James didn’t like the amount of anger he felt in her voice but found himself nodding to her words. James stood up straight and, after making a silent promise to Kiri that he would be back for her, turned around and fled with Celeste. The two made it up on deck without any problems. There were people working in the engine rooms, but James and Celeste snuck past without issue. The cool breeze stung their face as they emerged onto the deck. James glanced around at the various bridges that connected the central ship to the others around it. Some still had guards, but the one they needed to cross—the one they had been escorted across earlier—was empty of guards. Luckily for the two of them, the night sky was absent of any moon and the sparse lights that lined the ships railing weren’t enough to cover the entire ship. Crouching and keeping to the shadows, James and Celeste were able to make it to the bridge and dart across into the night.

Before long, they were back on Vessel Nine. James’s head thumped almost as much as his heart. Who should they go to for help? Bron? Jarl? Or should they simply seek out the first person they saw? The two opened the latch and threw themselves inside. Whoever they decided to seek out, they needed to do it fast. There was no telling how long Kiri would last under Shamran’s interrogation. James gritted his teeth, making his decision. Celeste always said she felt something was off about Jarl and he trusted her judgement. James took a sharp turn at the next intersection of corridors, heading to Bron’s room.

James and Celeste came to a halt in front of Bron’s door. James looked to his sister, who nodded back at him. James started to pound on the door. It took about thirty seconds for him to open his door. It was clear by his drooping eyelids that he had been sleeping. James didn’t blame him. It was the middle of the night. If the circumstances had been different, James would have felt bad for waking him so early in the morning. Bron, for his part, looked surprised to see them. He even rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t mis-seeing who was standing at his door.

“Jameson, Celeste, it is far too early for you to be knocking on my door. I have to get up in a few hours to cook breakfast for the ship. Can this wait until morning?”

“No, it can’t,” James said, his face a display of seriousness. “We need your help.”

Shamran seemed to hesitate in the doorway. He rubbed his eyes a second time and inspected James and Celeste with an expression of curiosity and concern.

“Please,” Celeste said, her eyes pleading.

Bron let out a sigh. “Fine. Come on in and I’ll hear you out.”

James and Celeste eagerly rushed inside. They were both surprised to find a kitchen on Bron’s bottom floor. It was rare for a room to have one, but with Bron being a cook it made sense that his room would contain a kitchen. Also in his room were a table and several chairs, which left James craving the comfort of his own room. Under different circumstances, he probably would have taken a seat and given in to his exhaustion. Instead, he spun on Bron, ready to speak but found his voice catching in his throat. Where did he begin?

“I was right,” he finally said. “There is life beneath the clouds.”

Bron seemed to find the comment humorous. He walked passed him and sat in one of the chairs facing them. “You just won’t let this belief of yours die, will you Jameson? If there were life beneath the clouds, then we would know by now. The Divers would have found it.”

“The Divers are keeping it a secret. Captain Shamran doesn’t want anyone to know. He takes from the people beneath the clouds and burns their villages when they don’t give him what he wants. He—”

“Jameson!” Bron snapped. “This is the Captain you’re speaking of. I won’t let you slander him just because you have a creative imagination! I won’t stand for it, boy.”

James fell silent, feeling helpless against Bron’s firm words. What could he possibly do to convince him. To his side he could see that Celeste was shaking. He caught the sight of a tear falling to the ground, glimmering in the dim light of the room. He looked at her face expecting to see sorrow, but instead found a mixture of determination and frustration. Her jaw quivered.

“He killed them, Bron. He killed our parents because they found out what he was doing.” She gritted her teeth, frustrated at the tears she felt rolling down her cheeks. “They were going to tell everyone the truth. They were going to put a stop to it, so he killed them.”

James could swear her anger was a tangible substance in the room as she spoke those final words. Bron sat still for few moments before bringing his hand up to his face and dragging it through his beard. His face was firm, yet contemplative.

“No… that’s…” Bron stood up and began pacing the room mumbling to himself. “It can’t be… It’s impossible.” Finally, he looked over at James and Celeste who were still standing just feel inside the room. James cringed under his gaze. It was one of the few times he had seen Bron truly mad. “You two are coming with me.”

