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In loving memory of my grandfather, Mike Lee,

who taught me to savor every joy in this lifetime,

and

for my daughter Nova,

to experience the full breadth of everything this universe (and any other) has to offer.

1 ❤ BRENDA

Apparently the big secret to life is that the universe hears everything you want: everything you put into it, all your hopes and dreams, every energy into every thought. So the more positively you think—the more energy you put into believing that your dreams are possible, the more motivation you have to go after them—the more the universe will respond in kind and make you more in tune to see those opportunities.

That’s why I came up with the Plan.

I think about it constantly, training my unconscious to put this energy out that I, Brenda Nguyễn, high school senior in a small no-name suburb, am going to save the world.

I know that I singlehandedly can’t stop an asteroid from hitting the earth, or save a school bus headed for a train, or whatever comes to mind when you think “save the world.” I know I don’t have superpowers or anything ridiculous like that. But there are supervillains out there—corrupt people and corporations destroying our planet, reducing the quality of life of people all over the world. And I know I can fight them, through science and collaboration with public policy and inspiring change at all levels.

But, of course, all plans have their snags.

The internet is out.

“Má, I need your car!” I say, trying not to panic as I dash to the front door.

Of all the days for the Wi-Fi to kick the bucket, of course it’s when my scholarship is due. This wouldn’t have been a problem, since I wrote my essay last week, but my last recommendation letter didn’t come in until today. Mr. Mendoza, my AP Bio teacher, mixed up the date of the deadline.

This past week was a hectic scramble—not that my life usually isn’t or that I can’t handle it. I can handle complicated; I have to if I want to become the next Shannon Mayfield, incredible scientist and green entrepreneur. Her clean energy breakthrough created the world’s first industrial factory with zero carbon footprint to make everyday household things.

I don’t particularly have a passion for sustainable soap, but Fields Forward offers a full scholarship to any four-year university for students studying environmental science and it includes a fellowship where you get academic credit to do research in their cutting-edge labs.

I need this scholarship. It ties in perfectly with the Plan:

BRENDA NGUYỄN’S ULTIMATE PLAN TO SAVING THE WORLD

13. Take all the AP science classes and PASS THEM

14. Write a killer personal statement

15. Apply for all the best colleges, including UCLA (the dream school!!!)

16. Apply for all available scholarships, including FIELDS FORWARD!!!

17. Use scholarships to pay for said dream school

18. Go to UCLA and do the ultimate research project at Fields Forward Industries

19. Invent something awesome and SAVE THE WORLD

Under Step 16 I have a sub-list for every scholarship; all of those are complete except one. But when I reminded Mr. Mendoza on Monday, he said, “Oh, of course, Brenda, I’ll get that to you by the deadline. Friday, right?”

“Wednesday at 6:00 P.M.,” I said, my relief at finishing the essay flying out the window.

“I promise, I’ll get it in. Can you email me the info again?”

Every problem is just another challenge, I reminded myself.

The week didn’t get better from there.

Everyone in concert band was freaking out about the upcoming competition, and I spent all of after-school practice helping the freshmen prepare. More Key Club volunteers signed up than expected for our next service trip, and I need to figure out options with the limited transportation. Three different vendors bailed for prom, and if I have to sit through another student council meeting squabbling over the musical tastes of the last DJs in Los Angeles in our budget I’m going to scream. This late in the game, we can’t afford to be picky. Yesterday I finally got everyone to agree on a DJ, and a florist signed the contract, so prom is back to smooth sailing.

And then regionals last night was almost canceled because of that 4.2 earthquake out in Inglewood early that morning. We had some shaking in second period, and Ms. Forsyth’s globe fell over, but nothing major at all happened, just the usual scientists freaking out and other scientists calming everyone down. Apparently the uptick in these moderate quakes this year are a good sign, according to the latest report out in Caltech. That the pressure in the San Andreas Fault is being released slowly, instead of all at once, which means the Big One may not come at all.

Anyway, we’re Angelenos and used to moving on with our lives despite earthquakes. And regionals went spectacularly; we won and Ms. Collette, our band director, was ecstatic. San Pablo High has never even qualified for the statewide music festival before, so everyone is excited.

But regionals were in downtown LA, so by the time I got home, I just passed right out. I’d brought my laptop to school to submit my essay first thing only to realize there was no letter.

“Right after school, I promise,” he said when I nudged him about it in class today.

I left band practice early after giving the freshmen some practice exercises and caught the first bus home. But no letter yet. I watched the site like a hawk while polishing my essay. There was a new article in Forbes featuring Fields Forward so I took the opportunity to reference it. Maybe Shannon herself would be reading the final essays.

At 5:27 p.m., I refreshed one more time and finally, finally, there are three recommendation letter icons instead of the two that have been plaguing me all week. Right under the wire. Thank you, Mr. Mendoza! I tried submitting the application, only to find the blank horror of zero bars of connectivity on my laptop display.

I wish I had a Wi-Fi hotspot on my phone or something, but the last time I asked Má, she said it wasn’t worth the extra expense if I didn’t need it all the time. But you can’t really predict when you would ever need something like this until it happens.

“Má! I’m taking the car to the library!” I shove my feet into my tennis shoes without undoing the laces, keys in my hand, backpack swinging from my shoulder; I’m all ready to go.

“Aiyah—slow down, you’re gonna trip or something!” Má calls from the kitchen. “Auntie Vân is going that way. Take your cousins, too; they’ve got nothing to do!”

“Má, nè!” I complain, stopping on the patio. “I don’t have time. I need to submit my scholarship before six!”

Auntie Vân hustles Jimmy and Stacey toward me. “The library is ten minutes away. And it’s across the street from the 99 Ranch. I can do the grocery shopping while you take the kids to the library,” she says.

No, no, no.

5:28. I don’t have time to argue.

“Fine, come on,” I mutter, jerking my head toward the car.

“Brenda’s driving? All right!” Five-year-old Jimmy’s face breaks into a wide grin.

My other cousin, Stacey, is twelve and is already too cool for everything. She rolls her eyes at me, tapping away at her phone, probably complaining to her friends how she has to hang out with her nerdy cousins.

By 5:32 we are all miraculously in the car.

“I think I’ll make bánh xèo this weekend. Do we still have basil at home?”

“Uh, I dunno.” I’m trying to concentrate, but my arms are shaking as I drive as fast as I can under the speed limit, and I can’t muddle through my toddler comprehension of my own language to parse through Auntie’s too-quick Vietnamese to mentally compare the herbs she’s asking about with what we have at home.

5:37. The light is still red. Great. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. The back of my shirt sticks to the car seat.

“Slow down!” Auntie Vân says, scowling as I veer right and take a shortcut across a gas station lot. “What are you doing? So dangerous!”

“Oooh,” Stacey says, and I can see her smirking in the back seat, the traitor.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter sheepishly, trying to concentrate as I pull into the parking lot. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Auntie Vân huffs, patting my shoulder. I tap my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as Auntie Vân seems to take forever getting out of the car, idling to tell Jimmy and Stacey to pick up some Vietnamese newspapers.

“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. I grip my lucky TARDIS key chain, fiddling with the familiar shape of the telephone booth.

“And Wilshire is backed up all the way to Sepulveda from downtown, looks like a loose pack of wyverns, if you’re heading westbound, stock up on extra fireproofing spells—”

What? I turn the volume up, frowning. A pack of … what? The radio crackles with static for a second.

“—a three-car pileup at Wilshire and Figueroa—”

I shake my head; I must have imagined it. Probably the stress. Better find a place to upload this essay and fast.

Finally Auntie Vân is out and waddling toward the 99 Ranch supermarket. I zip across the street and park at the library.

“I’ll meet you in the kids section in one hour!” I say, giving Stacey and Jimmy an admonishing look.

Stacey gives me a whatever face, but she takes Jimmy’s hand dutifully anyway, and they head toward the colorful children’s area of the library.

A bead of sweat drips down my brow as I look for an open place to turn in my essay—desk, couch, whatever—I’m not picky at this point. But there’s nothing. Every seat in the library is taken: kids chatting with their parents, people studying avidly with thick textbooks, seniors leisurely reading newspapers, each computer station occupied.

Fine. I can submit this essay standing.

I open my laptop, precariously balancing it on my other hand—

What in the—

The Wi-Fi symbol is grayed out.

I snap my laptop closed, taking in the 5:41 on the big wall clock. My eyes flit about the room, past the crowded computer stations, looking for an answer—

We are experiencing technical difficulties with our wireless connectivity server. If you would like to connect to the internet, please use one of the library computers. :)

The happy face at the end of the sign is mocking me. No. I have to get this essay submitted. Without scholarships, I won’t have a chance at affording tuition even if I get in. Another pang of anxiety streaks through me— I haven’t heard back from UCLA yet, and it’s driving me wild. I can’t— I can’t stay here in this cramped house with my mom and all my aunties and cousins. I’ve got big dreams and I’m getting out of here. I’m going to save the world. This is the next step of the Plan and I need to do it.

I bite my lip, thinking quickly as I power walk out of the library, my heart pounding rapidly against my rib cage. I have to find another option, and fast.

“It’s okay, there’s still time,” I mutter. I repeat it again until I’ve convinced myself. Do you hear me, universe? There’s still time. Please. I just need somewhere to connect, somewhere to sit—

I look down the street; should I go back to the car and try to drive somewhere? No, I don’t have enough time … My brain swirls with panic, and I can feel my nerves starting to fray with every thought, my heart racing and the worry and doubt starting to seep in. I can feel the thoughts starting to get away from me already; if I don’t turn in the scholarship and I don’t get any of the others I applied to, I’ll be stuck with no prospects of how I’m going to pay for college and the Plan is going to fall apart …

Focus. I need focus. And coffee.

Wait. This is Main Street—there’s a bunch of shops and diners and an indie coffeeshop or something like—yes! There. I see it: a sign shaped like a coffee cup, just down the street.

I run, my backpack bouncing against my back as I narrowly avoid pedestrians and an angry bicyclist who shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalk anyway.

Main Street is wider here; this is the old part of town. Oak trees that have seen better days line the pavement, and a big divider with dried, brown grass lies in the center of the street. BROWN IS THE NEW GREEN, the sign declares. Drought as usual.

The coffee cup sign stands out against the fading, long-out-of-business storefronts. There’s a shimmer of air pulsing around the sign, or maybe just the shop itself. Wow, it really is that hot. There’s no name on the sign; it must be new. Then again, I can’t remember the last time I was this far down Main Street. I exhale a sigh of relief at the hand-lettered OPEN sign at the front of the shop and push my way in.

The door jingles merrily as I enter; low jazz music plays softly, a light piano accompanying a wistful saxophone. There’s a polished grandfather clock standing proudly in the corner, whose hands tell me I still have at least ten minutes. I can feel my panic start to subside. As my eyes adjust to the soft, warm light of the coffeeshop, I notice immediately that it’s empty. A small place, with a couple of booths along one wall, a few round tables, and some squashy armchairs in the corner. Perfect.

I set down all my things and head to the counter, blinking at the chalkboard menu. It looks incredibly complicated. Apparently people must customize their drinks all the time. The shop’s flavors are cute, themed around moods or something, like “Slow Me Down” or “Rewind” or “Wake Me Up.”

“Espresso, espresso, espresso…,” I mutter to myself, but I can’t find it anywhere on the menu.

“Be right there with you,” says a voice underneath the counter. I can only see a blue baseball cap as its owner’s head digs for something. “You know what you want?”

I don’t have time to decipher this menu or to chitchat about this coffeeshop’s hipster specials. My heart is skyrocketing with panic, and words start tumbling out of me. “Sorry, I’ve never been here before, but can I just do an iced coffee with two shots of espresso…”

“You want a Pick-Me-Up? House special.”

“Sure, I just need to get this done … I’ve got a scholarship deadline in the next ten minutes so I gotta…”

The voice is amused. “No worries. I’ll bring it to you.”

I set a twenty on the counter before darting back to my table. “Thank you so much! Keep the change!”

There’s an unsecured network called Mr. Freezy’s, which I don’t think twice about connecting to. I exhale with relief when I see the connection symbol light up. I roll my shoulders back, load up the Fields Forward website, and log in. I can do this.

I set my TARDIS on the table for luck. I fly through the digital application, doing a quick review of my short answers and making sure all the files are uploaded correctly.

A silvery mug is set down next to me. I take a generous sip. It’s some heavenly concoction of espresso and iced coffee. There’s a hint of vanilla and cinnamon, and something else, a bright flavor that makes me perk up right away. No wonder it’s the house special; it’s amazing.

A calming peace settles over me. The music is a soft, constant murmur, quick and encouraging, and with every sip of my coffee, I have new determination to finish.

5:56.

I give the whole application one more once-over and then press SUBMIT. The website reloads, and I get a cute thumbs-up image and a canned confirmation message. I slump back in my chair. Done.

I close my eyes, watching a swirl of colors dance behind my eyelids, counting slowly. I can relax for a little; only a minute, and then I’ll get out my to-do list and evaluate what else needs to get done tonight.

Thank you, universe.

There’s a laugh, bright and tinkling. “Wow, when you said you really needed to get it done, you meant it. You finish?”

I throw my arms into the air and whoop victoriously.

There’s a chuckle. “Congrats.”

I open my eyes and look up right into a pair of bright brown eyes, warm with amusement. Wow, really, thank you, universe. The girl is incredibly cute, with a heart-shaped face and a smile that seems perpetually sunny. Wisps of black hair escape from her baseball cap, framing her face with soft tendrils. “I’ve never seen you here before. You go to Devonsford?”

“San Pablo.”

“Mm-hmm,” the girl says, drawing out the sound thoughtfully. “I’m Kat.”

“Brenda,” I say, suddenly nervous.

Kat grabs the chair next to me and spins it around. She’s wearing a white crop top and baggy vintage denim overalls, revealing an expanse of golden-tan skin at her side as she sits astride the chair backward and regards me with a grin.

I can’t think of anything else to say, even though I know I’m known for rambling and usually saying too much. I rack my brain for something, anything to say, something cool, but the only thought running through my head is cute girl cute girl cute girl, and I keep getting distracted by the slope of her bare shoulders, the easy warmth of her smile.

