Stunned, I sprawled on my back, relearning how to breathe. Shock deadened my thoughts, blunting even the piercing knell resonating inside my skull. I floated on a world tipped upside down, the sky a blue pond atop which the dirigible’s envelope bobbed and swayed. The deck vibrated beneath me, bouncing my vision, but at least the air was cool. What I wouldn’t give to dive into the sky’s placid waters. Or into a trough of ice. My lungs burned, and I half expected to see flames when I breathed out.

  Working my jaw, I swallowed hard. My ears popped. Sound rushed into the void, a high-pitched ringing swelling to clash with the ominous dissonance of pops and cracks reverberating around the ship. A cable snapped near the bow, rebounding to slap the underside of the envelope. The basket jolted. I fumbled to sit up. I needed to check on Quinn and Grant—

  The frame inside the balloon snapped. In a furor of crunching wood and ripping fabric, the tip of the envelope tore free. I dove beneath my bent arm as a squall of splinters whipped toward my face. Heavier pieces of wood slammed the deck in front of me, battering the railing as the tatters of canvas knotted around the broken hunks of frame tugged against the air currents. The basket careened sideways, and I peeked over my elbow in time to see a gust grab the fallen fabric and suck it overboard. I rolled my eyes higher, toward the balloon, and my breath caught.

  Oh crap.

  Wind lambasted the exposed envelope’s interior, decimating the tattered spells holding the dirigible aloft. The deck dropped beneath me, and my stomach went weightless. I lunged for the railing, wrapping an arm around a post. The balloon spun in a slow circle, pulling the basket along with it. Wind caught the broken envelope again, straightening the flight path for a second, before the basket’s momentum pulled the ship into another spiral. If not for the lowered ramp, the severed balloon might have been enough to keep me afloat, but the plank added too much drag on the basket. The dirigible tipped toward the bow, the ramp sawing against the basket’s thin boards.

  With a mighty snap, the center of the basket ruptured under the pressure and vanished. I screamed as the railing flexed under the strain, bending toward the gaping hole. The basket rotated around the broken envelope, the second time faster than the first. Metal bolts moaned under the pressure, and the ramp tore free of the envelope. It slapped flat against the deck, then slid along the tattered boards and shot out the open gate, taking half the front railing with it. In a flash, it was gone.

  Slack flexed through the cables suspending the basket beneath the balloon, but it was too late. By the third rotation, the ship was helplessly caught in a corkscrew and gaining speed.

  “Grant! Quinn!”

  The centrifugal force plastered me to the railing, and the wind swallowed my shouts. The horizon spun, dense green forest then pale green fields, with flashes of Terra Haven’s slate wall and the foothill’s golden slopes blinking in between. Beneath the deck, visible through the gaping hole, spun a kaleidoscope of crimson, teal, lavender, and brown. Claw marks gouged the railing where Quinn had clung, but my friend was no longer there.

  The rest of the basket was empty. Grant hadn’t made the jump.

  I had been too slow.

  Agony built in my chest and poured out of me in a primal scream of anguish and rage.

  The cauldron holding the final, unhatched phoenix tipped, spilling the egg onto the canted deck. In a fiery rush, it slid across the boards on a collision course with the railing five feet from my head. For a fraction of a second, I considered doing nothing. Grant was gone. Quinn too, possibly. Being caught in a phoenix’s hatching would be a quick death.

  At the last moment, I lashed out with magic, catching the egg inches before impact.

  A sob escaped me. The elements trembled in my grip as I layered more air and fire around the egg, thickening the cushion into a bowl. I couldn’t feel Quinn’s boost, but if he lived, he would be doing everything in his power to get back to me. To help me. To save me. He was counting on me to do my part to save myself, no matter how much my heart hurt.

  I wouldn’t—couldn’t—disappoint him.

  Heat radiated from the phoenix, baking me despite the wind whistling through the railing. Gravity had turned on its side, pressing heavily on my chest the faster the dirigible spun. Plastered to the railing, I struggled to draw a full breath, my neck muscles quivering as I craned to get a better look at the ground.

  It rushed toward me, fast as a gryphon and twice as merciless. If the crash landing didn’t kill me, the phoenix hatching would.

