Page 44 of Icarus

Tight

Getting ready in a silent house was . . . sublime. He could take as long as he wanted in the bathroom.

Icarus knew he could look passable in casual clothes, but he’d never be able to pull off the kind of cool things that everyone his age wore these days. He was sure he was ugly, but if he squinted, Icarus knew he could be 1950s handsome. He’d seen enough photography from that era to recognize it. Icarus liked older things, so he didn’t mind.

He buzzed his nape down and smoothed his limp black hair back with brilliantine. His part was razor sharp, angled with the arch of his eyebrow.

He wore a black sweater with short sleeves that made his arms look strong and wool trousers borrowed from his father’s closet.

He sprayed on a cologne that smelled like wood and fire. Tucked a pack of cigarettes into his back pocket.

Hand on the front doorknob, Icarus eyed the bouquet of flowers he’d gotten himself sitting in the middle of the breakfast table. He turned back, plucked a stem of lavender, and rubbed it behind his ears.

Then, Icarus Gallagher stepped into the night and headed for Helios Black’s house.

The First Night

Mr. Black shouldn’t be home and the alarm wasn’t on, but Icarus still came in through the back door.

He slipped off his shoes and socks, then paused, standing slowly. Right in the middle of this little foyer was a new acquisition. Icarus wondered how long it had been there. He hadn’t come to this part of the house since the night he and Helios had officially met.

It was a bronze disc with three figures, a woman and two men looking at her in agony. It was weathered but clearly restored, and the room smelled . . . different with it so near. Icarus’s clever eyes roved the space around it, looking for the telltale shine of a camera lens, but he saw none.

Still, the hair rose on the back of his neck. It was . . . improperly placed.

This piece was Italian, ancient and valuable. The sort of thing that should be in the vault, but it was here in the open, tantalizingly close to the door. There were rooms that would suit it better, rooms designed to make the viewing appealing, but it was here: downstairs in the modern common area surrounded by steel and linear shapes and dark colors. All of the rooms in this house had a theme and stuck with it, with no exception. This didn’t belong here, but here it was, displayed.

It felt like bait. How long had this been here? He tried to remember if it had been in the shadows when he was rushing to replace the sculpture and he had just missed it. He couldn’t be sure.

Icarus flattened himself against the wall as far from it as he could get and took a picture of it with his phone. Zoomed in on the plaque beneath boasting its name and provenance and took a picture of that too.

Orpheus Losing Eurydice, Veronese. He wanted to show his dad, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Because of his decision to keep this situation to himself, he couldn’t even text this picture to Angus. No matter how personally freaked out he was getting.

Icarus clenched his fists, took a few steadying breaths, and refocused. He couldn’t make tonight about this.

He closed his eyes and listened.

Silence, until a toilet flushed upstairs. Icarus followed the sound to a wing of the mansion painted yellow. He knocked on the only closed door in the hallway and waited.

“What the f—” he heard Helios mutter.

The door swung open to reveal a small library. Helios looked down at him with an unreadable expression.

“Sorry for the unexpected entrance. I can’t climb dressed like this so I had to use a door,” Icarus explained. “Is your dad gone or am I about to be beaten to death?”

“Jesus Christ,” Helios breathed. He swallowed hard. “Come in. He’s—He’s not home, he left at five.”

Icarus strode into the library and looked around. Helios had strewn a few books across the ground in an arc, like he was researching something.

“Sorry about all this,” Icarus said, crouching down to see what Helios was reading. “I’m going somewhere after this; I might not have time to change.”

“Do you dress like this all the time?” Helios asked. He was still standing by the door, gawking.

Icarus laughed softly. “No. Just special occasions. Today is homecoming . . . is it really that much?”

Helios put a hand on his chest. “I don’t even know how to answer that.”

Icarus tilted his head. “If it looks bad maybe I’ll make time to go home and change.”