Spoilers! Seriously!
It's been minor in other documents, but this is the plot!
Do not read if you want to experience the book without spoilers!
The Passage Arc
PASSAGE
The arc starts with the a stinger. It's from when Geneviah falls into the ocean at during Swells: in italics, a reference to the cold, crushing embrace of water. The story starts on the 45th day she's been working as a dockloader, and she's sick of it. When she spots the chance to jump ship and find a new job from a private hirer, she goes for it. She bluffs her way into being taken serously, only to realize she was hired on by someone Titled, and that she's jumped into something way above her skill level. The Captain leaves her to finish her shift shell-shocked.
She finishes her shift and goes back home, swinging through the commercial district to pick up a duffel bag, to pack up her clothes. Her brother Neddrick quizzes her, then implores her not to take the job. She refuses, citing a new experience that she'll never get again if she doesn't take it now, and then leaves with a bag full of clothes along with toiletries.
She meets the Captain on the docks, and he motions her over to a cafe. They both eat dinner as he explains the job: a single round-trip on the ocean, to a fishing spot. Her job will be to maintain the glyphs Sae is producing, and learn from her. When Geneviah expresses surprise he realized she didn't have the glyphwork skills necessary, he gives her a look so pitying it makes her shut up. Geneviah agrees to the job, and she and the Captain leave for the Shanty.
STILLWATER
Stillwater centers on Sae's perspective. She is meditating, attempting to tap into Title-based instincts, and finally touches on an instinct that isn't her own. She seizes it, finds out where it's coming from, but is knocked out of her meditation before she can follow it to its source.
She gets up afterwards and goes to talk to the dockloader who interrupted her: this is same scene from last chapter, but reversed. After Geneviah leaves, Sae writes down her meditative experiences and retreats to the sleeping pit to attempt to meditate more, but can't touch it.
After day turns to dusk, the Captain interrupts her and tells her he's hired Geneviah. We find out from Sae's point of view that he wasn't fooled by Geneviah, and tells Sae to teach her, giving her a minor breakdown at how thoroughly he had ensconced her in something she didn't want. She agrees, and has a minor breakdown after pushing her anger and frustration down all day with it leaking out.
The chapter ends with her preparing to go meet Geneviah.
TIDES
The chapter is still from Sae's perspective. She's walked out from behind the cabin to meet Geneviah, and experiences a sudden shock at seeing its the dockloading girl. The two make introductions and light conversation, with Sae probing as to Geneviah's experience. The Captain told her she was unskilled, but Geneviah's complete floundering at any answer makes Sae realize how little they'll have to start with.
Geneviah comes clean to Sae, telling her she lied about her skill to get on here, but promises she'll work two times as hard as any other worker they'd hire, and that she really doesn't want the Captain to know that she lied to him to get on here. Sae agrees to keep the secret, knowing full well that the Captain already knows, and sets in to teach her about the essence system and how it works, along with glyphs.
She gives Geneviah a small quiz, and she doesn't do that bad, but her knowledge is clearly lacking. Sae corrects her misinformation and ignorance, and says that okay, because you don't know anything, I'll let you handle activating the glyphs, and shows her how to activate them. Sae goes to the Captain, tells him they're getting ready to go, and then walks Geneviah through turning on the kinetic glyphs for moving the boat.
Chapter ends after they get moving. Sae tells Geneviah that they can get some sleep, and she'll show Geneviah how to do shifts tomorrow morning.
WAKE
The morning after. Geneviah wakes up to Sae jostling her, saying it's time for the shift. Geneviah begs for five more minutes, but Sae is uncompromising. She gives Geneviah some time, but says she'll be along the aft with breakfast. Geneviah gets ready, changes clothes, and goes outside to notice the luminous essence leakage causing everything to be very bright. She assumes it's just how the ocean is, and makes her way to the stern.
She makes it there before Sae, and examines the glyphs. She can't find anything wrong, because, shocker, she's not an essence worker, and waits for Sae to get there. She muses about how strange it is to away from solid land until Sae arrives carrying the box of food.
(note: the boxes of food aren't divided up into specific meals. sae brings her the box so she can see everything in it. it isn't kind, necessarily: just what she thinks anyone else would do for her in the same situation. she repressed.)