  A disembodied calm washed through me, sweeping aside my grief, terror, guilt, and anger. My survival was no longer an option, but I would make sure no one else died. I’m sorry, Quinn.

  The ship was too close to the ground to attempt to throw the egg. The horizon had become a blur. Without a distinguishable target, I might accidentally launch the egg straight into the fleeing fairgoers, killing those I hoped to protect. I didn’t have the control needed to force the egg to hatch midair either. I had to keep the egg close.

  Stretching for the elements, I layered cushions of heated air around the egg. Then I caged the magic inside a granite-hard spherical earthen ward. Weaving elements with desperate speed, I tied off the sphere and reinforced it with a pentagram of all five elements bent around the outside of the ward. A second pentagram followed, then a third, fourth, and fifth. My brain throbbed inside my skull. It was too much magic, too many spells built too fast, but I didn’t have a second to spare.

  Not much longer, the morbid voice repeated, urging me to push my limits.

  Spinning a web of wood-laced air, I anchored the element-ensconced egg to the deck, the railing, the nearest cables, even the battered canvas above us and the remaining frame inside the material’s thin surface. With the last of my strength, I flung a magical dome over the egg, crafting a spell of pure hope and inspiration, hardening the inside with the intention of directing any of the egg’s explosion downward. When we crashed, if the rest of my spells failed, hopefully the dome would force the phoenix’s blast into the earth and spare anyone nearby.

  I closed my eyes and braced for impact, for all the good it would do me.

  Smoke filled my nostrils, the harsh scent reminiscent of the charcoal remains of a banked fire. My magic dampened the phoenix’s furnace heat, but sweat still matted my shirt to my back. Wind whistled past my ears, and beneath it, my pulse pounded against my eardrums. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes—for Grant; for Mom, who I wouldn’t get to see again; for Quinn, who would blame himself. For myself.

  I didn’t want to die.

  The basket hit something and shook. Flinching, I curled tighter—only to open my eyes when nothing painful or crushing followed.

  Quinn’s golden silhouette loomed above me. His wings spanned the sky, his enormous paws clenched around the top rail. Quartz muscles strained as he curled his wings into sails, countering the basket’s spiral. My stomach somersaulted. We were too close to the ground. He would be caught in the crash.

  “Save yourself, Quinn,” I croaked, my tears falling faster. “You need to—”

  “Kylie’s got the egg stabilized,” Quinn yelled. He flashed me a fierce grin.

  I gaped at him. Maybe I was dead. Maybe this was a hallucination.

  I reached for him. My arm wavered, my muscles weak, but the ship’s centrifugal force no longer had me pinned. In fact, it was almost easy to stretch up and cup my hand around Quinn’s rock ankle. He felt solid.

  The basket groaned and bowed. I sat up, bracing my free hand on the deck beside me, not letting go of Quinn with the other. The horizon had slowed its dizzying spin, and I chanced a glance over the side of the ship. Faces stared up at us, close enough to see expressions of awe, concentration, and excitement. Not fear. No one was running. The ground rushed toward us, but even that seemed to slow.

  “Quinn, what—”

  “Hold steady. You’ve got this.” Grant’s encouragement rumbled through the basket’s floorboards.

  I spun toward the sound, flinging myself across the deck before I realized I had moved. Crawling on hands and knees, I peered through the gap in the floorboards. Grant floated beneath the ship, his hands braced on the underside of the basket. Determination pulled his features taut, emphasizing the strong cut of his jaw and the firm line of his lips, and wind whisked sweat from his temples into his short hair. His uniform strained around his biceps and thighs, as if he held the ship aloft with pure physical strength. He looked like a god come to life.

  “You’re alive,” I whispered. My heart swelled with joy so intense it was hard to breathe.

  Magic flared from Grant in a massive spell, part air current, part elemental ship. It stretched the length of the basket and curled up the cables to support the ravaged balloon. Linked magic sung through every element strand, so many magical signatures interlaced that the individuals blurred into one chaotic, cohesive mass. Half the fairgoers must have joined their magic together to save the dirigible. To save me.

  Grant glanced up, meeting my eyes through the rift in the deck. Relief shone in his gaze. His lips curved in a private smile, then he returned his attention to the complex spell keeping the ship afloat.

