Baron Locke was a broad shouldered, hirsute man as tanned as an ox hide. He looked like he would have been more comfortable on riding into battle than having a meeting with hours devoirs and chilled beer. Everything about him, his air and breeding seemed at odds with that of my grandfather, though I had a sense that the two did have an understanding.

Lao Longue was crinkled like a discarded poem, the only smooth skin on his body was the very top of his head where wisps of white hair grew like the roots of mushrooms. He was shorter than me, hunched from an old sailing injury that had left him with a lifetime of pain between his shoulders. Grandfather wore it lightly, bestowing me with a beatific smile as he entered the room and moved to stand at the baron's shoulder.

"I've missed you," he said amiably.

I stood to bow. "Grandfather, it is my great joy to see you well. It has been too long." It had been years. I'd been scarcely more than a girl when I'd seen him last.

"And you are my great joy," he said, an old joke that belonged in the nursery, though it warmed me still. He hadn't adopted Kantonese attire, opting instead for a traditional black gi with white cuffs and collar.

"Now that we are all present," Locke said, "we can discuss the future."

Thomas nodded, he had a better idea of what this meeting was about than I did. Locke went on, "The High King insists that princess Joi be married and returned to Euphoria as soon as possible. He doesn't know you're here yet, but the message is already on wing, and I see no reason to delay. The only question is whether to hold the wedding immediately, or to send you home first so the nuptials can be there."

That was the only question? "I understand my father's impatience," I said, "but I have business to finish before I return to the mountain."

"And that is?"

Thomas spoke for me. "We are looking for the Lost Kingdom, she believes there is knowledge there that could be of use to her people."

Grandfather Lao tugged at a few strands of white hair that hung from his chin down to his chest. "I'm familiar with the subject, but your father's wishes supercede your curiosity."

"Quite right," Locke said. "I'm of a mind to send you home first, especially seeing that Lao and his airship are already here and willing to serve the purpose."

My grandfather nodded. "I would welcome the opportunity to spend time with my granddaughter." He gave me a pointed look, "There is much for us to discuss."

"Then it's settled," Locke said. "The High King will have his daughter back and I my peace of mind."

There were a few more minutes of pleasantries but Locke was bored with it all and clearly only bothering on account of my status. Thomas was markedly subdued, accepting his baron's authority completely and without complaint. He would go where he was told to go, and marry when he was told to marry, because that is what his oaths demanded of him, and there was nothing higher than the law.

Though no such rule was made explicit, I wasn't allowed to wander unescorted. Several soldiers shadowed me as I sought out my friends and told them the news. This put them in an awkward position, as Castor's money was gone and I had none to give them, but Thomas considered them a part of my retinue and said he'd credit them until their standing was worked out in Euphoria and I could pay the balance.

Marisa hugged me, and Havella told me she still expected to be compensated for her books and cart. Tokar was shifty about whether he planned on going back to Gracia immediately, and I gathered there were circumstances to discuss with Marisa first. I was happy for them.

My parting with the Baker was strangest of all, for he took me aside to give some paternal advice. His tone was serious, and he squinted so that his eyes disappeared into the cracks and shadows of his brow.

"You don't give an eff what they say. Find your effin secret island. Eff them."

"Thank you," I said.

When we were done, there was nothing left but to be escorted to Grandfather Lao's airship. It's name was the Magic Carp, and it was twenty feet from bow to stern, built like the longship except for the hut where the mast would be on a real sailboat. It was moored to the scaffolding that laddered up one side of the bluff, gently rocking in the currents of the wind.

"Hello, granddaughter," he said.

"Hello, Grandfather," I bowed.

We boarded, untied the ship and sat in the cabin. It was open front and back, the curtains drawn aside, and had small windows in the centers of both walls. An iron compass was set into the table between us, and when he touched it, the arrow began to spin out questions.

Grandfather answered them expertly, and the Magic Carp maneuvered into the sky, walking the thermals up like stepping stones, angling for the clouds. Grandfather had been piloting since before even my father was born, and he could coax the ship into feats that were beyond me.

"What do you call your daemon?" He asked.

"Hikami," I said.

"Do you understand its significance?"

Hikami twisted uneasily. "I think of him as a friend."

"Yes, I think of my ship as a friend as well, but it isn't really true."

"Because she is your servant."

