Page 12 of Icarus

Helios looked a lot like Mr. Black. Icarus knew he hadn’t been lying.

Mr. Black was extremely tall and athletic. He had a face like an old fox: sharp eyes and cheekbones, narrow and pinched. In the old pictures Icarus had seen of him, he had red hair like his son. Icarus had been told it was mostly gray now, even though he was probably only in his very late forties.

They had only been together for a moment, but it was vivid in his memory now that Icarus wasn’t in a state of panic. He could analyze it.

Helios had a softer face than his father and brown eyes that were probably his mother’s. Helios was wiry, but strong, and had big hands—larger than Icarus’s. There were calluses on one, but the other was soft like Celestina’s had been.

Nothing in the room had been disturbed very much, so he couldn’t have been living in it for long. Helios’s clothes fit like he had visited once, right before a growth spurt, gotten these pajamas, and never been back. They were too small to have been lent to him by Mr. Black—who still towered over all of them. But not small enough to be from the dusty dresser.

So, Helios’s arrival to the Black mansion was recent and unexpected. He hadn’t been allowed to bring most of his things, and he hadn’t left the building since getting there. Even casually, to get something to eat.

Also, he was alone.

The first time Icarus’s hackles were raised in the Black mansion was at least two weeks ago. Mr. Black had been inside the house the last time Icarus had broken in, but the feeling of occupancy had stayed the same even when he’d gone to New York.

Helios was confident and unpredictable. He’d managed to take advantage of Icarus’s focus on the theft to get out of bed and approach without Icarus hearing. Instead of screaming for help or calling the police, he was comfortable enough with his own strength and speed to force Icarus to stay in one place for his questions.

Worse, he’d asked, “How long have you been doing this?” before “Who are you?”

Icarus didn’t know how to feel about that.

Shark

Icarus was sure he would wake up to police banging on their door the next morning, but he didn’t.

It was not enough to completely reassure him, whatever was going to happen to them wouldn’t be a local law enforcement issue. If Helios had called the cops shortly after Icarus left, they would already be here. Mr. Black absolutely knew where they lived. Maybe it would be the FBI or Mr. Black would spring for an assassin.

Whatever happened, they deserved it.

Icarus turned over in his warm nest of blankets and closed his eyes.

Without knowing or being told about these circumstances, Angus was bound to send him back there. He wouldn’t be able to get out of going without making this situation worse. But he just . . . couldn’t. Not yet. He didn’t know the parameters of what he’d stumbled upon; he needed more information or there was a chance he could unintentionally make things worse.

Saturday was the only day of the week that was Icarus’s to do whatever he wished. The only thing he wanted was to sleep until this problem fixed itself.

Sabbath

There was no church in their town that mattered.

Icarus pressed his forehead to the ground and let the wood grain cut into his skin. Angus’s voice chanting liturgy, solid and steady as water washing over stone, while Icarus both listened and didn’t. The light from their foyer, golden and weak.

Icarus had been taken to big churches, gilded like palaces. Seen the bones of saints in small gold cages, caressed paint that hadn’t been touched in decades with hot human fingertips. Knelt on marble, granite, limestone, cedar, pine, gravel, linoleum. Heard choirs that would make angels turn their faces in jealousy.

Seen all built in the name of God by men. Rosaries made of diamond, made of dental floss and paper.

He raised his face to the rafters, eyes open.

“Pater aeterne, offero tibi Corpus et Sanguinem, animam et divinitatem dilectissimi Filii Tui, Domini nostri, Iesu Christi, in propitiatione pro peccatis nostris et totius mundi.”

He tasted bread from his father’s hands, wine from his father’s cups. They knelt, mirrored, grateful.

“Do you have any confessions?”

“No.”

Smart

Icarus was good at secrets. He took this new frightening one and wrapped it up just like the others. He put it on a shelf in the back of his mind and labeled it firmly “to be addressed later.”