When I woke up, the sky was pale purple. It was different from the sky of Eldoria. That one was either autumn gray or winter lead-colored. This one was soft. A color like dawn, mixing peach and purple, stretched beyond the horizon. Beautiful, I suppose. But that's what scared me. (I can't go back.) Elara Winters sat hugging her knees at the edge of the drifting pier's cliff. How much time had passed since I touched the Prism yesterday—though calling it "yesterday" here felt strange too? Night came, the sky turned orange, then back to pale purple. Which meant at least one night had passed. I gripped the Prism again in my hand. The octahedral crystal was cold and silent. Not a trace of the liquid light inside was visible. Despite how violently it had pulsed before, now it was just like any other stone. I tried touching it several times. Rubbed it. Even whispered "take me back." Nothing happened. Below the cliff stretched a sea of clouds. White, cotton-like expanse continuing far into the distance. What lay beyond it—some unknown realm I might call the void—I had no way of knowing. One thing was certain: if I fell down there, I wouldn't come back. Two harbor keepers had been at the pier since last night. They were occupied dealing with other castaways—apparently a large cargo ship loaded with timber had been swept here by a storm—and I was essentially being left alone. I couldn't tell if that was good or bad. (Grandma's probably worried.) The medicine bag. The date on the prescription. The tired voice I'd heard from the doorway. How much my grandmother must be worrying about my not returning. Thinking about it made my chest ache. But there was nothing I could do. I had no way to leave this island. "What're you doing out here at the cliff edge?" A voice came from behind, accompanied by light footsteps. I turned around. Standing there was a single boy. He looked seventeen or eighteen. Tall—a full head taller than me—yet somehow his posture seemed slack. Both hands shoved in his jacket pockets, weight shifted to one leg. Dark navy short hair with a few thin red streaks woven through. His eyes were a bright amber color, glinting faintly in the morning light. His left cheek had a dimple that appeared when he smiled—which I could confirm now, since he had a smirk on his face. "So, are you crying?" "I'm not." I answered immediately. And truthfully—I wasn't crying. My eyes were dry from staring at the sky all night. "Huh." The boy made a noncommittal sound while speaking, but then crouched down right next to me. Too close. I shifted slightly to the side, but the boy didn't seem to mind, peering down over the cliff edge. "A castaway?" "...I think so." "From where?" "Another dimension." "Huh." He showed no surprise whatsoever. As if that were a perfectly ordinary answer. Perhaps on this island, "I came from another dimension" wasn't an uncommon story. "Talk to the harbor keepers?" "They looked busy." "Bad timing. Multiple castaways arriving at once is rare." The boy stood up and introduced himself: "I'm Kael Thorn." His tone of voice changed to something more formal. Different from the lightness before—something like he was reading from a script. "Based on the Drifters' Code—the castaway laws—I'm offering you 72 hours of protection. I'll take care of you during that time. Food, a place to sleep, basic information. That's it." "...What are the conditions?" I asked carefully. Just being told someone would "take care of me" wasn't enough to trust them. I knew nothing about this island or this person named Kael. Being cautious was only natural. "There aren't any." "Really?" "It's the law. On this island, there's a 72-hour protection obligation. If I violate it, I get exiled. So I have a vested interest too. Don't get the wrong idea—I'm not doing this out of kindness." His tone was oddly blunt. The way he specifically denied doing it out of kindness made me more suspicious. And why had this boy come forward instead of the harbor keepers? I had a hunch he'd been watching for his moment. "You came when the harbor keepers were too busy to notice, didn't you?" There was a pause. "Smart." Kael laughed, but didn't deny it. A dimple appeared. "So what'll it be? If you want to refuse my protection, that's fine too. But the harbor keepers probably won't be free until evening." There was no real choice. I let out a short breath. "...Okay. I accept." "What's your name?" "Elara Winters." "Elara, huh. Well, let's go then. You're hungry, right?" Now that he mentioned it, I realized I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything all night. Fear and confusion had kept me from noticing, but my stomach was definitely aching. Kael started walking immediately. As I stood up and followed him, I became aware that I was doing so naturally, and felt oddly conflicted about it. (Why am I following him?) But my feet didn't stop. ── The Gale Bazaar was spread out at the base of a massive tree called the Windbone Tree. The Windbone Tree had to be ninety meters tall. Its trunk, stretching straight upward, was visible even from places far from the island's center. Kael told me that its roots stabilized the buoyancy of this island, Drift Haven. "If you damage the roots, the island falls. It's the ultimate taboo," he said, as if it were someone else's problem. The bazaar had about sixty stalls. Fruit sellers, tool merchants, skewer vendors, cloth traders, a blacksmith with oddly-shaped tools arranged on display. The currency was Gale Marks—coins made from solidified Windbone Tree resin—completely different from what I had. My wallet only contained American dollars. Useless here. "Do you understand the language?" "Not all of it. But I can manage most things." "How?" "I've been here since I was born." And that was the end of that. When I tried to follow up with "What do you mean?", Kael was already standing in front of a stall, talking to