“Correction,” Lopen said. “Huio was playing with them. I was being a responsible cousin and making fun of him for doing so.”

“Right,” Rushu said. “So Huio is solely to blame for this genius discovery, then.”

“He exactly is . . .” Lopen paused. “Genius?”

“Genius?” Huio asked.

“He left a bit of foiled aluminum in the mechanism,” Rushu said. “And it is interfering with the conjoined rubies in a fascinating way.” She scooted back from Rysn’s chair, then stood up and waved into the distance.

Rysn’s chair shook.

“Oh!” Rushu said. “This is another part I should have explained first, isn’t it? Navani would be so upset with me. The rubies are connected to a chain and anchor—not the main anchor, don’t panic! We don’t want to send you into the stratosphere. Look over there, at that tree. See it? I had the sailors bring out one of the smaller anchors and tie it to ropes hung from branches.”

In the distance, a sailor waved toward them. Rysn could make out a small anchor hanging from the tree nearby. Rushu pointed up into the air, and the sailors did something with the rope—

Rysn’s chair lurched into the air about two feet. She cried out, grabbing the armrests. Chiri-Chiri finally woke up on the stone nearby, raising her head and chirping.

“It feels unsteady,” Rysn said. “Should it wobble like this?”

“No,” Rushu said, but she was grinning. “Huio, do you realize what you have done?”

“Make . . . wobbles?” he said. Then his eyes opened wide. “It wobbles! Wobbles—side-to-side!” He let out an exclamation in Herdazian that Rysn didn’t understand, then grabbed Rushu’s hand, barely able to contain his excitement.

Lopen folded his arms as he sat. “Will someone please explain how these wobbles are so entrancing?” He gyrated his hips. “They do look fun, mind you. The Lopen approves of wobbling.”

“If I may touch your chair, Brightness?” Rushu asked. “And nudge you to the side?”

“Go ahead,” Rysn said.

Rushu gently pushed Rysn’s chair—and it moved. She drifted a few feet to the side.

“This is supposed to be impossible!” Rysn said. “You said—”

“Yes,” Rushu said. “Conjoined rubies are supposed to match each other’s movement exactly. To move you two feet to the left, we should be required to move that anchor two feet to the right—which we aren’t doing.”

Rysn hovered there, trying to figure out the implications.

Huio said something in Herdazian and put a hand to his head, and two awespren in a row burst behind him. “It changes . . . all things.”

“Well, maybe not all things,” Rushu said. “But yes. This is important. Rysn, the aluminum is interfering with the mechanism, making the conjoinment uneven. The paired rubies still transfer vertical movement, but not lateral movement. So you will go up and down with the motion of the anchor, but then can move laterally in any direction you want.”

“I need a pole,” Rysn said, waving. “To see if I can do it on my own.”

The Lopen found a branch for her from among some fallen limbs nearby. She used it to steady herself, then—biting her lip—she heaved against the rocks.

It worked. She soared a few feet through the air, as if she were gliding across water in her own personal gondola. She had to stop with the branch, because once she got going, there wasn’t a lot to slow her except air resistance.

She tried to turn the chair around, but it resisted spinning. She was able to manage it only with some effort, then she poled back near her original spot.

“Hmmm,” Rushu said. “You had to turn the anchor to spin. The mechanism must still have rotation conjoined; perhaps by experimenting with the aluminum we can fix that. At any rate, this is an amazing development.”

“You’re saying,” the Lopen said, standing, “that by breaking your fabrial, Huio fixed it also?”

“More science happens through lucky accidents than you’d believe, Radiant Lopen,” Rushu said. “It makes me wonder how many amazing innovations we’ve passed up because we were searching for something else, and didn’t realize what we’d done.

“There’s a chance I wouldn’t have understood the value in what Radiant Huio did if I hadn’t been thinking specifically about Brightness Rysn’s chair. As it was, when he brought me the broken spanreed, it was curiosity about her predicament that made me . . . Brightness? Are you well?”

They both looked to Rysn, who had been struggling to keep her composure as they chatted. She finally failed, and the tears started flowing. Chiri-Chiri chirped and leaped up, flapping her wings to help her get high enough to grab the chair with her mouth. Rysn scooped her up with one arm, holding to the branch with the other.

“I am well,” she said with as much dignity as she could manage through the tears and the joyspren. “I just . . .” How could she explain? She’d tasted freedom, something forbidden her for two years. Everyone else pranced around without ever having to worry they were a burden to others. Never remaining in the same place—when they longed to move around—because they didn’t want to be a bother. They didn’t know what they had. But Rysn knew exactly what she’d lost.

“Hey,” Lopen said, taking the arm of the chair to steady it. “Feels good, I bet. You deserve this, gancha.”

“How can you know that?” Rysn said. “We’ve known each other for only a few weeks.”

“I’m a good judge of character,” Lopen said, with a grin. “Besides. Everyone deserves this.” He nodded to her, and a little windspren—in the shape of a one-armed youth—wandered through the air over to Lopen. Or . . . no, it wasn’t a windspren. Something else.

A Radiant spren. It was the first time one had appeared to her, and this one bowed in a very official-seeming way. Then he broke into several copies, which all raised hands to wave at her.

“Forgive Rua,” Lopen said. “He’s a bit weird.”

“I . . . Thank you, Rua,” she said.

“I’m going to have to remove those gems on the chair for now, Brightness,” Rushu said. “We’ll need to use at least three for stability in the future, and I’ll want to strengthen the housings. After that, we’ll want to rig a way for you to order the anchor raised and lowered somewhere on the ship, so you can hover or not with a command.”

“Yes, of course,” Rysn said, but she clung to Chiri-Chiri as she was forced back to the mundane ground, the precious gemstones stolen away. She could bear it. Something better was coming. She saw independence, and it was glorious. Even if she could merely move about the deck of the ship on her own, pulling herself along the railing, it would be a huge improvement.

And the people who had helped her so much via spanreed over the past few months? Gifting her the equipment they’d developed, urging her toward self-sufficiency? She would soon have a repayment for them. Oh, storms would she.

“Guess this will mean putting me out of a job,” Nikli said, walking over.

Rysn felt a spike of worry for him. “For now this will only get me around the ship—if it ends up working. I suspect I’ll have need of your strong arms for some time yet, Nikli.”