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The forest is dark around Neil, an unnatural contrast with the early summer day. Pebbles roll under his feet, but he pays them no attention; the edge of the forest is close. The cliff overlooking the sea, past the trees, is bathed in sunlight. Neil still has some time..
“Junior,” a voice coos nearby.
Neil turns around, sandals screeching on the uneven ground.
She’s standing there, Romero at her side. The demons are standing in the shadows, the only place where they can appear freely without risking destruction.
“Lola.” Her name is out before Neil can think twice about speaking up. After a beat, he adds: “That’s not my name.”
“No.” Her toothy smile splits her face, head lulling to the side and with it the swoop of her hair, as if it were threatening to roll off her shoulders. “You’ve decided to change it, haven’t you? How cute. Someone should tell you dogs answer their master no matter what.”
“Someone should tell you that’s not how dogs work. I’d say, meet one in real life, but the poor animal didn’t do anything to me and I wouldn’t want to put it in harm's way”.”
“How merciful. Unfortunately, I’m not going to return the favor to you.”
“Just shut up and get him,” Jackson says from the side.
Neil represses a shiver. He doesn’t believe they’re here to hurt him: his father is a god, and could have arranged his death long time ago if he so wished, but he’s also intent on getting his son back. Neil, saved from his father’s poisonous influence when he was child, has no intention of ever going back.
Behind them, he can see the fiery red of the sun, dipping into the dark blue of the sea. Neil’s heart is beating in his chest. He widens his stance to accommodate a third demon in the fight
One.
Two.
Lola advances. The sun is still above the water, a slice of circle bobbing above the horizon line. It’s too soon, Neil thinks. Then he doesn’t think anymore and he throws himself to the ground, dodging a dark, sharp-edged shadow knife. It hits a tree behind Neil and disintegrates.
“Stop running,” Lola taunts as Neil slips between her fingers. The forest, with the dark shadows of its uneven trees, is an advantage for the demons. It’s not too late; if Neil makes it out, he can—
“Gotcha,” Romero grunts, his breath hot in his ear when he throws himself on Neil.
Neil hits the ground heavily. “No,” he gasps.
Romero’s weight on his back is enough to drive all the air out of his lungs. Demons are not made to touch other beings, especially not someone who’s part-human as Neil is. He’s going to suffocate on Romero’s demonic presence before they can even drag him back underground to his father.
The low rays of the setting sun are grazing the ground now. One of them hits Neil’s face and he has to close his eyes, momentarily blinded. Above him, Romero hisses and relaxes his grip, enough for Neil to slip free.
There are no options for escape. Neil runs through the possibilities in his head, dismissing everyone of them, turns on his heel and faces the three demons head on.
“There you go,” Lola starts. “We’ve got you cornered like a rabbit. Too bad we’re not allowed to skin you like one as well.”
Neil doesn’t expect it when his back brushes against something soft and warm. Neil freezes for one long second, before the smallest press at the small of his back electrify his thoughts. His shoulders drop.
“You should go,” a voice says from somewhere on Neil’s right.
Romero turns around, snarling, toward the intruder. Neil doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to: he knows that voice, that low pitch, the curtness of the words, rare and intense. He knows the gentle hand, still on his back.
“And who the fuck are you?” Romero says.
Andrew appears in full, seemingly materializing out of thin air. He doesn’t answer the question, but his usual fiery outfit does it for him. The fabric of his tunic twirls around in blocky patterns, as though it was coming alive. His entire body radiates heat. From this close, Neil can hear his slightly shortened breathing, still labored from the effort of driving the chariot all day.
Andrew, Neil knows, is coming off his high.
“Is your will to live this insignificant,” he asks, “or are you simply obtuse? Better run along before you exhaust my very limited patience. I will not repeat myself.”
Jackson lets out a derisive laugh. “You can’t do a damn thing, son. None of your business.”
“Isn’t it? Are you willing to bet your lives on it?” Andrew crosses his arms over his chest, displaying the smooth leather bands wrapped around his forearms, the proof of divine occupation. He outranks the demons.
If he kills them—and he can—they would not fade out of their physical appearance like Neil would, reborn as a united part of the greater world. They would disappear, simply and cleanly. They’ve survived this long because Neil had no business, of protection or of any kind, with anyone before; because repressing the non-human part of him had driven him out of Andrew’s path before that. Now everything’s changed.
Lola snarls at them, but the demons retreat one after the other, slinking away in the growing shadows. The sky grows gray but neither Neil nor Andrew move, standing silent and still atop the cliff.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Neil says. “Now they know where to strike.”
Andrew uncrosses his arms. His skin brushes Neil’s. It’s warm and slightly prickly, the default of too much energy accumulated in his veins and no way to expel it. They both shudder at the contact, the familiar but always present jolt of two foreign elements touching against all odds.
Andrew exhales deeply through his nose, out-of-breath from a race against his own body. Neil doesn’t ask him if he’s alright; he’s never been that cruel.
“Are you afraid of them, still? I told you I would protect you.”
“I’m afraid for you. What if they decide to target you? You can’t be on your guard all the time.”
Andrew’s gaze doesn’t stray to the side. He doesn’t glance at Neil, but his voice has gotten its low pitch back when he says: “I hate you.”
Neil hums around his smile. “Like I believe it anymore.”
Andrew pokes his finger in Neil’s cheek until he’s forced to look away. Before he can take it away, Neil turns his head the other way and catches it between his teeth, careful to keep the graze light and playful.
Andrew tugs him by the front of his chiton and tugs him down for a kiss. It frizzles against Neil’s lips, bright and buzzing with undenied affection.
*
They walk to the edge of the town, where Neil’s house is standing, apart from the main hub of the human population. The night has fallen almost fully by the time they reach it. Neil starts a fire in the pit in front of the house. The warmth from the day is still lingering in the air, coating everything in a slight torpor. Andrew’s skin is almost cool to the touch.
Together, they watch Aaron rising through the night sky, bathed in a white halo. There is no reason for them to be staring in this way. They both know Aaron is too careful to risk the kind of dangers Andrew regularly drives his own chariot through. There are presences, high in the sky, that the glare of the sun irritates and who find appeasement in the glow of the moon.
Anyone having ever met Aaron, Neil thinks, should know better; but it’s the way it is.
Andrew still gazes up at the sky with his characteristic silent watchfulness. Neil doesn’t break the silence, instead watching Andrew in return. His golden rings he wears catch the light of the fire, giving the illusion of a fire come to life dancing across Andrew’s hands.
By the time Aaron is midway through his course, Andrew is repressing full-body shivers.
“Here,” Neil says, dropping a blanket on him.
Andrew startles, as if he hadn’t heard Neil get up and come back from the house. He’s tired, Neil can see it; it’s a kind of tiredness Neil can’t do anything against, a kind that doesn’t go away with sleep.
Neil takes a seat next to Andrew while he drapes the blanket over his shoulders, letting Neil scoot closer. Neil drops his head on Andrew’s shoulder, closing his eyes against the hypnotizing sight of Andrew’s cuff earring dangling in front of his eyes. He can feel it jingling slightly when he exhales.
“Sleep,” Andrew says. Neil is instead brought back to wakefulness, aware that he’s not the one who needs rest the most.
