A Lion in a Flower Field

Mira scaled the boxes with relative ease, stabilizing herself first before assisting Magic, snagging him by the shirt sleeves closest to his wrists. She bunched up his shirt in her hands to get a better hold as he kicked uselessly against the wooden crates, his shirt nearly popping over his head the more they continued. After a while of struggle—and endless profanities from Magic—they made it to the rooftop.

The concrete, sturdy beneath Mira’s feet, grounded her to the present while she waited for Magic to meet her in the center; he was still standing by the ledge they’d climbed up on, grumbling under his breath about his shirt, now wrinkled from the climb. Mira closed her eyes. Somewhere in the distance—the fabled woods, perhaps—an owl hooted. A dog barked and a cat yowled from a nearby alleyway. While Chrome slept, nature thrived and Mira lived for its voice. She was going to miss the summer, where the weather was warm and her climbing expeditions would end.

All of her easy expeditions would, that is. Mira decided to conquer the winter this year and teach herself how to battle the ice on porches and roofs or how to snap icicles from window sills so that they wouldn’t make noise when they fell from her weight.

“Why are we here?” asked Magic, his voice pulling her back.

“Existing,” she said, eyes still closed.

“We do that every day.” He paused, the metal of the roof squeaking. His weight was shifting. “Some of us do, anyway.”

A smirk twitched along her face; Mira couldn’t help herself and she opened one eye, glancing at her brother from a distance. “Don’t you think it’s a bit late to be getting into that philosophical gibberish, Mags?” she asked. “If I wanted something like that, I’d’ve gone to Mister Oreson’s shop earlier today for more of his daily words of wisdom.”

“Stars, don’t give me that. You started it.” Magic stared down at his old, dusty sneakers, wiggling his toes, the rubber peeling upwards. His hands, restless and on edge, couldn’t find a place to settle at his sides, so he fidgeted with the legs of his large, black wireframes. “Plus, you always have a reason to scale the roofs like this. I doubt that ‘philosophical gibberish’ is the only reason you dragged me out of my house.”

“No, you’re right. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Mira sat at the edge of the building overlooking the town, legs dangling over the edge to kick the chipping bricks. The watchtower was a shadowy spire from where she was, a massive giant overlooking the sleeping village. She patted the spot to her right. “Sit with me.”

Magic muttered something under his breath, but did as he was told. He took the spot beside her, hugging his shins, chin resting against his knees. They were silent this way for a while, drinking in the sights and sounds of Chrome. Mira closed her eyes again if only to feel the synchronized pull of nature when Magic suddenly broke the quiet. “Is it because September is coming up?”

“What’s that?”

“The reason we’re sitting on the roof. Is it because September is coming up?”

There was a disappointed shimmer in his expression when she looked at him, that sad, depressing sheen in his green and hazel eyes that were typically filled with a facade of disinterest that masked his innate curiosity. Mira understood his concern. Summer was the one season that enabled them to hang out as often as they wanted without a threat of curfew.

Not that having a curfew would have mattered; Benji and Amelia knew that if neither of them were home, they were usually together. And if they did have cause to worry, the answer was only one phone call away. Their parents had all been friends since childhood and their families were constantly running debts to one another whenever one household needed assistance.

Those debts piled more after Mira’s mother and Magic’s father passed.

Mira never knew her mother. She never remembered having a mother in her life except for her multiple mother figures. What Mira did remember, was the disaster her mother’s mere existence left behind after her passing.

Vivid memories of being responsible for dinner at the age of eight or nine while her father was on a bender surfaced frequently, even in her calmest hours. She very quickly learned not to question Benji when he fell asleep in odd places or woke up nursing hangovers with another glass of daylane that he insisted he could handle. Before the age of ten, Mira could not remember a time where her father had chosen her over liquor until one particular evening where Magic’s parents took charge and instilled more intensive intervention sessions. It was partially successful; Benji hadn’t been entirely sober at the time, but he’d looked for the liquor less and acknowledged her more.