Kat glances at my empty cup and smiles. “You like the Pick-Me-Up?”

“Yeah, definitely, thank you.” I give her a sheepish smile in return. “What’s in that, by the way? It’s really good. I feel like it was exactly what I needed.” I’m not lying. It was like magic—the calmness and focus that settled over me as soon as I took a sip.

Kat grins. “It’s my specialty. Technically the shop specialty, but I find that Pick-Me-Ups aren’t always effective if you add sugar, so I used vanilla instead, and I added a shot of Willpower, too. Looks like you needed it.”

She slides my money back to me across the table. I glance at the slightly crumpled green bill sitting on a paper menu I hadn’t noticed earlier. Sammy’s Coffee and Pick-Me-Ups it reads across the top.

“No, seriously, keep it and the change,” I insist. “You literally just saved me right now.”

One of Kat’s overall straps slips off her shoulder, dangling as she shrugs. “Don’t worry about it; it’s on the house. Plus, you finished your scholarship, and it’s your first time here.”

I can feel blood rush to my face as I try not to stare at the high, rounded curve of her biceps, and I glance back at my laptop quickly, trying to resist the urge to clap my hands to my face to hide. I always turn bright red when I’m embarrassed—or interested in someone. I hope I’m not too obvious.

Kat doesn’t seem to notice, just gestures at my keyboard, lifting an eyebrow. “This is cool. Where’d you get it?”

“Huh?” I glance at my keyboard cover. It’s a bit dirty, but the bright neon green is still visible and looks absurdly bright in the soft warm colors of the coffeeshop. “Oh, that was a present from my friend Erica. She knows I’m a klutz and was like ‘this way you can be cute and in the event you spill something, you won’t totally ruin your life.’”

I pick at the cover, lifting the corner a little to show it’s removable. “So, ah, you go to Devonsford?” The high school across town is one of San Pablo’s bitter rivals; even though we’re both public schools, Devonsford is in a much nicer area of town.

“Yeah,” Kat says. “It’s not bad. I used to go to San Pablo, but I transferred a couple months ago to Devonsford.” She shrugs. “My dad’s happy; they’ve got the best advanced spelling program in the city.”

I nod. I knew competitive spelling bees were a thing, but I didn’t know you could take a class in it. But I definitely know all too well about trying to get into all the advanced classes, even though my mom says she’ll always support whatever I want to do, I still feel that pressure. To make her proud. To show that her sacrifices were worth it. “Are you first or second gen? My grandparents came over in the ’80s when my mom was a kid, so technically I think that makes me second gen since I was born here.”

Kat chuckles. “I always get first and second confused. Like, are you first gen if you’re born here or when you settle?”

I nod. “One of my cousins just took an Asian Am class in college and there’s even a 1.5 gen—that would be my mom.”

“The Woos have been here since the first Chinese immigrants came over to work on the railroad,” Kat says with a shrug. “Dreams of the Gold Mountain and all that.”

“Oh wow. That must be so cool, to be connected to all of that history and hear all the stories!” My own family history feels so abrupt, like we were lifted up by a storm and had to start anew. My grandparents hardly ever talk about the war, and I can barely hold a conversation with them in Vietnamese. It must be nice to be able to connect with family members who have had more generations here.

Kat blinks and looks away quickly. “Oh, I only know a little of that. I don’t really have a lot of family left on my mom’s side.” She taps my laptop, quirking her eyebrows at me. “So what was your scholarship thing about?”

“Oh, just, like, what I plan to do in college and why they should select me specifically for this scholarship.”

“And what do you want to do?”

“Save the world, basically.” I laugh a little, trying to play it off as a joke, but really, that’s what I want to do. I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud before.

Kat doesn’t laugh or give me any sort of patronizing that’s nice expression. She tilts her head, regarding me. “Okay. How are you gonna do that?” The question seems exactly what it is: honest curiosity.

I plunge forward, emboldened by her gaze, and begin talking animatedly about the Plan. I’m already on Step 7 and how I realized in AP Chem that through science I could make a difference when I realize Kat is actually paying attention. Most people’s eyes gloss over if I get this far in the spiel, but she’s leaning forward, listening with interest. There’s a little furrow in Kat’s forehead as she knits her eyebrows together, and a hint of a smile on her lips.

This … is new.

I feel flushed with the attention and lose my train of thought, fumbling through the rest of the Plan. How do I explain Step 11 again? She is so cute, those eyelashes, damn.

She’s staring at me. I stopped talking. Right.

“Yeah, so, I just want to make a difference,” I mumble awkwardly.

Kat shakes her head. “When do you sleep?”

“I sleep,” I insist. At least five hours. Okay, maybe more like four.

“You just told me you’re part of marching band and the school paper and the president of like three different clubs—”

“Only one—I’m the vice president of the honor society—”

Kat snorts. “Yes, college is all well and good, but you’ve got to be in one piece when you get there, you know? It’s cool, though, you want to be a … scientist?” She scrunches up her face, like she’s still processing everything. “Not many people can pull that off, and you’ve got a twelve-step program and everything.”

“Nineteen.”

I like her laugh, how she throws her head back and her whole body shakes with mirth.

“Sounds like a helluva plan,” Kat says. “Just make sure you make time to have some fun in there.” The corner of her mouth quirks up, like she’s holding back a smile just for herself and she knows all the secrets in the world.

She leans in closer, and I take a slight breath, hoping to be unnoticeable. She smells like freshly ground vanilla beans.

“Okay,” I say, swallowing back the urge to giggle nervously. The only thing I can think about is how cool she is, how she didn’t laugh at the Plan, how I could never in a hundred years pull off how casually confident she is.

I fiddle with my hair self-consciously. “So, um. Fun. What do you—do you like to do?” Way to go, Brenda. You’ve definitely impressed her now, what with your endless rambling about the Plan and your dorky goals.

Kat grins at me, tipping the chair forward and leaning back and forth casually. She shrugs. “Lots of things. Walk around the pier, people watch. Mess around with runes and come up with my own spells.”

“Cool, like Dungeons & Dragons stuff?” I can’t help grinning excitedly at her. I love Dungeons & Dragons; I even have my character sheet and notebook in my messenger bag right now—you never know when you might have inspiration or when your friends want to do a one-shot.

Kat lifts her eyebrows at me in surprise. “You think it’s cool?”

“Well, yeah,” I say, giving her a small smile. Of course, I’d never admitted this to someone I just met. There are certain expectations at school on what’s cool and what isn’t. But I bet if anyone met Kat and her effortless confidence they’d think Dungeons & Dragons was cool, too.

Kat leans closer, her eyes sparking with interest as she listens.

I can’t help but giggle, a thrum of nerves rushing through me. “My friends and I play every week. We get into so much trouble, but it’s fun! One time our party came up against a red dragon and I nearly died like three times, but—”

Kat’s eyes widen. “You got away? Dragons are so—”

I nod, thrilled. I haven’t gotten to geek out like this in forever. “Yeah, I know, right? Luckily I had some great spells handy, and I made one that Erica actually approved of and I had just leveled up, so.” I blush, but that had been a really difficult campaign, and I’m proud of how it came out.

“Whoa,” Kat breathes. “That’s amazing. I’ve never met anyone who’s encountered a dragon before, let alone anyone else my age who writes their own original spells. I’d love to hear more—”

The bell over the door chimes again, and a few people walk in, laughing and talking with one another. They look like they’re coming from dress rehearsal but for three different plays. Maybe there’s a convention in town I didn’t know about. I can’t place what characters they’re supposed to be or even what time period the clothes are: One woman looks like she’s wearing some sort of steampunk-inspired tweed business look with snappy suspenders, and another is in a corset and flowing skirt.

Kat waves at them and glances back at me with a sigh. She stands up, pushing the chair back into the table. “I gotta go take this,” she says, jerking her head at the customers. “You gonna be here awhile?”

“I have to go pick up my aunt and my cousins,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “But I could come back Saturday? Do you want to hang out then?”

Kat’s eyes sparkle. “I’m off Saturday. I can meet you here if you want to have coffee?”

“So, it’s a date?” The last word comes out as a high-pitched squeak, and I clap my hands to my mouth in embarrassment. “I mean, if you want it to be…?”

“Oh!” Kat says, looking nervous for the first time. She looks down at her feet, and then back at me. “Yes, I’d love that.”

“That sounds great,” I say.

A slow, pleased smile blooms across her face, and I know there’s a goofy grin on my face as well. Excitement courses through me; I know I’ve got work to do, lists to write and rewrite and check off, but a few hours with Kat seems like the best thing in the world right now.

We stare at each other for a few seconds, and then the moment is broken when one of the customers coughs.

“I have to go, but I’ll see you Saturday,” Kat says. “Is four okay?” She takes a napkin off the table, scribbles hastily on it, and hands it to me. “I might have to pick up a shift in the afternoon, but I’ll definitely be done by four.”

I nod, tucking the napkin into my pocket for safekeeping, the reality of a date still kicking in. I accidentally knock over the chair as I stand up and apologize, trying to pick it up.

Kat laughs, helping me tuck the chair back in and our hands meet in a brush of warmth.

“Saturday,” she says.

“Saturday.” It’s a promise, the hope of something new and exciting in my usual routine. I can’t wait.

I gather up my things in a daze. I pause at the door and catch her eye as she waves at me. I wave back with a giggle, then turn to face the window with a smile before I make a fool of myself. Outside, I can see wind rustling through the green grass by the street, and everything is beautiful and peaceful—

Wait.

Green grass?

I stare; the sidewalks are lined with overgrown, tall grass. Looking down Main Street, the whole road is lined with lush oaks rustling with thick, waxy green leaves, willows swaying in the wind, tall leafy plants I can’t name, all of it bursting with life on the narrow meridian in the middle of the street.

I open the door and step out just as a dry, hot wind rushes by, whipping my hair into my face. I cough and splutter and when I look up, all I can see is the same old dry and dusty meridian, parched earth and long-dead weeds.

Huh. It’s so hot I must be seeing things.

My phone beeps with several texts. I must be late.

I race toward the library, making it to the end of the block in record time.

A storefront window reflects a hot blast of sunlight into my face. I squint and turn back toward the row of faded shops where Sammy’s Coffee and Pick-Me-Ups was. The giant coffee cup sign is faded and hanging at a strange angle—huh, that’s weird. It looked brand new to me earlier, but I was so stressed and distracted, I probably missed it.

Stacey stands up from the library front steps. “Where have you been? Mom’s been texting me nonstop for the last few minutes,” Stacey says.

“I said an hour,” I say, scowling.

“Yeah, well Mom said whenever she was done shopping, so—”

I look down at Jimmy, who’s holding a tote bag full of books and beaming. “What’d you get?”

“This one is about a dog who goes to space and this one is about a cheese monster and—”

We get in the car, and I tune out Stacey’s negativity and listen to Jimmy’s excitement about his new books as we drive across the street. Pulling up to the grocery store, I spot Auntie Vân in a comfortable squat, looming protectively over all her grocery bags at her feet like a mother hen. She waves me over and tsks at me for being late as I hop out to help her load the bags.

“Did you finish your work?”

“Yes, thank you,” I say, stashing the last bag securely in the trunk.

“Good, good.” Auntie Vân wipes away sweat from her brow. “You took so long I got worried! Good thing I found this shade.”

The flimsy tree barely casts a shadow; it’s mostly dry branches, withering in the drought like everything else.

I think about that moment at the coffeeshop, seeing all that greenery exploding out of the ground, like the plants had so much water and nutrients they didn’t know what to do except grow.

It’s a ridiculous concept. We’ve been in a drought since before I was born. The city hasn’t watered those meridians in years.

I must have imagined it.

2 ❤ KAT

I’m awake, but I don’t have to be. I know the alarm went off, but there’s nothing really happening in school today. Maybe a test in history, but I’m getting a passing grade, even if barely. Dad can deal.

My bed is a warm cocoon of happiness, and I curl in closer, tugging my blanket around me and enjoying the warm morning sunlight flowing through my windows. I think about the girl I met yesterday, all bright eyes and sharp focus.

Mmm. Brenda. She was cute.

“KATHERINE! YOU’RE LATE!”

School. Ugh.

I pull the covers over my head, rolling into a ball; maybe Dad won’t notice I’m still here.

The door bursts open with a clang, and I can hear his heavy footsteps stomp into the room. “Aiyah, get up, it’s already 8:50! You’re lucky I had to come back from the shop and grab more supplies. I can give you a ride to school on the way back, that way you won’t miss too much class.”

He pulls the covers off me, and I grumble, bringing my knees up and hugging my pillow. “I’ll just”—I make a vague gesture with my hand, almost completing the rune for a quick custom transport spell—“be there in a sec.” It takes about twenty minutes to walk to school, twenty minutes I could be spending sleeping.

The pillow is yanked out of my arms, and I make a noise of protest, but I don’t have anything to hide behind anymore. Reluctantly, I open one eye.

Dad’s hands are on his hips. The sunlight bounces off his big bald head, and I amuse myself watching the rays dance about. Sam Woo (no relation to the famed barbecue mogul) is tall and broad-shouldered and powerful-looking, a guy most people assume is a bouncer or wyvern wrangler or bodyguard, but no one ever guesses he loves brewing coffee and baking pastries. Which he should be doing right now, not hovering over me and trying to get me to go to school where they can’t teach me anything I haven’t learned already.

I hate Devonsford. I hate that Dad keeps pushing me to take Advanced Spelling, never mind that you only need Basic and Intermediate to graduate from high school. When I transferred to Devonsford after the Pineapple Incident, Ms. Applebaum, the school counselor, happily informed me I was accepted automatically if I wanted to take it. I hated her fake sugary-sweet “I bet your mother would be so proud!” speech. I hate that they didn’t bother with the entrance test even with my string of dismal grades back at San Pablo.

I signed up for Basic Spelling just to see her face. She couldn’t argue that I didn’t need a Spelling class to graduate, and I’d failed three of them on purpose back at San Pablo.

I flop over, smooshing my face into the mattress, hoping that Dad will just go back to the shop.

