Lightning shrugged his shoulders. “My father didn’t believe in night-lights. I got scared. I don’t know. I guess I started to make my own.”
Scout’s distraction changed to focus. “You have one of those too?”
“One of what?”
“One of the ‘toughen up and be a man’ fathers?”
Lightning grunted. “I wish I could say you’re way off base, but….” He shrugged. “At least he’s okay with the gay thing. And he and Mom were one hundred percent behind my idea to keep Larissa safe until they could have PIs track down her stalker. But yeah. He was tough on us.”
“Well, you’re lucky,” Scout told him, casting a glance through the bookshelves to see therealLucky serving coffee to a sweet little old couple who practically lived on the island during the cooler winter months. “Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a father who cares.”
Lightning followed his gaze. “I take it you’re not speaking just for yourself?”
Scout shrugged. “Let’s say this island has a way of attracting people who don’t want to be found.” He looked back at the book again and sighed. “I really hope when I’m done here, I won’t take away some of the protection it offers.”
“What are you trying to do there?” Lightning asked.
Scout was going to brush him off, and then he paused. Scout and Lucky could see the soul trap; he wondered if anyone else could too. Could Kayleigh? Could Lightning’s cousin? Could Lightning himself?
“Actually,” he said thoughtfully, “after I’m done with work and Lucky’s done with his shift, maybe you and Larissa would want to help us in a little experiment.”
Lightning smiled, clearly excited to be included. “That sounds great! Would it be…?” His voice dropped, and he looked around furtively, as though total strangers might have suddenly appeared around them. “Would it, you know, involve something like my light thing?”
Scout nodded. “It might indeed,” he said mysteriously before taking a sip of the coffee Lucky had left him.
Lucky had added a pump or two of something that Scout had never thought of. It was, of course, delicious.
“HE’S IMPROVEDeven more,” Helen remarked as they watched Scout’s performance from across the quad.
“I thought it was just me,” Lucky said, pleased. It wasn’t like he, Lucky, had magical kisses or something so that suddenly Scout was as outstanding a magician as he probably was a mage, or whatever it was that Scout and Kayleighwerethat could do the things he knew Scout and Kayleigh could do.
“Except itis, isn’t it?” Helen asked, giving him a thorough once-over. “Look at him. He’s got a confidence he’s been lacking. Did you give him that?”
Lucky shook his head, not so sure. “Naw, I think he’s always had that. Maybe he’s sort of figured out he can do more than he thought.”
“Well, that’s confidence, Lucky.” She looked at him kindly. She was wearing a Beach Broad T-shirt today, one of many snarky shirts that Lucky had seen, and he wondered again at her backstory. “Why are you so reluctant to take any credit for his new attitude?”
Lucky grunted. “Because I’m unreliable at best, Auntie,” he said, the old habit of calling women like his grandmother Auntie not going away anytime soon. It had been a title of deference—not given toeveryolder woman he knew, but to the ones whose word had carried weight in the neighborhood. “You know that I may have to kite the hell out of here, and it would suck to leave him alone if I’m giving him something he needs.”
“Well, maybe he’s enough of a mage to help you out of your jam,” she said. “Did you ever think that?”
“I don’t want to use him like that!” Lucky protested, almost embarrassed to realize he hadn’t even thought of it.
She sighed with exaggerated patience. “Lucky, you obviously care for him. It was apparent from the very beginning, even when you were avoiding him and Kayleigh like mad. You watched his show every day, honey. And I saw the way you two smiled at each other when he walked into the store. You can be many things,Justin. Surly, irritable, pessimistic. But I didn’t think dishonest was one of them. You and that boy mean something to each other already, and that meaning is making him better at his craft.”
“Isn’t that… I don’t know. Doesn’t that violate the rules of something? Like we’re supposed to be all independent and actualized and shit?”
She snorted delicately. “I don’t think it’s bad if another person brings out the best in us. As long as we remember it’s there should they leave.”
Lucky shuddered, remembering the panic of finding Scout gone the night before—and the terror of having him back, but freezing and incoherent with cold and fear.
“What?” Helen asked. “What’s that look?”
Lucky was quiet for a moment as Scout tried a pass of his hand over three metal balls in his other hand. In the past, he’d been able to get the three balls to stand up in his palm, one on top of the other, spinning enough to see across the quad.
He did the pass of his hand, and the three balls remained static on his palm, doing nothing. He narrowed his eyes and looked out into the crowd. Kayleigh was there this time, and Scout saw the minute shake of her head.
Scout’s eyes narrowed, and his hair rose up in a crackle of electricity that the entire crowd could see. Then he looked out across the quad and gave Lucky a smile of bared teeth and bravado and winked.