In the box is soup stock and some vegetables, and Sae remarks that they'll need the desalinator for soup. Internally, though it's not her chapter, she didn't want anyone else to need to take care of the desalination process for water. She would've taken care of it after Geneviah's morning shift. Part of Sae not wanting to give up even more responsibility.
Sae reveals that the ocean is toxic via essence having accumulated in it from ruptures in the veil between essence and the physical world. Geneviah is disturbed, but Sae simply doesn't see it as a concern. She retrieves the desalination device, leaving Geneviah to her own thoughts about the ocean (spoiler: they are not good. she is not happy about this development)
She retrieves the water desalination device (desalinator) and begins to set it up. Geneviah examines it, and teases Sae about being strong enough to lift it despite its bulky and awkward frame. Sae lets Geneviah take over, but doesn't tell her how to use the salt water bucket effectively (she needs to tie a rope to it), and Sae teases Geneviah a bit back, the two building up a bit of a dynamic. Geneviah teases Sae back once she tells Geneviah how to do it, saying she's mean, and Sae completely shuts down.
Being called mean triggers a traumatic experience for with the Runewright, and we get to see Sae breaking down from Geneviah's perspective: life drains from her expression, body, and eyes, and she "reboots" repressing all emotion to avoid letting it get to her. It's creepy and almost horrifying to Geneviah, and after they fill the bucket and set it up in the desalinator, Sae walks her through the glyphs, starting with absorption. She compares it to the soundproofing in the nicer apartments in Sankhurst, but when Geneviah mentions Neddy, Sae's emotions creep back in as she's worried that Geneviah is dating someone (for reasons she can't identify). When Geneviah says he's her brother, Sae gives her a smile, letting some of the emotions back in slowly. They continue with setting up the desalination machine.
EBB
Geneviah's perspective.
After Sae started the
FLOOD
Sae lies awake in the sleeping pit. She tells herself it's time to work through emotions, and imagines letting down a large barrier in her mind, akin to a drawbridge from an old fairytale castle. All her anger, frustration, sadness, emotions hit her all at once, and she has to bite down a cry.
She works through the anger first, and we get some exposition about her history, Titles, and the pressure she holds herself under. It's the most emotion shown in Sae's narrative dialog yet.
Then she works through her sadness. She misses the city, damn it. She likes being out here but she knows that if she went into the city, she'd never come back to the Shanty and she owes the Captain too much.
Grief creeps up on her and drags her down, and she remembers her old caretaker, before raising the drawbridge and forcing the emotions back.
She falls asleep with a twisting mind, uncomfortable with the amount of emotions built up. She reasons that once she achieves a Title, it'll all be okay.
AWASH
Geneviah's perspective.
She's had to remove one more glyph, and has successfully copied over two glyphs from the container Sae left, though hers look terrible.
After she finishes the next one: she realizes the sun has traveled about to the point where Sae told her her shift was up. Sae's nowhere to be seen, so... she goes to the cabin where she knows Hiram is.
They chat for a little bit: he asks her how she's been aboard, working with glyphs she's never worked with before (important). Geneviah fakes bravado, saying that it's a natural step up from the light glyphs she worked with earlier. He laughs a little, and they talk for a bit about the ocean, what it's like being on there. They're interrupted by a loud crack as one of the glyphs outside explodes.
Geneviah freaks out, thinking the boat is collapsing, before the Captain points at the door, saying that she should probably go outside. She cautiously goes outside, and sees Sae crouching over the aft of the ship, working with the glyphs. When the door opens fully, she turns around, and is disappointed in Geneviah.
Geneviah finds out that one of the glyphs exploded, scarring the aft with fragments of the stone the glyph was inscribed on. Sae is incessant with her lecture, saying that she needs to watch the glyphs, until Geneviah interrupts her saying that she's so sorry, she was talking with the Captain before she went to Sae to get her for her shift.
Sae pauses, apoologizes for her drastic lecture, and says she's done the same thing. She waves Geneviah off, saying that she can take a rest until it's her shift again.
CURRENTS
This is a vignette chapter, speeding along the three days until they arrive at the fishing spot.