“You get out of bed right now, and I don’t wanna hear about you doing that transport spell or wasting money on teleportation charges. You should be walking every day to school. It’s barely a mile!”

He has absolutely no sympathy for sleepy teenage girls. Especially his daughter, who’s racked up a series of multiple parent-teacher conferences where Ms. Applebaum convinced him if I don’t apply myself, I’m going to “waste my potential.”

Ugh. School is a waste of time. I’ve been at this one three months and already I know there’s nothing there worth going for. I literally have nothing to look forward to.

The prophecy made sure of that.

Then again … I do have a date Saturday.

Brenda.

I think about how enthusiastic she was about spells—I roll off the bed, a little less disgruntled now, but I keep up the act just to rile Dad up. I take my time, groaning all the while, and Dad repeats my groans with high-pitched mockery, following me around the room while I shift through clothes in my clean pile on the floor. Or maybe it’s the dirty pile, I don’t remember.

He’s already got a lecture going about spellwork, and I nod along blearily as I rummage for an outfit. “You need to save your energy, you know that, and you don’t even have your license yet! Operating original spells of that magnitude is dangerous, especially when you’re young and still learning control!”

I’ve already used my custom travel spell three times this week, but what Dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Yeah, I definitely threw up afterward the first time and was pretty out of it for all of first period, but it was definitely worth it to me.

Sleep, man. It’s the best.

Plus, I know what I’m doing.

I know using original spells can be dangerous—magic itself is dangerous—and there’s really no need to. For over a hundred years, ever since the Mayfield Breakthrough, people can cast spells without the danger or the energy cost to themselves. No need to remember every single rune or do the complicated programming and calculations necessary for channeling raw mana, and no risk of getting hurt in the process. Magic is a convenience, a given in our world, and there’s no need to know how it works. And most people don’t want to. It’s the question asked by every teenager in Basic Spelling: “When am I ever going to need to use this in real life?”

But the first time I cast a simple levitation spell that I wrote, rune by rune, a thrill lit up inside me. It had been like nothing I had felt before—the buzz of warm energy that gathered in the air, the tingling sensation as the words I spoke became tangible, heavy, and it seemed like for a moment the universe had been watching, waiting, and then—that energy did exactly what I asked it to. The jar of coffee beans levitated from the shelf to the counter.

I was eleven, but I remember it like yesterday, catching my breath like I’d just sprinted across the room. “That’s my bou bui,” Mom said proudly, beaming at me.

It had been hard work—calculating the weight of the jar of coffee beans, the distance from the shelf to the counter, offsetting the force of gravity and the humidity of the air, all those little details written out in careful runes on a spellsheet and then activating it with a chosen command—but it was worth the satisfaction to know that I’d done it.

“You can do anything,” Mom said.

Mom would have laughed at the Pineapple Incident. She would have encouraged me to perfect the travel spell, would have tested it alongside me.

“Katherine, are you even listening to me?”

I give Dad a sarcastic thumbs-up and grab yesterday’s trousers off the floor and mismatch it with an unlaced bodice I wear over my chemise. There’s something in the pocket, and I can’t help grinning as I trace my fingers over the weight of it. Brenda forgot it, and it looked important, some sort of focus object, maybe. The blue thing looked familiar somehow, but I don’t remember where I’ve seen it before.

I keep it in my pocket to remind myself something good is coming this week. I head to the bathroom to change and brush my teeth, ignoring Dad’s grumbling outside.

My hair is hopelessly tangled; I won’t have time to do anything much, especially if Dad is in a rush to get back to the shop. I try to brush through it and it catches in a snarl.

Mom’s portrait sits in a frame on the dresser. People keep saying I look more and more like her every day. She smiles at the camera, her hair smooth and shiny and perfect.

Bitterness rises in my throat; I’d already been thinking about her because of the travel spell, and now I let the memories wash over me, how Mom would help me do my hair, brushing it every night before I went to sleep. Every few months she would sit me down in the bathroom and gently take scissors and trim it while she sang to me, even though there were plenty of instant spells for haircuts that you could buy anywhere.

I haven’t cut my hair in ages. I haven’t had the heart to let anyone else touch my hair, and the thought of some standard runebook spell doing it for me makes me nauseous.

I take a deep breath and just pull it into a messy ponytail and head downstairs.

Dad is waiting in the kitchen already, a big box in his arms full of the spells he was bottling all weekend. I’d helped, too.

I proudly peer inside at the little glass vials and their glowing contents.

He swats my reaching hand away. “No. These are for our customers.”

“Please?” I whine. “All the Pick-Me-Ups we have here are, like, a month old.”

Dad shakes his head, so I scowl and turn around. I grab my box of cereal from the cupboard, reach in, and pull out a handful of flakes, tossing them in my mouth. I crunch noisily as I sort through our own collection of vials in the pantry. There’s a few more at the back of the shelf, but we go through them quick, especially me.

I grab two. One of the Pick-Me-Ups is labeled in my messy scrawl and looks shoddy next to my Dad’s neat block letters. They’re still glowing, but barely, the viscous contents of the spell weakly shimmering as I shake them.

I uncork the bottles and toss them down my throat. It’s like trying to swallow a slug. This type of concentrated potion keeps pretty well, but if you don’t use them while they’re fresh, they’ll start thickening, and they get pretty gross.

Also, downing it with a mouthful of cereal is a bad idea. I grimace but swallow the mess anyway.

As soon as the magic touches my throat I feel alert, ready.

Dad clucks his tongue at me. “Where’s your backpack?”

Right, like I need it. Though I did start an epic caricature of Mr. Vega the other day, which could be fun to finish. By the time I grab my bag and am out the door, Dad’s already powered up the horseless carriage and is gesturing at me to hurry up.

I roll my eyes, taking my time as I casually stroll to the curb.

He shakes his head as I clamber into the car. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

Dad sighs, pressing the quick sequence of runes on the dash that activate the spells that power the car. I sit back and watch the runes light up.

I shrug.

There’s a serious look on his face, and I brace my shoulders. I know what’s coming.

“You’re a Woo. You know what that means?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Our family is distinguished, respected. This whole habit of sleeping in—”

“School is pointless, Dad.”

“People look up to you; I know it’s a lot of weight on your shoulders, but our world relies on magic and the mages that channel it. It’s getting harder and harder every day with the mana surges. We have a legacy in this town, everybody knows us, and you have a responsibility—”

“I know, I know, get into a good university and become a contributing member of society, use my talents, don’t waste them,” I recite in a monotone.

“I’m serious, Katherine. Your mother would be disappointed with your attitude. Devonsford is a highly respected school, has the best spelling programs in the district. You’re lucky they accepted your transfer after the Pineapple Incident. You need to show commitment, be on time—”

A cold, angry chill washes over me. “Mom died doing her duty to society. I don’t think anyone knows what she’d think of my attitude, now do they?”

“That’s not—you know that’s not fair,” Dad says quietly. “I just—” He sighs, crossing his arms.

Both of us stare silently out the window. It’s been three years, and every time he brings Mom up, it’s never to talk about her. I have so much to ask, so much I want to know. I wanted to talk about her right after it happened, how I missed the smell of her perfume, the muttering from her home office as she worked on her research, the way she insisted we get dim sum every Saturday morning. She’d wave dramatically at the ladies pushing the carts around the restaurant until they’d bring her favorites: steaming hot cha siu bao and crunchy fried shrimp wrapped around sugarcane and soft velvety long noodles stuffed with green onions and spiced beef.

I miss her so much it’s like an ache inside me all the time, and sometimes I don’t think Dad gets it. He’s supposed to, right? He loved her. I don’t understand why every time he talks about Mom it’s always about duty or that damn prophecy.

I close my eyes. I can hear those words like I’ve never stopped hearing them. The words have followed our family around all my life, and up until three years ago, I’d been proud; my whole family was so, so proud. The last lines in the English popularized translation echo in my brain:

When One Woo Magick is Beset,

Either mage or Ritual’s end be met.

Scholars have long debated over what it means, but the accepted theory is since my ancestor Jìngyi Woo was a cornerstone of the first Ritual—only a Woo from that direct bloodline could end the devastating and costly work that keeps all the untapped mana from obliterating the city. It’s the greatest honor a mage can hold, to be one of the cornerstones of the Ritual. But channeling all that mana … if it doesn’t kill you, it leaves you an empty, hollow shell, as if you’ve aged a hundred years in a day.

It used to be every ten years the Ritual had to be recast, then seven, then five. It’s barely been three years since the last Ritual, but there’s already talk about how the Mages’ Council needs to do something again, and soon. The tremors and the smaller quakes building up, and the increasing unrest of if turning into when, the mana surges, the pixie infestations—they’re all signs that something big, something terrible, is going to happen if we don’t find a way to keep the Ritual intact and disaster at bay.

Dad doesn’t talk about the prophecy; he doesn’t have to. It hangs between us like a thick weight in the air. I don’t say anything, just let the silence and the expectation fester into sour, stagnant air.

Once we get to campus, I slip out of the car without so much as a goodbye.

“Have a good day, Katherine!” Dad calls from the window.

“Mom always called me Kat,” I mutter under my breath.

Dad used to call me that, too, ruffle my hair and call me his Kat, his sweetheart, his bou bui. I’d pretend to be annoyed with the pet names, but I loved the feeling of being special to him. Now it’s just Katherine, like he’s trying really hard to treat me like an adult. It’s like without Mom he doesn’t know how to be Dad anymore.

It was supposed to be her. She was the Chosen One.

She dedicated her life to researching the foundation of mana flow and the root of the problem, and when her turn came, she thought she could fix it. We all did. All the problems we’ve been having, the increased wyvern activity, the pixie swarms, the untapped mana growing wild and rampant, threatening to destroy all of Los Angeles … she was destined to stop it.

But it stopped her.

Now I’m the only one left of this bloodline.

It’s so unfair. How the Ritual just wastes lives and potential. Everyone is looking at me to solve this problem, and I don’t want a thing to do with it.

Fuck destiny.

Unfortunately, with everyone already in class, there are staff patrolling the halls, ready to hand out detentions.

I barely avoid the principal just as she turns the corner. I dash down the hallway and duck into the dark Spelling classroom, lit dimly by the projector.

Mr. Vega is still calling roll, tapping with a bored finger at his runebook.

“Rodriguez, Anthony?”

“Present,” Anthony says, not even looking up from his novel. I see he’s brought two more books today. Ambitious.

I slip into the seat closest to the door, waiting for my name. A few eyes flick my way, but most of the class is already tuned out, busy with their runebooks or chatting with one another.

Basic Spelling is known to be a boring requirement. Most kids take it freshman year and move on; I’m one of the few seniors in this class, along with other known troublemakers who failed and are repeating it for the first or second time.

Well, aside from Hannah Diệp, who’s doing an independent study helping out as a TA. She’s sitting at the front at her own desk, quietly grading papers, her short pink hair swaying under her headphones as she bobs to her music. Probably some K-pop, but then again, I don’t really know what she’s into these days. Hannah catches my eye and gives me a small smile, and I look away quickly.

Hannah and I used to be best friends. I remember long afternoons playing idleball in Hannah’s backyard and giggling as we tried to use Dad’s ingredients to bake cupcakes, her confiding in me about her crushes, both of us realizing we liked girls at the same time. We’d tried an awkward kiss once when we were twelve, and immediately made faces at each other and laughed until our stomachs hurt.

And then Mom died.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, skipping school and spending all day in bed or staring morosely out at the pier. I ignored Hannah’s runebook calls and hid in my room when she came over. And then the Diệps moved across town, Hannah transferred to Devonsford, and it was easy to just … let it go.

I didn’t know how to be who I used to be anymore, didn’t know how to be fun or a good friend, and it wasn’t worth bringing her down with me. And then there was the prophecy looming over my head.

Vega made a point my first day here to tell me he also teaches Advanced Spelling, and runs a spellcraft study group during lunch hour if I ever wanted to stop by. After a couple of intentional failed tests, he stopped asking me about transferring.

So far his teachings have consisted of lectures and long slideshows on magical theory and history from books. Of course, we do not practice magic at all.

“Woo, Katherine,” Vega finally wheezes.

“Here.”

I flip open my notebook to my drawing and study the slope of his nose and contemplate how best to convey his bushy eyebrows. Yesterday we were doing basic runes. Boring.

“Today we will finish up our review of rune development from various global magical systems to one standard in spellcraft before we move on to how significant events in Los Angeles shaped the way we use spells today.” Vega grins brightly at that. “Quite a bit of local history, which will be fun and exciting.”

No one responds. I’m already thinking about pineapples and the prank I’ve been meaning to pull off here at my new school. I’m sure I’ve figured it out this time and it’s going to be majestic.

“Manual spellcasting was made practically obsolete outside of academic research when Richard Mayfield invented the process of precasting spells in a tangible form for later use. A process known as the Mayfield Breakthrough.” Vega glances around the classroom. “Can anyone share why this was such a technological marvel? Joseph? How about you?”

Joe, who I know from many a detention, looks up, squinting. “Uh, because it made it easy?”

“Exactly,” Vega says, nodding. “Mayfield revolutionized spellcraft by making it accessible to everyone, not just trained mages. People no longer required many years of extensive study to cast simple spells, but could purchase and use the conveniences of magic without the risk or danger of channeling raw mana themselves.”

I’ll show them just how obsolete manual spellcasting is. Chuckling to myself, I tune out the lesson. Brenda thought my spellcrafting was cool. I frown, checking my runebook. I don’t have any messages from her. I didn’t expect her to call, but a hello would have been nice. I gave her my namekey; I thought she would use it. Everything about her is intriguing, from the blithe way she was talking about dragons to the weird runebook she had to the super-detailed plan to save the world.

I bet Brenda would be really impressed if I could get this pineapple thing to work perfectly. Devonsford has the same sad excuse for pineapple pizza that San Pablo did, and three tiny chunks of pineapple does not a satisfying slice make. I turn to the last page where I’d been working on the spell and get to work.

The original spell that got me kicked out of San Pablo was pretty ambitious, because replicating food technically violates the principles of magic. You can’t create something out of nothing. I could stretch the matter present, though. But the more I duplicated, the less it would taste like pineapple. Completely defeating the purpose of casting said spell in the first place.

