Nebula

The Girl on the North Line
Book One of Nebula: The Stars That Hold Us

Thirteen-year-old Kes Bell wakes on a train clinging to the side of a city above the clouds, just as the carriage breaks loose.

She reaches for a falling child and discovers a power she never knew she had. The rescue leaves her arm badly injured and brings her to the Crownworks, a fortress college where young magicians learn to bend gravity and command storms. Its director offers to teach her, with the promise of help finding her way home.

For a girl who has lost everything familiar, the apprentices beside her make the offer harder to refuse. There are meals to share, friendships to get wrong and lessons Kes is determined to master. She wants to earn her place among them, even when she is frightened to admit how little she understands.

Below the college, families live in homes the city's failing supports may no longer hold. As Kes and her friends discover why those families have been left in danger, Captain Hask sends armed men to silence the people who could expose it.

With escape routes closing and her own body still healing, Kes must help get the trapped residents out through streets Hask controls. She has begun to care about the people of Nebula, and saving them may mean defying the very people she depends on to take her home.