James and Celeste opened the door to their room and walked inside. Celeste pulled a cord that hung directly to the right of the doorway and a small, unshaded light bulb turned on above their heads. It didn’t light the room completely, but it did enough. The room that greeted them was square in shape and only big enough to fit two people of James’s height laying lengthwise on the ground. The first main attraction upon entering was a metal table that glinted from the bright light above. The accompanying chairs added a foot or two to the width of the table, which, though small, took up a sizeable portion of the floor. Along the wall, a foot-wide staircase climbed vertically up the perimeter of the room. Just above the stair set was a metal bar that paralleled the path of the stairs. This was used for balance when climbing.

The two slumped into the chairs. James rested his head on the table. Between climbing the outside ladder and his run in with Zeke, he was exhausted. His eyes focused on the window that was framed into the wall opposite the door. Though it was dark outside, he could still barely see one of the vessel’s wings swaying up and down, like the wings of a bird.

“How long do we have before the Spark Ceremony?” he asked.

“Mmm. About an hour,” she said.

“Wake me up when it’s time?” he asked. Celeste considered it, or rather she imagined how funny it would be to let him sleep through it. She smiled to herself at the thought, and then shook it away.

“Alright,” she finally said.

James always found it incredibly difficult to get her to do anything that he wanted. It was as if the fact that he wanted her to do it was what deterred her from doing it. He was sure that if he told her to eat every day, she would start eating every other day. He trusted her on this, though. The Spark Ceremony happened only once a year and, cruel as he thought she could be, he was sure that she wouldn’t do anything that would result in him missing it. With that thought in mind, he rose to his feet and proceeded to the stairs. He grabbed the metal bar for support and started his climb to the top. After a couple dozen steps and a few rotations around the room, he was staring at a platform that stretched across half the room, leaving enough space for a bed, a desk, and a trunk for clothes. This, however, was Celeste’s bed, so he continued past it up the stairs. He had trained himself not to look down. It only increased the chance of an accident. Eventually, he reached his platform, which looked more or less the same as Celeste’s. He took a step onto it, maneuvering around one of the metal chains that held it up in the process. James could feel his muscles relaxing. The climb always made him tense up. Despite growing up on a flying ship, heights had never sat well with him. Except, of course, when he was staring off into the clouds beneath him. He always imagined that the clouds would catch him if he fell. This thought was enough to get him to stare out windows or over balconies without sending his heart into a panic-stricken fit. He knew firsthand, however, that the look of cushiness that the clouds gave off was just for show. His thoughts drifted to that of his mother. A faceless figure with red hair fluttering in the wind as she fell to her death. He hadn’t been there when it happened, and he would’ve been too young to remember even if he was. But still, that was the only image the ever came to his mind when he thought of her. The sound of scuffling feet and her faceless body drifting to the clouds, almost peacefully. His next thought was always of his dad. A still-frame picture in his mind of a dark-haired man descending the rope ladder while the ship was still moving, the rope whipping about furiously. He wondered if he ever made it to the bottom. It was the not knowing that hurt the most. Even now, he could be alive, wandering around the earth somewhere. James had said as much to Captain Shamran, but he had simply waved away the thought, stating that even if he had made it down the ladder, it was impossible to survive in such a place. James didn’t doubt him. He had, after all, been a Diver for several decades before becoming captain of the fleet. If anyone knew what the world beneath the clouds was like, it was him. Still, James thought they were missing something. Again, his mind flashed to that glimmer of green swallowed by white.

With a sigh, he collapsed into his bed, not bothering to take off his clothes. From his vantage point he could see Celeste’s platform, which was positioned on the wall opposite to him. He shimmied himself a little further to the side, giving him a view of Celeste, who was drawing on the table with a piece of chalk. She often did this in her spare time, erasing her drawings once she needed space for another one. After ensuring that she would be preoccupied for a decent amount of time, he rolled back out of her line of sight. Without leaving the bed, he reached into one of the drawers that made up his desk and came back with a piece of paper. It only had one thing written on it: 38.7805556°, -119.9294444°

James awoke less than an hour later. It wasn’t a pleasant awakening as what stirred him wasn’t someone’s voice, nor even a gentle shove. It was Celeste’s shoe that woke him up, thrown by Celeste herself from the platform below him. He cracked his eyes open, feeling more tired than when he went to sleep.

