11:03 AM, MONDAY 17

“You will be flying DT’s,” Maia said briskly. “That stands for Dragonship Transport Model. Ander and Lethya, you’ll be flying DAT’s so you don’t have to go back to the single steering handle. No matter what make you’ve got, it’ll fly like whatever you’re used to, just bigger, slower and with less maneuverability. Also, you’ll have ten to fifteen people on board, so no monkey business. With a little over a hundred pilots taking at least ten each, we should have the refugees staying here shuttled down in no time—one trip each. Some of you may be assigned Orientation Duty, which means you show them around. Also no screwing around with that one. We shouldn’t have any problems, but it is a twenty-minute flight and a lot of distance to cover, so we can’t be too sure that it’ll go unnoticed. In other words, get it done and get it done fast. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they all chorused, some grinning at each other with the prospect of showing off for the girls in mind.

“Good. I’ll be flying escort just in case, so don’t think you can start pulling the Flying Ace anytime soon.” She ignored the groans. “Everybody get in your assigned DT or DAT, it’s time to get out of here.”

Lethya shook her head at the boys’ eagerness to play the ferrymen, climbing into the cockpit of her DAT. It was much more spacious, with a partition between her and the passenger area; like Maia had said, it would be harder to maneuver, but that probably wouldn’t be a problem. Using her hair tie to secure her hair in a low bun, she pulled on a helmet, wincing as a few hairs were pulled out.

The DT in front of her started rolling forward and she nudged the airship forward, leaning back. It had been a while since she’d done any flying outside of class, including aerial battles; apparently, this Jaegar guy wasn’t quite so hot to trot anymore. She didn’t mind: with the dragons around, a little longer and they wouldn’t be able to keep them out of the battles.

It hit her that today was the seventeenth, exactly one month and one day after she’d woken up. Already she was settling into the routine of life at V.E.O., when part of her insisted that she still had another place, another home in the past, one where she really belonged…

Keep flying, her practical voice ordered.

11:09 AM, MONDAY, MAY 17, 6118 AD, JERION TANTEK MEMORIAL SPACEPORT, EARTH’S AIRSPACE

“The V.E.O. transports will be arriving in about ten minutes,” a crisp voice rasped over the intercom, echoing throughout the Spaceport, which was currently brimming with refugees. Designed to house up to a hundred thousand, it nonetheless was choked with all those fleeing from Venus’s Junoan Plains. “All those assigned to stay at V.E.O. Academy, please ready your baggage and go to the A sector. There will be a chart of which group you have been placed in and which pilot and ship you will have. Please do not switch groups or pilots. Have a nice day.”

“Bye, Mom,” sixteen-year-old Azumi Rudiath said cheerfully, giving her mother a swift hug. “I’ll visit you as soon as I can.”

“But Azu, it’s so far,” the older woman said plaintively.

“It’s only a few blocks down from where you’ve been assigned.” Her chin-length brown hair flared out as her head whirled to glance over her shoulder, looking out towards the hall she was supposed to be walking through, then in the reverse direction to return her attention to her substantially shorter mother. “It’ll be fine. I’ve got to go now.”

Her mother let out one soggy “Bye, sweety,” and released her to depart towards the A sector. They had been normal citizens of the Ishtar Plains’ main city, Aures, before the attack, and while her father had died when she was ten and now she was at the mercy of a school full of strangers, she’d still managed not to fall into depression, which was fairly unusual.

Azumi shifted one of the straps of her backpack and switched the duffel bag from one hand to the other, only to be rammed into by a cloud of perfume and pastel colors. “Watch where you’re going,” snapped a cranky voice.

The brown-haired girl looked over at the poodle-wannabe and sighed, then mimicked the girl’s pose. “Oh my gawd, Felanna, I think you might have a split end! Someone call the emergency stylists!”

Felanna sniffed. She came from one of Aures’s richest districts, and as the spawn of the two people possibly least-suited to be parental figures, she had been raised with no concept of the word ‘no’. Of course, she was smart—she’d had the best tutors money could buy outside of normal school—and she’d already surpassed both of her parents.

Azumi couldn’t stand her.

“A bit cocky for someone who looks like they just walked out of the dump’s refuge sale,” Felanna said venomously, tossing her head of thick cinnamon hair. “I can’t believe even you would stoop so low as to robbing a homeless man for his clothes.”

