“Faster!” Mina called. She ran between the beasts, helping people climb into the nets, helping secure the nets around the beasts’ legs—​also her idea. The storm beasts could have held the nets in their claws, the way Ragit, Brindle, and Chauda had when they’d carried her and the wounded Pixit back to the school, but with the storms, none of them wanted to take any unnecessary risks. All nets were tied on.

The wind and rain were so loud she couldn’t hear the children screaming, though she saw their open mouths and pinched faces as they were tossed into the nets. It sounded as if the entire world were screaming in Mina’s ears. She was crying, but she didn’t care—​her face was already slick with rain and mud.

All the streams around the town had swelled, overflowing their banks. Mina ran through six inches of water. It seeped into her boots.

“Is that everyone?” she yelled to Neela.

“Yes!” Neela yelled back.

“Then let’s fly!” Mina shouted as she mounted Pixit. Eione helped Neela into Chauda’s net; then Eione climbed into Pixit’s.

“Don’t drop me,” Eione warned.

“We won’t,” Mina promised. Can you carry both of us? she asked Pixit silently.

«I don’t know if I can. But I will.»

Lifting the net, he flapped his wings hard, rising up, and then he was sailing forward. Immediately the wind slapped into them. Turn! Mina cried in her mind. Below her, Eione screamed.

Directly ahead was the first tornado.

Flying still higher, Pixit veered back toward the mountains. Mina tried to look to see if the others had gotten airborne—​she saw some. She couldn’t see them all.

The rain was no longer drops. It had amassed into a solid wall of water. It felt as if a bucket were being poured directly onto her head. She didn’t know how Pixit could see. She wiped at her eyes again and again, frantically trying to tell which way the mountains were.

All around them, lightning flashed—​bolts spread out like veins in a leaf ahead of them. The gray clouds were bleached white. Again and again, lightning streaked the sky. Pixit flew between the strikes.

«Mina, there’s too much! I can’t avoid it all!»

You can do it! Keep flying!

«You’ll have to catch the electricity before the bolts strike the net!»

But if I fail . . .

«Catch it! You need to do it! I know you can!»

Mina flattened against Pixit’s neck and hoped that none came too close. She’d caught bolts that she’d drawn to her, within tame practice clouds, but these were another thing altogether. Electricity scurried across the clouds.

«Mina!»

Again, across the mountain range, she saw a web of white light, as lightning struck over and over at the peaks. “Curl up as much as you can!” Mina warned Eione. “And hang on!”