Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Sky on Fire by E.K. Johnston This character-driven space fantasy, set in the world of Aetherbound, entwines Arthurian myth and the history of North Atlantic fisheries. By E.K. Johnston | Published on July 1, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Sky on Fire by E.K. Johnston, a fast-paced and thought-provoking queer sci-fi/fantasy novel publishing with Dutton Books for Young Readers on July 22nd. Morgan Enni has things to do. A science prodigy in a university full of mage-scientists, she’s notable for having no magical ability, which only increases her ambition and drive to prove herself. Her research has the potential to devastate every aetherworker in the galaxy and shake the crumbled foundations of the Stavenger Empire. It’s no wonder she can’t find anyone who wants to listen to her, much less fund her expedition.But Morgan is stubborn, and eventually her work catches the attention of a group of rebels, who hope it might turn the tide in their favour. When they try to recruit the young scientist, they get much more than they bargained for. Morgan Enni has secrets of her own. Morgan Enni had things to do, but in the quiet of Katla Station’s designated early morning, she took a moment to breathe. It was the last time she’d be sleeping in this bed for a while, and she was strangely reluctant to get out of it and start moving around. The bed itself was nothing special, just a simple frame and mattress that she’d purchased from a shop she couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. She hadn’t even physically gone to it, electing to shop in her preferred manner: selecting an item from the online catalogue and waiting for the mostly anonymous delivery. It wasn’t stylish or, even worse, sexy. It was functional. Her aunt had wanted to furnish the apartment with more flourish and flounce, and had tried to drag Morgan to a whole variety of stores. Eventually they’d compromised and used a public display terminal that offered virtual projections instead. Even then, Morgan had been hard pressed to simplify the decorations, but she had succeeded at least in the matter of the bedroom. Aunt Vianne meant well. She’d brought Morgan to Katla when she was small and vulnerable, and somehow already too much for her parents to deal with. Katla had much better schools and better teachers for those without gene-sense, Vianne had said, convincing her sister to give up a child she didn’t understand. It would be better for everyone. Morgan hadn’t been consulted, and at the time she’d been terrified, but as the years passed, she had come to realize that Vianne was absolutely correct. Katla, the most influential of the remaining stations, was the place where Morgan would thrive. It was just that, on occasion, Vianne tended to surround them both with things. Morgan had learned to make herself comfortable in her aunt’s home. She had her own bedroom, a proper one, which was a blessing she hadn’t had in her parents’ cramped allotment, and Vianne was always ready with a new booklet or data-crystal when Morgan was bored with her primary studies. From the time she was six until she was sixteen, Morgan’s life was cluttered, but it was good. When it came time for her to move into an apartment closer to her laboratory, she started putting her foot down. A little bit. Particularly in matters concerning throw pillows. Morgan very much enjoyed comfort, and she loved and appreciated Aunt Vianne, but she also liked having space. Space was like quiet: it made it easier to think. She was surrounded by quiet with some frequency. She worked alone in her lab. She had lived alone in her apartment for two years now. Given any choice in the matter, she’d sit alone in public places with a book or a datapad, and no one to interrupt her. However, there was a special kind of silence to the hours when the people on Katla started to think about getting up but hadn’t yet started going about their daily bustle. A waiting sort of quiet, which suited her just fine. Buy the Book Sky on Fire E.K. Johnston Buy Book Sky on Fire E.K. Johnston Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Morgan Enni felt like she had been waiting for something all her life. Test results, acceptance letters, scholarship approvals, ethics committee decisions, and this morning was no different. Once she got out of bed and started making noise, it would be time to face the harder part of waiting. Here, under a sensible quilt, she was at least cozy and could imagine that waiting was comfortable. When she got up, she would have to check her messages, and then she would know for certain whether the thing she had been waiting for the most was going to happen. Because there is very little dignity in the human form, her bladder made the decision for her. The humming started as soon as her feet hit the floor. The coffeepot began heating water and a randomized selection of pastries and fruit juices appeared on the counter as the freshseal around them retracted. An overly friendly notification appeared on the counter of her kitchenette informing her how many calories she was advised to consume, based on her previous day’s activity. Morgan ignored it and headed into the bathroom. She would eat when she was hungry. Probably. Sometimes work was more important than a grumbling belly. By the time she was finished with her morning ablutions, the coffee was hot, and cream and sugar had appeared next to the pastries. The calorie notification was replaced by a message reminding her that she would need to reorder several food items if she wanted to have breakfast tomorrow morning. Morgan