And when Bennett died in the fatal mine collapse seven years ago, Mira and her father had done their best to provide resources in the form of food baskets delivered directly to the house or inviting the two of them over to spend the holidays. Mira herself went and visited Magic more often, sitting by his side in his room talking into the silence he couldn’t bring himself to breach. About three weeks later, both Amelia and Magic went off the grid, but they kept a constant supply of food going to the house for the two of them to return to.

The collapse was a deadly swinging pendulum that swayed Benji back into alcoholism, reopening a similar wound that robbed Mira of her Uncle Dot—her father’s younger brother. It had gotten so bad that Mira took the key to their black liquor box in the living room and hid it inside of her pillowcase to prevent her father from gaining access to it. Their shared grief over the event brought them oddly closer and Mira was fairly certain that without Amelia’s guidance and Magic’s moral support, her house would have fallen apart ages ago.

To say their families trusted each other was a vast understatement.

Despite their demons, their families relied on each other.

Mira took a breath and oriented herself, organizing her words. “Kind of,” she said. “School starts soon and I’ll be in Grade 12 this year.”

“I know,” Magic muttered, plucking at his jeans. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t remind me.”

“Oh, chin up, Mags. It’s my last year in the building.”

“And? It’s just a school year. What’s so special about it?”

Mira shrugged, tossing her head from side to side. “A lot. Fancy events. Dances. Privileges like getting to leave early or going to certain areas of the building like the courtyard that we didn’t have in the younger grades.”

Magic started at her wide-eyed. She had to keep herself from laughing. There was a childlike curiosity in his facial features that reminded her so much of the young boy she dragged out of his house for his first trip around town. “The school allows you to do that?”

She couldn’t help it. The laugh made its way out before she could stop it despite Magic’s obvious embarrassment. He turned away from her, ears and face bright red as he buried his face back into his knees. Mira didn’t know why the question was so amusing; it was a genuine question that Magic hadn’t known a thing about. And why would he? Magic was homeschooled.

For now, Mira thought, drumming her hands against her legs. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “You get all kinds of fancy events during your senior year if you step foot into the building, y’know.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. That actually brings me to what I wanted to ask you about.”

Immediately, Magic straightened. He whipped around to face her, metal clanging beneath the rubber soles of his shoes. The panic on his face was all Mira needed to know that he understood exactly why she’d brought him to the roof—and that he knew what she was going to say before it left her mouth. “Mira, don’t even think—”

“I want you to enroll for Grade 9 in the building this year.”

He threw up his hands with a groan so deep he may as well have growled. “Ori’s feathers—Mira, no. I’m not doing it.”

Mira brought her legs up, crossing her arms atop her knees, side of her face resting comfortably against them. “I’m only asking you because I was thinking about it the other day with my dad. At the end of the year, we get a lousy ceremony in the middle of town and we’re only allowed one family member to make up for the fact that there’s no room for people to sit. And if I can’t have you and Amelia there, I would rather go through my last year at the school with you in the building. And it would only be this one year, no more than that.”

“Mira—”

“You can go back to being homeschooled after this and going to the building wouldn’t cost you a single coin! We’ll also be on the same floor because you’ll be in high school. It’s the only reason why I waited so long to ask you in the first place.”

“The only reason?” he echoed.

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure about that? Absolutely positive?”

No, Mira admitted silently. It was more of a half-truth; she’d wanted Magic to go to school with her since he was in Grade 3, but he’d refused to budge on the matter. Not even his parents were successful in convincing him otherwise. They tried, but it only exacerbated his hatred of the building—and of the other students. Aside from her, Magic had no friends or peers who would so much as look him in the eye without throwing a snide remark his way or pelting him with a rubber Squiggle.

Rarely seen but often mentioned, the kids in town grew up reducing him to nothing more than a tall tale that haunted the streets of Chrome at night—the only time of day he felt at ease to browse the town with her. The Ghost, they mused about in whispers along the hallways. Chrome’s hidden spirit.

