Mr. Matt Cruse

Matt Cruse is the crow's nest watchman on the Aurora, and holds the official title of cabin boy, but has been promised a position as an apprentice sailmaker as soon as one comes available. Matt's home is in Lionsgate City. He has two sisters. Isabel, who was growing up with a definite fondness for musical instruments of all kinds, and Sylvia, who is almost twelve and beginning to think of herself as a young woman. All his life, he'd wanted to fly - towards his father and away from his mother. Allowed only a few possessions, Matt's most prized included the eight books his father had taken with him when he sailed aboard the Aurora.

When he sleeps aboard the Aurora, he often dreams of his father, long dead. He and his father fly the skies together without encumbrances of body, often alongside the Aurora, but...