When they reach the private room, Hailey takes a good look around. She checks the lock to be sure it works in a familiar — or at least comprehensible enough — fashion and acquires a beverage.

Nope, she's definitely not nervous at all. Here she is finally trying drugs, turning out just how her relatives thought she would.

The room is a comfortable lounge with a dark wooden table, carpet you can lose your toes in, and a subtle striping pattern on the walls in cool colors, lit by recessed lights and with a plush red velvet armchair.

The lock is a sturdy looking thing with a deadbolt and a keyhole from the inside only, with a small 'C&H' engraved in it. Seems like a perfectly good lock. Both her new acquaintances.are waiting just outside.

This is a very nice room. The chair is particularly fitting, in a funny way. She locks the door, drinks some water, and gets comfortable in the chair. It's just as comfy as it looks. She dithers about making sure everything is in easy reach, but not close enough to knock over accidentally.

She spoons out one dollop of red honey and gazes at it for a moment, filled with a mix of curiosity and hesitation. This is probably not a decision she can take back.

Then she eats it.

She is a young lady named Isabelle Smith, at work as an editor for Anders & Anders Financial and Political Newsletter. Every detail of the office is bright and vivid, from the smell of soot and paper to the feel of the typewriter under her fingers to the sea of lights from the city outside the window. There is a sort of rushing, dreamlike quality to the experience. Vivid and enthralling, yet speeding by and detached. An implicit understanding of the context comes with it.

The latest article is about the devaulation of Rostygold compared to Echoes and whether this represents a long-term trend or just a short-term disturbance and what it means for London's relationship with the Devils. She has an idle thought of distaste and disquiet - They truly are from Hell, or at least a place called Hell, with all the unpleasant implications that brings. She reads the article over twice, understanding perfectly every word, and sounding them out in her head. It doesn't flow, and requires rephrasing. Ultimately, she trims it into acceptable shape for a quarter-page sidebar. Her fiancee won't be happy about that, he'll moan and complain to her later instead of letting her just focus on the date, but whose idea was it to become a writer anyway? His.

She finishes up work and walks towards a tram stationby the light of lanterns underneath a near-black sky dotted with distant stars. She keeps her hand on a hidden Derringer, weaving through mostly-empty streets. You hear stories about all sorts of ill fates, from plain muggers to urchin gangs to the face-stealing Snuffers or dream-invading creatures of Parabola... When the tram arrives she has a pleasant and distracting chat with a Rattus Faber lurking under the vehicle's little steam engine - apparently he has a deal with the tram owner, cheese and safety from the rat-hunters in exchange for maintenance. 

She arrives home to find her fiancee studying some sort of book. On the page is a large...  Sigil that hurts the eyes slightly to look at. He's with a woman she's never seen before, pale and blonde and shapely and wearing a dress cut daringly low, inviting a surge of jealousy. There is an open bottle of Greyfields shroom-wine. Voices are raised. Accusations are leveled. The strange woman openly flirts with her fiancee in front of her, and her fiancee flirts back, rambling something about 'the importance of his research', and she reaches for the concealed pistol - but turns and flees the apartment instead. She is devastated, simply devastated. Does she even actually know George? Was he always just using her? She remembers lots of little favors, strange requests, strange acquaintances of his...

They were going to marry in a month or two, but now what? Now she's going to go find Alice and have a good cry. Or maybe a rant. Her friend will know what to do about heartbreak, probably. Perhaps chocolate will be involved.

And then she is herself again, sitting in the comfortable lounge, a fading taste of direly sweet and deeply savory honey on her tongue. A heavy spoonful (of an admittedly fairly large spoon) seemed to last half an hour, somehow compressed into half a minute.

How could he—who was that bitch—should've killed him—wait she'd never seen him before—wish she had a friend like Alice—always did like Rattus Faber—she was a bitch but she was gorgeous—finance makes more sense now—favors like that are why trust is so hard—George reminds her of—

What. The hells. Was that.

Wow. The girl in the chair takes a moment to assess herself. Is she Isabelle or Hailey? She drinks some more water, then steps over to the attached bathroom. In the mirror, she sees auburn hair, green eyes, and pale skin. Hailey.