“Why are you wasting time on her, Fel?” asked Sabra. Unlike Felanna, she was just flat out stupid; the older girl only kept her around as a tool, and both Azumi and Felanna knew it. No one could resist Sabra’s long blonde hair and innocent blue eyes, as blameless and empty-minded as a sheep. She only listened to Felanna, which meant that if Felanna needed a favor from a guy, she would negotiate a deal with him with the motivation being a suggestion to Sabra that she give that boy a chance. “It’s not like she’s even worth our time.”

“Ladies, ladies, please.” Haonas Hedrien slung an arm about both Felanna and Azumi’s shoulders, and Azumi rolled her eyes and shrugged it off. Felanna looked at his arm as if it were an enormous, rotting maggot. “Can’t we all just get along?”

In response, both of them stalked off. “You’re right,” Ramon Quoal said, impressed. “Works every time.”

Keaton Yirth gave them both a nudge. “Keep moving. We’ve got to get to the A sector.”

When they got to the sector, they found the wall crowded with adolescents all craning to find their name in a group. Gesper Thaxton strolled over, hands shoved in his pockets and a dark look on his face. “Don’t waste your time,” he muttered sullenly to the three boys. “The group’s me, you three, Lyndan, Burke Gherikson, Folar Black, Scopp, and Binkery.”

“That’s only nine, and there’s supposed to be at least ten to a group,” Ramon pointed out. “Which girls?”

He scowled. “Meara, Felanna, Azumi, Sabra, and two others… Some girl from the boonies, Abby or something…and Nikita, or Nyria, or something like that.”

Haonas whistled. “Fifteen, full group. Who’s the pilot? I’ve got a cousin over there that should be the right age.”

Gesper’s mouth twitched into a half-smirk. “It just said Fanyathe. I know I’ve heard that name somewhere on the news, but you know me and foreign names.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember who that is either,” Keaton said, staring at the ceiling in concentration. “Whoever he is, he’d better be a good pilot or I’ll kick him out of the cockpit and fly myself.”

“Relax,” came a voice from behind him. Lyndan Derevio stood there, running a hand through unruly dark blonde hair, his clothes rumpled. A pair of boxers fell limply to the ground after triumphantly flapping from where they had been caught on his bag’s zipper through the duration of his entire sprint through the Spaceport, letting everyone in sight know that he owned a pair of heart-print underwear. His eyes were rimmed in dark circles, his lanky frame still ungainly for a boy of fifteen, but his smile was still good-natured. “Whoever we’re denouncing now, I’m sure they really don’t deserve a verbal thrashing.”

“Keaton’s just nervy about the pilot,” Haonas announced. For the most part, they’d been grouped according to either their ID numbers or the school they’d gone to, so for the most part they all knew each other. “You know, convinced he can do a better job, as per usual.”

“We have to be at Dock A-36 in three minutes,” Gesper insisted. “Where the heck is Scopp?”

“Waiting for you clowns at the Dock,” sarcastically answered the tall boy behind him. “Where you would be if you were anything close to responsible. Now come on, the transports are almost here.”

Scopp tended to command respect from most people. He was the unofficial leader of the bunch, and came off a good deal more serious than he really was; his relentlessly blunt nature didn’t help that perception too much.

“So this Fanyathe guy’s our pilot. Anyone know who he is?” Haonas asked as they headed over to the Dock. “We know we’ve heard the name before, but I can’t place it.”

“Fanyathe?” Lyndan paused, then shook his head. “Rings a bell, but I can’t recall.”

Six girls were waiting by the Dock when they arrived. Four they recognized; two they did not. Azumi and Meara Ezavi were chatting by the door, Felanna ignoring Sabra’s babble, but one girl sat against the wall, her dark hair in a stern braid and brown eyes stark against her pallid face. The other girl was buried to her ears in a book—or just hiding behind it—and stealing glances out of the corner of her eyes at them. Burke and Folar arrived, keeping to themselves.

“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen.” Ramon finished counting them. “We’re just missing Binkery.”

“That a bad thing?” Gesper mumbled under his breath, just as a familiar blonde-curled head bobbed over.

“Hi, guys!” Binkery said, disgustingly bright. “Isn’t this exciting? We get to see what Earth’s like!”  The fact that hundreds of people had died in Jaegar’s attack and their homes had been destroyed apparently had not registered with Binkery, among other things.

“Binkery, this isn’t an adventure,” Gesper said cynically, giving him a narrow look. “This is us being shipped off to an all-boys school until they build some pitiful excuse for a shelter back on Venus and dump us there.”

