires his rifle, braced against Wealwell’s shoulder. “He was fine. Don’t mistake my meaning, I flew with him for many years and he was near and dear to my heart. But if we’re being honest, at the end of the day, he was a rather middling person.”

“Okay, great,” Maxwell says. “Well, Mordecestershire killed a mediocre man and then died and then inadvertently tore my pants, and that’s his legacy. The main theme here, as far as I can tell, is people being dead.”

Maxwell punches clean through Zinnia’s crystal shields.

“That was a mistake, Mr. Gotch,” Zinnia snarls through a bleeding nose. In the palm of her right hand, now revealed by the loss of the bracer, is a complicated-looking mechanical device. “Get off of me, or your box of gears here will blow up and take all of us with him.”

She tilts her head at Torse, eyes deadly. A hush falls over her crew.

Maxwell has never had the keenest sense for when people are lying, but he knows there’s precedent for this oddly specific woman happening to have an even more oddly specific way to kill someone he cares about. Maxwell lets her go and stands, fuming.

“Why do you have so many fucking switches?” he hisses.

“I have my ways. Now—”

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Maxwell looks up to find that Zood has granted him yet another sight he never could have thought up in his wildest dreams. Freyja is dangling from a rope tied around Wealwell’s waist, holding a massive Tommy gun in one hand and a pistol in the other, spraying a rain of bullets down on the deck of the crystal ship. They ricochet wildly in all directions. One grazes Maxwell’s ear before he hits the deck. Zinnia Gathborn isn’t so lucky; she’s caught in the shoulder and in both legs, sending her down hard.

“Ha!” Freyja screams. “Gotcha! That’s from the Gotcha!”

“Yes,” Maxwell cheers, “I approve of this name change for the ship!”

“Fuck! Fucking fine, I’ll go back to the Rehabilitation Field until I can run away again,” Zinnia Gathborn groans from the deck. “Everybody surrender, we’ll give it another shot later. Ugh.”

Torse picks her up in both arms and solemnly ties her to the mast.

“I wanted to do that!” Wealwell shouts petulantly from above.

“Attention! Crew of the—” Maxwell pauses and turns to Zinnia. “What’s your ship called?”

“Shut up,” Zinnia snaps.

“Attention, crew!” Maxwell calls from the foredeck. “You’ve been lied to by your leader. The Eyeless Hand originally wanted to get rid of the barrier between Zood and Zern because they thought it would usher in the end of the world. Turns out the space octopus was chill, actually, so that didn’t happen, but basically you've joined an insane cult. I guess you were all manipulated with manufactured bigotry as an excuse to gain political power or something? Does that sound about right?”

There’s a general, chagrined murmuring of agreement from the gathered crew.

“Right. Well, Zern isn’t trying to steal anything, they’re just people trying to live their lives after being ruled by a bunch of cruel, power-hungry autocrats and ignored by Zood. This is Torse, he’s my friend and companion and one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

“Hello,” Torse rumbles shyly.

“Torse?” Sylvio calls from the blimp.

“Yes?”

“You can let that man out of the chokehold now, old boy. We won.”

“Hm.” Reluctantly, Torse drops a purple-faced spearman on the deck, who gasps for breath.

“I should stop shooting them then, Master Gotch?” Freyja asks.

“Yes, thank you, Freyja.”

“Okay. I ran out of bullets anyway.” She starts climbing back up the rope. Most of the way there, she pauses, cocks her pistol, and aims a flawless shot that shatters the device in Zinnia Gathborn’s hand. “Oops. There was one left.”

Torse and Maxwell begin rounding up the rest of the Eyeless Hand members. They take weapons away from the ones who are alive, and toss a couple corpses that Freyja and Sylvio shot in various vital organs over the edge of the ship. One guy got fully pierced by a Zernian harpoon, which is gnarly enough that Torse takes care of him alone. Maxwell has less of a stomach for gore when he's not dead behind the eyes.

All in all, there are less than a dozen left standing. Not a very good reactionary cult, apparently.

“Should we accompany this crew to Zumhara to testify before the council?” Torse suggests when their cleanup is done.

“Yes! Good thinking,” Maxwell says. “You’ve got the right idea of it, as always. We don’t want Zumhara to only hear it from their side. But,” a sudden thought wilts the smile that has been making Maxwell’s cheeks ache, “don’t you have to stay with your crew? I’ve gotten you in enough trouble with Sprong as-is.”

Torse whirs thoughtfully.

“Our mission is of grave urgency,” Torse says, “though Zumhara has offered their aid, and they should be made aware that there is an alternative if we can harness the power of Ramansu.”

“Pardon the interruption, Master Gotch.” Captain Dawderdale slides down the rope, still anchored by Wealwell, and lands next to them on the deck. “The Gotcha needs to refuel soon anyway. If myself and anyone else who wishes to rest in Zumhara were to return there with this ship, we could get the fuel we need while you regroup with Captain Junker, and then all meet up at Ramansu. No time wasted.”

“You are very efficient, Captain Dawderdale,” Torse says approvingly. Something hot and sick curls in Maxwell’s stomach at the compliment, so similar to his own first one-on-one conversation with Torse.

“Yes,” Maxwell coughs. “I’m never one to suggest we split the party, but we can’t take the time to be frivolous. If you’re willing to stay and speak to the council in Zumhara on our behalf, I’m all for it.”

“Shall I bring your brother as well? He’s expended quite a lot of standing today.”

“Ah, um. Right.” Maxwell briefly experiences a full-body waking nightmare at the idea of Wealwell pontificating in the Luxaeternium. “Only if Sylvio goes with him.”

Maxwell isn’t sure how much that will help, but if nothing else, they should keep each other distracted.

“One last thing, in that case!” Sylvio slides down the rope next—a bit more suavely than Dawderdale did, not that Maxwell would say as much in front of her. Sylvio walks up to Zinna Gathborn, smiles what Maxwell is well aware is his normal smile, and sweetly requests, “My dear, would you mind terribly if we were to ask you to use those Eyeless Hand powers to create a quick portal to Tabira City? One, say, the size of our dear friend’s ship over there, if you please.”

Zinnia Gathborn looks up at him in mortal terror. She swallows heavily, wriggles an arm free from the thick rope pinning her to the mast, takes one of the many crystal shards littered across the deck, and slices her own forehead open.

A huge, bloody handprint manifests out of thin air, floating right in front of the Aganti IV.

“Excelsior!” Sylvio winks at Maxwell.

“Now that’s efficiency,” Torse remarks. Maxwell burns again with that strange sickness.

He claps his hands to get Torse’s— everyone’s attention back on himself.

“Former Eyeless Hand crew,” Maxwell announces, “if any of you cause any problems, you answer to Sylvio.”

Sylvio gives a friendly wave, which involves dancing his long fingers through the air unsettlingly.

The kid with the club, who first attacked Torse, pees himself a little. Maxwell proudly adds this to the tally of encounters neatly buttoned up by the crew of the Gotcha. It hasn’t even been a full day.

---

Goodbyes are said, respective ships are returned to, and preparations are made to take an entire iron skyship on a hop, skip, and a jump through the realm of Tazgw’agwa.

“Maybe you’ll find clues to the whereabouts of Shahar there, brother,” Wealwell shouts into the wind from the crystal ship.

“Maybe I will! In fact, maybe we’ll find it before you even get to Zumhara.” Maxwell grins teasingly. He’s had rare occasion to say goodbye to any of his brothers individually, only ever most of them at once. It’s been a melancholy sort of pleasant to give the only two Gotches he’s glad to have kept not a goodbye, but a see you later.

“If you do, you have to tell me. Maxwell, do you hear? You legally have to tell me!” Wealwell fishes around in his pocket. “Here!”

He tosses something small and brass through the air. Maxwell barely catches it by the chain before it nearly vanishes into the gap between the ships. It’s Wealwell’s pocket watch.

Wealwell waves, his other arm around Sylvio. Behind him, an uncomfortable-looking Dawderdale holds several Zumharans at gunpoint.

“Now it is a race!” Freyja shouts from beside Maxwell. “Miryam, do you hear me? We are racing now!”

“Huh? Racing to do what?” Dawderdale calls back.

“I don’t know,” Freyja shrugs. “We’ll find out when I emerge victorious!”

Dawderdale shakes with laughter, the sound of it lost in the wind as the Aganti IV speeds toward the portal. Maxwell looks back at his family, and forward to his friends, and up, up, up at the sky.

---

They pop out in the middle of the desert.

“I forgot,” Maxwell says. “Tabira City moves around.”

“It is likely better this way,” Torse notes. “We might have had to squeeze an entire skyship through a narrow brick alley.”

“Good point.” Maxwell chuckles. “I presume your captain can chase down the walking city?”

“She can.”

“Good, good. We have some time to kill, then.”

Torse hisses steam from his neck and thighs. “We do.”

Maxwell stands looking out over the gunwale, hands in his pockets. He’s in his shirtsleeves, suspenders hanging at his hips. There’s no one here to impress, at least not in the way he always thought he had to pretend to be impressive.

“Oh, I meant to ask you earlier,” Maxwell recalls, “have you been… feeling okay? You made a weird noise, somewhere in,” he gestures vaguely to Torse’s chest. “When we first got here.”

“I remember. I. Hm. You need not be concerned. I am functioning perfectly well.”

“Okay. As long as you’re not worried.”

“I am not.”

“Alright. So, second question.”

“Mm?”

“The key boy thing. I don’t—”

“Oh. Um.” Torse’s posture turns bashful. The claws on his feet flex, like a human might nervously tap their fingernails. “We are clockwork folk, as you know.”

“Right.”

“It is a misconception that we simply function in perpetuity. As in Zood or Gath, life must sustain itself. Most of Zern have other sources that fuel us—steam, in my case. But in long centuries past, and as a last resort now, we needed to be wound.” Torse points at Maxwell’s heart. “Much like that pocketwatch you carry.”

Maxwell lays a hand over his breast pocket, where Wealwell’s watch with the communication mirror rests.

“Makes sense.”

“Colloquially,” Torse continues, choosing his words with obvious care, “when one refers to another person as their key, it is indicative of… closeness. A relationship of intimacy and trust. One whom you might rely on to wind you up.”

“Oh.” Maxwell feels… Maxwell feels. He doesn’t know what, exactly: honored, maybe; and surprised; flattered; excited; at ease with the now-sleeping creature in his guts that hisses when Torse compliments someone else on their lack of frivolity. Cared for.

“It was inappropriate for Captain Sprong to say this without full knowledge of the nature of our relationship,” Torse says. “On that note, I need to go speak with her. Urgently.”

He begins to walk away, out of Maxwell’s sight as dusk falls over the Biazi Desert.

“Torse, I—”

“It is a matter of importance,” Torse says, turning back to look at him once more. “I will find you afterward. Goodnight, Maxwell.”

“Right. Um. Goodnight, Torse.”

It gets chilly at night in the desert. Maxwell had forgotten, what with the heat of Torse’s furnace so close until now. He does up his suspenders and puts on his jacket. It would be senseless, just letting himself be cold. Nonsensical.

He waits outside on the deck for a long time.

Chapter 5

Summary:

In which we stay up late.

“Master Gotch.” Freyja finds him staring out at the asteroid-studded sky. She’s dressed for sleep, drowning in a linen nightshirt that was clearly made for someone the better part of a foot taller than her. It abruptly occurs to Maxwell to wonder how long he’s been here, waiting. “I’m supposed to show you where our quarters are. They said we can sleep in an empty storage room.”

“Right. Sleeping. We have to do that at some point.” Maxwell clears his throat. He jerks his chin at the sky. “Which one is yours?”

“Which asteroid?”

“Yes. Fehujar lives up there, don’t they?”

Freyja’s eyes track across the senseless connect-the-dots picture unfurling like a scroll over Zood. She squints, the near-permanent scowl scrunching her round face.

“That one, there.” She points, then shakes her wrist until the sleeve of her nightshirt falls away and Maxwell can see her extended finger. “I grew up on that one. Gull-smiðr. I hated it.”

This startles a laugh out of Maxwell. “Yeah? What did you hate about it?”

“All my sisters, they were bigger and stronger than me. Better at finance, better at hnefatafl, better at underwater wrestling. They all got fancy apprenticeships and I didn’t, so I had to sit around the house with my mother carving masthead figures for blimps until the Elmbrook branch finally took a chance on me.”

“You have sisters?” Maxwell asks softly.

“Ja. Six of them.”

“You’re the seventh?”

“Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.” Freyja rocks on her heels, taking a deep breath of the cool, dry air. Her voice falls to a dismal mutter. “I was supposed to have my first quarterly review after the raid on Ramansu. They were probably going to fire me.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Maxwell claps a friendly hand to Freyja’s shoulder, “they all died, badly. And older siblings usually aren’t all that, even if you feel like you’ll never measure up when you’re young. I bet you could kick any of your sisters’ asses now.”

“You have never met Skathi. She could probably kick your ass.”

“Hey!” Maxwell drops his hand from Freyja and brings it to his chest, offended. “What happened to all that my thane stuff?”

“You are my thane, and I will proudly go to my death in your honor with a smile on my face, screaming your glory to the heavens.” Freyja shrugs. “My sister could still give you a beating that would turn your tailbone to blaand. I have no control over that.”

Maxwell sighs.

“This,” he wags a finger at her, “this is why you’re my regional manager. No employer with an ounce of backbone surrounds himself with yes-men.”

Freyja smiles. She watches the white balloon of her home drift along its path for a few seconds. Then, she opens her mouth and takes a small breath as if to punctuate the moment with some profound discovery. The breath turns into a massive yawn.

“Okay, I’m going to bed. Let me show you where we’re sleeping.”

Maxwell laughs and follows.

As honored guests, Maxwell and Freyja have been provided a small cabin for rest and privacy, furnished with all the softest things that can typically be found on board the Aganti IV: fire blankets, clean grease rags, and sheets of anti-vibrational padding. In the middle of the room are the softest things that can atypically be found on board the Aganti IV: Maxwell and Freyja’s luggage.

“It’s better than the brig at Ramansu,” Freyja says with a startlingly positive attitude. She digs around in her bag and pulls out a delicate comb.

“Where they fed you bugs?” Maxwell wrinkles his nose. “I hope so.”

“No one will be feeding me bugs! I asked.”

“You— Who did you ask?”

“The very tall captain. Sprong. I asked, ‘Will you feed me and my direct report bugs, or can we eat other stuff?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know anything about what you can or cannot eat without dying, stop speaking to me.’ And then she left to talk to Torse.” Freyja gets to work on letting down her braids. “Good thing I brought my own food this time.”

“I’m with you there. This trip won’t have an all-aioli menu if I have anything to say about it.” Maxwell picks up his own bag and digs around until he finds his wax paper packet of smoked meats. It’s less than a full meal—he’ll carbo-load at breakfast, probably—but his mind is elsewhere. “What did she and Torse have to talk about?”

“Something about the plan for when we get to Tabira City tomorrow, it sounded like. Can I get some jerky?”

Maxwell tosses her a strip.

“That’s… Okay, I guess that explains some things.”

“What things?” Freyja asks, chewing with the vigor of a wolf in a trap gnawing off its own leg.

Maxwell sits cross-legged on the mat and takes the opportunity to follow Freyja’s example and comb his own hair. The messiness of the day has destroyed his middle part. If he’s going to meet up with Torse again after this mysterious and important business, he shouldn’t do so looking like a slob.

“Torse ran off in the middle of a conversation to find the captain. He said it was urgent. It’s— Hm. You missed a braid back here. No, you’re going to tangle your hair, let me—” Maxwell takes the comb from Freyja and untwists one of the smaller, intricate braids on the back of her head. “There.”

“Okay, Mr. Big Britches. I get to fix your mustache, then.” Without warning, Freyja grabs Maxwell by the facial hair. “It’s been driving me crazy. You look like a walrus.”

“I do not!”

“Do too. Where’s your wax? Gimme that.” Freyja shoves her free hand into Maxwell’s bag, emerging with his tin of mustache wax and a slice of ham he doesn’t remember packing. She eats the ham with one hand and slathers the wax on his face with the other.

Maxwell endures the humiliation because he forgot his shaving mirror on the Gotcha. Freyja is the third or fourth best thing, if he has any hope of looking presentable.

“It’s strange that Torse would be so antsy about this, right?” Maxwell says. “I wonder if there’s something waiting for us in Tabira City that could present a problem. I should call Marya.”

“I don’t think she’ll be able to hear you from here.” Freyja’s tongue pokes out a little in concentration as she fiddles with his mustache.

“No, on the mirror Wealwell had.”

“Ah. But you need a picture of her, ja?”

“I— That’s. Fine. Don’t worry about that.” Maxwell clutches his bag a little tighter in his lap, zipping it further shut. “Weren’t you going to bed? Don’t let me keep you up. Big day tomorrow, whatever awaits us.”

“Almost… There! Done.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Maxwell stands again with his bag held against his chest like a fussy infant. “Goodnight Freyja.”

Freyja gives him a long, hard stare. He can see the gears turning behind her eyes, a slow suspicion building to certainty.

“You are being weird!” she accuses.

“Goodnight, Freyja!”

---

Maxwell finds a dark place on the ship to be alone. After tucking his broad shoulders into the blind alley between two large machinery cabinets, he furtively sneaks a book from his bag. He pulls out Wealwell’s pocketwatch, angles the cover of the book toward the reflective surface in the lid, and hopes he can pull it away in time before anyone on the other end sees.

An image wavers into view, the face of a startled Montgomery LaMontgommery.

“Oh, Maxwell! Good to see you. What are you doing in my soup?”

“Shit. Um, hello, Monty. Sorry, haven’t gotten the hang of these communication mirrors yet. Sort of a wrong number. Haha.”

“No harm done. You know, funny thing, I got a letter from your brother Samwell today. Fascinating man! We’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other.”

Maxwell spends approximately two-thirds of a second wearily wondering whether he should ask Monty to please not sleep with his big brother. He spends the remaining one-third of the same second reminding himself that it is none of his business, they’re both reasonable, consenting adults, and Samwell more than anyone deserves to live his life however he wants. Maxwell then spends half of the next second viciously scrubbing the memory of Monty flirting with Wealwell’s boyfriend in front of him from his brain.

“That’s great,” Maxwell forces out after an exhausting one and a half seconds. “Well, I won’t keep you, I’m just trying to call Marya.”

“How’d you get me? I can’t say there’s much of a resemblance.” Monty chuckles in that good-natured way he has. Maxwell feels like a deer in the scope of his rifle.

“You were just… next to her. In the picture. Lots of pictures of you guys out there, you’re famous Wind Riders and whatnot—”

“Mhm. Yes, we’ve posed for a photo together a time or two. And more than a few portraits, like the one on the cover of my eighth book. Did you ever read that one, Maxwell? That’s about where they fell off, to hear some people tell it.”

Monty smiles knowingly. Maxwell groans and smacks his head against the metal cabinet.

“I’m giving it another shot, okay?” Maxwell thumbs across the well-worn edge of Naughty No-Goodniks at Nolly Pond. “Forgive me for broadening my horizons while trying to avoid getting dunked on so hard my grandchildren will inherit the L. Okay?”

“Gotch, when I give you the dunking of the century, you’ll know it. Give Marya my love, alright? And hey, your mustache looks great right now.”

Maxwell sighs history’s greatest sigh.

He lines up the book more carefully this time, giving a lot less of a fuck if anyone sees it now that the seal is broken. God, Samwell is going to tell Monty exactly how obsessed he was with the books as a kid, isn’t he? Maxwell is punched back in time to being twelve, memorizing the entirety of the Riddle of the Moon Priestess, and reciting it backwards and forwards at dinner until Hatwell told him to can it.

“Now there’s one I haven’t seen in a while,” Marya says. “They never got my brow right. Publishers, they want an ingenue, not a real woman.”

Maxwell jerks the book out of her line of sight.

“I’m sure they’ll do better on the next one.” Maxwell coughs. “Um, hello, Marya.”

“Gotch, what happened this morning? Did you crash? I heard Dawderdale scream and then the signal cut out. I’ve been saying all day, oh, they’re all dead. So sad. Olethra cried.”

“Well, tell her we’re all alive! Sorry, there was— We met up with Torse. Almost crashed into his ship, actually. We’re on our way to see you.”

“What a bizarre coincidence! You know what they say about those in Scrapsylvania?”

“No?”

“Gears do not grease themselves. If things are easy, there is a stained hand nearby. But in this case, probably we can make an exception and assume there are no dark, hidden machinations.” Marya’s gaunt face looks fuller when she smiles. “Torse sent a letter from Zumhara to make sure we’d still be in Tabira City when he arrived. You’re getting here next week, right?”

“Actually, we’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“What? Who is piloting you at the speed of fucking light?”

“There was a… teleport situation. I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Alright.” Marya turns to shout over her shoulder. “Olethra! Mila! We are cancelling brunch tomorrow! Our friends have learned to teleport!”

“That’s why I called. Not the, the teleporting thing. Torse.”

“Oh?” There’s a strange slant to Marya’s tone, like she’s implying something about whatever she thinks he’s implying. “What about him, eh?”

Parsing even the number of layers of unspoken implication makes Maxwell’s head hurt. He ignores it.

“Torse seems worried. Is there something going on in Tabira City that we need to watch out for?”

“Huh. What kind of worried?”

“The kind that requires an hours-long conversation with his captain, apparently. Has flying around there been, I don’t know, more dangerous recently? We had a scrape with the Eyeless Hand earlier. They’re recruiting from Zumhara, so, more crystal ships than normal maybe?”

