The tree-walkers were losing.

Quest started making brave little plans to find her way to the reef, to watch any new siblings being born, although there wasn’t much chance that she would actually dare it.

Then an eye that never blinked saw everything change.

The corona was doing nothing. It wasn’t blowing, and the soft old body had shriveled, each of its bladders deflating slightly. And then every neck was moving, swifter than Quest imagined possible. They stretched and reached above the body, those old jaws grabbing what they could and holding as tight as they could with the few teeth left to them. They bit down on the papio machines, nothing else, and the necks tugged until the aircraft spilled one way or another, losing their trim.

Quest counted the ships plunging through the floor.

Every ship died.

One plan was ruined, and now the hawkspurs on the periphery swept in to attack the corona, trying to puncture the balloons keeping it aloft. But more fletches drove harpoons and balloons into the body, and the high-hands were ready with crossing fire and easy, bold targets already short of ammunition. The corona was suddenly limp and most certainly dead, but the papio were defeated as well. One species survived, and what had triggered the slaughter was adorned with a hundred swollen balloons that worked as one, forcing the carcass upwards, fast and then faster.

Quest stepped back from the telescope.

One last time, she looked at the man on the floor. Except for the achingly slow rise and fall of his chest, he didn’t move. He was alive but with nothing to spare.

She knelt down, prying open one blind eye.

A taste of the antidote passed into the quiet, half-dead blood.

Then she stepped outside, looking up at the forest, each of the enormous bloodwoods wrapped with homes and stubby, bristle-leafed limbs, each one tapering down to a point like the point where she stood, as close to the sun as possible. Thousands of people were hiding. Thousands more were watching the marvels below. And meanwhile the dead corona was covered with balloons and rising faster by the instant, which was what Quest was watching when another brave plan came to mind—a plan that refused to be ignored.

Major engagements, regardless how distant, meant the immediate rooms were locked down. Public call-lines were disabled. Air vents were sealed. Toilets stopped working after the first flush. Without windows, the outside world was an invisible realm quivering with potential. One could imagine anything happening. But Diamond’s thoughts always turned the long-feared kidnapping: a squadron of top-line fletches defending the palace, well-rested soldiers marshalling inside the palace hallways and ballrooms, and the papio arriving on columns of flame and thunder.

Most lockdowns were brief and dull, ending without explanation.

The resident sentries were as uninformed as anyone else trapped inside, though they worked hard conveying that guardly sense of stoic, unimaginative resolve.

But there were long attacks that brought endless sirens and little else. The adrenalin kick was soon swallowed by life, and because no room was considered safer than any other, life inside their home continued as best as it could. Elata dressed after breakfast.

The trip to the Grand University was out of the question, so Nissim suggested that school start early.

Mother informed the sentries that everybody would be in the classroom. She sat in back. Good made a bed between her and Diamond. The Master stood up front, and with an expression more calm than concerned, he contemplated the wailings. “This does seem longer than usual,” he admitted.

“Maybe it’s a drill,” Seldom suggested.

Drills sounded the same as attacks, but they had more endurance.

Scratching his chin and the bristly whiteness, Nissim said, “I don’t think a drill . . . ”

And then every siren was turned off, the world filled with an abrupt, ear-rattling silence.

Everyone was ready for the soldiers’ call-line to blare, announcing the lockdown’s end. But what they heard was the grumbling chatter between a pair of men at the end of the adjacent hallway.

Mother excused herself and left.

Master Nissim grabbed a history book, naming a likely page.

Seldom dutifully opened his copy. Diamond had already read the book to the end, and putting his hands over the cover, he closed his eyes, flipping through the pages in his mind.

Mother and the guards were whispering. The guards’ call-line was working, but nobody wanted to share any news with them.

A pad of paper and two pencils were on Elata’s desk. Her textbooks were stowed, and nothing mattered but drawing what was inside her head.

The Master said her name.

“I heard you,” she said, drawing faster.

Nissim wanted to be careful with Elata. Watching the girl, he felt a teacher’s frustrations mixed with growing concerns. Nobody here should be happy. Tragedy had weight and power, and each face showed its effects hundreds of days later. For a long while, Elata was the bellwether, first to anger and quick to cry and quicker still to tell the Master that history was a ridiculous subject.

“It’s all the same story, again and again,” she would complain. “Why waste our little time with crap that never changes?”

“Because what can be predicted can be understood,” he had argued. “And in little ways, the inevitable can be beaten.”

They had some fine debates on the subject, yes.

But ten days ago, there was a change. The girl turned pleasant overnight. She still didn’t want to read history, but she was polite, even sweet about her defiance. A smile kept surfacing, and what most alarmed Nissim was that he believed in her smile. But the girl had always been an accomplished liar. So long as Elata’s true thoughts were a mystery, he intended to watch her carefully.

“Seldom,” said the Master. “Would you please read the bottom passage?”

The boy’s long back needed to be straightened, and Seldom always grew serious when reading. Even reciting a joke, words came out slow and heavy.

“ ‘The first person to define the natural motions of weight was not Akkan Cheen, as is commonly thought. At least three other scientists from three distinct earlier ages have been credited for making these discoveries independently. It seems as though each era of social order and relative wealth leads to the same epiphanies, and perhaps that is the mark of real disorder—when we forget what should be self-evident, and for the willing mind, what should be most beautiful.’ ”

Seldom finished with a grin.

Nissim once took Diamond aside, saying, “You deserve to be told. The best student that I have—the finest that I’ve ever known—is Seldom. It isn’t you, and that probably won’t ever change.”

Diamond had the perfect memory, but Seldom adored knowledge.

Diamond could easily outthink his friend, yet he never outworked him or wrung half as much pleasure from an elegant thought found inside his own head.

To all three students, the Master said, “I adore that passage.”

Diamond nodded, waiting.

“And why do I like it?”

Diamond was listening and reading in his head, and he was looking at Elata too. He saw her serious focused and very pretty face and how the long pencil swirled over the paper, creating the shaggy magnificence of a blackwood tree.

The girl habitually drew pictures of her lost home.

“Diamond,” said the Master.

Diamond blinked and looked ahead, ready for an answer to pop into his mind.

Then Nissim said, “No. Not your first response.”

The boy blinked, a little startled.

“Give me your eighth reaction. Will you try to do that for me?”

He wasn’t sure that was possible, but he started to resurrect what had just happened inside his head, counting the ideas.

Then the sentries’ call-line cackled.