In the end, it was only the two other young ladies who came out of the waiting room. The unfortunately dressed one in her claret and hunter green travelling gown, and the reader in a sturdy dark green skirt and jacket set. While she didn't carry any weapons, the satchel that hung across her body was so crammed with books that Soleil guessed it would work as a battering ram in a pinch.

  She nodded at them when she got onto the carriage, and walked swiftly to secure a seat a row or two behind Soleil and Titania. Given that there was no chance of every seat being filled, Soleil took it to mean that she was doing her best to separate herself from the their fellow passenger, while also maintaining a little space from them. Fair enough, she seemed like she would rather read than talk, and she would hardly be the only person to do so at a University as respected as Glayth.

  The reader seemed happy enough in her little world, but she did shoot a wary glance back at the other girl, as if dreading her sitting beside her. There appeared to be little chance of that, but the reader clearly wanted there to be no chance at all of that happening. She put her bag of books on the chair next to her in as clear a warding symbol as a line of salt on the ground.

  Soleil caught her eye and winced a little, the young woman nodded unhappily and shrugged, before setting herself down and diving back into her book bag.

  Continuing her trend of being completely oblivious to the feelings of those around her, the instantly recognisable girl sat herself down loudly a few rows further behind the reader. She gave a loud gusty sigh and tossed her head a few times to show off her hat, before somewhat awkwardly sitting by herself. She tried very hard to catch Soleil’s eye at this point, but Soleil ducked her head and turned back to Titania who was staring at the young lady with the grim determination usually associated with prize fighters, so Soleil did her best to distract her.

  "Do you think it would be worth me taking the Magical Communication course? Surely learning to send magical letters cannot really take the same amount of time as Introduction to Illusion?"

  Titania took the bait, turning her attention to Soleil, "Oh but you don't just learn how to "send magical letters" the course is much more detailed than that!" She continued on, exuberantly talking up the course and the multitude of useful things learnt during it. Though from what Soleil picked up, it did seem to be a course mostly about learning how to send magical letters. Something that was very useful, but it was hard to see how you would fill 6 hours a week for three months with it.

  The Conductor gave a whistle, "Please be seated," everyone already was, "We are about to take off. Next stop Glayth Skerry Air Station in approximately 47 minutes."

  The magical contraption on the top of the air carriage started to steam, the faintly blue coloured magical fog drifting off to blend with the natural grey. Then with a slow kerchunk noise the wheel started to grind along the chain, pulling the air carriage forwards and off the platform.

  Her stomach wobbled threateningly for a moment as they tipped over the edge, Titania let out a quiet yelp, and Soleil gripped onto the chair as they rocked back and fore. But then the air carriage seemed to reach a point of equilibrium and started to move out into the fog with less of a seesaw motion. The contraption pulling them along also quietened, once it was well started it made little more than a low thump grind, thump grind sort of noise that drifted off into the background like far off thunder.

  "Oooh, this is exciting!" Soleil said, half jumping in her chair to look around and see if she she could see anything new out of the windows. Unfortunately, they were still trapped deep in the fog bank, and even the glimpse of Glayth Skerry she had thought she had caught on the platform had been covered up again.

  "Please don't bounce," Titania said grimly, she was holding onto the chair so tightly it was a wonder that the pretty gloves she was wearing were not ripping along the seams.

  "Sorry, I'm just excited. I've never been in something like this before," Soleil said apologetically.

  "Yes, well, I haven't either," Titania took a deep breath, and turned to look out the front window towards where the school should be appearing at some point.

  Cowed, Soleil sat neatly for a moment, before she turned to look out the back to see the station disappear into the swirling fog. The long chain that held them up in the air and every time they passed over a new link the runes carved into it would shimmer into view for a moment, before going dormant once more.

  It was an incredibly intricate design, the runes for preservation and strength were certainly included, though she was not quite sure she could make out the others. Maybe something about lightness? Or lift? It would make sense, the air carriage was heavy after all and without help it would probably slip to the middle of the chain then hang there like a pendulum while the steam contraption hissed and groaned above.

  "You have the sight, then?" It was the girl with the books, she had looked up from her books and was looking at Soleil with interest.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Surprised, Soleil looked at her and stumbled over words that meant nothing. She wasn't normally called out like this, "Um, how did you?"

  The girl shrugged, "You were staring at the chain. People don't typically do that." She had a stiffness to her tone that made it seem like she did not talk to people very often. “But you do, don’t you?”

  "A little, I suppose, for runes and things," Soleil admitted. Godly sight was something completely different to mortal sight. It was sometimes hard to entirely know where the normal limits were and where she was hurdling them.

  "That will be very useful at the school," she said matter of factly, before going back to her book.

  A little nonplussed at this short interrogation, Soleil waited for any more input, then when none was forthcoming, she turned to Titania with her eyes wide.

