The northern spire was a lonely place, with a romantic view of the forest ringing the Academy for Magitech Talents that was perfect for confessing love, contemplating what to eat for dinner, or for tossing the pages of a rejected research proposal, which was what Finality was doing now.

"Get out, and take my suffering with you!" she cried, flinging her arms wide. The wind picked up, sending some of the pages fluttering back into her face. She was too tired and upset to sigh, so she sat down, gathered the papers that had come back to her, and crumbled them up before throwing them.

She heard footsteps behind her and wondered if some professor was about to scold her for littering, but at this point, her capacity to care was just about spent. She waited, watching her discarded papers vanish into the trees.

"Do you think I should do the same?" a voice asked behind her. "Or do you think the weight of two individual's crushed dreams would be too dramatic for one evening?"

Finality turned around. The speaker was someone she had seen in some of her general classes, a Mycelonian who seemed competent enough from what little she knew about him. He had a reedy build, taller than she was by a head, and the fungus growing between the seams of his uniform glowed a soft blue-green. The hyphae on his head was thick enough to pass for off-white hair, which amused her a little bit because it was a lot like hers. She stood, dusting off her pants.

"Maybe you ought to save that paper for something useful instead. Feed a furnace spirit, maybe."

"That would be an appropriate end for my proposal, considering the subject," he said, sighing. "It had to do with service spirits - elementals in particular."

"Ah," she said. "No wonder your proposal got rejected."

"Seyclite is a...very conservative planet about service spirits, I've discovered," he said, frowning. "Even the Elemental research program here is stuffed full of archaic ideas about them."

"Yes, well, the Intradimensional Travel program isn't much better," Finality said. She spent some time folding one of her papers into an airplane so it could sail further when she threw it. The Mycelonian allowed her the moment, watching the airplane as it coasted away from them.

"I don't think we've met. My name is Veit," he said, holding out a heavily-gloved hand. She clasped it and gave it a modest shake. The glove was made of kiryan polymer, which made it a little stiff, but at least she didn't have to fear any spores getting on her skin or any hyphae eating at her.

"A pleasure. I'm Finality Weissritter."

He blinked a few times, as if taking her in for the first time. She had to suppress a sigh. "...Weissritter?" he asked.

She took a deep breath in and out, waiting for the usual spiel. Weissritter? Surely you mean Weissmagier? You are the very picture of one! White hair, delicate features...aren't the Weissritters big-boned?

"I am only familiar with the Weissgartners," Veit said. "Where are the Weissritters from?"

Finality was not expecting that particular response, and it took her a moment to answer. "Most of the Weissritters are on Maclaod," she said.

"Ah. I've never been there," he said. "Seyclite is the first planet I've been to outside my colony."

"Eh. It's full of grass and horses. Things Weissritters are supposed to love," she said, folding another airplane. "It's very boring, though."

"Can you hit the south spire with that?"

Finality thought this was a decent challenge, especially with the wind. She threw the airplane in a long, looping arc. It came close to grazing the south spire, but veered off as the wind picked up.

"Close!" Veit said. "You have a good eye though."

"Yep, a whole one of them," she said dryly, adjusting her hair over her eyepatch.

Veit fiddled with his papers uneasily. Finality shrugged to show she wasn't upset.

"Mind telling me what your proposal was about?" he asked.

"Sure. You're probably smarter than the head of my department anyway," she said, having a seat. He folded his legs in an awkward heap nearby. He reached into his book bag and took out a mason jar that seemed to be full of water. She blinked at it for a moment before speaking up. "You haven't taken any courses on interplanetary travel, have you?"

"Nope. Never thought it was very interesting, personally," he said nonchalantly, but without any malice.

Part of Finality wanted to protest that last part, but she quieted that notion by clearing her throat. "So...what do you know about the astral ferry?"

"It has stops on every planet in the system," Veit said. "And the ticket from Teonus to Seyclite was about half my scholarship."

"Well, around 200 years ago, that ticket would have been much cheaper. The trip would have been shorter, too."

He frowned. "Well, that would have been nice. So why the change?"

"So, the astral ferries are...imagine there's a bunch of tracks that connect each planet. An astral ferry gets propulsed from one planet to the other using the power of the Travel Sphere, which is always housed on one of the planets. It's powerful enough that it can push ferries from any track to any destination, but obviously, the closer the ferry is to the planet the Sphere is on, the faster it is!"

