Jason barely listens to the principal welcoming the out of town team, or the rest of the pre-game ... whatever... that they talk about. Okay, he doesn't listen to it at all. He resumes biting of nails of one hand, and clutches his orange with the other.

Metody isn't arguing with him about the sun, so he can stay.

The whistle blows, they start doing basketball. Playing it. Whatever. Jason scootches forward to the edge of the bleacher, worrying his thumbnail jaggedly as his eyes dart back and forth over the court.

The lines are important. On a solstice, the lines are really important, and the idiots on the court are enacting the sun's rising and sinking, rising and sinking, over and over again with their part of the sympathetic magic, and if they do it too many times it's going to be really bad. Jason is sure of this. He researched it for, like, a week.

He's half-forgotten Metody is there, and is watching the game with uncharacteristic fervor.