The mission was a failure. The guns on the Vjiskaldi airships scored hits on at least three airplanes before they even reached the battlefield. Once the airplanes finally arrived, they encountered a massive monster made from something sticky and malleable, which proceeded to catch many of the little airplanes in a giant bug net. One of the other pilots had managed to score a hit on the knights protecting the Blue Wolf, but the woman in the center of the formation was uninjured. The goo-monster had managed to hurl Maxius the Elder, unmistakable in his shimmering white robes, into the sky, where he was killed by powerful lightning-aspect ethermancy. This broke the surviving pilots, and in the end only three airplanes escaped.

  The fog had not arrived near the battlefield and Quinn was able to fly very low, almost hugging the treetops. The other two survivors flew in formation with Quinn, one to either side. The forest directly ahead continued through a series of winding valleys between the foothills below the snowclad peaks to the west. Quinn twisted in his seat to peer through the canopy to check the sky directly behind him. There, flying high in the dark of the blue sky, twinkling like silvery stars in broad daylight, were two more fighters from Spire Renna.

  "What do we do?" one of the other pilots asked, his voice booming over the sound of the propellers.

  "The oculomancers can see auras, even through stone and trees," Quinn said. "We should split up. Don't hesitate to land if you find a clearing in the forest."

  "Affirmative!"

  The two pilots broke away, one to the north, and one to the south. Quinn flew straight ahead, banking into a gentle curve around a nearby hill. When he looked back at the sky to the east, he was relieved to see the two enemy airplanes splitting perpendicular to his path. Poor fellows, he thought. Not that it mattered much. He didn't know how to get rid of his aura. The Messiah was dead, and there would be oculomancers guarding the banks. Even if he found a cave to hide in, eventually the oculomancers would find him. More than likely, those fighters would kill their targets quickly and then come searching for his airplane.

  The trees dropped away as he flew beyond the edge of an escarpment overlooking a remote river basin. This vantage revealed a plethora of smooth beaches snaking along the river. Quinn turned to the south to follow the shore. He spotted a long stretch of sand wide enough for the wings and long enough to land safely. He went through the theoretical motions required to initiate a landing, steps which he had never practiced but which he helped develop from Bjorn's mathematical equations. Surfaces on the inner wings began to droop as Quinn twisted the handwheel in the cabin. This feature, which Quinn himself had theorized after studying the birds outside White Chasm, changed the shape of the wing for landing.

  The nose began to rise, so Quinn cut back on weave which provided power to the engine. Slowly he began to fall out of the sky, carefully adjusting the pitch to maintain a constant speed. He didn't know exactly how fast he was going. The thing either flew or it didn't, and at full power it probably flew. The Messiah had developed some designs for instruments to measure speed relative to the air, as well as attitude, but they didn't have time to implement those designs. The best Quinn could do was use his judgment.

  Unfortunately, his judgment wasn't very good. The airplane was still going very fast as he began to skim the water, approaching the sandy shore with enough speed to bounce like a skipping stone. The new wing shape was helping, but he had misjudged the total amount of energy he had in the first place. There was nothing to do but speed up, loop around, and try again. He stole another glance to the east, and his heart immediately sank. Two long streams of black smoke trailed off into the forest where the other pilots had been.

  Suddenly the world turned upside-down.

  It felt almost as if Quinn was falling backwards, as if gravity had changed directions. It was extremely disorienting, like falling out of bed while sleeping. He didn't know which way was up. The airplane kept on flying forward, but the direction named forward felt like the direction named up. The world was the wall of a great tower, and the nose of the airplane was ascending along that wall. He reached the beach. Dumbfounded and unable to react, the belly of the craft flopped down into the sand with a jolt that sent Quinn lurching forward against his harness. The propeller exploded. One of the wings snapped clean off, and the whole affair pitched end-over-end and landed upside-down in the tall beachgrass.

