At the center of every starship was a bonsai starship. It rested in the starship’s command garden and provided the magic that propelled it.

Novice Kei had known this longer than she had known her own name, especially since she was the eighth Kei who currently served at the Shrine of Budding Nights on the world known as Coronet. All the novices were named Kei or Asahi or Kaoru until they passed the initiation or left the shrine for destinies of their own. Kei-the-Eighth accepted the wisdom of this the way she accepted the shrine’s traditions—all but one.