The soft tinkling of Sky’s magic was bright against the crackle of her single candle—nearly as bright as the teal glow it cast over the inside of her tower.
She ran a tendril of magic over the variety of instruments before her, pausing now and then to squint at the numbers or tap on a stubbornly caught dial. Her brows crinkled ever so slightly, and the very tip of her tongue crept out from between her lips as she scratched cryptic notes in her logbook.
There was a storm coming.
Not a particularly big or dangerous one, she thought, but a storm nonetheless.
When you were on firewatch, storms were never really as bad as they were anywhere else. A good storm meant wet vegetation, which meant that the forest was less likely to burn, which meant a few days of sweet relief from constant vigilance.
Could it be a pain? Of course. Could a stray lightning bolt send the forest up in smoke anyway? Almost certainly.
But rain slowed the spread. Rain kept it contained. Rain made fire easier to bear.
Sky glanced over at her radio. She had already said goodnight to her friend, but she had an odd feeling that she would want the call.
Something had changed between them. It may have been hard to describe, but it was there, certain as the heat of the sun on your back.
Sky picked up the radio and pressed the button. “Hey,” she hissed. “Night. Still awake?”
She released the button and waited, but not nearly as long as she’d thought.
“Yeah,” Night mumbled. “What’s up?”
Sky smiled to herself. “It’s going to rain tomorrow. Our first real summer storm.”
Night let out a long sigh. The radio’s poor speakers made it sound like wind in the trees, or water over rocks in a river.
“I love the rain,” she said. Dark with near-sleep, but still with its own lightness and wist.
“Me too,” Sky agreed softly.
The pair was silent. Not even the static of the radio cut into the quiet of the night. In the silence, Sky could feel it; the pricking of her scalp as the pressure plummeted and the storm rolled in.
“Are you keeping the radio near your bed now?” Sky asked.
A pause. “What’s it to you?”
“You don’t have to do that,” Sky said, chuckling lightly and guiltily in equal measure. “I promise to quit being a pest.”
“Yeah, well…” Night nickered softly. “I think you’ve earned the right to pester me.”
Sky stifled a giggle. “You’ll learn to love it.”
Night did not reply.
Sky liked to imagine that Night was trying not to laugh herself.