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Frederic returned to consciousness just in time to hear Evelyn snap the last cord of the sleeping web. Even with the spell broken, however, it was difficult to open his eyes, as though weights were attached to his eyelids. He took a deep breath, and he could feel his chest expanding, his core muscles clenching.

He continued cataloguing different parts of his body in order of wakefulness.

"Frederic," someone called.

His chin, for example, was already awake while his shoulders remained blissfully numb.

"Frederic, nod if you can hear me," Evelyn said from somewhere above him.

He might've nodded. At least he gave it an honest attempt.

He tried to open his eyes again and managed a brief glance of bright surgery lights before they closed, putting him in the dark once more. "Frederic Dorian Lassiter, you get up this instant or Stormkeeper help me, I will drag you out of this bed myself," Evelyn snapped and he let out a small moan, breathing in sharply through his nostrils. This time, when he opened his eyes, they stayed that way and his adopted mother's face came into view. "Glad that still works," she said and smiled. In the back of his mind, the captain noted dispassionately that she looked far more relieved than amused. "Focus, sweetheart, what can you feel?"

"Left arm, left leg, right leg," he reached for the weight he associated with his metal arm, but there was nothing.

"Frederic, stay awake," she said strongly, pressing her hand against his face, running her thumb along his cheekbone. He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes, opening them again with a shuddering breath. "Focus, can you move your right arm?"

His expression didn't change, but a tear slipped out of his eye and vanished into his hairline. "No," he whispered. Panic flashed across Evelyn's face before she could help it, and it filled Frederic with a slow gut-wrenching fear. "I can't."

"No, no, no, don't cry, I hate it when you cry," another voice, and another face swam into focus, pushing Evelyn aside. The fear faded a little into the background.

"Jules," he recognized him, and his friend nodded.

"Freddie, listen. Your mind hasn't forced a meld with the new prosthetic, so you're going to have to do it yourself," he insisted. "Reach for your arm, try to feel for it."

"Sparks're gone," he slurred, and Julius shook his head.

"The prosthetic isn't going to interact the same because the pattern matrices have been compressed and coiled to—you know what, don't argue the science with me right now, I'll win," he said, smiling quickly, more for reassurance than any actual amusement. "Come on, reach for your shoulder. Feel for it." Was it awake now? Not as much as his chin, but he could sense the muscles twitch. "Now your biceps." It flexed easily. "Your elbow," he moved the hinge that was his elbow and a vague arm-like shape swung into his peripheral vision. "Now your fingers." Stream-lined fingers of metal floated to the edge of his vision and when he thought to bring them closer, they did so.

Metal fingers, a metal hand, his hand.

"Try wiggling your fingers, Frederic," Julius encouraged him, voice pitched with restrained excitement, leaning in closely and watching as the joints bent and straightened, slowly at first and then faster. Evelyn laid a hand on her son's shoulder and squeezed, and they shared a grin. "I'm calling it the Julian Pattern," Julius said proudly. "The way the patterns are interlaid, they feed back into each other. In other words, the more energy you expend, the more energy it creates. Ideally, you won't need a mage for maintenance anymore, because it should keep working forever."

"Jules, you're a genius," Frederic said quietly, grinning from ear to ear as he watched how fluid his movements were quickly becoming.

"Self-proclaimed," the younger man replied out of habit, but he couldn't stifle his happy grin. "This is brilliant. I can do your legs next. I may have some frames that could work with your measurements, no, they'll definitely work. The right leg would need just a few modifications," and Julius kept babbling while the transhuman tried to smile and if he couldn’t quite find the strength to do so, no one said anything. He and Evelyn stood there patiently while the engineer talked, making expansive gestures and using words that generally soared above the captain's head.

Still trying to clear the cobwebs from his head, he extended his left arm out to Julius and the man helped Frederic sit up on his own. He groaned but kept his seat, admiring the metal limb from the new angle. "It's not that I don't appreciate the upgrade," he said, rotating his shoulder and stretching the arm over the bed. "But I thought you were going to try to fix my old arm first." Both Cales fell silent, and Frederic glanced between them. "Being your test animal is fine too, though."

Julius shifted on his feet but Evelyn smiled and shrugged easily. "It was an old relic made by an even older one." Her smile widened when both men tried to protest, and she leaned forward and kissed Frederic on the forehead. "If you're going to live in the future, you have to be ready to embrace it. Now," she waved at another person further inside the workshop, a darker skinned woman of short stature, and gestured to Frederic. "Jeannette's going to help you stretch and see if there's anything we need to do while we have you here. I'm going to take this inside, maybe hang it up on the wall. I'll tell people it's a hunting trophy." The three of them shared a small laugh while Evelyn hefted Frederic's old machinist arm into her own. Her smile stayed in place until she was safely behind the four walls of her own house, at which time she dropped the hunk of metal on the kitchen table with a small but resolute frown.

