“Given the closeness of the festival and the sensitivity of the issue right now, I don’t want the prime minister to decide to make an example of a promising student by expelling you for promoting so-called ‘false propaganda.’” He stepped off the bridge and strode straight across the platform onto a train.

Pixit hopped behind them, barely making it on before the doors shut.

“I’m . . . promising?” That wasn’t a word she’d thought any professor would apply to her. She still hadn’t made a spark on her fingers, much less caught a bolt in lightning relay. She was so-so at flying, and with Pixit’s wing hurt, she couldn’t even do that.

“Oh yes. There’s more to being a great guardian than spark and sizzle.” And Professor Dano smiled at her—​one of the only times she’d seen that expression on his face.

The train sped away, taking them back to the ship.

She was tucked into a cot belowdecks, where it smelled bad enough that she thought she might really throw up. Professor Dano procured a bucket with the dregs of fish stew in it to serve as proof of her illness, and he warned the sailors that she might be contagious. He also splashed some of the stew on the hem of his teacher robes. Then he bustled off, back to the capitol, to spread word that “Oh, poor little Mina, she’s so ill. I took her back to the ship. Look—​she was sick on my robes. Such a shame. For her, of course, not the robes, though they’ll need to be laundered. She was sad to miss all the excitement.”

Mina wasn’t sad at all.

She was mostly terrified.

Lying in her cot, she imagined all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Every time the stairs creaked, she was sure it was someone here to take her away. Her parents would get a letter, drifting in on a beautiful red balloon, saying their daughter had been expelled for spreading “false propaganda,” whatever that meant. She’d be sent home, and she’d lose everything she’d ever dreamed of becoming. And it would all be my fault, because one time I didn’t stay quiet.

«It’s not your fault,» Pixit said.

He was directly above her, on the rubber on the deck. Yes, it is. She’d finally started to feel like she belonged—​she had friends! She fit in!—​and then she’d had to go and put it all in jeopardy.

«It’s not wrong to ask questions. And if the prime minister is afraid of the answer, maybe that means you asked the right question. And maybe it means you need to ask more.»