“What, really?”

“Marya, it was so, so stupid,” Maxwell groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “They’re on some sort of propaganda mission to turn Zoodians against helping Zern.”

“Now that is some bullshit. But that hasn’t been a problem here so far, not that I know of. Honestly, it’s been really chill since we killed all those dinosaurs. They mostly keep the city moving around now out of civic pride.”

“Weird. What’s Torse so nervous about? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him nervous.” Maxwell chews on his lip.

“I have.”

“What? When?”

“Eh, it’s not really mine to tell, but he was… hesitant to see Comfrey again. With his iron heart.”

“Oh.” Maxwell’s own heart twinges with grief, which always tastes like anger to him. For the sake of his own sanity, he needs to stop beefing with dead old people. “He said we’d meet up later. I should go find him.”

“Yes, let me know what he says. I’ll keep my ear to the ground as well. No local whisperings will skitter past me. Ah! Speaking of which, Gotch.”

“Yeah?”

“They miss you at the fighting pit.” Marya winks.

Maxwell flushes happily. He clears his throat and schools his expression, totally normal and not at all giddy at the prospect of turning some guy’s face inside out for fun and profit again. It’s been too long; if it weren’t for Zinnia Gathborn, his knuckles would have practically healed over by now.

“We might not have much downtime while we’re there,” he says, channeling Samwell to keep his own anticipation in check. “Maybe. Probably not.”

“One can hope. Before you go, I want to say, your mustache is looking phenomenal. Are you doing something new with it?”

“Monty sends his love.” Maxwell snaps the watch shut.

---

He wanders the ship for another quarter of an hour until he thinks to check the cockpit. Azi—that’s their name, Maxwell is relieved when they reintroduce themself—is behind the wheel as auxiliary pilot while Sprong is otherwise engaged.

“The captain and Torse are in the aft cabin,” Azi tells Maxwell. “Don’t interrupt them if they’re not done talking. It sounded serious.”

“I won’t barge in, just checking on Torse,” Maxwell promises. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Azi tilts their head with a quiet creak. “Did you do something new with your mustache since the party? I like it.”

“Thanks,” Maxwell repeats flatly.

The Aganti IV is a big ship with a small crew, which leaves a lot of empty space to get lost in. Now that Maxwell knows his general heading, to the rear of the ship, that emptiness is a boon. He finds his way by following the unmistakable sounds of an argument. The words are too garbled to make out until he reaches the hallway outside the door. He arrives just in time for Sprong’s whetstone voice to be interrupted by one Maxwell would know anywhere.

“I did not lie,” booms Torse. Maxwell recognizes the timbre of it, can practically see the steam venting below his faceplate like an angry bull—so close to popping off. “I gave you all of the pertinent details when I told you I could acquire a mechanic who is more than up to the task.”

“Pertinent? You could have warned me that this was the fucking plan, Torse.” Sprong speaks with a low vocalization scraping beneath her words, like rocks being ground down in a tumbler.

“I thought I would have more time to convince you.” For all he’s still rumbling with frustration, Torse sounds genuinely regretful. “Captain, the right choice is the one that works.”

“Of course,” Sprong snarls venomously. “To save our homeland by betraying it. How pragmatic, coming from our prodigal son, our moral voice. You have been rebelling so long you cannot tell a leader from a despot.”

Rage creeps in at the edges of Maxwell’s vision. Blood pounds like a vice around his skull. His hand is on the doorknob before he’s consciously thought to put it there. Squeezing around solid iron, white-knuckled, ready to throw open the door and tell Sprong not to talk to Torse that way with his fists before his words. His other hand is at his mouth. His teeth sink into leather.

“There is no confusion. I do not dissent frivolously,” Torse bites back, “and I do not rebel at all, not against you. This is all for Zern.”

With the near-mythological effort the act has always required of him, Maxwell forces his fingers to uncurl. He’ll go back-to-back with Torse anywhere, any time, but only when he’s wanted. Torse has never failed to make it clear when an invitation is open; this was shut in his face without ceremony. If there is one thing that Maxwell knows to be unforgivably rude, it’s cutting in on someone else’s fight.

Sprong’s next words are a grainy whisper that Maxwell has to strain to hear. He presses his ear to the door, cautious and confused, ready at a moment’s notice to meet violence with violence if the situation calls for it.

“Then Zood has made a fool of you. In this land of endless distractions, you forget how to honor the Zernai.”

“I forget?” The volume of Torse’s response sends Maxwell reeling away again. “I was the last unbroken cog on a shattered gear. I did not know if the rest of the machine had been melted into slag. Those years of loneliness taught me… sacrifice.” There is a pause, filled only by the sound of an overtaxed cooling fan slowing down by degrees. “Captain, you have my respect. We are clan and kin. We have known many of the same hardships, the pain of a ruined world. But you did not carry that burden. I, alone, did.”

When Maxwell turned himself into a human parachute while Torse’s unconscious body hurdled down to Zern like a comet, he felt like he’d left his stomach back at Mount Charuk. His face burned in the chafing wind. His eyes were so dry, streaming tears wicked away by air resistance, that the view in front of him bled together into nothing but a sea of red: land and sky closing like a beak around the small black dot at the end of Maxwell’s tether.

Hearing this admission from Torse now, this plea from the other side of a closed door, Maxwell’s body remembers terminal velocity.

He tried to ask Torse about his people, about his loss, once upon a time. There was… a Ghost Dog-shaped interruption then. We’ll connect about this later, Torse said. They connected over many things later, but that wasn’t one of them. Maxwell didn’t ask again. He didn’t think there was a need to. They had understanding between them, if not knowledge. Part of Maxwell must have believed that more of one meant less of the other, given the precedent set by the rest of his life, so he sought out only the former.

Maxwell cannot allow himself to rectify the mistake in such an underhanded way as eavesdropping. He may be a rowdy, but he’s a gentleman rowdy. Maxwell always looks a man in the eye before witnessing the things inside of him that only pain can bring to light.

If Sprong finds a rebuttal to Torse in this moment, Maxwell isn’t around to hear it.

---

“Did you find him?” Freyja asks in the dark of their storage cabin.

Maxwell tips forward into his pile of rubber padding and thick, flame-resistant fabric. He lands with a thwump. Exhausted, muffled by the fiberglass his face is buried in, he grunts out a one-word reply.

“No.”

---

Torse has been a poor host. He acknowledges this truth. It has been hard to focus on Maxwell’s presence on board, exciting as it is, knowing what will soon be required of him.

They dock in Tabira City without incident, though Maxwell is on high alert as soon as it comes into view. The encounter with the Eyeless Hand must have alarmed him. He glares at every other vessel in the sky with suspicion. He looks at those instead of Torse, which Torse is simultaneously relieved and disappointed by, as well as irritated by his own disappointment. There are other, more immediate items of much greater concern. The idle, fanciful thoughts that yesterday’s misunderstanding has stirred up in Torse’s heart are to be given no quarter. Not until this next task is done.

A warning, too, must be given. That this next task is his alone.

“Maxwell.” He approaches the pair that joined him from the Gotcha. “Freyja.”

“Hey, big guy,” Freyja says. “Where have you been? Master Gotch was looking for you all night.”

“I—!” Maxwell huffs an aborted sound but doesn’t deny it. Torse feels a heavy spring coil tightly beneath the pressure gauge in his engine.

“I’m sorry. I needed to speak to the captain about our next steps. It took… some time to agree on the plan.” Understatement. He recalls the panicked whizzing of Sprong’s heart when he told her the unedited truth of why Tabira City must be their next port of call. “The Aganti IV will drop the three of us off here, and then return to Zern.”

“What, no, wasn’t this your entire mission?” Maxwell’s dark brows fall square over his eyes. The geometry of him is so very pleasing. “Why would they leave?”

“When we send energy from Zood, there must be infrastructure in Zern ready to receive it. The rest of the crew will prepare for this,” Torse says. This was the compromise they eventually settled on, pragmatic and ultimately acceptable to all parties. But only just.

“Right. Makes sense.” Ever trusting of him, Maxwell nods.

Maxwell and Freyja depart down the gangplank. Torse lingers for a moment to shake hands with Azi, then turns to do the same for Captain Sprong.

Sprong regards him, his outstretched hand, his Zood-touched heart. Slowly, with the windchime sounds that flit on the air when she moves, Sprong leans down and presses her forehead to his.

“I am glad,” she says, “that even in your unintended exile, you nevertheless found a key to keep you ticking.”

Torse does not correct her. He hums, thinking again his idle thoughts.

Descending to the streets of Tabira City, they barely make ten steps before Maxwell brushes his elbow against Torse’s arm.

“So, it sounds like the conversation with your captain didn’t go… great.”

“Mm.”

“Good news, though, we’ll see Marya soon. She knows a brunch place just around the corner.”

“I could absolutely destroy some waffles right now,” Freyja declares, punching the air.

Torse feels coolant dripping down his spine. The rumble in him becomes thunderous the closer and closer they get to their brunch destination. There is a door, which Torse carefully squeezes through, and a hostess who points them to a table at the back of the small building, and a trio of smiling faces turned upward in greeting.

It takes great willpower to keep his knuckle blades retracted when his heart is this agitated. Reflex. What a tiresome thing.

“Gotch! Freyja! Torse!” That is Olethra MacLeod, vibrant as ever.

“I hear you need a tinker?” Marya says, but Torse is not looking at her.

“You truly think this is what we need?” Sprong’s skepticism had finally been ground down to weariness.

“I know it is,” Torse had said. “I know it. My heart aches at the thought of walking this path. If it would give you solace, trust that I alone will lay the paving stones.”

Torse steps past Marya, past Olethra, sparing neither of them a greeting yet. This will be forgiven. They are his friends and they do not fear him. They are his friends, and he does not fear them. He has a task at hand. He’s trembling. He knows with pained certainty that his voice will come out too loudly when he speaks.

“Ludmila Ryczanek,” Torse says, “will you help me rebuild Zern?”

Chapter 6

Summary:

In which we know what we want.

“Ah, shit,” says Kočka the rat, through a mouthful of cheese danish. “No, we not gonna do that.”

“Kočka! Let him speak,” Marya tsks. “Torse, sit down, will you? Stop standing there like you’re begging a god for mercy, it’s a bad look. Everyone, sit. Sit!”

“We asked for an extra large chair for you,” Olethra adds.

Marya grabs Maxwell by the arm and hauls him into the seat next to her. On Maxwell’s other side is the almost-comically large chair that has been crammed into the gap between tables for Torse. Torse settles into it with the groaning sound he tends to let out when displeased. Ludmila, Maxwell can’t help but notice, doesn’t look any happier than Torse sounds.

When she came out of her suspended state on the Straka, Ludmila was pallid and bruised, still sleepless from the long period before she slept for far too long: bleached by a lack of sunlight, exhausted by stillness. She’s been gaining color quickly in the days since her revival, already healthier in tone and bright, keen-eyed.

Looking at Torse, she pales all over again.

“Mila is not going back to the planet where everybody mad at her,” Kočka reiterates. “Everybody mad. You, big guy? You’re mad?”

“Usually,” Torse grumbles.

“How about we order first?” Olethra suggests, voice high. “We’ll all have a totally nice, generative conversation over delicious waffles. Who wants delicious waffles?” She waves her hands. It’s unclear if she’s flagging down a server, attempting (poorly) to soothe everyone else at the table like spooked horses, or merely panicking at the awkwardness.

“I have already said I will destroy any waffle that dares to face me,” Freyja declares.

“No one is at their best before carbs and protein,” Maxwell says supportively. “But I don’t— Correct me if I’m wrong, Torse, but we’re not actually going to Zern yet, right? So, off the bat,” he addresses Kočka, “no one is asking her to go to the planet where… everyone’s mad.”

“Look,” Marya says, shifting into no-nonsense captain mode, “first we order our food, then Torse explains what he wants us to do, and then we eat waffles and talk it over. Ya?”

“Fine.” Torse goes petulantly, inanimately still. The glow of his eyes and unsettled tick-tick-tick of his heart are the only indications that he is a living being rather than a beautifully-wrought sculpture. Maxwell has had a lot of time to observe Torse in various states of disanimation and repose, and he marvels at how expressive he is at all times when his gears are turning. Even like this, purposefully paused until it has been deemed appropriate for him to act, the passive-aggression could not be clearer. Maxwell likes and admires that openness, that clarity.

An agonizing silence settles over them all.

“So,” Olethra says into the thick, tense air, “do we want to get fries for the table?”

“Brunch fries?” Marya asks.

“Yeah, brunch fries. It’s like, you put a little maple syrup on them—”

“Absolutely not,” Maxwell interrupts.

“No, it’s good!” Olethra insists. “Haven’t you read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat?”

“That’s just a recipe for regular french fries.”

“But it’s sweet and savory together. With salt. Kind of like you and Torse.”

“Excuse me?” Maxwell leans forward, baffled.

“You know, two super different things that gel really well.” Olethra knits the fingers of her hands together. “You’re savory, because you’re…” She flexes her biceps and puffs out her chest in an inane mockery of him.

“What, meat?”

“And Torse is salt, I guess, because that’s—”

“I am not,” Torse snarls in a baritone boom that rattles the glasses on a nearby table. Ludmila flinches.

“But you are sweet.” Marya lays a hand on Torse’s forearm. She nails the hair-thin overlap between comfort and admonishment, a honed mentor’s skill. Torse acknowledges her with a quiet creak.

“Are, uh, we ready to order over here?” a young woman with the tall ears of a mule pipes up.

“Oh thank Gotch,” Olethra exhales.

Orders go in—they have something here called the Hungry T-Rex Breakfast, which Maxwell simply cannot say no to. Olethra asks for her brunch fries, Freyja goes insane and gets a six-stack waffle special that’s free if she finishes it, and Marya requests a borscht for herself and Ludmila so specific that she ends up grabbing the server’s notepad and writing down the recipe. Kočka wants espresso and a reuben. Torse orders a glass of water. Having finally arrived at the established cue, Torse settles forward with his forearms braced against the edge of the table and vents steam in a long, slow hiss.

“In my letter to Marya, I explained Zern’s current crisis. Has she communicated this to you?” Torse asks. Ludmila nods jerkily. “Then I will spare you some of the details. What energy now, finally, reaches our world ambiently from Zood is— honestly a game-changer. But those effects will be felt in the long term. In the short term, Zood has energy in excess, and thanks to Freyja and Maxwell,” he tilts his head to the two of them gratefully, “we even have the means to store it, and transmit it short distances. But Zern is on the other side of an atmosphere.”

“Far-field power transfer,” Ludmila says softly, the first words she’s spoken. “Challenging.”

“Yes. But there must be a way to overcome this obstacle. It has been done before.” Torse pauses meaningfully. There is a weight to his certainty that speaks to a witnessed phenomenon more than a stubborn hope.

“Oh,” Maxwell thinks he sees the shape of it, “the engine in Zumhara?”

“The Prime Disruption,” Marya murmurs.

Torse nods. His crimson eyelights lend Ludmila a little more color in her cheeks. Her gaze is clear and steady. He whirs passionately in the home stretch of his pitch.

“As the only mind that was, in some way, present at the creation of the two engines, you are our best hope. You accomplished the feat once. Or a facsimile of you did.” Torse tilts his head down slightly, looking through the top of his eye slit like one might peer over a pair of spectacles. “If a dead clump of wires and spite wearing your face could do it, imagine what could be achieved by the real thing.”

Every head at the table turns to look at Ludmila. She fiddles with her dangling steel earring. Maxwell can’t begin to understand what’s passing between her and Torse in this moment, what Torse is giving up in order to even ask this, how much Ludmila even remembers. She’s practically an unknown variable. But a heart beats in her chest that Maxwell once held in his hands and that once meant the world to Torse. He has to have faith in that. Honor system.

Ludmila inhales deeply, reaches into one of her many pockets, and pulls out a notepad and a pen.

“Tell me about this storage solution you have.” She makes a note and begins to sketch.

---

Maxwell and Olethra leave the tinkers and Torse to sort out the finer details. Every bit of what they’re talking about goes over Maxwell’s head, and Olethra remains a staunch supporter of the buddy system ever since the several times she almost died. Marya hands them a shopping list and points them in the general direction of a guy she knows who will happily trade for scrap and supplies.

Maxwell grasps Torse’s hand before he leaves. The tips of Torse’s fingers are smooth to the touch, worn to a gleaming polish by frequent use. Maxwell has never noticed that before. He admires the discrepancy, not only in color and shine but by texture too. He could feel the border of discoloration with his eyes closed.

“You’re okay if I go?” Maxwell asks softly. He realizes he’s been thoughtlessly stroking Torse’s index finger with his thumb, and makes a concerted effort to stop doing that. He’s distracting himself.

“Yes. Marya is here.” Torse squeezes Maxwell’s hand in return.

The strangest urge pulls Maxwell like a marionette. He leans in and presses his forehead against Torse’s. A gesture of farewell. Something, he doesn’t think, like a kiss goodbye.

Maxwell and Olethra leave. Olethra waits less than a minute to bring it up.

“Did I… miss something between the two of you?”

“Between the two of who?” Maxwell asks, genuinely baffled.

“You and Torse. You’re just kind of,” Olethra wiggles her fingers, “touchy. You’re not the most physically affectionate guy, Gotch.”

“You’ve seen me hug Wealwell, like, a lot.”

“Okay, but you’re not tenderly holding his hand.”

“I wasn’t— It— It’s normal to give your friend a handshake!”

“Uh huh.” Olethra skips ahead of him in a whirl of skirts, reaches out, and grabs Maxwell’s hand in her own. Maxwell stops walking. Olethra cradles his larger hand, caressing his palm with her thumb and staring into his eyes. He can see the twitch at the side of her mouth as she bites back a laugh.

“What are you doing? What’s—” Maxwell can be normal about this, obviously, but he’s not sure Olethra can.

“Well, it’s not a handshake.”

Maxwell snatches his hand back.

“Are you making fun of me?” he grouses.

“Yeah,” Olethra laughs, “sorry, sorry. Let’s go find Alanso.”

They do not, it turns out, find Alanso. They do find an automaton who works for him—Basco, Olethra calls him, with a loud Hi, Basco! He’s made of wicker and carrying a large barrel. He stops when he sees Olethra, waves, and lets out a friendly squawk. Maxwell notices his cage-like chest is full of birds.

“Basco doesn’t like talking to Marya,” Olethra whispers aside to Maxwell as they approach. “But I’m kind of obsessed with him.”

“That’s a lot of birds,” Maxwell observes.

“Hey, is Alanso around?” Olethra asks.

Basco whistles a trochaic pair of notes, Nuh-uh.

“We hoped to take a look through anything you might be willing to trade,” Maxwell says. “We’re not on a budget, so bring out the best you’ve got.”

“Okay,” Olethra snorts. “That’s a crazy opening offer. Rich people don’t haggle?”

“They don’t have money here! And I’m going to win at the fighting pit later, so. I’m good for it.”

Basco lets out a long, impressed caw. Wow!

“Yes, thank you,” Maxwell says appreciatively, flexing. “Are you an aficionado of gentleman fisting?”

Basco shrugs. His birds titter noncommittally, and he gestures to his wicker arms and exposed chest. Not much mass to him. Maxwell imagines how little force it would take to put his fist directly through Basco’s head and winces.

“Ah. Still, it’s a fine spectator sport!”

Basco sings in agreement, then gestures for them to wait. He goes to the ship he was loading barrels onto and returns with several crates of doohickeys and thingamabobs, as Maxwell’s grandfather would have said.

“Perfect. Thank you. That definitely looks… like metal,” Maxwell says.

“Do your birds have names?” Olethra asks.

She spends just an inordinate amount of time playing charades with Basco to learn the names of his birds. Maxwell attempts to be useful in the background; he gives up on sifting through scrap after he cuts his finger on the wickedly sharp edge of a metal sheet. Suckling the wound on the pad of his pinky, he watches Olethra struggle with Sounds like “eye.”

“Fly! Guy! Hi! Oh—hi!” She waves suddenly. Maxwell turns to see Marya, Ludmila, and Torse walking over to meet them.

“Where is Alanso? What have you done with him?” Marya hisses. Basco hoots tremblingly.

“Ah, Basco, I see you've met Marya.” Maxwell may have alleged tone issues, but he knows how to smoothly navigate an awkward introduction. It’s practically the only thing boarding school was good for. “This is Olethra's partner, Ludmila.” Underneath Maxwell's introduction, Olethra mutters, Wow, partner, I mean, we haven't had the labels conversation yet—

Basco whistles a greeting.

“And this is Torse,” Maxwell continues, feeling proud and daring at a sudden idea, seizing the opportunity to get another mechanical laugh as a reward for his witticism. “I'm his key man.”

Basco trills a high, lovely sound. He tilts his face toward Torse, some understanding between automata at the familiar term.

“Maxwell, can I talk to you for a second?” Torse buzzes like an alarm, all in a rush, speaking more quickly than Maxwell has ever heard him.

“Oh. Yeah, of course. Excuse us,” Maxwell turns back to Basco. “I'm sure now that the tinkers are here, they can tell you what they need better than me.” He nods to the three women—Marya is already elbow deep in the doohickey crate, while a blushing Olethra continues stammering at Ludmila.

“Yes, yes, meet back at the ship in six hours.” Marya waves him off over her shoulder. “Mila, what do you think of this for conducting the radiative beam?”

Maxwell follows Torse around the wide bow of a nearby ship to an empty stretch of dock. The only potential witnesses are a dozen or so seagulls, incongruous here in the desert. Perhaps they escaped from inside Basco.

