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called in every favour she could. Hannah had pushed me harder than ever. And I was in. Now I had to make it through, and I didn’t know how that was going to play out. The melody went on, uninterrupted, for Owen and Sadie—just the addition of a drum tattoo under their lines—but mine, mine had been on rest measures for months. And I didn’t know for sure what it was going to sound like when it started again.
    Neither of them had ever said I didn’t have to do this. We all knew that it was true. We all knew that it would probably be easier if I didn’t. But I was going to anyway. The fire on Manitoulin might have taken my hands, taken my music—or at least the easy parts of it—but it had left something behind. Forests burn all the time, dragon-caused or otherwise, and after, when the fire goes out, the plants and animals come back. The dead things, the unnecessary things, are gone, and life begins anew.
    That wasn’t exactly what happened to me, but it was close. What grew up in the space where the fire had burned was a sense of obligation. Before, I had only wanted to protect my home. After Manitoulin, I realized that things far away from Trondheim could be just as devastating as a local infestation of corn dragons. We needed oil and sugar and wood and potash. And while the island burned, I had discovered that I was one of those people who was willing to pay the price for them.
    â€œI’m worried too.” It was the first time I had said it out loud. “But we’re in this together.”
    â€œThat’s what I told him.” Sadie’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
    â€œWhat if they assign us to different places?” Owen said.
    â€œThey can’t,” I said. “Well, they can with Sadie. But you and I come as a pair.”
    â€œYou need Sadie too,” he said softly. “I can’t French braid.”
    I had taken to wearing my hair down. It was simple enough to comb and mercifully stayed mostly straight. When we were patrolling, playing soccer, or on the training field, Sadie braided it for me. I couldn’t even do a simple ponytail anymore.
    â€œThen I’ll shave my head,” I told him. “We’ll match and everything.”
    The uniform requirements for Oil Watch recruits were a bit more extreme than they were for regulars, largely because of the increased chance of burning. Lottie and Hannah had both shaved their heads while they were on their tours—I’d seen the photos—though Catalina, Owen’s mother, had opted for the more complicated protective helmet.
    â€œSiobhan,” he said, “you can’t joke about this forever.”
    â€œI’m not joking,” I told him. “I am going to do this. And it is going to suck. But that’s not going to stop me.”
    â€œTell you what,” Sadie said. “We’ll borrow my dad’s clippers and do it before we leave.”
    â€œWe?” I protested. She’d been planning to wear the helmet.
    â€œSure,” she said. “If you can make drastic decisions, then so can I. We’ll do it tomorrow, after school.”
    Owen and I exchanged a glance. Our telepathy had improved dramatically since we’d met. I could tell he was thinking that there was no point in arguing with Sadie, and he knew that I was thinking it was his fault for dating her.
    â€œFine,” I said. “Tomorrow. Now can we please go into the backyard and hit things?”
    â€œYes,” Sadie said, and gestured to the floor in front of her.
    I sat between her knees, and if we cried while she braided my hair for one last time, none of us were rude enough to mention it.

REAL PIE
    In hindsight, we probably should have waited to shave our heads until after Owen’s last interview with the local newspaper. Emily was annoyed. She liked having first dibs on releasing any news about us to the world at large. She’d had to give up most of