He searched his alleged memory for an explanation as to why he might be doing such a thing, and why the stars were so brilliant and swirling around so quickly, but he seemed to have misplaced that fact. Perhaps the bump he felt swelling on his skull had dislodged his memory. He made a mental note to ask Kitai if she’d seen it lying around on the floor somewhere.

“A reasonably educational attempt, child,” murmured a woman’s voice. “Do you see now why it is important not only to maintain a windstream beneath you but a windshield in front of you?”

Ah, that was right. Lessons. He was taking lessons. Cramming for an examination, really, with a particularly astute tutor. He struggled to remember which subject they’d been working on. If he was pushing things this hard, final examinations must be soon, and the Academy had very little sympathy for its students during the grueling chaos of final exams.

“We’re doing history?” he mumbled. “Or mathematics?”

“I know that you find it counterintuitive to project wind both ahead of you and behind,” his tutor continued in a calm tone. “But your body was not designed for high-speed flight. If you do not take measures to protect yourself, especially your eyes, even relatively minor amounts of particulate matter in the air could blind you or otherwise bring your flight to a... terminally instructive conclusion. Adept fliers accomplish it so naturally that they have no need to consciously think about creating the shield.”

The stars had begun to wink out. Perhaps there was weather moving in. He’d have been concerned about rain if he wasn’t already in a cave—which again brought up the question about where the bloody stars had come from.

“Ow,” Tavi said. His head throbbed as the stars faded, and he suddenly remembered where he was and what he was doing. “Ow.”

“I doubt that you will die, child,” Alera said calmly. “Let us repeat the exercise.”

Tavi’s head pounded. He sat up, and the throbbing pressure eased somewhat. He’d clipped his head on a hanging icicle nearly three feet around at its base, and the thing had been harder than stone. He looked blearily around the cavern, which was lit by a dim glow emanating from the thirty-foot circular pool in its center, the water coming up to just below the level of the floor. Light and shadow danced and rippled around the ice cave, separated into bands of various colors by the water.

Ice groaned and crackled all around them. The floor of the cave swayed and rolled in a steady motion, though the size of the ice ship above and around them meant that it moved far more gently than the deck of any vessel.

“Maybe we shouldn’t call it a cave,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s really more of a cargo hold.”