He usually kept it hidden far below the surface, though. And selfishly, I was glad of it. I didn’t want to face his feelings for me. I didn’t want anything to change between us, not ever – because Seb and I just clicked, on every level. He really did feel like a brother: a soul-twin who’d somehow found me again, after a lifetime apart.

Blue. I imagined an airy light blue, like the sky on a summer’s day. As we sat outside in the courtyard, I focused only on my aura, lightly keeping the sense of oneness, of play. My aura shifted, its silver lights turning obediently to the colour of the sky. Somehow I kept myself detached, ignoring the distant pounding of my heart. For a change, Seb’s energy wasn’t bolstering me up, though I could feel him sitting nearby, silently willing me on.

Then a car alarm went off and I started; my aura snapped back to silver. When I tried again, I knew I’d totally lost the sense of light-heartedness – I’d have to go into aura-sparkler mode again to get it back. I sighed as I opened my eyes. Now that I’d reached this stage, Seb kept saying I needed to lock away the aura part of my mind and keep it separate, so that nothing could distract me, but I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it.

“You really are doing much better, you know,” he commented. We were at the picnic table again; Seb was sitting backwards on the bench with me up on the tabletop beside him.

“Yes, but—” I broke off, scraping my hands over my face. “Oh, argh. Why can’t I get this, when you can do it so easily? This is worse than being back in algebra class!”

“I learned when I was a small child – I think this made it much easier,” Seb pointed out mildly. He sat back against the table edge, propping his elbows to either side as he gave me a curious look. “You took algebra?”

I shrugged. “Not by choice. It was required.” I’d told Seb a lot about high school; like Alex, it was something he’d only seen on TV. I pulled my knees up, sitting cross-legged. “Would you have wanted to go, if you’d had the chance? To high school, I mean.”

A ripple of surprise, so that I knew the answer before he said it. “Yes, of course. Even if I’d felt alone there, the way you always did – I’d still like to know more than I do.” He pulled a wry face, like he didn’t want it to matter too much to him. “I could have learned how not to get caught at stealing, maybe.”