CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
Stars weren’t needed above the Crescent, not when the city scape was more colourful and vibrant than the night sky could ever be.
From the flat roof of Theo’s family home I could see the city stretch along the coastline, the infinite glowing lights reflecting in the water, looking like the stars had fallen down into the ocean.
‘I had a feeling I’d find you here.’ Theo’s voice came from behind me. He climbed over the lip of the roof and joined me leaning against the chimney stack.
I’d excused myself after dinner for some air, overwhelmed by the warmth – both literal and emotional.
My parents were frosty at best, the perfect example of how relationships soured the longer they lasted.
Theo’s parents were the exception. They didn’t have any expectations or criticisms, certainly not for Theo.
Or if they did it had never changed the way they felt about their son.
The wind was blowing inland, leaving our spot fresh with the salty sea breeze.
Our spot. It hadn’t changed. The same rickety deckchairs we used to lie in all night talking about our plans were still there.
The markings we’d drawn on the chimney to compare heights were worn, but visible – the wobbly lines were labelled with our names and ages.
The oversized and underlined ‘Theo, fourteen’ from when he had grown three inches in one summer.
Even when we’d stopped growing, we’d kept track just for fun. The labels stopped at eighteen.
The wind whipped Theo’s hair the same way it always did. His dark curls bounced around, both sticking up and getting in his eyes all at once. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he leaned next to me, his elbow brushing mine as we listened to the waves crash against the shore down below.
‘Do you remember the last time you were here?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I lied.
It had been before the last race of the season in the Wyvern Cup, our sixth year. We’d been dodging the subject of one of us having to lose.
‘Liar.’ He bumped into me and didn’t pull away, his shoulder pressed against mine.
I could feel the heat of him through our clothes, prompting the vision of him in the spa to come back to me, undoing the cooling effect of the breeze.
‘Well,’ – I pushed away from the chimney and away from him. – ‘since it has been a long five years, it’s about time we checked who’s ahead.’ I nodded to the wall behind him.
Theo grinned.
‘I’ll get a pencil.’ He stepped over the deckchairs and opened a crate.
‘That’s new.’ I peered over his shoulder.
Inside was an assortment of items that I hadn’t ever seen up here before. Wine, first and foremost, filled most of the space. Some magazines, a casting augment and, bizarrely, journals.
‘Theo, please tell me you don’t come up here to get drunk on fancy wine, look at dirty magazines and write poetry.’ I made a gagging noise.
He laughed. ‘Well I can’t hide it in my room. Ma would take it all.’
I groaned. ‘Here I was thinking we weren’t teenagers anymore.’
He tossed a magazine at me. I let it bounce on to the floor, unwilling to touch it in case of sticky pages. As it landed I saw the cover: Airborne, the long-running Volitant fan publication.
‘Oh.’ It wasn’t fun if I couldn’t tease him. ‘I thought you were into women, not dragons.’
Theo stopped rummaging around and held up a pencil, brandishing it at me like we were about to spar.
‘Very funny.’ He placed a warm hand on my shoulder, pushing me backwards until I bumped up against the chimney stack. ‘Hold still.’
I held my breath, hyper-aware of his lightly stubbled chin and how close it was to brushing against my forehead. His throat bobbed as he peered over me, scratching the pencil against the whitewashed plaster just above my head.
‘Hm.’ The noise was low, reverberating through me. ‘How old are you again?’
I ducked out from under his arm, watching as he wrote my name next to the line he’d drawn.
‘Twenty-three years and five months.’ It was important to be specific.
Theo sighed. That’s why it was important.
‘Why? How old are you, Vaspre?’ I made sure to cram as much condescension into my voice as possible.
He narrowed his eyes as he backed up against the wall, swapping with me. ‘Twenty-two years and six months.’ He held out the pencil to me. ‘My turn.’
‘I guess, as the older and wiser of us, I can find it within myself to help you.’ I didn’t bother pretending not to enjoy the gloating. He got height, I got age. I stood on my tiptoes to reach over Theo’s head, making sure to stand off to the side and avoid the closeness.
‘It’s almost as if you were born and fate decided you couldn’t exist without someone here to keep you humble … so it sent me,’ Theo mused, like he hadn’t suggested it a thousand times before.
‘It’s okay, Theo, I know you believe your entire existence revolves around me.’
He exhaled sharply, half a laugh.
‘But the extra nine months I’ve lived have taught me that life isn’t so black and white.’
‘Oh please! Like you’re not the most all-or-nothing person on the continent.’
I finished measuring his height and patted him on the shoulder as patronizingly as I could. ‘You’ll understand when you’re older, buddy.’
Joy bubbled up inside me as I watched his jaw set. It was the most irrelevant difference between us, yet it had bothered him since the day we’d met that I was a little bit older.
So I’d never let it go, not once.
‘Hold on.’ He’d been distracted by my measuring. ‘What the fuck is this?’
He touched the line I’d drawn, which was at his eye level.
‘Oh, yeah. I had to account for your inflated ego. Your real height is around there. You’ve also let your hair grow so long that I had to account for a curly hair margin of error. It’s just statistics – Josie taught me.’
It was dragonshit, but it was also funny.
‘Speaking of which …’ – I used the pencil to catch a lock of his hair. – ‘Are you sixteen again? Last time it was this long you nearly crashed because you couldn’t see when flying.’