It was Nat, and she was laughing.
‘Gotcha!’ She dumped Asta on the ground and was immediately on top of her, straddling her. She was wearing her navy-blue race suit, the sky-blue bear on the Bruce crest rearing on its hind legs, claws out, as if it was reaching for the dagger in the next quadrant.
‘Get off!’ Asta cried, but Nat stayed put. Asta was thinking about the jar of irritant in the helmet. Had Orville found it? Had anyone seen? Hopefully, the banshee currently perched on top of her had been a passable distraction.
‘You brought the Golden Boy.’ Nat tipped her chin up and looked Felix over. ‘I almost socked you one yesterday,’ she said to him.
‘Good thing you didn’t try.’ Felix’s attempt at bravado was cute, Asta thought, but not terribly convincing.
Nat looked him up and down. ‘I would have kicked your ass.’
Asta grunted. ‘I’m going to kick yours right now if you don’t get off!’ She pushed at Nat’s knee until she jumped up and let her free. ‘I came to say good luck, but considering you just tried to break my neck, I take it back.’ Asta eased herself into a crouch, bracing for the pain that would come with standing up.
‘Orville would have caught you,’ Nat said airily
Orville scowled at Nat. ‘You dropped this,’ he said to Asta, plunking her helmet back on the edge of the pit where it rocked on its crown.
Asta took it. The jar was gone. Her gloves were folded neatly in the bottom.
‘Besides,’ Nat continued, offering Asta her hand and pulling her to her feet, ‘you don’t have to wish me good luck. Youaregood luck.’ She wrapped an arm around her waist. Somehow her fingers always seemed to find Asta’s bruises and dig into them. Asta flinched and pushed Nat’s arm away.
‘You too, Golden Boy,’ Nat added. Before he could react, she had given him a swift smack to the ass.
‘Hey!’ Felix jumped away, horrified. ‘Hands to yourself!’
‘Prude.’ Nat winked at Asta and lowered herself into the pit.
Vulture craned her neck to greet Nat and receive her kisses. Nat did not seem interested in Asta and Felix anymore. It was as if she’d erased them from her memory just by looking away.
I don’t care if you forget me, Asta thought to her. Just lose. Please lose. Let this all be over.
‘Well,’ Asta said, attempting a disinterested air, ‘shall we?’
But rather than lead them toward the riders’ section of the stands, across from the starting line, Felix made for the stairs to the upper levels.
‘I thought you wanted to sit down here,’ Asta said.
‘Let’s try it your way,’ Felix said over his shoulder.
Asta quickly regretted her suggestion. Much as she wanted to convince herself otherwise, her body was not okay. She noticed that Felix, too, was favoring his bad leg.
‘Should have brought my hiking gear,’ she joked after the first set of stairs.
Felix looked at her, taking in her pinched expression. Without a word, he led them to the elevators.
They settled in the second-to-last row of bleachers in the top tier of the grandstands. If Felix and Asta were recognized, the fans who occupied these lofty heights were less brazen than the ones below, because no one stopped them or stared.
‘Not bad, right?’ Asta asked, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the track. Felix nodded his concession, clearly impressed with the view.
From a distance, the details of the illusions were indistinct, but the overall design of the course was more apparent than from the ground. The terrain pieces seemed to interlock into an enormous engine– turbine funneling into compressor, pushing ever toward the combustion chamber.
The sun hadn’t quite cleared the edge of the raceway yet, and the aluminum bleachers were cold under Asta’s thighs– only the lower tiers had the luxury of folding seats with backs on them, with the amenities improving the further down you went. Cup-holders, padding, heating, lumbar support.
Even the speakers were worse up here. The synth music pulsing from them was tinny and thin. It gave Asta a faraway feeling, like she was a bird hanging above the track on an air current. Far, far below, the first dragons and their riders were making their way on to the outer track to run a few warm-up sprints, much to the jubilation of the crowd.
Beside Asta, Felix slid his rump over the bleacher and leaned back so that his head rested on the empty bench behind him. Except for his heavy jacket and jeans and the fact that he was entirely shrouded in shadow, he could have been a sunbather. Asta joined him. Yesterday’s rain had passed through, and the sky was a bright autumn blue, the color of the columbines in Grandma Ekenberg’s garden.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on there?’ Felix asked.