“Maxwell.”

“Torse, is something wrong?”

“You…” Torse steeples his hands and inflates some pneumatic device in his chest, “have to stop calling yourself that.”

“What? Your key man?” The bottom drops out of Maxwell’s stomach. Ah. Another faux pas. “I— admit that was presumptuous of me. I mean, we, we are friends. You said it was a term for someone you trust, so I thought—”

“We are. I do trust you, Maxwell. I’m sorry, let me take another run at that. Hm.” Torse shifts in his sockets pensively. “I trust you more than I have ever trusted another person in my life. You are missing significant cultural context, which I did not give you, so that’s my bad. You absolutely demolished that Hungry T-Rex Breakfast with a vigor I did not know a body could possess.”

“I’m working on my gains.” Maxwell zeroes in on the substance of the sandwich. “Could you tell me what I’m missing? Or I can just not say it anymore, that’s fine too.”

“It’s. Here’s the thing.” Torse’s eyelights flicker and focus on the ground at his feet. “I would be happy to— If you wanted to be my, my key… Fuck it, I’ll just say it.”

“Please do.” Maxwell nods encouragingly.

“The term has a romantic connotation. That I neglected to specify.”

“Oh.” There is a sharp ringing in Maxwell’s ears. “So I just called myself your…”

“You—yeah. You called yourself my boyfriend.”

Maxwell swallows heavily. He feels dizzy, flushed, a little high. Torse’s captain called him that. Torse’s entire crew, they must have thought— And Torse didn’t correct any of them. He said nothing at all until Maxwell asked twice, he must have been so humiliated. Maxwell opens his mouth to say— What the hell is he going to say? Torse, there are no hard feelings. Thank you for the clarification. What did I do to accidentally make your entire robot clan think I’m in love with you? And how can I do it again on—

“Master Gotch!”

Maxwell jumps a foot in the air. Torse’s knuckle knives extend with a sharp shing. Turning with deadly focus toward the source of the sound, they come face to face with Freyja. She has her chin in the air and fists clenched, posture rigid to make herself seem as tall as possible. Maxwell abruptly realizes that he completely forgot about her when they left brunch.

“Freyja, I’m a little busy at the moment,” Maxwell snaps.

“Master Gotch,” she repeats loudly, “I have had my teeth cleaned!” She bares her aforementioned teeth in a proud grimace. True to her word, they look very clean.

Maxwell exchanges a baffled look with Torse.

“Okay?”

“You gave me dental insurance! You have to go pay for my teeth now!”

“Oh, right.” Maxwell pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine. That’s fine. I was going to the fighting pit anyway.”

“Ooh, can I come?” she asks. “I have always wanted to get my ass creamed at the famed Umanzi fighting pit.”

“You have to wait until after I’m done. I can’t fight you, that would be completely inappropriate.”

“Maxwell,” Torse says. That’s all he says.

“We’ll talk later, Torse. Alright? I have a, a professional responsibility,” he says weakly. “I gave Freyja dental insurance.”

“I understand.” Torse nods. “I will see you back at the ship?”

“Yeah. Yes. Ahem. Yes.” Maxwell can’t seem to clear his throat enough. “See you back at the ship.”

---

“You’ve all heard the legend of the greatest two-on-three fight this city has ever seen! Give a warm welcome to half the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am duo of the century, the Wrath of Gath, it’s the Max!”

Maxwell throws his fists in the air, turning slowly in place to show off the gleam of his oiled shoulders to the whole cheering crowd. It’s good to be back here. The smell of sweat and salt and blood lies heavy on his tongue before he’s even taken his first punch. It’s a sweet and savory taste—maybe Olethra had a point.

Three challengers yield before Maxwell breaks a sweat. They fall easily, an obvious warm-up to stir the fervor of the crowd to a fine, thick froth. It’s meditative in a way. Like a few rounds with a speed bag, feeling the pleasant tightness in his knuckles, the promise of a bruise he put there himself.

He’s grateful for the opportunity. After the couple of days he’s had, Maxwell needs to blow off some steam.

The idiom reminds him of Torse, which reminds him of one of the reasons he needs to vent all this confusing energy and stop thinking, which revs the torque of his next blow and knocks his nameless opponent clean over the barrier and into the stands.

“Another win for the Max!” The man with the sign-up sheet and the massive erection declares the end of the round. Maxwell recalls the way the other Wind Riders had reacted to him. Even before the story about the wagon accident, Maxwell had been about to defend the man, though experience had won out and told him to hold his tongue. It’s normal to get a raging hard-on in a fighting pit still isn’t the kind of thing he could say to any of the others without consequence.

Maybe Torse. Maybe Torse would get it, after a lifetime of fighting as background radiation, violence as the base state of being alive. He wouldn’t think less of Maxwell for having a physiological reaction to pleasurable stimuli. It’s only natural. Inevitable. Wires get crossed, and the contact causes sparks and then, eventually, fire.

It’s satisfyingly mechanical, the erotics of this place. The physics of leverage, force, friction; the chemistry of solvents building up to a spontaneous reaction. Maxwell wipes sweat from his face and leaves behind a smear of someone else’s blood.

“The moment you’ve all been waiting for!” the organizer booms. “You know ‘em both, the otherworldly new arrival and our hometown hero! It’s the Max… versus… Barney Ballast!”

“What? Hell yes!” Maxwell pumps his fist in excitement.

“I say,” Barney says cheerfully, “you’ve put on quite a show, old boy.”

“Oh, thank you, that means a lot. How’s the face healing up?”

“Terrible! I keep getting it punched.” His jovial aura brings a smile to Maxwell’s face. They’re in for a bout of good, clean gentleman fisting, Maxwell can tell.

“Tell your doctor I’m happy to make sure he stays employed!” The moment the match is on, Maxwell goes for the legs.

Barney is easy to get on the mat but hard to keep there. It’s counterintuitive, given his low center of gravity. Maxwell puts every inch of himself to the task of covering Barney, swinging elbows down while straddling his chest. There is a moment, a meeting of eyes just after Barney rocks him so hard in the sternum that he can’t keep up the pin, where the air is hot with a certain kind of tension.

Back at Revington, in the underground pits, the underground underground pits, and even the secret underground underground pits, a moment like this was a ready excuse to keep a grapple going beyond the edge of the ring. Maxwell would have the satisfaction of winning a fair fight—already a carnal gratification in and of itself—or the invigorating despair of losing one throbbing in his veins (and elsewhere). He’d follow an erstwhile competitor to a dark corner somewhere and have him up against the lockers, or be had on the floor, or, once, suck each other off on a capsizing rowboat for reasons irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Were this their last meeting, with the blessing of a little extra time to spare, he would have taken Barney up on the offer in a heartbeat. But as it is now, the desire rises, and then it ebbs away. Maxwell feels an odd certainty that he would be too distracted even with strong, sturdy, honorable Barney Ballast grinding his oiled chest hair against his nipples.

What Maxwell would be distracted by in this circumstance flits beyond the edge of his consciousness. He’s too busy bracing against another cannonball to the kneecaps.

Really, he ought to be jonesing for it, Maxwell thinks as he swings his fists. But when he considers chasing the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, the fingers on his tongue are cool and smooth. He wants something other than frantic frottage in sweat-soaked singlets. A longer-lasting combustion—the fire, not the spark.

Maxwell lands a final, triumphant uppercut to Barney’s jaw. He rings his bell—like he rang the bell, like he rang the bell, the one on the ring of keys, when he was the key boy. Somebody’s key boy in particular.

In the ringing of Barney’s skull, the ringing of the cheering crowd at his victory all the way up the gauntlet, the ringing of tinnitus in Maxwell’s ears, there is one short, soft chime. A penny, dropping.

Oh, fuck, Maxwell thinks in the split-second split-knuckle crack of bone. Fuck.

Notes:

I did NOT expect to raise the rating of this one yet, but I should have known Maxwell can't be an un-Mature level of horny about fighting pits

Chapter 7

Summary:

In which we say what we want.

It is at times like this that Torse misses Comfrey MacLeod with such profundity that he aches.

He would ask her for the answer to this conundrum of Zern’s energy, were she alive to be asked. She would know what to do. Comfrey built the beacons at the Temple of Katur, which stayed lit for centuries and, once, were kept safe by an engine that she sacrificed to the scrap heap in order to make Torse his golden heart.

That was such a risk, he recalls. One he nearly could not bring himself to accept. She was flippant about disassembling the engine at the time.

“This old backup generator? What good is it doing sitting here, when it could be doing good,” she patted him on the chest, metal ringing against the metal of the ring she still wore then, “right here.”

The promise of it made him cry. Torse was ashamed of himself for his weakness, so broken by rage that he was unable to accept a gift freely given without a showing of anguish. Comfrey told him to buck up, wiping the oil from his faceplate with a gentle hand. He has often wondered, but never asked, if Comfrey ever wiped Olethra’s tears the same way, or those of Olethra’s father, Hutch. It is something most commonly done for children, to Torse’s understanding.

He cannot recall who wiped his grease-black tears when he was not yet fully built. Names are inscribed inside of him, but mourning has eroded the shallower details of the etchings. Whoever it might have been, they are gone now regardless.

Torse never got the chance to thank Comfrey properly, not with the nuance he now knows is merited by his grief and his gratitude together. She gave him what he asked for. Perhaps he never needed that golden heart to be worthy, but he would not have been ready to hear it then if anyone had told him—so, in a way, he did need it. He is ready now. He is proud now.

And he is lonely. Less so than he was for a very long time. He briefly thought, in fact, that it was gone, but loneliness is welded into the core of him. Perhaps he would not be entirely himself without it.

“Torse?” Marya calls to him questioningly, one arm loaded down with refuse eagerly awaiting another chance at life. She blinks at him in surprise from the ladder leading into the mech.

Torse leaps to his feet.

“Marya. I apologize. My mind was elsewhere. Let me help you carry—” Torse reaches down for the burden and makes direct eye contact with Ludmila, who is a few feet behind Marya. A scalding flash of reflexive panic trips all the warning sensors in Torse’s spine. He looks away quickly and does not linger long enough to know if Ludmila looks away too.

“Eh, I’m not dead in the ground yet. I can carry my own scrap.” She hauls herself the rest of the way up, Ludmila and Olethra following behind. “But what are you doing back here all on your lonesome? I thought you were with Gotch.”

“Maxwell went to the fighting pit to pay for Freyja’s teeth.”

“Oh, good on her for using her dental benefits. Squeeze everything you can out of your employer, a job will not love you back.”

“Hm.” Torse heavily ponders the concept of Maxwell Gotch not loving you back.

“How many times do I have to say it? Buddy system!” Olethra starts trying to build a tower out of brass tubes in the middle of the cockpit floor. The top one falls off and bonks her on the head. “Ow.”

“We won’t, ah, need that until we get to the power station.” Ludmila picks up the fallen tube, places it back in a crate, and gently strokes Olethra’s hair over the place where it hit her.

“Right! Duh, my bad. Haha.” Olethra nuzzles into the pressure on her head, cheeks turning a vibrant shade of pink.

Torse wonders. He has been doing a lot of that lately.

“Marya,” he says, “may I ask you something? Privately.”

---

Maxwell is not being weird about it.

“You are being weird again,” Freyja says.

“You’re being weird again,” Maxwell huffs as he places another bandage on Freyja’s face. She took a hit to her left cheek so hard that her skin split against the bone. Maxwell has never been much of a medic, but he has a go-getter’s attitude.

“No I’m not! I’m being totally normal. This is how I always am after I get my ass creamed.”

“Stop saying creamed.”

“What do you want me to say instead?” Freyja grouses. “That I got knuckle-fucked in the face?”

“That’s worse.”

“Took a hard spanking. Completely laid out. Pounded upside down and sideways. Slammed down big—”

“Stop,” Maxwell drops his task of bandaging to groan into his hands, “stop listing euphemisms. You lost a fight, I get it. Happens to the best of us.”

“Didn’t happen to you,” she grumbles.

Maxwell peeks through his fingers and gives her an unimpressed glare.

“One time, Monty tackled me flat on the deck because I didn’t like some of his books. I got whalloped by a middle-aged, middle-grade author. Absolutely ate shit.”

“Oh, ja. I forgot about that. You told everyone to kill you.” Freyja presses at the bandages layered across her face. The adhesive seems to be pulling some of the lower layers up rather than keeping them down. “I thought it was very honorable.”

“Right. But I got back to my feet, and I revisited some of the opinions I’d formed at a different time in my life. And you know what?” Maxwell drops his hands to his knees. Staring down at his scabbed knuckles, he thinks about the many voices that can sound from the throat of a ringing bell. “I realized some of those feelings had more to do with me…. Than, uh, than with the books.”

Freyja gives him a long, hard stare.

“Are you being weird because you think I’m gonna have to go back to the dentist? Don’t worry, the one place I didn’t get hit was my mouth.”

“I’m not being weird!”

They work in silence for a minute, scrapping the whole tangled mass of bandages and laying down a new set. Maxwell’s mind drifts inexorably to the magnetized pole of his new self-understanding. Those brassy fingertips. That uncorrected misapprehension. Put down your key boy. Was Sprong making fun of him? Azi, immediately telling him where Torse might be, certainly wasn’t. And Torse, I trust you more than—

“I miss Sylvio,” Freyja says out of the blue, startling Maxwell out of it.

“Yeah?” Maxwell realizes that the bandages would probably be more effective if they held the sides of her split cheek together at all. This might be more of a stitches situation. He’s officially out of his depth.

“I have been thinking that maybe fighting like this,” she vaguely mimes swinging an axe and then gestures to her face, “isn’t my most competitive hard skill. Sylvio showed me how to aim a rifle and praised my spreadsheets. No one has ever liked my spreadsheets before.”

Maxwell’s heart twinges. Pressed into service as a repo man by birth, a rowdy who can’t even manage the bare minimum of discreetly hiding his rowdiness by nature. It’s supposed to be easier to follow the path laid out for you. That’s what people say. Giving up and obeying is effortless; bucking against the yoke is hard. It doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes the yoke doesn’t fit. Sometimes the path burns like coals. The body’s reflex is to rear and kick, to sprint away.

“Is that what you like to do?” Maxwell asks.

“What I like to do?” Freyja repeats, sounding quietly awed by the question. She thinks, then sits up straighter, sets her jaw, and declares, “I like administrative functions and guns!”

“Great!” Maxwell grins. “Do that! Maybe not at the same time—though, actually, given how this company has operated so far in Zood, you might need to. Keep on, uh, practicing those hard skills.”

Freyja leaps to her feet.

“I am going to be the best regional manager Zood has ever known! All will be dumbstruck by the resume that highlights my sharpshooting and bookkeeping prowess!”

With Freyja distracted, Maxwell sinks again into the deep well of overthinking where he’s made a new home for himself. What exactly was it that Torse said, before Fuck it? Was there an implication? Does he have room in his heart for a key right now? Maxwell is hardly known for his delicate touch, but he winds his pocketwatch every morning like, well, like clockwork. Acts of dedication come easily to Maxwell. He is devoted. He has, as he’s said many times, the absolute grindset.

With a little focus, a lot of trust, and a point or two of moxie, he can overcome anything. He once vowed to have a brachiosaurus ass flat on the mat. That didn’t happen, but it probably could have. If he can tackle a person, he can tackle a dinosaur. And if he can tackle a dinosaur, he can tackle Torse. Romantically.

“Stop being weird!” Freyja yells.

---

Marya drops her goggles down over her eyes. She tweaks a lever at the side and Torse watches her pupils refract through the glass until they become comically large. She peers at him up and down, from the light in his faceplate to the open slats of his chest.

“You look fine to me,” she says. “We can buff out some scratches if you’re self-conscious, but I’ve always thought you’re quite a beautiful machine. A few battle scars add to the whole aesthetic.”

“Thank you,” Torse says softly. “That’s not exactly what I—”

This is another moment when he feels Comfrey’s loss keenly. He wants to ask for her help with this. Even Sylvio would be likely to catch his implication, inquiring if he looks good to Gathie eyes, but the question feels too urgent to wait for the return of the Gotcha now that Maxwell has wrung the truth from him.

“What?” Marya looks up at him with her big, dark owl’s eyes. There is an endless depth of curiosity. An unfathomable capacity for love. No room for judgement, if Torse’s lessons in reading facial expressions have taught him anything at all.

“I have made myself vulnerable. It is… terrifying.”

Marya’s expression softens. She frowns in sympathy.

“You’re like a hedgehog,” she says. “Covered in all these spikes. Soft underneath.” She reaches out and cups the side of his face. “You are easy to love, Torse. However you’ve shown your tender places, whatever comes of it, do not doubt that.”

Torse hums gratefully. This does not soothe his worries, but it reminds him of an important lesson. Fear, he was once told by someone very dear to him, is the prime ingredient of bravery.

---

“Torse?” Maxwell pops his head into Mr. Big Britches’ cockpit. God, he fucking hates that sentence. “Olethra, did Torse come back with you?”

“Huh?” Olethra tears herself away from the controls, which Ludmila is teaching her how to use. Another pilot on deck never hurts. “Oh, yeah, he’s here. He and Marya are talking in the engine room.”

Maxwell scrambles for the door to the cramped second space inside the mech. At least it’s roomier this time than when he shared it with a dozen other people, a dog, and a t-rex. Behind him, he hears Freyja catch up in time to tell the other two, He’s being weird. That’s fine. Everyone is—oh god—going to know what he’s up to sooner rather than later. Make it quick, he tells himself. Like ripping off a bandage. Like ripping all those bandages off Freyja’s face and opening up the wound again and getting them both covered in blood.

He bursts in to find Marya cradling Torse’s face. Torse leaps up at the sight of him.

“Maxwell,” he says. His fists flex. His knuckle blades peek out just slightly and then retract, like the claws of a nervous cat.

“Ohh, I get it now. He’s all yours.” Marya pauses on her way out, puts a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder, and murmurs in his ear, “Be kind. Remember, heart of gold, my golden boy Gotch.”

“Um.” Maxwell coughs into his glove. “Yes.”

Marya closes the iron door between the engine room and the cockpit. The latch clicks.

“You said we would talk later,” Torse observes. “Now?”

“If, if you’re not busy.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Right. Great. So.” Maxwell claps his hands together so he doesn’t start gnawing on them. “My family is old money, right? Not actually aristocrats, but sort of… playing the part. When I was younger, there were all these rules I was supposed to memorize about how the rest of my life would play out. Use this spoon, wear this cut of jacket, attend this boarding school, go on pre-arranged and chaperoned outings with the daughters of your father’s awful friends. I was terrible at all of it.”

“This makes sense,” Torse nods. “You live by a strong personal code based on your values, but that sounds… arbitrary.”

“It was! It was fucking arbitrary. But without better rules to replace them, I feel,” Maxwell chews over how to say this, “underprepared to just fly by the seat of my pants. You’re not the daughter of an evil businessman.”

“No,” Torse agrees. “I am the son of a clockwork martyr.”

“Right.” Maxwell’s voice sounds thin and breathy even to his own ears. He’s distracted again by how—there really is no other way to say it—fucking hot everything about Torse is. A couple hours ago, he would have assumed his palpitations were nothing but pure admiration. This is the problem with consciously recognizing your own feelings: they get in the way of everything.

“Are you…” Torse tilts his head curiously, “going somewhere with this?”

“I want to be your key boy,” Maxwell blurts. “Man. I mean man.”

The sound hits Maxwell before he registers anything else; for a moment, he thinks Mr. Big Britches might be imploding.

The reality is a far more welcome sight, if still an alarming one. Torse falls to his knees. The groaning machinery of him strikes the iron floor of the chamber, echoing like a tree split in half by a lighting bolt. He reaches up, takes Maxwell’s clasped hands in his own, and flickers the lights of his eyes. An iridescent sheen of oil wells up along the lower edge of the slit.

“You may simply call yourself my key. It is—it’s gender-neutral. Or we can pick a different one.”

“So Sprong was making fun of me!”

“She was making fun of me,” Torse corrects. “But yes.”

“Yes?”

“Oh! I didn’t say— Yes, Maxwell Gotch. You already hold this heart of mine.” He lifts one hand from the tangle of their combined grip and taps a finger against his chest. “It would be an honor I cannot even begin to describe if you were to give me yours.”

“Of course. Of course I will. I’ve never,” Maxwell catches his breath, swallowing heavily, “never given it away before. But you already have it too, I think.”

Torse groans happily. Maxwell thinks of airships taking flight, trains chugging toward home, an elevator up to a room with a view. The mechanical grind of promised joy. He pulls Torse to his feet and leans closer, closer, until he can press his ear to Torse’s chest and listen.

Tick-tick-tick.

“There it is,” Maxwell sighs.

Torse’s hand settles on his flank, then drifts up, a warm, gentle pressure through Maxwell’s suit jacket. That broad, iron palm comes to rest on Maxwell’s chest, just a bit to the left of his sternum.

Badum-badum-badum.

“There it is,” Torse echoes.

---

Marya is in the middle of showing Freyja how to clean a gun while Mila cleans her massive face wound when the door slams open.

All four of them peer curiously at the two figures exiting the engine room. Gotch is stiff and flushed red, radiating stubborn embarrassment. Torse is clicking like a singing bird.

They are holding hands.

“Everyone,” Gotch announces, “Torse and I are going on a date tonight. We’re dating. Don’t make it weird.”

Olethra starts screaming.

Notes:

everyone please come talk to me about Them on tumblr @eternalgirlscout

Chapter 8

Summary:

In which we check in on the main characters.

