Gliding down, Pixit gently lowered the net, then landed next to the unused projector. Mina dismounted and helped Eione climb out. Then she helped Neela. No one was paying any attention to them—​all eyes were on the sky, watching the extraordinary game of lightning relay.

“It’s a projector with a speaking tube,” Mina said. “We’re going to power it so everyone can see and hear.”

“And then you’re going to tell them about us? As if you know what it’s like to be us?” Eione asked, crossing her arms. She was glaring at the richly dressed people with undisguised disgust. “You can’t know, living here in safety and comfort. We’re your props. You want to make them pity us.”

Neela shot her a look. “Eione, these children are trying to help us.”

“I don’t want their pity,” Eione said. “I want them to stop murdering our people and destroying our homes. How’s she going to convince them to do that? Look at these people, smug in their wealth, blinded by their excess. What is she going to tell them that’s going to compete with all this?”

Mina concentrated, spreading her fingers, drawing the lightning from the border out of Pixit. Beside her, the other students were doing the same. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m the quiet one. I’m not going to tell them anything,” Mina said. “You are.”

Eione gawked at her.

As the lightning built between her hands, Mina felt all the hair on her body begin to stand on end. The strands of her hair rose upward. Her skin tingled. “It’s not my story to tell,” Mina said. “They don’t need to see or hear me. But I am going to make it possible for everyone to see and hear you.”

Now! she thought at Pixit. She heard him spread the order to the other storm beasts, and from them to their guardians. All of them hurled their lightning at the rod that rose from the projector.

It absorbed it, crackled, and then squealed a high-pitched noise.

Eione looked terrified.

And Mina knew exactly how she felt. “Go on. Just because you haven’t been heard before doesn’t mean you don’t have something to say.”

Neela placed a hand on Eione’s shoulder and squeezed, and Eione stepped up to the projector. She pushed back the hood of her jacket. “People of Alorria.” The tube took her voice and amplified it, sending it across the city, echoing from the skyscrapers.

People looked up and around, searching for the source of the voice. The lightning guardians paused in their game, looking down. Eione’s image rippled across the side of the capitol building.

Eione faltered. Softly she said, “I can’t.”

Loudly, Mina said, “You can.”