It was no small thing, bringing Magic into school. The act alone would hang a bright, neon sign around his neck for the school bullies, a singing target. After all, it was one thing for her to walk with Magic around town surrounded by strangers who tolerated his presence than it was to walk in a building surrounded by strangers who hated him. Strangers who had known each other for years.

Mira knew it in her bones that it was selfish, maybe a little crazy. But if Magic went to school with her, they wouldn’t have to treat the fall as the end-all-be-all of their hanging out time. They could brave the crowd together. It didn’t have to be all bad.

And yet, when she tried to come up with some kind of answer for him, she couldn’t. Not because she didn’t have anything to say—there was plenty that came to mind—but because nothing did the job well enough and she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him.

It’ll be fine. She had no way of promising this kind of outcome. Not yet.

I’ll be there. Not for everything. They’d likely have separate classes on different sides of the building.

She tried to speak, but Magic scooted away, the rubber of his shoes squeaking against the metal sheets with a pitch that gave her chills. He doubled down. “I’m not going into the building. I won’t do it.”

Mira moved with him closer to the center of the rooftop with her legs crossed, facing him. Elbows on her thighs, hands clasped and pressed to her chin, there was no way to sugarcoat this as she always had. She’d have to settle for honesty.

“I want you to go to school with me,” she said gently. “I always have. And I know it won’t be easy for you to do. I can’t promise you that the kids will leave you alone or that they won’t take advantage of your fears. But what I can do is figure out a plan to make it happen less. Which, I know, doesn’t sound like much of a consolation, but … Mags? You listening?”

Magic hadn’t been looking at her since she started talking, and he had a strange habit of zoning out in the middle of her speeches while also managing to pay attention. This time, if the pallor of his skin was anything to go by, Mira knew he was preoccupied with something else.

Her brother was staring at the mountain range that made up Chrome’s spine. The same mountain range that housed the coal mines which provided the capital with the minerals it needed and the concrete slab of a building with the utter misfortune of being the factory in which the coal was processed.

The building where designations were given out, adorned with two horns that blared and wailed like fire sirens.

His body shuddered in a suppressed gag, the back of one hand pressed against his mouth, fingers unconsciously twitching inward towards his palms. “The kids aren’t the only problem,” he murmured.

The guilty wave returned. Magic had a point. It was bells that signaled the change from class to class and bells that he feared, far beyond what Mira would ever pin as “typical” and rivaled only by the panic he felt in a crowd or around a fire.

So how would they bypass that obstacle? It would be easier for Magic to bypass the mob of students by giving him extra time to get to his classes, but it would be useless if they couldn’t avoid the bells. The sound alone would be enough to ruin everything. Mira knew what that sound did to him and the reaction it caused. She witnessed it once. Mira didn’t want to witness it again or have Magic subjected to it if they could avoid it.

She shuffled through contingency plans in her head. Think. Earmuffs would only be enough to keep his ears warm, not cancel out sound. Ear plugs might work, since they were designed to muffle noises, but it wouldn’t drown out the noise completely. What Magic required was exactly that: silence. The absolute removal of noise.

Then, an idea graced her.

Like Peony’s headphones.

Mira sat a little straighter, noting Magic’s confused squint as she did so. She remembered being in primary school with a girl named Peony who had purple metallic headphones. She transferred to Chrome from Flamburr after their mine collapse and wore the accessory everywhere. At least, Mira thought it was just an accessory. She hadn’t realized it was for sound cancellation until Peony had ignored her all day once, only able to hear when she took them off.

She hadn’t the guts to ask the girl about it; it never felt like an appropriate topic to breach, but when realization had come to her, she assumed it was for a condition similar to Magic’s: total evasion of sound.

Peony was never bothered by the change in classes, clueless to the surrounding noises. She lived blissfully unaware in silence.

Silence, Mira knew, that would allow Magic to wander the school in peace.

“If we could remove the noise,” she said slowly, “then it wouldn’t be an issue anymore. You’d be able to walk through the halls completely free.”

