The light of dawn poured in through the airplane''s window, and the heat of that light caused Kiera to stir from her sleep. Claire Aden was clinging to her, as if her life depended on it, and Kiera empathized with the girl. Kiera also wished she had a big sister to cling to. The sleek, arrowhead-shaped supersonic airplane was scary by itself, but flying through the great conduit above Spire Erika was absolutely terrifying.


    Thankfully, they had left at night and Kiera spent much of the trip sleeping. The clear night sky above Spire Lyn had been perfectly clear and filled with colorful stars. Now, the sky outside the airplane''s window was pale blue, transparent, and the stars were drowned out by the ambient light of the sun. The entire conduit had moved, fixed between the two worlds as they orbited each other through the Elemental Plane of Heaven, even as the airplane roared through the conduit toward the Sister World.


    Several ethermancers on board the craft maintained wind-aspect sound shields to protect the occupants from the noise of the supersonic engines. Other ethermancers used heaven-aspect weaves to create gravity toward the bottom of the craft. Because they had left their world behind, the ethermancers were forced to burn dream-ether candles. Beyond a handful of support staff, there were very few actual ethermancers required for the craft to operate. It flew by burning copious amounts of kerosene on the ascent, and then by falling vertically toward the Sister World on the latter half of the journey. Of course Fiona was the commander, but she had an experienced pilot, two flight engineers, and a Sister World navigator, all crowded into the cramped flight deck. Kiera had peered into the flight deck one time; the cacophony of instruments and buttons made her dizzy.


    Kiera pried herself loose from Claire''s grip and gently nudged the girl aside. She strode over to the window to check their progress.


    They were very close to the Sister World. The vast desert landscape stretched out below, the upper atmosphere shining like a ghostly pink shell. Three minor spires were visible in the distance. Each one was crowned with an airy sub-conduit which poked up into the sky like a bedroom veil.


    "I want to go home," Claire complained.


    "I knew this was going to be a problem," Kiera said. "I tried to warn you."


    "We should turn around."


    "We are past the halfway point. There isn''t enough fuel to turn the plane around."


    Kiera''s suite featured a very small shower in the lavatory, which was apparently uncommon on the craft. As witches, she and Claire had been given the largest suite at the front, far away from the engines. The water was lukewarm and the pressure wasn''t very high, but the shower still served to restore some sense of normalcy to Kiera''s morning. That was up until her watery trance was interrupted by Fiona''s voice.


    "Starting in about two minutes, expect two-times gravity in the helix around Spire Titania. Ethermancers prepare to end heaven-aspect weaves. We expect to land at Lake Rath in five minutes. Weather is clear."


    Kiera scrambled to rinse herself off. Gravity vanished before she could finish, and since the craft was still in a nose-dive, she floated, almost weightless, surrounded by globules of water which slowly grew bigger and bigger as they merged together. She held the faucet and pressed herself against the floor for a few seconds, until the nose began to rise and gravity returned.


    She dressed in her blue witch outfit, including the tall pointy hat, as Fiona had requested. Claire stood just outside, holding her black witch''s outfit tight against her thin, almost transparent shift.


    "You took too long!" Claire said.


    "It was just bad timing," Kiera replied.


    "Here, take this." Claire shoved her bundle of clothes into Kiera''s hands. Then, she doffed her shift and waddled, naked, into the shower.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    "You don''t have time," Kiera observed.


    "I have three minutes!" Claire replied.


    The intense gravity made it awkward to walk as Kiera staggered toward the window. The craft was flying through the long, curving descent around Spire Titania, the seventy thousand-foot tall complement to Spire Erika. The yellow-red stone spire was strangely smooth, and the upper portions were coated in a very thin layer of frost, as the air on the Sister World was significantly drier. The whole world rotated around the window, slowly, rising ominously.


    "Thirty thousand feet," Fiona said over the loudspeaker.


    "My controls," a second woman said, presumably the pilot.


    "Your controls," Fiona agreed.


