There were blank pages in the back of the book. Orenda had carried the book, the book that she suspected Ellie had been writing, on the subject of fire elves, for over a decade. It had been a little damaged by the steam, a little worn with time, but it was still perfectly good, good enough to have been copied at least once.

Orenda spread it out, open to the first blank page and stared at the inkwell she had unstopped. Outside her porthole the ocean flew by as a blur too quickly for her eyes to detect, and she was nervous about writing anything. She had made a point to sit down immediately after the first lurch, immediately after she adjusted to the speed, when she knew she would have several hours uninterrupted before the second lurch when they stopped moving. She wouldn’t have ink blots. She wouldn’t ruin the book.

She spread out the notes she had been keeping, took a deep breath, dipped the quill in the ink, and began to copy her draft.

The selection of children to train as priests - The Trial by Fire.

At a young age, fire elves who have been called to the priesthood undertake a trial to determine whether or not they have truly been selected by Thesis. There exists, in the Sacred Mountain temple, a doorway of flame, fittingly referred to as “The Sacred Flame”. Any hopeful initiates must walk through this doorway, and come out unscathed on the other side. It would be easy for an outsider to misunderstand the difficulty of this test, as fire elves do not generally burn.

But that is not the point of the test. The author has walked through the sacred flame, and can speak with some insight into the experience. The difficulty of the flame is not that it burns, though it certainly does. The real test is being able to look into the face of existence, to know the will of a god, to know the comfort of the oneness of the universe, to be presented with all of creation from the heart of one individual stretching through the entirety, the unknowable vastness of the cosmos- to contain all of that in a mortal mind without succumbing to madness, and to be able to step out of it again. The strength this requires is, undoubtedly, a suitable test for any position. The difficulty is, one could argue, actually set too high rather than too low.

This was all she could fit on one page, and she would have to wait for the ink to dry before she could continue.

Master.

Orenda ignored the staff, where it was still shut up within her wardrobe, and stood. She stretched out her muscles and thought, briefly, that she really should be doing some sort of exercises to prepare herself. She would not repeat the mistakes of her parents, would not go into battle unprepared, but Gareth had been right when he had called her a scholar rather than a fighter. Sailing made her ill, and moving was a chore, which did nothing for her already poor physique. She had allowed herself to grow fat and lazy at the academy, and she remembered that she had been unable to outrun the demon.

She wandered into the hall and wondered what people did to train for battle. The only physically strong person she knew was Bella, and she was busy propelling the ship. The last thing she needed was excess food, but as she hadn’t been mindful, the galley was the place she found herself when she became aware of her surroundings.

Mr Bilge was wearing a button-up shirt secured tightly, gloves, and had a bandanna wrapped around his face- all these precautions seemed to be for cleanliness, as he was wiping down the surfaces where people ate, and Orenda saw the dishes stacked neatly on a drying wrack and secured by having a second wire cage that snapped on top of them, she assumed to prevent them all from just hitting the wall and breaking when the ship stopped.

“Careful,” he said, “Just mopped in here.”

“Are you alright?” Orenda asked.

“No,” he said, “Not alright. Never alright. Gotta clean. Must clean. So dirty. Dirty all the time. All of them. All of them are so dirty, make it dirty. Needs to be shiny.”

“Do you feel a compulsion to clean?” Orenda asked. He was always cleaning and organizing, and the sight often bothered her. She wondered if it was part of Impy’s spell, if he, as a… flesh golem? Was basically being used as a slave.

“Everyone should,” he said, “The humans. The elves. The dwarf. So dirty. Dragons don’t dirty. Dragons clean. Dragons make it shiny.”

“I’m… I’m sorry about your situation,” Orenda said.

“Me too,” he said, “Sorry. Don’t like it. He didn’t mean it. He panicked.”

He stopped wiping down the chair he was working on and looked at Orenda. She tried a smile, but feared it was patronizing.

“I miss…” he said, sighed with lungs that she knew were decaying inside his torso, dunked his rag in the soapy water, wrang it out, and went back to wiping, “I would fly. Had a den. Collected shinys. Always clean. Always shiny. So long. So long ago. No more. Now I’m here. This is my den now.”

“I’m sorry,” Orenda said again.

“Sorry is no good,” Mr Bilge shook his head. “Sorry does not… make it go back. Can’t go back. Maybe… maybe when Impy dies I go back? We don’t know. He’s not bad. He panicked. It’s bad, though.”

“Anilla is looking for a dragon,” Orenda said.

“Not it,” Mr Bilge said and moved on to another chair.

“Why did he panic?” Orenda asked. She had often wondered this, wondered what had happened, but felt it was not her place to ask.