a merchant. His hands moved a lot when he spoke. Gestures, changing smiles, reading the other person's reactions while smoothly manipulating words. The street vendor was an old man in his sixties, initially looking reluctant, but gradually his expression softened as he got drawn into Kael's pitch. "You just stay quiet and smile. If anyone talks to you, just nod." He turned back to say that, already slipping back into negotiation mode. (Stay quiet and smile, huh.) I did as instructed. I forced a friendly smile and stood next to Kael. The old merchant looked at me. I smiled. He said something. (What is he saying?) I had no idea. But the atmosphere suggested I needed to respond. Should I just nod? I made an "ah" sound. The old man tilted his head slightly. Maybe I should say something more clearly. I decided to point at one of the items on display and tilt my head questioningly. The old man's eyes lit up. He spoke rapidly and pulled out something else. It was a cooking utensil with an enamel-like shine and a strange shape. Cylindrical, with three handles sprouting from it, and the tip twisted into a spiral for some reason. The old man was enthusiastically explaining it. The conversation seemed to be heading in the direction of "you like this, don't you?" "Wait, no—" "Huh? What did you do?" Kael quickly cut in. His expression stayed smiling toward the merchant, but his tone was clearly directed at me. "I pointed and the conversation changed—" "I told you to stay quiet and smile." "You didn't teach me the language." "That's fair." Kael talked with the old man for a while. The merchant's expression turned stern again, but eventually he handed over two small packages. Kael thanked him and we left. "Lost half our food." "I'm sorry." "No, that's on me for not explaining properly." As he said this, Kael thrust one of the packages at me. Inside was a skewered fish, grilled and still slightly warm. "Grilled cloud fish. It's not bad." I took a bite. It was fatty, salty, with some citrus seasoning. Probably because I was so hungry, it was surprisingly delicious. "...What kind of fish is this?" "Young cloud-eater. A large creature that lives in Aeselia's cloud sea. The adults have wingspans of about fifteen meters, but the young are small and easy to eat. The skin of the adults is used for airship sails." "Airships?" "Transportation between islands. Sail-ships that get their buoyancy from a technique called Lumen Weaving." "Lumen Weaving is—" "A technique for manipulating the energy that connects dimensions. I can't use it though." He said it casually. I chewed on the skewer while trying to memorize this: Lumen Weaving. Airships. Cloud-eaters. Gale Marks. Drift Haven. The Drifters' Code. Too much information. I couldn't keep up. But underneath the fear, there was definitely something burning. A sense of excitement. As we walked through the bazaar, I pulled the Prism from my bag and held it up to the light. In the soft morning glow, the liquid light inside remained silent. But the outline looked different. The engravings on the surface—complex geometric patterns carved into each face of the octahedron—faintly emerged depending on the sun's angle. At that moment. Kael's movement beside me stopped. Or rather, "froze" was more accurate. His pace faltered slightly, his gaze turned toward the Prism, and for one or two beats, he went still. Not a glance. A careful, deliberate look. As if confirming something. Had he recognized the Prism's engravings? Or was he remembering something? "Do you know something about it?" I asked directly. I considered being cautious, but I hated holding questions in. "Unusual shape for a stone." That was all he said, then his eyes moved to the next stall. Dried fruit was displayed there. "That stuff's good," he said, changing the subject. (That reaction was wrong.) I put the Prism back in my bag while making a mental note. "Unusual shape for a stone" was a lie. That look wasn't the reaction of someone seeing something unfamiliar. It was the reaction of someone who knows something, hiding that knowledge. But I wouldn't press him now. I had too little information. I'd observe more first. ── "The hideout's this way." Kael said this after we left the bazaar. "It's in a hollow space in the Windbone Tree's roots," he explained as we walked south from the pier. The distance was about eight hundred meters, supposedly. It was supposed to be. "What's that?" "...A root." "The shape is interesting. It's twisted. Is that natural?" "Yeah." "Maybe from wind influence. Since the whole island floats and moves, the direction of gravity changes slightly, which would affect the root's growth direction—" "Elara." "What?" "Walk." "Oh, sorry." Five minutes later. "That plant has unusual leaf shapes. The photosynthetic surface area is—" "Elara." "I know, I'll walk." Three minutes after that. "That rock formation's pattern is similar to Earth's sedimentary rocks, but the geology is different so—" "..." Kael didn't respond. He looked ahead for a while, then came back to walk beside me. He stopped walking ahead and matched my pace instead. I noticed but said nothing. Kael said nothing either. We just walked side by side, and whenever I found something to observe, he'd slow slightly, letting me look while we continued on. "Are all these root hollows connected?" "Mostly." "So they work like underground passages?" "We used them that way as kids." Short answers, but "as kids" came out. So he grew up on this island? But he'd invoked the Drifters' Code, so was he originally from here, or had he drifted here as a child? I was about to ask when Kael pointed ahead and said "Here," indicating the entrance to a root hollow. He cut off the conversation with perfect timing. ── The hideout was cluttered with stolen goods and homemade tools. There was barely enough space for two beds, but one was being used as storage. Kael quickly c