Mina grinned at Pixit and then at her friends. Electricity began to jump between their fingers and coat their hands up to their wrists. They let it build, as they’d practiced, until each of them held a writhing sphere of white light.

“On three!” Jyx called. “One, two, three!”

All of them hurled their lightning at the sand. And the sand sprayed up in an instant, freezing into an array of glass tubes that mimicked the shape of the lightning strikes.

For a moment, there was silence.

And then the audience burst into cheers.

“We did it!” Jyx cried.

She hugged Mina, and Mina hugged her back; then they hugged Pixit and Chauda. Everyone else started hugging one another too.

We really did it, Mina thought at Pixit. We’re real storm guardians now.

«Told you we would be,» Pixit said smugly.

Professor Dano stepped forward, cleared his throat, and then looked to Professor Werrin, who thumped her cane again. Slowly the crowd quieted. “Your assignments are posted on the wall outside the dining hall,” Professor Dano announced.

Everyone stampeded out of the front hall, cramming into the corridor. Mina hung back with Pixit, admiring the sculpture. It was, she thought, the prettiest one.

Her family clustered around her. Beon and Rinna each hugged one of her legs. Papa hugged Pixit first, then Mina. Mother and Gaton embraced both of them, reaching over the twins.

“Aren’t you going to see where you’re posted?” Gaton asked.

It was strange, but it felt like it didn’t matter. She tried to find the right words to explain why. “Wherever I go, it will be all right. I know who I am, and that matters more than where I am.”

«Besides, Jyx will tell us,» Pixit added.

Sure enough, less than thirty seconds later, Jyx and Chauda came barreling back into the front hall, skidding to a stop just short of the new glass sculpture. “Guess what?” She danced in a circle around Mina and didn’t wait for Mina to guess. “We’re together!”

«Yay!»

“And guess where? Beyond the mountains!”

Mina felt as if she’d had lightning poured into her. Beyond the mountains! Pixit, do you know what this means? It meant that the prime minister had really listened. It meant they’d be doing what no storm guardian had done before: using their power outside Alorria. It meant they’d have a chance to do more, fix more, be more. Together, we’re going to do great things!

«Together, we’re going to have more adventures!»

She smiled at Jyx, Chauda, and her other friends, who were all coming back into the front hall brimming with news, and at her family. And then at the glass sculpture that they’d made out of sand and lightning. Together, we’ll set the world on fire.

Acknowledgments