Notes:

This is definitely the weirdest content warning I've ever had to include in an author's note, but: warning for discussions of organ harvesting, treated with canon-typical comic flippancy.

“You have to let us help you get ready,” Olethra demands, flying toward them across the cockpit.

Maxwell huffs. “I don’t need to be gussied up—”

“Um, I was talking to Torse?” Olethra links her elbow around Torse’s, hisses as she accidentally pokes herself on his bladed elbow, and readjusts. She pulls at him insistently and ineffectually. “Wait, is this your first date? Like, ever?”

“Yes,” Torse answers.

“It’s his first date!” Olethra shouts.

“Oh my fucking Gotch,” Marya swears. She starts tearing up. “Torse, you’re going on your first date ever? Quick, ah, I need to build a camera so I can take a picture!” She burrows into the crates of scrap like a ferocious meerkat. Olethra lets go of Torse’s arm in order to start pulling a seemingly endless supply of polish and buffing pads from shelves that Maxwell didn’t realize existed.

“Well, it looks like you have your hands full here…” Finger by finger, Maxwell begins separating his hand from Torse’s.

“Maxwell,” Torse pleads, “do not leave me.”

“Look,” Maxwell mutters, quick and low, pulling Torse into a huddle. “It’s hopeless. They’re an unstoppable force. One of us is getting a makeover, alright? And the worst they can do to you is give you a polish.”

“Mm.”

“Do you want to see what Olethra would do to my hair?”

Torse growls. A shudder of fury travels down his arm. He raises his free hand and traces a fingertip along Maxwell’s perfect middle part.

“If anyone is foolish enough to fuck with the symmetry of your hair, they will answer to me.”

“So let’s spare ourselves the violence,” Maxwell argues, “and let them have their fun where they’ll do the least damage.”

“I understand now,” Torse intones, “how you have managed to maintain a relationship with Wealwell for all these years.”

“Take from the buffet.” Maxwell winks. He finally extracts his hand from Torse’s hold and scurries toward the exit. “I’ll pick you up in an hour! I have to go, uh, make reservations or something. Bye!”

On his way out, Maxwell grabs Freyja by the back of her jacket. No way in hell is he getting a makeover, but he’s not too proud to call in a favor.

---

“And you’ll all tell the whole, unedited truth to the fine folk at the Luxaeternium, won’t you?” Sylvio asks their gaggle of hostages firmly—and dashingly, if you ask Wealwell. Which everyone should. He’s totally one hundred percent objectively right all of the time. Especially about what a fine figure Sylvio cuts, with his deep-set eyes and finely-groomed mustache and general air of debonair untrustworthiness. You can’t trust anyone, least of all yourself, and Wealwell finds Sylvio’s candor in this way both refreshing and insanely hot.

“We’re Zumharan!” that gangly teenager with terrible posture replies, aghast. “Honor system! Of course we’ll tell the truth!”

“Ehh,” says the woman with the big crystal claw things on her hands who almost killed Maxwell. Wealwell does not care for her in the slightest.

“Well, we’ll be there to testify alongside the more honorable among you,” Captain Dawderdale reminds her crisply.

“Yes,” Wealwell says, “we’ll tell them all how terribly naughty you’ve been, trying to kill—kill? Kill the big squid? How do we feel about the squid, generally?” He tilts an extended thumb up and down, watching Sylvio and Dawderdale’s reactions to try to decide where to stop.

“What squid?” pipes up another of the hostages.

“Perhaps you should stay out here and stand watch, pumpkin,” Sylvio suggests with a tender caress to Wealwell’s hand. “Ms. Gathborn has already done a runner once. We need a bulwark we can count on to guard our exits.”

“Right you are, my darling mastermind.” Wealwell drops a sweet kiss to Sylvio’s mouth. “Hypervigilence stance!”

Wealwell posts up outside the entrance to the Luxaeternium. Gorgeous building—he admires the anatomy of the sculpted figures that decorate the walls. A striking homage to the early introduction of contrapposto to representational art of the human subject. He took a fascinating course at Biffmore, cross-listed between Art History and Standing, on the history of posture in sculpture and figure painting.

Sylvio brings up the rear of the group, ushering the hostages—defendants?—into the forum. Wealwell blows him a kiss. Sylvio catches it, winks, and uses his other hand to blow one in return. Wealwell catches that kiss out of the air and coquettishly eats it.

Left to his own devices, Wealwell remains at the side of the street and waits. He is immovable, has positioned himself perfectly to maximize his peripheral vision nearly to the point of panorama, and is prepared, at the slightest provocation, to stick his foot out and trip any would-be escapee. Nothing, nothing on Gath or Zood or Zern or Shahar—the last of which he’s pretty sure they haven’t been to yet, but no one ever tells him these things—could stray him from his course.

“Hey,” says a low-swinging voice like the baying of a hound, “do you want your wildest dreams to come true?”

“Huh?” Wealwell turns and sees two men with the heads of dogs. Their uniform jackets are the very picture of trustworthiness.

“Your wildest—uh. What do you want more than anything?” the second dog-headed man asks.

“Anything at all,” adds the first.

“Are you trying to lure me from my sworn duty with false promises of, oh, wealth and riches and all the glittering wonders of Goldbeard’s gold?” Wealwell accuses. “Because it shan’t work, I tell you.”

“Whose gold?” One dog-headed man elbows the other. “I mean, yes, we know where to find that guy’s gold.”

“Oh, do you now?” Wealwell squints skeptically.

“Yeah. For sure.”

“But do you?” Wealwell squints even harder.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Okay. Lead the way, then!”

---

“That went splendidly,” Sylvio announces upon exiting the Luxaeternium. “Disarming and deplatforming, rehabilitation, and education campaigns to dispel harmful myths about Zern and humanize our neighbors in the braid. Between that and Vanellope murdering any Eyeless Hand she comes across, I think we’re absolutely golden.”

Sylvio sighs in satisfaction, hands on his hips.

“Mr. Dufresne?” Dawderdale says hesitantly.

“Mhm?”

“Where’s Master Gotch?”

“You know,” Sylvio replies, confidence withering, “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

---

“So,” Maxwell says when they’re a short distance from the mech. “Freyja, I know this is— Fuck!”

Maxwell turns around and jumps when he sees that Freyja is not his only hanger-on. Ludmila follows at Freyja’s heels, hands in her pockets, looking for all the world like she could waltz onto any skyship in the city and take the helm.

“I’m here too,” Ludmila says. “Hi.”

“Me too. Hi,” echoes Kočka, poking his head out of a satchel at her hip.

“Okay. That’s… fine.” Maxwell adjusts his cuffs. “Um. You wouldn’t rather stay with Marya and Olethra?”

“Sure I would,” Ludmila shrugs. “But this is a happy occasion for Torse. I don’t want to… ruin that, I guess. He should get to be excited.”

A stone around Maxwell’s legs drags him down from the twitterpated buoyancy of the last twenty minutes. There are more serious things at stake than his date. There always are. Maxwell admonishes himself for losing sight of that.

“Torse…” Maxwell doesn’t like to speak for Torse. Torse can speak for himself. But maybe in this instance that guiding rule isn’t entirely true. “Torse knows it wasn’t you—”

“I know. I know I did not hurt him with my own hands.” She looks at the ground and rubs her chest, seemingly unconsciously, a closed-knuckle fidget just to the left of her sternum. “But I see his hurt when he looks at me. So I can give your boyfriend the gift of not flinching for an hour. I don’t know about you, but first dates have always made me nervous enough by themselves.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Maxwell corrects. “He’s actually my— Well, he calls me his— I guess we haven’t settled on terms, as such, yet. I know from firsthand experience that key isn’t very legible to a Gathie or Zoodian ear. He called me his companion once, and I liked that a lot! But even that is sort of an ambiguous thing to call a romantic partner, isn’t it? One thing you should know about me, I don’t like ambiguity. Freyja can attest to that.”

“Ja,” Freyja says. “Master Gotch likes things to the point. This is why I tell him when he’s being weird.”

“I’m always normal, Freyja, but thank you.” Maxwell thinks it over. Torse’s hand on his back. His candid outpouring of moral right. Companion. “Then again, ambiguity in personal matters can be a way of maintaining one’s privacy. I think I’m starting to come around on it now.”

“Great. You’re boyfriends!” Freyja cheers in complete sincerity, missing his point. “So why did you drag me out of Mr. Big Britches by my jacket?”

“Right. That.” Maxwell steeples his hands in front of his face. “I know this is a lot to ask, Freyja, but everyone liked it so much last time, and it’s—tonight is important to me. Will you…”

“Anything, my thane.”

Maxwell grits his teeth against every instinct screaming at him not to let this happen.

“Will you style my mustache again?”

---

“Hello, my name is Sylvio Dufresne. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m looking for a tall, blond man. Early thirties, excellent posture.”

“I’m afraid that’s not something we keep in our library’s collection,” the kindly woman at the front desk of the Crystalary Knowletaria says.

“Ah. Haha!” Sylvio laughs delightedly. “I see the misunderstanding. No, I’m looking for a very specific one who seems to have wandered off. His name is Wealwell Gotch and he is my lover. That may sound surprising, I understand, but there’s a certain magic in a May-December romance.”

“Don’t I know it,” she says with a salacious wink. Sylvio laughs again. “Iridia Neff. Welcome, Sylvio. I’m afraid your beloved hasn’t been here today. If he shows up, I’ll tell him you’re looking.”

“Please and thank you, Ms. Neff. Alright, captain,” Sylvio sighs wearily to Dawderdale, “onto the next.”

“Oh,” Iridia says, catching sight of Sylvio’s companion. “Ma’am, are you affiliated with those dog boys?”

“Dog boys?” Dawderdale repeats, enunciating with such clarity that her utter bafflement is obvious.

“Apparently not. I only ask because they wear the same jacket.” Iridia tilts closer, leaning on the arm of her wheelchair. “We let everyone in, you know, here at the Knowletaria. We Zumharans give the benefit of the doubt where we can. I certainly try to. But it’s tough when people take advantage of that and make everyone a little less safe.”

“You believe,” Sylvio drops his voice low, glancing around to ensure they’re not overheard, “that these dog boys may have something to do with the disappearance of my Wealwell?”

Iridia leans back with a slow, thoughtful breath.

“That’s a heavy allegation, and not one to be made lightly.” She smiles sadly. “I don’t know. All I know is, if you see them, it may be worthwhile to ask.”

---

Wealwell wakes up in a bathtub full of ice.

“Aah!” he screams. “My penis!”

“We didn’t take your penis,” says a mournful voice to his left.

“No, I know that,” Wealwell wails. “It’s cold. Why is my penis cold?”

Sitting on a stool beside the bathtub—in what turns out to be a rather lovely bathroom, glowing crystal lights over the mirror and towels with a snowflake pattern hanging from a shiny silver rack—is one of those dog-headed men in the nice jackets. The nice, very familiar jackets, Wealwell now realizes.

“You’re sitting in ice.”

“I want to know,” Wealwell feels as if he’s on the verge of openly sobbing, “why I’m sitting in ice.”

“Oh! We were gonna take your kidney.”

“Hand me that trash can,” Wealwell demands. “I’m about to throw up.”

The man with the dog head hands him a small trash can. Wealwell bends over it, pondering his kidney-less future. He just escaped the perpetual nausea that the Queen’s Smog always gave him and finally regained some of his standing acumen after his terrible wound. Things were looking up. Now they’re all crashing down again. Wealwell’s body is quite literally the only thing he has, and it can never just give him a fucking break.

“But we didn’t!” the dog-headed man continues. “We got in there and realized one of your kidneys was already like, blown to bits. Did you get shot recently?”

“I did. I did get shot recently.” Wealwell gags, but doesn’t make it all the way to a full expulsion. It’s a shame as much as a relief. He always feels a bit better after getting it over with.

“Yeah. So, you were only working with one kidney to start with, and we never take both of ‘em. That would be a dick move.”

“Then why am I in the ice?” Wealwell sounds pathetic even to his own ears. God, is this how he always used to sound? Nasal and pitiful, like the voice Maxwell puts on when he’s mocking father.

“We got pretty far before we noticed the whole… not having a kidney thing. Again, really sorry about that.” The dog-headed man shrugs. “We’re sorta new at this.”

“Have you ever considered a change in careers?” Wealwell rests his temple against the rim of the trash can, looking sideways at the dog-headed man.

“Sure. We’ve changed careers a bunch of times, mostly because of the twisters. We keep getting hired by the same family, though. Our last boss was mean to us. The kidney thing was his idea, but we were supposed to take both instead of just one. We said, no sir, that’s too far. And then he headbutted us a lot.”

“That’s the kind of cruelly stupid thing Hatwell would think of,” Wealwell mutters venomously.

“You know Hatwell Gotch?”

Wealwell sits bolt upright in the ice. The movement shifts some cubes and makes his penis even more uncomfortable, but he’s well and truly distracted now.

“Hatwell Gotch was my brother! My least favorite brother, if you want to know, and that’s a high bar. Also, he’s dead.” Wealwell shrugs. “Sorryyyy.”

“You’re a Gotch?” The dog-headed man blinks dopily at him. “Can we work for you?”

Wealwell drops the trash can into the ice. He idly wonders if they have a bottle of wine around here—no use letting all this go to waste. He braces his hands on the side of the tub and pushes himself up.

“Yes. You work for me now, and my first instruction for you is this: give me back my pants.”

“Got it.” The dog-headed man reaches into the cupboard under the sink and hands over Wealwell’s clothes.

“Second thing,” Wealwell says, stepping out of the tub and gingerly beginning to dress. “You’re going to take me to Goldbeard's gold.”

“Oh, we were lying about that.”

“What? Noooo.”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. Auxiliary second thing, you’re going to take me to my adoring boyfriend, and then help us both find Goldbeard’s gold.”

---

“There,” Freyja says, putting the final touches on her artistic reimagining of Maxwell’s mustache. “Done.”

Ludmila peers over her shoulder.

“Oh, that does look better!” she says approvingly. “That’s the most fuckable mustache I’ve ever seen on a man, and I’m extremely a lesbian.”

“Okay!” Maxwell yelps. “I see why you and Olethra are such a good fit. Um, please don’t ever say that about me again.”

Ludmila crosses her arms. “What, you find female sexuality intimidating? Huh?”

“I’m gay!” Maxwell is too affronted to think about the fact that this is the first time he’s ever said those words out loud in that order.

“Master Gotch,” Freyja points at him, “you are dodging the question!”

---

A guileless man with a dog’s head tosses a garbage bag into a dumpster. He turns to return to the apartment he’s shared ever since a third cyclone dropped him back off in Zumhara. Before he can make it more than a single step, his exit is blocked by a silhouette. A whopping five feet and two inches of a woman in a jacket identical to his own stares him down. She stands with her hands clasped behind her back. The brim of her matching hat shadows her eyes.

“You have ten seconds,” Miryam Dawderdale says in her clean, professional cadence, “to tell me where Wealwell Gotch is, or my friend will shoot you through the heart.”

Somewhere in the darkness, the sound of a cocking rifle echoes off the alley walls.

“Gotch?” the dog-headed man yelps. “Wait, wait, we work for the Gotches!”

“Huh?” says Miryam.

“Huh?” says Sylvio.

“—just left to take out the trash, he should be around here somewhere.” A second hound-like voice reaches the alley. Miryam turns to see two figures exiting a nearby apartment building: another dog boy who, in the light of a streetlamp, Miryam can see wears a Gotch retainer jacket; and a tall, blond man in his early thirties with excellent posture.

“Master Gotch!” she shouts in surprise.

“Captain Dawderdale?” Wealwell stares in blank shock.

“Darling?” Sylvio calls from the fire escape where he’d been lurking. He slides down a ladder, lands on the lid of the dumpster, vaults to the ground, and rounds the corner out into the street.

“Sylvio!” Wealwell rushes forward to catch Sylvio in an embrace. “Wow, my new employees are making a great first impression. We’ll see how they do at the end of the probationary period, though. They seem prone to lollygagging.”

“These two work for you?” Miryam casts a critical eye over their Gotch retainer jackets. The uniforms are not quite to the letter of the company dress code, but there’s no denying what they are. She can’t imagine how Wealwell managed to get them tailored in less than a day.

“We used to work for Hatwell Gotch,” one of the dog-headed men says.

“Before that, we worked for Maxwell Gotch,” adds the other.

“And before that, we worked for Longspot Gotch,” finishes the first.

“They were caught up in the remnants of some awful scheme of Hatwell’s when I found them,” Wealwell says. “Now I’m giving them a forever home.”

“We’re full like, men. We’re guys.”

“Yes? And what’s the matter with giving two adult men who work for me a loving home forever and ever? Comfy spots to nap, plenty of outside time—”

“That does sound nice,” one of them says wistfully.

“Do we get dental?” the other asks.

“As many dental treats as you want,” Wealwell promises.

“The Gotch family provides dental insurance, yes,” Miryam explains quietly.

“Oh, wow. Hatwell said it was our fault for having teeth, and then offered to headbutt them out of our mouths.”

“Fucking hate Hatwell,” Wealwell mutters.

“Isn’t this exciting!” Sylvio pets Wealwell’s hair. “Our turn at the Luxaeternium went off without a hitch, and now our little crew has grown. Not bad for a day’s work.”

“And it’s not over yet.” Wealwell smiles diabolically. “These two fine, upstanding gentlemen know the secret of Goldbeard’s gold.”

“We super don’t.”

“Oh, but I think you do,” Wealwell insists with the cryptic certainty of a prophet. “I think the truth to Goldbeard’s gold is in your hearts, but you just don’t know it yet. All you have to do is believe.”

“Or,” Miryam says, “we could rendezvous with your brother at Ramansu, like we said we would.”

“We’ll do that on the way,” Wealwell sighs.

---

After furiously removing the ribbons Olethra tied around his shoulder spikes, Torse exits the mech at the agreed-upon time. Standing there at the dock is Maxwell, with his broad shoulders and his handsome face and his perpetual seriousness tugging frown lines under his mouth. He grips a metal flower tightly around the stem with both hands.

“This is for you.” Maxwell holds out the delicate, burnished rose. Its petals curl with lifelike softness, organic beauty wrought from unyielding steel. An impossibly skilled hand created this.

Torse notices two figures ducking into a nearby doorway—blue suit and bowler hat, red jacket. This anonymous kindness from Ludmila warms him like a furnace, untempered by having to look at her.

“Thank you, Maxwell.” Torse takes it gladly. A gift is an honor, and a chance to touch Maxwell’s hand is a joy. “I’m sorry, I did not bring you anything in return.”

“That’s—that’s fine. I don’t expect anything. So, um. Your ribbon looks nice.”

“God dammit.” Torse feels around for the last ribbon tied to his shoulders that he must have missed in his initial purge. He finds it and tears it off with extreme prejudice.

“Olethra?” Maxwell asks.

“Olethra,” Torse confirms.

“Here, why don’t we just…” Maxwell takes the ribbon from Torse and winds it around the stem of the steel flower. “That’s appropriate, isn’t it?”

Now that Torse takes a moment to look, the ribbon is the same lush burgundy as Maxwell’s suit jacket. It complements the sheen of the rose, bringing a burst of color where there was none. Maxwell, like a genius tinker, is brilliantly adept at repurposing what others would deem destined for the scrap heap.

“It’s beautiful.” Torse tucks it into his gorget.

“I’m glad. It suits you.”

“Mm.” Torse hums, pleased. “You suit me.”

Maxwell’s neck flushes a shade akin to the pink of Olethra’s cheeks when Ludmila touched her. Torse is glad to have proof of concept.

“I—yes.” Maxwell coughs. “Let’s go somewhere else so everyone stops spying on us.”

Torse glances up. Olethra and Marya’s faces are squashed against Mr. Big Britches’ windshield. Torse nods and follows Maxwell, who walks with the confidence of a man who knows exactly where he’s going. Tabira City’s streets wind like a tangle of wires, an inefficient conglomeration. Torse finds it easy to get lost in such a place, so he is grateful to Maxwell for taking the lead.

“Maxwell,” Torse says slowly, finally addressing what has been bothering him.

“Yes?” Maxwell slows in order to look up at him.

“Have you… done something new with your mustache?”

“Ah. I, I have. Yes.” He clears his throat. “How do you like it?”

“Hm.” Torse stares silently for a long moment, gears churning over the new development. He finds he cannot alter his opinion on this. “I preferred it before.”

The flush shoots up Maxwell’s face like a mercury thermometer.

“I completely agree,” he stammers breathlessly. Then, “I hope this isn’t too forward.” Maxwell takes Torse’s hand, lifts it to his mouth, and kisses his knuckles—just over the slits where his blades extend and retract.

Torse whistles like a singing kettle. He grasps the hand on his own, intolerant of the concept of letting go. Possibly ever.

“Are all dates this exhilarating?” Torse asks. He questions how anyone survives more than one, if that is the case.

“No,” Maxwell laughs. “This is already the best one I’ve ever been on.”

“Good.” Torse presses their foreheads together. “Then we are only competing with ourselves. I intend to strive for a new personal best every time.”

“You’re on.”

Chapter 9

Summary:

In which we do what we want.

Notes:

Another minor content warning for reference to suicide

Maxwell has absolutely no idea where he’s going as he leads them deeper into the reticulum of Tabira City, but with Torse, he finds he doesn’t mind all that much.

There is a list—a very short one—of appropriate activities he was expected to choose from on the occasions when he and some young woman of mathematically triangulated social standing were forced to hang unenthusiastically on each other’s arms. Father never made much of an effort to marry Maxwell off, him being both the youngest and very low on the list of Longspot Gotch’s preferred sons for additional reasons unrelated to birth order, but a man in his position was obligated to at least make gestures toward the idea.