“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing!” Binkery protested. “It’s an opportunity!”

The door slid open to the Docking Chute before any of them could strangle him. They picked up their bags, Lyndan having hastily stuffed his boxers back into his duffel, and entered. “You heard of this Fan-something guy?” Haonas asked Meara. She shook her head, red curls bouncing.

At the other end of the chute was an opening to a large cabin with a few single seats and two long rows of ten seats. A partition kept them from seeing their pilot, but would allow access into the cockpit if unlocked; the inside of the cabin had a few thick windows and plenty of emergency equipment.

The partition rolled back as they were dropping their luggage in a heap and buckling into their seats. Behind it stood a girl with long blonde hair in a ponytail, looking somewhat unsure of herself. “Um, excuse me?”

All fifteen pairs of eyes turned to her, and Azumi found herself reflecting that Felanna would stomp all over her unless she showed a little more backbone. “Where’s the pilot?” Keaton asked rudely.

She shifted her weight to her other foot. “That’s…um…me.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Felanna said in disbelief after a moment of dead silence.

“Oh, wow!” Binkery jumped to his feet. “You’re—you’re that girl who—who—the sleeping for three thousand years, and the flying, and the dragons, and—and—” He looked ready to go into cardiac arrest.

“Sit down before you twist an intestine, you idiot,” Burke growled. “Everyone knows who she is.” The look he sent her wasn’t exactly one of welcome. “She’s that girl they actually let fly.”

“That’s…about right. I just wanted to tell you that we should be in the school in about twenty minutes and, uh, answer any questions if you had any.”

After another long, awkward pause, Keaton asked, “I’ve got one: do you know how to fly this thing?”

Lethya closed her eyes, repeating to herself, Control, control, control, lest she lose her temper and blow up the DAT. “I’ll let you be the judge of that,” she said smoothly, going into the cockpit and dropping into the seat.

“DT’s 1-25 and DAT-1, cleared for takeoff.” She recognized Maia’s voice over the transmitter and pulled the DAT from Neutral, feeling the release of the Docking Chute. Ander would be following in the next round of takeoffs.

Too late, she realized she’d left the cabin partition open and they could see her. In fact, one of them was hovering over her shoulder as they began increasing speed and she drifted to the outside of the DT formation. “You can go faster than that.”

“I can,” she agreed. “And if I want to, I will.”

“How many times have you flown before?”

Part of her was tempted to tell him that she’d only flown once to see his reaction, but she controlled that urge. “Enough.”

“That’s a lawyer’s answer.”

“Thank you.”

“How about we cut the crap and you let someone else take over, little girl?”

Something was tickling at the edge of her senses, and she frowned. “Go back to your seat, please.”

“That’s what I thought. Get out of the seat.”

“I said go back to your seat.”

“And I said get out of yours.”

Now it was bigger, and dread started knotting in her stomach. It also shortened her temper. “Go to your seat, or I will make you.”

“Leave her alone, Keaton,” Ramon called.

“Why should he?” Burke muttered, Folar nodding. “Women don’t belong in the cockpit.”

“I’d tell you where you can stick your opinions, but from your general personality I can tell it’s already pretty crowded in there,” Azumi said acidly.

“Why are you sticking up for her?” Gesper demanded. “Keaton can fly better than some of the teachers, she can’t be better than him.”

A moment later they lurched forward as Lethya suddenly yanked on the brakes. “This is what I’m talking about,” Gesper started to say with disgust, but her shout won out his in volume.

“If you’re not in a seat, get in one, buckle in, and hold on,” she called back to them, doing her best to keep the anxiety out of her voice. “Jaegar’s attacking.”

There was a flurry of swearing and movement behind her, but she took no notice, instead concentrating on the fight ahead—or at least, trying to.

“What are you doing?! Knock it off and let me fly!”

She blocked out Keaton’s voice with difficulty and ran a quick psymantic check over the DAT to see what it had on defense and artillery. Defense was good, artillery minimal, but it was all she had right now. Speed was another issue, particularly because her primary goal was to get the people into V.E.O. in one piece, and they still had more than fifteen minutes of airspace to cover.

“Go back to your seat,” she ordered through gritted teeth, swerving to avoid spits of Muteran flame.

“No! Let me fly!” Hands wrapped around the two steering handles, trying to wrest them from her grip.

