The top of the tower bulged, the overhang slowing me. Peter grasped the highest window ledge a few seconds before me.
“I won!”
“Shush. Voices carry in the cold.”
“But you’re the best climber in the family!”
I pulled myself onto the ledge beside him. “I’ll tell everyone you beat me.”
“Grandma Elizabeth?”
“I’ll tell her first.”
“This climb was her idea, right?”
“Yes,” I said. No point in lying. “Check this out.”
I reached behind me and pulled open the window a few inches. The steam-heated air of the Physics Lounge spilled onto my frozen hands.
“Unlocked it this morning,” I said.
“Hah, you knew I wouldn’t stop halfway.”
I nodded.
“We should climb back down,” he said.
“Peter.” I made sure he heard my disappointment.
“I can do it!”
“Some tests are about restraint, not skill.”
“You sound like Grandma again,” he said, but as he leaned forward to peer at the ground, eighty feet below, I saw it—a flicker of doubt in his eyes. He rubbed his hands together, breathed on them.
My own muscles felt brittle in the freezing air.
It was time for his test.
“If you want,” I said. “But go around that overhang.”
“Don’t need to.” A moment later he was swinging from his hands.
I counted to five, picked up one of the stones I’d left on the window ledge that morning, and threw it into the trees.
It landed with acrack, like a branch snapping.
“Peter,” I whispered over the edge. “Someone’s on the path!”
I heard his feet scrabbling for purchase. Then his toes must’ve found a crevice. I heard nothing but his breathing, sharp and fast.
I waited for him to speak again. All his weight on four points, motionless, his muscles searing in the cold.
“Are they gone?” he finally whispered.
“No.”
“But Jess…”
