As the fair wound down and people trickled away, Vonn had a big supply of that drive-belt cloth to unpack. He'd have to figure out whether to continue making crude toothed belts or just rely on the material's friction...

Selen came in, saying, "You didn't take care of it?"

"I talked with the Reeve and then told the kid to come talk to you."

"He didn't. I think the con men just left."

"I wish he'd listened, then."

Selen spread her wings, saying, "Aren't we going to go after them?"

"And do what? Kidnap him because you think he'd be better off with your family?"

"He would be! You said yourself those two are criminals who'll probably ditch him as soon as their traveling science fair stops drawing crowds."

"Good that I taught them a few new tricks, then." Vonn shrugged. "We can't fix everything, Selen. If you had snatched him away, what do you think the men would've done? Besides try to get back at us?"

Selen glared at him. But she did stop to think before answering. "Probably pick up some other handy orphan."

"Exactly. In the absence of proof the scaly kid was actually being abused, he might even be better off bumming around on the river than getting the unpaid internship treatment at the Two Hoots."

She sputtered. "We do pay the kids who work for us! My parents took me in when I was scared and hungry and... well, even in this life, I..." She sank into a chair, resting her beak on her hands. "I feel like I remember being adopted the first time."

Vonn sat beside her. "I get echoes, maybe, of the old Vonn. It's good to have that other perspective. Especially given what old-Selen lived through, I can understand wanting to help out when you see someone in a bad situation."

"I was lucky to get found by a good family, in both lives."

He put a hand on her knee, where feathers met bird scales. "How is the dyeworks coming along? Not the business itself, I mean, but the influence of it."

She sighed and leaned closer. "Stressful. I was used to working under some professor or my family, and now I have the Duke's men watching me. But we're making money and I've hired a few people. Between the dyes and basic potion ingredients and other gimmicks like photography, people are starting to pay attention in a good way. Ralator, obviously. But I've got several villages where people are learning to read and they know I care about them. Helping one tiny corner of one kingdom is a good start, right?"

"We have time to do more and more."

"I guess so. But my purpose here isn't technology, it's creating a better society. Sometimes that does mean rescuing people one at a time."

Vonn nodded. "I'll try not to lose sight of that. For now, Birb's taking Liberty Bell east with a merchant tomorrow, and I'm nervous. Think you can spare the time to tag along partway?"

She started to answer, but the shop's door burst open and Polestar bounded in dangerously, prancing. "She said yes!"

"Who?"

"Ashfall! I get to have a wife!"

Vonn and Selen got up to congratulate him.

#

Birb set out with a merchant and the Liberty Bell, lifting off to go east through the sky. Vonn looked up and worried. But Birb had experience and had been itching to do a commercial flight. She'd even gotten a scarf matching Selen's. The adventurous trader looked excited but Vonn had double-checked his harness. In hindsight he should've added a carabiner ring with multiple attachment points.

Tazo stood beside him. "What're you thinking about?"

"Better ways to do it."

She giggled. "Figures. I'm going to spend a few days on magic, while we wait."

With the fair over, Vonn had sent an estimated profit statement to the Baron. He'd bought cloth for balloons and airplane wings and machine belts, but sold motor rafts and pinball machines and joyrides. A good haul overall, with resources for more.

Vonn's main work over the next few days was to oversee more construction of pressure tanks. With the weekly quota met he focused on another airship of the Liberty Bell class. That meant working with the same grey-haired Human shipwright as before, a man who still seemed baffled by suddenly becoming a specialist in a boat not meant for water. The design didn't even have a solid plank bottom. "I'll get my son another Craftsman level out of this," he said. Vonn checked back frequently to take measurements and scold them about a missing reinforcement and so on.

While he and the apprentices fooled around with control systems and instruments, Tazo was out walking the earth. She carried her new staff around and as she moved, she stirred currents of Mana with it. Vonn insisted on following her for a little while since she was beginning her work near the dungeon badlands, and he still didn't trust the place. The work involved coaxing the dark stone ground to extend and copy its texture along her path. A road of sorts, just one pace wide for now, rippled up beneath her boots. She could only do a short distance without resting but said it was great practice. At least until she got bored and had to push to keep going. The result would eventually be a road heading into town, and it'd be better quality than that of a wizard who didn't understand drainage or friction.

Recently, surveyors from the Baron had done the tedious preparation work using what Vonn recognized as basically the Roman method. Get up at dawn, hold a cross-like staff with a weighted string dangling from one arm, and squint at it while an apprentice moved back and forth trying to line up a brightly colored pole with the rising sun. Then do it again and again, creating stone markers in a straight east-west line. But they weren't making much use of concrete in this world yet, nor large road construction crews. In a way, the river was holding back infrastructure.

Tazo worked to improve it. But Vonn pulled her away from that duty just days later, to set sail again.