did not—or at least, not here—so she cancelled the order. An assumption, but she had a good feeling about how her last grant application had gone. She wouldn’t be here tomorrow. She was sure of it. There were several schools and academies on Katla, designated for higher learning or specialized training of some kind. It was these facilities that Vianne Enni had brought Morgan to Katla to take advantage of, and Morgan did not disappoint her. Only the æther-college was selective, requiring some level of gene-sense from those it admitted. Every other college would admit anyone who submitted an application. After that, staying was up to the student’s abilities. Aunt Vianne taught in the physics department at Katla’s primary university, and so that’s where Morgan decided to go. Her aunt had never treated her like a burden, but even as a child, Morgan was wise enough to take advantage of getting free tuition as the ward of an employee. There were no age restrictions at the university, and the application system tried to be as innominate as possible to give everyone a fair chance with the admissions board. Therefore, many professors were quite alarmed when a small, dark-haired girl-child marched into their classrooms and took a seat in the front row, feet swinging above the floor. At least, they were alarmed the first time. Morgan had quickly proven she belonged, and more than kept up with the fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds the university usually admitted. The university had been a second home to Morgan from the time she was twelve. In those sterile white rooms and under the too-bright lights, she absorbed every piece of information her instructors had been willing to give her. With Aunt Vianne’s encouragement, she took extra classes and attended every guest lecture. Some of them were quite controversial—there had been protests and strongly worded letters—but Morgan went all the same. Politics, history, mathematics, hydroculture, every kind of science, even the theories of æther-work, Morgan threw herself into the black vacuum space of Katla’s seemingly endless educational opportunities, and since nature abhors a vacuum, knowledge rushed in. The problems began when she started asking questions. The coffeepot beeped loudly, reminding her that her morning stimulant was prepared. Morgan stirred cream and sugar into the dark liquid, and then alternated between drinking it and eating the pastries. She was just beginning the dishwash cycle and programming the freshseal when a lower-pitched hum joined the harmony made by her kitchen implements. The trains were running; the inevitable could no longer be put off. Katla’s day had begun. Morgan fastened a lid on one of the fruit juices and palmed the button on the wall that would flip her apartment over from its domestic setting to its professional one. A frosted glass screen came down to block her kitchenette and the bed folded up into the wall. Her desk unfolded as soon as the floor was clear, and her work-chair rose from its niche in the floor. As she sat down, a series of monitors turned on, glowing softly as they waited for input. A small red circle flashed in the corner of her inbox. Aunt Vianne had been very understanding when Morgan decided to move out. Young people on Katla had a great deal of independence, and the station was currently in an underpopulated phase, so there were plenty of options. Several of the students Morgan would have been in school with had she progressed at a regular rate had all sought apartments at the same time. Vianne never for a moment thought Morgan would opt for a co-living situation. Instead, she imagined something glamorous, possibly with an outside viewport, high up in one of Katla’s spires. Morgan had the accumulated credit to afford something like that, but absolutely no desire for it. Instead, Morgan chose a small, compact apartment in Katla’s great ring, near one of the main transportation hubs. It had noisier corridors and walkways than the spires did, as people travelled to and from work or school. There was always a variety of street food available, and the shops were stocked with clothes and books that Morgan found suitable, even if her aunt thought they were a little gauche. If asked, Morgan couldn’t have said what drew her to this section of the station. She wasn’t slumming it by any means. Katla didn’t really have slums, though it did have an underbelly that was not discussed in polite society. She certainly didn’t hang out with her neighbours or even meet up with other grad students at the local restaurants and bars, though there were people she saw on a regular basis—picking up dinner on the way home, waiting for the trainway, that sort of thing. It was the oldest part of the station, the part the Stavengers had built to secure the Net and the Well so they could send their ships on to Brannick and ill-fated Enragon as soon as possible. The truth was that this was the part of Katla that relied the least on gene-sense. There were no arboretums or flashing signs, no view of the stars for those who could orient themselves. The tech was a bit older, the uses more practical. Everything was functional but lacked the flair that gene-mages couldn’t seem to resist adding to everything they did. Morgan liked it that way. It was not that her parents had been disappointed when she was born without a connection to the æther, it was simply more that it was a surprise. Like most people on Skúvoy Station, neither of Morgan’s parents was particularly adept. They each possessed enough magic to guarantee a job at one of Skúvoy’s many factories, but nothing more. Without