“Thanks,” Helen called out, painfully aware how little space stood between him and her naked body. It was silly, really. Everyone is naked under a few millimeters of clothes, but this felt different somehow. It felt dangerous. She watched his feet through the gap at the bottom of the screen as he began to turn away, hesitated, and then hurried off. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
The clothes he’d left her were gigantic, but they were soft, comfortable, and they smelled like dryer sheets. She toweled off, put the borrowed outfit on, and came out of the shower area carrying her bag of dirty clothes.
By the time she and Lucas made it into the house, Jason and Hector were sitting at the kitchen table watching Cassandra and Ariadne shower a man Helen didn’t know with affection. Lucas introduced Helen before giving his uncle a big hug.
Pallas Delos was a large, blond man, still glowing with health and youth even though he was graying at the temples. He and Hector shared the same cautious smile and sharp eyes, but there was more of Jason’s and Ariadne’s prettiness about him than Hector’s blunt masculinity. He shook Helen’s hand politely, but his curious stare followed her long after the introduction was over and it began to make Helen feel uncomfortable. She wondered if he was just reacting to her taboo name or if he had heard unflattering things about her from someone in the family. His stare made Helen jumpy. She tried to hide herself behind Lucas.
“Okay, everybody out. I have to get started on dinner,” Noel ordered as she entered the kitchen, waving her hands in a shooing motion. Helen found herself being pulled out the back door by Lucas.
“It’s a good idea to stay out of my mom’s way when she gets like that or you’ll end up chopping vegetables for the next hour,” he said. He led her back outside toward the grassy lawn between the tennis courts and the pool.
“I don’t mind helping,” Helen said, starting to head back toward the house.
“I do,” Lucas said with a sly smile, tugging on her hand. “Besides, I thought you wanted to learn how to fly. Isn’t that what caused all the fuss earlier this afternoon?”
Helen could tell he was upset and trying not to show it. “About that,” she began, scrunching her face up guiltily.
“Yeah, that was bad. And it was all my fault. I should have taught you to fly as soon as we healed from our fall, but I didn’t trust...” he said, stopping himself and shaking his head ruefully. “Never mind. The point is, once I learned I could fly all I wanted to do was get back in the air. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. It was stupid of me to think you would wait.”
“How old were you when you found out?” Helen asked.
“Ten? But it took me a while to understand it,” he said as if to prepare her for something. “Scions are born with all their talents, but it takes time to discover how to use some of them. Especially if there’s no one with your particular talent to act as a mentor.”
“Did you have one? A mentor, I mean.”
“No. I don’t know any other Scions who can fly besides you. But I had books, and my family for support.” He pulled up and stopped to face Helen. “You never had any of that, so this might be a little harder for you.”
“I’m good at hard, it’s easy I’ve never trusted,” she responded quickly, but he gave her a look that indicated he thought she had missed his point.
“I just don’t want you to get discouraged if this takes us a while. So before we start, I have to explain some things,” he said, suddenly all business. “Strength, speed, agility, acute hearing and eyesight, beauty, rapid healing, and intelligence, although that last one’s debatable, these are all gifts that pretty much every Scion has, and we don’t have to be trained to use them. But there’s another group of talents that are rare, and most of them take some work. Flying is one of the rare ones. And it’s one of the hardest to get the hang of.”
“I honestly don’t care how hard it is to master this. I don’t care if this takes me years. I’m just dying to do it again!” Helen bounced up and down on her toes impatiently.
“Okay, okay! First of all, you have to hold still. The jumping part comes later when you want speed,” he said with a laugh as he put his hands on Helen’s waist.
She gasped faintly at the unexpected touch, and tried to make herself stand still like he had said, but it wasn’t easy. They stood for a few moments, just staring at each other.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered. Helen’s heart was racing and she had a feeling Lucas could hear it.
“Calm down,” he said, smiling with his eyes closed. “Try and slow your pulse down if you can.”
“I’m trying. Do you have to stand so close?” Helen asked, her voice thin and shaky.
“Yes. I don’t want you to get away from me. That would be bad,” he said in a deadpan voice, maintaining his concentration. A few seconds passed. When he next spoke he sounded very calm and far away.
“Now. Focus on your body. Take a deep breath and follow it in, like your brain is floating gently inside that air you’re breathing.” He waited a few moments for Helen to get to where he was.
It took her a few breaths, but eventually she was able to do it. He knew exactly when she was ready. “Good. Now you’re inside of yourself,” he said triumphantly. “Can you feel the weight of you, all stacked up and all tied together?”
She did feel it. She could feel the weight of her skin on top of her muscles on top of her bones, all stacked up, just like he had said. There were millions and millions of little bits of her, all marching around like soldiers with different but cohesive orders. Those were her cells, she realized at once. She giggled, thinking how strange it was to be this massive army and never feel it. She heard Lucas laugh, too, and she knew that he was right there with her, experiencing what she was experiencing.
“Now I want you to do something really hard,” he said, his voice light and curious, almost childlike. “I want you to stay inside, but also look out, if you can. Don’t be scared. I’m right here with you.”
Helen did as he told her, but the sensation was way too intense to process.
She had lost her sunglasses once. She’d looked all over, in the kitchen, the living room, back up in her bedroom, but she couldn’t find them anywhere. It was annoying because she knew she had just had them in her hand, but she couldn’t remember what she’d done with them. Then her dad told her that her sunglasses were on top of her head.
In that moment she realized that she had been using the wrong sense. She had been looking when she should have been feeling. She reached up and felt her glasses with her hand, but she also felt them with her scalp, and when she thought about it she realized that she had been feeling her glasses up there the whole time. She’d just been so busylookingshe hadn’t thought tofeel.
