She stays in his sight for the most part, then.

After a short while she goes looking for the starglass book.

His study is locked.

But he deliberately left it out in the kitchen for her, apparently.

The first chapter talks about what Starglass even is, how to tell what's star- and what's regular- glass, and the most common uses it has. The second chapter appears to be about chemistry. Or maybe physics. Seems to be about why Starglass is so special.

The third chapter starts listing tools and materials you'll need to work with Starglass.

Third chapter seems good!

It's all rather complicated, apparently.

Darn.

She tries anyway, hoping she'll be able to derive some of the practical concepts involved.

There's... Heating! And mixing. And careful timing, and lots of math.

She feels like she needs to make notes.

Is Nick still busy? She'd like to ask him for some paper and writing utensils.

His busy-ness seems to have settled down to a low constant of piloting the ship and making notes in his logs. Though he looks sleepy.

"Hey," she says, trying not to startle him. "… I don't suppose you have any paper, something to write with?"

"Paper's not free - but fair enough." He pulls a sheet out of a binder and hands her a pencil.

She takes it and shrugs. "I'm sure we can pay you, if it's that expensive."

"Five pages for a gram of copper's the going rate, generally. You won't necessarily break the bank."

She shrugs again. "See you later."

"Yep."

And back to flying the ship.

And a few hours later, Akien appears!

"Morning."

"Hm? I suppose it is. I should probably sleep at some point."

He looks out a window. "… You probably should, if you've been up all this time, yeah."

"Getting us far far away from our pirate friends. You two content to let the autopilot run while I sleep, or should I set down somewhere?"

"… Autopilot being as it sounds? I don't think we mind too much."

"Yeah, it heads in a straight line and tries to avoid obstacles. Records our course too. Very fancy."

"Huh, cool. Anyway, yeah, go ahead."

He sets a tower of gears clicking and spinning. The controls adjust themselves minutely. "See you around noon. Please don't turn that off."

"Wasn't planning on it. – Oh, actually, hold on a minute?"

He gets the same thing out of his bag as before, the bracelet.

"Looking at my chi, lack thereof, again?

"Am now!" he says, eyes glowing blue. "… Yep, continues to look less like a lack thereof."