It’s fine.
It’s fine.
I think those words over and over, an endless loop weaving into a life raft that might carry this weight for me.
“Seb—” Orok touches my arm and I cringe away, hard.
Are my eyes tearing? No, it’s… allergies or some shit.
“It doesn’t matter,” I snap. “He’ll run the camp. Nothing’ll change. He’ll find whole new generations of wizards to—”
My throat closes.
Eyes burning, jaw tight, I focus on messing with my phone’s camera settings. “Smile, O. One more picture.”
He watches me a beat longer.
Then, deadpan, flips me off.
I spit a laugh, so grateful for it, and Orok manages a smile, too.
“Aw, that’s a keeper,” I say to the picture. “You probably shouldn’t pose like that when you’re taking photos with festivalgoers, though.”
Orok leans over my shoulder to look at it. He huffs another laugh.
Then threads his arm around my waist and gives me a side hug. “Let me know when you want to talk about it.”
Muscles cramp across my shoulders. I pocket my phone and lean against him, his rawball padding dense and uncomfortable on my back.
“Don’t you have fans to torment?” I shove him. Playfully. Sort of.
He grunts and trots off. And it isn’t until I watch him slump away that I realize maybehewants to talk about it. He’s known my dad for years, and this is a blow to him, too.
I mean—it’s not a blow. It’s notanything.
I turn on my heel and head up the sidewalk. Most people are moving around me, but one person stays fixed in place, and I pull up short to avoid slamming into them.
Thio.
Seeing him slants reality. Makes me question if maybe realitywasslanted, and looking at him is what it feels like to be level.
He takes me in from head to toe. Per Thompson’s suggestion, I wore clothes I don’t mind getting messed up—old jeans, a T-shirt I don’t particularly care about, my grungiest pair of sneakers, and I swapped my glasses for contacts. The weather’s cool but tolerable without a coat, and I have my component belt, but that’s easily cleaned.
Thio’s similarly dressed, but his version of trash clothes are well-worn designer brands that fit him like a second skin: a black T-shirt and black jeans with holes in random places that let the straps of his component harnesses do really,reallylovely things to his thigh muscles.
My eyes get stuck there. On the way the leather straps bite into the skin I can see through one of the rips in his jeans.
We should’ve blown each other before this. But Orok and I took public transport in together rather than Thio picking me up, which was fine at the time, but now?
I pretend I’m adjusting my component belt but, nope, I’m adjusting something quite different.
Thio’s smiling by the time my eyes make it back up to his. “You ready, partner?”
“Yup. You hear what it is we’re doing?”
Whatever this challenge, it’ll let me scorch through my mom’s text. Melt it right out of my mind.
My chest thrums, twists sharply.