“You idiot! Those—are—the—steering handles!” She fought Keaton for control and did her best to keep them from flying head-on into a hail of gunfire from one of the mechs Jaegar had deployed. The steering handles jerked from the struggle, sending them lurching off course.

“Lethya, what is going on?!” Maia demanded frantically. “You’re flying like you’re drunk or something!”

“Technical difficulties,” she gritted into the transmitter. A shot clipped the side, sending a jolt through the airship.

“See, you can’t fly this thing! Give it up already!”

That did it. After the Grand Council, she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t use psymantics against a person until she had learned control and it was absolutely necessary, and she wasn’t using it against a fellow student.

But by her standards, it had just become absolutely necessary.

Lethya forced him away, sending him stumbling out of the cockpit, and slammed the partition in place, all with her mind. Then she locked his feet to the floor with a tag of power so he wouldn’t be bouncing around the cabin, secured the luggage the same way, and finally concentrated on the battle.

The laser whiskers weren’t as fully extendable as on her DA, but they would suffice. The wings were sharpened, and the artillery, though small, was of the same quality as the DA, so that was good, but what wasn’t good was that the maneuverability really was down. She’d just have to plow through Jaegar’s forces and hope for the best.

Two mechs grated towards her, and she switched on her laser whiskers and sliced right through them, psymantically shunting away the sparks from the wiring she’d cut through. A Muteran was behind them, one that was quickly gunned to shreds, and she put the ship into full throttle. Getting her passengers down was the most important thing right now.

Four Muterans jumped on her rear, and she realized that while all the transports were being attacked, many were targeting her and the only other DAT, Ander’s ship. Of course they were: Jaegar wanted them both dead.

“Eat this,” she growled, not sure if she was addressing Jaegar or Keaton. The nose of the ship plunged and she pulled a complete loop, coming out of it on the tail of the four Muterans who’d been following her. This was not good for them.

Wherever she flew, she left a trail of Muteran shreds in her wake. She didn’t see the fifteen boys and girls in the cabin, some clinging to the seats and anything nearby for dear life, Keaton still stuck on the floor but watching her fly, the silent girl sitting quietly with her eyes closed.

They roared towards Earth, more Muterans streaming after them like the tail of a kite. She frequently left timed mines and missiles planted behind her, each of which dented the numbers of her pursuers, but not enough. The areas Jerik had told her about, the ones so strongly charged with psymantic and Muteran energy that no one could enter, stood out as she cleared the atmosphere as burning clouds of black and white.

Lethya came to the realization that it actually wasn’t a twenty-minute flight—if you floored it the entire way.

Neo Tokyo’s familiar geography drew nearer, and she finally streaked over its skyline, the Muteran train still hot on her heels. She wanted to turn around and blow them all to pieces, knowing that they worked for the one who caused so much destruction and pain, but she couldn’t. As the belches of acidic gas and corrosive saliva grew in frequency, though, she was forced to think of a way to shake them at least momentarily, and the answer came as she cleared the suburbs and abandoned section and found herself above the hundreds of skyscrapers in the heart of the city.

The force of the dive ground her into the back of the seat and drew cries of surprise and fear from the cabin, but she pushed them from her mind and focused instead on plunging through the narrow space between the highway lanes and barely making it. Fifty feet above the ground, she pulled out of the dive, skimming just under the magnetized track the everyday transports ran on. Then the highway ran out, leaving her with the Muterans still over her head.

In and out, up and down, she wove through skybridges, around buildings, through corridors—sometimes only making it by tilting the DAT so the wings pointed up and down instead of out to the side—hurtling through tunnels formed by walls of window and glass and concrete.

Finally she came into open air, with the school on her left. Unfortunately, it was being attacked. And, from her radar, no one was close enough to make it in time.

Lethya threw the DAT in reverse and backed it under an eave until it was hidden, then put on the anti-gravity thrusters to hold it in place. A cloaking spell hid them from plain view, but she couldn’t maintain it mid-battle—she’d have to take care of the Muterans, at least until she could get her passengers to safety. The straps flew back as she got to her feet, clipped a transmitter to her belt, and raised the partition.

“Who knows how to fly a Dragonship?” she barked.

“What the—what have I been trying to tell—” Keaton stammered, outraged.

Her eyes, dark purple with irritation, snapped on him, and she said flatly, “Not you,” and snapped her fingers. Any sound from his mouth died immediately. “Anyone?” she asked pointedly.