    Closer to the ground, Kiera began to make out the alien landscape. The stone was colored on a spectrum from red to yellow, layered like long bands of oil paint. The stone was smooth, and in places it formed into lumpy stalagmites, like little fingers grasping at the air. Farther away from the spire, toward the horizon, the stone gave way to a vast ocean of sand dunes. While on her own world the sky was generally blue during the day, here on the Sister World the sky was dark indigo, with a tinge of dusky pink at the very horizon, as if the atmosphere outside the conduit was very thin.


    "Fifteen degrees left on this turn," Fiona said.


    Claire staggered out of the shower, dripping wet. "Why''d you run off?" she asked. "Give me my clothes!"


    "That was fast," Kiera said.


    "Your controls," the pilot said.


    "My controls," Fiona said. "Good job. Fifteen thousand feet. Leveling off. Expect reduced gravity."


    Thankfully gravity was not reduced too much. Kiera continued watching out the window as Claire scrambled into her witch uniform. The golden desert was replaced by a vast, oily darkness, the surface of some great body of water. At the very edge of the water, there appeared to be an extremely thin boundary of dull green. Life, it seemed, had found a way to survive in this strange world.


    "Aligned with the runway," Fiona announced. "Looking good. Ten thousand feet. Arm landing gear."


    "Landing gear armed," another woman said, presumably one of the engineers.


    The darkness was rising quickly to meet them. In the distance, beyond the edge of the lake, Kiera began to make out conspicuous geometric patterns. In fact, there was an entire city built on the edge of the lake, with neat city blocks, vast plantations, and enormous glass gardens shimmering green in the sunlight. As they descended, the city hugged the lake shore, growing closer and closer to the approaching airplane.


    "Two thousand feet," Fiona said.


    "Three knots overspeed."


    "Noted. Arm air brakes."


    "Air brakes armed."


    "Five hundred. Two fifty. One hundred."


    The lake ended, and the black runway rushed past in a blur, rising, ever rising.


    "Thirty. Ten."


    The entire craft jolted, and Claire, who was busy buttoning her blouse, was knocked off her feet onto the bed.


    "Touchdown," Fiona said.


    "Derotate," the pilot said.


    The nose dropped and the whole craft jolted a second time. As they rushed down the runway, Fiona and the pilot continued to chatter about their speed. Finally, the parachute was deployed and the craft slowly rolled to a stop, right on the runway.


    Walking through the main cabin, Kiera and Claire looked undignified with their wet messy hair and unkempt witch uniforms. Fiona was waiting for them at the forward door, and she smiled knowingly. "The flight engineers told me that your shower was running on approach," she said. "Let me guess, you both just woke up?"


    "Claire was too clingy!" Kiera protested.


    "You didn''t tell me the flight would be horrible!" Claire said.


    "We both warned you," Fiona said. "Either way, it''s too late to turn back now. I''m happy you''ve come around Kiera. You''re starting to ask the right questions. We''ll make you into a witch hunter yet."


    The door to the airplane opened and a pair of elderly oculomancers in turquoise robes stepped through. They bowed to Fiona, and then stepped out of the way, allowing the three witches to pass. Outside, a mobile staircase led down to the dark runway. Beyond the runway, the desert was surprisingly green, with small blue-green shrubs, dark desert flowers, and even waxy green plants coated with spines. As they began their descent, Claire gasped.


    "Kiera! Look up!"


    When Kiera looked up, she saw her own world for the first time. In the sky, at the far end of the great conduit, where the Sister World should have been, there was instead a foggy blue disk with a spider-like continent in the middle.


    "The acolytes are always shocked to see it from this side," Fiona said.


    As they moved further and further away from the airplane, and out of the range of the dream-ether candles, Kiera suddenly noticed that there was no ether to claim and consume. She felt naked without her powers.


    Fiona led them to a canal cut parallel to the runway, leading out toward Spire Titania and Lake Rath. The water was a smokey shade of dark blue, almost black, and it did not reflect the golden light of Spire Titania. A few noisy coal-powered steamboats were docked below, at the end of a long ramp cut into the yellow stone. The crew unmoored the nearest boat after the three women boarded, and then it chugged off without waiting for any additional acolytes.