Back at San Pablo, I’d been working on the spell for weeks when I’d figured out how to account for the taste. I’d anchored the spell to the sugar supply back at the shop, and then added a full charge from the shop’s mana cache. But I’d overestimated how much pizza was being served that day, and how much sugar we had in the pantry—Dad had just gotten a shipment in—and the school kitchens had flooded with an excess of duplicated pineapple chunks.

Not a bad way to get kicked out of a school, but I didn’t get my pizza. I’m determined to get this spell right, and it’s not like Vega will care if I’m on my runebook in class. Half the class is tapping away as they talk to friends. Andrea Gonzalez is actually using hers to cast a spell to change her nail polish color.

I start reprogramming my pineapple spell, fixing the line about the sugar. I make sure it’s tied to only one barrel and that the duplication ends once the mana has been spent for the spell.

I grin at the spell proudly, putting the final flourish on the matrix, and set my runebook down. All it will take is one phrase to set it loose. Lunch, of course, will be the best time.

Suddenly, Vega’s tone changes, becoming dramatic and solemn. “Now, while the Mayfield technology is used every day by people all over the world, many people don’t realize it originated right here in Los Angeles, at the same time as one of the darkest moments in our history.”

I glance back to the front of the classroom and my stomach sinks as I read the words now projected on the wall. It didn’t register earlier just what the lecture was about.

I knew I should have skipped school today.

LOS ANGELES SPELLCRAFT HISTORY

Mayfield Breakthrough

Origin of Mana Surges

Great Earthquake of 1909

First Stabilization Ritual

Heads turn, and the whispers start, and I can feel everyone in the room try not to be obvious as they look at me. I exhale and pretend having my family history projected up on the board like another fact to memorize doesn’t affect me at all. I lean back in my chair, kicking my feet up on the desk, and raise my eyebrows at Vega, as if daring him to call me out.

Vega doesn’t say anything, just continues through his slides, settling into his droll, dry lecture voice. “The origin of the mana surges that plague the greater Los Angeles region today are the source of one power-hungry mage’s hubris: Clarabelle Marin.”

Clarabelle’s haughty portrait stares out at the class, her eyes looking past the viewer as if daring them to question her authority. She’s painted with a vicious curve to her smile, and even the curls piled atop her head seem to convey a harsh sort of beauty.

I don’t even know why we have to study this in school. Everyone knows the story. Clarabelle Marin is the name whispered to kids when they’re being naughty or selfish—“Eat all your vegetables; you don’t want to be like Clarabelle!”

Now that my pineapple spell is done, there’s nothing to distract me from Vega’s lecture, and I can’t tune it out. Not in the same way I can ignore him when he’s talking about the runic alphabet or spell diagrams. Not this, when it’s directly about my family.

“Without Jìngyi Woo and the first Stabilization Ritual, Clarabelle would have unleashed a force a hundred times as devastating as both the 1909 Los Angeles and the 1906 San Francisco earthquakes combined.” Vega looks around the class, satisfied at the attention. “Now the Ritual is recast regularly to prevent that very cataclysmic power of excess mana and energy being released along the San Andreas Fault line.”

I glance at the clock on the wall. Six minutes left. He can end this lecture here. There’s really nothing more that needs to be said.

“Mr. Vega, what about the prophecy?” Andrea perks up from her nail polish routine and gives me a hopeful grin and a once-over.

I try not to visibly cringe, thankful that I turned her down last week when she asked me out. I guess I was right—she only wanted to date me because I was the Chosen One.

Hannah shoots Andrea a dirty look and then glances at me, giving me a I can’t believe her look. The gesture is so familiar that I roll my eyes, and Hannah chuckles. I hate to admit that it’s actually comforting, but the guilt and shame of just ignoring her for so long overtakes me, and I look away.

Hannah’s face falls, her shoulders drooping a little. She gathers up the paperwork on her desk and stands up. “I’ll take these down to the main office and head to my next period, if that’s okay, Mr. Vega.”

Vega nods, waves her off, and looks at me.

Any hope I had that he’d ignore the question flies away. All eyes are on him. He has everyone’s attention now, even mine.

“The field of futuresight is challenging,” he says delicately. “I’ve planned a brief module on this next week for those of you who are interested in learning the craft in the future.”

Joe snickers from his seat in the back. He’s always got a quippy comment prepared. “Yeah, like if you want to sort through infinite visions for the rest of your life just to figure out the weather.”

“Thank you, Joseph,” Vega says wearily. “Magetechs do spend many hours deciphering possible futures and scenarios from predictions made by those who have studied the art, and most funding does come from the agriculture industry. If you want to stop by my classroom at lunch, you can always pick up brochures about various fields of magic study and career paths.”

“Come on, Mr. Vega,” Andrea cajoles. “You know what we’re asking.”

I scroll through my runebook to see if I have any bad-hair-day hexes I can whip up today.

“Individual predictions are often too specific to a single person or place, and they can vary from a particular vision of what is to come or a phrase that must be interpreted by experts. Sometimes a prediction can become known as prophecy—if by chance the wording, or the subject, is specific enough.” Vega now glances at me. “Perhaps, Katherine, you could enlighten us on the exact wording of one you know?”

I pause, considering, and then I give him and everyone in class a saccharine smile as I stand up. Vega seems pleasantly surprised I’m participating, not even detecting the sarcasm in the little bow of the head I give him.

“Pineapple belongs on pizza,” I say, with firm certainty. It’s not like I’m in the cafeteria to see the fruits of my labor, but I’d rather people talk about my amazing prank than anything else.

I wait for the spell to take, and then—

Principal Martin’s voice crackles in the air, magically amplified. “An oncoming mana surge has been detected, please immediately terminate all active and ambient spells—” Her voice warbles and screeches as the bell rings, the sound distorted.

Everyone in class is still staring at me. Outside, voices spill into the hallway as people head to their next class.

The surge takes hold, grabbing any loose magic at play, and the casual conversations outside the hall turn to panic—

“What—what even is that?”

“Run!”

Okay, maybe not the best timing.

3 ❤ BRENDA

“Look, you really have to use your entire diaphragm,” I say, demonstrating taking a deep breath. “Use your abs and blow. Take a deep breath and try again.”

The poor freshman gives me a confused look but tries again, blowing into his clarinet. Thomas makes a spluttering, sad excuse for a sound, then lowers the clarinet and sighs.

“I’m gonna fail band,” he says miserably. “I can’t fail band, then I have to go back to PE. I can’t run, I can’t play basketball, I can’t do anything, I need this.” He’s one of the handful of freshmen who transferred into band after a semester of PE, hoping for an easy A.

I want to reach in my pocket and fidget with my lucky TARDIS key chain, but I don’t know where it is. I take a calming breath—for myself, not Thomas—and say in my steadiest, most supportive voice, “It’s going to be okay.”

From my left, my best friend Erica looks over her saxophone at Thomas. “You gotta blow, dude! Come on, why do you think we get PE credits for this?” She waggles her eyebrows at him and pantomimes marching while sitting in her seat, her black curls bouncing wildly with each step. “And remember, next year you gotta be able to play songs while marching. In step. To the very complicated routine.”

Thomas whimpers, and I glare at Erica, who’s completely ignoring her own section to hang out with us. Not that the saxophones are doing much. Only Ariana, the section leader, is actually practicing, and the other saxes are goofing off. The band is all scattered, some in their usual seats and some in practice rooms or outside, working in their own section on our pieces for state. Erica lifts a perfectly manicured eyebrow and plays a cartoonish wah-waaah at Thomas.

“It’s okay, we can work on this,” I say in a soothing tone, putting on my best section-leader face. “You can come in at lunch for extra practice, okay?”

“We have a Key Club meeting today at lunch,” Jenn pipes up next to me as she thumbs to the next page of sheet music in her carefully organized folder. “I thought you were gonna go over the schedule for this weekend’s community service. You know, since we have limited seats in the vans.” My other best friend is already multitasking, her calm focus radiating from her precise movements. Jennifer Torres has been voted “most likely to succeed” of our class every year consistently, her sweet smile and smooth brown skin gracing the yearbook pages.

“Sweet, hey, are we gonna have time up at Echo Mountain after the cleanup to hang out and chill?” Erica asks.

“Yes, but the focus is on picking up trash and maintaining the trail,” I say. With the popularity of the Key Club and the prospect of a free mountain field trip, a lot of people signed up for this event. But the two vans I booked last week have only enough room for twenty-four students and we’ve got thirty-nine signed up.

Jenn glances at me nervously, and I pat her on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let them know they can have first dibs on seats on the next trip,” I say, squaring my jaw. A lot of people are gonna hate the news, but that’s okay. I’m used to it. Jenn is a great president; she’s led Key Club into a record-breaking number of volunteer hours. But she hates being the bearer of bad news. So that’s my job. Jenn has the warm and sweet personality everyone loves, but I’m the reason anyone gets anything done in our service club. Our partnership works for us: I love logistics and hate attention; Jenn is probably going to be a senator one day.

Erica’s in Key Club with us but has no ambitions for leadership whatsoever, despite my cajoling for her to help. She’s been working on her webcomic for years, and it has a huge following; Erica’s already set on her plans for art school while Jennifer and I are in the old-school race for four-year universities.

Jenn is in the running for valedictorian, as am I. We’ve been neck and neck ever since middle school, both of us aiming for those sweet leadership positions that will make our college applications stand out.

Erica used to laugh at us about how Jenn and I could have been the most bitter rivals, but where our interests converged we’ve divided and conquered, working together to be the best, most college-dream-worthy students ever. Jenn is the Key Club president and captain of the tennis team; I’m student body president and editor in chief on the yearbook staff. I’m also first chair clarinet and in a handful of other clubs, but that’s small-fries compared to the big stuff.

“Yes, the meeting starts at 12:15. Once everyone is seated, I can let the volunteers know the vans are full and they can have first priority for the next event, then I’ll come back to the band room to help Thomas and Sarah between 12:20 and 12:40.”

“Okay,” Jenn says, relieved. “Wait, did you bring a lunch? I don’t think we’ll have time to stand in line if you wanted—”

There are granola bars in my backpack somewhere. “I’ll be fine.”

Thomas goes back to practicing scales, and the rest of the clarinet section seems to be doing well on the new piece. I finally have a second to relax and I lean back in my chair, exhaling.

Erica grins at me. “So. Date Saturday, you know what you’re gonna wear?”

I groan. I have no idea what to wear, let alone if the date is actually still happening. I feel so stupid. She hasn’t texted me back yet. Maybe it was a fake number. Now in the light of day, that one, amazing, magical encounter yesterday definitely doesn’t seem real—I’m half convinced I could have made up the whole thing. That amazing smile, the scent of vanilla wafting off her hair, the perfect coffee …

Jenn beams. “I’m so excited for you! Did you hear back yet?”

“No.” I pull the napkin out of my pocket, puzzling over the squiggles again. I looked at these over and over again last night, and finally Jenn and Erica convinced me they really were numbers and not just some weird symbols. Maybe I got a digit wrong somewhere. “Are you sure this is a phone number?”

Jenn nods. “Of course it is! She probably is busy at school or is nervous, just like you. You’ll hear from her later today.”

“Or she was unimpressed by your hey nice to meet you!” Erica says. “Can’t believe you went with that after all our brainstorming last night.”

Jenn bops her on the arm with her music folder. “It’s sweet and simple!”

Erica laughs. “Speaking of sweet, look what I have for you, Brenda.” She pulls a sheet of paper out of her music folder.

“Oh,” I sigh happily. It’s a sketch of my two favorite characters from Halfway Hollow, Rochan and Amelia, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. Rochan is dressed like a tweedy professor with elbow patches on her jacket instead of her usual sleek demon-investigator outfit, and Amelia has on an apron and a baseball cap, holding a coffee cup. “Thank you.”

Erica waggles her eyebrows at me. “You going to finish that fic?”

I groan. “Erica—”

Jenn pats me on the shoulder. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” She looks back at Erica and gives me a sheepish smile. “But I have to admit I do want to know what happens next.”

The three of us got into Halfway Hollow fandom at the same time together when we were in middle school. That ridiculous fantasy show was everything to the three of us: all the fumbling romance and teen angst and cheesy special monster effects. We used to watch the new episode together each week, and when the show was suddenly canceled, we were devastated.

I had endless ideas of how the heroes would defeat the monsters and wrote copious amounts of fanfiction. Erica drew art inspired by my fic, and I would write inspired by her art. Jenn didn’t love writing as much as I did, but she was a great beta reader and even organized a few exchanges and holiday events in the fandom. I haven’t had time to write or do fandom stuff with school and the Plan kicking into high gear once we got into high school, but we still make time for our weekly D&D sessions.

The bell rings, and I’m about to stand up when the shaking suddenly starts.

First it’s the floor, and then it seems like the whole room starts thrumming with a steady energy. The chatter and laughter stop, and even Ms. Collete freezes for a few seconds as everyone looks at one another in slight alarm.

We’ve all felt this before—the short shake that’s over so quickly you can barely register it—something we wait to laugh about with friends after, checking on social media and seeing who posted first, Did you feel the earthquake?

As if a few seconds of shaking truly qualify.

But this doesn’t feel quite the same.

The shaking doesn’t stop, and in fact it gets more intense, and pencils clatter off music stands and then a few topple over.

“Earthquake!” Ms. Collete announces, as if she doesn’t believe it. “Take cover! Stay calm! Remember the drills!”

All the safety drills we’ve learned since kindergarten said to duck and cover, but this is band and there aren’t any desks. I scramble off my chair, taking my clarinet with me as I try to lie down with my head under the chair. At least it’s something.

Everything in the classroom is rattling now, all around me is movement. Thomas is whimpering and Erica’s under her chair, gesturing rapidly for Thomas to do the same.

“Get down!”

“Where? Would a closet—”

“My tuba!”

“The chair is too small!”

“Use anything! A book!”

A few kids have gotten into the doorways of the practice rooms, bracing themselves, but most people have tried to take cover under their chairs or are frozen where they sit. The chair is barely big enough to offer any scant protection for my head, and I know if the ceiling gives way that this will barely do anything.