gene-sense, Morgan’s future employment options on the station were extremely limited, and no one on Skúvoy prized academics. This was not something that bothered her as a toddler. Only when her sister was born did Morgan realize what she was missing. The baby’s reception was far more animated than anything she had seen before. Whereas Morgan had always been greeted with hushed whispers—maybe a coo if she fussed—the new baby was exclaimed over excitedly and passed from person to person like a prize. Morgan was smart enough to understand by then and had retreated into her shell. Now the neighbours all said she was aloof and strange. Morgan had been in the process of shutting down when her aunt Vianne arrived. Her mother’s sister was a force to be reckoned with, and she swept into Morgan’s life like a rocket. Morgan could hardly remember what her sister looked like, though she was pretty sure the baby had been blond and cheerful. She’d still been an infant when Morgan left, and there was no telling what she would look like now, more than a decade later. Morgan didn’t miss her family, nor did she resent them, nor even hate æther. She just didn’t want to constantly be reminded of the family that didn’t understand her for her singular difference. Especially when they all shared the same secret, buried deep in the past and kept in their very name. Vianne probably understood that long before Morgan did herself, and that was why her aunt did not put up much of a protest when Morgan decided to move to such an unfashionable part of Katla Station. Instead, Vianne helped her pack and only quietly grumbled about the ascetic nature of Morgan’s design preferences, while trying to discreetly add wallpaper accents to brighten up the kitchenette. Now, as the message notification flashed on the otherwise inactive screens, Morgan wished her aunt was here. If it was good news, Aunt Vianne would be proud of her. If it was bad news, she’d swear loudly and promise to make disparaging remarks at future interdepartmental meetings. Morgan had outpaced Vianne a long time ago, when it came to brain power and raw ambition. Rather than get angry about it, Vianne had been thrilled. Her niece was now even more of a problem for everyone else on the faculty, and Vianne watched with unfettered glee as department heads courted her niece, while also grinding their teeth over what more than one of them referred to as obstinacy. Morgan took a deep breath and opened the message from the university. Immediately, three faces filled the screens in front of her. Apparently, the advisory board had felt strongly enough about their decision that they’d recorded a message instead of just writing one. That didn’t give Morgan any clue as to what their decision was, though. Honestly, it could go either way. “Ms. Morgan Enni, greetings. We hope this recording finds you well,” the committee chair began. Dr. Argir was an older man, white skin made even paler by a lack of time spent under the solar simulation lamps. “We have considered your research application and are prepared to give our decision.” “We would like to commend you for the changes you have made to your research proposal.” This second speaker was Dr. Mattsen, the head of Morgan’s own department. She had supported Morgan right up until the moment she started showing initiative. Now Morgan’s brevity was unprofessional, where before it had been practical, and her ideas were untenable, where they used to be cutting edge. “It shows a great deal of professional development in regard to your response to critique.” Not enough that they were willing to have this chat in person, or even live. But to be fair, Morgan had called them all some relatively creative names the last time they’d rejected her face-to-face. She didn’t really want to meet with them either. She just wanted the courtesy before they gave her the resources she needed to disappear from their orbits for a while. “We still have a great many concerns about your primary research goals,” the committee chair said. “But my esteemed colleague has made several arguments in your defense.” “Morgan, I know how dedicated you are to this idea, even with the doubts expressed by many of my peers.” The third speaker was Dr. Morunt, a gene-mage who taught medical cooperation techniques for doctors like himself working with their non-mage counterparts. He had held his position in absentia until recently, when he finally came back to Katla after years off-station doing something Morgan didn’t care about. Morgan couldn’t stand him, but he had been unexpectedly supportive, and it was because of his recent addition to the committee that she had been given a second chance. “This, in combination with your secondary research objectives, has allowed us to grant you the funding you’ve requested.” Morgan almost tipped her chair over. “Effective immediately, you are a Research-Wanderer, with permission to leave Katla Station to pursue your academic goals.” Dr. Argir didn’t bother to hide his annoyance at the fact that she’d been successful. “Please make sure you sign the attached waivers and file your reports in the appropriate manner.” “Good luck, Research-Wanderer Enni,” said Dr. Morunt, a wry expression on his face. If she cared about his opinions beyond his ability to get her what she wanted, Morgan might have been amused by his odd commitment to her cause. He didn’t so much as blink as he congratulated and then dismissed her. “I still hope you’re wrong.” Excerpted from Sky on Fire, copyright © 2025 by E.K. Johnston. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Sky on Fire</i> by E.K. Johnston appeared first on Reactor.