“Come on. We’re going to be late!” Celeste called up at him. James rubbed his eyes and then threw, a little forcefully, Celeste’s shoe back down to her. “Thanks. Now get up.” Celeste was already walking down the stairs to the bottom level. James rolled himself out of bed to find that he still had the piece of paper he was reading before in his hand. He reached into the same drawer, about to put it back in its place, when a thought occurred to him. A dangerous thought, but a necessary one. Rather than placing it back, he folded the piece of paper and tucked it into his jacket pocket. A half a minute later, he and Celeste were on their way out of the room and down the corridor. They, and everyone else, were heading upward to the roof of the ship. It was the best place to view the Spark Ceremony.

After climbing roughly five floors, James and Celeste passed one of the few rooms not used as a sleeping chamber. This room was much larger and emanated sound at all hours of the day and night. It was the engine room. James had never been inside, but he had often glanced in as he passed it. Large machinery filled up roughly half of the room. The other half was dedicated to a series of large cranks, which created power when turned. Adults, both male and female, worked in shifts to turn the cranks throughout the day and night. Twelve hours of rotating the crank translated to roughly forty-eight hours of power for the ship. James was glad that kids didn’t have to participate in this duty until they turned seventeen.

The two flung open the hatch at the top of a rather long stair set and immediately felt a gust of wind throw their hair back. In total, it took them fifteen minutes to go from their room to the top of the ship. The wind that pounded their backs was annoying, but not strong enough to do any damage past making it hard to hear. They stopped the ships during the Spark Ceremony, so it was more bearable than it normally would have been. Mixed in with the sound of the wind was the sound of the Screw Blade above them. James could hear it rotating furiously, keeping the ship in the air. It was called a Screw Blade because the shape of it resembled a metal screw if the threads closer to the base were much wider than the ones at the tip. Their true shape was hard to see, since it was almost always rotating. The only exception being when it needed maintenance. In those instances, the ship in question would be bolted to the ones around it to ensure it didn’t fall to the clouds below. The common consensus was that they had been designed by a man named L. da Vinci. Who he was, or what he had done outside of designing the Screw Blades, James had no clue, and he was fairly sure no one else did either. Regardless, they had him to thank for their ships. James supposed that when it was put that way, it made sense why the fleet was named after him. Vinci, it was called. This made him, Celeste, and everyone else that he’d ever known Vinci citizens.

James peered out into the darkness. He couldn’t see the other ships, but he knew they were out there, each one carrying a crowd of people similar to theirs. James felt a nudge in the back from Celeste.

“Quickly!” she said. “It’s about to start.”

That much was true. James was sure that he and Celeste were that last to arrive. He walked forward. The top of the ship was fixed with lights that stretched its perimeter. They weren’t bright by any means but were just enough to let James see his footing as he walked. He could see people leaning over the railing in every direction. The good thing about the Sparks Ceremony was that you could see it from any direction, allowing people to line the perimeter of the ship rather than bunch together onto one side. After a few moments of scanning the people, he found the person he was looking for. Bron’s large body was hard to miss, after all. James and Celeste rushed up to him.

“Ah. There you two are. Just in the nick of time. I think they’ll be starting soon…” Bron said, his voice trailing off as he saw the first of the sparks starting to show themselves. James and Celeste looked out into the darkness. Slowly, tiny sparks were beginning to show themselves. The tiny points of inception quickly began to spread. Showering sparks into the air and down upon the clouds below. It was mesmerizing to watch. James could still hardly see the other vessels, but the sparks pointed the way to each one of them. Even their own ship was dispensing sparks into the air for the rest to see. No one looked at their own ships sparks. The few who had been foolish enough to do so had ended up suffering vision problems or losing their vision all together if they were unlucky. James watched the sparks dance about in its own controlled chaos for a few more moments before slipping backwards away from the railing. He thought that he had done well in disappearing unnoticed, when a hand grabbed his arm. It was Celeste, who was frequently proving herself to be the biggest obstacle in his life.

“Where are you going?” she asked, hands on hips.

“To see the view from another ship,” James said, trying to keep his voice genuine. She gave no reply, electing instead to look at him with a flat expression. It was a look she gave him often, mostly because it was effective. Something about her blatant skepticism of his actions made it difficult for him to keep lying. “Alright,” he said, annoyed. Though, more with himself than with her. “I’m going to the central ship.”

Celeste raised an eyebrow. “Why?” she asked. James gave no reply. “Is this about what you saw in the clouds? I’d thought you’d given up on that.” Her tone wasn’t harsh. More disappointed than anything. She sighed. “Fine. Be back soon, though.” James looked at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

“You’re going to let me go?” he asked hesitantly. He was a little fearful that asking the question would make her change her mind.

“I’ve learned by now that telling you not to do something hardly ever works,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

James gave her a smirk. “No promises!” he said, turning his back and walking away. He could hear Celeste’s groan behind him, slightly muffled by the wind.