- A dual narrative: Sae left-aligned, Geneviah right-aligned. Sae is musing on her position on the ship, her drive for a Title, and how she's actually liking taking a break from meditating. Her mind feels... better, somehow. More pliable. It was like she had a constant, low-grade headache for months on months and it's only clearing up now. Geneviah's perspective reflects on how scary being on the ocean is, given how the endless expanse of water with the sky constantly swallowed up essence explosions. The creaking of the ship keeps her up, she feels like an impostor, and Neddy is probably worried sick. Her perspective ends with Geneviah saying that she wouldn't have anything different.
- Sae is exiting the sleeping pit at first light when she sees Geneviah leaning against the side of the cabin, looking at the sunrise. Geneviah scoots over a bit, an unspoken offering, and they sit together and watch the sunrise. Sae takes this time to examine Geneviah up-close, showing burgeoning feelings in her, though they're a bit repressed.
- Geneviah is strolling on the boat during her off-shift: she's bored, and she finds Sae working with a glyph. She decides to bother Sae as she's working with it, asking her to talk her through the lines she's etching, why, and where that came from. Sae gets more and more energetic in her words, her tone raising with glyph gesticulating in her hands with Geneviah watching with rapt attention. Most of what she says isn't even practical, it's just what Sae knows because she's a nerd. Eventually Sae tries to paint a rune in the air and accidentally throws the essence stone slab into the ocean. They both watch it splash into the ocean. Silence hits. And then Geneviah bursts out laughing, with Sae laughing softly.
- Geneviah is working with glyphs at night, having sneaked out of the sleeping pit without waking Sae up. She notices that the glyphs on the aft that are propelling the ship forward have a different intake rune than the ones that she was copying, and decides to copy the new one instead. When she finishes etching a rough copy into the essence stone slate she... "borrowed", the slate gets warm and Geneviah drops it. Geneviah hucks it into the ocean, not wanting whatever she did to blow up and cause an issue if she leaves it there. Later, she asks Sae what the difference is, and Sae explains: the intake runes on the running glyphs are the finished version of the rune. Once the intake rune is finished, it will immediately start channeling essence. The one Sae etches are a version that can be easily finished with her etching tool to start the channeling. Sae's eyes narrow, and she begins to ask Geneviah how she even noticed the difference as it's really minute until she gets interrupted by the Captain, saying that they've arrived at the fishing spot. This marks the end of the vignette chapter.
FISHING
Sae's perspective. The Shanty arrives at the fishing spot. Sae instructs Geneviah on using less powerful kinetic glyphs to allow the boat to trawl along the ocean and collect fish, as the Captain gets the net ready.
As it trawls, Sae hunches over a glyph and begins to chisel it. She's trying to make a heating rune for the cabin; the Captain ran out, and Sae forgot to replenish it. She beats herself up mentally over it. Geneviah comes over and asks Sae about the rune she's etching: a filtering rune. Sae tells her it's for filtering the essence alignments out, and at Geneviah's prodding, goes more into detail. Geneviah and the audience gets an overview of essence alignments. Sae grows more and more animated, and leans close to Geneviah's face.
Hiram announces trawling has finished, and Geneviah and Sae scramble to do the work. They don't talk about what happened.
The Captain gets a terrible, churning feeling in his chest while they're bringing the catch up. He tells Sae, in very terse words, to get inside the cabin along with Geneviah. He'll be in shortly. He needs to figure out why his Title feels as though the ocean is a terrible, terrible place to be right now.
BURST
Sae and Geneviah are in the cabin. Geneviah's perspective: she's freaking out, she didn't think she'd die out here. Sae walks her through one of the breathing exercises the Captain taught her; find five-four-three-two-one things.
Eventually, the Captain opens the door and steps through. He says that he can see how dense the essence is around the ship through its effects on the world; outside a small range on the ship due to the glyphs they have puttering them forward, it's a kaleidoscope of nothingness, sprays of water, and bright flashes.
Geneviah asks what they should do. The Captain says that he has, once, and he's not going to let the same thing happen. He says that Sae needs to begin carving burner glyphs to draw on as much essence as possible around the ship to avoid the essence density from crashing onto the ship as well.