  Strength bled from my limbs. I collapsed to my stomach, bathed in the euphoria of a second chance at life. Tears fogged my vision, but I hardly noticed. I saw only my future, and I couldn’t wrest my eyes from him.

  I slouched with my back against the dirigible’s railing, my legs splayed in front of me, solid dirt beneath the battered deck boards. As soon as I had the energy, I’d stand. In the meantime, Quinn sat behind me, on the ground, since the fractured deck would no longer support his weight. He stretched his neck over the top rail so his chin pressed against my shoulder, and his breath whispered against my cheek. I wrapped my arm up around his face, holding his mane to keep him close.

  O’Hara’s team swarmed the basket, or what was left of it. The wooden structure more closely resembled rubble from a demolished porch than anything sky worthy. Especially with the pulverized balloon listing in the dirt beside it.

  Grant had set us down as soft as a flying carpet on a feather bed in a field at the edge of the fair, and he maintained his distance while O’Hara and his team worked on dismantling my spells. His eyes skimmed our surroundings, ever vigilant, but they returned to settle on me again and again. I smiled, content to stare and half afraid if I looked away, he would disappear.

  It took a surprising amount of time for O’Hara’s team to unravel my magic from the phoenix, a task made more difficult by my fatigued inability to assist. Despite the hassle I caused the investigator, I took quiet pride in my handiwork. If the dirigible had crashed, I was certain my spells would have held and saved lives.

  When O’Hara’s team finally had the phoenix swaddled in new spells, holding it in stasis, Grant seized something from the side of the basket and heaved it onto the broken deck. Nathan landed with a crash.

  “Here’s the culprit,” he said.

  “I’m a victim,” Nathan protested. “Look.” He held up arms crisscrossed with bruises from clinging to the metal ladder during our harrowing descent, then pointed to burns visible through holes in his pants. He’d acquired a cut across his brow at some point, and blood splashed down the left side of his face, matting his trim beard. His press badge hung down the back of his scarlet shirt, a slender burn from the chain slanting across his pale throat.

  “Kylie did this to me,” he said, dropping his taunting use of Harry now that we had an audience. “She kidnapped me to prevent me from telling you she had the phoenix eggs, then she hung me out there to die.”

  “Oh, really?” Grant vaulted over the railing to loom over the megalomaniac monster. Nathan cringed in his shadow. O’Hara closed in on Nathan’s opposite side.

  “You have to believe me,” Nathan said, directing his pleas to the investigator but projecting his voice well past him.

  A ring of Terra Haven city guards—real ones, not Fire Eaters in disguise—formed a semicircle around the dirigible a dozen yards away, holding onlookers at bay. A ward stretched between the guards, primed to protect them and the innocent citizens from the phoenix egg if the FPD’s magic failed. However, Nathan wasn’t trying to be heard by the crowd. He was performing for an audience of one: Terra Haven Chronicle’s own Audrey Cintrón.

  The senior journalist stood inside the guards’ barrier, her press badge dangling from her neck, a camera resting on a hastily erected tripod. Audrey floated a recording sphere over the basket, capturing sound from a respectful distance. Weighed down by a camera bag and multipocketed vest, her graying hair pulled back in a no-nonsense braid and coated in a layer of dust and sweat, she looked much as she had when we covered the everlasting tree’s blooming together what felt like a lifetime ago. However, her usually affable expression was twisted with disgust as she glared at Nathan.

  A commotion among the guards drew everyone’s attention, and after a flurry of brusque words muffled behind the barrier, followed by a demand for the guards to respect the freedom of the press barked at a volume only a battle-trained warrior—or a former gryphon rider—could achieve, O’Hara gave a nod, and my boss stormed past the guards. Dahlia Bearpaw stalked to the dirigible with her linen skirt clenched in her fists, her sandals raising puffs of dust with each step. Unlike Audrey, who had obviously been working at the fair when my crash landing had usurped whatever article she had been planning to write, Dahlia looked as if she had been enjoying a rare day off.

  “What in all the blue sky is going on?” she demanded, slamming to a halt at the bow of the dirigible’s tattered deck. Her thunderous scowl sliced from O’Hara to the egg, then to me and Nathan.