“Mmm,” he protests, adjusting his position slightly until Andrew drags him down in his lap, covering his upper body with the blanket. “But then you won’t sleep.”
“I am a god,” comes the dry answer. “I can take it.”
“Driving the chariot is a strain.” Neil sits up, baring himself to the cool air of the night.
“You are the one who needs protection,” Andrew says. “Get some sleep and let me do what I do.”
“If it means putting you at risk, then no.”
They stare each other down for a minute before Andrew breaks eye contact. It’s a small victory Neil is pleased with, especially when Andrew gets up, gathering the blanket over his shoulders like a cape.
“Come on,” he says. “Inside. I’m not sleeping on a log.”
Neil follows him. The blanket cape falls past Andrew’s feet, brushing against the dusty ground. Neil looks down so as not to step on it, but he looks up when he sees Andrew stopping. Andrew’s head is thrown back, his own eyes directed skyward. When he crosses Neil’s gaze, he strides indoors without further hesitation.
They settle into bed easily. The inside of the house is pretty much empty, save for a table, a bench, and the bed pushed in the path of the drafts coming from the openings. Having someone in his space is still new to Neil, but Andrew’s presence is a welcome change. There is no way to convey it that Andrew would accept yet, but the truth still exists between them, linked them in a way Neil knows is unbreakable.
Neil wakes up at dawn the next morning.
He’s a light sleeper, but Andrew’s even more attuned to his personal clock, so much that Neil has never seen him oversleep.
By the time he rushes to the edge of his east-facing yard, the sun is barely peeking over the horizon line. Neil wishes he had as good of a view as on the cliff, but the cliff is west-facing. This is his best vantage point.
He gets the fire started and fills the pot with water, letting the red sun warm him.
He’s sitting on the natural stone bench again when he sees the silhouette on the path leading up from the town to his house.
“What are you doing here?” he calls.
Aaron startles to a stop, looking around in confusion before he spots Neil. He scowls.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Being a pain,” Neil replies. Aaron waves him off and climbs the last few meters.
He stands in the shadow of the olive tree for a while, peering at the rising sun through the branches. Neil wonders what he sees, if he can make out the familiar form of his brother up on his chariot. Neil’s human heritage is too strong to let him see Andrew’s true form in the sky, or even stare at him for too long. He only has external clues to let him know how Andrew’s doing, if the horses are driving him off course or if his hold, that day, is stronger than they are. It’s risky and draining, and Neil knows that their mad temper leeches off on Andrew.
Today, the wrinkles on Aaron’s pale face are not a good sign. Neil doesn’t say anything, choosing to sip his infusion in silence.
“He spent the night,” Aaron says, looking pained.
“What’s it to you?”
“Can’t you give me a straight answer for once?”
“Are you going to as well? Don’t look surprised. I know what it means when you’re down here, and it’s not just to see me.”
Aaron’s face shutters closed. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. His relationship with the nymph Katelyn is supposed to be a secret, which means that everyone in Neil’s—admitted small—social circle knows about it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, it depends.” Neil closes his eyes and turns to the sun, basking in the soft warmth. It’s easy to dismiss Aaron, who always looks angry and scowling. “Do you want me to shut up or answer you?”
The frustrated noise Aaron makes invites Neil to open his eyes, if only out of suspicion he’s going to get hit soon.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to him to get him to come down so often,” Aaron starts, “but it has to stop.”
“What I’ve done to him?” Neil echoes. He feels the old anger at Aaron rear its head. Old, because it’s been a while since Aaron has tried to level any sort of accusation against Neil. “Can you hear yourself? Get your head out of your head for once. I haven’t done anything to him that he shouldn’t have been given a long time ago.”
“What,” Aaron spits, “you love him?”
Neil stares at him, feeling his temper rise. “I do,” he says, “and if you can’t live with it, run back to Katelyn before I send you back there with your tail between your legs.”
“I’m a god. You can’t harm me.”
“Try me.”
Aaron stares at him for a long time. Neil realizes he’s smiling; the twisted, madly cruel smile of his father. He forces it off his face and turns back westward.
“I’m not here for this,” Aaron says finally, in a strained voice. “You have to stop him from coming down so often.”
“Give me one good reason.” Despite his callous tone, Neil is starting to grow worried. Aaron is not usually as insistent as this. The days of their real, outward antagonism are mostly over.
“Can’t you see?” Aaron waves at the rising light. “He’s wavering.”
Neil doesn’t answer, squinting to catch a sight what Aaron can so clearly detect. His part-human eyes fail him. Andrew seems to be rising steadily and whatever happens, he’s out of reach entirely. If Aaron’s right, then there is nothing Neil can do to prevent an accident. He’s too far, too powerless.
“Explain,” Neil says. He’s not risking Andrew’s safety just because his trust in Aaron is limited.
“Coming down is draining,” Aaron starts. “We can’t just hop off whenever we want—especially not elementals like Andrew and I. I’m not at my strongest during the day, and neither is Andrew during the night.”
“I’ve known Andrew for a year,” Neil says, brushing off Aaron’s warning. “Do you think I haven’t noticed?”
Aaron’s scowl deepens. “Do you even know how to shut up? Going up on the chariot—it’s dangerous for Andrew.”
“Because of what’s in the sky, you mean.”
Something twists in Neil’s stomach at the sight of Aaron’s face. He looks weary, more so than he should be, even in the morning.
“The creatures up there—they’re nocturnal. The glow of the moon doesn’t bother them, because the moon flies much closer to the earth the sun. But the course of the sun is too high and too intense. It wakes them, blinds them, and they lash out.”
Neil nods, silent. He’s known something similar was happening from Andrew’s tales. He comes down ruffled with his clothes astray, sometimes. Neil has never seen his chariot, but Andrew has told him it didn’t come out of every race across the sky unscathed.
“They’re only part of the problem, though,” Aaron says next. Neil blinks at him, surprised. “Andrew’s horses are difficult.”
“Sir and King,” Neil says.
To his amusement, Aaron rolls his eyes. Stone-faced like, that Aaron looks just like his brother, except the silvery accents of his jewelry and the shiny gray of his tunic, where Andrew is all gold and warm colors.
“Trust Nicky to give names to the stupid shits,” he says.
“What’s the problem?” Neil shrugs. “Andrew likes them.”
“Does he.” Aaron’s gaze is piercing, staring right through Neil as though searching for a lie. “Go figure. Sun goes higher than the moon, right?” Aaron draws a half-circle in the air with his hand, inclining it steeply at each extremity. “They have a steeper slope to climb up in the morning.”
“Right,” Neil echoes. He glances up at the sky, dreading the inevitable conclusion to this dismal exposé.
“More effort at the beginning means stronger horses.”
“More difficult to control,” Neil finishes.
Aaron drops his hand. “If they escape his control and go too fast, they run off the path. If it’s early in the run, they drop closer to the Earth. At the peak of the day, they tend to keep climbing up, and step into the creatures’ realm.”
“He can’t get a respite,” Neil says.
“He finally gets it.” Aaron opens his arms, encompassing Neil and the house behind them. “He especially can’t get it if he spends his nights—the moment he’s the most vulnerable—down there on Earth, because some idiot cannot keep his family problems to himself.”
“Fuck you,” Neil snaps. “You don’t get to talk about him like that.”
