Didn’t you listen to Professor Dano’s lectures? He’d spent multiple days on storm-beast theory. You can absorb charge with any part of your body. You don’t have to catch it with your paws. A lightning beast’s entire body functioned as a kind of battery, capable of storing electric charge. She was supposed to catch the bolt, and he was supposed to store it—​but he could skip to just absorbing it, if the bolt came straight at them.

Ferro was flying closer. He looked confused, but still he rose up on Brindle and pulled his arm back to throw. Jyx was just a few feet behind him, with Chauda straining to catch up.

“Mina, he’s going to score!” Jyx called.

He threw the lightning.

Pixit, eat it, Mina ordered.

Pixit opened his mouth—​and swallowed the lightning.

Not a spark touched the rod. His body absorbed the electric charge and stored it all.

Jyx and Chauda pulled up short, staring. Also staring, Ferro and Brindle dipped down. Zek and Vira flew closer. All of them were babbling at the same time. “Did he just—” “Did that count?” “But it touched—” “No, it didn’t.” “But they didn’t score, either!” “Is that allowed?” “That was a brilliant idea.” “Is he okay?”

Are you okay? Mina asked Pixit.

Pixit burped.

“Game over!” Vira declared.

Jyx cheered as she steered Chauda over to Mina and Pixit. “Sorry for doubting you. Next time, I’ll listen.”

Mina smiled back at her, and Pixit purred happily.

Chapter
Eleven

Five days later, they had their first thunderstorm. Mina saw the posting while the other students were crowded into the dining hall. She’d been lingering by the door, waiting for the room to clear out before she darted in for a breakfast roll, when Professor Dano waddled over with a hammer and a flyer.

She hadn’t seen him since flying lessons began, but he nodded at her as if no time had passed. He had a bandage around his right arm. She wondered where he’d been and how he’d hurt his arm—​no one had mentioned him in days—​but she couldn’t figure out how to politely ask. You didn’t ask teachers personal questions, or at least she didn’t. She wondered what he’d say if—​

“Finished that essay yet, Mina?”

“Not yet, sir. I’m sorry.” She wanted to explain that she’d been in the air every single day and every other night—​Vira had started scheduling some of their lightning-relay matches after dinner, before lights out. When she wasn’t flying, she was working with Pixit to coax electricity out of the atmosphere, or else completing the latest textbook assignment from Vira. She would have been satisfied with even a little static on her sleeve. Maybe I should ask Professor Dano for help. But after the exchange of pleasantries, he seemed to lose interest in her.