James and Celeste exchanged worried looks but didn’t see any other options. If they were going to free Kiri, they needed help. Bron led them out the door and down the corridor in the opposite direction that they had come. James looked behind him uneasily.

“W-where are we going?” James asked.

Bron didn’t turn around or stop walking. “Just follow me.”

James could tell his words were more of a command than a suggestion, and he could see Celeste growing tense beside him. Before long, they stopped at a door. James was puzzled. It was a room he had never been in. Bron slid the door open without a knock and walked inside. The lights were on in the room and James could see a figure sitting at a small table. This room was not like any other that he had seen. There were no upper levels, which made the room feel cramped. A small cot was tucked into one corner of the room and an equally small table was pushed up against the opposite wall. It took James walking in the door and stepping around Bron to realize the figure at the table was Jarl. He looked up with a raised eyebrow, obviously confused as to why James, Celeste, and Bron were barging into his room. James had to admit he was just as confused. That confusion turned to concern when Bron marched over and lifted Jarl off the ground by the collar of his shirt.

“Is what they say true!?” Bron demanded. “That there’s life beneath the clouds!? That our supplies are stolen from those that live down there?”

Jarl’s eyes flicked over to James. “I see you made it to the ground.”

Bron shoved Jarl against the wall. “Don’t you dare talk to Jameson! Answer the questions!”

James looked to Celeste for direction on what to do—on whether he should interfere or not—but got no help in return. Her eyes were narrowed and fixed on Jarl.

“I’ve been waiting for ten years for you to ask me these questions, Bron… but you already know the answers, don’t you? For ten years, I saw the suspicion in your eyes, and for ten years I waited for these questions. They never came. Not because you didn’t want the answers, but because you already knew the answers and were afraid you were right.”

James watched some of the rage burn away from Bron’s face. His hand quivered and he released Jarl, allowing his body to fall into a heap on his chair. Jarl straightened his posture slightly and rubbed his neck. Bron collapsed into the other chair at the table, resting his head in one of his hands.

“But to answer your questions more directly—yes, there is life beneath the clouds. A whole beautiful world exists down there. And yes, we take what we need from them, resorting to violence if necessary.”

James was trying to follow along, but it wasn’t making much sense, like he was missing an important piece of information. It was strange. Jarl was speaking as if he had been beneath the clouds, as if he had been the one to do all those horrible things. The missing piece of information locked in place, and James felt his stomach drop. Jarl had been a Diver. There was no other explanation.

“You’re despicable,” Bron said, stating James’s own thoughts.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

James eyed Jarl, unsure of what to think. For the first time, he saw in his eyes what Celeste always said she felt when looking at Jarl. Burden. A heavy burden that had slowly weighed him down. But there was something else, as well. Something James could identify yet hope to never feel himself. Self-hatred.

“You… you were a Diver?” James asked, already knowing the answer. Jarl locked eyes with him. He gave a slight nod and cast his eyes to the ground.

“Our parents…” Celeste said through clenched teeth. “Do you know what happened to them—what really happened to them?”

Jarl froze, and James saw true fear in his eyes, like every fiber of his body was telling him to run to any place that wasn’t here. It fizzled away as quickly as it came.

“Yes… I couldn’t—no, I didn’t stop Shamran from doing what he did. I… was a different man then. A man loyal and foolish enough to think he was doing the right thing. It took the shock of seeing it happen to make me realize everything I believed was a lie… a horrible and cruel lie.”

“For the last ten years,” Celeste began, her voice seething with anger, “you lived on our ship, spoke with us, even helped us, all the while knowing the truth of what Captain Shamran did to our parents—what you let him do to our parents.”

James didn’t like the look on her face. Her usually cheerful and often sarcastic expression was replaced by one of pure wrath. He looked to Bron, but his expression didn’t look much better. He looked as if he were about to kill the scrawny man. And perhaps he might have, if Celeste didn’t beat him to it.