Veit nodded. He seemed intrigued, which was encouraging.

"However, maintaining the Sphere is such a drain on the planet's resources that it has to be periodically moved, which changes all the forces on the astral ferries. 200 years ago, the Sphere was on Teonus! Now it's on Maclaod, which is basically the other side of the system."

"Which makes it really expensive for me to travel."

"Right! So, getting to my proposal," she said, hands flexing against the air. "So I was saying, we stop throwing the Sphere around like a hot potato and just...put it in the middle of the system on an orbital platform. We can have it orbit the sun! It would be in a great place to gather solar energy! And it would be able to exert relatively equal and stable forces on all the ferries! And yet! And yet...well, the department didn't like it, so I didn't get funding."

"Maybe you should wait until the Sphere is going to be sent to Seyclite," Veit said. "That way they're motivated to not spend money on that and get the problem off their hands. How often does it get moved?"

"Every hundred years or so. But Seyclite is the next planet it's supposed to be kept at. That's partly why I got the whole idea of the orbital platform! You'd think people would be willing to spend a little money to avoid such a big inconvenience, but nah. I got a unanimous rejection."

"You too, huh," Veit sighed.

Finality had one last piece of paper, which irritated her because the airplane she wanted to build took more than one sheet. She crumpled it up instead. The evening dinner bell rang before the ball hit the ground.

"I should get something to eat," she said. "It was nice meeting you."

"Same here. I think I might stay here for a little bit though."

"Alright. Try not to catch cold," she said. The instant after she said that, she wondered if that was something Mycelonians were actually concerned about.

"Thanks. Good luck with whatever you come up next," he said, giving her a wave.

"You too."

----

The dining hall was surprisingly opulent for a university. Crystal lights hovered in the air, spinning just enough to mimic twinkling stars. The windows stretched from floor to the ceiling, veiling themselves at night or during peak sunlight hours, and could even project a model of the solar system. Tables and chairs pushed themselves out of the floor when someone wanted to sit down. With some finesse, a student could even summon a bed, though taking a nap in the dining hall was bound to get them into trouble for suspected truancy.

Finality ran into Veit there, drinking a nutrient compound and looking out a window. She remembered him, and the little conversation they had, well enough to approach. "Hello. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Go ahead," he said, waving. As he did so, the table he was at stretched out just enough to let her have room for her plate and glass. She was careful not to bump into his mason jar as she did so.

"I realized I never asked you about your research proposal. I'd like to know about it," she said. His uncertain expression made her hesitate. "...Unless it's too soon?"

"No, it's just...I was encouraged to forget it and move on. Not even revise it, just forget it," he said, shaking his head. The glow of his fungus was a discomforting yellow, like bile.

Finality swallowed around her spoon. "Well, are you?"

"Of course not! I'll just...have to find another way to get my research done. I mean, I already have proof it works, it's just...well, I didn't think it was wise to tell them about it. So right now they think I'm just spewing theory."

"Proof what works?"

Veit looked around, as if he was scanning for prying eyes. Then he leaned towards her. "Alright, first off: service spirits are domesticated calamity-class elementals."

She stared at him. "Those were all wiped out during the Terraforming Era," she said.

"Most, but not all. Some of them were captured instead of destroyed. And over time, thaumancers surgically pared them down into smaller pieces and crossbred those, minimizing them until we get to the present-day service spirit you can find in a water purifier or space heater."

Finality chewed on some food for a moment. "I thought that service spirits were just specialized lesser elementals. That would have been easier than chopping up something huge, not to mention safer, right?"

"Would a lesser elemental be able to heat water for an entire building? In multiple places at once? They're not capable of stretching out their resources. Just think about the Academy," he said, stretching his arms out. "We've got kitchens, baths, sinks, all sorts of things demanding hot water right now. Sure, we would put a lesser elemental in each faucet, or, we could have a team of domesticated, selectively bred, obedient mini-calamity-class elementals that each control an entire floor."

She put a hand to her mouth, blinking hard at the table surface as she processed this.

"That sort of thing is pretty deep elemental history," Veit offered, though he seemed amused by how surprised she was to learn this. "Service spirit engineers can't just tell everyone that their 'friends' are fragments of calamity-class. Somebody's gonna think their house will burn down."

Finality took a deep breath in and out. She wasn't quite ready to believe it herself, but what he said made a lot of sense. "...So what does that have to do with your proposal?"

