Polo remains withdrawn after the sea trip. Her smiles vanish quickly, never reaching her eyes. Her answers are short and a little blunt. Talia feels like she’s constantly hitting an invisible wall Polo has erected between them, so she turns her attention to school.

Clara insists on helping her with homework during at least a couple lunch periods a week, patient with Talia in a way none of the teachers ever are as she lays out the steps to math problems and suggests good subjects for essays in her soft voice.

Today, she stutters in the middle of a sentence about Newton’s Law of Motion. Talia glances up from her textbook, noticing Clara’s gaze locked on a group of girls sitting down a few tables over. They seem vaguely familiar and are probably popular, judging from their stylish clothing and the commanding air they all wrap around them. Talia’s pretty sure they’re predators, preying on anyone younger and too timid to defend themselves.

“Are you okay?” she asks Clara, taking in the hunch of Clara’s shoulders.

“I’m fine,” Clara promises, though her voice is still shaky and it feels like a lie.

“Have they been picking on you?” Talia asks, inclining her head towards the girls.

Clara shakes her head, a frantic motion. “No. They’re just intimidating. That’s all.”

“They’re just pretending to be,” Talia says.

Clara offers a wan smile and turns her attention back to their texts, picking up her explanation where she left off.

Now, Talia’s been trying hard not to get into fights, knowing how much Polo disapproves, but one afternoon, she spots a group of girls cornering Clara in the yard at recess. Clara cowers against the fence, clutching one of her precious books to her chest.

Talia recognizes the girls as the same ones from the cafeteria a few days ago, now with ugly expressions on their beautiful faces. Talia watches as one of the girls grabs a fistful of Clara’s hair and yanks her head to the side.

Then all at once, the slumbering dragon roars back to life, breathing fire in her chest.

She crosses the courtyard in a series of lightning steps and shoves herself between Clara and her tormentors.

(Infuriatingly, she has to look up at most of them.)

“Leave her alone,” she snaps.

The girls sneer.

One of them leans in and pokes Talia in the shoulder. “What are you going to do, orphan?”

Talia hits her, right in the face. The girl shrieks and everything descends into a mess of flailing limbs. Talia manages to get another strike to someone’s stomach and grits her teeth when she feels a fist wrench at her hair.

The shrill blast of a whistle cuts through the chaos and soon a teacher arrives to yank them apart.

Talia ends up with a suspension, on top of a bruised cheek and a sore scalp. She sulks outside the principal’s office, drawing patterns on the old linoleum with the scuffed tip of her shoe as she waits for Foster Mother Nine to come collect her. The door opens next to her and she looks up as Clara shuffles out, hair hanging in her eyes and fingers tangled in the straps of her backpack.

Talia opens her mouth to apologize, because she never meant to drag Clara into any kind of mess, but Clara darts out a hand and grabs on to Talia’s, squeezing tightly. It aches against Talia’s bruised knuckles.

“Thank you,” Clara whispers, ducking forward into a slight bow. “For protecting me.”

Talia’s chest swells, all pain chased away, and she nods. “Of course.”

Clara lets go, continuing down the hall towards a man who must be her father, but her gratitude keeps Talia buoyed even through Foster Mother Nine’s furious arrival.

“You’re grounded,” she snaps, digging manicured, pointy nails into Talia’s shoulder as she marches her to the car. “Forever.”

Of course, this threat only lasts until they get home and Foster Mother Nine vanishes into her parlor to gossip on the phone with her friends, rendering Talia invisible again.

Talia flops onto her bed in her room, staring up at the blankness of her ceiling. In Foster Home Four, one of the kids tacked a bunch of stars to the plaster above their bunks, trying to shape them into constellations, and Talia never admitted how comforting the glow of them was.

The dragon is sleeping again, and satisfaction simmers in its place. Not at the fight, but that she was actually able to do something. She protected someone, she stood up for one of her friends, and that feels so much better than the usual burn of her anger.

It’s a bit of a revelation.

The next day, she decides that she can’t stay in the oppressive house, listening to the faint drone of Foster Mother Nine talking. She slips away early in the morning, just as the sun is starting to rise and the sky is painted in dazzling colors—golden light bouncing off the skyscrapers.

Her feet carry her to Polo’s apartment building, even though she knows that she’ll probably get a lecture, might run into another invisible wall. She just wants to share how strong feels and wants to ask if Polo ever felt this way, but shame grips her stomach .

Polo is on her stoop, as usual, and she frowns when she takes stock of Talia’s face. “Another fight? After all this time?” she asks, voice dripping with disapproval.

“I had a good reason this time,” Talia insists.

“And what was that?”

“I was protecting my friend. I couldn’t just stand by and let her get hurt.” Talia clenches her jaw, ignoring the slight ache of fading bruises. “I got suspended but it was worth it. Aren’t there good reasons to fight?”

Polo is quiet for a long moment. “There are. How did it feel, to protect your friend?”

“Good,” Talia decides. “Really good. Better than it’s ever felt.” She hesitates, fidgeting with the ends of her scarf. “Is that why you learned?”

Another pause. Polo sighs, a wistful look stealing across her face. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I had a lot of things that were important to protect.”

“I’ve never had that before,” Talia admits. “Not really. But now I do. So I guess I have to get stronger.”

Polo seems lost in thought for a moment, a troubled expression knitting her brow. But then it smoothes into a smile, warmer than it’s been in several weeks—all the way up to her eyes.

“I think,” she says, “that I should train you, after all.”