Magic only stared at her, earthy evergreen eyes wide in awe. It was as though she’d presented him with a slab of gold on a silver platter and, presumably too overwhelmed to speak, all he did was nod, elongating his neck with intrigue as Mira went on. “There’s a girl in my grade who moved here the same year Uncle Dot died and I think … she went through something similar to you, because she wears these purple headphones that makes it impossible for her to hear people. If we got you a pair of those, it would single you out a little, but it would make going through the hallway easier. It would be perfect for you.”

“Where?” was all he whispered.

“The capital city, I imagine. The Droidell State is the only part of the region I can think of with the resources to make something like that.”

A heavy pause. Magic blinked. Mira waited. His eyes flickered back and forth as though searching her for more information, a hard, calculating glint replacing the intrigue that once swam in them. His lips pressed together, a thin, straight line.

“The capital?” he repeated, snagging the baggy denim of his jeans. There was a strain in his voice she couldn’t decipher.

Mira nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

Her brother shook his head, gaze sliding down the town until he was staring directly below him, hugging his knees. His shoulders rounded, hunched over and small.

“Magic?”

To her confusion, his posture continued to crumple; Magic folded into himself as though he were a sheet of paper getting squished together. He tapped his forehead against his knees with increasing intensity, knuckles blanched as the grip on his jeans tightened. Mira could’ve sworn she’d heard him wheeze and moved to prod his shoulder.

Magic slapped her away.

Recoiling with her hand against her chest, she pivoted to face him completely, listening to the racing pants from Magic as though he’d run a marathon unprepared. He glared at her, head tilted to reveal only his left eye, a sharp edge embedded in earthy hazel that could have sliced steel. His lips curled into a dangerous snarl. “Don’t touch me.”

“Was it something I said?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Uh, it kind of does, Magic. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have lashed out at me. Just tell me what’s going on inside your head right now, even if it doesn’t make sense.”

“I can’t,” he wheezed. “I don’t have them. I don’t—I don’t have the words.”

Mira rubbed at her injured hand, taking a deep breath through her nose. If she was going to reach him, she would have to tackle the issue directly and provide him with it. “Is it about the headphones?”

He popped up into a straighter sitting position, arms still resting on his knees. A muscle jumped somewhere along the hinge of his jaw. “Yes. I just—We can’t get them. We don’t have that kind of money, Mira. I—Just forget the whole thing. It’s not worth it and no one would want me in that building, anyway. I’d rather be home.”

She knew he was being irrational, his haywire emotions creating a constant loop of frustration. Still, his words hurt. “If that’s the case, who am I then? Because I’m pretty sure that last statement doesn’t apply to me—”

A feral sounding groan left his mouth; Magic’s arms and shoulders tensed as he brought his hands to his head, seeking a new focus as he grasped at his low ponytail, yanking on it several times. “Ori’s feathers, you know I mean!” he shouted. Mira motioned for him to lower his voice, but it went completely ignored. “Stars, Mira, this isn’t about you!”

It took her a minute to register that what her brother was working through wasn’t just frustration or anger.

Whether Magic was aware of it or not, this was rage, hot and wrathful, and it burned the forest of his eyes when he glared at her.

“Am I going to have to say it again?” he continued, vibrating from the sheer force of his tirade. “Mira, we don’t have money for headphones like that! And do you know what the Droidell State really loves? Money—especially when that money comes from fucking dusters like my mom and I who can barely afford to put cooked quail on the table!” Magic took a shuddering breath, briefly turning his rage skyward before it redirected towards her. “It’s not worth it, Mira. It really isn’t and if that’s what I need to make it through the school year, then forget about it. I would rather keep money in our pockets. We barely have enough for utilities as it is.”

Mira blinked, biting into her lips to keep her nerves at bay. He’d never told her that. “Mags,” she said carefully, “why didn’t you say something?”

“Because what good does it do, Mira? Huh? It doesn’t make us richer! It doesn’t give us more customers! It just makes people feel bad. That’s it.”

“Magic, my dad and I can handle the headphones. That doesn’t need to come out of your pocket—my dad has customers and connections all over the eastern parts of Droidell and that includes the capital. We could get someone to write an appeal to the Council on your behalf!”

