Joon tore the robe off before he'd cleared the first rooftop.
He did it one-handed, balancing on the humming silver disc beneath his feet, yanking the cord loose and shrugging the pale cloth off his shoulders. It snapped away behind him in the wind and caught on the corner of a chimney and hung there, flapping, like a flag of surrender someone had forgotten to take down.
"Good riddance," Joon muttered.
He crouched lower on the disc and leaned into the turn, and the two spheres pressed together beneath his feet hummed louder, carrying him in a long, smooth curve over the burning city.
Underneath the robe, he'd worn his own clothes. Dark jacket, zipped to the collar. Heavy boots. Fingerless gloves, the leather worn soft across the knuckles. Little threads of blue light were already crawling across the backs of his hands, snapping between his fingers, the way they always did when his heart was beating this fast.
He scanned the streets below as he flew.