I think about all the ways we’ve been trained to protect ourselves, but what could you do, really, in the face of tectonic plates older than time, let loose by the forces of the earth, the crust moving and releasing tension it’s been building up for decades?

I grab the spindly metal legs in an attempt to keep the chair over me. Jenn next to me is already in meditation mode, exhaling slowly. She reaches out and I grab her hand, squeezing it tightly. Erica takes my other hand as she’s curled around her saxophone, and the three of us brace ourselves.

The bell is still ringing, a high screeching sound that would otherwise be normal other than our classroom quavering mercilessly.

Then it’s over. The bell rings for another second, but it feels anything but normal.

Ms. Collette stands up shakily. “Is—is everyone okay?”

Scattered mumblings echo across the room, and everyone starts pulling out their phones, texting frantically.

“Don’t—don’t move, there might be aftershocks. Stay—stay where you are,” Ms. Collette says breathlessly.

“Do you think this means we can go home for the rest of the day?” Thomas asks hopefully.

“Probably not,” Erica says, patting him gently.

Jenn already has Caltech’s earthquake-monitoring page up on her phone. “The epicenter is out in Echo Park.”

Ah, no wonder it felt so intense, we were only a few miles away.

She peers closely at her phone and then looks up. “It was a 4.2, and I believe the school policy is…”

The loudspeaker crackles with our principal’s cheery voice. “Hello, San Pablo! A bit of excitement this morning with the earthquake and an opportunity to practice our safety drills! If anyone is injured, please head to the nurse’s office immediately. We will have an extra ten-minute grace period to allow you to make your way safely to your second period. Our regular schedule will proceed as usual.”

Thomas groans.

I pat him on the shoulder. “See you at lunch for extra practice, dude.”

Putting away instruments is a little more hectic than usual as Ms. Collette wants to know if anything is damaged, but we make it through. I’m grateful for the extra time to get to our next class so I can run a few errands, and I also have an idea on how to fix the van situation for Key Club.

Jenn’s already put away my music and gotten my backpack ready.

“You’re the best,” I say gratefully.

“Of course I am,” Jennifer says, rolling her eyes but smiling all the same as we head for the door and toward English. Erica waves at us and disappears into the crowd. Everyone is chatting about the earthquake, but it doesn’t seem to have fazed anyone much. It’s not like I haven’t experienced anything like this before, but it’s never happened at school.

The faces blur in the hallway; I say hi to Stephen from student council and remind him of the joint fundraiser we’re doing at the end of the month, and Carla from debate asks me if I’ve got the research articles printed.

“Here you go,” I say, handing her a stack of papers. I’d printed them in the yearbook room early this morning.

“Thanks!” Carla beams at me and Jenn. “Also, great job at the match yesterday, Jenn!”

“Oh, thank you,” she says graciously, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’ll see you at tennis practice later!”

On the way to English we run into Yesenia from Key Club, and I launch into my new plan. If a few seniors can drive, we can make the numbers work, I just need to make sure a bunch of extra paperwork gets done.

It’s stressful, but I’m in my element, texting people quickly and confirming drivers.

Still no text from Kat, though.

By lunch, I’m exhausted, having run across campus twice to catch the seniors I need to talk to, but the Key Club meeting goes great and everyone is even more excited for the cleanup event. I scramble to the band room to help Thomas, my stomach growling. Luckily Erica showed up with an extra burrito, otherwise those granola bars would have made a sad, sad lunch.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I mumble, stuffing the last bite in my mouth. Quick, cheesy relief.

“You can finish picking your stats for the latest level-up in our campaign so you can actually play in tomorrow’s session,” Erica says with a mischievous grin.

“I thought we were waiting for Jenn to pick hers!” I grumble.

Jennifer pulls a crisp new character sheet out of her binder and hands it to Erica. “All done. You’re the last one.”

“But choosing new spells is a huge undertaking, I can’t just pick them at random, I have to give it thought and consideration because it could change the whole trajectory of the game!” I shake my head. “I haven’t really had time to sit down with the handbook and—”

Erica rolls her eyes and fishes out a familiar-looking sheet in my handwriting. “You know what spells you want. You don’t need to take a bazillion years doing extra research. Come on.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. Haste and Lightning Bolt.”

Jenn squeals. “I can’t wait to play tomorrow!”

“Me too.” I check my phone, still no text.

Jenn tilts her head, a musing smile on her face. “You know, it’s really great you went out and got this date.”

“It was an accident. I didn’t, like, plan to ask her out,” I say.

Erica nods. “I don’t think you’ve ever gone on a date ever. You turned down both Donna Quách and Trisha Veracruz last year.”

“Shut up, I’m not—I just—I really didn’t have time to date last year,” I say, stumbling. Junior year was the year to make or break college applications, and I really couldn’t afford a distraction when I needed to make excellent grades and score high on exams and campaign for student body president. Plus, dating is hard. It’s not like I’m Jenn, who pretty much has been attached at the hip to her boyfriend, Aiden, since freshman year. He’s in his first year of college now, but it doesn’t stop them from being nauseatingly cute together, texting or video calling all the time.

I remember talking to Trisha when I was watching Jennifer’s tennis championship game last year, and to this day I cannot tell you what we talked about. It must have made an impression on her because she asked me out, but I didn’t feel any connection at all.

Maybe you can’t make any connections because you’re so obsessed with your Plan.

I ignore the annoying internal voice. “Come on, let’s get to English.”

4 ❤ KAT

I rush outside the classroom, ignoring Vega’s shouts behind me.

“Miss Woo, during a surge we must stay—”

I slam the door shut, my heart racing. I didn’t account for what might happen during a mana surge, and if anyone gets hurt—

I made this problem. I have to fix it.

Mana rushes through the air, desperate and wild and racing through every active spell, every bit of potential. Hallway lights flicker erratically, and thick gusts of hot air rush down the hallway, the environmental cooling spell system overshooting in the other direction.

Students brace themselves by their lockers or dash out of the way as a torrent of whole pineapples cascade from the cafeteria doors. The pineapples multiply rapidly, each one shimmering with mana as the spell takes and takes and takes—I’d programmed it to keep going until it exhausted the mana charge, and unfortunately there just happens to be an endless supply right now.

Pineapples tumble past my feet, and while the students near my end of the hallway have all escaped into open classrooms, those closer to the cafeteria aren’t so lucky, up to their knees and waists in ferociously multiplying fruit. The waves rise quickly and threaten to smother—

“Hannah!” My throat seizes up with fear, and I can feel the surge raging around me as I push my way toward the students now up to their necks in pineapples. The prickly edges of the fruit and the spiky leaves scratch at my arms as I struggle with my runebook.

It’s extremely dangerous to cast anything during a mana surge—but what if I modify an ongoing spell?

I pull up the matrix, drawing and redrawing runes as quickly as I can. “Pineapples belong on pizza!” I shout, just as the pineapples reach my neck.

The release phrase takes hold again as the spell updates with my new instructions, and then—

The pineapples start to disappear just as quickly as they were multiplying, and I exhale in relief as I escape my fruity stronghold.

“Are you okay?” I ask Hannah.

She dusts herself off, nodding quickly. “Yeah.”

We smile at each other a bit, and I suddenly don’t know what to say.

The thick, frantic rush of mana in the air dissipates and the sharp tang of ozone fades away. I exhale. The surge is over.

The pineapples also stop disappearing, which means my spell has run its course as well.

The bell rings, and students spill into the hallways, picking up pineapples and laughing as they survey the chaos.

“Thank you, Kat—you really are the Chosen One,” sniffles a freshman, who tries to hug me.

I pat them on the shoulder and awkwardly mumble “no problem” to all the other students who rush forward to talk to me.

“So that was one of yours, I take it?” Hannah asks, amused.

“Yeah,” I say, color popping into my cheeks. “I didn’t account for the surge; it was just supposed to be a prank.”

A voice clears behind me.

I turn around to see the stern face of Principal Martin, her hands on her hips. “Well, it’s good to see you take responsibility for your actions, Miss Woo,” she says. “Because you have a lot to account for.”

“Seven different violations of the Devonsford student code of conduct. Disruption of teaching activities. Misappropriation and destruction of school property—”

“It was a joke!” I say, gesturing at the recording of the laughing students in the hallway projected into the air on Principal Martin’s runebook. “It was just pineapples.” It got a little out of hand during the surge, but that’s not my fault. And I fixed it right away. There’s no need to have this circus with the principal and my guidance counselor and Dad all in one room.

Principal Martin doesn’t laugh. Her mouth puckers like she’s swallowed a lemon. Her auburn hair is gathered in a bun so severe not a strand of hair moves when she shakes her head vigorously in disappointment.

“I don’t think so.” She gestures at the recording, now centered in the cafeteria kitchens. I watch the damning events: Ms. Gutierrez slices fresh pineapples for the pizza and is making fruit cups when she pauses in confusion as one pineapple duplicates, then another. She shouts a warning and leads the kitchen staff out the door as the pineapples multiply with abandon. I feel guilty; she always gave me second helpings of fries, and I’m glad she’s okay.

The recording speeds up and moves to the hallway, where students and staff flee the onslaught of pineapples, and then it comes to a pause to the present. It is absolute pineapple pandemonium: an impromptu game of pineapple-hockey is breaking out in the hallway, and I see Joe stuffing pineapples into an otherspace pocket as fast as he can.

“Look, all that wasn’t supposed to happen,” I grumble. “It was the mana surge! You know—”

Dad shakes his head at me to stop talking, and I sigh.

He crosses his arms and sighs in return, rubbing at his temples. He’s covered in flour and coffee stains; he must have knocked something over at the shop when he got the call. “What proof do you have that this was Katherine?”

Principal Martin slows down the projection and rewinds it. There I am in the middle of the fruity onslaught, clearly modifying the spell and making the pineapples disappear.

Ms. Applebaum shakes her head as she glances at Principal Martin. Her tone is much gentler, but disappointed. “A whole classroom witnessed Katherine invoking a release phrase, and multiple students confirmed that Katherine also cast a spell during the mana surge—also against school policy—”

“—and city safety guidelines,” Principal Martin grumbles. “And you were expelled from San Pablo High School for a similar incident.”

“Listen, I didn’t cast anything during the surge, look at my runebook if you want,” I grumble. “I modified the original spell I wrote—”

Dad groans.

“Look, it was supposed to be a silly prank. And the mana surge made it a little precarious, for sure. But I made sure everyone was safe!”

Ms. Applebaum nods. “You did, at that,” she says softly. “However, the pineapples appearing on the idleball field destroyed the goal posts.”

“That’s not so bad,” I say cheekily, smiling now that it seems like they’re starting to come around. “The cleanup at San Pablo was pretty intense since it was chunks. Pineapple slush for days. The cafeteria was completely unusable. This? You basically got a bunch of free fruit. You’re welcome.” I wink at Principal Martin.

Her mouth puckers even tighter. I didn’t think that was possible.

“Really?” Dad turns to me and throws his hands in the air. “I cannot believe this. After all the work we did to get you into this school, you pull another stunt like this—it’s just disrespectful, is what it is!”

“I can’t help but agree,” Principal Martin says. “At minimum, I was looking at detention every day for the rest of the school year, but you might consider a more drastic solution, Mr. Woo. I’m not sure Katherine has a future at this school.”

“Maybe I should ship you off to Covenstar,” Dad says, scowling at me.

Boarding school? No way.

Ms. Applebaum nods. “Oh, what a wonderful idea! I think that could be a great opportunity for you, Katherine. And they have such a fantastic array of extracurricular activities and…”

I sit back in my seat in horror as Dad and Principal Martin and Ms. Applebaum discuss me as if I’m not even there. Principal Martin starts writing a letter to her sister, who just so happens to be on the board of directors at Covenstar. I can see the rest of the school year mapped out for me: ugly school uniforms for a month and then I’m fast-tracked to some university where they’ll pretend to let me study something I’m interested in right up until the council calls me in for the Ritual. No more independence, no fun, nothing to look forward to. I already don’t get to have a future, and now they’re taking my present away from me.

The door opens and two knocks sound firmly on the hardwood. “Hello!”

I sit up a little higher in my seat as I recognize the bright voice behind me. I whirl around and there she is—Shannon Mayfield, my godmother and just about the coolest woman in the world.

“I’m so sorry to barge in like this, Delilah, but my schedule is so busy and this was the only time I could see you to discuss Chris’s new literacy fundraiser—oh! Sam, Kat, what a surprise.” Shannon beams at us. She’s dressed primly in a sleek white coat over a voluminous satin cream dress and looks stunning, as usual.

“Oh! Did we have an appointment?” Principal Martin blinks, stunned, staring at Shannon.

I wish people had that reaction to me—then again, everyone is expecting me to do something in the future, whereas Shannon is not only the scion of the great Mayfield name, she actually is a genius inventor in her own right, adding her own innovations to the ever-growing Mayfield Industries. She and Mom were best friends at university, and I’ve known her for forever.

Shannon gracefully drops herself into a seat next to me. “Oh, no. I was in the area so I thought I’d drop by. Good thing, too! Sam, why didn’t you call me?” She sighs and pats Dad on the shoulder.

“You know I never want to bother you, and I had this in hand.”

Shannon turns to Principal Martin. “I’m Kat’s godmother. I’m happy to be consulted on any issues regarding Kat. I have her best interests at heart.”

“Oh, of course,” Principal Martin says. “Mrs. Prattlesby—Mayfield—er—”

“Either is fine.” Shannon laughs. She’s married to Christopher Prattlesby, the mayor of Los Angeles. When the press is being cheeky, they refer to him as Shannon’s husband. But they’re not wrong; she is way more high profile than he is.

And she definitely won’t stand for me being sent to boarding school.

“It was just a harmless prank,” I protest to Shannon. “And now Dad wants me to go to Covenstar, and it’s not fair!”

“Oh? Was this it?” Shannon glances at the open runebook on Principal Martin’s desk. “May I?”

“Of course,” Principal Martin says.

Shannon replays the recording with a quick wave of her hand. “What an impressive feat of magic,” she says proudly.

“Thank you!” Finally someone gets it. I look pointedly at Principal Martin.

