“Of course I know that, silly.” I tried to keep the sting of his words from showing. I had not actually thought of it. I was always with Victor. I had pictured us going to school together. The realization that I would not—could not—go with him rushed over my head like the lake waters closing around me. I struggled to get to the surface so I could take a breath and control how I was feeling.

“So you want to be separated from me?” His dark eyes flashed like lightning, and I knew a tremendous thunder would follow.

We had been inseparable for years, such that I did not know where he ended and I began. “No! Never. But I cannot go to school, which means you will have to learn enough for both of us and bring your knowledge back to me here. You will be like my own explorer, going off into the wilds to discover treasures for me. Please, Victor.” I was only eleven, but I wanted more. I had never thought of it before now, but the idea of having the freedom of a few hours each day had already sunk in deep, pulling at my lungs so I realized how suffocating my life had been.

I wanted to go with Victor. I could not. But if Victor left, no one would need me. At least for those few precious hours. And then he would return, and bring back more things I could learn.

All I had to do was make sure Henry and Victor got along. I beamed at Victor, already certain of my triumph.

Victor and I greeted Henry wearing all white, our hands clasped as a united front. Henry’s smile was shy, but it hid nothing. His round face was open and utterly incapable of deception. Where Victor was cold and removed from the world, and I was as deceptive as a sour strawberry, Henry was exactly as he appeared to be: the most pleasant boy in existence. Even his blue eyes were as clear as the lake on a summer day.

Part of me scorned him for his inability to hide his desperation to be our friend. He would have crawled on the floor and barked like a dog if we had declared that the game we wanted to play. He watched Victor with a hunger that made my teeth ache, it was so sweet. If my love of Victor was entirely selfish, Henry’s was the opposite.

And I, accustomed to viewing other people only in terms of what they meant to me, felt my heart crack open with the gap-toothed grin that split his face when he saw our discarded chest of play clothes. “Do you have any swords?” he asked, digging through them. “We can put on a play!”