Nothing on that list is anything Maxwell wants to do with Torse.

The things he wants to do with Torse have more in common with his sweat-slick all-nighters at Revington, but that framework still chafes against his feelings like the wingsuit under his clothes. Fighting and sex were one and the same when he was at school: a game of showboating, friendly dominance. Maxwell rarely looked his opponent-lovers in the eye in the light of day, by mutual agreement. Bodies were bodies were bodies.

Torse has never been his opponent—other than the time he briefly offered to take Maxwell at his word when Maxwell demanded the crew kill him before he would submit, that is. There might have been playfulness in that gesture, which makes Maxwell fond and dopey in the head to think about, but they have something different now.

The only thing Maxwell finds more satisfying to be than a victor is a teammate.

So he doesn’t treat Torse like a child of privilege, neither a bored daughter nor a restless son. He’s Torse. And Maxwell is Maxwell. That’s all they need to be.

Wandering, directionless, through the walking city brings them to a fountain where they spend the better part of the evening. A half-dozen monkeys play in and around the burbling water. Their long limbs and odd choice in seating—one directly atop the figure of the fountain, perched upon her head like a top hat—remind Maxwell of Olethra in the MechLeod. He shoots off a More like the Monk-Leod, an effort in his quest to get Torse to laugh again, to which Torse replies, Hm. Not your best work.

Fair. I’ll get you next time, Maxwell concedes, dodging monkeys that want to climb inside his britches. Torse nods, I have no doubt you will, and this promise of faith on the heels of the constructive criticism lights up a string of neurons like a halo inside Maxwell’s brain, a perfect circuit glowing so hot and bright it must be visible through his skull. He wants to wrap Torse around his hands like he did with his heart, once; to wear him like a coat as he did in Zern. Securely fastened, his to keep.

There is no obvious or straightforward way to satisfy this craving for Torse, but Maxwell finds his body moving him closer anyway. Before he can do what he most wants to do, whatever that is—they’ll all find out together when he gets there—a monkey runs up his leg and comes very close to puzzling out the buttons of his fall front pants.

With a shout and a jump and a careful extrication, aided by Torse, Maxwell grouses, You’d think my future self would have taken more care to monkey-proof these, if he really knew everything that was going to happen with my pants. And that, it turns out, is exactly the trick. Echoing off the water and the stone, scaring away every monkey in a thirty-foot radius, a low, mechanical, enunciated Ha ha ha ha ha shakes the very foundations of the walking city.

---

Marya intends to give the young pups a night to frolic while she finishes up a few calculations for Ludmila and nurses a lemonade-based tea-based screwdriver alone at one of Tabira City’s famous dive bars. It’s a favored pastime of hers now that she is not being eaten alive by vengeance.

Tonight, the alone part gives her trouble.

“Captain,” Freyja hiccups after a swig from her copper mule mug, “do you believe in true love?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Marya mutters.

Freyja rolls her eyes. “Okay, sorry for having feelings and, like, looking for somewhere to put them. My whole life collapsed three times in the last two months, but I’ll keep that to myself now.”

“You’re a sassy drunk,” Marya says approvingly. “Do I believe there is some fated person out there connected to you by mysterious forces, and when you find them it will all be bliss and cotton candy and hot sex forever? No. I don’t.”

“Ah.”

“But,” Marya gestures with her drink in one hand and her pen in the other, “I do believe there are people we meet who make our lives better. We can love. And, sometimes despite ourselves, we do.”

Freyja nods. She stares deep into her mug, pondering.

“Why?” Marya prods. “Is there someone you have your eye on, Freyja?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she mumbles. “I can never compete with Mr. Bucklesby.”

Marya covers her mouth, nails biting into the meat of her own cheeks, so she doesn’t laugh out loud.

“You know what I’ve heard?” she ekes out between her fingers.

“What?” Freyja looks up, squinting drunkenly.

“If you, if you touch the back of their neck. Very softly. People really like that.”

“That sounds not true.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Give it a try. What’s the worst that can happen, you strike out?” Marya blows a raspberry. “You just said you were going to do that anyway.”

“Hm. Alright, I’ll do it! When I see her again, I will touch the back of her neck!” Freyja downs the rest of her drink triumphantly.

“Great! Yes,” Marya cheers. She wishes desperately that Van were here. Van would lose her utter shit. Marya should steal that copy of Monty’s book from Gotch and give the Shahar-bound crew a call soon. There’s a lot to catch them up on over here; she’s sure there must be an equal amount of insanity to hear from the other end.

“I feel so good right now. I could fight twenty men. I could do any math.” Freyja grabs Marya’s equation-covered bar napkin. “I’m going to solve this for you right now, captain.”

“Yeah? Do it. I want to see you try.”

Freyja stares hard at the napkin like she’s trying to burn a hole in it with her mind. She mumbles Carry the seven to herself. Then, she slams the napkin down on the table.

“Three!” she declares triumphantly.

“Three what?” Marya asks.

“The number three. Are you fucking stupid?”

“Okay, you’ve had enough!” Marya initiates a wrestling match to take Freyja’s drink away, and loses. At least she has her own to ease the sting of defeat. Another couple rounds and they might get themselves kicked out, which is a way to end the night that always makes for a good story.

---

Maxwell is up bright and early for the trip to Ramansu, Torse equally alert and eager. The same cannot be said for the rest of the crew.

“Gotch, you’re being too loud,” Marya whines.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Shhhh,” Olethra hushes, shoving her face into Ludmila’s shoulder to hide from the light. “How are you like this, this early? Weren’t you two out all night?”

“We were back by ten sharp,” Maxwell says. “Olethra, you and I literally had a conversation before I went to bed.”

“Noooo,” Olethra denies. “I would have remembered that. You weren’t at the hat party.”

“We made each other paper hats,” Ludmila explains. It’s a redundant explanation, considering she’s still wearing her paper hat. It has BEST PILOT EVER written sloppily in Olethra’s handwriting. Kočka, asleep on her shoulder wearing a tiny version of the same hat, hiccups.

“Why is everyone else hungover? We’re the ones who went out,” Maxwell laughs in disbelief.

“Not everyone shares the conscientiousness we showed by returning early in preparation for the journey ahead,” Torse says.

“God, you’re hot,” Maxwell growls.

Torse rumbles seductively. He’s so… buttoned up. So responsible. Maxwell can’t wait to find an appropriate moment with sufficient privacy and discretion to go absolutely hog fucking wild on each other.

“Okay, okay.” Marya pours herself into the pilot’s chair. “I’ve flown through hurricanes while more hungover than this. Everybody hold onto your breakfast, we’re about to get airborne.”

The red balloon in Mr. Big Britches’ hand lifts with friodynamic power. The entire machine groans as the arm extends, extends, extends—and then leaves gravity behind.

“Are we falling off the city?” Freyja slurs from a pile in the corner.

“Yeah,” says Olethra, in the flattest voice Maxwell has ever heard from her. “We’re all dead now, actually.”

“Fuck. Well, nice knowing you.” Freyja rolls over and goes back to sleep.

---

After the better part of a day of flying, hydrating, and eating a hearty meal cooked up on a jury-rigged skillet Bert left in the mech, the whole crew is alive again. Marya has given them an ETA of around nightfall, which leaves a relaxing hour in which to watch the sunset over the Arynth Mountains from cruising altitude.

“It will be something very special,” Torse says softly, “to see true sunset over Zern.”

Maxwell remembers the Zernian sky, the one he fell out of. That blanket of ash and smoke overhead, colored red by the acrid chemical fires stinking up every breath of air. Maxwell imagines what it might feel like to breathe in a thriving Zern. Van brought back water; in Maxwell’s mind, the healing of the world is marked by the clean steam Torse exhales when he heats up. A world of that would be home indeed.

“I’d like to be there when you do,” Maxwell says softly. “If you’ll have me.”

“I would have you by my side in any world, in any time. But there will be another battle before we can share a sunset over my homeland, Maxwell. A bloody one.”

“Why is that?” Olethra asks, legs dangling from her perch on one of the precariously high shelves. “I thought the sort of renewable, sustainable energy from Zood was what you needed.”

“Yes. But the height required for a receiving tower—” Perhaps unconsciously, Torse’s eye lights slide toward Ludmila, who is lying propped on one elbow on the shelf below Olethra. “Castle Odpadku. The Corrodi still hold it. Their rust will need to be scoured before the true task of repair can begin.”

“It would be an honor to help you scrub them out,” Maxwell promises. Torse leans in slowly, cautious of his sharp edges, and lays his head atop Maxwell’s. Maxwell takes his hand. He rubs the smooth tips of Torse’s fingers like a lucky penny. “And you’d get another chance to see me fight.”

A waft of hot air ripples through Maxwell’s mustache. Torse’s chest glows like a woodstove. He edges away slightly, but Maxwell grips his hand to keep him from going too far.

“This, hm. This happens when I’m flustered. I’m not burning you, am I?”

“No.”

Torse settles in against his side once more. “Then I would like that very much.”

“The Corrodi,” Ludmila says, voice creaking, “do they fight alone? Or…” She swallows.

“The Naughtomata have all disanimated without the commands of the Queen.”

“I see.”

“They might—” Torse shifts and rumbles thoughtfully. He twists at the waist, some ball-and-socket joint that permits him to turn his torso without moving the leg he has pressed against Maxwell’s thigh. “Once we breach Odpadku, there is… some hope. That returning the stolen hearts of the Naughtomata might allow those who are not fatally damaged to live again.”

“They chose it,” Ludmila whispers. “To serve.”

“Many,” Torse acknowledges. “Many of them carved out their own hearts in despair. But there was, after all, much to despair of. I took out my own heart too, in a way. I could not bear what it made me feel. It was not the same,” he adds firmly. “I would have rent myself apart gear by gear before serving her. If I had the choice, I would have.”

“I’m thankful that you didn’t,” Marya says. She doesn’t look away from the path straight ahead, hand steady on the controls. Maxwell hadn’t realized she was listening.

“So am I.” Torse squeezes Maxwell’s hand. “For some, serving the Queen was an escape. From feeling. From life.”

“Mass suicide,” Maxwell murmurs. Torse hums a somber confirmation.

“Could we, I don’t know, go around fixing them before you get to the castle?” Olethra asks. “Like Comfrey made your other heart. You were still you.”

“New hearts could theoretically be built,” Torse says pensively. “The mind and the self do not reside there. However, my own experience with changing hearts has made me think there is still a potential for great loss if the original hearts are not recovered. While I was always myself with my gold heart, there was… a distance. From my emotions. One that, initially, I was very grateful for. My mind remembered, but the gold heart did not. This one, on the other hand,” he taps his chest, “lived everything with me.”

“The body keeps the score,” Olethra says quietly.

“Exactly.” Torse creaks. He’d be smiling, Maxwell knows, if he had a mouth.

---

In the dark, they nearly miss the power station. If it weren’t for the quartz monoliths marking its roof, Mr. Big Britches would have flown straight past it and into velociraptor territory.

“Oop, we’re making an emergency descent!” Marya calls.

She yanks a lever and drops the mech to land between two obelisks, shaking the stone structure beneath them. Olethra barely stays on her feet; Ludmila curls around Kočka and falls into Freyja’s bedroll, landing atop Freyja. Maxwell and Torse stay standing by clinging to each other with a comfort that suggests a level of intimacy they haven’t had the privacy to share yet.

“We should get down there,” Maxwell suggests, pulling away from Torse with some reluctance, “before the beetle guardians assume we’re a demolition crew and start attacking.”

Freyja is way ahead of him; she’s already scurrying down the ladder before Maxwell has finished his sentence. She lands on the vine-covered roof and starts stomping.

“Your administrator has returned!” she shouts. Maxwell tries to grab her by the shoulders, but she dances out of his reach.

A rusty door opens creakily. One of the beetle constructs pokes its head out to see who is making such a racket.

“Welcome, administrator—” it says in recognition.

“THE PASSWORD IS BIG BRITCHES!” Freyja screams, interrupting the stone guardian. “Ask me the security question now!”

The beetle construct tilts its head. It glances between Freyja, vibrating with energy, and Maxwell, who has his face buried in his hands in defeat.

“Whose show?” it asks slowly.

Freyja opens her mouth. To Maxwell’s horror, hers is not the only voice that answers the security question. At a joyous volume, Freyja, Marya, and Olethra all respond:

“THE GOTCH SHOW!”

---

While Marya and Ludmila, with Olethra’s help, begin tinkering with the setup in the main floor of the power station, Torse takes Maxwell and Freyja on a tour—a tour that Maxwell, alone, sees through to the end. Freyja abandons them to lay claim to an office. As regional manager, she is hard at work overhauling Onion’s old desk. She waves them on, insisting they leave her behind.

“The beetles have done an excellent job cleaning up,” Maxwell remarks. The dead mushrooms have been swept away, the dead bodies disposed of. Ramansu nearly looks functional again.

“Mm,” Torse agrees. “They possess neither ego nor desire, but they are thorough when a task is set before them.”

“So they’re not just extremely dedicated employees?”

“No. They are highly sophisticated tools, but only that.” Torse delivers the news somberly.

“You wanted them to be more, when you came here with Comfrey,” Maxwell guesses.

“I first arrived here very early in my friendship with Comfrey MacLeod,” he says. “I was… uncomfortable navigating the social niceties expected by those of flesh. I suppose you could say I was homesick. In my loneliness, I at first mistook the stone constructs for fellow automata.”

“That must have been difficult.” Maxwell entwines his fingers with Torse’s. “Are you—? We’ll get you back to Zern soon. I promise.”

Torse squeezes Maxwell’s hand gratefully.

“My time with the crew of the Zephyr II was not marked by only disappointment. I knew true friendship here.” Torse lays his free hand against a doorway, through which Maxwell can see a set of bunks and a table. Scattered playing cards still decorate the tabletop. “But my life is fuller now. Maxwell,” Torse turns, “there is something I need to tell you.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“It’s—hm. Embarrassing.”

“That’s okay. I won’t judge you for it, whatever it is.”

Torse exhales a rush of warm air. A winch in his chest tightens with a creak.

“I explained the significance of calling you my key, but I never told you why Captain Sprong said that in the first place.” Torse tucks his chin behind the rim of his gorget. “We are clockwork folk. As you know. Winding ourselves is no longer biologically necessary, except in extreme circumstances, but the sensation is still… intertwined. With our whole bodies.”

“Sure.” Maxwell nods studiously, like a freshman in the front row of a class that is going well over his head.

“Particularly when wound too tight,” Torse continues, “or too quickly, or when turning the key in the wrong direction,” his voice catches on the last example, the subtle squeaking of an ungreased wheel, “the feeling is intense. Pleasurable. Sensual.”

“Oh.” Heat sears a line from Maxwell’s belly button to his groin. “You’re telling me how to—”

“Maxwell,” Torse interrupts, sounding alarmingly desperate, “do you remember what you said to my captain when you first arrived on the ship?”

“That it was good to see you again,” Maxwell recalls slowly.

“And that you would enjoy,” Torse reminds him, “a chance to unwind with me.”

“Oh, fuck.” Maxwell’s jaw drops. “That’s why Sprong called me your key boy? Because I, I waltzed onto your ship and told her, in front of the whole crew, that I planned to sleep with you immediately?”

“Mhm.” Torse nods.

“My god. That’s humiliating.” Part of Maxwell is glad Torse said nothing at the time, because he would have demonstrated the oft-theorized but heretofore unproven theory of spontaneous human combustion, but it’s the principle of the thing. “You should have keelhauled me on the spot!”

“Hmm.”

A jolt runs through Maxwell as if a wire threaded along his every nerve has just been given a hard yank.

“You’re thinking about,” Maxwell lowers his voice, shuffling closer until he and Torse are framed by the doorway, “keelhauling me.”

“Mm.”

“Torse.”

“Maxwell.”

Embarrassment is left behind in the dust. Maxwell blows past it and laps the track all the way back around to horny, his starting and finishing line. His mouth waters at the prospect of the satisfying lactic ache in his muscles, the panting triumph, the sweat.

“Would you let me?” Maxwell blurts. “Unwind you, that is. I want to. I didn’t know what I was saying at the time, but now that I do, I’d say it again.”

Torse shudders and lets out a noise like a dozen clanging bells. Maxwell has an abrupt, nonsensical vision of tonguing the clapper of each bell in turn, the smooth metal taste coating his mouth.

“Gladly.”

Maxwell crowds Torse into the bunk room and kicks the door shut behind them.

Chapter 10: Intermission

Summary:

In which we finally unwind.

Notes:

Part 2 of last chapter! These were originally supposed to be one, but the porn needed room to breathe. That's basically all you're about to find here, so enjoy!

“I’m not, you know, any sort of tinker,” Maxwell begins, standing between Torse’s knees in front of the thin mattress. He unknots his bow tie, tosses it to the other bed, and slips the buttons of his waistcoat free in four quick flicks. “So let me know if— Torse?”

Torse’s joints creak as he rocks against the mattress, tilting closer to Maxwell and then pulling himself back.

“Your hands…” he groans.

“What? What about my hands?” Maxwell looks down at his gloved palms, flipping them back to front a couple of times. “Gloves off, I suppose.” He pulls them off with his teeth.

That worrying thud in Torse’s chest returns. Maxwell spits out his gloves and leans in, one palm pressed to the grate over the light of his heart.

“Is something wrong?” Maxwell asks.

“No.” Torse’s voice is tinny and strange. He’s white-hot to the touch, though Maxwell refuses to flinch away from the contact. “Keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” Maxwell isn’t doing anything. Nothing he doesn’t do in front of a dressing mirror every evening before bed, anyway.

Torse growls.

“You disrobe with great efficiency.” The heat coming off of him flares and pulses. The light in his eyes is red, liquid with heat like a licking flame, throbbing.

“Oh. Oh!” Maxwell smiles proudly. “Thank you. Stripping shirtless out of a three-piece suit at a moment’s notice is a skill I’ve worked hard on.” He pops the top button of his shirt with one hand.

Torse clicks arrhythmically like a cat chittering at a flock of pigeons. His sounds follow in time with the confident dexterity of Maxwell’s fingers, speeding and slowing at his whim. Maxwell feels like the conductor of a mechanical symphony, his own body the baton by which he sets the tempo of the superlative music produced by Torse’s stops.

Maxwell likes to show off. Maxwell likes to show off so much, in fact, that Torse’s burning attention and obedient soundscape have his cock twitching in his pants with each undone button.

“Open yourself,” Maxwell orders, breathless, as he shucks his shirt. “You want my hands in your chest, right? So open up, let me see.”

Torse’s grinding rises to a whine. He scrambles for the bolts securing the iron door in his chest. His well-used fingertips, ground to a polish by the sum of everything Torse has ever touched, unlatch the cabinet as skillfully as a locksmith. Like Maxwell, Torse has honed the art of stripping himself down in mere seconds to a fine, keen edge. Pure pragmatism, repurposed to the erotic. This is how Maxwell readies himself to get oiled up before a fight; that is how Torse used to prepare to pull out his own heart.

Torse’s machinery gets more complex the deeper inside him he delves. Maxwell watches casings and cabinets reveal layer after layer, a whole miraculous ecosystem hidden within his unflinching iron body. Coverings are parted; dark cavities are bared.

By the time Maxwell’s ravenous eyes reach the core of him, the heart of him, Torse’s gears are thinner than a coin, his springs the width of a hair. Fractaling intricacies, a puzzle with no answer but infinite questions, all put to the mystery-miracle purpose of keeping Maxwell’s lover alive.

Nestled in the middle of the clockwork foliage is Torse’s heart. Maxwell has no tinker’s eye—he wouldn’t have been able to tell it apart from the rest of the mechanical wonder before him, were it not for the letters just visible behind a wire that could snap with one good tug but bears the weight of everything he holds dear: XOXO.

Maxwell is already reaching out to touch it before he consciously registers the movement.

Torse groans his name, “Maxwell,” with his chest hanging open obscenely and his legs parted to allow him room to explore.

“You’re—unbelievable inside.” Maxwell dares to tap the pad of his index finger against one shiny gear the size of his fingernail. The touch sets off a cascade of fluttering cogs, a contraction all through Torse that escapes his voicebox as the dopplered rumble of a departing train.

“Are you going to take your pants off?” Torse asks with a poorly-hidden frustration. Maxwell strongly considers trying to draw his annoyance out further on purpose.

Marya once accused Maxwell of liking it when the crew was mean to him. In the idiom of a youngest sibling, irritation is synonymous with attention, overlapping significantly with love. He’ll experiment with making Torse mad at him in a sexy way later, he decides. Right now, they both get to have exactly what they ask for.

Maxwell quickly finishes stripping himself bare—the pants could make for another showboating opportunity, but the underwear is underwhelming, given how tight and unadorned it is, so he discards the whole kit and caboodle at once in favor of meeting Torse in the middle.

“Every inch of you, astounding,” Torse rumbles. He lays a palm high on Maxwell’s thigh and squeezes. “Unyielding.”

Maxwell caresses Torse’s ticking heart with the meat of his thumb. He takes his time feeling up the warm, persistent sphere like an absolute hedonist, despite the goal he has in mind. When he finds the tiny nub of the wind-up key, he presses down with the edge of his nail, just enough pressure to turn it one single, soft click.

“Ah,” Torse huffs. “God. You’re—you’re there.”

“I’m there,” Maxwell agrees, relieved by the early sign of success. While they’re all together, he should ask Marya for some tinkering lessons. As long as he can be subtle about it. “Which, um, way should I turn it?”