“It’s not him I’m going after,” Aaron says. “Figure it out, but stop putting his life at risk.”
“He’s never told me,” Neil murmurs. He takes a sip of his tea, just for something to do. It’s gone cold. It sloshes unpleasantly around his mouth.
“He doesn’t like sharing his problems.”
“So what gives you the right to?”
Aaron’s surprise is short-lived. It morphs into anger easily, just as Neil thought it would. Aaron is a defensive person; his anger always in response to a trigger. He and Andrew have that in common, except Andrew’s temper would never rise for an offense directed at himself.
“Someone needs to tell you,” he replies. “Before your stupidity gets him killed.”
“I trust Andrew to make the right decisions concerning himself. Don’t you?”
“You and I both know he’s self-destructive. I’m not going to let him destroy himself again, especially if I can do something about it this time.”
“This time,” Neil repeats. “Is this guilt?”
Aaron’s mouth twists painfully. He points at Neil decisively, as if to say, your turn to play, now, and disappears in a flash.
Neil finishes his cold tea.
By the time he makes it to the cave on the other side of the valley, the midday heat is bearing on the world.
As much as Neil usually revels on the softness of the rays of the sun on his skin, and as wary as he is of walking in the shadows, he has to flee the excessive heat into the cool shade of the trees.
Renee’s cave is on the other side of town, down at the mouth of a ravine where Neil’s house is built high-up. The exterior wall , an addition built against the hill, shines bright and white under the glare of the sun. Neil protects his eyes and makes his way around a few goats searching for shade.
He knocks on the doorjamb, peeking inside the small habitation. Renee is sitting at the table, close to a partially shuttered window, rubbing a knife against a whetstone.
“Neil,” she greets without raising her head from her task. “How can I help you?”
Her uncanny ability of guessing everything just right usually makes Neil, who’s built his entire existence on lying and protecting himself, uncomfortable. Today, it also makes his hairs stand on end.
“Who says I need help? Can’t I swing by just because I feel like it?”
Renee doesn’t look up from the blade she’s sharpening, but her silence conveys more than words would. Neil accepts the rebuke for what it is and walks up to the table.
“Please sit,” she says.
Neil doesn’t sit. Renee doesn’t comment.
“You’re friends with Andrew,” he starts.
It’s not a question, but Renee nods all the same. She hesitates and her hand stills in the air, her knife halfway to the whetstone. “Did Aaron talk to you?”
“Did you know?”
Renee sighs. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up here?”
Neil looks around. If his own house is a barren hole in the wall, then Renee’s is a comfortable retreat. He’s never known her to come into town for more than the essentials.
“No,” he admits.
The grating sound of iron on the whetstone stops entirely. Renee puts down the knife next to her collection of others, and says: “I was a god too, you know.”
“I thought gods couldn’t survive long exposure on Earth.”
“That’s why I used the past tense. I gave it all up a few years ago.”
She’s serious: Neil can see it. “Why?”
“My office did not suit the person I wanted to become anymore.” Her voice is calm, though Neil doubts it had been such an easy decision. Divinity isn’t a position you can leave at the drop of a hat. “I asked for mortality, and it was granted to me on the condition of a few sacrifices.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Yes.” Renee tests the edge of the knife on her finger, pressing just enough not to draw blood, and places it on the table. She reaches for the next one. “The first sacrifice was, of course, immortality. One cannot be fully human without death.”
Neil, whose part-human status has always put him at risk of his father’s violence and wish to see him dead, doesn’t say anything.
“This is the price I had to pay for staying here for the rest of my life,” Renee continues. “But Andrew doesn’t pay that price, so he’s not granted the same permission.”
“He pays more than enough,” Neil says. “His office is killing him.”
“He cannot die.”
“But he’s not invulnerable. It’s destroying him, bit by bit. Coming down here is only exacerbating it.”
Renee nods. Through the slats of the shutter, the light casts strange shadows on her face. Neil gets up and swings the shutter open. The sun warms him up quickly.
“It’s too hot,” he says. The thought has been niggling him since Aaron confirmed what Neil has been seeing evening after evening: Andrew is wearing himself ragged.
“I’m worried the horses have decided to stray from the path today.” Renee drops her knife on the table and comes meet Neil at the window. “It’s not good for the Earth.”
“It’s not good for Andrew,” Neil retorts.
“No.”
When the sun becomes uncomfortable, Renee swings the shutter shut again. They sit across the table once again as she washes her newly sharpened blades.
“What can I do?”
“Are you asking me as a former goddess?”
Neil hesitates. “I’m asking you because everyone knows the people from town come down here for predictions and advice. I’m asking you as Andrew’s best friend. And now, yes, I’m asking the former goddess.”
Renee mulls over his words, puttering around the kitchen. She always looks serene and sure of herself, as much of a façade as it is, but now Neil can see the cracks in the masks. His questions are making her nervous and behind the savage satisfaction that he’s managed to worry the unshakeable Renee, fear starts pointing its nose in Neil.
“If Andrew doesn’t spend all of his forces going down here every night,” she starts, “he might have enough energy to control the horses.”
Neil stays silent. It’s a conclusion he’s reached after his conversation with Aaron and had hoped to discount with Renee’s input. He should have known better. Hope is a foolish, disquieting wish; someone like Neil has no business relying on it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Renee says. “There is another option.”
“Is there?”
She puts down the last of the knives back and grasps the pin holding up her dress together, then the other.
“When I was a goddess,” she says, holding up the front part of her dress on her chest with one hand and lets the back fall down to her waist, “I was the messenger of the gods—the only winged goddess.”
She turns, presenting her back to him. running along her shoulder blades are two symmetrical scars, wide and faded red. They don’t look like actual scars, like the scattering of angry flesh that mar Neil’s skin. This was done with care and precision.
“Gods usually travel through Earth and their realm as they want,” Renee says. “But I know from experience than anyone can do so, provided they can rise high enough in the sky.”
“I don’t have wings,” Neil says. “And I can’t go up the sun. It’s physically impossible.”
“Neil,” Renee says, trying to pin her dress back. Neil gets up and gathers the back panels for her, sliding them over her shoulders for her to pin. “You’re not human either. You have a right to go to the gods’ realm.”
“My father’s realm is underworld.”
“And your mother’s was in the air,” Renee says. Brushing down her dress, she turns back to him. “You should speak to Kevin.”
“Before launching myself up in the air? Yes, I think he may have something to say about that.”
Renee shakes her head. She looks as she usually does: sure of herself and of the others, even when they are not. Neil feels his temper rising again.
“Lunch?” she proposes, taking out a loaf of bread. “I have some excellent goat cheese.”
Neil looks at the window, the warmth of the day kept away by the wood. He’s almost dizzy with thoughts. His body is crying to be outside, feel the wind around him on this stuffy day and run until the ideas in his head have been beat to submission by exhaustion.
“No,” he says. He throws the door open; He remembers just in time to throw a “Thank you,” above his shoulder, before leaving.
*
That evening, Neil makes it through the forest without incident. He sits on a jutting stone over the cliff, warmed by the hours of sunlight, and stares ahead at Andrew, sinking into the sea.
Everything is happening quickly today. Andrew rose too soon and too low that morning; now his chariot climbs down too steeply, disappearing under the level of the sea in a couple of minutes.