Lyndan timidly raised his hand. “I learned.”

“You’re going to fly.” She jerked her thumb towards the cockpit.

“But—but this isn’t a Dragonship!”

“It’s close enough. We don’t need maneuvers right now.” Striding over, she put two fingers to his forehead and imparted on the knowledge of how to fly the DAT and where they were. “When I give the order, you’re going to go over to right in front of the school. Got it?”

He nodded, dazed, and slowly got to his feet. She went to the back and shoved open the emergency hatch, climbing onto the flat top of the DAT. There weren’t many handholds here, but there were enough to keep her on as long as she needed to stay on. Getting on her stomach, she clenched a bar in one hand and pulled the transmitter out with the other. “Do you copy?”

There was a crackle, and then a hesitant, “I copy—uh, ma’am.”

“Take us over to the school. Over.”

“Roger that.”

They jerked forward, and she winced at the rocky treatment, then winced again at the thought of the rockier treatment she was going to receive in a second. But there was no way she could get her passengers into the school without making the school safe in the first place, and she couldn’t do that while piloting the DAT.

The airship rumbled forward, and she waited until they’d caught the attention of the Muterans and then erected a shield. “Go faster,” she muttered into the transmitter. Lyndan obediently sped up, nearing the school. “When the Muterans notice us, don’t worry, just keep on going until you get to the school. Then switch on the anti-gravity thrusters and wait. Over.” She could practically see him nodding nervously.

The speed picked up even faster, and she clung tighter, putting more power into the shield. She would have to save her normal strength until they got to the school.

After an eternity, they reached the building, and fury built inside her. Of all the dirty tricks to pull, waiting until they were gone and attacking with only the younger students and…well, Thorald could be pretty frightening, but he and Professor Sanzhe really were the only defenses. The dragons were still too young to be fighting.

Then they stopped completely, right in front of the building, just as she’d asked. She smiled tightly, then got to her feet, bracing herself against the wind and dropping psymantic tags on her feet to keep them tight against the roof of the DAT.

Lethya narrowed her eyes, feeling the power rise inside of her. The Muterans drew closer; blue auras danced around the edges of her vision.

This time, the attack wasn’t a violent blast, or a huge explosion, but instead the visual representation was that of blue power seeping into the air like dye in water. However, when it touched an enemy Muterans, it killed them instantly and their ashes rained to the ground.

Lethya stood rock-still on the DAT, feet braced shoulder-width apart, palms together, eyes closed in concentration as she put all of her will into forcing that power out and spinning it into a loose spiral. It was one of the strongest and most deadly spells she knew, and from the shrieks, it was working. The power spread until from above it appeared as a whirlpool lazily rotating around her, fatally beautiful, a blue wheel in the air that brought unavoidable death to the Muterans within its range.

It died away slowly, some of the power returning to her, but not as much as she’d hoped. But she got something else that was of great use: Jerik. Or, more accurately, Jerik and his DT.

He swooped in, picking off several that were charging towards her, and she managed to take out the ones above her and to the right, searing them into oblivion. “How you doin’, L-Diablo?” came his voice from the transmitter.

“Oh, hunky-dory,” she replied, breathing a bit hard. Blue-silver power fired from her palms in a single, powerful blast, taking down a Muteran that exploded, catching two more. “And yourself?”

“You know me, the Merry Little Sunshine of Happiness.”

She shook her head at his ability to sound perfectly nonchalant while blowing several Muterans to shreds, and was about to crack a joke herself when an inky stain on the sky caught her glance.

Something dark was coming from the horizon, dark and huge. Her eyes widened as it drew nearer with frightening speed, the sight of it terrible and—somehow, familiar.

A kraken. It was called a kraken.

The winds preceeding it pushed her and the DAT back, and then it was between her and the school, nearly as large as the building itself. The myriad of eyes she could see were locked on her, daring her to make a move.

“Lethya, what is that?” Jerik’s voice was unusually quiet.

She switched the transmitter so both he and Lyndan could hear her. “It’s a kraken.” One foot slid back. “Lyndan, I’m going to distract it. Get into the school while it’s focused on me. Jerik, I need you to cover him.” A few more steps backward—she was almost at the edge of the DAT. “Over.”

