her face against his chest. He was the only unmovable object in
the entire universe, and if Helen let him go of him she knew she
would spin off into space forever and ever.
?It?s okay,? he whispered into her ear. His breath was warm, and
his voice soothed her. ?I won?t let you go, Helen. I promise. Do you
trust me?? The temperature dropped and great gusts of wind
tossed her hair around in a tangle.
She kept her face pressed against the L-shaped hollow where Lucas?s
shoulder turned into his neck. She told herself that this is
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what difficult felt like, this was the ?hard? that she had been cavalier
enough to tell Lucas she preferred to ?easy.?
?Yes,? she whispered, feeling the cold, thin air crawl into her
clothes and snatch the sounds she made away from her lips as soon
as she spoke.
?Then prove it,? he whispered back. ?Open your eyes.?
They stayed in the air until the sky was almost completely dark and
Helen was so cold she couldn?t stop shaking. There was a lot for
her to learn. Defying gravity was a big deal, but it was only half of
flying. The other half was less of a mental leap, but it was also
much trickier. Helen learned that to move through the air she
couldn?t just flap her arms or kick her feet. She had to manipulate
the air around her. Lucas started to teach her how to command the
air, make it denser o
n one side and thinner on another so that a
tiny, Helen-sized current was created around her. When Lucas did
it, it seemed as if he were floating underwater. The wind didn?t
whip at his hair or clothes, but flowed around him, gently holding
him or quickly pushing him depending on how fast he wanted to
go.