He took a deep breath and steepled his fingers. His mouth squirmed as he tried to weigh his words. "Teams of service spirits are not always cohesive," he began. "I proposed a way to reduce the number of spirits involved in a single task."

"By what, condensing them? Wouldn't that make them...well, closer to what they used to be? Actually dangerous?"

Veit rolled his eyes. "That's what others think," he said. "But I have...well. Hm."

There was silence as he stared at the space in front of him. Finality took this moment to have another bite of dinner.

He held a finger to his lips and reached over to the mason jar. He unscrewed the lid and tipped it over. Instead of spilling all over, the water gathered in a thick puddle, as if it was made of jelly. Eventually, the jelly-water formed into the shape of a tiny girl. "You have hyphae like Veit!" it said.

"It talks!" Finality said behind a hand.

"She talks. Her name is Sheryl," Veit explained, hiding the little creature from passerby with his book bag. "I was experimenting with a couple of broken water purifiers and combined the remaining essence from the service spirits in them."

"I'm a puddle of leftovers! Zombie soup!" Sheryl piped.

"No, you're not," Veit pressed on her head with his finger. Finality couldn't help but chuckle.

"So what can she do? She's a lot smarter than basic elementals."

"A lot of things, actually," Veit said, putting down the mason jar. Sheryl squeezed back inside, though she didn't dissolve into water just yet. "In terms of capability, she's about as powerful as a pond undine. But she's tiny."

"You could even drink her," Finality said.

"Naw!" Sheryl said and immediately dissolved, which made Finality laugh again.

"And do you just...keep her in the jar all the time?"

"She's barely too big to fit in the service spirit receptacle for an ordinary machine. I wouldn't want to put her in one unless she felt like it, anyway," Veit said. "So yeah, I carry her around. She helps me take notes."

Finality tapped the side of the jar gently. The water made a bigger splash than she was expecting, but other than that, there was no sign that it was otherwise out of the ordinary.

"That has some...weird implications though," she said after a moment.

"I wasn't about to propose that we break open a bunch of machines to cobble together mini undines and ifrits," he said, bunching his shoulders close to his body. "My idea was more about...recycling. But shit, the department thought I was trying to resurrect the Leviathan or something!"

"Well, the faculty is just full of people who just hate the idea of taking risks."

"Yeah."

"Bunch of jerks."

Finality poked at her food. Veit picked up the nutrient compound he had forgotten and went back to drinking it. She felt pretty satisfied that the guy she ran into seemed to be a like-minded person.

----

Not having many classes together made it hard to talk, let alone meet with each other, but the two of them kept snatching glimpses of each other as they filed out of lecture halls. Often they could only spare a moment to wave. One day, though, Veit managed to find her on her way to the library.

"Hey."

"Good morning," Finality said. She wished he had the courtesy to stop her near a table, so she could set her bag down, but wasn't about to walk around him to find one.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a small book. "I want you to have this," he said, handing it to her. She held her hands out for it, but couldn't get her hands to close around it when she realized what she was looking at. He was offering her one half of a link-journal set, and not just any kind. It had to be made out of some form of kiryan polymer, to resist Mycelonian spore decay, but despite the difficult, expensive material, the cover showed a beautiful, elaborate design of the Teonian tree of life.

If he wanted them to be able to communicate through link-journal, he could have gotten any kiryan polymer set. Hell, she had bought a set and had been intending one offering half to him, but they were so expensive she hadn't bothered to drop any extra money on an ornate one. After seeing this, she was about ready to head back to her dorm and discreetly put her set in the trash.

"I got these as a going-away gift from my colony," Veit explained. "I never found a person I wanted to share one with until we had our chat. You're easy to talk to."

Oh no, Finality thought. Please mean that in a friend way.

"Do you...not like it?"

"Oh no!" she said quickly, but still couldn't get her hands to cooperate. "It's very, very nice!"

"You don't want it?"

"Yes! I was thinking about...you know, it's funny, I told myself, 'that guy, he's very nice, and maybe you could, you know, possibly...complain about things together,' I don't know!" she said, wishing her tongue wouldn't trip over itself at such an awkward time. The collar of her uniform felt too close to her skin, and she was painfully aware that she was blushing. Great. Now he might be getting ideas about why she was being awkward.

Oh hell, I don't think I'm ready for a relationship. Especially with a mushroom man. Or with anyone. Ever.