"Because spirits are not whole beings," my grandfather could communicate with Magic Carp through the compass using only part of his attention, but here his hand stopped moving the arrow. "They have inclinations, not full personalities. As we communicate with them, they become more like us, but without us, they are only wind and rain."

Hikami pooled into the crook of my arm like a contented cat, either not caring or not aware that his kind was under discussion.

"What about Ahriman?"

"He is no simple daemon, he has amassed so much thought and will over the centuries that he had become a god. Have you not felt his presence on your journey?"

A slick, red thing that had once been human. "There have been misfortunes," I said. This was not the time to speak of that, it might never be the time.

His ancient eyes were quiet, calm, and kind. "I understand why you ran," he said. "You were not the first to run. Have you seen enough of the world to understand why our realm is so unique?"

"I think I have."

"But you have not accepted Ahriman."

"I think there is another way to protect our people."

"You think there is a better means, than by the sacrifice of one life, to preserve our kingdom and all who dwell there?" It sounded like a genuine question.

"I do."

"How?"

"There is another god, one that even Ahriman fears."

"And you believe the price will be no greater? Or is it that you believe the cost will be less only for you. Is that what this is about?"

Ahriman's words came back to me as if he were riding in the cabin with us.

"You will find her price far greater than mine." Spoken through my sister's lips, I would not give voice to the Lord of Misfortune here.

"I don't know what it will cost, but I know that the life of an innocent child is too much to pay."

"Why? Did your tutors not teach you anything? The greatest good for the greatest many, that is the way of our people. Ahriman dictates the fortunes of our nation, and thereby abjures all misfortunes. We do not war or hunger. Crimes of passion are a rare tragedy, not the rule, for Ahriman knows the paths of the shadow and sets them right. All this, against one life."

"One innocent."

"What does it matter? How can one life, however pure, be worth more than a hundred or a thousand lives? Without Ahriman, Euphoria could not exist. We would be unable to support ourselves, no doubt swallowed up by Kanto like all those lesser kingdoms."

"In Kanto, they believe one's duty to the law is higher than any consequence."

"And do you believe it?"

I thought of Thomas, ready to follow me to the end of the earth when he was allowed, unable to take a single step without permission. I thought of him prepared to see me killed rather than give in to Makoto's intimidations.

"No. I don't believe they're right either."

"Then what do you believe?"

"In Gracia, they would ask what a hero had done in legend, and follow her example. When my hair was red, they said I looked like Aurelia."

"And what would she do?"

"I don't know, show courage, I suppose."

"There are many forms of courage. If we are to take our heroes as examples, there is much room for interpretation. You could justify most anything that way. Is Gracia just, as you see justice?"

Not the poor sleeping in the streets of the Narrows, and not the trial that had almost made Havella a slave. "They speak of justice," I said, "but I don't believe they know her face."

"Then what does that leave you with. The greatest good, no?"

I stood up and went to the prow. We had reached the clouds, trails of snowy cirrus like white rivers in the sky, and his ship rode them easily. We were still a long way from the Atlan mountains, I could not even see them.

"Grandfather," I said, "I am not satisfied. Not with Kanto or Gracia, not with our own kingdom. They all fall short." I touched Hikami, who clung to my vest in spite of the signs sewn there that should have had him sliding off like insults to a stone. There is something more to the human spirit I do not understand." I took Hikami in my hands, turned and offered him up. "Look at my daemon, he has no place in our lore. How do you explain him?"

Grandfather Lao had not risen. "I admit, I can't. He should not be visible outside of a physical vessel. If he is a flame spirit, he should only possess flames, not appear as a flame himself without heat."

"There is too much we don't know."

"Perhaps."

"I can't go back yet."

"Your father would forbid it."

"What does it matter what he forbids!" My frustrstion boiled over, I'd come too far to turn back now. "If what I do is for the greater good, then we must follow where it leads. Is that not what you meant for me to learn from my tutors?"

"Is this for good, or for your good?"

"You left Euphoria! You left us. Why? I know our deal with Ahriman does not sit right with you. We can't have bargained with evil without becoming tainted ourselves."

"Ahriman is not evil," Grandfather Lao said, "he is a natural force." But I could see I had touched him.

"Go with me to the Lost Kingdom," I said. "We have a ship that rides the air, there is no risk we will not make it safely. If there is nothing to learn, I swear I will return without protest."

Grandfather was silent for a while. He looked tired. "It is a bargain," he said.