“Bad day,” Mr Bilge said, “Bad day, back home. Bad people came in bad ships, so many bad people. They made the water rise- destroyed the beach, destroyed dens. We had to fly away, had to go high. Some went to boats- I went to boat. People were fighting, some good, some bad? I do… I do everything around here.” He had reached a particularly dirty spot on the chair and it angered him. He seemed to lose his train of thought.

“What happened then?” Orenda asked.

“Draco lived here,” Mr Bilge said, “Draconis. Draconis was his name. Lived here. In me. In this body. The bad people hurt him. They hurt their building. Impy… Imperious… He’s not bad. He panicked. He does weird magic- he’s not supposed to. He panicked. He looked different. Much different. Had black hair… smooth face… not white hair, not crumpled, stood taller, heard when people spoke. He got old since then. When he dies, maybe I’ll go back.”

“Imperious… does necromancy,” Orenda said, “I was taught that mages should not meddle with the dead. It isn’t an elemental magic. It’s demonic. Nothing good comes of it.”

“Not good,” Mr Bilge agreed, “But… But he’s not bad. Sometimes people do bad things, but they’re not bad. He wanted to save Draco. The bad people hurt Draco. The bad people made him panic. Still though… maybe…” He trailed off again.

“Maybe what?” Orenda prodded.

“Maybe people are bad,” Mr Bilge said, “When they do bad things. But… I live here now. Can’t leave. Can’t leave magic boat. Spell might not work. Would never go back. If I stay, maybe I go back when Impy dies. So… can’t stay mad. If I stay mad… I would stay mad. All the time. Go crazy. Already I am a little crazy. Little bit. So long… been here so long.”

“You’re such a good dragon, Mr Bilge,” Orenda said sadly. “Such a good person. Most people could not find that kind of forgiveness.”

“I was always a good boy,” he agreed, “Always. Wish people would… wouldn’t be so dirty.”

“Do you have another rag?” Orenda asked, “I can help you.”

“No!” He said, “No one helps me! Can’t do it right! I have a system!”

He was so angry in a way that Orenda didn’t expect that she threw up her hands in a gesture of submission.

“Alright,” She said, “I’m sorry. Thank you, though. Thank you for keeping it clean. I like it shiney, too. I like things to be neat and clean.”

“Rendy!” Orenda turned to see Falsie come in from the hall, “I need to measure you so I can cut this fabric. I’ve got the spell cast.”

“Oh,” Orenda said- she had forgotten that he was making her armor to cure the illness. It seemed so trivial now. She had more or less gotten used to the constant sea-sickness, and on the Burned Roc it was not as bad as it could have been. Still she was grateful to him, not just for the armor, but for a way out of her current conversation.

“Well,” She said to Mr Bilge, “Thank you.”

“I don’t actually make many clothes,” Falsie said, “I’m no Brigaddon.”

Orenda stared at the fabric laid out in front of her- it had been bright red, once, but had since faded so badly it was nearly pink. It was threadbare, and likely wouldn’t hold together very long. She saw green crystals sewn into it, which she had not been expecting, but when she thought about it, that made sense.

In class, the elements had been presented as a circle. Elves came in three varieties- earth, water, and fire. Magic came in more elements, Orenda knew now, but in class there had never been presented the idea of an air mage- after all, there were no “air” elves, and elves were the species that had been chosen by Thesis to wield magic- but now that Orenda knew there did exist air mages, she questioned the whole system. She had long suspected people like Bella and Anilla existed before she had met them. A lack of elves in a region did not indicate to her that it would lack mages in the way it did to the Urillians.

Perhaps that was why Xandra had never ventured into the frozen north. Perhaps she thought that there were no people there to conquer. But… Orenda had heard from multiple sources that Morgani Magnus lived there. Tolith had speculated that the fabled Crystal City was located in the frozen north- an opinion her parents seemed to have shared, if they went there looking for Morgani Magnus. Didn’t Xaxac claim to have been there? In his letter?

Was that why the Emerald Knight was traveling there now? Was he looking for that lost paradise? Even if he found it, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Elves had fallen from grace. It was off-limits to them now.

“I appreciate it, Falsie,” Orenda said to him, “But you really shouldn’t cast outside your element. You’ll go mad.”

“Well, that and I’m not very good at it,” Falsie said, “It might not work. My ma was… looking over her notes, the woman was a genius, Rendy. Xren will never see another like her. She just made a mistake. Krothy didn’t blame her, but… she couldn’t save her from herself. Almost no one can save a person from themselves. So… I try. I try to replicate what she did… and I try to…” He shrugged, “We all just do what we can.”

“I can sew a little,” Orenda said, “I can help out with this.”

“Good,” Falsie said as he stepped onto a stool and stretched out a tape measure, “Because you might have to.”