For Darkness Shows the Stars

certainly didn’t make up for all the smiles he shared with Olivia, or all the rumors going around about them.
    But my, it felt good.
    “Wentforth,” Andromeda warned. Elliot didn’t dare turn around, or even look over at Kai. She couldn’t afford to lose her balance. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure step up next to him. Olivia.
    “This isn’t so bad,” the younger girl said. She leaned a bit from side to side, trying to find her balance as the wind tugged at her full skirts.
    Kai moved even farther out.
    “Malakai, quit it.” Andromeda’s tone had turned commanding. Elliot bit her lip. She could feel the abyss beneath her toes. She was already out as far as she dared. The wind picked up again, buffeting them all back, then pulling them forward. Olivia wavered. Kai remained firm. Elliot locked her knees and circled her arms to keep her balance.
    “Olivia,” said Horatio. “A step or two back, please.”
    Kai dropped his arms. He took a few steps back.
    Elliot sighed in relief.
    And then he leaped.
    Somewhere, Olivia was screaming. Somewhere, the wind still blew. Somewhere, the earth remained firm beneath her feet, but she might as well have been standing on smoke, for all she saw was Kai, bicycling his legs, arcing high, silhouetted against the sea and the sky, dark clothes, dark hair. . . . And as he fell, Elliot felt everything inside of her plummet, too.
    Then he landed, two feet firm on the rocky surface of the first tower.
    Again, Elliot could breathe. She reeled back from the edge.
    Olivia was sitting on the grass, gasping. Horatio had dropped his meat pie. Andromeda stood with her arms crossed over her chest and shook her head. “Show-off,” she cried to Kai across the water.
    “How did he do that?” Horatio asked. “He could have been killed.”
    Andromeda rolled her eyes. “There’s an updraft of air in between the towers, every so often. He just took advantage of it.”
    “Impossible,” Elliot said. Her ancestors had lived on this land for generations. No one had ever leaped across before.
    “Not really, Miss Elliot,” Donovan said quickly. “You just . . . learn to read these things, if you’re pilots like we are. We read the shape of the wind on the surface of the sea. Watch.”
    He, too, leaped. Over on the tower, Kai shouted in approval as Donovan landed beside him.
    Andromeda sighed. “Prideful, reckless show-offs. They’ll be the death of us, I swear.”
    “The death of themselves,” Horatio corrected.
    Elliot stared at the boys standing on the nearest tower. Kai met her eyes, then whirled around and took off for the next. Again, her heart dropped into her stomach, but a moment later she saw him land, hard, scrabbling against the scree that sat on the top of the tower of rock.
    There he was, on the land beyond the islands. There he was, the lord of his own four meters of rock.
    “Enough!” Andromeda shouted, as her brother followed Kai. “Don! Stop!” She stamped her foot in frustration. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”
    Olivia clapped her hands with delight. “Oh, I must learn how to do it! To think that these towers were accessible all this time. We could have rebuilt the bridges long ago.”
    “They aren’t,” said Andromeda, frowning. “Not really. I mean—the conditions of the wind have to be just right, and you need really skilled pilots, like my brother and Wentforth to . . . read the currents. They’ll get stuck out there if they aren’t careful. They are being so foolish.”
    “Teach me!” Olivia insisted. She grabbed for Andromeda’s hands.
    Andromeda forced a laugh. “Not likely. Your brother would kill me.” She shook her head at the figures bouncing around out there. “This is ridiculously dangerous. Felicia will have their heads when she finds out.”
    Andromeda glared daggers at the boys out on the towers. She didn’t look worried about them. She looked angry.
    Kai had now jumped back to the closest tower, and stood with his face turned up into the blue.
    Elliot watched him, and Donovan. She watched them time their leaps. Were there really updrafts of wind helping to propel them? And if so, how in the world could they see them? The same wind that blew the waves a hundred meters down could not lift their bodies. She’d seen the power of wind back when her mother had used it to run the turbines in the Boatwright orchards. She’d used it herself to fly kites or sail Kai’s paper gliders. He’d