“Of course it’s impressive,” Principal Martin says, deferring to Shannon. Her look softens, and I can swear her mouth looks just slightly less sour. “But it was disruptive—”

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” I say. “Look, my spell was fine, it was the pineapple in the kitchens and that mana surge. I assumed they were precut chunks, but they were whole pineapples, and the duplication was supposed to stop, but you know how mana surges can change the slightest—”

Shannon nods vigorously. “It’s very clear the poor duckling must not be challenged enough in her classes!”

Ms. Applebaum claps her hands. “That’s what I said when she first transferred here. Katherine should be in Advanced Spelling, not Basic!”

Dad blinks. “That’s actually a great idea.” He gives me a victorious look before he turns back to Principal Martin. “Give Kat the detentions. Make her clean up the pineapples, no magic. And switch her to Advanced Spelling.”

Okay, that sucks. But at least it’s not Covenstar.

And something else, something hopeful starts to bloom in my chest. Dad called me Kat.

Ms. Applebaum considers this. “I think this works well within policy and also creates a unique learning opportunity for Katherine—”

“All right,” Principal Martin says. “A week’s worth of detentions doing cleanup duty. And you’re transferred to Advanced Spelling starting Monday. You will also join Mr. Vega every lunch hour with the Spellcraft Club.”

“Every lunch hour—” I start to protest.

Shannon places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently as if to say don’t push it. Right, she just got me out of getting shipped off to the East Coast.

Dad smiles at me and I give him a sarcastic thumbs-up.

“All right, I’m needed back at the coffeeshop. I’ll see you at home later,” he says. “Thanks for having me.”

“Take care, Mr. Woo,” Principal Martin says.

Once Dad is gone, Shannon gives me a surreptitious wink before turning back to Principal Martin. “Delilah, I actually just remembered Kat is needed urgently at a council meeting today,” she says. “I’ll sign her out of school, of course. And I gave your secretary a full dossier on the upcoming fundraiser; let me know if you have any feedback or questions.”

My heart races in excitement. There is definitely not a council meeting today, which means only one thing: shenanigans.

“A council meeting?” Principal Martin’s eyes widen slightly. “Of course.”

“I’m sure such an esteemed educator as yourself could understand that the Chosen One has responsibilities,” Shannon says.

“Oh, absolutely. Ms. Woo, you know that I support you fully.” Principal Martin’s face attempts to rearrange itself.

I bite my lip, trying to stop from laughing as I grab my backpack and get up. I nod at Ms. Applebaum, who’s still captivated by Shannon.

Shannon offers me her elbow and I take it. I barely manage to keep it together until we’re out the door, and then we double over giggling.

I take another sip of my strawberry lemonade. “I still cannot believe you pulled the Chosen One stuff on Principal Martin!”

“Of course, duckling, I certainly couldn’t leave you there for the rest of the day after all that.” Shannon smiles at me fondly and refills my lemonade.

We’re sitting under a gazebo covered with fragrant pink roses at the sprawling Mayfield estate up in the Malibu Hills. In the distance, the Pacific sparkles and the soft rhythm of waves blends harmoniously with the jazz playing from the gramophone.

After a few hours of shopping at the Grove, Shannon teleported us back to her place with the smoothest teleportation spell I’ve ever seen. She programmed something extra to compensate for the nausea that comes with fast-travel, and it was amazing.

“Tell me more about your date!” Shannon squeezes my hands. Her eyes twinkle with excitement.

“Her name is Brenda and she’s really cute,” I say. “I can’t wait.”

“That’s wonderful.” Shannon gives me an approving smile. “I know you haven’t really seen anyone since Gena, and it’s been a while.”

I shrug. Dating when you’re the Chosen One—it’s not as great as one thinks. Gena was the first person I connected with after Mom, after everything. I was feeling so empty and lonely and terrified, and suddenly being with her was the only way I could feel anything, even though the hollowness inside my heart didn’t change much.

All those long conversations I had with Gena’s hands in my hair— I thought she had been listening to me. She became a constant for me. But then I overheard her talking to her friends about what a sorry excuse for a human I was, and she was only putting up with me because I was a good hookup.

I was heartbroken and felt so used and humiliated, and I hated it—and then I decided to use it, wearing lower-cut shirts, tighter pants, to play exactly into the role people were writing me into. I hooked up with Tony Aguirre, the hottest guy on the idleball team, just to see what would happen. I relished feeling in control, that I chose this, drinking in the way his eyes always followed me, hungry and wanting and impressed. There were awed whispers as he walked down the hallways, and no one was talking about the prophecy anymore and how I was the Chosen One—but that I was the one doing the choosing. Choosing to do what I wanted, who I wanted.

Getting rid of Tony was easy; I made out with his best friend under the bleachers when I was ready to move on. When the dramatic fight escalated into a duel afterward, I’d folded my arms and laughed at the both of them when they demanded I choose one to date, expecting me to bestow upon them some vague unwritten social power for them to impress other people.

I shudder, the cold and disheartening memories now swirling through my mind. I decided then I’d never let anyone get close enough to hurt me, ever again. If people thought I was just here for a good time, then that’s what they got. Kat, the wild flirt. Kat, ready for adventure and spontaneity.

Kat, whose life is tied to the prophecy.

Shannon places her hand gently on my arm, jolting me out of my downward spiral as I stare off into the horizon.

“I know, duckling. It’s hard when everyone expects something from you. I’m proud of you, you know.” She winks at me. “And I bet Advanced Spelling won’t be too bad. Maybe you’ll make some friends!”

I scoff. “I doubt it. But it’s either that or Covenstar,” I say. “Thank you for that, by the way. You totally saved me.”

“Covenstar isn’t bad,” Shannon muses. “But they are super strict. You wouldn’t be able to get away with much, and the punishments are something awful. I should know.”

“You?” I raise my eyebrows.

“I got into all sorts of trouble when I was in school,” Shannon says, eyes glittering with mischief.

I snort, shaking my head. I almost want to ask Shannon if Mom was like that, too, if they got into shenanigans together at Covenstar. But I don’t really want to go down memory lane with Shannon—she’s great, but whenever she talks about Mom, she gets overcome with her own feelings, and then it’s not really fun anymore.

I grab my backpack and pull out the blue focus object Brenda left behind instead, wanting to change the subject. “Hey, I figured you would be the best person to ask, since you’re an expert on so many random things.” It’s been in the back of my mind; I’ve seen it somewhere before, I know I have. It reminds me of something. There’s a memory that I can’t quite pin down, just out of reach. “Do you know what this is?”

Something weird flickers across Shannon’s face—confusion, probably, but for a moment I thought it was anger. I must have imagined it, because she shakes her head lightly with a small smile. Shannon picks it up and puzzles over it before handing it back to me. “Sadly, no. A decoration of some kind? Where did you get it?”

“Brenda left it at the coffeeshop. I thought it could be some sort of focus object.”

Shannon laughs. “Oh, I never know what you kids use as focus objects nowadays! That must be it.” She taps her runebook. “That reminds me, I left one of my projects in a precarious state and have to check in with my team—do you mind?”

I wave my hand at her and watch as Shannon types out a message rapid quick. It must be hard, being a genius-spellcraft-legacy-mogul and constantly inventing and running a massive company. I feel special that she took the time out of her busy day just to hang out with me.

Shannon finishes her work and then leans in close, conspiratorially whispering, “So, what’s she like, your Brenda?”

“She’s got this, like, intense focus,” I say, grinning, eager to share. I tell her everything about Brenda’s cute plan and her weird runebook and her scholarship application.

“And what time did you meet?” Shannon asks, checking something on her runebook again.

“Uh … probably right before six, that was when her scholarship was due. Why?”

Shannon chuckles. “So I can tell the story at your wedding, of course!” She finally sets her runebook down and focuses on me. With a few quick gestures, the plates of petits fours and tea sandwiches on the table refill themselves, and Shannon laughs at me again. “What, too soon?”

I roll my eyes at her, scoffing, but part of my stomach flutters at the idea that this could be something more, something I’ve never had before. I shake the thought before I get carried away. “And she was interested in the fact that I like to write my own spells!”

“Ooh, of course she is! You’re so talented. That pineapple thing was inspired, by the way! A food-replication spell that doesn’t change the taste of the food?” Shannon shakes her head. “You could give my research department a run for their money. Let me see!”

I shyly present my runebook to her.

Shannon looks over my work, her blonde curls tumbling into her face as she squints in concentration. She pulls spectacles out of her pocket and sets them on her nose, scanning my spell matrix with intention.

This is one of the reasons I love hanging out with Shannon: She gets it. She never patronizes me or makes me feel like I’m just a kid.

“Do you think this would have worked if they weren’t whole pineapples today?”

Shannon nods. “Absolutely. The connection to the coffeeshop otherspace is solid, and all your other variables are accounted for. It’s really quite incredible. Have you shown your father this?”

I laugh. “If he can’t make it in a cauldron, he wouldn’t get it.”

“He’d be so proud, though!”

I take my runebook back and sigh. “I guess. He’d probably just say I should be in Advanced instead of making trouble on my own.”

“He’ll come around,” Shannon says. “Come on, you should try on some of your new things. What are you going to wear for your date?”

She snaps her fingers and we seamlessly teleport inside her boudoir, a lavender confection of curtains shrouding the most incredible collection of clothes, shoes, and accessories. Shannon reaches inside the shopping bags from the Grove and pulls out a dress in the newest style—cropped short at the front to reveal your petticoat, with a long train. This one is in a decadent navy brocade stitched with ravens, and a matching cream petticoat came with it.

“Are you sure I can’t pay you back?”

“Oh, nonsense. Let me spoil you.” Shannon spins me around so I face her full-length mirror. “Do you want me to spell your hair?”

I hesitate, but Shannon’s already holding out her hands. She’s being so nice, I should just let her. I take my hair out of my ponytail and shake it out. I catch my reflection in the mirror, and for a brief moment, I see my mother sitting in front of her mirror humming as she draws a brush through her long hair, laughing as I clamber into her lap and she brushes mine, too.

I bite my lip and try not to think about Mom.

Shannon draws rune after rune, releasing prefab spells she must have at the ready. The hair framing my face falls into pretty ringlets and the rest of it gathers up into an elegant updo with a slight cascade of curls falling down to my neck.

I look incredible, but something about my reflection doesn’t feel quite right. It isn’t until Shannon steps proudly next to me and smiles that I see why: I’m styled just like she is, same hairdo and the same dress but in a different color. I look older, like I should have a seat on the Mages’ Council. Like an adult, someone who knows what she’s doing. Someone who could handle the prophecy.

“It’s lovely, Shannon, thank you.”

“Brenda is going to love you in this!”

“Maybe at our first ball.” I laugh, stepping behind the folding screen. I unlace the bodice and step out of the expensive fabric and back into my own clothes.

Through the window I can see the sun dipping low on the horizon. “Oh no, I need to get home. Where is the nearest trolley stop?”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Shannon says breezily. She draws the quick-release rune for go and then we’re on my front porch. I didn’t even feel it.

“Shannon,” I say, shaking my head and pulling out my runebook. “At least let me pay you back for the mana charge—”

“Nonsense.” Shannon pushes my runebook back at me. “Listen, I know how hard it is, being seventeen. If you ever want someone to talk to, don’t hesitate to call.”

She folds me into her arms. The stiff satin of her dress bunches up as she holds me, and I breathe in the comfort she offers and the sweet cloying scent of roses. I can always just be myself around her.

“Thank you, Shannon.”

Shannon smiles. “Anytime, my dear. Have a wonderful date! I bet Brenda is going to adore you.”

She kisses me quickly on both cheeks before disappearing with a snap of her fingers.

5 ❤ BRENDA

Friday dinner is chaos as usual, since that’s really the only time we all get to eat together. Auntie Vân is still in the kitchen, frying the last of the bánh xèo, the scents of garlic and turmeric permeating the house. Má’s got the wobbly card table pulled out next to the dining table to make enough room for everyone to sit down. The cheerful mismatched plastic tablecloths are barely visible under our plates and all the dishes: roast pork, bánh hoi, shrimp, and plates stacked high with crisp lettuce leaves, fresh mint, basil, and bean sprouts.

I take a seat, checking my phone. No new notifications, and the hi i’m excited to see you tomorrow is sitting in my recent texts with no response.

Maybe it was a fake number.

Maybe she just didn’t see it yet.

Should I text her again? Is it too soon?

I’m so terrible at flirting that I still can’t believe that it happened. Kat is cool and pretty and seemed interested in me for some reason. I knew it was too good to be true.

Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

“How are classes? Studying hard?” Má asks Stacey, dipping a sheet of rice paper in a bowl filled with hot water. Steam rises from her fingertips as she deftly layers lettuce, mint, basil, bean sprouts, and shrimp and wraps it all neatly in a spring roll. Má smiles at me, setting it on my plate next to my own lumpy attempt at a roll, where the lettuce has started to escape from my clumsily wrapped rice paper.

“Oh, they’re good, thank you, Auntie Liên,” Stacey says, nodding her head.

“No mung beans!” Auntie Vân announces, walking out of the kitchen with the frying pan with a bánh xèo crisp and golden, steam rising out of it.

“Thank you,” Jimmy says, beaming. He’s so spoiled; I never got special treatment with food when I was his age. I had to eat everything the way Má or Auntie Vân or Auntie Phi-Phi made it. It was either that or don’t eat at all.

The tables don’t quite line up, and I’m sitting at the split-level again, balancing my plate carefully as I wrap my bánh xèo in lettuce and dunk it in fish sauce. It’s messy, and I almost lose a shrimp, but I stuff my face, elbowing Stacey as she eats hers primly with a fork and knife.

“You’ve got a bean sprout on your face.”

“You’ve got fish sauce on your phone,” I retort, ignoring the stray bean sprout stuck to my cheek as I go for another bite. Stacey’s cutting up lettuce now and eating the whole thing like a salad because she can’t bear to get her hands dirty, and it’s hilarious.

“I do not.”

Jimmy pulls a piece of lettuce from the bottom of the stack, and a pile of wet leaves topple onto Stacey’s phone.