"Complaining about bad professors sounds great," Veit said. "I'm fine with that."

Finality let out her breath and took the link-journal from him. "I'm really sorry, just...you caught me a little off-guard."

"I could tell," he said, smiling a little. "No worries. I'll let you study, but you can write in that anytime. They're not loud."

"Really? How do they alert you?"

"See the apple in the middle of the tree? It'll glow," he said. "I'd show you, but I have the other half of that one in my dorm."

She brought it a little closer to her face so she could examine the tree better. The design seemed almost like embroidery - whatever craftsman had put it together had a lot of pride in their work. "That's...really nice. Better than most alerts I've dealt with."

"It's not useful if it's not beautiful," he said. "At least, that's what we say at home."

"Well, unfortunately, I have to study a lot of not-beautiful things for a few hours," Finality said, putting the link-journal in her bag. "Thank you, Veit. I really appreciate the present."

"Don't think anything of it," he said, and it felt like he really meant it. Like it was a gift between friends. With this thought, she was able to smile at him as they waved each other goodbye.

----

Weeks passed. Finality and Veit traded letters through the link-journals. Veit liked to talk about interesting happenings he observed throughout the Academy, such as the extraction of a misbehaving service spirit from his dorm microwave (though he neglected to mention what happened to it afterwards.) Finality sometimes used him as an ear for ideas about astral ferry development, but mostly described cats that she had spotted that day. It was a nice sort of friendship, one that she had missed since coming to the Academy.

Having a link-journal made it so that passing each other in the hall didn't feel like a missed opportunity for conversation. They had a way to keep in touch and even arrange meetings when the dining hall's offerings for the day were so uninteresting that it was better to do their own cooking.

"So, sorry if this is common knowledge," Veit began, flipping over the squid he was frying. The salty scent of fermented fish hit the air. "But what is the Travel Sphere?"

"Huh?" Finality asked over the vegetables she was chopping.

"Well, Teonus isn't exactly a tourist spot, and I'm the first member of my colony to go off-world. Most of the time I forgot we even had an astral ferry station."

She realized that while she was listening and thinking about what he had said, she had diced her onion so finely it was turning into a sort of paste. "What do you know about the Travel Sphere?"

"Only what you've told me."

"Okay," she said, pushing the onion paste around the cutting board with her knife. "Well, it's an artifact that's been around for a long time. The astral ferry system as we know it was developed after the Terraforming Era and the Reconstruction. We had most of the pieces ready - planetary travel existed before the Travel Sphere was a thing, that's how we defeated the calamity-class elementals - but once we got it working, cosmic travel became easier to launch since anything with a propulsion formula can go through space. Since then, we've been able to make ferries faster by just making them lighter and improving the propulsion formulas, instead of focusing on engines."

The sound of frying squid took over the kitchen for a minute. Veit put it on a plate to cool a bit before asking his next question: "So why does it work?"

"Nobody knows!"

The fungus lights underneath his uniform dimmed a bit. "Well, who made it?"

"Nobody knows," she repeated.

"What."

Finality gave him a look, then shrugged ostentatiously. "We don't know! It's old! It's really old! But it works!"

"Look, I don't know if this is a human thing, but shouldn't it be common sense that if something is that powerful but you don't know that much about it that you should probably leave it alone?"

"What, are you suggesting we go back to burning fossil fuels or elementals?"

"I'm just really concerned that we, as a united civilization, are so willing to not look into something that the entire system, you know, relies on to function in modern society, that we are totally fine with not knowing!"

Finality's teeth hurt with how hard her jaw was set. The sound of a raised voice made her have to fight back bad memories of men bigger than she was using hateful words to make her feel even smaller. It took her a long moment to counter, and when she did, she couldn't muster a very confident tone of voice: "Well, apparently we're fine not knowing about what service spirits are, right?"

Instead of being enraged like she expected, Veit actually seemed to calm down. "Alright, I guess I don't have room to judge, considering."

She waited, unable to untense. He appeared to have let the conversation go, because he was taking the squid he'd cooked and putting it through the blender. She was a little confused that he could do that, but cautiously glad nevertheless.

"I'm done with the stove," he said.

"Thanks," she said. She was still a little nervous, but he didn't seem like he wanted to fight, at least, so that was good. He watched her fry her vegetables for a moment.

"Are you alright?"

"Just a little stressed."

"Yeah, same. Want some music?" he asked, already reaching for the radio.