“Either.” Torse’s voice crackles like a poorly-tuned radio. “Try—try counterclockwise first. It’s, mm. What’s the word. Preparation. Foreplay.”

“Getting you wound up.” Maxwell nods. He can feel his own pulse in his dick, bloodless clarity in his head. Everything is sharp and immediate. He pins the wind-up key between his first two fingers and twists.

Torse sighs luxuriously. “Faster.”

Maxwell puts a little elbow grease into the motion. Torse cries out, surprised and pleased, so Maxwell does it again. And then again, over and over in short, sharp bursts. The surrounding gears tick and tremble with every hard backwards turn.

Torse huffs steam from his neck, venting around Maxwell until condensation drips from his hair and the tips of his mustache. The alternating sudden heat and slow chill of cooling water tug Maxwell in two directions, a juxtaposed sensory dilemma. He grinds his teeth and grabs Torse by the gorget to hold him still. A bead of water rolls over Maxwell’s nipple; he scrapes his nails hard over iron.

One turn too many, and Maxwell feels a straining resistance in the inner workings of Torse’s heart. The red-burning eyes in front of him flare magma-bright, and Torse’s body heaves forward as if to protect its vulnerable, exposed insides.

“Too much?” Maxwell lets go of the key immediately, against the instincts of the slavering jaws snapping in his brainstem.

“Yes. No. I—” Torse clutches at Maxwell’s chest, some muddy middle ground between comfort-seeking touch and a shameless grope. “Very little leverage goes a long way. The strain, I, I, I.”

“It hurts,” Maxwell translates, “but you like it.”

Torse slumps forward to rest his forehead against Maxwell’s. Were he a creature who needed to breathe, Maxwell senses that he would be trying to catch his breath.

“There is a risk of damage,” he explains. “Normally, there would be no cause to worry that a barehanded Gathie could snap my springs. But you…”

He wraps a firm, iron hand around Maxwell’s forearm. He holds it in place, not pulling Maxwell out of him nor drawing him closer. Sharing, in their mutually-intelligible dialects of force, the thrilling knowledge that they are on equal footing.

Maxwell wants, with a violent pulse of arousal, to wind Torse with all his strength to the very edge of breaking. He wants to hold him there, each of them knowing a single twitch might take this truly too far. The tension in that, the terror. The trust.

A come-down is all the sweeter for an honest brush with death. But Maxwell is no tinker.

“Next time,” Maxwell breathes. This is a skill worth learning by the book.

“Next time.” Torse grabs Maxwell’s thigh and wraps the span of his hand around the back of it. He tugs, lifting, pressing, pulling Maxwell closer to fill the gap in his legs and the gap in his chest.

Happy to take the hint, Maxwell kneels on the mattress between Torse’s legs. He can feel the radiating heat of his companion’s inner workings on his face: a hundred thousand points of friction, building to an outcome greater than the sum of his parts. Maxwell finds the wind-up key again.

“Clockwise?”

“Yes,” Torse hisses in a cloud of steam.

Maxwell turns the key. Every gear in Torse’s body skips forward one hard, simultaneous tick. Dozens of cogs of varying sizes shout with a polyphonic clamor.

Torse’s hands clench, sinking into the hard muscle of Maxwell’s glutes. Maxwell mimics his earlier rhythm of winding—swift, sudden cranks of the key, a pause in between to return to the evenly-timed ticking of clockwork left to its own devices, and then another interruption a moment before Torse has had a chance to settle.

Winding him was a forced but fluttering sigh, an inhalation. As Maxwell unwinds him, Torse revs.

Maxwell’s cock grinds against the underside of his chest cabinet. A heady vision overtakes him: putting more than just his hands inside the nest of these most delicate cogs; forcing every gear to a shuddering halt by sinking his cock deep into the machinery. A human wrench in the works. A man of steel.

The idea is insane, nothing less than a one-way trip to irreversible dick injury. Maxwell dizzily considers the scrape of gear teeth, how they would feel as they part for him. There’s more than one way to grease the wheels. He feels hot, slick dribbles of his precum leaking all over Torse’s pelvic plate.

“Wind it back again,” Torse instructs desperately, “then forward, I. I’m. I.”

In his metallic straining, Maxwell hears the promise of some sort of climax, some completion. Curious desire roils in his belly. What is he going to see? What is Torse going to let him see?

He winds, and unwinds, taking careful direction from Torse’s shuddering sounds of pleasure. His clockwise turns set Torse’s body whirring, grinding, whining. Maxwell gives up on his teasing pauses and sets the instrument under his hands to constant motion, a nigh-electric buzz. He can feel the vibration in the bones of his hands.

“Maxwell, Maxwell,” Torse repeats, as involuntary as the ticking of his heart.

“Come on,” Maxwell urges. He winds the key counterclockwise with agonizing slowness, a turn all the way back to the point of that straining pain that made Torse glow like a comet for him. At the point of creaking resistance, Maxwell waits, holding his breath.

“Please,” Torse groans. A drop of oil gathers at the edge of his eye slit and runs smoothly down the beloved plane of his face.

Maxwell puts his entire upper body into it as he twists the key clockwise.

There is a heavy, resonant tock that jolts Torse’s body. A counterweight unbalances, a pendulum reaches the end of its arc and falls, falls. It’s impossible to differentiate the cry of Torse’s voice from the purely mechanical churning of his body as he comes apart. Maxwell stares hungrily at the hundred gears spinning like pinwheels. He tastes the urge to shove his hand into them, to see who will truly stand firm when push comes to shove. If he’s ground into steaming meat up to the wrist for his trouble, he’ll take it and keep giving as good as he gets.

Torse’s mechanisms begin to slow. Aftershock shudders move through him with every third tick. He raises a hand to cup Maxwell’s jaw, running the smooth tip of his thumb over Maxwell’s lips.

Maxwell takes Torse’s thumb in his mouth and cups his tongue under the weight of it. Torse tastes like the heavy counterfeit coins from Eisengeist that would change hands in the underground fighting pits. Maxwell narrowly restrains himself from biting down, stamping his own mark into molten metal.

“Maxwell,” Torse sighs. He wraps his other arm around Maxwell’s waist until they’re pressed together, chest to unguarded chest. He swirls his thumb thoughtfully around inside Maxwell’s mouth. The metal taps against his teeth, one more tick for the two of them. “Thank you.”

“M’pleasure,” Maxwell mumbles around the metal digit. He draws himself off slowly. “How, uh, how are you feeling?”

“Exquisite,” Torse growls. “Greedy.”

“Greedy?”

“Mhm.” Torse hums. He drops his hand to Maxwell’s chest, playing with the swirls of hair around his nipples. “I’m equally ignorant of how to operate your body. Will you teach me?”

Maxwell swallows a mouthful of hot saliva. He wonders if he’s only imagining the taste of blood.

“It’s straightforward. Let me—here. Just… lie back.” Maxwell shuffles off the mattress to give Torse room to swing his legs up, turning to lie on it lengthwise. His spikes get in the way, so he props himself up on his elbows. Maxwell is dumbstruck by the vision, Torse open and waiting and reposed. “Tell me if you, you know, hate this.”

“Mm,” Torse agrees.

Maxwell straddles Torse’s narrow midsection. Kneeling above him, staring down at the topography of his most vulnerable parts, Maxwell feels majestic and unthinkably burdened. Torse has given him this. Torse is about to give him more.

He lowers his hips until his groin meets the metal frame of Torse’s chest cabinet. His sac is on one side of the boundary, pressing against warm, flat iron. His cock lies in the open cavity. The tip touches the broad, flat side of a brassy gear, leaving a transparent trail of precum in a wobbly circle as it cycles round and round.

“Oh,” Torse whispers. “Yes.”

He shifts his weight to only one elbow so that his hand is free to trail down Maxwell’s stomach, lower and lower until he presses a palm against the top of his cock. Sandwiched between immovable iron above and intricate, ticking clockwork underneath, Maxwell thrusts and grinds himself carefully between two deadly and beautiful temptations.

Smooth metal, staggered and interlocking caresses. Maxwell has thought of bullying his flesh into the gaps of Torse’s gears, but in truth, he is a piece of such flawless engineering that Maxwell would be hard-pressed to find a gap at all. His shaft grinds atop spinning planes of metal, interrupted by the smooth heads of bolts like pleasurable ribbing.

He chases the crest of it, bent over Torse with his hands braced on his pauldrons, staring into the light of his eyes until the afterimage floats in Maxwell’s vision every time he blinks.

“Would it be a problem if—So, when someone with my, uh, anatomy orgasms,” Maxwell hurriedly tries to explain.

“I know about come, Maxwell.”

“Great, good. That makes this easier.” Maxwell pants, swallows, and forces himself to ask the increasingly urgent question. “Can I come in you? In your gears. That won’t. Hurt anything?”

“It won’t,” Torse says. He’s whistling again, so overheated the steam is leaking from too-small crevices. “You want to—? God. Yes. Make a mess of me.”

And, well, Torse asked for it.

Maxwell’s body throbs with it when he comes, held tight and thrusting like the piston to the right of his cock. Torse hums a pleased, monotonous note, white noise Maxwell might like to fall asleep to for the rest of his life, maybe. He gushes over delicate machinery, thinking unhinged thoughts about how he’s dripping even deeper into Torse, deeper than he can see, how he’d follow it if he could, he’d pull open one layer and then the next to burrow out to the other side of him.

“Ah. Fuck.” Maxwell pants in Torse’s face. He allows himself to bow to one last impulse and licks wetly over Torse’s faceplate, dragging in humid air. Sweat and spit and steam are all of a kind. Maxwell drinks them in greedily.

---

“Gotch?” Olethra calls down yet another empty hallway. “Torse?” Ramansu station is kind of huge, which she knew in theory, but she didn’t personally do a lot of exploring last time she was here.

She knocks on random doors, rattles a few handles, and calls their names again.

There’s a thump from somewhere nearby.

“Hey, guys?” She follows the sound, now with the addition of soft scrabbling and Maxwell’s quiet cursing. Her hand is raised to knock when the door suddenly opens.

“Olethra!” Gotch pokes his head around the door, which he’s holding ajar. The buttons of his shirt are askew and his mustache and hair are wet.

“Are you good? Is Torse in there?”

“Hello, Olethra,” Torse’s low voice greets from somewhere behind Gotch. Gotch glances over his shoulder, looking annoyed.

“Am I, like, interrupting something?” she asks. Pieces are slotting together quickly, not least of all because it smells like jizz in here, but she has something important to say.

“Not at all, not at all,” Gotch babbles.

“Okay, great, because you have to come eat dinner.” She puffs out her chest proudly. “I’m making Pappy’s special beans!”

Gotch rubs a hand over his face.

“We’ll be out soon,” he says. Then, “Um. Olethra?”

“Yeah?”

“Do we have running water here? Torse—um, I! I need a shower.”

“Hm,” Olethra taps her chin. “I don’t know. Maybe you can do a sponge bath? That’s better anyway, for, like, crevices.”

“Alright! Goodbye, Olethra! We’ll see you when there are beans!” Gotch slams the door shut.

Olethra skips off back to the kitchen. Love is blooming on this adventure. Everyone is alive, they’re going to save Zern, and things are all going to be one hundred percent fine.

Over Ramansu station, a waxing moon rises.

Chapter 11: Act II: Hullabaloo at Ramansu

Summary:

In which we encounter many points of view.

“—so we’ll see how the neck-touching goes for her when the blimp crew returns.”

“Honestly,” Van says, “it’d make for a pretty good morale-boost if we swung by just to see that.”

“No! Van,” Marya pleads, “you know I’d love to see you, but if Pappy is here when it happens, it will ruin Freyja’s chances completely. Look at him. You know she can’t compete.”

“I dunno, after I met Bert, I— No, he’s our hall pass. We’ve talked about it. You’re right.”

“What’re you and Marya talkin’ about?” Daisuke calls from just out of view on Van’s end of the obsidian mirror call.

“Nothing!” Van shouts over her shoulder. “Go back to oiling your guns and petting the dog. You said everyone had to leave you alone.”

“Alright.”

“Oh, before you shove him offstage,” Marya adds, “Pappy! Olethra made your special beans last night.”

“Aww,” Daisuke peeks over the top of Van’s shoulder. Between Van in the way and the hat on his head, his eyes are the only visible part of him. They’re crinkled in a smile. “She asked me to write down the recipe before y’all left. And I said, ‘You can’t write down what’s in your heart.’ And then she told me, ‘People do that all the time. I literally do it every morning.’ I guess she started journaling or something? Anyway, then I repeated it out loud and she wrote it down. How’d it go?”

“If the last time you made the beans was, eh, let’s say a forty-five on the bean scale—”

“Top of the bean scale, yeah,” Van agrees.

“I’d say Olethra’s were, hm, like a twenty-one. Still good!” Marya waves a wrench emphatically. “Still really fucking good, especially for a first try.”

“Good on her.” Daisuke nods approvingly. “It took me years to get to twenty-one on the bean scale.”

“She had a little help from me,” Marya admits.

“Pappy hasn’t made his special beans for us yet.” Van glares at him playfully.

“Luck’s been too good,” Daisuke retorts. “The beans are for lifting spirits.”

“Maybe we’d have found the bleedin’ place by now if we had bean power fueling us—”

“You can’t rush this kind of stuff. Finding new worlds and cookin’ beans, same thing.”

Marya smiles, turning back to her work as her old friends bicker with one another in her ear. Ludmila had the brilliant idea of transmitting all three energy sources in a concentrated beam to make use of their restored harmonics. Marya and Kočka have spent the morning on the grunt work of hooking them all up.

“Where is Olethra, anyhow?” Daisuke asks suddenly.

“Yeah, I’d love to say hi to the kid,” Van says.

“I’m sure she’ll turn up. She and Mila are scrapping around the power station—lots of spare parts just lying about the place. We’ll need whatever we can find to get this whole thing functional by the full moon.” Marya sighs a whew and wipes her brow after tightening the last bolt on this pylon. “And sending them off too was the only way to shoo Gotch out. He’s so eager to help, like a little puppy. It’s adorable. And also like a puppy, he just gets underfoot.”

“So where’s he making himself useful now?” Van asks.

“I hope he’s taking my suggestion, but probably he is too focused on making work for himself.” Marya laughs. “I told him, Gotch, just appreciate the downtime and go make sweet love while you can.”

“Make sweet love to who?” Van barks in shock.

“Oh.” Marya lifts her goggles, frowning. “Did I forget to tell you?”

---

Wealwell is currently holding a flawless Snowshoe Stance: Quicksand Edition to prevent himself, Sylvio, and his two dog-headed boys from sinking into, as the name of the third-year specialized stance implies, quicksand. Dawderdale is making a valiant effort to lower the blimp close enough to the jungle canopy to let down a rope.

The jungle is beautiful, lush and green and incredibly humid. Wealwell looks around, since he has a bit of time to kill, and admires the thriving flora. A broad, jewel-green leaf right in front of him gathers water like a shallow bowl, trembling at the pointed tip and ready to spill out.

Wealwell’s wobbly reflection in that collection of dew morphs into someone else’s.

“Hi!” chirps Olethra MacLeod.

“Sylvio,” Wealwell shouts, alarmed, “a leaf is talking to me!”

“Dear girl, are you using the pocketwatch mirror which my sweet man lent to his brother,” Sylvio asks, glittering with fascination, “or is this some sort of devilish mirage?”

“No, it’s really me,” Olethra confirms. “I actually called to talk to Wealwell? It’s kind of private.”

“Privacy is going to be quite hard to come by for the next little bit, I’m afraid,” Wealwell informs her regretfully. “Sylvio is currently hanging onto my shoulders as we endeavor not to sink into quicksand, so I can’t even ask him to cover his ears. But! Anything you can say to me, you can say to him.”

“Do you need, um, help?” Olethra asks.

“No, no, all good here. I’m distributing my weight perfectly across the surface tension of the sand to prevent our sinking, and Captain Dawderdale should be lowering a rope any minute now. So, what can I do for you, Olethra?”

“Okay. Great. So,” Olethra steeples her fingers, “there’s this girl.”

“Oho!” Sylvio cranes his neck to bend an ear closer to the gossip.

“Ah, romantic woes. I’ll warn you, my advice does not come cheap.” Wealwell taps his nose.

“Or I could hang up right now?”

“Wait, wait,” Wealwell whines. “No, dish. I want to hear the gossip.”

“I just thought,” Olethra babbles, “you shot your shot and got together immediately. Like, immediately. So, you must be doing something right. And maybe your experience sort of mirrors what I’m going through. This girl, I’m not going to say her name to protect her privacy—”

“Mhm, thoughtful of you,” Sylvio says approvingly.

“—she’s sort of existed mentally but in suspended animation for like a thousand years.”

“Ah,” Sylvio adds.

“Well, that could be anyone.” Wealwell gestures for Olethra to continue. “And you need my expert advice as the reigning champion of the torrid May-December affair?”

“Basically. Also, I couldn’t ask Gotch and Torse. They’re so weird but also so boring about it.”

Wealwell tilts his head, confused. “Weird and boring about what?”

“About dating. They went out the other night and came back at ten and went right to sleep, but they were, like, horny about the fact that they were being so responsible. And I kind of walked in on them last night, so I can’t ask now. Awkward!” Olethra blinks pleadingly. “What do you think I should do about Lud— I mean, this girl?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Wealwell shakes his head. He only heard about four words after walked in on them and is still trying to parse even that far. “Maxwell has a boyfriend?”

“Yeah, they just got together! I was being mean, it’s actually really cute.”

“My baby brother!” Wealwell declares, disbelieving. “Maxwell Gotch! Has a boyfriend? And I’m finding out from a leaf?”

“Wealwell, darling—” Sylvio’s attempts to soothe him are sweet, but Wealwell shan’t be soothed.

“We are getting back on that blimp this instant. Lovely to see you, Olethra.” Wealwell tips his top hat, hoists Sylvio up onto his back, secures the ropes keeping the dog boys’ snouts just above the sand, and drops into a deep squat.

Channel Samwell, he tells himself.

“What about my thing?” Olethra shouts.

“That’s easy,” Wealwell says flippantly. “Ask if she has a girlfriend. If she kisses you instantly, she’s your girlfriend now. If not, you may want to consider doing something else. See you soon!”

With that, Wealwell executes a perfect vertical leap into the branches of an overhead tree. The resulting rustle spills all the water from the leaf, which splashes into the sand.

---

Maxwell finds Torse in the professor’s old office.

He’s kneeling next to the desk, holding an engraved wax cylinder. His eye lights scan the surface as he turns it slowly in perusal, like someone gently tracing a path across a globe. Torse doesn’t startle at Maxwell’s appearance in the doorway. Perhaps he heard him coming.

“Freyja would prefer this office over Onion’s,” Torse muses, “but she has not said as much, out of respect for Olethra and myself.”

Maxwell nods. Comfrey’s office is roomier and has a window that once provided a stunning view of the jungle. That window is now completely blocked by the trunk of a massive tree. Maxwell imagines it must not have been there yet when she first laid claim to the space, however many centuries ago that was for Zood.

“I can see Olethra being… uncomfortable with that,” Maxwell says, recalling the tightening tension in each early discovery of the professor’s less scrupulous decisions. “She might not take it well.”

“Mm.” Torse has not taken his eyes off the cylinder.

“What about you?”

Torse tilts his head, silently considering the question as he ponders the object in his hand.

“When I was among my people in Zern, before I ever came to Zood, all we kept of the past were legends passed down through the generations. I learned them— Well,” he rumbles wryly, “I learned them by heart. We did not carry mementos of the fallen. Too many fallen, and too much scarcity to waste what was still usable on mere sentiment. But I have discovered, when given the luxury, that I am a sentimental man.”

“I understand that,” Maxwell breathes.

“The resemblance between you and your grandfather is very strong. I know you know this—I thought you were him the first time I saw you.” Torse slips his free hand into the desk and brings out a photograph. “I assume you consciously mimic him in grooming, but that is not why I was confused.” He holds the photograph out to Maxwell.

Maxwell enters this sacred, sepulchral space. Sitting on the floor next to Torse, with his back against the heavy mahogany desk, he studies the picture.

A young Cadswitch Gotch, and an even younger Comfrey MacLeod. The sepia photo is worn at the edges. Comfrey has an arm thrown companionably around Cadswitch’s neck, practically wrestling him down to her height—Maxwell’s grandfather was a tall man. Her scarf trails like a banner before the prow of the very first normal-air dirigible on the day it was completed. This picture was taken before Cadswitch had the sheer volume of whiskers necessary to style into his signature multi-pronged mustache, and seemingly before he learned to set free his ever-present smile. A primordial version of it tugs at the corners of his mouth, cautious not to show too many teeth. It is, Maxwell thinks, a bit like looking in a mirror.

“Olethra would like this,” Maxwell says. It is only upon hearing the break in his own voice that he realizes he’s getting choked up. He clears his throat.

“Show her,” Torse agrees. He tilts the cylinder like an appraiser with a priceless gem.

“Is that the recording?” Maxwell asks.

“It is a recording. Not the distress call I was left to protect. The one known as Comfrey MacLeod,” Torse uses the phrase like an honorific, “told me once that her thoughts could become too fast for writing. At times, the only way to get them out quickly enough was to speak aloud. She recorded many of her notes this way.”

“Should we put it in the phonograph? If, if you want to hear her voice again.”

