I know you are. He’d kept secret the fact that she couldn’t spark.

«It’s easy to be excellent at it,» he said modestly. «I can’t even talk to humans other than you, and Chauda mostly just grunts.»

Mina smiled.

The storm beasts flapped across the practice field, then dipped down. “Gently now, people! Okay, lower . . . lower . . . on three. One, two . . .”

Thump. Pixit and Mina crashed to the ground. «Oof!»

“I didn’t say ‘three’ yet!” Jyx said. “Seriously, it’s not difficult. One, two, three. Land on three.” Much more gracefully, Jyx and Chauda landed beside Pixit and Mina. Jyx jumped down and pulled the net off them. Zek and Ferro helped.

“Are you two okay?” Ferro asked. “I mean, aside from the crash landing. Sorry about that. Blame Zek.” He dodged as Zek aimed a punch at his arm.

Then Zek glanced up, beyond Mina. “Brace yourself. Incoming.”

Mina pushed the rest of the net off and stood up. Professor Werrin, Professor Dano, and three of the flight teachers were hurrying toward them. She felt the eyes of everyone else on the field. Her face was hot. This would be all anyone talked about—​not the storm, not the lightning, but the fact that Mina and Pixit had had to be carried back in a net.

The professors and teachers swarmed around them, fussing over her and Pixit's freshly bandaged injuries, as Jyx very loudly told them how Mina and Pixit had fallen in the storm, and how she, Zek, and Ferro and their beasts had discovered them on a ledge on this side of the mountain and carried them back to the school. She continued, wailing about how she’d been afraid they’d broken their necks when they fell, how she’d been worried she’d find them dead, how she’d been so relieved to find them alive, albeit hurt. Zek and Ferro jumped in, stoutly confirming everything she said.

Other students pressed closer, eager to hear the story, and Mina wished with all her heart that Pixit’s wing were healed so she could fly far, far away. She even wished she were still on the cliff, so she wouldn’t have to be the center of so many people gawking at her at once.

As if they sensed her discomfort, Jyx, Ferro, and Zek clustered around her.

Just that made her feel ten times better.

Professor Werrin and Professor Dano shooed the other students and teachers away and escorted Mina and Pixit into the school, through the halls to the sick room. Jyx and Chauda came with them, along with Zek and Ferro. Inside the sick room, two school nurses scurried around them, examining Mina’s shoulder and Pixit’s wing.

“Nicely bound,” one of the nurses said. “You’ve had training?”

Mina didn’t know what to say. She opened her mouth but no words came out.