She tries to talk. "Hailey Topferin. I'm from Erebonia. I've never been to London." Her voice sounds like Hailey, but in a mix of Zemurian and English.

Languages are going to be complicated for a bit, huh.

She refills her water and goes back to the chair. Only way out is through.

She takes another spoonful.

She is on an industrial platform, spars and plates of steel sketching a skeletal arm of the new London, reaching further out into the sky. The growing mountain-city floats in the sky, slowly taking shape into a marvelous jewel of civilization. The Bazaar cheated the Empress when she sold old London, they say, and the new one is beholden only to Her Majesty's Government.

But such thoughts are distractions she can't afford right now. Two whole barrels of Hours have fallen to the industrial path with a crash, the power of bound time unraveling and aging the wood and ropes carrying them in an instant, sending the loose time falling until it landed here and formed a weft of unraveling time.

Hours, properly woven and refined, can make a day of work pass in an hour, or make one young again. She must be forty five now, but feels as spry and healthy as she did at twenty. But loose hours could trap her in an eternal moment, age her by decades, or something worse.

The bite of time is already rusting through the newly-laid street, and it's just her, Archie, and a Rattus Faber calling herself Clink. They're cut off.

It's an intense and exhausting and terrifying day of work without proper safety equipment, as the three of them build a scaffold reaching across to another under-construction spar. The steel groans as time continues to eat at it where the Hours fell. Workers on the other spar build their own bridge, meeting in the middle.

As the nearest Suns are dimming, the whole structure shudders. It's about to give way! There is a panic filled dash with Archie across the rickety improvised bridge, Clink clinging to her toolbelt. 

And she slipped and is gripping the steel with one hand and

Another hand grabs her arm and hauls her up. They made it. She sags in relief, flopping over Archie who rescued her at the last moment.

Overwhelmed in the moment, she kisses him deeply. Dead tired, running on an adrenaline high, covered in grease and sweat, Archie kisses back. It's wonderful.

The other crew gets them sorted soon enough, even as a skeletal street tumbles down into the abyss of open air until it suddenly becomes weightless according to the weird nonsense rules gravity obeys in this place. She thinks she'll sleep in Archie's bunk, today.

This job's too dangerous—this job's just dangerous enough—the Hours feel oddly familiar—Archie saved me—so that's why they like it—nnnnf.

Hailey takes a moment to fight down her blush and drinks some more water, carefully reminding herself of herself.

Then another spoonful.

She's on a boat on the sunless sea, staring at the cold stone gates. The Empress opened the Avid Horizon and now wants to rebuild the empire beyond it. The promise of money and youth as reward for the dangerous behavior is enticing - what else does she have to live for? Editing financial newsletters was simply too boring after a while.

The Sun is making the Empress regret her overreach. Its dictates were ignored, its light turned poison to Man, corrupting, maddening. Far worse than the distant light of faraway stars, which is usually only a danger out in the open sky. It curdles steel and unwinds Time. Only stained glass is an acceptable defense. And then there's a sudden, booming, echoing sense of something terrible happening - screamed in a language that does not use sound - and the sky. Darkens. Confused, awed, and terrified Londoners stumble into the streets to stare at the dimming star in the distance, and the gaping, ragged hole in its body. They should be cheering at the victory, but few are.

She is on a rickety locomotive wending its way through the Reach. Everything she has ever tried in her life fell away from her sooner or later. A comfortable editorial job, the friends and youth and money from her work in London, her homestead, her husband, the prospect of children. May as well go to Titania, and try to create something beautiful before her life is taken by one of the thousand nameless dangers in the sky.

The Clockwork Sun was the most ambitious project yet. She never did know the high-level plans, the mysterious mechanisms at work on the heart of the grand machine, but it's painfully clear that something has gone terribly wrong. The artificial star, churning and clanking and rotating as a mechanical titan, has turned on its creators. Prolonged exposure turns flesh and steel and stone to vitrified crystalline glass.

