Zoning Violations

Leo sat on a bench in the park, staring at his blueprints.

He looked at the design for the lobby. *The Atrium.* The one the CFO had cried over.

He remembered what Thalia had said. *I didn't use a spell. I just nudged their empathy.*

She hadn't tricked them. She had just helped them see what was already there. She had believed in him.

He looked at the sky. The clouds were swirling over his apartment building. A beam of golden light was starting to break through the fog.

"She gave me hope," Leo realized aloud. "And I'm using it to let her go. That's stupid. That's incredibly stupid."

He checked his watch. Forty minutes had passed.

"No," Leo said.

He stood up. He started to run.

Naturally, because he was Leo, he tripped over a tree root immediately. He scrambled up, scraped his hands, and kept running.

He sprinted down Masonic Avenue. He dodged a cyclist. He jumped over a pothole.

"Thalia!" he screamed, bursting into his building.

He ran up the stairs. The door to his apartment was open. She was gone.

"Roof," he panted. "Roof."

He kicked open the fire door to the roof.

The wind was howling. The beam of light was a solid column of gold, illuminating Thalia. She was standing in the center of it, looking up. Her feet were lifting off the gravel.

"Thalia!"

She looked down. Her face was streaked with tears. "Leo? You came back?"

"Get down from there!" Leo yelled, shielding his eyes against the divine light.

"I can't!" she shouted over the wind. "The meter is full! Gravity is releasing me!"

Leo ran toward the light. He stopped at the edge of the beam. It crackled with energy.

He looked up at the sky.

"Hey!" Leo shouted at the clouds. "Zeus! Universe! Whoever runs this show!"

Thunder rumbled in response.

"You can't take her!" Leo yelled, using his architect voice—the one that convinced contractors to move load-bearing walls. "This is a zoning violation! You are encroaching on my heart! I have rights!"

Thalia laughed, a wet, choked sound. "Leo, you are arguing with the sky."

"I'm charming the sky!" Leo corrected. He looked at her. "Thalia, come down. Please. I don't care about the bad luck. I don't care if I trip every day for the rest of my life. I just want to trip *with you*."

"But my immortality!" Thalia cried. "If I step out, I become human! I’ll age! I’ll get wrinkles! I’ll have to pay taxes!"

"We have pizza," Leo offered. "And balsa wood models. And me."

Thalia looked at the golden light above her—eternal, perfect, boring.

She looked at Leo—messy, windblown, with a scraped knee and a desperate hope in his eyes.

"Eternity is boring," Thalia whispered.

She looked up at the sky. "Sorry, Dad! They don't have pizza up there!"

She grabbed the edges of the light beam like it was a curtain. And she stepped out.

The light vanished instantly with a sound like a vacuum cleaner being unplugged.

Gravity reasserted itself. Thalia fell.

Leo lunged to catch her.

He tripped over a vent pipe.

They collided in a heap of limbs on the gravel roof.

Thalia groaned. She sat up, rubbing her elbow. She shivered.

"Oh," she whispered. "That is cold."

Leo sat up, panic gripping him. "Are you okay? Did you break anything?"

Thalia looked at him. She touched her face. She touched his face. Her skin wasn't glowing anymore.

"I'm cold," she said, a smile spreading across her face. "And my elbow hurts. And I'm hungry."

She threw her arms around him.

"I'm human, Leo! It’s terrible! I love it!"

Leo held her tight, burying his face in her non-glowing hair. "You gave up forever."

"I traded it for now," Thalia said. "Besides, I have a feeling my luck is about to change."

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