The Shield deflected harmful things, be it a flying rock coming at me, or whatever surface awaited when I flew toward it. In recent weeks I had learned how to harness that rebounding power, and actually manipulate it. My entire plan revolved around controlling the Shield like never before.

I leaned into the wind, flapping my arms, distorting my body in any way I could until the friction of the wind flipped us over. The sight of the onrushing ocean hit my heart like a baseball bat connecting with a ball for a home run. We only had seconds.

Miyoko had not said a word since we fell, but her grip let me know that she was petrified.

“Hold on!” I yelled, realizing as I did so that it's such an instinctual thing to say, yet nothing could be more pointless to advise. A surprising calm filled me, and the magic of the First and Second Gifts took over.

I put my right arm forward, toward the rising, hungry waters, my hand balled into a fist. There was no point to this really, except that it made me feel a little more like Superman. Sending waves of thought downward, I called upon the Ice and froze a large area of the ocean directly below us, right at the spot where we would soon impact. Mist swirled in a violent tornado and was gone in an instant, leaving a broad patch of Ice. With more thought, I hardened the area, wishing it to be the solidity of steel-enforced concrete. A tight, crackling sound met our ears as the ice compacted, shrinking into a rigid, hard foundation of cold iron.

Then Miyoko and I, bound together, hit it with the force of a small bomb.

In the milliseconds of that collision, I guided the power of the Shield with more intensity than I had ever done before. With every line of thought, with every thread of concentration, I directed the Shield in its effort to rebound us away from the harm of the rigid ice. With no time to form actual words or cohesive thoughts, I pictured in my mind the approximate direction of the flying boat and estimated its distance. All the faculties of my will exploded into the Shield, and told it what to do.

It all happened in less than a second.

When the protective bubble of the First Gift slammed into the Ice, all common sense said that the blow should have obliterated it, but it held firm, giving ammunition to the power of the Shield, making it possible for it to obey my wishes. The very air took on form. The invisible force of the protective halo surrounding us bent and twisted, a solid but unseen power. Our bodies twisted along with it, my outreached arm and fist turning to the sky, my body and Miyoko's rotating until our feet came within inches of the icy floor.

There was the briefest of pauses, like the Shield was vying for time, building its strength. The Gift's rebounding force was held in check, fostering its intensity. Then the Shield released the megaton of energy that had formed below us.

There was no fiery explosion, no streamers of heat and exhaust. There was no sound. But the Shield catapulted us into the air with the might of a thousand rockets. Miyoko screamed as we flew toward the sky, her grip tightening once again. My insides filled with a weird mixture of elation, fear, and motion sickness. I held my arm firm, straight ahead, as if I could really guide my flight.

But I knew that it was all up to physics now.

We only had to get close enough for me to shoot a stream of Ice to once again connect us with the yacht. After a few seconds of flight, a worry of doubt entered my mind that we wouldn't even come close. But then the fog of the low clouds parted, and there, directly in our path, the ship appeared.

It was like the curtain parting on a star-studded night of the Jimmy Fincher Awards Ceremony. The sight of that ship, once again within our reach, filled me with warmth and hope all over again.

But it was coming up fast, and I didn't have much time to rejoice.

Our trajectory was taking us to the left of the ship, so that we'd miss it by forty or fifty feet. Then I could see that I was being too optimistic. As the ship grew in our vision like a budding flower, it became clear that we would miss it by a great deal—too far to trust a single shot of Ice to attach us.

My mind spun in a vicious swirl of thought, assessing the situation. I concentrated on the moisture in the air up ahead of us, forming another chunk of Ice, hovering in the air, placed in a spot where I thought it was needed. We slammed into it a second after its formation, and all my mental efforts went into manipulating the reflective power of the Shield. We rebounded at the slightest of angles, still moving forward but thrown back to the right. We were now on a direct collision course with our boat.

Wet wind whipped at our faces as we approached the rear of the impossible flying object. One hundred feet became twenty. The ladder on the back sprung clearly into view. We would just miss it.

As we flew at the ladder, and then watched as it seemed to tilt in an odd angle when the direction of our flight took us past it, I focused on the bottom rung and shot a beam of Ice directly at it, incorporating the same fluidity I had learned in prior jams. The end of the rope hit home, and froze with a solid crackle around the entire area. I put a little slack into the Ice, allowing it to expand at a decelerating pace so our momentum would not rip the entire ladder from the ship.

Despite my effort, the power of our flight threw too much force into the yacht. Like tugging on a rope tied to a toy boat in the bathtub, we pulled the back of the ship in an arc, until the yacht was flying sideways, yawning dangerously toward our side. A shiver of horror went down my spine as I realized the entire ship could go tumbling end over end, tossing its occupants like a cup of dice and sending my dad from the deck to a very long fall.

A chorus of screams from the Shadow Ka showed their displeasure at this new development, and they hurried to right the ship and pull the front forward. Their uncanny ability to work in unison was as impressive as it was frightening. The ship was back to normal in a matter of seconds, just as our momentum stopped completely and we swung back toward the rear of the ship.

As we did so, I had the oddest sensation of floating in water beside the boat, watching as it seemed to rev its engines and move past us. The slack in the icy rope that attached us played out abruptly, and we shot forward, trailing the ship like tandem water skiers.

Black wings appeared from above. They were coming for their second assault.

Faster than ever before, with a flash of thought that acted before it was even formed, I shrunk the Ice, slamming us into the ladder. I wasn't going to let them cut the rope a second time. Now that we were on the ladder, I knew I could ignore the Ka and rely on the Shield to protect Miyoko and me.

I climbed up the ladder, rung by rung, freezing and unfreezing my hands to the cold, lacquered wood as we ascended. One slipped grip could send us tumbling to the ocean all over again.

Five or six Ka stayed with us, flying at us and bouncing off the Shield one after the other, screeching and clawing and taunting us. An odd thump sounded every time they hit our protective barrier, like stupid, gargantuan pigeons flying into doubled-paned windows. My confidence in the First Gift was insurmountable, but their insane actions still made me quiver, making the climb difficult. I looked down. The dark ocean lay there, a mile below us, white crested waves just visible, like faint static on television. The storm must be picking up, I thought, the winds stirring up the waters.

Three rungs left. Two. It felt as if Miyoko were gaining weight by the second. My back ached.

One rung. I pulled us up and over, onto the deck.

“Don't let go of me!” I yelled to Miyoko. I reached behind me and made sure my hand was squarely on her forearm, and then released the Ice that held her to me. She slumped to the ground with a heavy thump, but I kept a hold on her arm. She reached down with both arms, got her feet beneath her, and stood up.

“Okay, hold onto my arm now, and don't let go,” I said.

She placed her hand around my biceps. At any other time I would have been embarrassed at how skinny my arm was, but there was no time for that right then. I swirled an icy vice around her hand, freezing her to me so I wouldn't have to worry about it. Then, I took a deep breath and looked around.

Getting up there had been the easy part. Well, not easy, but do-able. I had put so much thought and energy into that process that my head was suddenly blank of any ideas of what to do now that we were on the ship again.

But it only took five seconds for yet another brilliant Jimmy Fincher plan to pop into my head.