Mina laid down her pencil and stared at what she’d written. The solution was simple: don’t celebrate. Your celebration hurts people, so don’t do it. As Papa had said when she’d asked him that question about Beon and Rinna, Tell them to find another game to play. All they had to do was convince the other guardians to refuse to participate.

No guardians, then no festival.

She hesitated for a moment longer. What if her friends didn’t like it? What if they laughed? What if . . .

«Mina. We won’t laugh. Show us.»

Taking a deep breath, Mina picked up the piece of paper and, turning in her chair, held it up for her friends to see. Jyx took it from her, studied it, and then passed it to Ferro and Zek. Keeping it away from any sparks, they showed it to the storm beasts.

«It’s perfect,» Pixit said.

“How many copies can you make?” Jyx asked.

“If you find me more paper, I’ll make as many as I can.”

Ferro and Zek scurried off to their room, then came back with stacks of paper. Jyx rummaged through her desk and came up with another wad. “You know how everyone leaves their textbooks on the shelves by the practice field when they go out to fly? After breakfast tomorrow, we put the essays in the textbooks while everyone else is airborne,” Jyx counseled. “And then we listen. Anyone who sounds like they might agree, we pull them aside and we talk to them. We don’t say we are the kids in the essay. We don’t say we saw the graves. Or even that we know who did. But we listen, and every time we hear outrage, we agree with it. We fan it. We tell them to talk to their friends. Meanwhile, Mina will keep drawing and writing more. And we spread this idea—​this truth—​throughout Mytris.”

“And then?” Ferro asked.

“And then we spread it beyond Mytris, to every guardian in all of Alorria,” Jyx said, and threw her arms open wide, as if she could touch the edges of Alorria with her fingertips. In that moment, Mina believed she could.

Chapter
Twenty-One

They began, as planned, the next morning.

As guardians and beasts clattered into the dining hall, Mina supplied her friends with a stack of essays. And then she snagged a breakfast roll and went back to her room to sleep, something she hadn’t done all night. She’d drawn and written by the light of Pixit’s sparks until dawn. He was worn out too. His scales were a pale, flat yellow, and his entire body mushed into the sleeping divot as if his bones had melted. He snored very loudly. Mina slept anyway.