Page 107 of Icarus

Smiled when Aspen mentioned that she’d been accepted at Wooster. Icarus said he was proud of her and laughed when she made a face about it.

He let Celestina card her fingers through his hair with new meaning. Let her kiss his eyelids, like it was benediction.

Asked Sorrel about Mina and wasn’t surprised that he’d chickened out. Sorrel asked him if he could do another portrait of his grandma, and Icarus turned him down kindly.

He walked past the guidance counselor’s door and it was closed. She had another victim in there, probably.

When the day was over, he took the finished paper he’d written for Julian, folded it up small, and pushed it through the slats of his locker.

Day

At 11 o’clock Icarus put the handsaw at the bottom of his backpack. He packed his favorite sweaters in one bag and more utilitarian pieces in the other: jeans, a few T-shirts, underwear, his warmest sweater even though it was itchy. He brought brand-new toothbrushes and toothpaste, hair pomade, a comb, deodorant, and better soap than hotels would have. He folded up his slip-on shoes and packed his Red Wing winter boots.

Then he brought the notebook he was currently sketching in, his favorite pen, a ring that had belonged to his mother, and a steel bracelet that belonged to Angus.

He looked at everything else in his room. Nothing left was small enough to carry.

At 11:45 p.m., it was time for him to leave.

Angus was on the phone in the storage unit screaming, furious. Icarus wanted to say goodbye, but he didn’t have time and the door was too thick for knocking. He wrote his dad a quick letter and left it on the dining room table.

Then he went into the workshop. Orpheus Losing Eurydice was where they had left it after their fight. Sitting in the middle of the clean workshop table, shining, polished.

Icarus stared at it for a full minute. Then he picked it up and put it in his backpack.

When Icarus finally made it outside, Luca and Celestina were waiting for him.

“That’s a lot of bags,” Celestina said.

Icarus handed her the one full of his sweaters. “This one is for you guys to keep. I’m taking the one on my back up, and this last one is the one I need you guys to watch at the diner.”

Luca took the bag off Icarus’s shoulder and put it on his own, and they began their journey through the night.

“We should be down in about an hour. Can you order an omelet, some bacon, and coffee to go? I don’t know if he’s eaten much. Then we can leave. The bus passes by every thirty minutes.”

“Sure.”

“What do we do if the cops come?” Luca asked.

“Take my things home to my dad. He knows where I am and what I’m doing,” Icarus said. “He’s . . . stern but he’s kind. Don’t be scared of him.”

Celestina giggled nervously. “You know, saying that makes him seem scarier.”

“I know.”

Boötes

Icarus looked back at the diner.

Celestina and Luca were sitting in his booth by the window, gazing at him. They seemed scared. He turned away toward the Black mansion and sank into the gloom of its trees to face his climb.

It was a clear night; the moon was bright and there was hardly any wind. But it was the coldest day this year and Icarus could feel it in his joints.

It wasn’t ridiculous to assume that Helios’s window was still nailed shut, and he was way too nervous to try any of the windows near it. So he entered the house on the third floor. It was easier, the climb and sneaking in. After months of free climbing and tiptoeing in gym shoes, getting to use his gear and socks was like taking off heavy training weights before a run.

He landed inside and froze for a moment, listened for the whine of extra electricity, new camera glare, objects where they shouldn’t be. But everything was the same. The air felt the way it did when he was walking these rooms without his mask. Something about that felt off and it made him more nervous than if he had new security measures to face.

Icarus took a deep breath. He touched the edge of his balaclava to make sure it was on securely, then he gritted his teeth and began.