She stepped away only to grab her tools, and when she returned, she sat down and opened up the arm, piece by piece.

Her work stupor lasted a few hours, undisturbed by any who would pass through until someone shoved a small glass of juice directly under her nose. Evelyn pulled back and looked up at Julius who raised an eyebrow.

"When did you make juice?" She asked, rolling her head left to right and working out the kinks from her shoulders. She took the glass gratefully as he snorted.

"Ten minutes after I came in and realized you hadn't heard a word I'd said. You know I hate it when people ignore me, so I took it out on the lemons," the engineer grinned, but he was her son; Evelyn knew when he was upset. His eyes flickered to the table then back to her. "What’d you find?"

"It's what I didn't find that was most upsetting," she said softly, setting down her empty glass amid the organized chaos of the disassembled arm. "Not one pattern, not a trace of magic, dormant or otherwise. I thought maybe one of the anchor glyphs was broken, that would explain why any of the pattern relays on the arm weren’t responding to any of my diagnostic spells, but they're all intact." Evelyn sighed, flicked her nail against the metal to make a dull ring, and shook her head. "If it wasn't for the fact that it wasn't working, I'd swear that it was."

"But that's impossible," Julius said, ducking his head guiltily when she turned to look at him. "Let me take a look, before you—uh, because I completely trust your skills and your judgment and I'm only asking as a fellow scientist?" He grinned widely, eyes widened frantically as he verbally backtracked when all Evelyn did was deepen her frown. Seconds ticked by before she looked away and the young man sighed dramatically in relief.

"I wish Laurie was here," She said to herself as she stared off into the distance. Julius couldn't help but roll his eyes. "He always had a better head for puzzles than I did."

"That man doesn't know his head from a chamber pot," the younger man said, earning a swift cuff to the ear, but Julius smiled anyway. He was glad to see the fear recede from his mother's eyes, if only a little. "I don't know if you know this, but I was educated at this highly reputable shop, learned at the knee of this brilliant mechanic and everything. It's been said that I'm a genius, even. Not by me, other people say this." His breathing eased, like a weight had been lifted the moment Evelyn threw back her head and laughed. She smiled fondly at her son but suddenly her expression wavered and so did his relief.

"It's not the magic that bothers me, not really. It's..."

"Who the magic was attached to, I know." He replied softly. A moment later, she was already worrying her lip between her teeth, ready to chase down the truth to this mishap that endangered one of her adopted sons, and she would never stop worrying about Frederic, not really, not unless she had someone on the ship to—to watch over him. Julius groaned, letting his head fall back and scrunching his face. Somehow, he always knew it was going to end this way. "If you want to pen Laurie a letter, you better do it tonight. I'll make sure it gets to him."

Evelyn smiled. "I was hoping you would take Frederic up on his offer," she said, and the young man gaped.

"You knew about-? Galbin love me, of course you knew," he muttered, crossing his arms.

"Of course," she agreed. "Who do you think gave him the idea to steal you away in the first place?"

Julius' mouth fell open and he was torn between surprise and confusion. Before he could express either, his mother grasped him by the shoulders and started walking him out of the kitchen and down the hall. "I'll send a messenger out to Darla and Nathan and let them know about your trip. I've already let Master Devereaux know that you'll be leaving. He said as long as you turned in your final project by the spring rains, he would sign off on your credentials. Given that you've already attached your scholastic project to his shoulder, I think you should write your conjecture about Frederic. I'm fairly certain he won't mind." When Julius tried to speak again, she simply kept talking. "I'll make sure to feed your goats, and yes, I will let you know when little Asher is born. There's just one last thing I need you to do."

"What, you don't have me packed?" He asked, unable to hold back a bite of sarcasm, but whatever small victory he thought he'd won, it all fled his mind when he took one step into his room. Myka, sprawled out on his bed, looked up from the book he was reading and raised an eyebrow. Julius stared in complete silence until Evelyn suddenly poked him in the small of his back. He jumped, skittering forward into the room, and looked back to give his mother a venomous look as she smiled and went down the hall.

Taking a deep breath, Julius mentally braced himself before turning around.

Myka was already sitting up, tucking his legs close as he got comfortable, and before the silence stretched too long, he patted the other side of the bed. The man watched Julius for another moment as the bed adjusted to the new weight. "I assume your new arm works, then? Usually you've done your happy dance by now, so I feel the need to ask." He said, tilting his head with a smile and tucking an errant strand of hair behind his good ear.