James saw it all clearly, as if the world had slowed down, seconds taking minutes and minutes taking hours. He saw her reach into her pocket. He felt rooted to the ground, watching as she withdrew a blade. The same one she had been using to chisel away at her handcuffs. James hadn’t even noticed she’d taken it with her.

She started to move towards Jarl, and James almost let her go. The man had, after all, been a part of their parent’s deaths, even if only indirectly. It was the look on his sister’s face that uprooted him from his spot. Her expression twisted his gut. He could stomach Jarl still being alive, but he couldn’t stomach that look on her face. In a split-second decision, James tackled Celeste to the ground. She kicked, punched, and dug her nails into James’s skin in an effort to free herself and get to Jarl.

“Let go of me!” she demanded. “He deserves it!”

James clung to Celeste’s jacket, barely keeping her from breaking free. “I know. I know he deserves it, but…” How could he explain. It wasn’t about him. It was about her. “But you don’t.” James felt her struggle weaken slightly, as if she were considering his words. “You deserve better than to carry this burden—this anger. It will hurt you more than it will hurt him.” James looked up at Jarl. “And besides, the man you’re trying to kill is already dead.”

Celeste looked up at Jarl, contempt on her face, but she could see it just as James could. The man who had sat by and let their parents die, the man who had been a Diver, he was gone, killed by the sheer weight of Jarl’s self-hatred. Celeste finally stopped struggled, stood, and walked to the door.

“I’ll be outside,” she said.

James could see Jarl struggling in his chair, wanting to speak but not knowing if he had the right to. He opened and closed his mouths several times before deciding to speak.

“Every day…” Celeste stopped in the doorway but didn’t turn around. “Every day, I wish I could go back and trade places with them. Sorry will never be enough, but unfortunately it is all I have.”

Celeste stood for a moment before exiting into the hallway. James sat up, trying to come to grip with everything he’d just learned and everything that had just happened. Then, like a slap to the face, he remembered why they were here in the first place.

“Perhaps it’s not all you have,” James said. “We need your help. Both of your help. When I came back from below the clouds—”

“Wait. You actually went below the clouds!?” Bron said with concern.

“When I came back from below,” James said, again. He didn’t have time to be answering Bron’s questions. They had already wasted too much time as is. “I brought a girl with me to protect her from the fires. Shamran has her in the interrogation room. I… I think she’s important. We need to free her.”

“Does this girl have glowing eyes?” Jarl asked.

James’s eyes lit up with shock. “How did you know?”

For the first time that night, James saw Jarl’s expression sour at something that did not involve himself.

“I was hoping Shamran would never find out about them.”

“Them?” James asked.

Jarl waved away his question. “You’re right. We need to free her.

Bron rubbed his face, clearly exhausted. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me that Captain Shamran currently has a girl captive on the central ship?”

James nodded his head with exasperation. Bron turned to Jarl.

“Is she in danger?”

“I’m afraid so. He won’t kill her, but…”

The implication was clear enough for Bron. “Alright. I’ll rouse the ship and tell them the… truth of what we are. We’ll put a stop to this.”

“It’ll take too long,” James said. He didn’t care what Jarl said. If Shamran could kill his parents, then he was certainly capable of killing Kiri. “I’m going now. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

James turned to leave, but was stopped by Bron, who had stood from his chair and placed his hand on James’s shoulder.

“No. It’s too dangerous to go alone. You’ll wait for the rest of us.”

“No! I need to go. I—”

“I’ll take him,” Jarl said, standing up as well. Bron gave him a harsh look. “Just because he wouldn’t kill her doesn’t mean he wouldn’t harm her. And this will also be the easiest way to retrieve the girl.”

“And how’s that?” Bron said in a tone that shifted from sarcasm to anger.

“Because you would have to force your way in against the regulators. I, unfortunately, used to be a Diver. I can walk right in.”

Bron ground his teeth, hating himself for seeing the logic in Jarl’s words. “If anything happens—and I mean anything—”

“Nothing will. I swear it, on my life.”

A deafening silence lingered between them for a few moments until Bron nodded.