“Jimmy!” Stacey shrieks, grabbing it, her elbow knocking into my face.

I cough and splutter, hacking up food onto my cousin’s shirt. “Hey!”

“Gross!”

Jimmy sticks his tongue out at her. “Don’t leave your phone on the table then!”

“Here, don’t grab from the bottom,” I tell Jimmy, picking a few lettuce leaves and setting them on his plate.

I love it, despite it being all elbows and the music being too loud. My uncles both work constantly at their twenty-four-hour convenience store, but today Uncle Thu comes home early and Uncle Kiêm hasn’t started his night shift yet. We eat in shifts during the week, usually some combination of rice and meat and veggies that Má or one of the aunts cooks and leaves out. I’m always trudging in late after band practice or study sessions, eating leftovers as Ȏng Ngoại and Bà Ngoại have their evening tea and watch their soaps.

It’s special, our Friday dinners when we get to see everyone.

The bánh xèo is perfect, crisp on the outside and filled with sweet, succulent pork and shrimp, and I want another one, but I’m too slow when Auntie Vân brings out another one—Stacey claims it, still deep in conversation with her mom.

“Vân, sit down and eat!” Má calls into the kitchen, setting another roll on my plate. I sneak it back onto hers when she’s not looking; she always does this, busying herself making sure all the kids are fed before she eats.

“I’ll be right there!” Vân calls back in Vietnamese.

I put my still-no-notifications phone back in my pocket to ask Jimmy about his Pokémon trading at school, but I can barely talk to him over the din of aunties chatting over the Paris by Night playing on the television.

Má places the roll I gave her back on my plate. “How are your scholarship applications coming along?” She glances at Auntie Phi-Phi, an uncertain look crossing between them. I know they’ve been worrying about how expensive college is going to be—I’m really going to have to step it up.

“Good. Just submitted another application this week.”

Auntie Vân sets one last bánh xèo in front of Ȏng Ngoại, who’s tapping his fingers and watching the show, mesmerized. She finally sits down next to my mom and Auntie Phi-Phi, as they start chatting in Vietnamese— I only catch every third word or so, but I figure they’re talking about the nail salon and who’s going to open tomorrow. The three sisters share the same wide forehead and high cheekbones, and there’s an easy camaraderie about them, something about growing up together, decades of life and love and experience tying them together. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Stacey and I were closer in age, or even in interests.

I can’t imagine it. Stacey thinks the Plan is ridiculous and my habit of making lists is “over the top.” Whatever. I close my eyes. I’m so close. I just need to make it through this year and I’ll be set.

I take a deep breath and remind myself of where I am in the Plan; I don’t even need to take out my bullet journal to go over it step-by-step, and it’s comforting to review it.

“Are you reciting your plan again?” Stacey says, rolling her eyes. “Did you forget step one, stop being a complete nerd?”

“Shut up.” I roll my eyes back at her.

We’re supposed to do the washing up, but Stacey only helps for ten minutes before she sneaks off, claiming homework when I’m pretty sure she’s just going to be scrolling socials for an hour before she gets started.

Today, though, it doesn’t bother me. The phone number Kat gave me is burning in my pocket. My mind is spinning with possibilities, most of which are she changed her mind about hanging out with you.

I try to focus on washing the dishes, drawing it out because wet hands mean I can’t check my phone, but before I know it the last dish is done, drying in the dishwasher that we use as a drying rack.

I head to my room and flop on my bed, looking at the napkin again.

“Either that’s the saddest napkin in the history of the universe or you’re taking your weirdness to whole new levels,” Stacey says. She’s lounging on her bed on her side of the room and looks up from her phone, smirking at me. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” I crumple the napkin and shove it back in my pocket, but Stacey’s already stalking over with a determined glint in her eye, reaching for it and resorting to dirty tricks—tickling. “Hey!”

Stacey is small and annoying, but I’m bigger and easily gain the upper hand, throwing her off me.

“Hah!” Stacey holds the napkin aloft, waving it triumphantly. How did she even—that sneaky little—

“No, wait—”

“What is this, a phone number?” Stacey trills in delight.

Great. She’s going to be teasing me forever.

“Who gave you their phone number, huh?”

“A girl I met at a coffeeshop; now give it back!”

Stacey grins at me and hands it back. I uncrumple it, highly aware that she’s still watching me.

“What?”

“Nothing. You usually don’t focus on anything like this except your homework,” Stacey says. “You must really like her.”

“Yeah, but it must be one-sided, because this is totally not a phone number.” I let myself fall back onto my bed, burying my face in the pillow. “At least, not the right one,” I mumble. “She didn’t text me back.”

Stacey taps my closed hand and I open it, letting her take the napkin.

“Well, these are definitely numbers. She just has terrible handwriting and doodled some cute stuff for you. That’s a heart. That’s either a six or a zero, that’s a one or a seven. Did you try all the combinations?” Stacey beams at me as she hands the napkin back, like she’s excited to solve the mystery.

I sit up. “No.” I didn’t think of that.

“Good luck,” Stacey says, which is remarkably nice of my cousin. “You’ll need it,” she adds.

Right, there it is.

I make a face at her, but Stacey’s already on her phone again.

Erica and Jenn don’t respond to our group text. I figure Erica’s busy planning for tonight’s session and Jenn’s still at her tennis game, so I’m on my own to figure out my follow-up. After saving three other different versions of the number to my phone, I waffle over spelling and capitalization and finally decide on looking forward to seeing you tomorrow! I text it to all the number variations and hide my phone so I don’t give the anxiety monster in my head any food as I finish homework and wait for Jenn to pick me up for D&D. Self-sabotage can only go so far.

That was the plan, anyway, but I end up looking at my phone regardless, waiting for texts. I only get Erica’s you got this and Jenn’s string of heart emojis and thumbs-ups.

I try not to think about it as I continue working on my homework, but my self-doubt grows like a sentient cloud as I replay our conversation over and over again.

“Why even are cute girls,” I groan. I don’t bother making it a question because I don’t know the answer. Why are they? Why do they exist and make life so difficult?

“You said it,” Stacey agrees.

“I cast Detect Magic!” I announce, but my heart isn’t really in it today.

A large poster board with a detailed map of the catacombs is laid out on the table, half of it covered in black paper. I study our positions. Our miniatures—Jenn’s painstakingly painted high elf paladin, Ryan’s right-out-of-the-box orc barbarian, Adib’s red Power Ranger figure (he’s a bard, don’t ask), and my chipped dwarf cake topper from Stacey’s Snow White–themed eighth birthday party—are all surrounded by Erica’s hand-sculpted and painted ghoul minis. They’re amazingly creepy and detailed. I’m really impressed by how Erica’s art style has grown and developed in the last few years, but on the other hand, I’m annoyed that we’ve gotten ourselves in this situation with no clear way out.

Fancy, Erica’s fluffy Himalayan cat, gracefully walks atop the board, soliciting coos from Ryan before settling in Adib’s lap. Erica repositions the pieces Fancy knocked over and continues without missing a beat.

“Are you sure you want to do that with your action?” Erica asks.

I hesitate.

“You seem super distracted,” Adib says. “You okay?”

“I met a cute girl and got her number, but she didn’t text me back,” I mumble.

“I’m sorry, dude,” Ryan says. “That sucks.”

Jenn puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “I bet she was just busy. She was really excited about your date, right?”

“What’d you say the second time again?” Erica cocks her head and gestures for my phone. She scrolls through my messages and looks at all the texts I sent to the four maybe-Kats. She throws her head back and laughs at me. “You didn’t say it was you! She probably thinks it’s just a rando.” She types quickly and presses a button before I realize what she’s doing.

“Hey!” I glance back at the message she sent, a simple oh this is Brenda from the coffeeshop btw;)

Oh. Why didn’t I think of that? Simple, flirty, cute.

“Thanks,” I say gratefully.

“Of course,” Erica says, tossing her hair over her shoulder proudly. “Just making sure. You’ve got this.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Adib says.

Jenn sways back and forth in excitement. “You’ve got a date!”

“I’ve got a date,” I say breathlessly as my friends cheer.

“Now let’s get back to the game,” Erica says. “Well?”

“I cast Detect Magic,” I repeat.

“All right, do a Perception check for me.”

“Oh no, no no no.” Ryan shakes his head, his brown curls flopping erratically. He even grabs Adib’s shoulder in anticipation, and Adib’s cheeks pink a bit.

Jenn mouths Gay at me, and I snort. The boys’ long-standing crush on each other has been going on since middle school when we got the party together. Their characters have just started flirting with each other in game, so maybe that will translate to some confessions of feelings in real life at some point.

I roll and get a decent fifteen with my modifier.

Erica’s grin spreads from ear to ear, and her voice drops down low as she jumps into her storytelling cadence. “A prickling aura of dread runs down your spine as you cast your spell. From the three ghouls around you, you detect Mage Armor on all three—”

“Objection,” Adib says. “Ghouls can’t cast—”

Erica gives him a cold look. “I’m not done!”

Jenn elbows Adib and he sighs, gesturing for Erica to continue.

“From just beyond the hall, you detect a surge of power, strangely familiar … something—someone is casting a terrifyingly strong aura—”

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Ryan says, gripping the edge of the table.

Jenn gasps as Erica plonks down another figurine, one we’ve all been dreading: a broad-shouldered man with demonic armor, carrying a half-moon staff and wearing a pendant with the symbol for the god Boccob.

“Lord Stackwell!”

“No, I thought he died in the Battle of New Celiorn!” Ryan groans.

Erica shakes her head and mischief glitters in her eyes. “He suffered grievous injuries at the hands of your party, but his viciousness and sheer hatred pushed him to survive. Lord Stackwell walks toward you, his deep, throaty laugh echoing in the catacombs, his eyes sunken and his jaw set with the sweet angle of revenge…”

With our nemesis back from the dead, our battle goes from terrible to we’re all gonna die.

“Come on, Brenda! It’s all up to you!” Adib scowls over his character sheet and at his most recent attack roll—a dismal four, which pretty much seals our fate.

Jenn gives him a reproachful look. She got some damage in, but it’s not enough for us to make it out of here just yet. “You can do it. Justice needs you!” Ever the paladin.

I tap my character sheet for Resna, my dwarf wizard. I assess our situation. Narwhal the orc is unconscious, and Sir Prentiss and our bard, Halfaerd, are both grievously injured. Erica always has tricks up her sleeve. An impulsive attack could cost us everything if I waste it on something Lord Stackwell might have immunity to, but I have to take the chance.

Plus, I just leveled up. I have new spells at the ready.

Confidence surges through me as I grin. “I cast Lightning Bolt directly at Lord Stackwell!”

Erica gasps dramatically and gestures for me to roll.

I grab my lucky d20, the one I splurged on at Comic-Con last year, a galaxy of gold and blue and green specked with sparkles. I toss it and it lands decisively on the table with a solid sixteen.

Ryan thumps the table in excitement. “Yes, yes, yes!” he shouts.

Erica is busy making notes, shaking her own set of dice in turn. We watch in avid anticipation as Erica rolls for Dexterity on each of the ghouls in the line of fire, and for Lord Stackwell and his numerous modifiers.

She grins. “White-hot lightning zips through the air, lighting the catacombs with a fierce energy as it scorches three ghouls and Lord Stackwell! His lead armor sizzles with heat, and for the first time since the Battle of New Celiorn, you feel like you have a fighting chance against Lord Stackwell and his undead army.”

Adib’s phone buzzes so violently it shakes off his character sheet and onto the catacomb map, jostling over one of the ghouls.

“Ack, sorry, that’s my alarm! I have to get home. Pick this up next week?”

Ryan is already packing up. “That was awesome, Brenda! Er, can you tally up the damage and finish this round so we can start back here next week?”

“Already on it,” Erica says, making final notes. “Great game, everyone! I’ll see you all next week!”

Ryan nods, turning to Adib. “Hey, dude, can I get a ride?”

The excitement of the game is thudding through my veins, and now that it’s done, my anxious mind swirls back to Kat as I check my phone again. Nothing.

I exhale. It’s okay. She likes you, otherwise she wouldn’t have said yes to the date and given you her number. She works in a coffeeshop—of course she’s busy! I’m cute, I’m smart, I’m a great catch.

I tap Resna’s mini and look proudly at the toppled-over ghouls. Yeah. I got this.

6 ❤ KAT

I lay out the new clothes on my bed and sigh. As fun as the shopping excursion was, the gown Shannon bought me is clearly not for a first date. There are a lot of people who wear gowns every day, and that’s part of their style, but I’m not one of them. It would feel strange outside of a special occasion.

Mom had great style. She would know exactly what to wear.

I blink.

It never occurred to me to wear Mom’s things, but I’m almost as tall as she was now. I bet I could find something of hers that would look great.

I race down the hallway and into the other bedroom. Inside the closet, I push past Dad’s clothes: shirts and coats and extra cravats and trousers, going all the way to the back. Glowing faintly with runes is the entrance to the rest of the closet.

I press my hand into the center rune, and then the stuffy closet filled with Dad’s clothes disappears around me, the contents of the otherspace closet slowly filling in where I am.

It’s not quite teleportation, and there hasn’t been enough research done to know where exactly the otherspace is, other than it doesn’t take up space in our world. As long as you anchor it to a physical space, you can make a pocket as big as that one in the otherspace, given enough mana to fuel it. It’s fairly complicated spellwork, but easy enough for a magetech to set one up for you if you need the storage.

Dad and Mom custom-built theirs together, and it looks like the rest of their bedroom with warm yellow walls and pine hardwood floors and pretty gray shelving units filled with boxes labeled in Mom’s neat script: everything from UCLA—Spell Development and Research Archive Matrices to Spellcraft 101 Grading Rubrics to Samuel—Winter Coats and Kat—Art, First Grade. The careful organization of items on the shelves make the haphazard jumble of boxes in the center of the space look even shabbier.

The air is dry and dusty, and I cough, sending spirals of dust motes flitting everywhere. A soft glow emanates from the ceiling; an automatic light is spelled to turn on when someone enters the space. It takes me a minute to adjust to the light, and I squint, stepping forward. There’s a colorful scrap of fabric dangling from one open box, gathering dust. I’d been through this box enough times before that I know those clothes won’t work for a first date, but I can’t help going through it for old times’ sake.