Sae directs Geneviah, who is confused at the idea of a burner glyph, to etch into some emergency glyph bases. The burner glyph is simple: an absorption glyph, carved to take in as much essence as possible. They then toss it somewhere it won't interfere with their vision.
The two begin etching.
WAVES
Sae's perspective.
Geneviah and Sae are on their fifth glyph; the Captain is sitting back and meditating, trying to determine if they have a shot of getting out.
Sae is extremely focused on glyphmaking, trying to sink deep into meditating. She can't feel a whiff of it, and it's frustrating due to her past experience with her search for a Title.
Her glyphwork falters, and the stress of it all crashes on her at once. A choked sob exits her throat, and Geneviah tries to do the exercise she showed her last chapter, but it doesn't help. The Captain is still deep in meditation, so Sae feels arms wrap around her as she cries.
She blubbers that she just cannot seem to get the hang of a Title: she's tried for ages, and can't seem to ever get it. Even in a situation like this, where they're closer to death than she's ever been, she still can't get a grip on the Title.
Geneviah gives her encouraging words, and tells her that she's never once felt like Sae isn't knowledgeable due to a lack of a Title: just look at how much she's learned while talking to her!
This calms Sae down enough to ask what Geneviah's learned. The answer? Basically everything.
Sae has shocked horror that Geneviah not only didn't know anything, she tricked the Captain into letting her on board in spite of that.
SURFACE
Geneviah's perspective.
Sae pushes Geneviah away, and she hits the back wall of the cabin. The Captain wakes up at the noise, and asks what the hell happened. Sae exclaims that Geneviah is a fraud, and that she's not actually an essence worker, and that she's really here to just learn how to get a Title.
Geneviah is appalled, and can't articulate a defense. Somehow, "I lied to have fun" is worse than "I lied to get your boss to tell me how to get a Title". The Captain responds with an emphatic "No", that Sae has it wrong: he knew Geneviah was a liar from the moment she opened her mouth.
Geneviah and Sae are both shocked into silence. Geneviah manages to eke out a "...why hire me, then?", and the Captain responds with a story:
Sae has been struggling. It's obvious she needs a friend, but the private essers-for-hire can't cut it in the regular essence employment: Sae would just turn them down immediately. She doesn't spend long enough on shore leave to make friends with anyone.
Geneviah pipes up and asks why the hell she needed to make friends? Classes in Sankhurst are extremely close; she should have a bunch of people to meet her on shore leave.
Sae's face turns dark, and she curls up on herself. The Captain tells Geneviah that that story is for Sae to tell, not him, but suffice to say, he just wanted a friend for Sae. Geneviah fit the bill, and if she had the gall to lie to him to go on the sea, she has the gall to learn as she goes. If she failed to learn, she'd just be kicked out.
Geneviah and Sae sit with the realization, before Geneviah gets up and walks over to Sae. She tells her that she's sorry, she just wanted to experience something new outside of Sankhurst. But if Sae is willing, they can restart their relationship fresh, without any sneakiness.
Sae doesn't respond for a minute, making Geneviah nervous, but eventually she grasps the offered hand and accepts.
CROSSCURRENT
Sae's perspective. She wakes up in the sleeping compartment of the Shanty, and reviews what happened yesterday in her mind. The Captain dismissed them after a few more hours of tense silence between Sae and Geneviah, keeping up the supply of burner glyphs to make sure the essence storm wouldn't interact with them.
She opens her eyes to see Geneviah still asleep next to her. A variety of feelings flow through her: betrayal, but also hope. She has genuinely grown to like Geneviah over the last few days, but being lied to is a hurt that won't heal any time soon. She mentally packs her feelings away in boxes and leaves the sleeping compartment, having a close call with waking Geneviah up.
She goes to speak with the Captain: he's awake and meditating in the cabin. He notices her after she clears his throat, and stands up to hug her. Sae flinches a bit and he stops, hurt but understanding. He tells her that he didn't intend to hurt her: he understands if it takes time to forgive him. Sae says she already has, but it'll take time to internalize. He nods. She asks when they're setting out. "Right now", he says.
Sae sets up the glyphs while reflecting on Geneviah's betrayal further. Hints of her backstory appear here with the Runewright: betrayal by people she cares about is something that hurts a lot worse for her than others.