Neil gets up as soon as the last reflection on the water has disappeared. The sky loses its burning color and turns blue again, then gray.
Neil waits.
Andrew sometimes takes some time after reaching the end of his course to appear; it depends on the horses and the state of the chariot after his race. Neil squashes down the growing anxiety in his stomach, but he hasn’t survived his father’s attempts to get him for so long without learning to listen to his instincts.
He turns away only when he sees Aaron rise in the sky.
The next day, Neil wakes up to a world already bathed in the clear, bright light of the early morning sun. This close to the solstice, the days are so long that Neil, who is sensitive to light, gets little sleep, and Andrew even less. Neil is still groggy from the shortness of his night as he prepares for the day, pouring water on the pot to boil and trying to find a clean tunic.
There is nothing to eat in his house. When he throws the door open, annoyed at the thought of having to go into town for food, he almost trips on a small package left on his doorstep.
It’s a loaf of bread, enveloped in white linen and left in the shade, with a small goat cheese. Neil crooks his neck to peer over the edge of his hill into the path making its way up to his house, but he can’t find trace of anyone going, especially not someone with such distinctive white hair as Renee’s.
She came when he was sleeping. The thought drenches away any good humor Neil could salvage from his lack of sleep.
He spends the day puttering around the house, lying traps and snares in the hill to replenish his food stack. Every few hours, he stops and stares at the sky, estimating the warmth of the day and the height of the sun in the sky.
At midday, he realizes he’s staying straight under the sky for almost two hours without interruption. At three, he looks out to the town and sees its streets full of little black dots, walking from shop to shop and bustling with activity where they should all have retired to the coolness of their houses. At five, the wind picks up, and Neil shivers before he even notices the sudden drop in temperature.
It’s subtler than yesterday, but Neil knows how to read the signs. Andrew is still struggling for control on his chariot and his horses yet. The thought of what Aaron eluded to—the creatures living in the upper spheres of the sky, bothered by the presence of the sun and ready to lash out whenever the wheels of the chariot stray too close—plagues Neil for most of the day.
He botches up ordinary jobs, spills his tea and burns his bread. His tunic snags on a branch of the laurel tree he’s trimming. When he tugs himself free, a long tear appear at his left shoulder and the pin falls down to the ground, useless.
Any attempt at mending the tear and pinning the fabric back together in a manner of strap fails. In the end, Neil has to resign himself to cut the edge off and bare his left shoulder, bringing the tunic across his chest.
He makes a terrible job of it, but he doesn’t own a mirror and refuses to look down at the extensive scarring tissue revealed by the new cut.
When comes the time to meet Andrew, he brings a wrap with him, a concession to the chill of the evening as well as his reserve.
This time, the sun follows a shallow course as he sinks into the sea.. The drop should be steeper but it is slower than the day before, regular and reassuring.
The streaks of orange and pink haven’t fully disappeared from the sky and the reflection of the water by the time Andrew appears before Neil.
“Hey,” Neil murmurs as Andrew drops on the stone next to Neil.
Andrew turns his head, bringing them face to face. This close, Neil can see the price of such a heavy burden on his face; the dark bags lining his eyes and the intense look in his gaze. Andrew’s mouth is a flat line of exhaustion. Neil wants to kiss it until the pattern of his lips imprints on Andrew’s.
Andrew once told Neil that driving the chariot was too intense for him. The rush that the altitude gives follows him for hours after going down. Neil can still see it in his quick breathing, in the width of his eyes and the crazy hum around him.
“Hey yourself,” Andrew answers.
He brings a knee to his chest, leaning forward until his forehead touches his leg. Neil follows suite and slouches to rest his head on Andrew’s shoulder. All of Andrew’s body is still buzzing with leftover energy from his race through the sky, but after a moment, Neil feels the weight of Andrew’s head against his. The gold of Andrew’s earring is warm, dangling between them. He sighs deeply, closes his eyes, and basks in the certainty of Andrew’s presence next to him.
*
Andrew plays with his food for most of the meal, until Neil exchanges his plate for the plate of honey cakes. After Andrew’s finished off desserts and Neil all of the cheese, he asks:
“Why do you drive the sun?”
Andrew stops trying to soak the last of the honey with a piece of bread. He drops the piece of bread back in the bowl.
“They needed someone,” he says simply.
“But why you? Why not Aaron?”
“You’ve been talking to him,” Andrew guesses.
It’s not an accusation, but it’s not a question either. Neil acknowledges it with a nod.
“You have longer hours than Aaron most of the year, and it’s more difficult too. Why were you chosen for this?”
“We were not chosen,” Andrew says. “I volunteered.”
“You what?”
“Did you think this was some kind of punishment?” Andrew’s voice is bored, as usual. He doesn’t sound like someone discussing what’s all but slowly killing him, over and over. “They needed twins for to drive the sun and moon chariots. I volunteered to drive the sun’s. better than Aaron,” he adds when he sees the look on Neil’s face.
“Did you do it for him?”
“He wouldn’t have survived the first quarter of the year.”
“Because he wasn’t powerful enough?” Neil asks. “Or because he had too much to lose?”
Andrew licks the last of the honey from his fingers. “Quiet,” he says. “You shouldn’t speak if you’re going to say such stupid things.”
“I’m always stupid,” Neil says. “You don’t mind the rest of the time.”
“And what does that say about me?” Andrew murmurs.
He leans forward until he can capture Neil’s mouth with his own and stop him from answering. Neil goes down willingly, his fingers snagged in Andrew’s tunic to pull him until they’re both lying on the uneven floor.
Andrew’s mouth leaves a trail of sparks down Neil’s skin as he makes his way along Neil’s jaw, neck, and then later, his chest. The glide of his hair, soft between Neil’s fingers, provides a nice contrast with the roughness of the sunburned grass under his back. Neil loses himself in the dual sensation, looking up at the star-speckled sky, until everything in his brain fades into the absolute certainty that he cannot lose this.
Whatever it takes—Neil will not lose Andrew.
A plan such as this one needs preparation, so Neil visits the one person who shares the obsession of results that this enterprise needs.
When Neil tells him what he intends to do, Kevin almost falls off his chair.
“I am the muse of history,” he says. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”
He shuffles the books spread on the table in front of him. They’re on the top floor of the public library, a large building with a tower-like addition where private rooms are reserved to searchers. Most of the time, Kevin has the whole space to himself. It’s a good thing that muses can come and go out of their turfs in a way gods aren’t able to, because Neil doesn’t think he could ever imagine Kevin anywhere else than in this dusty library.
Neil jumps on the windowsill. The atmosphere in the library is muted and stuffy, the sounds of the street coming up only by snatches. Neil pushes one of the shutters left ajar wider, letting in some light and wind.
“You can start by telling me if it’s possible.”
Kevin paces in front of him, his hands crossed behind his head. “Maybe,” he says.
“Maybe?”
“Technically, yes. Your mother was part-wind nymph, so it might help. Your father is a god, so you’re allowed access in the sky—don’t look so self-satisfied.”
“Technically yes is enough for me,” Neil says.
“It shouldn’t be,” snaps Kevin. “But if someone could succeed, it would be you.”
From Kevin, it amounts to a compliment. “Thanks,” Neil says. “Can you help me?”