Julius knew he was asking out of genuine curiosity, not just to bridge whatever that strange moment had been from yesterday. However much he teased the engineer for his enthusiasm, they both shared that love of innovation and science. Once Julius was gone with Frederic and he stopped dragging the other man every which way, maybe Myka could finally return to his own projects. Surely he still had some, even if they'd been put on hold. Everything was always put on hold for what Julius wanted.

"Don’t tell me I've missed the happy dance–"

"Do you want to go sailing with me?" The engineer blurted out, a subtle shade of red creeping up his neck.

"What?" Myka said, confused by the sudden change in topic, but Julius used his hands to the repeat the question instead.

'Flying,' he signed, secretly pleased that his hands weren't shaking. 'You want to go on a trip on an airship? I don’t know how long. A month maybe, longer if something happens.'

Myka blinked owlishly, glancing out into the hallway and back at Julius. 'What ship, what do you mean?'

'F-R-E-D-E-R-I-C,' he said, signing out each letter of his friend's name. 'He needs an engineer for his ship, he asked me to go with him. I want you to go with me. He already said you could. Say you'll come with me.'

'You're not mad at me?' Myka asked, brows knitted together as he searched Julius' face. The Qian wasn't about to lie, so he pursed his lips and thought about it for a second. The other man's rebuff had been out of character, and understandable given their shared history, but it had just thrown him so badly. He wondered if he was still angry.

'Did Missus A-D-A-M-S feed you some of her biscuits with gravy?’

Myka made a face. 'Yes,' he signed sadly. 'And her daughter wouldn't stop talking to me about her animals.'

'Then we’re even,' the engineer signed, smirking when the other stuck his tongue out at him. Julius chuckled, and then signed quickly, 'You're my best friend. I can't stay mad at you if I tried.'

The other man grinned, looking down at the bed for a moment while he readjusted his jacket. "What kind of ship is it?" He asked tentatively, and it was Julius' turn to smile.

"An SMS caravel, with a Strothers' issued White Rock steam engine, modified by yours truly," he said, bouncing a fist off his chest in pride. Steam engines were something the two could agree on, and he spent the next few minutes detailing what he had changed followed by a couple of ideas from Myka for improvements. They might've continued on blissfully unaware until Evelyn stuck her head back into the room and announced that Frederic was asking for his engineer. They both slid off the bed, marching for the door when the woman held out a hand for them to stop.

"Myka, dear, am I right in thinking my son's roped you into yet another adventure?" She asked, eyes sparkling because she already knew the answer, but he still shrugged and nodded in subtle embarrassment. "No one's surprised, dear, you two are harder to pry apart than welded brass. Come here," she said, pulling the taller man into a tight hug, one he returned awkwardly at first then with certainty. "I love him, but my boy has no sense of the world. Take care of him for me, and bring both of you back home, okay? Promise me?"

"Love you too, Mama," Julius grumbled off to the side.

Myka only smiled, nodding as he pulled back, and Evelyn felt a small measure of comfort. "I spoke with Mistress Hall yesterday, and she says you're all done with your requirements for the year. She’ll send up her formal review to Tremont come spring, so you don’t have to worry about that, and I've packed most of your things because I had to move in Georgia's belongings anyway."

"How much of this was our choice?" Julius said, half-serious in how he narrowed his gaze at his mother. "Because the way you've planned everything, it sounds more and more like we're being shipped off. Are the festivities planned for the minute we leave?"

"I have Alexine waiting with the firecrackers," she said, one eyebrow raised. "You might even be able to see them from the ship." Much to Julius' displeasure, Myka and Evelyn laughed together but even he couldn't hold off rolling his eyes and smiling. He had a much more serious objective in joining Frederic's crew, but a little levity would do them all some good.

"Come on," Julius said, tapping the other man on the shoulder and signaling towards the door. "Let's go see our new captain."

Myka frowned a little, but followed dutifully. "Will I have to salute him now?"

"No, only SMS sailors are required to salute. I'll sign a contract of service with Frederic but as a freelancer and you, my dear, will sign a contract with me."

"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?" Myka smiled and Julius laughed. He continued explaining the process and Evelyn watched them both slip out the front door, talking easily about sailing away from Wheelis. She stayed back, lingering by the family shrine as she exhaled a sigh.

In her youth, Evelyn had lived what others would call a life of adventure, but the moment someone offered her a chance to make a home for herself, she had never looked back. None of the brash young boys she had taken under her wing had the same inclinations, and the older woman knew them all better to ever presume she could tie them down. The most she could do was arm them in both body and mind as best she could before they ran out the door.

And pray, she thought, smiling gently as she lit three new candles, the light throwing each stone-carved ancestor into sharp relief and plastering their long shadows along the wall. For all the good it would do, she could certainly pray.