“That’s not a standard skill set,” he says.
“No,” I agree.
“Lola—”
“Three more throws,” I say.
He lets it go. He’s good at reading the line between pushing and closing a door, better than I expected. He steps back slightly, gives me the space, and I throw the last three in sequence.
All three land.
Jack makes a sound of pure delight. The young woman running the stall is staring. I pick up the trophy and look at it. 1964, pressed tin, slightly tarnished, a small figure on top that might be a person holding a pie or might just be time-worn beyond recognition.
“It’s yours,” Jack says.
“It’s sixty years old.”
“And it’s yours. You earned it.” He bumps my shoulder with his. “First person to ever want it, first person to ever win it. Seems right.”
I look at the trophy for a moment longer than I mean to. Then I put it in my jacket pocket where it sits, small and solid, pressing against my ribs.
“One more game?” Jack asks.
“Jack—”
“One more. Your choice.”
I choose the axe throw, because I’ve done it before and because the look on Jack’s face when I ask for it is too good not to choose it for that reason alone.
Archer finds us at the axe throw. He doesn’t join us. He stands at the edge of the alley with his arms crossed and watches. I’m aware of him the way I’m always aware of him, that directional pressure, the sensation of being tracked by something that doesn’t need to announce itself.
I throw the axe. It hits the board and lodges.
Jack cheers. The teenager running the station looks like he’s reassessing his life choices. I turn to collect my second throw and my eyes find Archer automatically, before I can route the look elsewhere. He’s watching me with that expression, the recalibration one, the one that means he keeps arriving at a version of me that’s different from the one he expected.
He nods. Once, briefly. The way you nod at something you’ve seen clearly and acknowledged. I nod back. I don’t know why. It happens before I decide to do it.
Jack looks between us and wisely says nothing.
When I turn back for my third throw, Archer has moved. He’s closer than he was, still not in the game space but at the edge of it, and the snow smell of him has reached my side of the alley. I breathe it in without wanting to. My body does something that is either territorial awareness or something more dangerous.
I throw the axe. It lands clean in the center.
“Okay,” Jack says, very quietly, “I’m a little in love with you.”
“Stop,” I urge.
“Professionally. As a fellow carnival games aficionado.”
“Still stop.”
He grins. I look away.
Ryan appears at nine o’clock. His entry is different from how the others arrive. Tristan was there. Jack descended. Archer materialized. Ryan is simply present, in the way that something large and quiet becomes present. Not through arrival but through your awareness suddenly reorganizing around it.
He’s at the edge of the central stage area when I see him, standing with the stillness I’ve come to associate with him, watching the crowd. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the general space, and then—slowly, deliberately—heislooking at me.
Our eyes meet across the ground.