However, she decides that she can teach Geneviah. It might be a new path to a Title, and she enjoys talking about glyphwork regardless. Maybe, once they go out on shore leave, they can go out and do what normal young people do.
The chapter ends with that: the boat setting off as Sae settles into a resolution.
BEARINGS
Geneviah's perspective. She wakes up to the Captain speaking with her, wrinkling his nose at the smell of anxious sweat in the sleeping compartment. Geneviah smiles apologetically at him, and he moves on. He wants Geneviah to take over for Sae shortly, and grab some rations from the storage compartment below the cabin. Geneviah assents, and he nods. He says that her lack of experience isn't an excuse to do any less than Sae: he expects her to work just as hard, and harder to catch up. Geneviah agrees, and says that she already made that commitment when she joined. That's what she's been doing all her life since she became old enough to work.
She follows the Captain out of the sleeping compartment, seeing Sae on the back of the ship staring off into the water at the pockets of essence density causing interesting visuals. Geneviah and the Captain go into the cabin, him settling on the wheel and Geneviah opening a trapdoor in the cabin to the storage compartment. In there, she creates two rations from the food they were given: she decides on a few legs of meat and a side of tomatoes and broccoli. She closes the boxes afterwards, feeling the chill from the glyphs inside permeate the box to keep it fresh.
She carries both plates with lids up into the cabin, and out to Sae. Sae quickly etches a pretty bad torrid glyph for heating up the meat, and they both eat. It's a nice moment for Geneviah, feeling almost normal after the events of WAVES.
Sae tells Geneviah that she wants to teach her about essence and glyphwork. It's important to her that whoever she works with has a working knowledge of glyphs. Geneviah objects, saying she has at least a basic knowledge, but after Sae asks her what the six alignments are, what emission versus refinement runes do, and why what happened last night happened, Geneviah falls quiet.
Sae must notice Geneviah's expression of discontent, because she follows up with "Don't worry, I'll teach you. You'll come out of this trip knowing at least a little about glyphs."
All Geneviah can feel is relief that she isn't going to be punished for lying to a Titled person, and that she isn't going to be stuck working with someone who hates her. As well, she doesn't have to trick Sae into telling her about essence now.
It ends with a line. "Thank god. She can finally learn about things like a normal person."
INLET
Sae's perspective.
Geneviah takes over watching the glyphs, and Sae starts giving her an introduction to essence work. She asks a series of preliminary questions: do you know what essence is? How do glyphs work? What are runes?
When Geneviah gives basic information for every question, and doesn't continue after Sae's prodding, she resists the urge to put her face in her hands. How does someone have the audacity to bluff this hard?
Sae quickly gives an overview, though she prefaces it by saying you could get a lot better of one at the essence museum back on shore. She says that she can take Geneviah to it once they're on shore leave.
She says:
Basically... essence, as far as the people smarter than me can tell, is energy. It can interact with the world through its alignments. They have special names, but most just call them heat, cold, darkness, light, sound, and force.
Glyphs can channel essence, extract various alignments, and emit them however it likes. It's our tool with interacting with essence, as far as I know.
Geneviah pipes up and asks, wait, if we can only interact with it through glyphs, what the hell happened yesterday?
Sae sighs. That's the bad part: essence, as far as we can tell, wants to be used. It builds up if it isn't, and in areas without glyph usage, it starts leaking into reality. That's why there's those spots of darkness and light across the sea: it's areas where essence is breaking through into reality. It's also why we use so many force glyphs for the Shanty: we need to draw on a lot of the essence around us to avoid what happened last night.
Geneviah nods, and Sae continues. Anyway, so... glyphs are comprised of runes. She holds up a kinetic glyph she had been carving. Very briefly, you need an intake, refinement, and emission rune. Intake channels essence, refinement does something to it, and emission uses it.
Geneviah says that makes sense, but asks about stopping essence.
Sae just kind of looks at her weirdly. You can't stop essence, Geneviah she laughs. It wants to be used.
Geneviah says, but like.. why. Sae responds with a vague It's just how it is. Glyphs can't stop channeling essence. She offers her guess: essence is under such great pressure that it needs an out, and any attempts they've had on stopping or reducing the flow just doesn't work.
