Starcrossed

bicker. “You know what? I think they enjoy fighting,” she commented.
    “She’s your friend,” Hector said to her.
    “He’s your brother,” Helen said back.
    Then she heard the door slam. Lucas had left the room. Helen stood up and called after him, but she couldn’t leave the ring until Hector, her dojo master for the day, dismissed her. She turned to him and pleaded with her eyes.
    “You may be safe for today, but you’re still in a lot of danger, you know. I know you don’t like this, but you need to train. And anyway, it would be better if you just let him start hating you now, Helen,” he said heavily.
    “What are you talking about?” she asked, surprised that Hector could be so unfeeling.
    “Then chase after him if you have to,” he said, looking away. Helen bowed to him and ran out of the practice ring. “But it will only get harder,” he warned as she turned to close the door. She slammed it behind her to make her point . . . though she didn’t exactly know what that point was.
    She ran outside and heard a deep thunking noise coming from the tennis courts. She started to run and then realized that, duh, she could fly. Leaping into the air, she looked down to see Lucas in the tennis-courts-turned-arena, chucking spears at a target. He saw her and took flight, meeting her in the air.
    “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and looking down at a couple of people on the nearly empty beach below them. “Someone could still see us.”
    They flew high, going north to Great Point, where they could be alone. They touched down on the soft sand around the lighthouse and transitioned into two normal people walking on the chilly beach, holding hands. Lucas was still silent after a few moments so Helen decided to go first.
    “You know we were all joking around, right? I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if I did,” Helen told him.
    “You didn’t hurt my feelings,” he said, shaking his head and clenching his fists. “It’s much simpler than that. Much more basic. I hate seeing Hector on top of you. I’m jealous, Helen.”
    “Then you train me,” she said hopefully, and he stopped walking and turned away from her with a groan. “Wait, why not?” she persisted.
    “I’m a demigod, not a saint,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “There’s only so much I can take.”
    “Exactly. So, what can’t you take? Decide which of the two options is harder, and do the other. That way, no matter how hard your choice turns out to be, at least you can find comfort in knowing you’re avoiding something even worse,” Helen said logically. Lucas looked at her sidelong and smiled.
    “You give good advice, you know that?”
    “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve got my own agenda,” she said through a playful smirk.
    “You’re betting I’m going to choose to train you, aren’t you?” he asked, a laugh bubbling up in his chest.
    “Flat-out banking on it.”
    They walked along for a bit, smiling at their own thoughts. She could feel him struggling to make his decision, and she let him be. Then, finally, she felt him give in to something and take a deep breath.
    “The twins will still be teaching you archery and spears, and Hector will still be in charge of boxing and sword fighting, but I’m taking over for all the grappling disciplines. Just a warning, this could still be vetoed by my father and uncle, no matter what I say.”
    “Don’t I have any say?” Helen asked, slightly annoyed. “Castor and Pallas can’t tell me what to do. If I want you to train me, then why shouldn’t I get what I want?”
    “Um . . . maybe leave my family to me,” Lucas said good-naturedly, and Helen decided to let the subject drop. “Come on, we need to go back. I don’t like having you out in the open like this.”
    “Everything is so close,” Helen said as they hovered over the Delos lawn, still in awe over how fast and simple it was for her to get from one end of the island to the other. “Don’t you ever get sick of being stuck over Nantucket?”
    “I would if I was stuck,” he said wryly as they touched down in the backyard, “but I just went to New York the other day.”
    “You did! For what?”
    “Bagels. There’s this place out in Brooklyn that I love. It only takes me ten minutes at subsonic to get there.”
    Helen stopped dead when she realized what that meant.
    “You mean, any day at school, you and I can just fly to Boston and eat our lunches in Harvard Square and