Day 3

  Only one level in Enchanting after all that grinding—which felt like chewing nails and smiling—but fine. First C-grade on an accessory landed clean, and for Spacetime that’s a proper foothold, even if the rest still tells me to jog on.

  Veleth ran calm today. The scene came in flashes, like a lantern behind ribs, and for a second I swear the ship was showing me its own memories—the hum under the boards lining up with the pictures like a heartbeat tapping frames.

  Jill definitely nicked a hair or two off my head. Said nothing. Looked smug and freaky about it. No idea. We brewed a dozen nasty little beauties that smell like mint and bad ideas, and anyway Alchemy hit 6. The locker opened for the full fit of Gob’s gift, so Magia climbed, and I’m not pretending it didn’t feel sweet.

  Didn’t see the green bastard today, by the way. Wonder what he’s up to.

  Selera did force-meets-push, reaction-meets-slap; momentum goes somewhere or it bites you. Lots of chalk and tidy words—some fancy Citizen thing they call Physics. I kept wishing she’d roll a barrel down a plank and let it clip my shins so my bones would remember faster, but I got the gist and wrote it neat so she won’t sigh at me tomorrow.

  Day 5

  The little green bastard showed up again, tried to ghost, and I caught him by the grin and the smoke.

  Told him to take me topside, and he started in with excuses—said I couldn’t breathe in space, pressure this, vacuum that, blah blah—sounded like cheap crap to me.

  I leaned on him till the pipe went out and the ears went flat, and he finally promised a look at the deck once I hit Enchanting ten.

  Fair enough, goblin—deal’s a deal.

  Day 8

  Guess who dragged Enchanting to 10!

  Wasn’t easy; hands shook, eyes buzzed, and my brain felt like it got dunked in Rask’s hot pepper sauce, but I finally got there.

  Next climb is Magika Sensing, because Magia’s simply rad. Nothing beats a fat, juicy bump—everything comes in cleaner and the thoughts run smoother; Veleth’s space shows sharper, and I can grind longer with less skull-bite.

  Anyway, I’ll keep stacking until the prompts admit I’m right.

  But most of all, let’s cash that promise and drag the little green bastard up for a walk on the deck.

  ***

  Gob met Hope’s eyes and let out the kind of sigh that said he’d argued with himself already and lost. He muttered about keeping his word, then pressed a squat vial into Hope’s palm. The glass felt warm to the touch.

  Hope cracked the cork and caught pine pitch, hot metal, a prickle of pepper. The swallow ran like warm wire and smoke, settling bright behind his ribs until the nerves eased to a low hum. He liked it less than he pretended and more than he’d admit, which was about right for anything that helped.

  “What’s this for?”

  “So you don’t die outside, lad.”

  They went down the spine corridor to a round door with a steel wheel and braces that meant business.

  Gob only stared and the wheel spun; bolts thudded back, and he waved Hope into the tight chamber before dogging the hatch shut with practised hands.

  Another big, sealed door waited ahead.

  Gob turned and traced a circle over him. Air thickened into a clear bubble that closed around him with a soft click he felt more than heard. The air inside tasted like rain on copper. His boots went light, then lighter, and he lifted a handspan as the field seated him, wrong and right at once to float without using Magika himself.

  Hope tapped the edge and it bowed elastic, then held like taut hide. What happened if he pushed harder? Would it break?

  “Avoid anything too sharp near the borders,” Gob said, voice thin through the shimmer. “Use Kinetic or Air Magika inside to move. Walking won’t work.”

  Hope nodded, mouth a little dry now the clever talk had to meet the door. He breathed slow and counted, riding the beats until his hands settled. Gob cracked the outer seal by inches. The chamber sighed empty. Cold slid in clean, and the ship’s hum thinned.

  The door rolled wide and the world opened like a cut that didn’t end.

  And it was just… wow.

  Black without bottom. Not night—night had a roof. This was the big outside where down didn’t matter and the stars were hard white points that didn’t blink. The sails arched like pale ribs, catching a wind he could only see where it bent the starlight. Frost powdered the hull; lacquered curves fell away until the giant vessel looked like a toy set careful on the lip of forever.

  He bled a thread of Air Magika, careful as a thief with a new lock. The bubble answered with a slow drift, seating to his breath in tiny clicks he felt along his teeth. Every breath fogged and cleared his small world.

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  Off the bow hung a smear of colour—violet bruised with blue—and his chest did that wide, aching swell he’d mocked in others until now. Was there a top to this? A start? An end? If he called, would anything answer?

  He turned by neat degrees and mapped like always—anchors, spars, lines, the holds that made the ship a ship. In his head it shrank, not less dear, only honest about its size out here. Back-alley ceilings felt far. What currents ran in nothing? Could he learn them like streets? If he tilted the field, would it side-slip? If he cut a thin phase along the border, would it sing or bite?

  The want rose clean and sharp. A pull to explore, to find what lay beyond, to touch with his hands and see every speck of light up close.

  He caught his reflection in the curve of the bubble—wide eyes, jaw set, a smile he couldn’t hold down—and, for once, he didn’t try. The dark didn’t feel empty. It felt open, and the open felt like—like freedom, humming through a stolen ship and the white ribs of its sails.

  It was… beautiful.

  The colours, the shapes, the way a web of lines—stays, shrouds, ratlines—held the vessel’s bones as if the whole ship were breathing from within.

  He felt the pulses in the timbers like quiet heartbeats and knew they came from Veleth at its core.

