Chapter 2

I’m not scared of flying, or heights. What I am scared of is situations that have an inherent whiff of imminent death about them. A tin-pot shuttle rattling like a paint mixer as it hurtles through the thick soup of our planet’s atmosphere is one of those situations. I swallowed down the clammy sweat on the back of my throat, gripping onto the armrests of my seat hard enough to keep me from wailing, but not so hard that Sadie—who seemed fine—would notice. It was too loud to talk, so I kept my...