Echo held up a bag filled with three small, round, white pastries. “As you ordered, sir,” she said.
Markos laughed and grabbed the bag out of her hands, but she wasn’t amused. She kept staring at me. I must’ve looked terrified because she shook her head slightly.
“What are they, Markos?” Ari asked. She didn’t sound entirely pleased.
“Why don’t you try one and find out?” Markos said. He opened the bag and ate a pastry in one bite, then handed the package to Ari.
We watched him, all of us—even Echo. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting. At first it happened so slowly I didn’t notice. But then I heard Ari gasp, and I shook myself out of my fog, because Markos was floating five feet above the ground and rising fast.
At ten feet he let out a yell and zoomed over our heads, swimming through the air.
“You’ve only got a few minutes, so don’t go too high,” Echo said, but Markos was already climbing, flapping his arms like a butterfly and disappearing into the dark and rain.
“Get up here, Win!” he called.
Ari looked at the bag and then at Echo. “Are these safe?”
Echo shrugged. “They’ll let you become impervious to gravity for a while. Nothing about that sounds safe to me.”
“And side effects?”
“Unpleasant. But since it’s a temporary spell, they won’t last long.”
“I have a memory spell from way back. Will the side effects be a problem?”
Echo considered her. I had a brief, terrified worry that she would lie to Ari to hurt her—I thought of nearly kissing Echo in the truck, and what Echo must think of Ari, my girlfriend—but then I shook it off. Echo wouldn’t do that, even if she was jealous. “No. You should be fine.”
Markos whooped and Ari looked at me, eyes sparkling. “Well?” she said.
“How could we not?” I asked.
Ari laughed, trying to sound unworried, and ate her pastry. “Mascarpone. Delicious.”
“Thank you,” Echo said.
Ari handed me the bag from shoulder height. “Holy shit! Win, hurry up!”
She spun away into the sky. Already she was more graceful than Markos. Her ballet training showed as she twirled and tumbled in the rain. I opened the bag, but Echo grabbed it out of my hands before I could fish out the last pastry.
“What the hell?”
“Have you taken your other one yet?” she asked quietly. I shook my head. “Then you can’t do this, Win. The side effects—”
“Come on!” I said. It came as something of a shock that I wanted to fly. I hadn’t wanted anything in so long. “I’ll take the other spell as soon as I get home.”
“Please trust me.”
“You said it wouldn’t mess with Ari’s side effects. Why am I different?”
She looked at me for a long moment, rain making her hair stick to her forehead so that her eyes seemed bigger. “Because you are.”
I reached for the bag but she turned away, quicker than me in the wet sand. Markos yelped and then landed nearby with a thud.
He hoisted himself to his feet, swayed, and then barfed. On his side now, he moaned. “I feel like shit,” he said.
“It’ll wear off,” Echo told him.
“Oh man. Fuck you. Seriously fuck you.”
“The spell makes you weightless physically. Mentally, it brings you down. Way down.” She said it loud enough for Markos to hear, but she was staring straight at me.
“What am I supposed to tell them?” I muttered. Ari buzzed by my head, lightly tapping me with her pointed toe. Markos swore loudly, a string of uninterrupted curses.
“Not my problem. I can’t let you have this.” She shook the bag.
“What, because of some sort of hekamist’s code of ethics?” I meant it sarcastically, but she nodded.
“Something like that.”
“Please for the love of god kill me!” Markos shouted. Echo looked at me pointedly.
“But Markos paid you for three. . . .”
“I’ll take it out of your tab.”
Ari floated to the ground, as graceful as always, until both feet touched sand. Then she shuddered and sank to her knees. Very slowly she lowered her forehead straight down until it rested on the sand, like someone praying.
“I hate you, Markos,” Ari said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to hold my breath until I stop breathing.”
“Ari?” I said.
“I hate you, too, Win.”
Something flared in my chest, and it took a second to figure out why my back clenched up and my jaw ached. I was angry. Not at Echo for denying me flight. At my supposed friends, for—what? Co-opting my sadness?
Aching and moaning on the ground, wailing and gnashing their teeth. This wasn’t the same as Ari’s freakout over the Manhattan Ballet, which at least was genuine, even if it didn’t last very long. This felt like a parody of what I was living, day in, day out. I knew they weren’t doing it on purpose, but it didn’t matter. They took what was horrible and secret and mine and lurched around like drunks, proclaiming it to the world.
And what was worse, they got to fly. I never got to fly, so why I did I feel like shit? Where’s the balance in that?