  The other girl was hiding a smile behind her hand.

  Soleil narrowed her eyes at her, mock glaring, before primly turning to look out the front again. There was not a great deal to see, but the swirling fog could be quite pretty in an oil paint on water kind of way.

  It wasn't long until the grinding noises had started to increase again, and the floor of the air carriage took on a definite upwards slant. They must be getting closer to one of the support buoys that held up the chain. She had read that the carriage would unlock from one length of chain on one side of the buoy, and then lock onto the next. It meant that the chain was better supported and less likely to flap around in the wind like bunting at a street fair.

  As they rose higher and higher the fog turned to mist, and then thinned to nothing more than the slightest shine in the air. She felt like cheering, but respectful of the others on the air carriage did not do so.

  She gasped loudly, however, when she spotted the distant towers of the school. "Look, Titania!" She pointed, grabbing her new friend by the arm and shaking her lightly. She knew that she was behaving childishly and not giving a damn.

  Luckily Titania's fear was thoroughly conquered by her own enthusiasm, as she similarly leant forwards and looked out the window. "Oooh, I can see the observatory. That's the very tall domed building farthest away from us," she said for Soleil’s benefit.

  "Yes, they must need it to be very high to keep it out of the fog," she nodded. "I hear they have discovered a new constellation that Divinators are finding very useful."

  "I hadn't heard about that," Titania said turning to look at Soleil. She frowned for a moment, focusing over her shoulder.

  Soleil turned to look, but there was nothing but a blank sheet of rippling fog beneath them.

  "Don't mind me," Titania said, waving her hand, "The fog is just confusing me. I thought I saw something, but obviously not." She laughed self consciously, and pulled on one of her artfully posed ringlets.

  "I suppose we shall have to get used to fog and its confusing ways," Soleil said. “It certainly seems to be a fixture of the island’s weather.”

  "Ugh, yes. And I am already regretting not bringing more warm clothes, but there is only so much that one can wear underneath a coat before you start looking like an overly swaddled baby trying to escape their nanny," Titania pouted, before her face transformed once more into the display of enthusiastic interest that Soleil was starting to see as her ordinary look. "Oh we're reaching the top now!"

  The steam contraption came up to the edge of the floating buoy, a large lightly glowing brass sphere with railings around the outside like the rings of a planet. The contraption gave a shudder that rippled through the air carriage, shaking them all in their seats.

  The conductor stood up and announced gravely, "Please remain seated while the chain change takes place," before moving in a burst up to the ceiling of the air carriage, via a mostly hidden series of ladder rungs the same colour of metal as the walls. Quickly he reached the centre point, where on the other side of the metal roof the contraption sat, he pulled down a wired cage, where he did something that looked very technical and complicated with the key on his belt.

  The contraption made a squeaky groan, before lurching forward. The buoy quickly disappeared from sight as they were attached, and then a second squeaky groan shuddered through the air and the passengers beneath, while they were attached to the second length of chain.

  The conductor did something that looked to Soleil’s untrained eye like hitting a few spots with his key, though surely it was more complicated than that, and then with a final squeak they were firmly placed where they ought to be and the contraption returned to is previous state, and started making the familiar thump grind noise.

  "Phew, one down," Titania said, as the Conductor climbed down to the floor of the air carriage again. He landed lightly, with hardly a noise rising from his leather boots.

  "It looks like a very complicated business," Soleil said, wonderingly. She smiled her thanks at the Conductor who merely nodded back at her. The glimmer of something magical has been weaving around whilst he tapped on things and used his key in various locks, but there hadn't been anything that could really explain the way that the air carriage had picked itself up, taken itself off one chain and tied itself to another. Normally you had to match magic with movement, but this was something else. The complications of such a feat were flabbergasting. Though, as a school for Magic, Glayth could probably corner any genius they wanted.

  "Oh indeed," Titania said, though, she did not appear to want to think about it any more than that.

  They watched the school slip away, back into the fog.

  With one last glance and an accompanying sigh, Titania looked back to Soleil. But once again she was distracted, looking over her shoulder into the fog. "I know it is just my eyes playing tricks on me, but I would swear there was something out there."

  Soleil turned to look, it was true. They had dipped quickly below the fog layer again and the swirling morass really could trick you into thinking all sorts of things. "There could be a bird out there, I suppose?"

  "Look, there!" Titania caught her shoulder and steered her towards where she was pointing "Doesn't that look like something?"

  Soleil frowned. It was true, there was a sort of serpentine wave out there that looked a bit too put together to be merely the billowing of fog. It also looked far too large to be a bird. "I see what you mean, but surely there cannot be anything up here with us, we are at least 500 metres up in the air. It must just be a trick of the light -"

  And that, dear reader, was when the creature came out of the fog and hit the side of the air carriage like a punch to the gut.