She is dreadfully bored. Sitting in a bar in Port Avon, morosely regarding her drink. She couldn't stand the Ministries, too stodgy and rule-bound and persnickety. She doesn't want to be a sky-sailor - she has read the survival statistics for those, the many and varied horror stories in penny dreadfuls. What is a good medium between the two extremes? Drugs? Crime? Homesteading? Art? Licentiousness? Bah! For now she will burn away her money and time with the former and the latter.

The flora of the Reach is erratic. Their entire crop has sprouted into sudden gigantism, a forest of thick, thorny branches and vines. Nothing edible anywhere in sight. Perhaps they can kill a Cantankeri with some clever improvisation of weaponry, and subsist on whatever fragments of meat lie beneath its hard shell. Probably not. They'll have to work hard to clear it all and buy food from passing traders with their meager savings...

She is - oh my, Archie is rather skilled with his tongue. Warm bodies cuddled close for warmth in a rustic bedroom. Hands playing all over her, love, love for the dependable, funny, utterly undaunted when he needs to be, Archie. Maybe she'll get pregnant again, maybe the baby will make it to term this time- Mmmm.

She is discussing the Blue Kingdom with an acquaintance in the bar. The realm of the dead? Truly? What does that mean for Christianity, then- Ah, but he is not a priest. Perhaps she should go find one, but priests are precious and rare these days. It sounds even less friendly than distant dark Eleutheria, filled with light-hating ancient things, though.

She is standing at the highest reaches of the Brabazon Workworld, staring down at the labyrinth of industrial might before them. It will employ tens of thousands, and produce enough goods to satiate London's teeming masses - and then some. She points out particular factories and cranes and loading bays to her crew, smiling as they remember what a pain that particular task was and joking about how the other crews must have cut corners to meet the deadlines.

She was too slow to realize it, but the thing living with her is not Archie anymore. It was probably that fungus they burned. Fire is supposed to cure all ills, but the fungus of the Reach is devilishly tricky. Now his head is misshappen, his eyes distant, his personality shifting even as he continues cooking dinners. She doesn't eat them. She surreptitiously goes into the basement to load her shotgun...

Faster her mind whirls through the memories, flash after flash, spoonful after spoonful. Chasing freedom and activity and purpose—what is her life worth without—that's what we get for rebelling—freedom in the dark—all falls down—that's what she gets for her freakish ways—what hath thou wrought—she should've expected this—what next, what next, always another what next—of course booze doesn't fix it—nothing else fixed it either—hard on the farm but worthy—oh Archie—yes more yes—more things in Heaven and Earth—this is a long way from either of them—how satisfying to have built this—did it together—clearly can't have nice things—should've known better—oh no Archie—

And then there's a girl. More than she was before, more life crammed into her, more pain, memories not her own. Isabelle deserved better, she thinks. Isabelle built this place, she lived and laughed and cried and loved, and she deserves to be remembered for it. A single tear rolls down her cheek, the first she's cried in years.

She slows her breathing, drinks her water, and heads to the sink to wash her face. A hollow look greets her in the mirror. Are all lives out here so brutal? Are they all so rich with feeling? Are they all so hard-lived and long-loved? No way to know. But she'll remember Isabelle.

Hailey checks her gear and unlocks the door, filled with stolen recognition as she steps into the hall.

The Erratic Linguist stops her pacing and rounds on her. "Are you okay?"

The Unscrupulous Sculptor, Clarence, is not in the hall.

Is she okay? Nothing's the same, to be sure, but...

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm... More than I was. But I'm still Hailey. Still the Erebonian girl, still the daughter of Bracers. We can still take time to teach you Zemurian."

She gives the Linguist a soft smile. "Thank you for the concern, the care. It's more than I deserve."

"You are Erebonian? You are a Bracer? Well that's an interesting claim isn't it, that it's more than you deserve. Quite a philosophical weight, judging what one deserves. How well do you understand English now? I was uncertain about this plan... I know people who have acquired skills through red honey, but..." She shivers.

"I am not a Bracer, but both of my parents were," she corrects. "And far better than I ought. I think my word choice picked up a fair bit of hers in the process, but that's a small price to pay for the range of hazards I've seen through her eyes."

A faint frown twists her lips. "My parents were the good ones, though the relatives who raised me paid their memories no respect. I'm just a troublemaker of a girl who doesn't know when to quit."