“No.” At Neil’s raised eyebrow, Kevin exclaims: “Muse of history!”
“You’re the smartest person I know.”
“You’re actually good at math and physics, you’ll figure it out. I’m not enabling you in your crazy ideas anymore. Ask Andrew.”
“Alright,” Neil says, before Kevin can follow that train of thoughts and ask about Andrew. “Thanks for your absolute lack of help. Anything else?”
“You’d have to do it on the solstice,” Kevin says. “Probably. Either at sunset or at sunrise—either way you want Andrew to be as close to Earth as possible.”
“That’s a little under a month from now,” Neil says.
“Twenty-five days, yes.”
Having a goal, a time, and a way of making it happen has a galvanizing effect on Neil. He can see the whole picture starting to form in his mind; the problems he’d encounter and the solutions he could give them.
This time, Neil doesn’t temper his trepidation and the glimmer of hope sparking in him. It might actually be doable.
“Do you have any paper?”
“I have something better,” Kevin says.
He points Neil toward the back of the reading room, where a large slate board is propped against the wall, and gives him a stick of chalk and a rag.
As much as Kevin pretends to refuse to help, he frequently interrupts his own writing to criticize Neil’s draft drawings and calculations. His encyclopedic knowledge of the library comes in handy when he has to direct Neil toward the rights books to look up. It also means Neil piles the rolls up in a corner of the table he’s claimed for himself without bothering to return them to their proper slots, which will undoubtedly drive Kevin to anger when he looks up from the Complete Histories he’s so intent on writing.
He doesn’t go far the first day. As soon as he sees the light going down with the telltale sign of an incoming sunset, he rolls up the last book and throws it on the pile with the others.
He doesn’t say anything to Andrew that night, or any of the following, but Andrew is too perceptive to be fooled much longer.
After two weeks, Neil relocates from the library to his house.
“You’re driving me mad,” Kevin tells him as he stacks piles of rolls in Neil’s arms. There are too many to carry, and Neil still needs to move his board. Neil doesn’t tell him, because this is Kevin’s way of showing he cares and supports him. “Try not to crash at the bottom of a ravine.”
“I’ll see you before I take it on a test-flight,” Neil says. “Don’t worry.”
“With you, that’s impossible.”
One of the positives of not being holed up in the library with Kevin anymore is that Neil can do most of his calculations outside. He works best in front of his house, brushed by the sun and the breeze.
In the evenings, he has enough time to stash his board and his rolls under his bed, in the large chest he acquired for that.
“What are you hiding?” Andrew asks him one evening as they are lounging outside under the stars. Today was warm, though not unusually so, and the warmth from the middle of the day is still stored up in the stones.
Neil looks up, taken by surprise.
“What?” he asks, a little short of breath.
Andrew props himself up on his elbows. His lips are still red from kissing, but the frown on his face looks out of place when he was nibbling on Neil’s neck thirty seconds earlier.
Andrew never repeats himself. He waits for Neil’s brain to catch up with the present.
“Oh,” Neil says. He unwinds his arms from their place around Andrew’s neck. “It’s nothing.”
“Do not lie to me,” Andrew warns. “I know you’ve been seeing Kevin—”
“I went to the library. How’d you know that?”
Neil misses Andrew’s warmth as soon as he rolls off him. “You smell like dusty books.”
“He’s just helping me with some reading.” Neil sits up, the amorous atmosphere of the moment completely gone.
“You hate reading,” Andrew notices, which is fair.
“It’s for a project I’m working on.”
“Anything to do with me?”
Andrew’s tone tells Neil all he needs to know.
“You’ve been talking to Renee,” he says. “Or Kevin, but if I had to bet I would say Renee.” Andrew doesn’t answer, which is just as good as an agreement. “What do you know?”
“You’ve been worrying,” is Andrew’s unexpected answer.
“I always worry for you.”
“I told you not to.”
“Not possible,” Neil says.
His mouth quirks up in a smile, which Andrew smooths down with a kiss.
“Tell me,” he says when they break apart.
“I’ll have to show you.”
Any trace of Andrew’s good humor evaporates when Neil drags the board out from under his bed and props it up against the mattress.
“Some reading,” Andrew says. It takes Neil a while to figure out he’s echoing their earlier conversation. “You are an idiot.”
“It’s going to work,” Neil says. “And you won’t have to come down so often. And—” He hesitates. The last part of his plan is one he’s not allowed himself to fully consider in the days leading up to the solstice. Speaking them now feels just as binding as promise from fate. “My father won’t be able to get me when I’m up there. He’s not allowed in the gods’ realm.”
“When,” Andrew repeats. He follows the trace of a drawing Neil etched on a wax tablet. “And you really believe this will work?”
“I have to try,” Neil says.
“You’ll burn.”
“Not necessarily. Look.”
Neil reaches for a stack of papyrus paper, spreading them on the floor according to their design order. He’s sketched different models on them, dark drawings that snag on the papyrus’ fibers. But they’re all there, ready for trying and adjusted to his latest calculations. On the last sheet, bigger than the rest, he’s drawn them next to each other, spreading over the whole width of the sheet.
A pair of wings, designed to be articulated in his back and around his arms.
It’s a glorious image, the promise of something Neil can almost taste.
“And what do you think you will do,” Andrew says, “if you succeed?”
His tone is not quite as pessimistic as he wishes it were. He picks up the drawing of the wings, fingers brushing the ink. When he discards it, his face is a blank slate.
“We’ll get to be together,” Neil says. “All the time, without concessions. And I’ve been thinking—Aaron and Renee told me the horses were too strong for you to control.”
“This is not for you to worry,” Andrew replies. His hands curl up in fists, but they open obligingly when Neil takes hold of them.
“I can be added weight in the chariot,” Neil says. “Force them to concentrate their strength on pulling it. They’ll tire more easily and have less strength to stray from the path.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andrew says. “That has always been your problem. The sky is not a place for you.”
“I know it’s a burden for you. I know being this high affects you, but listen—with me in the chariot that won’t happen again.”
Andrew pulls away his hands from Neil’s, but Neil only has a moment to regret the loss before Andrew takes off his armbands.
Neil refrains from reaching for him. As far as he knows, Andrew’s armbands are a symbol of his power as sun god. They’re black, supple leather bands worn tight around his whole forearms. He’s always thought of them as protection against the hot material of the chariot, not unlike archery armguards, maybe because Aaron doesn’t wear them. He’s also, more importantly, never seen Andrew without them.
Andrew carefully unlaces and slips them off. The skin of his arms is pearly white underneath, where he’s tanned golden everywhere else. Neil doesn’t say anything when Andrew turns around his arms.
“This,” he says, “is what being in that chariot means. Are you getting it?”
The inside of his arms is littered with deep cuts, running from the tip of his wrists, where the veins are the most visible, to the bend of his elbow. The scars are deep but regular, placed there with intent by someone—something—with claws.
“Yes or no?” Neil murmurs.
Andrew inclines his head. Neil gently places his hands on Andrew’s arms, splaying his fingers so that they cover most of the scarring. The touch is familiar under his pads of his fingers. He’s applied the same ritual to his own arms many times over the years.
“These are old,” he says in a low voice.
