Illus. Heather Hudson

"I have to do something!" Gerrard paced down the center of Sisay's cabin. Sunlight reflected up from the clouds below the flying ship, filling the wood room with a warm glow.

Seated on a bench under a window, the Argivian archeologist Hanna watched him. "I know how you feel, Gerrard. We're all afraid for Sisay. But we can't do anything right this instant. We have to be patient until we get a hint of where she might be."

"No," Gerrard said. "There's something thing we can do: look over the pieces of the Legacy and see if any of them will help us."

The archeologist nodded. The Legacy was a group of magical artifacts that had belonged to Gerrard since his infancy; they had been stolen and scattered by his foster brother many years before, and Sisay had been collecting them ever since. "Good idea. Finding the Legacy pieces might help us."

Gerrard turned to her, frowning. "What do you mean, 'finding'? Don't you know where they are?"

"We know where some of them are," Hanna said. "She has some of the bigger pieces locked away in the holds, but we don't know where she put all the keys. And the smaller ones? Sisay was always squirreling her finds away on the ship. The pieces of the Legacy she'd found could be anywhere on the Weatherlight."

"Well, we could search it."

Hanna shrugged. "Sure. Do you have a couple of weeks? It's a big ship, and some of the lower compartments in the hold have been closed up for years."

"She must have left some sort of record of what's where!"

Hanna waved her hand at the desk. "I expect it's all here somewhere, though she might have been a little cautious with it." Stretching, she rose and headed towards the door. "Look, I have to go back on deck, but Squee can stay and help you."

Gerrard looked doubtfully at the small goblin poking ineffectually at a cabinet with a feather duster. "You sure he'll be much help?"

"Hey!" Squee straightened. "I'm da cabin boy! I saw da captain at her desk all da time. I bet I can so help."

Hanna nodded. "He's usually good for four or five questions before he gets too grumpy to be useful. Good luck, Gerrard." She patted Squee's head and left the cabin.

Gerrard squared his shoulders and turned to Sisay's desk.