Gathering a spell together, she sprinted off the aircraft and hurtled herself into open air, psymantically propelling herself towards the kraken. Then she was there, slamming into black, scaly flesh, fingers scrambling for a purchase. There was none, but her arms and legs managed to wrap around a tentacle, clinging to it like the branch of a tree. It reeled, trying to shake her free, and Lethya instinctively dug hooks of power into muscle, holding on for dear life as it thrashed.

Now what? She’d be stuck as it tried to pry her free, or until it realized it could crush her. A desperate plan formed in her mind, and biting her lip, she steeled herself—and let go.

Down she plunged, through a forest of twisting, living black, and from her form streaked ropes of her own power, soaring into the air, hooking into scales and around tendrils wherever possible. She swung from them, throwing out more and climbing from them until she was on top of the kraken. The ropes had cut into it on contact, gashing some tentacles and completely severing others.

Breathing hard, Lethya locked hooks into the kraken to keep her in place and tried to think of her next move—then saw it. From every open wound on the kraken’s body, a thick, opaque gas was spilling into the air, spreading in a cloud of sickly cream.

—twenty bodies or more, all looking like they were asleep, the thick residual slime of vris on the walls nearby—

Lethya fell to her knees, gasping. Vris. The kraken—

—black snake-like tendrils wrapping around the Grand Chambers and tightening. First cracks darted over the dome’s surface, then deeper fissures; and then the whole dome shattered—

No more could she remember, but from those two visions, she knew two things: that Jaegar had definitely been the one to destroy her home, and that he had done it with vris and kraken.

Snapping out of her daze, Lethya looked up to realize the vris was getting thicker in the air. If she didn’t do something fast—but vris was immune to psymantics—

Something gray shot into the heart of the vris and a split second later, it erupted into fire. Flames ate paths to the sources themselves, burning into the open wounds, some tentacles exploding in heat and burnt flesh. A terrible noise emerged from the beast, a roar of fury and pain never meant for human ears.

Rexi and Squeaky emerged from the smoke as Lethya remembered why dragons had been particularly useful against vris: it was flammable. Dragons were not.

She was about to order them back inside when the ground lurched. The kraken, now enraged, was slowly turning, trying to knock her off with its remaining tentacles. Gritting her teeth, Lethya managed to yell, “Get out of here, now!” The dragons didn’t wait, hastily dodging dark limbs and climbing out of their reach.

If I don’t hurry, it’s going to start hitting the buildings—but if I kill it here, the body’s going to hit the street—

She had to do something, and fast. Bracing her hands on the scales, she sent power through as much of the kraken as she could reach, intending to rip it apart, but then something black smashed into her side with crushing impact. Several of her ribs gave way with a sickening crunch as she was thrown into empty air. It had swatted her off.

Panic and pain swamped her mind, and then a strange white power came to life. It raced along the lines of power she had previously laid down, and further, pouring out of her like a geyser. Blinding white seared along every tentacle, lighting it up from within, until the kraken was burning like a star with a thousand rays. The power continued to boil out of Lethya, scalding her senses, as more and more light blazed within the kraken.

The resulting eruption of heat and light, coupled with her pain, robbed her of her consciousness. Nothing was left where the kraken had been, the white power gone. Green psymantics caught her unconscious form and towed it carefully towards the roof, others joining in as the rest of the transports arrived.

The Muterans were retreating. For the moment, V.E.O. had won.

3:27 PM, MONDAY, MAY 17, V.E.O. ACADEMY

Lethya woke in the hospital wing, unsurprised to find herself there. Her broken ribs alone would merit that, and she’d completely drained her psymantics—and whatever that white power had been, it had left a strange ache in every muscle. Maybe if she kept her eyes shut, the exhaustion of using up all of her power would go away.

“Say it.” That was Jerik, teasing.

“Bite me.” A voice that surly could only be Ander.

“Saaay it.” She could practically hear the grin in his voice. “Who saved her? Who saved Lethya?”

“You’re going to die.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“You’re just plain stupid.”

“Ha! You are jealous!”

“I saved me,” she mumbled, wishing she could go back to her dreams. “And I want to go to sleep, so go away or keep it down.”

“Wow,” someone said reverently. “She can do anything, can’t she?”

“Binkery, no.” That was one of the male passengers, though she didn’t know which. “Down, boy.”

“What?” he asked innocently. “She’s really, really cool, that’s all!”

“Binkery isn’t going to last very long here, is he?” a girl muttered.

“No,” Jerik answered brightly. “I don’t think so. Here’s hoping he doesn’t.”

Lethya groaned, hiding her head under her pillow.