The castle balcony smelled like beeswax candles and warm stone, and Lila loved it. She and her friend Seb stood side by side, each holding an unlit paper lantern, waiting for the first star to appear. All around them, the festival lanterns glowed tangerine and gold, bobbing on their strings in the evening air.
"Ready?" said Seb, grinning so wide his cheeks crinkled. Lila touched her flame to the lantern's wick and felt the paper shiver as the warm air filled it up. She lifted her hands. She let go. Up, up — and then sideways. The lantern looped back and bumped the railing with a soft, papery thump. Lila blinked. She picked it up and tried again. Up, up — and then sideways. Back to the railing. Thump. Seb tilted his head. His lantern had sailed perfectly into the sky without even wobbling. Lila's was going in circles. "Strange," said Lila. She said it the way she always said it — quietly, like a door opening.
She lifted the lantern a third time. Up, up — sideways — thump. But this time she watched very carefully, and she saw the ribbon at the bottom of the lantern twitch. Not from wind. From something tugging it. Something small. Lila followed the lantern as it looped around the corner of the tower, her fingers trailing along the rough stone wall. The stone was still warm from the day's sun, gritty under her fingertips. The lantern pulled left. She leaned left. It dipped low. She crouched down.
And there, trembling in the very last crook of ribbon, was a moth. She was the size of a walnut, with wings the colour of old parchment, and one wing was wound tight in the lantern's ribbon — one loop, two loops, three. Every time the lantern rose, she rose with it. Every time it pulled, she pulled back. She was too frightened to make a sound. Her antennae quivered like two thin blades of grass in a storm. "Oh," said Lila. Very softly. "Hello."
She cupped the moth gently in both hands, feeling the faint flutter of wings against her palms, quick as a heartbeat. She sat cross-legged on the cold balcony tiles and began to work. One thread. Careful. Another thread. Careful. The ribbon was finer than she'd thought, and she had to hold her breath to keep her fingers steady. Thread by thread. Careful, careful. Lila whispered the whole time — nothing important, just the kind of soft sounds that say you're alright, I've got you, nearly there. On the balcony, she could hear Seb counting the lanterns rising into the sky. He was up to eleven. The last thread came loose. The moth sat still for one whole second, wings flat. Then she opened them — slowly, like a book — and stepped off Lila's finger into the air. Clem hovered. She looked at the lantern. She looked at Lila. Then she flew underneath the lantern and nudged it, once, with the top of her head, and the lantern began to rise. Clem nudged it again. And again. Up, up, up — no wobble, no sideways — straight into the darkening sky, a warm flickering dot trailing a moth-sized shadow.
Lila climbed back to the railing where Seb was waiting, his chin tipped up. She stood beside him and tipped her chin up too. Above them, fifty lanterns floated in the dark, gold and amber and pale yellow, and somewhere among them, one lantern moved just a little faster than the rest. The stone railing was cool under Lila's elbows. Seb's sleeve brushed her arm. Neither of them said anything. The sky was very full, and the night was just beginning.