Geneviah looks dismayed by this, and Sae agrees. It's hard to engineer good glyphs if you can't exactly turn them off, right?
They go over a few refinement runes and emission runes, and Sae takes a thin lab of granite, which is decent for example glyphs, and asks Geneviah to give her some alignments and runes. She'll etch them, and she can watch how someone does it in real time.
Geneviah gives her cold and darkness at first, and Sae kinda... deflates. She tells Geneviah that darkness is actually annihilative, and what it does isn't create darkness: it sucks light, sound, and essence out of the surrounding area. That's why they were etching it yesterday.
Geneviah nods, and then asks why they can't do both. Sae says it's due to annihilative essence overtaking any other kind of essence in a glyph's immediate emission area. Geneviah just picks cold, then.
Sae dials in and begins etching the glyph, and creates one. It's not her best work, but she shows Geneviah how to allow one to start channeling essence: you just finish off the intake rune.
Geneviah asks why it works like, and Sae shrugs. Just how it does.
The two sit back and watch the glyph as it shoots out cold-aligned essence, chilling and freezing a bit of the water.
After a few minutes, the glyph shatters, though Sae notices it and warns Geneviah. The two step back for a bit and watch as it cracks in half, exuding cold across the deck. Geneviah voices a realization: Oh, that's why we unstrap the glyphs and let them fall into the ocean. Sae nods, saying that a blast of force like that would either kill, maim, or knock them off the deck entirely. Or hurt the boat. Any of those is bad.
DOCKS
Geneviah's perspective.
It's been a few hours. Sae takes over for Geneviah, and she goes to the front of the ship to take a nap after absorbing so much essence information.
It's not that it was bad info: it was just a lot, and she only realizes now how much Sae knows about it. She has no doubts that Sae could talk about it for hours.
However, before she can take a nap, she spots the faint outline of land on the horizon: it's slightly obfuscated by an essence dense pocket, but she can see land! She goes to ask the Captain how much longer it'll be before they dock. He laughs a little: eager to get off the ship?
Geneviah pauses. No, she's not actually eager to get off the ship. She wants to continue being on it with Sae and seeing the ocean. It's terrifying, but something new she's never experienced.
She says, seriously: no, she's not wanting to get off the ship. She asks him if he'll have her again next time, and he about lights up. He says he was hoping for her to ask that, and of course he wants her back. He confides in her that Sae had been approaching a bit of a slump in terms of her happiness: she just seemed lonely. Part of the reason he hired her was because he thought she'd be a good friend, and based off what he's seen, they're getting there.
Geneviah is relieved, both because he thinks Sae and her still have a shot at being friends, if not cordial on the Shanty, and that she'll be wanted on next time. She pauses and realizes he never answered her question: How long until we reach Sankhurst?
He says it'll be a few hours: the glyphs move us fast.
Geneviah nods, and goes back out to hang out with Sae. She feels invigorated after the talk with him, no more need for a nap.
Vignette jump through a few hours: we see Geneviah telling Sae about her brother, Geneviah mentioning wanting to go to the essence museum, Sae's shock and eventually acceptance that someone wants to spend time with her, a force glyph almost exploding while Sae gets really into talking about the fun effects of a glyph she etched once, Geneviah telling Sae about her terrible manager from the docks, Sae talking about the essence museum and some exhibits she wants to show Geneviah, and Geneviah stopping her from going into another tangent about essence. Additionally, there's a moment where they just quietly sit and watch the shore approach. For Geneviah, it's something she's excited about: she notices Sae's anticipation, and she says that she hasn't spend long in Sankhurst for the last two years. Geneviah just says they have to make up for lost time.
To Geneviah, it takes ages for the ship to pull into port: she's told by Sae to watch her as she slowly drops the speed of the ship so they can pull into their designated docking space in Sankhurst, and that she'll need to follow along the next time they're leaving Sankhurst. They can't go full speed near the docks, they'll spray it with seawater. Geneviah remarks that her manager when she worked as a dockworker would probably deserve it, and Sae laughs a little.
The chapter ends with Geneviah touching solid ground, dragging Sae along with her into the city with the Captain's blessing.