  Quinn's hands dangled down onto the warm glass canopy, his shoulders pressed hard against the harness straps. The canopy could not open because it was pressed against the ground. Something tore at the airframe. Swirling flashes of indigo light, a sphere of darkness within an indigo cloud. The side of the airplane which had lost a wing suddenly ripped open, revealing the cool gray light of the western sky. Quinn struggled to free himself from the harness straps, and when he finally succeeded he fell head-first into the canopy with his butt hanging out of the opening in the hull. From this embarrassing position he managed to climb out of the shattered airplane.

  Quinn plucked his pack out of the cabin, clambered to his feet, and took in his surroundings. A freezing wind struck his face. The air above the airplane was rippling with heat, and the shattered stub of a wing was leaking steaming water on the sand. A familiar specter floated nearby, her feet dangling just above the darkness of the river, her sea-green hair flowing in unseen currents.

  "There isn't much time," she said. "Those airplanes are hunting you. You need to get to the forest. They won't shoot into the trees."

  His mind was racing, trying to remember the last time he saw this strange woman. She was right, however. He didn't have the luxury of time. So he dashed toward the forest, boots sinking into the sand with each strained step. The woman matched his speed, floating just above the ground beside him as he ran. When he ducked between the boughs at the edge of the forest the woman with sea-green hair simply floated through them, as if she occupied some other world without matter. Quinn continued into the darkness until he tripped over a root and fell face-first into a dense cluster of ferns.

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  "I think you've gone far enough," the woman said.

  Quinn batted a cloud of flying insects away from his face and spat. "Who are you?"

  "I am the Spirit of the Lawgiver," she replied.

  "Maxius," Quinn rasped, continuing to spit the bugs out of his mouth. "What happened to Maxius?"

  "Maxius the Younger is dead," the woman reported.

  A loud, mechanical rattling sound filled the air. Out on the beach, white-hot bullets caused geysers of sand and foliage to erupt in a line. Quinn's little airplane suddenly disintegrated into thousands of tiny pieces which fluttered in the dusty plumes as they fell like distant rain. A rumble passed overhead. Through the branches Quinn could easily make out the huge metal fighter. It pitched up, the too-big elevators powered by some inhuman strength, the orange jets of flame bursting from the engine exhaust between the tails. The campfire crackle-roar overwhelmed the sound of the river. A few seconds later the forest came alive with exploding wood, the sound of bullets. Quinn ducked.

  "I wasn't expecting them to waste ammo like that," the Spirit of the Lawgiver said after the sound had died away. "No matter. We have a few moments to talk."

  "Father Winter," Quinn cursed. He sat down in the underbrush to catch his breath. "I have so many questions."

  "There's no time for your questions," she snapped. "I've been going about this all wrong, I think. The Light Elemental does not require the consent of the Dream Being on the other side. This strange interstice with the Elemental Plane of Heaven seems to be corrupted somehow. It's a trap. Don't you see?"

  "I don't understand anything you are saying."

  "I'm afraid you were born into the wrong world," she said.

  "Obviously," Quinn said. "I was born into a world where the witches control the skies. I'm guessing the oculomancers were studying me and my brother the whole time, perfecting their strategies. They don't want anyone bothering them up there in their spires."

  "It's more than that. Let me take a step back. You don't know where this world is, do you?"

  "The world is right here."

  "Right. So, this world is nestled in a tiny overlap between two other worlds, the Elemental Plane of Heaven and the Elemental Plane of Dreams. The important thing to know is that in the latter of these two worlds, the primary method of acquiring power is through the kindred bond. Queen of Spirits, how can I explain?"

  "Is that what you did to Maxius?" Quinn asked.

  The woman nodded. "Yes. The kindred bond requires a Spirit, like me. I go to the other side, and I feed spiritual energy through the bond, in exchange for some measure of stability. If the last of the people in this land die, then I will also die. If they all stop believing in the Lawgiver, then I will die with their faith. Do you understand?"