“My, mm. My sensory apparati are not as… specialized as yours. I can listen in other ways.” He flashes the lights in his eyes demonstratively, then traces the tip of his thumb delicately over one shallow etched line. His iron hand leaves behind no impression on the wax. Torse is capable of such precision, such delicate touch. “This one was about me.”

“I think I’d very much like to listen to it, then.”

Torse creaks like a gentle smile. His faceplate partially retracts, exposing his voice box. With a click and a crackle, Comfrey MacLeod speaks through him.

“Miraculous, a machine just as complex as any living organism. A machine that is a living organism, mind and soul and all. And a real swell guy, too. Got us out of a sticky situation on the other side of our tentacular acquaintance, I’ll tell you what. In possession of a conscious will, acting against the orders of— Of somebody with an agenda and a heart of flesh. Hard to come by in those parts. The flesh is, anyway. Everybody’s got an agenda, whether they’re made of meat or metal, right Torse?”

“Mm,” growls the memory of a Torse fresh from the fires of Zern. “The Corrodi Primarch have peddled their wickedness for as long as the Furnace has burned.”

“Okay, Furnace! Sounds like you’re saying that with a capital F, am I right? We’ll come back to that, because wow, am I ever interested in an ever-burning Furnace that keeps the soul of a world alive! Is that a folktale, creation myth kind of deal—kernal of truth in all of those if you dig deep enough, I’m not knocking a creation myth, you’ve never met a bigger fan of a creation myth than me—but have you actually seen it?”

“I feel it. All of Zern share a connection to the Furnace.”

“Myth it is. Well, that’s an after-dinner kind of conundrum. So, my fine Aganti Zernai friend, you said you don’t want me digging around in your guts—and I get it! I was squeamish about my first vivisection too. I won’t loosen a bolt on your body ‘til I get the go-ahead, you have my word on that. But if you don’t mind a routine exam, well, I could help you change your oil. Got some squeaky gears in there, I can hear ‘em from here. How often are you giving yourself a little TLC, greasing the joints and whatnot? I know, I know, I hear it. Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m asking literally. Then put your mind back in the gutter, because I’m curious about that too.”

“I didn’t understand what she meant by that,” Torse, in the present, rumbles with embarrassment.

In the recording, Torse briefly explains the current state of Zern: hostile to all life—machine included. Oil, rationed; forging, dangerous without water to quench the red-hot iron; energy, running out as the stores of fossil fuels they are reduced to using swiftly deplete. No organic life growing nor dying, land swarmed by the undead, a death spiral narrowing to the point of singularity.

“And they still keep making new automata, huh? Building generation after generation in hopes of resuscitating the dying world you inherited. Incredible. Life will out. Ha! How ‘bout that?”

Suddenly, Maxwell doesn’t want to listen to this anymore. He doesn’t even want to be in the room, the building. He’s sick of Professor MacLeod, of her treating the reality of a world, the life of a person right in front of her, like an especially juicy thought experiment. Torse seems perfectly comfortable hearing it. Fond, even. Maxwell can’t let himself be obvious about getting angry on Torse’s behalf for something Torse himself cradles like a cherished heirloom, so he casts his eyes around for another excuse.

“Torse,” he says at last, thoughts returning to the window, “would you take a walk with me?”

---

“I only ever saw the Saltu in the dark,” Maxwell explains. He strolls through the jungle with his hands clasped behind his back, peering curiously at various plants. Torse has little point of reference for what Maxwell’s life in Gath must have been like, but he takes in the natural world very differently from Montgomery LaMontgommery.

Montgomery, in the brief time Torse traveled with him, was all eager observation and extrapolation, hands-on even to the point of risking life and limb. Torse had heard conflicting tales of the naturalist in his time with the Zephyr II: disparaging comments from Comfrey on par with the derision with which she said the name of Haunch Saxon; subtle but concerted efforts by Onion and Sylvio, the latter especially, to soften this image of their old crewmate. Torse never imagined he would be in a position to compare this secondhand impression with the real thing. Confronted with the opportunity, Torse never quite knew how to speak to him.

His prior understanding of the Wind Riders, layered over the realities of them like the flaking paint of a clumsy restoration atop an old masterwork, left him wrong-footed with many of the original Zephyr’s intrepid adventurers. The more Torse knew the theory of them, the less he felt equipped to learn their practice. Only three of the six were unknown enough to him to truly feel at ease.

Olethra, Comfrey had last seen as a child, and did not know as the grown woman who asked Torse if it could be possible to awaken the dead, make whole what had been smashed, a moment after he himself miraculously emerged from the dark.

Marya, Comfrey seldom spoke of at all. The quality of this silence was not frosty, in contrast to Montgomery. There was pain in that avoidance, not anger. Torse is intimately acquainted with that very pain. He is fortunate to have gotten to know Marya before learning just how much they share and do not share.

And then, of course, Maxwell. Not a figure of legend, not a face in a photograph, not a phantom constituted of all the disturbed air that ever spoke his name in his absence. A man in his own right. Torse’s friend, first.

“Torse?” Maxwell stops, glancing back to make sure Torse is following him.

“Yes, I’m here.” He begins to take a step.

“Wait. Hold still.”

Torse freezes. His retracted blades bristle just beneath their slits.

“Are we in danger?”

“No, no,” Maxwell takes a careful step forward, then another, then reaches his hand out toward the top of Torse’s head. A moment later, he lowers it. “This landed on you.”

Perched on Maxwell’s knuckle is a delicate, many-winged insect. Its body is the crystalline blue of Zumhara from above. It keeps its own balance like an impossibility, segmented body strung together as jewels hanging at a throat.

Many things in Zood are fragile. Torse envies their ability to be so. But on Maxwell’s hand—the strongest hand of flesh he has ever felt, far from a soft or fragile thing—Torse can set envy aside for a moment and simply thank the insect for its existence. He extends one of his own fingers, and with Maxwell’s help, they coax the creature to perch on Torse instead.

Movement in the air near his head, a buzzing, flittering sound. Torse follows it and sees another pair of the same insects zipping off through the trees.

“I think they’re gathering,” Torse says, pointing the way. He hears a strange, resonant, beautiful frequency, like fingers tapping against dozens of thin sheets of metal.

“Following them would be… both whimsical and totally reasonable, right?”

“Totally,” Torse agrees.

Torse extends his knuckle knives and cuts through a dense patch of foliage, allowing Maxwell easy passage. The buzzing of the insects grows louder. He can see flashes of cerulean, shimmering like water in sunlight.

“Hang on, I just stepped in something,” Maxwell groans. “Great, this is the only pair of shoes I—”

The world—changes. New sensations bombard Torse’s every sensory apparatus. Sound becomes dull but deafening, like a wooden mallet slamming into bone. He reels, unbalanced, unable to see anything but a sickening riot of color.

Slowly, shapes coalesce. Torse looks up, and up, and sees his own face.

“Oh,” Torse says with Maxwell’s mouth, “shit.”

Chapter 12

Summary:

In which we can't do anything right.

Freyja hears Torse coming from a mile away.

Literally. She’s smoking a stash of Onion’s cherry tobacco out the tiny window of his office, now her office—not the best office in the place, that honor went to Comfrey MacLeod, who has vexed Freyja across two companies and three job titles—when she hears heavy metal legs crashing through undergrowth and a familiar, metallic voice repeating, “Help. Help. Help. Help.”

The window is too small for Freyja to climb out of, a fact she confirms after she’s shoved her head and one shoulder through it. She was stuck in a very similar position for nearly an hour while being born, her mother has told her time and again.

By the time she wriggles herself back out, Torse has made it to the service hallway entrance. Freyja hauls ass to meet him there. Torse took a walk with Master Gotch, and there is no reason he would be calling for help except for Master Gotch. Something has happened. Something terrible.

It is a blow to her pride to find that she is the last one there.

“Torse,” Marya demands, “what happened to Gotch?”

She and Olethra part to allow Torse to enter properly. He’s cradling Master Gotch’s limp form in his arms.

“Gah!” Freyja wails. “My direct report! He is dead!” She will have to construct a proper bier worthy of his name before she throws herself upon it. The funeral will be legendary. The flames will singe the thousand moons of Zood.

“He’s—no,” Torse says. “He’s not dead. And he’s not— Fuck, one thing at a time. Physically, he’s fine. I think he just needs a quiet place to rest and get his head on straight.”

Freyja elbows her way to the front of the line as everyone follows Torse to the bunk room that he and Master Gotch have chosen to share. Now that she’s closer, she can see that Master Gotch’s eyes are partially open, squinting at his surroundings with confusion and discontent, before they squeeze shut. There are leaves and sticks in his hair.

“Hey, you have a passenger!” Olethra notices with delight. She reaches out to Torse’s back to coax a long, winged insect onto her finger.

“Ugh. There were a ton of those things in the spot where we got mushroomed,” Torse says.

“Mushroomed?” Marya practically leapfrogs over Freyja to eyeball Master Gotch’s body. “Do you mean what I think you mean? Is this not Gotch? Is it a bug in his body? Has he become a bug boy?”

“Oh my god,” Olethra gasps. She seems to be on the verge of tears, staring wide-eyed at the insect on her finger. “Gotch, is that you? Speak to me! Gotch!”

“Nobody switched with a bug. I’m not a bug boy.” Torse lays Master Gotch on the mattress in the bunk room and gently strokes his hair. “I’m Maxwell. That’s Torse.”

“Then who’s this?” Olethra asks.

“That’s. That’s a normal bug.”

“It’s beautiful, though. I bet Monty would love it.”

“You’re so right,” Marya agrees, “he would.”

“Can someone,” Ludmila interrupts, presumably having followed Freyja’s anguished scream, “explain to me, uh. I guess, just, what the fuck is going on?”

“Ah!” Torse yelps.

“Master Gotch has been bewitched,” Freyja spits, disgusted by the vile hex. She reaches under her jacket and pulls out a thin knife. The mind-poison of the mushroom must be cleansed.

“What— Don’t cut my finger off!” Torse, also under the terrible enchantment of empathic confusion, tries to snatch Master Gotch’s hand away.

“I’m not going to cut his finger off, okay,” Freyja argues, playing tug of war with Torse. “I have to carve the nauðr into his nail. Look, it’s harmless.” She shows off the middle finger of her left hand, where she scratches her own ᚾ regularly whenever it grows out.

“How dare you,” Torse huffs. “Rude.”

“Is it really a curse, Marya?” Ludmila asks, voice low.

“No, no, it’s the spores of a mushroom. They get in your lungs and swap your brain with another species. It’s called a Zood Switcheroo. Though I didn’t consider that Torse could be vulnerable to it.”

“He’s a person,” Torse snaps, offended. He wins the struggle for Master Gotch’s hand and then wraps them both in his own, all ten of Master Gotch’s fingernails caged in by iron. Freya crosses her arms and goes to the corner to sulk.

“Of course, Gotch,” Marya agrees, “but he doesn’t breathe.”

“He’s more, sort of, porous than you or me, though. All the gaps in his joints and… and—”

“Jeez, stop talking about Torse’s holes,” Olethra teases.

Steam blasts from Torse’s chassis.

Olethra’s hair frizzes instantly in the sudden humidity. “Woah.”

“Sorry,” he says.

---

Torse fucking hates this.

Sensations are happening to him from every direction, and they are all so exhaustingly different from one another. Light harasses him even with his eyelids closed, which he thought was supposed to be a surefire way to turn that off. Sounds swish incessantly in his ear canals. Another, separate experience altogether is the surface under his back and the firm, metal cage around his hands. He can smell, which has only ever happened to him once before and he didn’t like it the first time.

It’s chaos. Utter chaos. Maxwell is strong indeed to suffer it every day.

The churning, drowning maelstrom of sound fades eventually. Voices, he thinks, leaving the immediate vicinity. A door clicking closed.

“Torse?”

That’s the sound of his name. God, is that what he sounds like? Nothing about it is anything in particular, but he is enraged by the very concept of sounds right now.

“Maxwell?” Torse groans. A little sting of revulsion winces through him when he reminds himself, by opening it, that he has a mouth now. It’s wet in there.

“Yes, it’s just me. I asked everyone else to leave. Should I go too, or? Would you prefer to have company?”

Torse turns his—Maxwell’s—palm over, to squeeze Maxwell’s—his—hand.

“Stay.”

“Alright.”

Torse does his best to narrow his focus to the ticking sound of his own body, sitting beside him. He knows this rhythm. He can feel it, the minute vibrations as his balance wheel rotates, traveling down Maxwell’s arm. An alliance between two of these rioting senses calms the swell of it all. If he lies still, the mattress does not chafe. The only smells in the room are the passive projections of his own body and Maxwell’s, which is a conceptually comforting combination. He can taste the inside of this mouth, which is unnerving, but it’s not as though he’s unacquainted with the thing itself; he happens to like Maxwell’s mouth quite a bit. He is simply closer to it now.

It is to the steady beat of his own heart, held by Maxwell for safekeeping yet again, that Torse finally summons the wherewithal to open his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Torse says.

“No, it was my fault entirely. I should have known to watch my step.”

“You carried me all this way yet again. In a just world, I would have returned the favor by now.”

“Not a favor,” Maxwell rebuts. He wears the flat, Zernian affect well. It gives him a commanding air. “It’s a privilege. I— I don’t feel like I’m overstepping when I get to help you. You make me feel. Hm.”

“Hm?” Torse finds himself on the cusp of pleading. It is humiliating, but so are his feeble attempts at the bare minimum of biological functioning. Maxwell has seen him in worse states. “What do I make you feel?”

“I was about to say strong,” Maxwell admits sheepishly.

“You do not need me in order to feel strong,” Torse points out factually. It would be ludicrous to imagine otherwise.

“True.” Maxwell looks down at their clasped hands, iron and muscle. “But you make me feel competent. In a way no one else ever has.”

“It would be intolerable for any to question your capabilities. Put me in the room with whosoever dares to say this. I’ll tell them—”

“I’m so glad you’re here—” Maxwell begins softly.

“—how you wound me to shuddering heights of pleasure your very first time bedding a Zernian.”

“Woah! Alright!”

“What?” Torse stares questioningly at Maxwell, who stares back blankly from Torse’s own face. Torse wonders why his eyes are burning until he recalls that Maxwell’s body needs to blink.

“I— Ahem.” Maxwell sits up straighter, puffing out his chest. With no throat to clear, he articulates ahem as two clearly enunciated syllables. “I sure as hell did. Maybe keep that one as a backup example to defend my honor, though.”

An involuntary jolt hits Torse in the diaphragm. It is terrifying until he hears it come out of his mouth: a familiar chuckle. It's not so different, laughing in this body. Still a shock every time.

Maxwell leans down to press their foreheads together. The warm pressure should be grounding, but Torse feels the movement of skin against skull from the inside and twitches with discomfort. He wants to growl with fury at his weakness. He feels raw and delicate like every inch of him is being eaten away by rust.

“Are you…” Torse says, pulling away slowly. “Are you as fucked up as I am by this?”

Torse has seen Maxwell take hits that would have separated Torse’s own iron head from his body. He has watched, with awe, Maxwell wrestle the limits of biology and come out the victor. He witnessed the man drinking acid, for fuck’s sake. It is not a stretch to wonder if Maxwell is simply powering through what has rendered Torse helpless.

“Not at all. Being in your body, just. It makes sense.” Maxwell turns his head this way and that, rubs the sheet between his fingers, taps his head. “It’s like watching someone write out every sensation on a typewriter very, very fast. It’s so efficient.”

“I am aware,” Torse says through gritted teeth.

“When you toppled over immediately after we switched, I— I was afraid.” Maxwell shifts closer, not touching Torse anywhere but his hand. Torse listens intently to the metronome tick of his heart. “What’s it like in there, for you?”

“Chaos,” Torse replies.

“Let’s keep the chaos to a minimum, then. For as long as we can.”

“Our track record in that regard is not promising.”

“True,” Maxwell agrees. “How about this: if anyone tries to bother you before you’re ready, I’ll fucking kill them. Sound good?”

“That, I can get on board with.”

---

“Incredible!” Monty exclaims on a call the next morning. “Fungi are evolutionarily closer to animals than to plants, but there’s certainly no reason the magnamensa should be restricted to vertebrates as I’d assumed. Evidently, their influence goes beyond eukaryotes entirely! It makes some sense. Even Straka was a creature, fundamentally. This has enormous implications for Zernian biology. What was it that man on Goldbeard’s ship said about building a baby, you can’t do it out of just anything? Oh, where did I put my journal? Ah, here it is. I should ask Torse to explain more about Zernian reproduction. We were so busy with, you know, saving the world, I didn’t think to ask.”

“It might not be a good time, Monty.” Marya grimaces. “We’ve all been instructed to leave Torse alone on pain of death until he is ready to face the world again. Apparently, being made of meat is very stressful for him.”

“Now that is interesting.”

“Oh, Gotch!” Marya waves Maxwell over. He’s hovering in the doorway of the break room, taking up the whole width of it. “I told Monty about your mushroom problem.”

“Yes. Hello, Monty.” Gotch steps into the room and peers into the mirror over the top of Marya’s head. He moves the same way he always has, even in a clockwork suit of cast iron. His voice is Torse’s voice, on the most basic level of sound, but he uses it unmistakably as Maxwell Gotch.

“Maxwell, maybe you can answer a few of my questions.” He’s flipping through his notebook with all the excitement of a man who fed his own blood to a colony of ticks in a jar for multiple weeks out of sheer love of the game.

“I’ll do what I can, but I don’t want to leave Torse alone for too long.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Marya asks. “Still getting some shut-eye?”

“Um, not exactly,” Gotch says. “He—”

Torse himself, in Gotch’s body, enters the room. He looks haggard, spent, utterly overcome, like a man who has dragged himself out from under a pile of the corpses of his fallen comrades and will be forever changed by the horrors he has witnessed.

“I had to piss,” Torse declares with deadly solemnity. “Never again.”

“We’ll get you ship-shape as soon as possible, you have my word on that,” Monty promises. “Do either of you remember how to get back to the patch of magnamensa that did this?”

Gotch and Torse look at one another, then back to Monty, and shrug in perfect synchronicity.

“We were about a fifteen minute walk from here in a sort of winding way,” Gotch says. “I wasn’t paying much attention when I ran back as the crow flies—”

Marya hisses. As the crow flies is a Scrapsylvanian curse, and she has never learned to play it cool even when said by her friends whose mother tongue is Weirian.

“I was following Maxwell,” Torse adds. “And then I was insensate.”

“I could retrace your path if I were there, but it would take me days to arrive even if I dropped everything now. Did you notice any landmarks before you switched? Anything unique about the landscape or the wildlife?”

“Oh.” Torse reaches out and grasps Gotch’s metal arm. “The bugs.”

“The bugs?”

“The bugs!” Marya and Gotch exclaim in unison.

---

Ludmila drops the welding mask down over her face, lifts the iron tongs, and holds one of the spare red crystals up to the yellow beam of light. It brightens like a candle flame, brilliantly orange in the heart of it, casting a hearthfire glow over the entire sandstone pit of the power station’s hub.

“This might be the one!” Ludmila cries excitedly.

The light spurts and gutters, then flares, roaring, furious, until the crystal shatters.

“Shit,” Olethra sighs. “That was the last combination?”

“Yes.” Ludmila drops her red-hot tongs and slumps against the nearest pillar. “This place was built when the energies were separate. All the spares they kept are specialized one-to-one. I need a neutral material to conduct them all to the transmitter, and that’s not even touching on the problem of the diode.”

“Right, yeah, the diode. Totally. Quick question, what’s a—”

“Olethra!” Marya shouts, running from the break room with an open pocketwatch in her hand and Torse and Gotch jogging behind. Well, Gotch jogging. Torse, more stumbling like a newborn foal. Ludmila doesn’t know what mechanism controls the balance of his original body, but it’s clearly not the vestibular system of his current one. “We need the bug!”

“You want Winnie?” Olethra picks up the large jar she put the glittering insect into. She was very diligent about it: air holes in the top, a twig and a leaf, a tiny dish of sugar water. Ludmila thinks of her own little labors when Kočka was very small.

“You named the insect Winnie?” Montgomery’s voice comes out of the watch.

“Yeah, because she can’t wear a shirt or panties,” Olethra explains.

“Monty,” Marya points the reflective surface of the mirror toward Winnie the insect, “what do you make of it?”

“Gorgeous creature. Some type of damselfly, genus Oristicta to my guess, though they’re usually not so brightly colored. And you said you found her near the magnamensa?”

“Yes, a whole swarm of them,” Gotch confirms.

“I wouldn’t expect social behaviors in a species like Winnie’s. Of course, you never know with Zood! My best bet is that they were gathering around a food source.”

“Maybe they eat the mushrooms!” Olethra gasps.

“Or, they eat something that happens to be very close to the mushrooms,” Gotch adds.

“So, what, we let her go and follow her through the jungle?” Marya raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Like, like a caterpillar chasing a butterfly? Fruitless. We’ll lose her immediately.”

Kočka pokes his head out of Ludmila’s pocket.

“I could tie a little leash around her,” he offers.

“My tiny genius,” Ludmila coos.

“Then let’s go immediately!” Torse grabs Gotch’s hand, alarmingly optimistic.

“Hold on, Maxwell—sorry. Torse. We’ve still got a problem. Junker?” Montgomery prompts somberly. “I’m guessing you see it too?”

“Yes. Mila, Olethra, and I are needed here if we are to complete the transmitter in time to take advantage of the surge of energy on the full moon. Torse can barely stand upright, let alone traipse through the jungle after a zippy little insect. That leaves Freyja, Gotch, and Kočka, who risk a three-way switcherooing even if they find the mushroom.” Marya concludes by neatly summarizing the problem: “We are in a fox, chicken, grain situation.”

