"They are not pursuing," Tawny said as we ran. I didn't reply, preferring to conserve the rest of my strength for running. Tawny kept up with me easily enough, and in almost no time at all, we were on my front steps. I charged through the front door, just in time to see Ashyr talking with Father. How did she possibly get home before me?

"Give that to me," Father barked, "and go to your room." For a horrible second, I thought he was talking about my necklace, but then I realized I was still holding Ashyr's wand. I quickly handed it over, then tried to explain.

"She was-"

"No excuses!" he bellowed, raising his hand as if to strike. Then he saw Tawny and lowered his hand. "You need to go home." She gave me a sympathetic look, then left.

"Of all the things you could have done," he continued in the same huge voice, "stealing a wand? What were you going to do with it- burn the house down?" He gave Ashyr's wand to her, but she stuck around to watch the show. I was still confused about why he thought I could use a wand. I couldn't; no talme could. And why fire? If anything, Ashyr's wand would do something with her element, which was plants, not fire.

"Did you hear me?" he asked. I could tell I'd missed something.

"Hear what, exactly?" I asked. He pointed down the hall to my room.

"You are staying in there until tomorrow evening," he answered, "your door and window will be locked. We thought we could trust you, but obviously not." I was too stunned to argue, not that arguing would've done much good.

"Now, get!" he shouted, pointing again. In a daze, I went to my room and fell onto my bed. The door was closed and locked behind me. I scrambled my brain for anything that might get me out of this mess. The window was unlocked now, but I wasn't ready to leave yet. My first thought was that I couldn't bear to leave all of the books I'd spent ages working to afford. But would I really need them as a rider?

In a spurt of motivated energy, I dashed for the window, just in time to see Father walk up with a ring of keys. He closed and locked the metal window shades, plunging my room into darkness. I felt my way to my dresser and retrieved a glow orb from the drawer. When I tapped it, a golden-red light burned from within, illuminating my whole room. I threw it at the ceiling, and it hovered there like a fiery ghost.

Tossing myself on my bed, I tried to hold back tears. I told myself there hadn't been much of a chance of me being chosen anyway. There would be hundreds of people there, and I was a talme. Still, I couldn't help feeling like I'd lost a precious opportunity to get away from what would no-doubt be an utterly boring life. When the next Ceremony came in another fourteen years, I'd probably be married and raising a family. This had been my only chance not to get stuck in this town as a farmer's wife. Then again, I could always get drafted and end up fighting the Ferentisians on the ground instead of on dragonback.

"Guess you're not so special now, talme," Ashyr told me through the door.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not moving from the bed.

"Don't play dumb. You know they're always worried about their innocent little angel. But now, the angel's lost her wings." I heard her skip away before I could say anything else. I had lost my wings, but not the ones Ashyr thought. I'd lost dragon wings, or at least the chance to fly on them.