“I’ve had the armbands for a long time,” Andrew says. Under Neil’s hands, his skin jumps with nerves.
“They protect you.”
It’s not a question. Even discarded on the ground, Neil can feel the protective power of the armbands. It’s magic but it’s also self-grown assurance; the knowledge that he’s protected himself against a threat.
Andrew nods, silent, and keeps his arms extended until Neil is the one to break contact. He helps Andrew slips his armbands back on.
“Who did the stitching?” he asks, following the solar patterns and the curlicues looping around them.
“Bee,” Andrew says. Neil nods. He’s never met the goddess himself, but he knows Andrew has relied on her guidance for a long time.
Neil is glad that someone has been there to love and protect Andrew all this time.
“You realize,” Neil says as Andrew circles his covered arms around his legs, “that this just made me even more determined.”
“Yes,” Andrew replies.
It’s an answer and a permission. Neil doesn’t miss it. “Thank you,” he says, and leans forward to kiss Andrew.
It’s a desperate kiss, hot with nerves and the chilling realization of something big is about to happen.
“You’ll have to try it at sunset,” Andrew says when they break the kiss. Neil doesn’t look up from where he’s lying, arm to arm, against Andrew. “When I’m low in the sky and the horses are tired.”
Even if he were allowed to, Neil would refuse to have Andrew help him with the making of the wings. Not only because it’s forbidden for Andrew to intervene in a matter such as this one, or because Andrew is a god who defies mortal laws of physics on the regular, but also because the morning after they spend most of the night talking about it, Neil wakes up to a gray world.
The first thing he notices is the weight in his bed. The second is the lack of sunshine filtering through the shutters. The world is gray and cold, suspended in an in-between time during night and day.
“Andrew,” he says. Andrew opens his eyes as soon as Neil says his name, his own form of sudden wake-up call. “You’re late.”
Andrew stumbles out of bed. He’s wide-eyed and rumpled, achingly human. It takes three tries for Andrew to tie up the laces of his sandals, and Neil wishes he could keep him in bed as long as he wants to, or even as long as he needs to. But Andrew is an elemental god; consequences for staying on Earth past a night would be too great to face.
Neil hands him his tunic, fixing the large circular pins at his shoulders. They’re still warm, as if the gold had been left out to warm under the sun. The prick of the pin breaches the threads smoothly and Neil lets the fabric fall back against Andrew, admiring the almost life-like way the colors dance around the fabric, the dark oranges and golden yellows, the patches of deep red that look almost directly pulled from the sun.
Neil accompanies Andrew to the easternmost part of his yard, shivering in the morning chill. The wind picks up, as if to steer Andrew toward the blank spot on the horizon where should be the rising sun; and still the sky stays uniformly gray.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Neil says. “Be careful.”
“Take your own advice,” are Andrew’s parting words.
*
Building the wings is a long-process. Neil makes the trek to Renee’s house again, and together they pull together the supplies needed.
It’s a lot of trial and error. At the end of the first day, Neil’s fingers are aching so badly he can’t get a good grip on his knife. Andrew bats his hands away and takes over the simple task of cooking.
“This is nice,” Neil says, resting his hands on his lap. “Being your kept man. A glimpse into the future.”
“I will kick you back to Earth.”
“I’d drag you with me,” Neil says, and obligingly opens his mouth when Andrew present him with a bite of bread.
He drops a kiss on Andrew’s retreating fingers and gets a wholly unimpressed look back.
The first test flight goes like this: Neil crashes on the ground.
He puts on the wings that force his shoulders back like a bulky shell, and climbs on the roof of his house. Renee and Kevin, who’s complained the entire time but willingly left his library for this, look at him from a spot in the shade of the roof. Renee blocks out the sun with one hand and waves at him with the other, though they’re only separated by teen feet.
“Here goes nothing,” Kevin says as Neil jumps.
He doesn’t even stay in the air one second; he crashes to the ground like a rock dropped off the edge of the roof. His wings drag him down, a useless weight on his back.
“Well that was no good,” Kevin says. “Try again.”
Neil gathers himself up, brushing his aching hands. “Not before I make modifications,” he says.
He takes the wings back and modifies the design. He changes the angle of the fake feathers, the width of the wings and their lifting capabilities.
The second time, Kevin drags them all the way up in the mountain to a small lake. It’s a long and sweaty trek. The wings are too heavy on Neil’s back, and he knows before he even sees the place that this time won’t be any more successful than the first.
“Here we are,” Kevin says.
Once the wings were actually built and the project got more and more concrete, he’s been more and more involved with his patented focus and obsessive mind. He’s helpful, as much as Neil could make without the added pressure of Kevin’s good opinion on his shoulders.
The spot he’s brought them is actually perfect for their experiment. It’s a wide, secluded lake with a rocky overhang that guarantees a smoother landing than the ground should physics fail them.
This time, Neil climbs up without the wings. Renee and Kevin follow him, sharing the awkward load, and he slips them on at the top of the rocks.
“Good?” Renee asks him as he adjusts the wings on his back.
“Tighten the strap here,” Neil says. “I can’t reach it.”
Kevin frowns. “You should be able to. You’ll need to change it so you access it from the front.”
“I know.”
Neil takes a few steps forward, then crouches down and takes off his sandals. If he’s going to end up in the water, he might as well not wet the leather.
“Step back,” he says.
“See you down there,” Kevin says.
Neil doesn’t have time to ask him if it’s an expression of assurance Neil will control his flight, or a jab. He takes a few steps for momentum, breaks into a run and jumps in the air.
For one glorious moment, he’s flying. Kevin has chosen the place well; Neil can feel the breeze around him as he jumps, and the way the winds carry him as his feet leave the ground.
Renee lets out a whooping noise. Neil has just opened his mouth to answer her when he feels the sudden drop in his stomach, telling him he’s falling.
He lands in the lake with a splash. He can feel the wings soaking up water as he sinks, adding to the weight on his back. He just has time to take a gulp of air before his head goes underwater.
The use of an accessible strap is immediately apparent. There is no way Neil can reach the buckle that would let him out of the wings. Twisting in their hold is not more useful; he only manages to blur the water around him.
He’s starting to panic when something opposes his slow descent. The wings catch on something and they hold on tightly as Neil bucks in his straps. The resistance offered enables him to slither out of the harness; it’s a tight fight but lack of air and desperation are enough motivation.
He emerges out of the water, gasping for air, and almost hits his head on the wings. Kevin, crouched on a rock advancing over the water, is slowly pulling them out of the water. He almost drops them when he sees Neil.
“Gods,” he exclaims. “I wondered why they got lighter all of a sudden.”
Renee helps Neil out of the water. “Are you alright?”
“Good,” Neil coughs as soon as his respiratory tracts are all empty of water. “Let’s try again. I almost had it at the beginning. I just need to make some tweaks.”
*
Solstice is fast approaching. Neil’s attempts increase in frequency and in desperation; there always seem to be something to more to do, to fix, to calculate. His original pair of wings ends up being so battered and so patched up that they build a new one, hanging on the far wall of Neil’s house, on which they report every modification they get.
Two days before the solstice, Neil leaves his house without Renee and Kevin. It’s early: Andrew has barely left, but Neil can feel every minute passing, the weight of every grain of sand as time runs out under his feet.