“Mira, forget it. It’s stupid and it won’t work.”

Rage boiled in her gut and it was all she could do to bite back her spite. “Lie to me all you want, but you’re not fooling me. Those headphones would be a lifesaver for you.”

“What do you think I am? An idiot?” Magic’s voice caught in his throat before he could finish his statement. The sudden change in pitch was a punch to the jaw; his voice had gone squeaky.

Combat rose in Mira’s chest and she puffed herself up. Taking the brunt of Magic’s frustration was nothing she hadn’t done before, but he never talked to her like this. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t you think I want those headphones?” he asked, straightening to look her in the eyes.

“I don’t think, Mags, I know. I know it would make your life so much easier!”

“So do I!” Magic’s body trembled in tandem with his shrieking, which was so loud it startled a nearby raven off of its perch. His voice peaked, shrill and emphatic. “Stars, Mira, I would do anything in this world just to avoid the factory noises! I really, really, would. But it’s just another taunt—another thing dangling right in front of my face that I can’t get! At the end of the day, it’s a tease, Mira, a stupid tease!”

The dam holding back her anger shattered. “I don’t understand, Magic. I’m offering you a way to get that; I’m trying to help you. Why do you have to be so damn stubborn about it?”

“Because you keep staring at me with that soft expression on your face every time money comes up! You, Benji, everyone in this stupid town! I don’t want your help! I don’t need it and I have never asked for it!”

“Use that tone with me again,” Mira hissed, ignoring a lump in her throat, “and see how far that gets you, Magic.”

“Don’t patronize me, Mira!” he bit back. “Stop it.”

“I’m not patronizing you. Put that attitude of yours away because at this rate—”

“Be. Quiet. Please!” Magic stopped gripping his jeans, opening and closing his fingers as they strayed dangerously close towards his palms. He was beginning to flick at them with his nails and, as much as Mira wanted to intervene, she remained where she was. There was no point in correcting his behavior while he was flaring up like this. “Ori’s feathers, you are beyond aggravating. I hate you. I hate you so much.”

“Magic—”

“Stop! Talking to me, alright? Stop. Shut up, be quiet, and leave me alone!”

Mira threw up her hands and shoved herself backwards, creating as much distance between her and her brother as possible.

Heavens knew she needed her own space as much as Magic needed his, but his outburst had damn near put her into tears. It wasn’t until her own emotions passed with each deep breath into her lungs that it occurred to her why he’d gotten so aggressive with her in a way he usually never did. Mira pushed his boundaries, ignoring every single cue signaling a rising emotion because of her curiosity and insistence. The silence. The rounding of his shoulders. The focus on his lack of funds. It was all there and in his own, emotionally unaware way, Magic was telling her to back off. She’d gotten stubborn, pressing something she shouldn’t have.

Her brother was still sitting a few feet away from the edge of the building when she approached him again, his face buried in the gap between his chest and thighs, shoulders trembling with unresolved thoughts and emotions. His arms were so stiff that the baggy fabrics of his shirt vibrated with the tension. A sliver of scarlet slid down the side of his left hand—undoubtedly, the same was likely happening on the other side—as he struggled to relieve himself from whatever he was feeling. For a while, the only noises between the two of them were Magic’s strangled sounding wheezes.

Looking at him now, Mira did pity him a little, but she hid it in her voice. “I’d like to continue this conversation when you’re calmer, but I just want to let you know that what you said hurt, Mags. Take a breather and come back. When you’re ready to listen or speak, you let me know. I won’t say anything until then, but I’m keeping my offer on the table. I’d still like for you to go to school with me, but whether you agree to do it or not, we’re finding a way to get you those headphones.”

Magic gave the barest nod to show that he understood and she left it at that.

It took nearly ten minutes for him to recuperate; he muttered repetitive phrases to himself to calm his tremors while Mira silently kept her eyes on the clock mounted to the chapel in the distance, silently counting away the time. When his shaky breathing stopped, replaced with a steady, deeper rhythm, Magic poked his head up, wiping his eyes from behind his glasses, his eyes and the bridge of his nose visible.

