“Everyone has a choice,” Papa told him sharply.

“Yeah, but Mina wants to be a guardian,” Gaton said. “Right, Mina?”

This was not what she wanted to talk about. “I do, but . . .”

Papa pressed. “If she’s unhappy there, then she doesn’t have to stay. I’d never force one of my children to do anything that makes them unhappy.”

Gaton muttered, “You make me clean the goat pen.”

“This is serious, Gaton,” Mother said. “Mina, are you unhappy? Do you want to stay at home?”

Mina cleared her throat. “Really, that’s not—”

“I know it’s serious!” Gaton stood up, the ribbons falling off his lap. “Do you know how many families enter the lottery for an egg? How many kids dream of their own beast? Only one in four ever has the chance, and the rest miss out. I know Mina wants this!”

Beside her, Pixit bristled. He leaned against her. «They’re not listening to you.» Sparks crackled over his scales. Mina felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Her skin began to tickle. But her family kept arguing, about her, about what they thought she wanted, without letting her say a word.

She wanted to be a guardian. Gaton was right about that. She wanted to make the world a better place. She wanted to do the right thing. She wanted so very much!

Mina raised her hands, fingers spread. “Stop, please. All of you, stop!”

And sparks jumped between her fingers.

She stared at them. Tiny white bolts of electricity hopped from her thumbs to her index fingers to her middle fingers to her ring fingers to her pinkies. Closing and opening her hands, Mina watched the little bits of lightning dance on her palms.

Everyone stared at her.

“We did it,” she said to Pixit.

«We did it!» he howled in her mind.

“How did we do it?”

«Do it again!»

Mina concentrated, and a ball of fuzzy light coalesced on her palm. I can do it! I really am a lightning guardian!

«Of course you are. You always were!»

Is it because I finally acted like one? I was finally loud?

Pixit snorted. «No. It’s because you finally let yourself be you. The you I know you are. The you who has something to say and finds her own way to say it. Not loud, but determined to be heard.»

She threw herself toward Pixit and wrapped her arms around him. He curled his neck around her and hugged her with his wings. Peeling back, she turned to her family, smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt.