40 
The hatch closed the moment Perry boarded the Hover, controlled by some unseen Dweller under Sable’s command.
He fell into the pilot seat, concentrating on breathing. Just breathing in and out, and not thinking about what had just happened. In the chair beside him, Cinder gripped the armrests as he stared through the windshield.
“There you are, Peregrine.” Sable’s voice filled the small cockpit. “I can see both of you, but I’m told you can only hear me.”
Perry rubbed a hand over his face and sat up, forcing himself to gather his wits. “I hear you,” he said. He wondered if Roar or Aria was also there, watching and listening. He doubted it.
Their Hover was docked on the edge of the bluff. Outside, past fifty yards of dirt and sea grass, there was only sky. Only Aether. Perry had to stop himself from imagining shooting off the bluff and dropping to the coastline below.
Faintly, through the speakers, Perry heard pilots moving through flight commands. And then one by one, the other Hovers in the fleet rose off the ground. When their craft lifted with a jolt, Cinder gasped, his eyes flying wide open.
Perry swallowed through a dry mouth. “Buckle yourself in,” he said.
Not the most soothing words he’d ever spoken, but it was the best he could do at the moment.
Cinder looked over, scowling. “What about you?”
Perry glanced down, muffling a curse as he snapped his own harness on.
The Hovers didn’t shoot over the bluff like he’d pictured. They turned south and hugged the edge of the coast, following the trail to the compound that he and Roar had walked just yesterday.
As the fleet formed up like a flock, his Hover fell to the rear. Perry’s gaze moved to the Belswan at the lead.
Talon. Aria. Roar. Marron. Reef and the rest of the Six.
He couldn’t stop listing their names. They were all in there. Sable had handpicked the people closest to Perry and brought them on his Hover. It made Perry’s stomach churn to think they were in Sable’s control now.
In minutes, the Tide compound came into view, sitting up on a small rise. It was still his land, despite the flash of Aether and the trails of fire along the hills. He still felt it calling to him—but in a voice he no longer recognized.
“Did I ever tell you that my home in Rim was bigger than the whole of your compound?” Sable asked.
A jab, but Perry couldn’t have cared less. His house had always offered enough space. Even when the Six had slept wall to wall across the floor, there had always been enough room for everyone.
“You want to compare sizes, Sable? I bet I win.”
Perry didn’t know why he said that. He’d never been one for bragging—that was more Roar’s manner—but the remark made Cinder look over and smile, so it was worth it.
“Take one last look at your land,” Sable said, changing the subject.
Perry did. As the Hovers soared past the abandoned compound, he took in as much as he could, aching and nostalgic. Amazed at this new, shocking perspective of the place he’d lived in since birth.
After passing the compound, the fleet turned west and sped up, covering the half-hour walk over the dunes to the ocean in a heartbeat.
The beach where he’d learned how to walk and how to fish and how to kiss was a blur of beige and white. Gone in an instant, and then there was only water. Only waves that stretched out as far as he could see.
This journey was nothing like what he had imagined. For years, he’d pictured himself crossing over hills or deserts with the Tides in search of the Still Blue. He had expected a land voyage, not the steel blue of the ocean below and the glaring currents of the Aether above.
“I don’t know why you came with me,” Cinder said, pulling him from his thoughts.
Perry looked at him. “Yes, you do.”
He’d explained his conversation with Sable to Cinder in the Battle Room, though Cinder had already known. Cinder had already decided to help the Tides, he’d told Perry. From the moment he’d acquiesced to Sable in the Komodo, he’d said he felt ready.
But now his eyes filled with tears. “Remember when I burned your hand? How you said that was the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”
Perry looked down at his scars, flexing his hand. “I remember.”
Cinder said nothing more. He turned forward, but Perry knew what he was thinking. His ability was a wild, untamed thing. He tried to control it, but didn’t always succeed.
Perry didn’t know whether either of them would live through the next hours. He had been around Cinder a few times when he channeled the Aether. This time would be very different—it was the only thing he was sure about.
“I want to be here, Cinder. We’re getting through this, all right?”
Cinder nodded, his bottom lip quivering.
They fell quiet again, listening to the tremble of the Dragonwing and the hum of the engine. The ocean seemed endless, hypnotic. As they put mile after mile behind them, Perry imagined hunting alone. Tickling Talon until he broke into big, hiccupping belly laughs. Sharing a bottle of Luster with Roar. Kissing Aria and feeling her breathing, sighing, shivering under his hands.
He was deep in his thoughts until he saw a thin line of brilliant light on the horizon.
He sat up. It was the barrier, he had no doubt.
“Do you see it?” Cinder said, looking at him.
“I see it.”
With every minute that passed, the line became larger, broader, until Perry wondered how it had ever looked like a line. He squinted, eyes straining at the brightness. The barrier seemed endless. Great twisting columns of Aether rained from above, but they ran upward as well, circling. The flows formed a curtain that was larger than anything he’d ever seen, reaching up infinitely—like the ocean had been lifted up to the sky.
Cinder let out a whimpering sound as the Hover slowed.
Sixty feet below, the ocean currents churned in whirlpools, stirred by the Aether. Crossing in boats would have been suicide. Without the Hovers, they’d have been doomed.
Perry could see very little beyond the curtain of Aether—it was like looking through flames or rippling water—but in the small glimpses he did catch, he saw that the color of the ocean was different there.
The waves shimmered with unfiltered sunlight.
The Still Blue was golden.