“I still think you can be annoying sometimes,” he said, tone flat and normal—by Magic’s standards, anyway. “That’s okay, though. You probably think I’m annoying, too. I wouldn’t doubt it. I … I don’t hate you. It was stupid of me to say that. I like having you around. Really. But everything … I don’t know. It was a lot. I don’t know where to start.”

I like having you around.

His roundabout way of saying I trust you.

The apology was much appreciated and the fact that it came as eloquently as it did was a lot, coming from Magic. Mira rolled her neck, satisfied. “Where do you want to start? Pick one and we’ll start from there.”

“School. That one’s the worst.”

“The school building opens up two weeks before school starts so that the students can do a dry run of their classes. Schedules get mailed out next week, but no one really takes advantage of it, so it’s pretty empty. If you decided to go, we could run laps around the building so that you know where your classes would be and the optimal routes to get there.”

“What about the halls?” he murmured.

“Amelia can fill something out or talk with the Headmistress about allowing you to leave class early so you can miss the crowd between classes. How does that sound?”

Magic nodded his head silently in understanding, but the furrow between his brows told her that he wasn’t quite convinced.

“Look, I know you’re not exactly sold on the idea,” Mira added, hugging her shins, “but just think about it, okay? Even if you need a few days to talk it out with Amelia to figure out what would be better.”

“That’s the thing, Mira,” he said, “I am thinking about it and I don’t like the way thinking about it is making me feel. I … I would like to try. Stars, I would. But everyone in that school knows each other except me. They don’t like me—they’ve never liked me if the rocks at my window are anything to go by. Mom has always wanted me to go to school in the building and I wanted to try and do it for her, but it makes my heart race and stomach hurt and I …”

Mira knew he was avoiding the subject so as not to draw attention to his hands, but his fingers were twitching erratically towards his palm again, accompanied by his constant grimace. She motioned to his oversized denim. “Jeans, Mags,” she whispered. “Then you can continue.”

The movement was mechanical, stiff, but Magic did as he was told. Blood dotted his jeans with each movement of his hands. “There’s a word for this, I know there is. But I know what they’re going to think if I step foot in that building. I’m nothing to them. Just a mournful ghost pulled from its graveyard to finally join the living.”

Mira whirled on him. “You are not a ghost, Magic. Stop that.”

“Why do you care? It’s true, isn’t it? No amount of denying it changes anything, nor does it make them say it any less.”

“Because they’re stupid! They’re nothing more than a bunch of dumb kids who’ll pick on someone smaller than them just to feel bigger.”

“So I’m weak, then?”

Mira shook her head, slightly exasperated. “The opposite of that, really. Magic, they use that term to separate themselves from you. But they don’t know how funny you are or how good you are at solving puzzles. They don’t know that you can make clothes by hand in a matter of weeks. Their words shouldn’t mean anything because they don’t know you.”

Not like me or my father do, she added silently.

“And what will you do if they don’t leave me alone?” he asked, sneaking a glance at her direction, moonlight glinting off his glasses. “Are you going to beat the crap out of them? Corner them in the hall? No matter what you do, it won’t make them say it less. It’ll just make them more angry at me and I don’t want that attention.”

The downcast, defeated expression from what Mira could see of his face carved a hole into her heart. It pained her to know that he believed the insults of his peers over what she truly saw him to be: smart, witty and, while sometimes completely unbearable, a trustworthy confidant.

Worse was the fact that Magic was right.

Mira could fight as many people who insulted her brother or looked at him wrong as she wanted, but in the end it would only make him a larger target. And walking into school—possibly with big, shiny headphones—put a major target on his back as it was. “Are you worried the upperclassmen will give you a hard time? In addition to the noises?”

Magic shrugged.

“I’m an upperclassman, too, y’know. Highest standing in the building. I know most of them and I can teach them a lesson or two. It might not stop them completely, but it might make them think twice.”

