Hello, and welcome to the second installment of the A Fix of Light read along! We've now read a whole 13 chapters, and we're approximately halfway through the book.

If you haven't read up to the end of chapter 13, beware of spoilers below! You can read the first post about Chapter 1 - 7 here.

This week, we have a tarot reading, confessions, best friends, LORE, a kiss (!!!), and a meddlesome crow. Among other things.

When we last left our heroes, they had overcome hurdle number one: the anxiety of letting someone new into your life. There's something here, and I can explore it, if I'm only brave enough to.

I don't know how universal that feeling is, but I've had moments in my life when I can actually sense the path diverging in front of me. I know that I need to make a decision, and the consequences are going to be significant. Not necessarily good or bad, just significant to the plot of my life (if it has one).

The two boys could have left the Wren's Nest and never reconnected. Hanan could have lost his nerve, and let Pax go. If he didn't take initiative and actively chase what it was he wanted, it would have slipped away forever.

Does that make either of them doomed? No, I don't think so. Another path would have opened up, eventually. But journeys are much more pleasant with company, no?

Speaking of good company, George gets a lot more page time in these chapters. She and Pax are besties, and contrast each other beautifully. She is stoic, steady, sure of herself. Pax has been cursed with a face that's easy to read, and he's still finding his footing.

In a book full of so much amorphous magic and metaphor, George is rooted firmly in reality. While Hanan and Pax are being swept up by the excitement of a new crush, and being more than a little reckless, George is on guard. If you're also caught up in rooting for the boys, you might think her reactions are a little much.

When he spotted George approaching, the smile that broke across his crooked face put her heart at ease. He was okay for another day. She felt like she was waiting for a bomb to go off, tense as all hell.

Of course, we then learn why she has been so on edge around Hanan. George met Pax early on in his metamorphosis, saw him become more comfortable in his own skin — but more than that, she's heard the stories of Pax's home life, she's watched him be attacked.

Though they don't come up explicitly in these chapters, we've already got the impression that Hanan's old friend group, and Cass, are on George's radar as Bad News. And I mean, she's not entirely wrong to be suspicious, is she? After all, Hanan hasn't been telling the whole truth…

Several things happen across the course of these chapters that bring Hanan and Pax closer together. We have the tarot reading, which leads to Hanan's big reveal, as well as Pax coming out to him as trans.

Both boys show literal scars — from top surgery, or self harm — as shorthand for experience and pain that runs deeper. Hanan shares more with Pax about the last year of his life, and we start to understand properly why it is that his perception of reality, and his internal narrative, seems so skewed.

We get our answer, now, too — it began as hallucination, but now, there really is magic at play.

Hanan doesn't have the perfect reaction to Pax coming out. Most people don't. It's not graceful, but that's down to a lack of experience and language, rather than an outright rejection, or an attempt to be hurtful. Pax is the first queer person he's met (besides George, though he doesn't know it), and there's a hint that Hanan hasn't had any access to an LGBTQ+ friendly space.

Queer. It didn't feel like a dirty word when the fox said it. It sounded fucking beautiful.

Pax is a little further along in his journey of self love and acceptance, but he's just as inexperienced with romance as Hanan. They spend one week away from each other, when Pax goes to Cork city with May, but even that seems endless, unbearable.

Especially since they had their first kiss right before Pax left.

It's clumsy! Awkward! Hanan runs away! Neither know what to do with these big intense feelings that just get more difficult to ignore the more the summer goes on!

But is it more realistic, this way? Rather than having an earth-shattering, fireworks exploding, movie kiss? To have the tension somehow not broken, but intensified, by the kiss? Instead of answering any questions about where they stand, and how they feel, it seems just as unclear, if not more so.

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It's only later, when they've fallen asleep in the same bed (only one bed trope except? by accident???) that either of them think of the word love.

Can we trust Hanan, though? He's still keeping secrets. He didn't set out to become Pax's friend for no reason; Pax has an effect that seems to be magical, a mute button for Hanan's powers. It does seem to have grown into more than that, sincerely, but still, how much of Hanan's feelings are for Pax, and how much are for what he can do?

And…what's up with Gerry? He nipped at Hanan's hand on the beach (another one for the tally), and seemed annoyed to find the boys in Hanan's bed, waking them with a screech. Possessive crow? Mayhaps…

Maybe we'll find out next week, when we discuss Chapters 14 -19. I'm sure nothing bad will happen, right?

Right?

Leave your discussions, questions, et al., below in the comments section, folks.