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been prepared for the worst. They might not have expected the chain reaction from so many touched children losing control of themselves at once, but they did have a contingency plan in case of failure. They didn’t relocate in the usual sense, and they didn’t hide themselves in plain sight as Nagendra, or even Warden Nye, had done. They lifted themselves—and their children—above the problem.
    My father had been on Brick Street at the flash point. This flying city was a coincidence too great to be coincidental, and I was certain that closer inspection would show his handiwork among the patches in the fleet before us. He’d helped Warden Nye that day; he wouldn’t have refused someone with a child to protect. Maybe someone here had seen or heard from him. The Mile would have been the perfect place for him to seek shelter.
    At Winnie’s mark, we made for a platform on the outer edge of the ramshackle pontoon-village. It was empty, and the golems landed with a clatter, causing the structure to shake with their weight.
    “You lived here?” I asked, sliding off Xerxes so that my feet disappeared to the ankles inside a rising mist across the platforms. There was no stability like on the Center, and adjusting to the sway of the platform in the wind was a bit like getting sea legs. Thankfully, I already had legs for every element at the ready.
    “I was born here,” Winnie said. She had no emotion in her voice. It was a fact, a memory, said from rote rather than the anticipation of coming home.
    How had Winnie ended up in a warden’s custody if she’d been born in the clouds—and if this place was safe from the Commission? Had she run away from home and straight into trouble? How would someone run from a place like this? It would have taken a vessel, and how would a kid gain access without being stopped?
    “I don’t like this place.” Anise shivered in her long sleeves. Terras were most vulnerable when separated from the earth, which was their greatest strength. I had Vesper’s powers to balance me out, but Anise was nearly helpless.
    Birch was no better. His complaint about the Center had been the lack of roots. On the Mile we were thousands of miles above the topsoil, with mountains far below us, and the thinner air wasn’t making things easy. Jermay was holding his chest, trying to breathe in extra oxygen, and Birdie looked positively green. I would have expected her to fare better.
    “Collapse them.” Winnie gestured to the golems.
    We’d started to follow her off the platform, with Bijou and Xerxes clanging along behind us. Their size was protection, as was their appearance, and I didn’t savor the idea of venturing into unknown territory without our greatest assets. This was no time to field-test Klok’s repairs—we didn’t have a backup plan or an alternate means of escape.
    “Is their weight too much?” rat-tatted in blue letters across the screen Klok used to talk. “I have an unconventionally high mass as well. Am I a danger?” He actually wrote “Am I in danger,” but deleted it in favor of a question that focused less on his own fears.
    “This isn’t a place that welcomes new things,” Winnie said. “We’re showing them new faces. Don’t give them another reason to mistrust you.”
    I hit the switch on Bijou’s neck, which transformed him from a full-sized fire-breathing dragon into a toy-sized trinket that could be carried or worn.
    Jermay collapsed Xerxes, who took it as a personal insult and snapped at the nearest fingers. He would have struck skin if he hadn’t shrunk so fast. Once he was small enough, Xerxes climbed into Klok’s satchel, settling into the bottom so that it sagged. His version of a pout.
    “I guess this is as good as it gets.” Winnie sighed. Her eyes lingered on Klok with his new armor plating and the rest of us in whatever we’d been sleeping in the night before. “Don’t fall behind,” she said, then added, “This was a really bad idea,” under her