  "That doesn't sound like a good situation," Quinn observed. "That Blue Wolf woman is still alive and her armies are now uncontested."

  "I sensed this danger, which is why I embarked on this quest in the first place. It required that I acquire a Heaven Elemental, and then I needed to travel through the Plane of Heaven to get here. The fact that I found this place was by pure coincidence, a random roll of the dice, but I do not doubt that Titania's luck was involved. But I've digressed. I need help from somebody on this side, somebody who is willing to make sacrifices on behalf of this land. You, Quinn, are a foreigner. But you have risked your life for my people, and for that you have my thanks."

  "I didn't have much of a choice," Quinn said. "The witches want to kill me, and it won't be much longer before they succeed. I wanted to spend the last of my days trying to fulfill the dream that me and my brother shared. To fly through the sky."

  "So, I would offer to establish the kindred bond with you, Quinn. If you accept, it will make you the target of a very dangerous woman."

  "The Bloodraker?"

  "I know not her name. The knights that killed Maxius bowed to her. She has a fleet of advanced airplanes and a variety of tools for killing. She seems to be interested in hunting the people on this side, people who have established a kindred bond. There is a high probability that she will try to kill you if you accept."

  "She wants to kill me either way," Quinn said.

  "The choice is yours," the Spirit of the Lawgiver said. "If you refuse, then I promise I will not force the bond on you without your consent. Light Elemental, do you witness this promise?"

  I witness this promise.

  The voice was like a bolt of lightning on a clear day. It was certainly feminine, but with a rhythmic, high-pitched gentleness that gave Quinn the impression of wind chimes. Was this the voice that Seth heard? he wondered. No, Seth said the voice was childlike. This voice sounds like a grown woman.

  "Light Elemental! I wish to establish the kindred bond with this man!"

  Fire-soul, if you accept, you will be granted vast powers, and you will become bonded to this Spirit until your death. It shall be power enough to soar with ease, but I warn you that nothing good awaits you in the sky of your world. I am compelled to inform you that I do not anticipate that you will live for very long. Knowing this, do you consent to establish this kindred bond?

  What would Seth do? Quinn wondered. Then it seemed obvious. "Sure," he said aloud. "I'm not afraid to take my chances in the sky."

  This pact between a Spirit and a Dream Being is witnessed and sealed.

  Light burst from Quinn's body, transforming the forest into undulations of radiant gold and mysterious black. Suddenly, Quinn felt the weight of all the magic in the world crushing down on him. The light faded and Quinn realized that he could sense the little sphere of spirit-ether that surrounded him. It was his aura.

  "Where the hell did you get a Phoenix Elemental?" the Spirit of the Lawgiver hissed. "Quinn, your soul is already so dark and twisted, barely clinging to a sliver of Light. How are you even sane right now?"

  Phoenix Elemental? Quinn thought absently. It seemed so unimportant. He reached into his pack and grasped the Messiah's leather-bound book.

  Clever little Spirit, the voice said. I was instructed by Mother to allow the bond to become corrupted only if it was established without the consent of the Dream Being. What you sense is the dark branding on this soul which came from being killed during the days of Ingrid's war. They cut out his heart and his brain, drained his blood, and stuffed him into a box.

  "He's one of those souls!? Oh Queen of Dreams, what have I done?"

  Quinn opened the Messiah's book. The overwhelming power surged through his fingertips as he ran one hand along the smooth pages. He understood the equations, the annotations, the weaves. He knew their purpose. A heaven-aspect weave for slowing the perception of time, a life-aspect weave for increasing his intelligence. Something deep inside him gently urged him forward.

  He flew with Ingrid in her dream, the pilot of one of the fighter jets which stayed close to her. It was then that his soul was marked with Titania's light. It's how he holds on to his sanity. It's how he fights back the darkness, though the Dream of Flight.

  He remembered that fighter jet. When he activated the two weaves he immediately knew he was smart enough to make a new one.