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„Aislinn had been suspicious from the moment Marni led her onto the small airship without offering a single explanation. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” she asked as Delesyia grew smaller beneath them. “Patience, darling.”

She gave him a deeply unimpressed look. “You dragged me several thousand feet into the air for-” “Turn around.“

Still frowning, Aislinn turned toward the railing and froze. Something enormous was emerging through the clouds behind them. First came the long metallic beak, then the angular head, and finally two colossal mechanical wings spreading against the blue sky. Sunlight flashed across steel and brass as the machine swept closer, its engines rumbling like distant thunder. A giant metal bird, soaring as though it were alive. Aislinn’s mouth fell open. “No…” Marni stepped up beside her, watching her rather than the machine. “Is that-” “The Ironwing REN-X.

Her head snapped toward him and immediately back again. “YOU FINISHED IT?!” Whatever composure she possessed vanished instantly. She rushed forward against the railing as Ironwing approached, leaning so dangerously far over it that Marni immediately slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her firmly back against him. She barely seemed to notice.

“Look at the wings! You actually solved the articulation problem! Is that the stabilizer we discussed? Oh my God, you actually used it- wait, let me see-” She tried to lean forward again. Marni’s arm tightened around her waist.

“Perhaps you better admire it from inside the airship.” “But I need to see the lower mechanism!” “You also won’t see much of it while plummeting toward Delesyia.” “Oh, stop being dramatic.” She gave back while being halfway over the railing. His grin slowly softened into something far more genuine. He had imagined this moment countless times while building it, wondered what she would say, which details she would notice first, whether she would understand just how much work had gone into making the impossible fly.

Of course she did. She always did.