  “We were just getting to that, Ms. Bearpaw,” O’Hara said.

  “She tried to kill me,” Nathan said, flinging a hand out to point at me. “Kylie stole the phoenix eggs, lost control of them, and nearly killed us both. I was lucky to survive clinging to the side of this death trap.”

  The investigator crossed his arms. “And here I thought you got stuck on that ladder when you were attempting to crawl across ships to join the Fire Eaters masquerading as Terra Haven guards.”

  Nathan managed a credible sputter of astonishment. “I thought they were guards. Are you telling me Kylie has been working with a gang?”

  Grant laughed. The cold sound sent goose bumps down my arms. Nathan flinched, freezing when Grant clamped a hand on his shoulder.

  “Ah, there it is,” Grant said, his voice so soft it barely carried across the deck. He dropped a delicate weave of fire and water toward Nathan’s midsection. Nathan tried to swipe the elements aside, but he was too slow. The magic brushed a knotted silver belt buckle and disappeared into the spell hidden in the metal.

  Nathan vanished, and Mom cowered in Grant’s grip. Audrey gasped in surprise, but she was the only one. Dahlia dropped her skirt to rest her fists on her hips, her expression flinty. The investigator pulled a pair of null cuffs from his pocket.

  “Nathan Aspell,” O’Hara intoned, affixing a recording sphere in the air near Nathan’s mouth, “you are under arrest for the use of a banned spell, for impersonating a fellow citizen, for the theft of Federal Pentagon Defense property, for the attempted murder of at least two people and a gargoyle, and for possession of phoenix eggs.” O’Hara deactivated the doppelganger spell, then slapped the cuffs around Nathan’s wrists, cutting off his ability to touch the elements. “Anything you say will be recorded and used in your trial.”

  Nathan stared at his bound wrists in stupefied silence.

  Anderson and two of her squadmates collected the phoenix egg, transferring it to a nearby FPD air cruiser. The fire elemental gave my shoulder a squeeze when she strode past and shook her head.

  “If anything, Monaghan downplayed your competence. Good work today.”

  Anderson didn’t pause long enough for me to respond. Vaulting into the air cruiser, she and her squadmates powered across the field toward the empty foothills. I breathed a sigh of relief, one echoed by Quinn. When the egg hatched, it would do so far from anyone it could harm, under the watchful eye of veteran FPD warriors.

  The buzz of aircrafts overhead droned louder. I shielded my eyes with my free hand. The Nimblewing descended sedately, escorted by the FPD’s armored Shadow Hawk. Seradon maintained an elemental link between the ships, and it was her magic guiding both crafts simultaneously. Controlling two ships’ levitation spells at once was no mean feat, but she made it look easy. Considering her astonishing flying skills during the battle, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Velasquez stood in the Nimblewing’s rear passenger spot, having switched ships midflight. The Fire Eaters sulked in their harnesses in front of him, all four caught in the same null net maintained by Marciano, Winnigan, and Velasquez. Apollo looked as if he was plotting murder, but the other two males—both barely old enough to qualify as men—gazed forlornly at their shoes. The woman cast frequent glances at Velasquez, half fearful, half awed. Radiating displeasure from the tips of his combat boots to his crossed arms and clenched jaw, with soot streaking his black hair and his fierce blue eyes locked on the prisoners he towered over, Velasquez was a fearsome sight.

  I wished I had my camera so I could take a picture for Mika. She would appreciate seeing her boyfriend looking triumphant and rugged after a victorious battle. Maybe I could get a print from Audrey, who had tilted the camera to capture the ships’ landing.

  Scorch marks etched the side of the Fire Eaters’ craft, and blackened divots pockmarked its slender wings. I expected nothing less after the haphazard way the Fire Eaters had been flinging fireballs. More surprising was the dry, sun-bleached degradation of the hull and smears of rust streaking the flaking paint. Gone was the ship’s iconic green coating and shimmering silver-and-gold guards’ logos adorning the side. Belatedly, I realized that had all been an illusion. Somehow, the Fire Eaters had gotten their hands on a weather-beaten, decommissioned Nimblewing, then spelled it to look like the real deal. From the looks of it, they were lucky it hadn’t fallen apart in the air.