  Yet one question tugged at him: if it moved by warping space, why the sails, why the rigging—what did they catch out here?

  “Hey, Go—” he spoke, and the sound bounced back, a small tinny echo trapped inside his bubble.

  Gob smiled, tapped his ash-pipe, and wrote in the thin space with its smoke; the strokes hung despite the vacuum, letters clinging to nothing: ‘Can’t talk in outer space, kiddo. No air.’ A second line smeared beneath: ‘Unless you’ve got a knack for Soul Magika—and neither of us does.’

  Hope nodded, filed the questions for later, and eased another thread of Air Magika. The bubble answered with a slow, obedient drift, and he slid along the deck’s curve, keeping one eye on lines and holds.

  The mainmast rose like a thick black tree, tar-slick, with ratlines laddering up to the crow’s nest—a snug hoop with a half-shield against nothing. Blocks and tackles hung sleeping, and the pinrails bristled with belaying pins, each loop of line coiled shipshape with frost feathering the coils.

  He drifted past the capstan—iron-banded wood with handspikes racked beside it—then over the anchor bitts and their heavy cheeks. Netting guarded the drop by the waist; boat cradles sat empty, ribs showing. The figurehead watched the dark ahead: a carved, eerie eye lacquered deep beneath the bowsprit.

  Above, the yards shouldered pale canvas. The void-sails bellied not with wind but with a slow pressure that bent starlight, and every line gave a soft hum he felt in his bones.

  At the masthead their banner worried the black—a long, tar-dyed pennant, rag-dark and lace-frayed along the leech, its patchwork of sailcloth panels stitched with salt-white repairs and neat sailmaker’s marks.

  It moved though nothing moved, twitching to the shiver that ran the shrouds, the halyard taut at the head cringle and a brass toggle biting clean, so the cloth held a blade-true line against the vast, colorful void.

  Centre-set was the sign itself: a single ringed eye, bone-pale paint with a thin metal ring stitched in, the pupil cut clean so the cold dark looked back through.

  It hooked Hope’s gaze and wouldn’t let go—the Phantom Eye pirates flying their colours proud where no wind lives, a quiet dare pinned to the stars. It was damn cool, not gonna lie.

  After a while, Gob appeared beside him and motioned him to follow, tracing words with pipe-smoke in the empty space: ‘Time’s up, kiddo.’

  They went back inside, and Hope felt the shift as air came back; the bubble unseated a moment later with a neat click, dropping him onto the wooden planks.

  “So, how was it?” Gob asked, grinning as he took a puff on the pipe.

  “Awesome. Like… damn, not gonna forget that soon,” Hope said, still smiling. “So, what’s up with the sails then? I remember from Selera’s classes how ships work and all that, but I don’t understand why a space ship would need sails if there’s no wind?”

  “Well, lad, you can’t always warp through space whenever you feel like it,” Gob said, giving the pipe a lazy tap. “Veleth makes it look easy, but truth is we run down marked paths—so we don’t end up inside a star or somethin’ on the next warp. When you go uncharted, you have to be much more careful—smaller shifts—and actual movement starts playing a role.”

  He puffed, eyes half-lidded. “More important, in unstable space—near giant black holes, void graveyards, storm belts, space swamps, all sorts of nasty stuff waiting to kill you and you won’t know why—you need trim and feel. There’s still no wind outside, but any pirate crew’s gonna have a mage or two, adept in Air Magika, to conjure a draft. It’s easier to hit cloth with wind than shove the whole hull with Kinetic, right? Once a wind starts, it starts slow, but with nothing to drag us down the ship picks up speed real fast, lad. Very exciting moments when you see the navigator take the wheel and steer this big beauty through an asteroid field. Look forward to it, kiddo.”

  Hope’s grin crept back. His head was still buzzing from the open dark, but the picture of sails drawing a conjured wind and lines singing put heat in his blood.

  “I like your gaze, lad. Any other questions? Got fires to mind, you know—busy man, if I say so myself,” the goblin smirked, inhaling on the pipe.

  “Yeah, wait… well, got lots, but—anyway—when are we, like, arriving wherever we’re supposed to be going?”

  “Tired of wood already, lad? Want to see a sky soon, eh?” Gob’s ears twitched. “Learn patience, kiddo. The void’s as big as it gets, and no matter how fast you go, it takes time. This trip’s short. Don’t count the days, though. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do, right?” He grinned.

  “Well, yeah. By the way—should I keep enchanting now that I’ve got it at ten?”

  “Oh yes, ’bout that—feel free to stretch your free time, lad. All the way, three to three—what do you say? Do what works best for you. If you need anything, just yell—but don’t yell too often,” he chuckled. “I left a box of tonics for you in D6. Use them sparingly. Cheap, but not too cheap.”

  Hope nodded, a warmth settling in, and bowed. “Thanks, Senior.”

  “Alright, lad—see you one of these days.” With that, Gob took a step and vanished—slipped sideways on the ship’s workings, riding Veleth’s tokened path back to his office.

  He dropped into his small chair, leaned back, and set the pipe in its rest. A tired breath eased out of him. He closed his eyes for a moment, then leaned forward over the scribbled notes strewn across the desk.

  He drew out his pocket watch and checked the time, letting the seconds tick. Then he rose, gathered the notes, and pressed the token. Space folded clean; he stepped through and appeared at a simple, refined circular wooden table.

  Across from him sat another figure, legs crossed on her purple throne.

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