He said nothing in response, only rounded his shoulders and curled into himself. It was a miserable sight. Mira didn’t know exactly what Magic was picturing in his head, only that it was debilitating enough to keep him silent.

She trudged on, hoping to pull a response from him. “I said before that it won’t be easy, but that doesn’t mean it has to be all bad. My friends wouldn’t mind helping to keep an eye on you if that makes you feel any better. And, how can you join the art club if you’re homeschooled?”

Her brother sat upright, pulled by an invisible string at the top of his head. His back straightened, shoulders squared. The pale silver light of the moon illuminated his olive skin, highlighting his raven’s nest of a head in gray. “You have an art club?”

Mira grinned. Finally, some progress. “Yep! Miss Flannise runs the art club every year. She’s also the high school Art teacher—which is required as a class, so you’ll get to see her a lot. She’s my favorite. She gives people the option of working in groups so that you don’t feel obligated to do that.”

“Could I sew?” he whispered.

“You can sew,” she replied. “Miss Flannise has a bunch of fabrics in a bin on top of one of the cabinets. You could even bring your scarf in to work on it during your Art class. The teachers—for the most part—are really chill, Magic. Just … think about it, okay? You don’t have to give me an answer tonight if you want to talk about it with Amelia first.”

Magic nodded, mouth twisted in thought as he considered a reply. His tongue flicked along his bottom lips before he gathered himself. “I will. Talk about it with my mom, I mean. I’ll talk to her. And, uh, not to cycle back, but … did you mean it? When you said that Benji could find someone to appeal to the Council for us?”

Finally. Her arms shot above her head, fingers dancing with her palms out. Relief ran right through her. “Is this your way of accepting my help?” she asked, unable to stop herself from teasing him.

Magic scoffed, rolling his eyes. Prodding him in this way shouldn’t have been as amusing as it was, but sometimes his pride bruised in ways that were far too easy.

“Stars, don’t look at me with that smug ass smile on your face,” he muttered. “I’m not! I’m not asking for help, that isn’t—it’s not … Okay. Yes. I am. I’m asking for your help. Happy now?”

She gave a sagely sounding hmm before cocking her head to one side. “That’s a start,” Mira mused. “It’s nice to hear you say the words.”

Magic made a small rumbling noise in his throat that wavered between a groan and a growl. He laid down against the tin sheet of the roof, tapping his toes against it. “I hate doing that. I can manage on my own. I don’t need help.”

“A little help along the way isn’t a bad thing, Mags. Sometimes it’s nice relying on other people other than yourself. Agreed?”

“I guess.”

Mira laid down beside him, staring at the speckled sky, looking between each individual star she could see. The depth of it was enough to be suffocating, but oddly freeing.

Freedom.

There was that word again, that hope. The gentle reminder of what she could achieve once she was away from the confines of home. Their chains might have been different, but Mira imagined that Magic longed for the same crumbs of freedom, too. Freedom from the memories of the collapse.

And the headphones would give that to him.

She gave his shoulder a squeeze. He flinched, but didn’t move away. “I can ask my dad about the headphones tomorrow. You deserve those headphones, Magic. The least my dad and I can do is help you with that. Plus, you might really grow to love not hearing the noises every day at five-thirty. Or, better yet, you won’t need to listen to my blabbering about how much I hate Geography.”

Now Magic laughed, a good, proper one and she joined him, glad to have gotten some kind of joy out of him. “Or listen to you complain about stupid triangles.”

“See, now that’s the spirit.”

Brushing his shirt as though he were dusting himself off, Magic tossed himself into sitting upright, lunging forward and returning into a curled up position, arms wrapped around his ankles. In the midst of his adjustment, Mira thought she spotted the flicker of a smile over his lips. “How fast can Benji get the headphones from the capital?”

“Not sure to be honest with you. I’ll ask him tomorrow morning. Are you … gonna talk to Amelia about school?”

Magic plucked at his jeans. “If we can secure the headphones and talk with the Headmistress about getting accommodations … I’ll put it into consideration.”

Excitement and glee welled in Mira’s chest. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Oh, don’t worry. That will be arranged.”