Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 513
valuable insights into why the Winds won’t talk to us. And
then we’ll go back for your friends."
"It’s just that..." He didn’t want to say it. Marya waited
patiently.
"We have to get Calandria," he said. "She’s so obsessed
with 3340, and Armiger. Sometimes I think... I think she wants
to lose. Wants to die, or something worse."
Marya frowned. "We can’t save her," she said.
Axel turned back to the viewscreen. Ventus was visibly
a globe now, in crescent phase as the ship headed away from
the sun. Diadem twinkled brightly above the limb of the
horizon.
"If not us," he said, "then who?"