"That sounds like half the sky-captains I've ever seen, and they're what keeps civilization tied together in the sky. Hazards, indeed. How foreign must you be, I wonder? Erebonian is never seen before. I can tell because- Ah, because of what sounds it prefers and how you are structuring things. Languages evolve. This one has no relative I know of, though perhaps the library will show me something of it."

"Zemurian is the language, Zemuria is the land, Erebonian is the nationality, Erebonia is the nation. I am Erebonian, I speak Zemurian," she corrects. She repeats this in English. "What you say of the evolution of languages... It's not something I've studied in school, maybe we would've covered it later in the... curriculum, but it makes sense when you describe it. I'd love to know what you find in the library. Might have a clue toward where home is from here."

A wistful look crosses her face, softening her perpetual wariness. "Keeping civilization tied together... I hope I can live up to that kind of contribution. It reminds me a bit of the role the Bracers Guild played back home. They had branches all across the land — not just in Erebonia, but in neighboring countries as well — and they were the neutral party, the ones who stood apart from the in-fighting of the nobles and looked out for the civilians. Of course, the nobles wouldn't stand for that, and had most of the branches closed."

As if a freakish disappointment like her could hold anything together...

"A separate power structure from an entrenched upper class being removed, how surprising. But an international commission of some kind, hmm? Interesting. Be careful if you ever visit the Royal Society-" (The university for the modern age, her stolen memories tell her.) "-In Titania we're more, shall we say, flighty, and more about art than history and anthropology and the practical sciences. There would be thousands trying to monopolize your time and understanding there, though."

"If anyone gets to publish a paper or three about my language and whence I came, it's you. You've demonstrated some measure of concern for my well-being, and something about the Royal Society gives me the impression that they'll be far more impersonal about it."

Whence? Since when does she say whence? Since Isabelle gave her a language, one supposes.

"I suppose the Sculptor wandered off, our business done? Guess I have some decisions to make about where to go from here, and what my next steps ought to be."

"I get the impression all he cares about is Sovereigns. -Oh, I haven't told you my name. It's Cherie. I don't exactly like the 'Erratic' 'descriptor, but it is, well, accurate. Zemurian is good but I will be want something else soon. It's just how I am."

"It's good to make your acquaintance, Cherie. I wonder, everyone seems to have an alternate name of some sort. Is there some significance?"

Nothing seems to rattle out of her thought-thievery at first glance.

"It's a- Hm. Cultural affectation? Famous, important, or accomplished people often have additional titles to show off their accomplishments. Eventually it sort of spread, and now it's fashionable to have a title in the form adjective-noun no matter who you are. You have some amount of control over your own. Her Eternal Majesty was once - not anymore - referred to as the Traitor Empress. There are various theories about the origin! A brief fascination with a historical period of the nation of Nippon on the old Surface, where one changes names after achieving power. The seekers of the Name on the sunless sea made it a good idea to not spread your own too widely. An idea briefly spread that the Devils have some power over you if they know your name, which we now know to be utterly false. For Devils in particular, at least."

"Huh. I suppose I should shape it around what I expect to be doing then, or how I want people to think of me. And that's its own set of issues. I don't think I could settle down very well, even if well paid. On the other hand, communities like this clearly do need protectors."

"Titania is far from the big guns and professional soldiers on purpose, really. London's authority doesn't quite reach here, not fully. And we like it that way."

Hailey nods slowly. "It's understandable. As much as additional fighters could help, they'd not be worth the cost in regulation and restriction the Crown would impose. And independent fighters are harder to find. The stationary life doesn't call me though, I think, even though there's good to be done here and freedom this far out."

"Best find yourself a locomotive to join, when you're ready to move on, then. Hiking down the stem will get you nowhere fast. I'd like to learn as much as I can about your language first of course!"

With a nod and a shy smile, Hailey responds, "Yeah, I really ought to pass by the station, see what's available. I don't think I'm ready to head out quite yet, though. I'd definitely like to spend some time seriously teaching you more Zemurian, and maybe you could show me around Titania?"

With a glance to her bag of bottled nectar, she chuckles softly, "And of course I probably ought to turn this into a less sticky and more liquid form of wealth."