The lake is calm and deserted. Neil climbs the now familiar path up the overhang, straps in his harness with the ease of habit. He double-checks that everything is secure, pulls on the release buckles and breaks into a run before he can overthink his decision of flying on his own.
The initial rush of flying is familiar by now. Neil has learned to anticipate and take advantage of it; to read the winds and the breeze and angle himself up to catch the winds.
He almost cheers when he feels himself rising, gliding over the smooth surface of the lake. He goes higher, then higher again until he’s brushing the top of the stone pine trees. Letting out a shaky breath, he looks down to his feet, suspended a hundred feet in the air.
The thought breaks his concentration. He pummels down, spiraling out of control; no matter how much he struggles with the wings, he doesn’t seem to be carried off anymore.
At this height, a fall into the lake would be painful—not lethal, because Neil isn’t entirely human, but it would break a few bones that he doesn’t have time to regrow before the solstice.
Neil breaks the tree line and the wings catch on a branch, hard. The hit throws his fall off-course, sending him spiraling among the trunks.
Grasping his left wing and forcefully twisting it to the side, he manages to steer himself toward the lake rather than the ground. Getting his balance back on is easier now that there aren’t any trees blocking the span of his wings, and he falls into the water at a much slower pace than he’d started falling.
The process of unbuckling his wings and swimming to the surface, dragging them behind him without sinking, is routine by now. Neil gets back on land, shivering a little at the coolness of the water that hasn’t warmed up yet, and climbs back on the diving rocks.
By the second attempt, he can’t seem to elevate himself high enough. How did he do it the first time? Thinking about it sends him down to the lake again, but he manages to catch himself on a branch and smooth his landing.
The wind picks up as he climbs the rocks again, almost mocking. Those are perfect flying conditions, but he can’t seem to actually get in the air long and high enough to catch the winds. Your mother was a wind nymph, Kevin’s voice says in his mind.
Could it be?
The next time Neil throws himself in the air, he doesn’t concentrate on the physics. He doesn’t focus on the weight of the framing along his arms, or the drag of the wings. Instead, he closes his eyes and appreciates the feeling of the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, the power of the invisible currents lifting him up.
It’s easy, once he gets it.
Neil has always been a quick learner. He beats his wings a couple of times to gain momentum, catch an ascending air current and swirls up, up, higher even that he’d gone the first time.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring directly at the unblinking flare of the sun.
“Hello, Andrew,” he says.
There is no answer, but Neil wasn’t expecting one. He thinks maybe he can see the faint outline of something moving behind the bright light—Andrew, standing firmly on his chariot run by his two wild horses.
Neil climbs even higher, until he’s soaring through the sky, quickly covering the miles separating the lake to his house, to the town, to the west-facing cliff over the sea and the small forest before that. He dives lower, just to prove to himself that he can, as low as the trees will let him without shredding his wings or incapacitating his flight.
He can see animals in the shade, running away from his shadow as they sense him over them. A wild boar stops his search for food to look back at him, and Neil gives him a two-fingered salute before gliding away. Deer burst from the overgrown bushes under a tree grove, fleeing him or the predator lying in the shadows, and Neil decides to go back up.
He’s soaked in dried sweat by the time he lands next to the lake. He doesn’t aim for the rocky formation, which is a good thing, because he misjudges his speed and momentum and topples over in the grass.
Footsteps immediately shake the ground under Neil’s cheek.
“Did you fly out of the clearing?” Kevin asks as he joins Neil. “How far? How high?”
“Are you alright?” Renee says. She helps him up and out of his wings.
Neil shrugs off the harness and tentatively stands up. He almost crumples, catching himself on Renee’s arm.
“Fuck.” He’s more cautious in testing his ankle the next time. It hurts. It’s not the worst he’s ever had, and probably not broken, but he knows he’ll be limping everywhere for the next few days. “Fuck!”
Renee guides him to a fallen tree trunk and extends his leg, looking over his ankle.
“Not broken,” she confirms. “Badly twisted. I’ll make you a clay plaster when we’re home. No putting weight on it for at least two days, alright?”
“The solstice is in two days,” Neil says as they make their way out of the clearing.
“Then it’s more incentive to stay put and not injure yourself even more.”
Halfway through the path going down the mountain, Kevin drops his arm and give the wings he’s carrying to Renee.
“You’re too slow,” he complains, crouching. “Hop on, or we’ll be stuck there until evening.”
Despite Neil’s claims and beliefs, Kevin carries him to his house and drops him on his bed inside.
“Rest,” he says, pointing accusingly at Neil.
“Sure,” Neil lies.
He waits until Kevin and Renee have left, clay plaster around his ankle, and hops to his wings, dropped on the floor.
The new ones are brand new, but Neil has kept them away for the solstice. The sorry state of his training pair only helps him feel like he’s made the right choice.
The framing is more or less intact, but the feathers are twisted and broken in several places. Some are impossible to salvage.
Neil is too keyed up by his successful flight to let it impact his mood. He drags everything he needs next to him on the floor and spends the rest of the day mending the broken feathers and the holes in the wings. He doesn’t do a pretty job, but it’ll hold at least another test flight.
That evening, Andrew finds him lying down in the middle of his tools, feathers spread all around him.
“Hey,” Neil says when he sees Andrew. “I flew today.”
“I saw,” Andrew answers.
It’s too soon after sunset; Andrew is still buzzing with the high of driving the chariot. He doesn’t smile, but his kiss is intense.
Andrew wakes up Neil when he gets up on the day of the solstice. It’s still dark outside—a regular darkness, nighttime as it should be before dawn, and not that strange in-between absence of color of that morning when Andrew woke up late.
“See you tonight,” Neil says, kissing Andrew longer than usual.
“Mind your ankle.”
Neil gets up and out of bed, walking around to show that he can. It twinges a little bit, but when he fakes tripping and swooning, Andrew is here to steady him.
“I knew you’d catch me,” Neil grins.
Andrew pushes him upright with an unimpressed face.
It’s difficult to see him go, but the knowledge that they’ll be reunited at the end of the day is enough to buoy Neil through his last preparations.
He gets through the morning with the intense focus he’s seen so often in Kevin. He’s tidying up the bench he uses as a workstation when he realizes that he won’t need them anymore. He won’t be back.
He has to take a moment to breathe after that realization. His father’s obsession with getting Neil back and has meant that he’s always travelled around with his mother, because staying too long in one place meant attracting Nathan’s attention.
He’s only really been able to stay here for the past year because Nathan’s interest in waning: forever is a long time to chase your renegade son, especially for an immortal being who’s capable of replacing Neil quite easily. Andrew’s presence and protection has also drastically turned the situation around.
But if joining Andrew means leaving the Earth—maybe not for good, but at least most of the time. Neil doesn’t mind; he has no real attachment to the place, only memories and people he will still see. Regret and homesickness are not part of the language Mary taught Neil how to speak.
Renee and Kevin pop in just before midmorning. They carefully walk to the lake, mindful of Neil’s still sensitive ankle, and spread the newer pair of wings. Neil wants them as untouched as possible when he uses them that evening, but Kevin remarks that it’s a good idea to test them before hurling himself to his death, and Neil caves in.