Grandfather operated the compass until the Magic Carp had veered around and we were headed for the westernmost edge of the Kanto region. I had the little book of otherworldly maps to help us, and Grandfather had an atlas of his own to compare it to. We hardly needed a reference, he'd been sailing the skies for decades and knew what every coast looked like from above.

"I have been there before," he said.

"The Forgotten Strait?"

"Yes. When I was young I found a cache of forbidden books in the library, I don't think you would be on this journey if you hadn't found it as well."

"I did." It was strange to think of him as a young man studying diagrams at the same tables I had, but of course, every generation did just the same. How many others had there been who questioned the order in Euphoria? How many had decided it was better to let their questions lie?

"I should have destroyed it. But my curiosity had the better of me. When I'd grown old and passed the burden of leadership onto your father, I vowed to visit all the secret places in the world, and I've seen many. But the land you seek no longer exists. I've sailed over every square mile of the sea beyond that coast, and I find nothing but the waves."

"I have to see it for myself."

For two days, we sailed in pleasant conversation, reminiscing about his journeys since leaving Euphoria behind. There is nothing I like better than being in the sky, I'd even missed the biting cold, and the peace of the open air was enough to restore some of what I'd lost to the Skin Hunters. The cloudscapes of the heavens are equalled by no stretch of land or sea.

The edge of the known world slowly became visible as it gave way to blue -green vastness. We were so high that buildings and whole villages were little more than discolorations of the soil, but as the salt of the sea began to saturate the air Grandfather left the clouds and we began to lose altitude.

"You can see the strait already," he said, "look where the shore cuts out and back again, beyond that is the strait that once separated this land from the Lost Kingdom."

"Then we must cross the water. You can sail us where the kingdom used to be, can't you?"

"I've told you, there is nothing there."

"I believe you, but please humor me."

We lowered until the Magic Carp was following the crazy zig zag path of an albatross catching columns of warm air. I picked a small carving knife from grandfather's collection and took off my vest. He was so focused on guiding the ship, he did not notice what I was doing until I'd stepped up on the prow.

"Joi? Get down from there!" It was like he thought I was a little girl again, being careless with the sky.

I kicked of my sandals and jumped. We were about fifteen feet above the water, a paltry height for one accustomed to the clouds, and I fell with my legs straight out below me, hitting the waves like an arrow.

It was colder than I expected. There's a difference between the cold of the skies and of the seas, the water clings to you, suffocates you with its cold, threatening to squeeze out your breath as it steals the succor of your clothes. I slowed in my descent, reached a sort of equilibrium, and Hikari gave me a few feet of murky visibility. The water didn't affect him at all, he truly wasn't a fire spirit.

I couldn't feel the knife gripped in my hand, and it felt like a pinch when I drug it over my other palm. Blood plumed out in a cloud, and I experienced it as a living extension of myself.

WHY HAVE YOU COME?

It was so dark beyond the pale relief of my daemon's glow that the sky had disappeared along with up and down. I needed to breathe, to swim to the surface and refill my lungs but I was suddenly spinning and confused. The water was moving. The blood from my hand wasn't behaving like it should, it was coalescing into joints and lines in the water like a web of carmine veins.

WHY HAVE YOU COME?

I didn't know how to answer, the voice was all around me, and to open my mouth would be to give up the last seconds of my life. My feet hit bottom, and the water receded. I was encapsulated in an shell of air barely large enough to stand in. Rugged, black stone scraped the skin of my toes, and unguessable shapes hovered close to the edge of the grey green border of the water.

"Honorable Deep Ones," I said. "Please forgive my intrusion into your realm."

WHY HAVE YOU COME?

"I come in search of the Lost Kingdom, once ruled by Leethia, and stolen by her brother."

WHAT DO YOU OFFER?

"What do you ask of me?"

"LIFE AND DEATH."

This plan was embryonic, it had formed over the last two days as we flew, and I had no idea if it would work.

"Does the Prince of Worms still reign?"

HE DOES.

"Then I will deliver him to you, after he answers my questions."

AND IF YOU FAIL?

"I have only myself to offer." It was my choice. I was not going to give up another child to Ahriman, I was not going to gamble with any life other than my own. There was no other way.

The silence was so oppressive I thought I had been refused. "I am the heir of Euphoria, and will be High King one day if I return. I will be a useful to you when I am strong, if you aid me now when I am weak."

"YOUR FIRST OFFER, WE ACCEPT."

The capsule of air collapsed, and the ocean swallowed me.