Voleta Boreas

Sketch of Voleta drawn by Josiah Bancroft

### Occupation

Trapeze Artist at the Steam Pipe, Crew Member of the Stone Cloud, Crew Member of the State of the Art

## Appearances

### Appears in

Senlin Ascends, Arm of the Sphinx, The Hod King, The Fall of Babel

## Background

Voleta was born and raised in area called the Depot of Sumer in Khayyam alongside her brother, Adam. She frequently climbed on scaffolding and beams around the railroad that ran through the town. She became bored of the town and suspected that her father died because he too was bored, so she joined Adam to go to the Tower of Babel. The two stayed in an apartment in the Parlor, where Adam thought he was working as a clerk, but was really paying to be an actor. He noticed that Voleta was acting strange having to be couped up in an apartment all the time. When Adam’s debt forced him become a hod, Voleta convinced Finn Goll to save Adam. Adam works for Goll to pay off his debt and Voleta becomes “The Flying Girl”, a trapeze artist at the Steam Pipe, run by a whoremonger named Rodion, who Adam bribes to keep her from prostitution.

At some point, Voleta and Adam started a fire at the Steam Pipe in an effort to escape, but the attempt was foiled. She meets Finn Goll's bodyguard Iren, who shouts out to everyone that there's a fire.

## Appearances

### Senlin Ascends

Voleta works as a trapeze artist at The Steam Pipe when she meets Senlin. She's later involved in his plot to escape the Port of Goll, and joins the Stone Cloud crew.

### Arm of the Sphinx

The crew goes to the Windsock, a hanging port to sell the rum and spend at the markets. Voleta returns to Iren and Adam at a pub with a pet squirrel Squit that she stole from a cage. It’s owner follows her into the pub and Iren throws him off the port, causing them to be banned from the Windsock.

Later, Voleta is chasing Squit instead of watch duty and the Ararat ambushes them. They are chased down to the ground and boarded but the crew escape by hooking themselves to a moving train.

They enter the Silk Gardens in desperate need of repair. Voleta ignores her orders to stay with Iren and Adam and instead follows Senlin and Edith to a hod fortress. She realizes that this is a camp of zealots after she watches the murder of a hod, and decides to sneak in by shaving her head. She then sets up explosives for Senlin and Edith to escape while she steals food for the crew.

The three escape but are chased into the woods by hods and attacked by spider eaters. Senlin is able to get a rifle and shoot the hods that are attacking the Stone Cloud. The crew escape, but they now need to go to the Sphinx because Edith’s arm has ran out of fuel and the replenishments were destroyed in the Aratat chase. Edith fears that the Sphinx will force them all into a dangerous contract, especially Adam. Edith also chastises Voleta for not obeying orders.

Voleta, along with the rest of the crew, are forced to wait for Senlin as he curbs his crumb addiction in the Sphinx's Bottomless Library. Voleta sneaks through the vents and strikes an unlikely bond with the Sphinx who shows her around including the reservoir of fluid that powers all of her machines. The Sphinx also reveals that she is an old woman under the mask and trusts Voleta enough to change her batteries for her.

She later learns that her brother has been taken prisoner towards the top of the Tower, but believes that he'll be fine.

### The Hod King

Voleta is forced to take etiquette lessons from Byron while Edith and Iren test the new ship with Reddleman as the pilot. She also starts playing a game in which she tries to see how far she can slide on a bathmat in the gun room.

Edith hears Senlin’s message and tells Voleta the mission is off. Voleta says that Marya wouldn’t accept help from Senlin if she’s being held hostage and convinces Edith to let her do her mission. Iren and Voleta are dressed and trained by Byron.

The State of the Art enters the port to a fanfare. The Postmaster tells Voleta they need to cage Squit, which she obliges. They meet Georgine Haste who takes them to meet the King.

Voleta speaks with the King and impresses the crowd with her stories. She requests the king give Squit her freedom as a gift, which he does. He then chooses Lady Xenia de Clarke to be her guide.

The de Clarkes throw a party where Voleta realizes the backstory she’s been given by Byron is really the backstory of the Sphinx, she is the Bricklayer’s Granddaughter.

An actress, Lady Fortunee tells de Clarke to shoot a parrot that was gawking at her. Voleta insults de Clarke who was about shoot the parrot, allowing the bird to escape. The party ends after that and the de Clarkes are furious with Voleta and Iren is disappointed in her.

Voleta sneaks out to run on the rooftops. She meets Prince Francis who recognizes her as the Sphinx’s niece. It turns out that Voleta’s stunts (both at the party and on the rooftops) have made her even more of a celebrity.

Prince Francis invites Voleta and the de Clarkes to his party. Francis asks Voleta to dance, but knowing she can’t dance, they instead play a game listing why dancing is dumb. Voleta gets Francis to secure them an invite to Marya’s performance. Voleta puts on the Sphinx’s necklace.

The Prince secures Voleta a backstage pass. She speaks to Marya alone and is unable to convince her to leave. Voleta sees her child and realizes that’s why she won’t leave. Marya returns to the show. Francis enters and tries to force himself onto Voleta. Voleta fights him and he shoots her with his pistol in the head. Iren, who was locked in a closet by the Prince’s friend, uses a moth to locate Voleta via her necklace. She finds her and stabs the Prince with a coat rack.