The wings hold up. Neil soars over the lake lazily, then changes his mind and climbs high until he reaches the clouds. He tucks in his wings and pummels to the ground head first, spreading back his arms to slow down his fall when the trees come into view.
Landing is the most difficult part of the process, but this time Neil manages not to injure himself anywhere.
“I won’t be landing on anything,” Neil says. “I’ll use them once only.”
*
Following Neil’s demand, Kevin and Renee say their goodbyes before sunset. They walk him through the forest and up the cliff.
“See you on the other side,” Kevin says, and it takes Neil a moment to remember he’s a muse himself. Kevin spends so much time at the library and on Earth, among humans, that Neil had forgotten he was joining Kevin too, in this enterprise.
Renee carefully hugs him, then they leave down the road, not looking back. Neil harnesses himself in, tests his ankle, and sits at the edge of the cliff to wait.
Sunset was the time Andrew gave him: the lowest point and the calmest the horses would be, tired by their all-day fight against Andrew’s directions.
When evening comes around, the sun is still up above the horizon line and Neil’s eyes are burning from watching it. He closes them, exhaling and breathing in to calm his nerves. He paces the top of the cliff, counting as high as he can before losing the count and starting anew.
When he extends his wings, he can feel the wind lifting him up slightly, ruffling his hair and the feathers of his wings.
“Patience,” he tells them.
Maybe he’s imagining it, but he could swear that the breeze grows lighter, biding its time.
Neil turns to the sky, watching it until he can see Andrew start the slow descent toward the Earth. It’s now or never; there is no telling how long he’ll take to fly up to meet him, and Andrew goes down quicker than Neil can come up.
“Here I come,” Neil says, looking up until the rays of the sun blind him.
He jumps up and down once, then he leaps, kicking the ground hard.
When he springs from the cliff, he does it with his weak ankle first.
Immediately, Neil can feel that he hasn’t gained enough momentum. His ankle protests and crumbles under his weight, sending him sideways in the air.
For a moment, he’s suspended in the air, caught in the in-between between falling and rising. Then he’s falling, straight down to the see, winds whistling in his ears. There is no ascendant current helping him rise, and no other connection to the world other than the pain in his ankle and the sound in his ears.
Fighting against the strength of the wind, Neil spreads his wings wider, pushing up until he’s not free falling anymore.
Getting control of his fall is only the first step; Neil rectifies his flying trajectory right before crashing on the rocks springing out of the water, at the foot of the cliff. A wave catches his foot, spraying him in sea water and his legs. They dry quickly as Neil flies up along the height of the cliff, the wind cooling the water on his skin until Neil can’t feel his feet anymore.
It doesn’t matter. He lets out a cheer as he comes back up over the edge of the cliff, his wings beating the air until he rises without stopping.
It’s a strange, dual sensation, of letting the winds push him up by his feet and climbing every foot up in the air with the strength of his own arms.
He keeps climbing, through the pockets of hot air gently carrying him up and the stronger blasts sending him sideways. He struggles back upward every time he veers off-course, the glowing red of the sun as his only direction.
Neil’s course is a climbing curve, upward and westward. His arms tire after a while but he doesn’t stop climbing, bursting through the lowest layers of clouds until the world is displayed under him, bathed in the red-orange glow of the setting sun. He can see the lights of the town being lit for the solstice festival, the distant white triangle of sails bobbing on the sea.
Above him, there is nothing but blue sky and thin trails of clouds, and then, crowning the world, Andrew.
By the time Neil can make out the silhouette of Andrew’s chariot in the glare of his fiery aura, Neil is warmer than he’s ever been. Sweat is running down his face, his skin hot and red from the strain of flying and the closeness of the sun.
It’s so warm that Neil’s breath catches in his chest and he hacks, unable to alleviate the ache in his chest by changing his position. He climbs closer by five, ten, fifteen feet. Andrew’s chariot grows bigger, more precise. For the first time, Neil can see the horses, their soft golden coat standing out against the sun. They match Andrew’s hair and eyes, Neil realizes.
The fabric of his tunic chafes against Neil’s sweat-soaked skin. The winds aren’t strong enough to dry it as they jostle Neil from left to right; air is thinning and Neil’s perception narrowing.
He’s light-headed, focused only on the chariot and the horses, rushing down toward him.
He’s gasping for air when he sees Andrew, revealed by the low withers of his horses. Andrew’s eyes are wide; he holds the reins with one hand and leans against the side of the chariot, holding out the other. His mouth is forming words, but Neil can’t hear him.
He gives one last effort, a large beat of his wings to propel him up, and suddenly feels weightless.
Something red catches his focus at the periphery of his eyes. He turns his head to the left just in time to catch the sight of his wings catching on fire. The closeness of the sun is finally catching up with Neil. The black feathers rapidly disappear, eaten away by the flames until the framing only remains.
The next moment, Neil is falling back.
“No!” he cries out.
Andrew is already bending over the side of the chariot, extending his arm, but Neil slips out of his reach. The horses neigh in protest when Andrew tugs them off-course, following the brutal angle of Neil’s fall. Their eyes are wild and angry, caught by surprised by the sudden shift in their usual route. Behind them, Andrew bends down to catch Neil.
Neil’s hand rises to meet Andrew’s. The tip of their fingers touch, brushing each other, until Andrew jostles the horses to go faster with his other hand, and then he’s grasping Neil’s forearm and not letting go.
*
Neil collapses on the chariot as Andrew drives the horses back on course. They balked, trying to speed up, but they give up after a few moments. Their gait is much more even after that, and Neil can feel Andrew relax next to him.
It’s much easier to breathe on the chariot, the temperature being much more bearable.
“You scared me,” Andrew says as Neil sits up, having caught his breath.
“I scared myself,” he says. He leans his head against the side of the chariot, protected by from the strong winds and most of the glare of the sun. “I’m sorry.”
“Quiet.” Andrew glances down at Neil, then at his horses, and after a moment he knots the reins on the railing running along the entire length of the chariot.
“Thank you,” Neil says, not minding Andrew’s words. “You were amazing.”
“I did nothing.” Andrew crouches down, leaning over Neil. He places his hand, sun-warm, on Neil’s cheek.
“You caught me,” Neil points out. “I thought I was going to fall and crash. I couldn’t breathe—”
Andrew’s fingers run down Neil’s face until he has one finger under Neil’s chin, tipping his head back.
“When will you learn?” he asks. “Stop talking.”
“Then kiss me,” Neil says, and he can see the corners of Andrew’s mouth quirk up slightly before he leans down.
The horses drive the chariot back home without incident. Weighted down by Neil, they focus their energy on pulling the chariot and follow the tracks left across the sky. Above them, the sky turns dark blue. Night will only truly fall under Aaron’s wheels, but already Neil can see the lights from the stars, pale and still asleep, gathered high over the vault of the sky.
The constellations look like living creatures—a lion, his breath rustling the fine hairs of his mane, the pointed sting of a scorpion, coiled in his sleep. Farther away, the stars dot the long edge of a lumbering bull’s back.
They’re more than he could have ever imagined, but Neil recognizes them anyway. Here they are, the creatures Aaron warned him against, the ones who lash out whenever the too-light sun chariot stays higher than its usual course. The threat they pose is not something Neil or Andrew can ignore. But they’re asleep, and from now on, Neil will insure they stay that way.