“And Freyja keeps trying to fix it by stabbing Torse,” Gotch points out.

“Is the full moon a firm deadline to get this gizmo working?” Montgomery asks.

“I’ve been doing resonance tests on the crystals,” Ludmila says. “The ambient energy in Ramansu might be enough during any point in the gibbous phase, but the full moon gives us the best odds.”

“So there’s a chance,” Olethra says. “If we just take a little break from finishing the transmitter—”

“No,” Torse interrupts in the booming voice of Gotch giving an invective-laden speech on the deck. If his optimism was alarming, this tone shift is downright scary. “The task takes priority. I will manage in this body for as long as is necessary to see it through.”

Olethra reaches for his shoulder. “Torse, you seem like you’re really struggling.”

“That does not matter.” He shrugs her off. “The mushrooms are in no danger of extinction, but Zern is. I will not alleviate my own suffering if the price is the continued suffering of my homeworld.”

With that, Torse turns on his heel and stomps away. Then he trips a little, snarls Fuck!, kicks the ground hard enough to scuff Gotch’s polished wingtips, and vanishes through the doorway.

“I’ll,” Gotch sighs, “I’ll go after him.”

---

Maxwell finds Torse in their bunk room. He‘s sitting on the edge of the bed, slumped with his elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands.

“Torse?” Maxwell says gently. He closes the door behind himself. Privacy feels like the way to go.

“I have had enough,” Torse snarls, “of things fucking with my mind.”

“Oh.”

For want of anything to say to that, no true balm to offer, Maxwell sits beside Torse and wraps an arm around him. This is a type of touch he has always found comforting: grandfather’s hand on his shoulder, Wealwell’s head gently bonking against his own. Maxwell hopes his body still recognizes the love in the gesture. He hopes Torse does too.

It does. He does.

Torse lifts his head and leans into Maxwell’s chest, pressing his ear there to hear his own heart.

“How do you stand it?” Torse mutters. “Your body is your life’s work. And now it has been stolen from you.”

“I know it’s in good hands,” Maxwell says. Torse huffs skeptically. “No, I’m serious. If some bug or baboon or whatever had run off with my body, I’d be freaking out. You wouldn’t see me until I’d trawled every inch of the jungle. But it’s right here.” Maxwell squeezes Torse closer, knowing how much he can take. “You’re right here. And you’re more important to me than my sick gains.”

Maxwell watches his own eyes well up with tears.

“Maxwell,” Torse says. He presses closer, mouth to chassis, weeping wetly into Maxwell’s chest.

“It’s alright.” Maxwell holds him close, stroking gently down his back.

“Maxwell,” Torse repeats. He wiggles closer restlessly, thigh against thigh, hips shifting up against Maxwell’s until he can feel—

“Oh! Do you,” Maxwell strokes a hand down Torse’s flank to cup his hip, “want me to—”

“I need,” Torse pants, “I need to know. That I can feel well in this body. That I am still in control.”

“Of course. Of course.” Maxwell shifts Torse to lay him flat against the mattress, unbuttoning the fall front pants as Torse wriggles out of his shirt. This is easy. This is something Maxwell knows that he can do. It’s his own dick, technically, even. Here, now, he has a clear and easy path to doing right by Torse.

---

“Ow. No, keep going. Ow. Ow.”

“Sorry,” Maxwell says again. “The joints, I just—” He once again adjusts his grip, trying not to pinch the skin of Torse’s shaft in the gaps between his segmented iron fingers. Maxwell has never before so deeply appreciated that humans have so many soft layers between the skeleton and the target of jerking off.

Torse groans in frustration.

"I love you dearly, my companion, my own ticking heart. I can only imagine this is what it would feel like to be fellated by a cheese grater. The nipple pinching was nice."

Maxwell freezes, halted utterly in time with his hand curled loosely around Torse.

"You love me?" he squeaks.

"...Not the main takeaway I was hoping for, but yeah."

“I, I mean of course I, I hope it’s obvious but. I love you too.”

“I know. We are well-suited. We are, as ever,” Torse grunts, rutting against Maxwell’s palm, “evenly matched.”

Maxwell does his best to remove fingers from the equation altogether. He presses his palm to the wet, leaking head and settles his pelvic plate against the base of the shaft, a warm surface and a little tug of pressure on his balls. Torse huffs, and squirms, and clenches his teeth with his head thrown back when he, very literally, comes in Maxwell’s body.

Torse’s brow furrows as his breath evens out.

“Was that, um.” Maxwell fully stops talking.

“It was fine,” Torse says with all his brutal honesty. “I think I have just realized something. Not about sex, or you. I simply feel… clarity.”

“That’s, yeah. That can happen.”

“Hm.” Then, back to the matter at hand, “I want to clean up immediately. This is all way too sticky.”

Chapter 13

Summary:

In which we're nowhere to be found.

Amidst all her amazing adventurer friends, Olethra feels a little extraneous at times. Marya and Ludmila can build anything; Gotch and Torse can fight anything; Freyja can do anything to anyone’s hair. Olethra is just a sky-eyed girl who used to have a mech and doesn’t anymore.

But there’s one thing she, and only she, can do. One thing she can only do mechlessly.

Under cover of night, Olethra steals a book and a pocketwatch.

The doors of Ramansu Power Station creak with disuse. No matter how lightly she walks, screeching hinges would risk waking the whole place up. Olethra stealths into her grandmother’s old office, rolls under the desk, and waits for a silent minute in case anyone comes looking.

Breathing in dust—no one has swept under here in a century, grandma wasn’t exactly the tidying-up type—Olethra’s eyes catch on the corner of something that must have fallen off the desk.

She slides it toward herself and turns it over. Even in the dark, she would know a photograph of Comfrey MacLeod anywhere.

There’s grandma, larger than life, daring the world to thumb its nose at her newest expression of brilliance. There’s some Gotch or other, being gently bullied into bankrolling that give ‘em hell attitude. Olethra smiles. She can almost hear the encouragement echoing from this frozen moment in the past.

Bring hope to starry night, set wrongs to right.

“On high we go,” Olethra whispers. She tucks the photograph into her backpack, in between her tools for this midnight field trip and the jar with air holes poked in the lid.

Hearing no passersby, she rolls back out and nudges the window open inch by careful inch. It’s difficult to pry up, practically glued shut by years of accumulated detritus from the thick jungle floor, but the low grinding sound doesn’t carry as far as the squeal of rust would. Eventually, there is a gap between the sill and the pane just wide enough for her. She slips through it and scrambles up the tree trunk that blocks the view that the office must once have had.

Olethra is twenty feet in the air before she’s willing to bet on not being overheard. She fumbles with the book and the watch, almost drops both of them, and then makes her call.

“Monty,” she whispers into the dark surface of the obsidian mirror. “Psst, Monty!”

“Olethra?” Montgomery’s face swims into focus.

“Sorry, I didn’t wake you up, did I? I don’t know how time zones work between different… planets.”

“No, no, it’s only about eight here. Why are you whispering?”

“I’m kind of up a tree in the jungle in the middle of the night?” Olethra says it like she’s making a totally normal suggestion for what someone might, theoretically, do.

“What happened? Is something chasing you?” Monty’s face squashes uncomfortably close to the surface of the mirror. “Describe it to me, I might be able to help.”

“I’m good, um, nothing’s trying to eat me. So, you remember Winnie?” Olethra balances the watch in the crook of a branch so she can carefully lift Winnie’s jar from her bag.

“Of course.”

“I’m going to follow her. Just really quick, until I find the mushroom! I’ll be back before anyone notices I’m gone, and I’ll still be able to help with the transmitter in the morning. It’ll be fine if I don’t get much sleep, Marya and Ludmila do all the hard work, I’m just an extra pair of hands!”

“Olethra.” Monty stops her babbling excuses with a warm, firm use of her name. “Olethra. What happened to the buddy system?”

“That’s why I called you! You’re my buddy!”

“I’m in another world, kid. The point of the buddy system is to have someone who can help you out if things go south. How am I going to do that from Gath?”

“You’re a better tracker from a world away than anyone else could be from right next to me,” Olethra argues.

“Olethra,” Monty says, “no MacLeod I’ve ever met climbs trees in the middle of the night unless she’s searching hard for something she’ll never find in a jungle canopy. Tell me what this is really about.”

Olethra cradles Winnie’s jar in her lap like a plush toy bear, comfort-seeking.

“I told Torse I’d help him connect Zood and Zern however I could. That’s why we’re all here. But he won’t do any self-care!” She blows a strand of hair out of her face, irritable with worry. “He acts like if he sacrifices enough of his own, sort of, wellbeing, it’ll make up for what Zern is going through. Like every little piece of himself he chips away gets given to other people instead of just wasted. He deserves help too.”

“Mhm,” Monty hums in understanding.

“Monty,” Olethra can feel her eyes welling up, a wet weight pressing behind them in the humid night, “how am I supposed to help a world if I can’t help a person?”

Monty sighs, long and slow.

“Alright, kid. You’ve convinced me.” He nods toward the jar in her lap. “Let’s see where Winnie will take us.”

“Yesss.” Olethra pumps her fist before remembering she doesn’t have an opaque windshield to hide her embarrassing gestures anymore.

Earlier tonight, Kočka was feeling kind enough to grant Olethra’s request to tie the thin wire leash to Winnie, and he was also feeling mischievous enough to willingly swear himself to secrecy. Everyone’s going to know what Olethra did in the morning anyway, when she announces her triumphant mushroom acquisition, so it’s fine. Kočka only has to keep his mouth shut for another hour, tops.

Olethra descends the opposite side of the tree trunk. In preparation, she clicks on the headlamp she got from Marya and masks up. Then, she takes a deep breath and opens the jar.

“Go, go, go!” Monty chants.

The spindle of wire spools out behind Winnie like the string of a kite. Olethra dashes through the jungle, ducking under branches and hopping thin, winding creeks.

“You’ll be able to lead me back the way we came, right?” Olethra checks, huffing as she flat-out sprints through the Saltu with the leash of a damselfly in one hand and a talking pocketwatch in the other.

“Oh, easily,” Monty reassures her.

Just as Olethra’s calves are starting to cramp—these shoes she got last week in Tabira certainly look adventurous, and maybe they’ll be more practical once she actually breaks them in—she hears a delicate, droning buzz. The same sound of Winnie in flight, dopplering past her. She looks up and catches sight of a long, glittering abdomen, like a flying string of pearls, shining in the almost-full light of the moon.

Another joins it, and another, and the leash in her hand goes slack.

“I think we’re there,” she pants, slowing her run.

“Watch your step. Could you point me at the ground?”

Olethra turns the watch downward, eyes still on the passing damselflies. She takes short, wandering steps, peering through the undergrowth to try to see what it is they’re gathering around.

“Do you hear that?” she asks. “It’s like windchimes.”

“Olethra, stop,” Monty says suddenly. “Look down.”

Olethra looks and sees at about ankle height, much smaller than the last patch she became acquainted with, the flat-topped funnels of the magnamensa.

“Yes! Thank you, Monty! Aah!” Olethra does a little dance in place.

“Careful now,” Monty chuckles. “Make sure you don’t disturb any of the spores. That mask will keep you safer than if you were just huffing them in, but we don’t want any unnecessary risks.”

“Okay, okay, I’m calm. Whew.” Olethra gingerly takes one wide step over them. “Now I really wanna check out those bugs.”

“By all means.”

The delicate, chaotic chiming lures Olethra deeper into the jungle. She pushes aside one last, broad leaf and discovers a rocky outcropping, jutting from the verdant floor, absolutely glittering in the moonlight. It’s hard to tell the damselflies apart from the geologic feature itself, so dotted is it with chunks of quartz-like crystal.

“Astounding!” Monty cries. “Bring me a little closer, would you, Olethra? Ah, that explains the coloring. They eat crystals! I’d need further observation to tell if they change color based on what they consume, or if it’s merely camouflage due to how much time they spend on these deposits. Oh, I tell you, sometimes I dearly miss the wildlife in Zood.”

Somewhere on Monty’s end of the call, a tyrannosaurus croons affectionately.

“Yes, yes,” Monty soothes Courtney over his shoulder, “and I’m grateful that you came home with me.”

“That’s so cool,” Olethra breathes. “Should I bring some of this back with me? Winnie must be starving. Unless she was eating the spare crystals in the power station when I wasn’t looking.”

“Hm. Oristicta lapisvoratore, I think,” Monty muses, off in his own world.

At the same time, Olethra mentally stumbles down a rabbit hole of her own. The power station crystals, the resonance tests, Ludmila’s problem—

“Oh my Gotch! I just killed two birds with one stone!”

“What? What birds did you kill?” Monty tunes back in.

“Not literally. I don’t think. I mean I solved two problems, Torse’s and Ludmila’s. Gotch,” Olethra laughs to herself, “I’m great at this.”

“Absolutely you are, kid. Thanks for bringing me along. Now, how about we get you back to the station safe and sound for a good night’s rest before we bring a whole foraging party out here tomorrow?”

“Yeah, great plan.” Olethra scoots Winnie back into her jar, muttering Say goodbye to your friends, before she strides confidently back into the thick foliage. She gives the mushrooms a wide berth, not super jazzed about the concept of becoming a bug girl and causing a new problem immediately after solving an old one.

“Olethra, you’re heading a little too far neff,” Monty notes.

“But I can see the pylons on the roof of the station.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get there in a straight line. Wayfinding is as much about the route as the destination.”

“Maybe if I climb another tree—”

Behind her, a branch snaps.

“Olethra,” Monty whispers, “keep still.”

Olethra freezes as stock-still as she can. The sudden flash of adrenaline rockets up her spine and down to the tips of her fingers and toes. She trembles, wanting nothing more than to flee. Slowly, she raises the pocketwatch up over her shoulder. Monty peers from it into the gloom of the midnight jungle.

“Do you see anything?” Her voice comes out shaky and thin. This is not the scariest situation she’s seen lately, not by a long shot, but it is the most alone she’s been for months.

“No,” Monty replies. “There’s been an absence of large fauna in the area all night. I wondered if they might be keeping their distance from the power station now that it’s up and running again. Still, it strikes me as strange.”

“Okay? So can I move?”

“Slowly,” Monty instructs. “Turn your headlamp off and stay low.”

Olethra creeps through the pitch-black forest floor, inch by inch. Every atom of her wants the light back, wants to dash for safety as quickly as she can, but Monty knows the way. She repeats that to herself silently, over and over, a mantra. Who can she trust but the man who guided her into adolescence from afar and into adulthood right by her side? Monty knows the way.

Something moves past her in the dark, brushing against her arm. Olethra bolts.

“Kid, serpentine!” Monty shouts. Olethra ducks and weaves, certain she can feel hot breath on the back of her neck, imagining the branches tearing at her hair are teeth and claws. She’s so focused on the idea of a threat from behind, she doesn’t see the hazard ahead.

Her foot slips out from under her, skidding down a slope into empty air. Olethra tumbles into a shallow ravine. In a terrifying moment of clarity, time seems to slow down and she sees a choice laid out in front of her. She can either hang onto the pocketwatch, keeping Monty on the line, or she can avoid falling directly onto the glass jar, which would shatter and crush the insect inside.

It’s a hard choice made far too quickly. The outcome is an inevitable one. Olethra protects the fragile creature in her care, and lets the watch disappear into the dark.

Lying on her back in the mud with a damselfly in a jar clutched to her chest, she tries to control her breathing. Maybe whatever it was will think she died in the fall and lose interest. Maybe it was one of those monkey-panthers, large but totally herbivorous.

“Hello, sneaky girl,” hisses a cold-blooded voice with a Tressian accent. “Those are some very fine thumbs you have.”

---

It’s not that Ludmila remembers, exactly.

She knows what she knew on that first day after she pulled the biangle from the sky and began to wait. She knows what she’s heard and pieced together from Marya, from Olethra, from the skuttlebutt and the hearsay around Tabira City. And she knows what she dreams about.

Each and every miraculous material that is to be found in all of Zood and Zern is locked in her mind. Ludmila is a living library of geological samples from every twining curve of these worlds, a human periodic table. Time grows short. The moon grows fat in the sky. It breaks her heart to know exactly what she needs in order to complete the transmitter, because the Other Her wanted it. The Other Her nearly killed Torse to get it.

Her one solace is that Olethra is sleeping late. The mere act of breaking the news to Marya will shatter Ludmila into pieces. Ruining this tender, early thing with Olethra on top of that would be something worse than unbearable.

“Marya,” she confesses softly as they each don their gloves and goggles after breakfast, “I’ve done everything I can to avoid this, but—but I… I cannot make what I need from the scrap.”

“Oh, Mila.” Marya puts her hands on Ludmila’s shoulders. “Mila, there’s no shame in it. I know, I know, we are Scrapsylvanian. We live and die by what stones we can squeeze blood from. But we begin with what is found in the scrap and make miracles out of that. When you decide upon the miracle ahead of time, you are asking the scrap to be something it is not.”

“Things become what they are not all the time,” Ludmila argues. “You taught me that nothing has to be the same thing forever. The…” she rubs her knuckles against her chest, soothing the phantom ache of a death she does not remember but remembers remembering, “the very nature, the heart of it. It can always be something new.”

“What, alchemy?”

“I wish,” Ludmila chokes, “I really do, I wish that I could turn lead into gold.”

“If anyone can do it, my girl can.”

“Thank you.” Ludmila means it, with every atom in her body—the ones she grew herself, and the ones that came to her thirdhand. “What we need, though, is more gold than gold.”

“Zoodian supergold?” Freyja interrupts from inside the break room, yelling through the door.

“Freyja, we’re having a moment,” Marya hisses.

“No, no, she’s right.” Ludmila nods at Freyja. “For the diode. We need a ductile semiconductor material, compatible with all three energies. There is no substance as versatile in any world, of the three I’ve seen.”

“Ah.” Marya casts about as if she’ll find the most precious material in the braid just strewn about the room. “I’m sure Comfrey had some lying around—”

“She didn’t,” Ludmila says.

“Comfrey MacLeod was working on mining equipment for this very purpose! There’s gotta be a prototype here,” Freyja shouts again, apparently part of this now.

“She was lying about that,” Marya says.

“Dang. No wonder she defaulted on her loan.” Freyja returns to her pancakes.

“Comfrey didn’t have any here.” Ludmila swallows heavily. “But we do.”

Marya blinks in confusion.

“What? Where?”

Slowly, sadly, Ludmila taps her chest.

“No. No!” Marya snaps, stern and frantic. Ludmila is horrified by the tears welling instantly in her eyes. “Absolutely not. Mila, you’re not going to rip your heart out after I just got you back!”

“It’s not my heart, though, is it? I owe it. I owe it to Zern.” Ludmila glances down the hall that leads to the bunk rooms. She wonders if Torse would finally be able to look at her without flinching if he heard this. She supposes she’ll never know. “No one has ever owed a greater debt.” Ludmila turns back to her mentor, lip wobbling like a child. “Tell me I’m wrong?”

It’s not a challenge, but a plea. Marya has forever hesitated to clip her wings, so to speak. She has never wanted to tell Ludmila that she isn’t right or isn’t ready. Ludmila has taken advantage of this before, but now she would give anything for Marya’s contradiction, Marya’s guiding hand pulling her back from the helm.

What she gets are Marya’s wrenching, wracking sobs.

“I can’t—” Ludmila opens and closes her fists. “I can’t be here. I. If you keep crying, I’m going to start crying, and then I won’t be able to see to, to—”

“Then I’ll weep a new ocean,” Marya vows wetly.

“Marya.” Ludmila shoves her face into the crook of her elbow, smearing tears. She turns and runs sightlessly down the nearest corridor until the sound of Marya’s furious crying fades.

The tiny patter of rat feet follows her.

“Go back to Marya, Kočka.”

“Not if you’re gonna do surgery on yourself the minute I look away, eh?”

“I won’t! I won’t. I won’t do it alone, I promise. I think Torse should get to do the honors, anyway,” she jokes. Gallows humor. A Scrapsylvanian staple.

“If he does,” Kočka says grimly, “I’ll melt him down and make him into a big statue.”

“Of what?”

“You,” Kočka replies. “Huge memorial, plaque says gone but not forgotten. I didn’t get around to making one before because I knew you were still out there.”

“Liar.” She laughs despite herself. “It’s because you’re a lazy little rat.”

“That too.”

Kočka crawls onto her shoulder and curls up into a soft dot of warmth. Ludmila reaches up with one hand to pet his little head, still wearing his even littler hat. Her other hand presses against her chest, feeling the beating of a golden heart.

---

The Gotcha comes in low over the jungle canopy. Captain Dawderdale navigates her beautifully as the gondola slips between two pillars and hovers above the roof of Ramansu Power Station. Mr. Big Britches crouches beneath them, a reassuring sight.

Wealwell’s dog boys lower the tether and Sylvio and Captain Dawderdale send down a ladder. There’s no room to fully dock, but as long as a cyclone doesn’t blow through here, the Gotcha will be fine floating above like a merry balloon.

Wealwell descends the ladder. He hops off the third-to-last rung and sticks the landing with a soft hup.

“We’ve made excellent time,” Sylvio notes approvingly.

“Mm, yes,” Wealwell says, hands on his hips as he surveys his surroundings. “Well, I’m off to threaten Torse.”

Notes:

sorry Max and Torse are Sirs Not Appearing In This Chapter. imagine them getting up to any sort of debauchery you wish! or, if that's not your style, imagine them playing Uno