Iren runs Voleta back to the State of the Art, only to see it fall from the sky. The ship returns, flying without its envelope and fires into the port. Reddleman reveals that Voleta died, but with Iren's insistence, he revives her with the Sphinx's medium. She takes several days to wake up, and she wakes up calling for Adam.

### The Fall of Babel

The crew enters Oyodin to collect one of the Sphinx's paintings, but when they arrive they find a hod running off with it. Voleta, whose been acting off ever since she was brought back to life with the Sphinx’s medium, chases the hod and is stabbed through her hand.

Their next stop is the Cistern, and Iren and Voleta go together to collect the painting. Iren and Voleta talk about how their relationship has strained since Voleta came back to life. Iren admits her guilt that she couldn’t save her and asks Voleta if she’s sorry that she was brought back to life. Voleta says that it’s not her fault that she was killed and she’s glad to be alive, and that she’s going to be more careful now.

They collect the painting but are ambushed by Marat's half mechanical spider and half female human corpse named Delyth. Delyth cuts off Voleta’s hand before she’s chased off and Iren reattaches the limb with the help of the Sphinx’s medium. Edith, Iren and Voleta return to the ship, and they take aboard the citizens injured by the Hod King. *The State of the Art* crew help the injured, except for Voleta, whose given a high dosage of the Sphinx’s medium and falls into a deep trance. Voleta’s consciousness travels back through time where she sees the Sphinx when she could use her legs to walk instead of her floating device that she uses to move around. Reddleman warns her about taking too many doses of the medium when she wakes up.

Voleta goes back in time again to find the Bricklayer speaking with a painter named Philip about his most recent work – he explains that he was trying to paint a picture of a body of water but an abandoned girl with a toy boat kept getting in the way so he included her in the painting. He discovered that her parents abandoned her so he and his family took her in. The Bricklayer claims that the girl is his granddaughter and requests that multiple copies of the painting to be made for him. He also notices Voleta and tells her that the top of the Tower contains a hole called the Allomonia, but it must not be filled until the Nautilus is closed.

*The State of the Art* enters Cicilia, the ringdom below the Sphinx’s lair, to find that the citizens are evacuating the ringdom due to the electricity going out. Before abandoning her subjects, the Queen attempted to fix the issue with explosives which ruined the plumbing for the entire ringdom.

Edith, Iren, Voleta and Reddleman travel to where Reddleman suspects the Hod King will be and are attacked by the Sphinx’s creatures. They escape, but Voleta is put into another trance that sends her consciousness back in time. The Brick Layer continues to give instructions to her – which are that the bridge must not open until the lightning sea is full (which it already is full), that the Nautilus be closed, and that the Allomonia will turn on once the Nautilus is flooded. The Bricklayer also tells her that the capstone, the same one the Nebosans will use to try to crush him, must be placed at the top of the pyramid in Nebos.

The State of the Art crew goes up to Nebos to enter the Sphinx’s lair from above, where they rescue Adam and Runa from execution. Adam is distraught after hearing that Voleta died. Voleta explains that the capstone must be placed at the top of the pyramid, which Adam and Runa elect to do. Edith, Iren, Voleta, and Reddleman then head to the Sphinx’s lair. Voleta goes off to find Senlin. Senlin, spotting Voleta, takes this moment of distraction as an opportunity to escape.

Senlin gets changed in the Sphinx’s wardrobe and Senlin and Voleta reunites with the rest of the crew in a room with all of the Sphinx’s past automations. The reunion is interrupted by Marat and his wakemen, and that interruption is interrupted by the Sphinx’s automations turning on and attacking everyone. Senlin and Voleta fight and defeat Marat’s armored engineer, Gedge. Senlin, Iren and Voleta also team up to defeat Delyth.

Following Marat's demise, Senlin, Edith, Iren and Voleta return to Nebos to find the entire ringdom shaking. Voleta gives Iren a wink then goes off to find Adam. She’s overwhelmed with emotion following the deaths of the Sphinx and Reddleman, both of which were mentor-like figures to her. She tells Adam that she loves him even though it may look like she doesn’t care. Adam mentions that a chamber has opened. The two decide to enter and it’s a bridge of a ship. The Bricklayer is projected onto the bridge and explains that Nebos is a ship headed to a destination that’s two years away. Adam and Voleta are selected to be the pilot and navigator in case there is any emergency where they need to assume control.

Adam goes to find Runa and Voleta stays to resupply on the medium and travel back through time to get more information. Reddleman appears to her while she’s in her trance and warns her that she can’t go into deep time traveling trances until she finds a source of the medium on the ship. He also explains that the ship is an ark, and that this is just one of multiple arks from other Towers that are all heading to one location. The Sphinx also stored her creatures in the Warren, all of which provide key ingredients used to make the medium. Voleta later suggests to Adam, Runa, and Captain Dyre, a member of the lumenguard, that they explore a mysterious door found in the lower decks of the ship to find out more information on the ship’s purpose.