The nest was too quiet now.

Jasper sat at the edge, his wing feathers still soft at the tips, not quite hard enough, not quite right. Below him, the world stretched out in shades of green and gold, and it was very far away. A hundred times he had watched his siblings practice. A hundred times he had watched them fall and flutter and then, suddenly, not fall anymore.

Poppy went first. She was the oldest and the bravest and she flew into the oak tree next door and sat there preening like she'd been doing it forever. Then Theo, who was clumsy but determined, and then the twins, Wren and Lark, who went together because they did everything together.

That was three weeks ago. Three weeks of watching the nest get bigger with space. Three weeks of his mother looking at him with something in her eyes that she tried to hide, something that might have been worry.

"You'll go when you're ready," she said every morning.

Jasper didn't feel ready. Ready meant your wings were hard and strong and you weren't scared. He was still scared. The ground was so far. What if he fell and fell and didn't stop falling? What if he flew into something? What if he couldn't find his way back?

What if he was the only bird in the whole world who couldn't fly?

His mother had to leave now to find food. The nest was too crowded and she needed to eat and there wasn't enough for all of them here, not anymore. "I'll come back," she said. "I always come back."

But she couldn't help him fly. That was the thing. Flying was something you did alone.

Jasper flapped his wings. They were good wings, really. They were the right size and the right shape and they made the right sound when he practiced, a soft shhhh-shhhh in the morning air. He just couldn't make himself jump.

He sat at the edge of the nest and he looked down and he looked up and he felt his heart going fast, fast, fast, like a little drum inside his chest.

"That's a lot of heart you're carrying," said a voice.

Jasper jumped. Not out of the nest—back into it, which was the opposite of flying and also not helpful. A crow was sitting on the branch next to him. A big crow, old-looking, with feathers that were more gray than black and eyes that were very bright and very knowing.

"Sorry," the crow said. "Didn't mean to scare you. I'm Solomon."

"I'm Jasper."

"I know," Solomon said. "I've been watching. You practice every morning. Good wings."

"They're not good enough."

Solomon made a sound that might have been a laugh, or might have been a cough, or might have been both. "They're fine wings. Best I've seen this spring. The problem isn't your wings."

Jasper looked at him. "Then what?"

"The problem is what's on the other side of flying." Solomon ruffled his feathers and settled more comfortably on the branch. He was very calm. He seemed like a crow who had done a lot of sitting and thinking and was now in possession of a great many thoughts.

"What's on the other side?"

"Everything," Solomon said. "The whole sky. The whole world. That's what's on the other side of the nest. The whole rest of your life." He tilted his head. "It's normal to be scared of that. I was scared too, once."

"You?" Jasper couldn't imagine Solomon being scared of anything.

"Long time ago. Different nest. Different crow." Solomon looked out at the sky, at the other birds wheeling in the distance, at the trees bending in a wind Jasper could barely feel from inside the nest. "I sat where you're sitting for six days. Six days. My mother thought I'd never go."

"What made you go?"

"I didn't go," Solomon said. "I jumped. That's the secret. It's not the same thing."

Jasper didn't understand.

"Flying isn't about being ready," Solomon said. "You wait and wait for ready and ready never comes, because ready is a trick. It's a door that's locked from the inside. You can't find the key because the key is jumping."

"But what if I fall?"

"You might." Solomon said it simply, without cruelty. "Birds fall. Sometimes they fly into things. Sometimes they get lost. The world is very big and very fast and it doesn't always catch you when you need catching."

Jasper felt his heart do a painful squeeze. "Then why would I jump?"

"Because staying in the nest is falling too," Solomon said. "Just slower. Just quieter. Just the kind of falling you don't notice until you look up and the whole sky has gone somewhere you can't follow." He leaned forward, and his eyes were very serious now. "You want something more than you're scared. That's the part you're missing. You want something more than being safe."

"What if I want both?"

"You can't have both," Solomon said. "That's the thing about jumping. You don't get to keep the nest and have the sky. You don't get to be safe and be free. You pick. And then you live with your pick."

Jasper was quiet for a long time. Below him, the world moved in the wind. A squirrel crossed a branch somewhere in the oak tree next door. Poppy was out there somewhere, flying, finding food, living her big-bird life. He could hear her voice, or maybe it was Theo's, a sharp call from somewhere in the distance.

"What if I jump and I hate it?" he asked.

"Then you hated it," Solomon said. "And you'll know. And you'll figure out what to do next. But I'll tell you something, little finch—" He paused. "You're not going to hate it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've never met a bird who hated the sky," Solomon said. "Not once. Not in all my years. The sky is what we are. It's where we're supposed to be. Even the falling part of it is better than the safe part of the nest. Even the fear is better than the comfort, because at least the fear means you're trying."

Jasper looked down again. The ground was very far. The wind was pushing at the trees. Somewhere out there, his family was waiting for him, or had already stopped waiting, which was worse, which was worse, which was the thing he couldn't think about too hard.

"I don't know if I want to go," he said.

"That's okay," Solomon said. "Wanting comes after jumping. Sometimes it comes during. It rarely comes before. That's the secret nobody tells you. You don't jump because you want to fly. You jump because you want something more than the nest. And then flying finds you."

Jasper felt his wings twitch. They wanted to move. They were ready to move even when he wasn't.

"I'm going to jump," he said. It didn't sound like his voice. It sounded like something braver, something that had been inside him all along.

"I know," Solomon said. And he settled back on his branch, patient as stone.

Jasper stood at the edge of the nest. He looked down and it was terrifying, it was so terrifying, and he looked up and there was the sky, all of it, the whole enormous future, waiting. He flapped his wings once, twice. His heart was BAM BAM BAM.

He jumped.

For one terrible second, he fell. The air rushed up at him and his wings flapped and nothing happened and he was going to hit the ground, he was going to—

And then he wasn't falling.

He was flying. He was actually flying. The wind was under his wings and the world was below him and he was up, he was UP, and the sky was enormous and the ground was far and it didn't matter because he was here, he was HERE, in the place he was supposed to be.

A sound came out of him, a happy sharp chirp that he didn't know he could make. He banked left and caught an updraft and went higher and higher and the nest got smaller and the world got bigger and somewhere behind him he heard Solomon's voice, just once, just quietly: "There you go."

Jasper flew.