"Yes please."

Veit found a channel playing a gentle synthetic orchestra, and Finality found herself relaxing at last.

----

Because exams were coming up, Finality spent more time in the library than she did in her own room. There was only so much reviewing she could do before her fingers started doodling, though, and soon enough she had covered a sheet of paper with propulsion sigils out of muscle memory.

"Are you making up glyphs?" Veit asked.

Normally, she would ignore anyone who seemed to be wanting to strike up a conversation with her because that usually turned people off, but she was willing to be distracted. "These are propulsion sigils. Umm...mostly for small objects. I'm just filling up paper; this design probably wouldn't get anything anywhere."

"Well...they look like glyphs. The kind you put on service spirit objects," he said. "...Wouldn't you think?"

Finality blinked at the paper. It seemed much more interesting to interpret the pattern as a cacophonous mess than trying to compare individual sigils to what she could remember of glyphs. "I've never thought of that," she said.

"May I look at it?"

"Sure, it's nothing," she said, handing him the sheet.

Veit stared at it, wordless and motionless, for quite a while. It made Finality think he had turned into an inanimate plant.

"Um...do you want to sit?" she asked.

Veit shook his head a bit, as if to clear it. "Sure," he said, moving stiffly as he sat down across from her. "These seem familiar, not just because of their similarities to glyphs..."

"Do you get offworld mail? Packages are covered in these things."

He opened his mouth but didn't say something right away, as if something was on the tip of his tongue. Finality stared at his lower jaw, because it seemed like it was actually splitting down the middle, which was freaky. She wondered if this was some kind of alien yawn. Then he closed his mouth and his jaw reassembled itself. "...Yes, I think I've seen a few of these."

"Patterns of these make up propulsion formulas. We write them on stuff we want to send through space," she explained. "I talked about it a little when you asked about the Travel Sphere."

Veit's mouth parted and his jaw split again, which was so unsettling that she took a great interest in stacking her books neatly. "No you didn't," he said after a moment.

"Yes I did! Come on, we had this conversation, like, a week ago!"

This time, when his mouth came back together, it did so with an audible clack. "It's been a long week, okay."

"Well, fine, because you forgot: we use the Travel Sphere to send things through space because it exerts forces on objects with a propulsion formula on it. We use slightly different ones for regular mail and something as big as, say, an astral ferry."

Veit's eyes pinched shut. "...I am really having a hard time remembering that conversation."

"Oh, well," she said. She didn't want to bring it up, because she remembered he'd raised his voice and she didn't want to dwell on it.

Finality went back to leafing through the book she was studying. After a bit, she looked across the table. Something looked off about his uniform, and it took her a moment to realize the reason why: the bioluminescence that usually lurked underneath it was absent.

"Is that, uh..." she began. After a moment, she tipped her head. "Normal?"

"Huh?"

"Your...lights went out."

The skin around his mouth crinkled in a grimace, and she was afraid he was going to do the thing again, but he seemed to be making an effort to try to keep his face in one piece. "...I haven't been feeling well," he admitted. "My head's been pounding."

"Do you want an ibuprofen? I have some."

"No. That doesn't work," he said, waving. He covered his eyes with a hand.

"Do you want to get something to eat maybe?" she asked. She was completely willing to pack up if he would just give her the excuse to do so and maybe help him.

He had gone very still again. She couldn't even see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed, but the line on his lower jaw kept fading in and out, so it wasn't as if he had froze up completely.

Finality wondered if she should nudge him. After waiting to see if he would make a move, she gathered her things and walked around the table. "Veit," she said firmly, tapping his shoulder.

He responded with a rough "Ooorh."

"I'm getting something from the snack bar. What do you want?"

"Ruuuuh...a protein."

"They have chicken."

"I can eat chicken."

"Chicken it is."

Finality returned a quarter of an hour later to a wilted-looking, but appreciative Veit, who ate his chicken plate with a speed that would have come off as rude if she didn't understand it was because he wasn't feeling very well.

----

Finality returned to her dorm one day to see that the other link-journal she kept was open and floating off the table. Acclaimation, one of the most ambitious Weissritters and the only member of her family she bothered keeping in touch with, had finally been able to write to her.

Finality, my favorite little black sheep cousin! Guess where I am headed right now! she had written.

Finality inked a response as soon as she sat down at her desk. To Seyclite? From where?

The answer came quick. From Maclaod!

