Page 79 of Icarus

Anything interesting happen in class?

He didn’t even have to wait a moment:

Celestina: !!!

Celestina: We’re ok how are you?? We had lunch with Sorrel! Me and Luca! He wants to have us over for tea this week too. He’s so cute.

Icarus: haha. That sounds really good.

I’m glad to hear you guys are hanging out.

Celestina: Yeah yeah yeah, matchmaker. How’s your trip

Icarus: It’s . . . going really good. I’m happy.

How is Luca?

Celestina: He misses you, keeps going on and on about how gym is boring when you’re not there.

Icarus smirked.

Icarus: tell him to keep his pants on, I’ll be back on Monday.

Celestina: mmmkayyy I’ll tryyyyyy. I’m about to start a test. Try to text more often. I’ll talk to you later byyyyyyyyyeeeeeeee.

Icarus turned off his phone again and pressed the hunk of metal to his chest.

Comet

It was just a window, just a glimpse out of this enchanted place, but it sobered him a bit, rubbed the dust from his eyes.

When Icarus got back to the house, he asked Helios to help him clean his presence from this place. To wipe out two sets of footprints on the rugs in each room. To wash all their dishes. To take out all the trash from any room they’d been inside.

They scrubbed out the Roman baths together too, after Helios mentioned he didn’t usually use the scented oil when he was alone, and the smell of it was still lingering in the walls.

Icarus packed up the drawings he’d done of Helios, packed up the errant clothing spilling from his backpack. Compressed his climbing gear as much as possible, and tucked it deep under Helios’s bed.

They ate the leftovers of what they’d cooked that week for dinner, handwashed the containers, dried them, and put them away in the cabinets.

Icarus even went by the white plush couch and picked any hairs he’d left on it from its fibers, one by one.

The torque called to him, from its home in the dark, and again Icarus turned from it. He could not answer until he was ready to never come back here again.

Home Star

“There are places in this house where my dad rarely goes. We can hang out there so it doesn’t mess up our work.” Helios held his hand, pulling him along, the way Celestina liked to. Icarus loved how it felt so solid and familiar.

Helios tugged him up the stairs and past his bedroom, through a door that opened into another small wing of rooms. He turned on the light in the room closest to the door to reveal its dark red walls, comfy beanbag chairs, a massive globe, and a messy scattering of books.

Icarus toed at one of the beanbag chairs and it let out a visible puff of dust.

“Oh. I guess that’s to be expected,” Helios said. “Whatever, that’s not where I was planning for us to sit anyway.”

He led Icarus to the huge globe and fiddled with the side until it opened up, letting down a small staircase. Inside was a little bench with a bit of cushion on the back, just large enough to fit three people. Closed inside the globe as it was, the bench wasn’t at all dusty.

“It’s a model of the Atwood Sphere. They have one in Chicago at the planetarium, but the outside of theirs isn’t painted like a globe, it’s just silver,” Helios explained, ushering Icarus inside. “Grab that strap so we can pull the door closed.”

As the stairs went up, the inside of the globe got darker and darker until it was pitch-black when it latched.