Finality tilted her head at the words. Acclaimation was an astral ferry engineer, and she hadn't heard anything about Maclaod's ferry stations lately. You usually work in Esterjor, though. Why did you go back to Maclaod?

Do you promise not to tell anyone what I'm about to tell you? Are you fully aware that I'm only telling you this because you're a smart black sheep studying intradimensional travel?

Stop buttering me up and tell me, you nerd!

There was a long pause. Finality leaned back in her chair, groaning. Typical Acclaimation, trying to be dramatic.

We're moving the Travel Sphere!

Finality stared at those words for a long moment. She flicked her hand for a few seconds so she could write steadily: Are you serious?

Yep, totally serious. Boss didn't let us write in link-journals for weeks while we extracted it. But now that we're in transit, I can't get in trouble for telling you, as long as you don't ruin it for me!

How big is it? What does it look like? Finality scribbled.

Once again, there was a pause, but not as long as the last. We're landing in three standard days. Come pick me up and maybe you can have a look at it!

----

Finality could barely contain her excitement as she looked over the ferry schedules. It had been a few years since she last saw Acclaimation, and she was looking forward to being able to talk to Acclaimation about how her job was going. Maybe Finality would even be able to discuss her research proposal. Acclaimation would probably appreciate it more than the stuffy department heads.

Still, Finality wasn't exactly comfortable waiting in the station alone, so she reached out to Veit. I'm expecting someone at the ferry station this evening. Do you mind coming with?

Veit answered about an hour later. Sure, I need to get out of these study halls before I explode! Sheryl might like seeing the station, too.

He seemed surprised that Finality had decided to dress nicely for the occasion. She was never one to wear dresses, but she put on a long star-patterned cloak that gave her the silhouette of a woman wearing one. Veit had put on a simple polymer robe instead of his uniform.

"You must be expecting someone important," he said.

"My cousin," she explained. "She's part of the reason I decided to study astral ferries."

"I see!" Veit said.

Finality offered him a slab of peppermint bark as thanks for waiting with her, which he took with obvious relish.

"Do you mind if I read a book or something?"

"I thought you said you needed to stop studying."

"I should," he said, in the apathetic tone of a long-suffering university student, but he took a book out of his bag anyway.

The two of them waited, nibbling peppermint bark, for a good hour. After that, Finality started checking the schedules every few seconds.

"It's late?" Veit asked.

"Yes! And that's quite concerning, considering that ferry is full of engineers that would know how to fix an ailing ferry engine!" Finality replied testily. Veit stood and looked at the ferry schedule with her. "The station is going to close in another hour!"

"Can you write your cousin at all?"

Finality blinked at the simplicity of the idea. "Yes, actually. I have her link-journal right here," she said, pulling it out of her bag. "How mad should I be at her?"

"I dunno, you seem pretty mad," Veit said. "Do you need a pen?"

"Yes please," she said, flipping to the latest page in the link-journal. "What's...the....hold-up," she said as she wrote each word.

When she lifted her arm away from the page, though, she realized that she hadn't actually written anything. "Is your pen broken?"

"What? No," he said, taking it from her and running his finger over it. It left a clear, unbroken black line. "Try again?"

Finality sighed and drew a line in the link-journal, just to test out the pen. She could see it begin to leave a mark, but it only lasted for a fraction of a second. When she lifted her hand away, the page was as blank as when she had started.

"It can't take new messages," Veit said. He had been watching over her shoulder. "How old is it?"

Finality's mouth was dry. She could feel the ridges of her own palate. "This one's pretty new. Maybe a year. She sent me it recently."

Veit swayed where he stood, which made Finality unsure about her own balance suddenly. She sat.

"The connection's broken, then," he said.

Her fingers felt nerveless. She flexed them to make sure they weren't, but that made the link-journal bounce in her hands so much that it fell. Veit managed to stop it from hitting the floor with his foot. He picked it up.

"Do you want me to hold onto it?" he asked.

There was no lump in her throat, but it felt blocked anyway. She nodded. Tension shot through her muscles, and she stood to throw it off. Her feet, despite the stiffness in her legs, brought her to a window with a few of the dock. A few astral ferries were safely locked in, but there were a few empty slots that were open, letting her stare into open space.

She waited.

The intercom announced the station would be closing and that ferry operation would resume in the morning.

"Finality, I'm going to call a shuttle," Veit said from behind her. She mouthed an "okay".