That first year after it happened, I used to come up here and look through her things, like I’d find her somehow. I’ve always gotten stuck in this box of dresses, pulling them up and inhaling them, like I could feel Mom holding me close.

Even though it’s comforting, it hurts, too. A steady prickling pain settles at the corners of my chest. Dad just boxed up all her things in here. Like she was gone and suddenly everything of hers had to go away as well. Her endless collection of knickknacks and bangles, the gauzy blouses she’d wear, all of her clothes and shoes. We never talked about it. He’d sat, stone-faced for weeks, and then one day he boxed up all her things and he went back to making coffee like nothing happened.

I shake out the dress sticking out of the open box and smile at it. Parrots and monkeys are embroidered on a colorful rainforest backdrop. I remember Mom laughing about how the dean of academics once asked her to wear less “loud” clothes when she taught and so she went out and bought this dress. I fold it carefully and place it back in the box of dresses. A wave of bitter anger rushes over me. It’s so unfair that we can’t have a burial. It’s been awful, just waiting for an answer only for the council to deny it again because of some unexplainable Ritual complication. If they do ever release Mom’s remains to us and we can finally put her to rest, I know she’d want to be in this dress.

I open box after box, my heart leaping into my chest as I rummage through her clothes and jewelry and books, and I start making a pile of options. I linger on a set of traditional and modern cheongsams, tracing the delicate embroidery on a golden peony over blue silk. These are family heirlooms, passed down through the generations. I never thought I’d inherit these so soon.

I sigh, shifting to a few boxes of spelling supplies. I put them aside to look through later.

My stomach growls, and I wonder what time it is. I found a few options I’m excited about, especially a green linen blouse spellwoven into a glimmering pattern that looks like shifting scales.

I grab a crate I’d opened earlier to heave it aside so there’s a clear path; I’d disregarded it before since it wasn’t clothes, but I’m curious what else Mom had stashed away. These items are all packed carefully, wrapped in heavy fabric so the contents won’t break and shift. It hurts to think of Dad, even in his grief, putting everything away just so, as if Mom would come back at any moment and chide him for improper storage.

I unwrap the first one just to see.

Oh. This is old.

Mom and I haven’t played with this stuff since I was a kid. It’s some sort of moving picture story box. I don’t even remember how it works; Mom always set it up. She’d giggle and laugh and close all the curtains to darken our living room, and I’d marvel as she’d connected long black cables and pressed things, and suddenly the box would come to life. We’d spend the afternoon wrapped up in stories together. One day a mana surge hit our house and the box didn’t work anymore after that. I never asked her where she got the thing from, and now I’d never get the chance.

I poke the boxes now, wondering if I could get them to work. They’re heavy, one with an opaque glass front—that’s where the stories were. I don’t know what the smaller box is for, but there are a series of complicated slots like for some kind of physical spell diagram.

The rest of the crate is a jumble of smaller rectangular boxes with paper labels that are about the size of one of the slots. I pick through them, recognizing the images from the moving stories. These must be some sort of focus objects for the spell to catalyze it. I smile fondly, tracing the image of the characters.

I blink. Wait a moment, this particular story—this is where I saw Brenda’s item before. The blue rectangular object is one of the images on the box, and it’s easily recognizable as the same one, with the same white sign. “Public telephone … pull to open,” I mutter, reading the sign.

So Brenda must know about these stories, too?

Mom had always said these stories were just for us, and not to talk about them—it wasn’t exactly legal to have, and they were hard to get. I had no idea why this form of entertainment would be illegal, but maybe it was the type of spellcraft involved; there’s lots of restrictions on age and license for performing complicated or dangerous works of magic.

I close the crate; there’s probably instructions I can figure out later after my date. I gather up the clothes I’d set aside, and then a soft orange gleam flickers.

I shift through the pile, looking for the source—one of Mom’s favorite coats, a soft woolen beauty with long rows of shining brass buttons. My first thought is the buttons are reflecting the light, but then I realize there’s something solid in one of the pockets.

I pull it out and exhale. It’s a tiny glass vial containing one fiery feather in tones of red, yellow, and gold. The feather looks like fire caught in the breath of movement, like it would burn to touch. The label reads Phoenix Down Feather in Mom’s very small, fine print.

Phoenixes only surface every hundred years or so and leave very few feathers. I wonder how she came by it.

There’s another scrap of paper. It’s only got one word. Mom’s letters here are looped and rushed, like she was in a hurry.

Intention.

I puzzle over it, frowning. I wonder if this had something to do with the Ritual. It was the only thing Mom was working on when she died, but while a phoenix feather would be a very powerful focus object, it couldn’t replace a person as a cornerstone.

So what was it for?

I tremble a little, gripping Mom’s note tighter. Did Mom figure out something about the Ritual?

“Kat?” Dad’s voice is muffled and seems like it’s underwater, coming from the anchor runes on the side of the wall.

“Upstairs!” I call out.

“Muffins for lunch? Got leftovers from the shop. Or I can make fried rice with yesterday’s leftovers.”

“Lap cheong?” I ask hopefully.

“We’re out. It’d probably be just eggs and veggies and the rest of that garlic chicken,” Dad says, his voice getting slightly louder and less muffled. “Where are you?”

“In the back closet.”

Dad materializes in the otherspace with me. “What in the world are you doing in here?” He gives me a pinched smile as I stand up, Mom’s scarves falling off of me.

I don’t know why I feel guilty. I shouldn’t. I have every right to be here.

“Just looking at stuff, I had a—um, research project,” I improvise. I wonder if he knows what Mom was working on. I hesitate. Talking about her never really goes well, and Mom was pretty cagey about her research. “So, um, I remembered this.” I poke the strange story boxes with my foot. “Do you know how to initiate these spells?”

Dad’s face goes from sad-grief to panicked-terror in one second. “Where did you get those?” he says.

“They’re Mom’s.” I plant my feet firmly. He can’t get rid of these, too. “Do you know what they are?”

Dad frowns. “A strange and powerful magic—we shouldn’t have it in the house.” He looks around, as if there could be policemages looking over his shoulder. “I’ll get rid of it.”

“No! They were Mom’s! Come on, Dad, what was this stuff anyway—”

“We shouldn’t hang on to all of this, Katherine,” Dad says, and it’s gone, the familiar nickname, the sweet glimpse of going back to something normal between me and Dad. He’s far away again, back to himself as an authority figure, back to putting Mom away in a box. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to dwell on the past.”

“Dad!”

Ignoring me, he sweeps both the strange boxes into his arms and disappears with an elbow to the rune anchor.

I slap the anchor and follow. “Dad! Why shouldn’t we have it in the house? What’s wrong with it? Where did it come from?”

He doesn’t answer me, and I can feel the tingle of magic in the air—he’s already shoved the boxes into otherspace. A different one, probably keyed only to him. Great.

“Lunch will be ready in ten minutes.”

“But—”

“Go. I’m going to donate the rest of those things tomorrow. It’s best we get on with our lives. It’s what she would have wanted.”

I bite back tears as I run upstairs and dash back to the otherspace closet. I grab the box of spell supplies and the pile of clothes I picked out and hurry to my room.

I bury myself in the clothes, inhaling the fabric; it’s dusty, but I can pick out Mom’s lavender shampoo, the scent of old books and dry parchment, the sharpness of star anise, one of her favorite spell ingredients. The tears come now, hot and salty, and I wipe them off my face before they can ruin the clothes.

I don’t understand how he can say we just … move on. I’m angry that he can’t talk about it other than to say that he won’t, and I don’t have anywhere else to put this feeling of being lost, of not knowing who I am anymore without her. It’s like the whole world changed when suddenly the prophecy was about me instead of my mom, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to face the world without her.

But I guess I have to.

7 ❤ BRENDA

The familiar hot, dry air of May settles around me like thick pancake batter. I pull out my phone, frowning at my reflection. I try to get my wispy bangs to stay flat and fail. I’m starting to second-guess my outfit—a V-necked top, tight jeans, and ankle boots—but I can’t change now.

“You look great,” Jenn says with a smile, parking the car on the corner of Main Street.

I can see the coffeeshop from here, and suddenly all my nerves rush into my throat. “Thanks for driving me.”

“No problem.” She winks at me. “Just text me when you’re done; I’ll be at the thrift store.”

Jenn gives me an encouraging thumbs-up before starting to browse through the clothes on the sidewalk racks.

I stride across the street, channeling confidence and cool.

Wait.

Am I in the right place?

The coffee cup sign isn’t bright and colorful but faded and cracked. It looks like it’s aged twenty years in a few days.

The door is open, people heft boxes in and out, and a short woman in a starched apron holding a clipboard directs orders.

“Hi,” I say awkwardly.

“Job applications are on the website,” she says automatically.

“Sorry, I’m not—”

“Opening day is next week.”

I bite my lip, looking around the place. All the modern furniture they’re bringing inside is totally different from the cozy vibe I got with all the mismatched armchairs. Maybe it’s a remodel? “I’m actually looking for one of your employees? Kat?”

The woman arches her eyebrow at me. “Kathy?”

“Yeah?” Kat could be short for Kathy, maybe? I could have misheard.

“Not here today. Come back when the store is open next week.”

“But—”

The woman shoos me out, barking more orders at people carrying in espresso machines. Wow. Kat’s manager is really short-tempered. I watch through the glass for a while and finally decide to lean casually against the wall. Maybe she wasn’t working today with the remodeling stuff but will show up for our date.

I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. Across the street, Jennifer gives me a puzzled look.

_x_Jen_x_: What’s going on?

Brendaroni: she’s not here yet. not working today i guess

_x_Jen_x_: it’s 4:12!!

Brendaroni: i know. she said she’d be here.

I fiddle with my phone, looking through my schedule and scowling at it. Okay, finish the essay for AP US History tonight, and also do the reading … wait, what’s the reading? I can’t concentrate at all—where is she?

Was it a fake number after all?

I try to distract myself, looking at the dusty wares in the shop window next door. Jenn gives me a quizzical look as she pretends to browse. I’m sure if I had gone into the coffeeshop as expected she would have just continued shopping, but knowing she’s there makes me feel a little less weird lingering here. Maybe I should go to the thrift store, too. I could easily come back to the shop if I see Kat …

Behind Jenn, a thin reedy man way too dressed up for Main Street, San Pablo looks up from the clothing racks of half-priced sundresses. He’s wearing some kind of fancy suit, complete with a waistcoat and a matching bow tie. His eyes meet mine in a brief moment of uncomfortable eye contact. I immediately look down at my phone. When I look up, he’s still there, skittish and strange, dressed like an extra from a twenties speakeasy movie. He glances at me, and then at the bustling workers carrying equipment into the coffeeshop behind me, his face an intense expression of study.

A prickling sense of unease runs down my spine, a familiar in-game suspicion, that sense of walking through a quiet forest, knowing there are enemies lying in wait, just about to attack.

Jenn gives him a dirty look as she crosses the street to join me, and the man disappears back inside the store. He continues watching us with a calculated stare from the window. What a weirdo.

“It’s been thirty minutes,” Jennifer says, giving me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry. Want me to take you home?”

“But—” Kat had seemed so sure. Disappointment swells up inside me.

“You’re still here?” The manager woman opens the doorway to look at me. “I told you, Kathy isn’t working today. I don’t even know what’s going on in that girl’s head if she tells all her little friends that they can get free coffee, but I’ll have you know that I’ll be watching and there are no freebies.”

Jenn looks at me. “I thought you said her name was Kat?”

“Yeah, but…” I glance at the woman. “Maybe we got mixed up? I’m looking for a Kat. A Chinese girl with waist-length hair?”

The woman looks confused. “Kathy is my daughter; I haven’t hired anyone else yet.”

My stomach sinks. “Okay.”

“Come on, let’s go.” Jenn guides me to her car. “Are you sure we’re in the right place? They don’t even have their machines set up.”

“But on Wednesday…” I glance back at the corner. I was so sure it was that same block.

Heat sizzles in the air. I look up and down the lonely block of shops. There’s a reason why this section of Main Street is abandoned; ever since they opened that fancy new theater a few blocks away, most businesses have moved over there. On the street there are a few people, but there’s no Kat walking my way, nothing but the parched dirt in the divider of the forlorn, cracked sidewalk.

8 ❤ KAT

I pour a cup of coffee, add two shots of espresso, a swig of hazelnut syrup, and a dash of Calm. Angel, one of our regulars who works at the Mayfield spelltech factory down the street, accepts it with raised eyebrows.

“You usually give me three shots.”

“Remember your ‘Kat, never give me this much caffeine during the second shift’ lecture?” I raise an eyebrow back at him.

He salutes me with his cup in response before taking a long gulp.

“Thanks for the Calm,” Angel remarks. “It feels good.”

“Of course it does,” I say.

“You guys are lifesavers,” he says gratefully.

I wipe down the counter, hiding my grin. Pick-Me-Ups can’t actually do anything if you don’t want them to—everyone forgets that all potions vary in effectiveness with the intention of the brewer and the consumer. The most anxious person in the world could drink a whole cauldron of Calm and it wouldn’t do anything unless they wanted it to.

But people love our coffee, and helping someone have a better day is one of my favorite parts about working here.

Jordan, our manager, yawns as they pull their baseball cap down over their eyes. “We’re out of the Guatemalan beans,” they note.

“I got it, you stay put,” I say, patting them on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Jordan huffs. “Hey, you look nice today.”

“I have a date later,” I admit. I can’t help the grin that steals onto my face. I’m wearing one of Mom’s blouses, the deep green linen spellwoven into a pattern that looks like scales. It hangs loosely over my cropped top, and I have it tied open around my waist. I love the look of my arms in it, how it flows and offsets my tight black denim jeans stuffed into black combat boots.

Suddenly I’m nervous, a fluttering rising in my stomach. Confidence can only get you so far—what if Brenda doesn’t like me? What if she thinks my original spells are pointless and dumb?

I take a deep breath and focus. I like her, she likes me. We’re going to have an amazing time, I think to myself.

In the back, I pass Dad pulling a tray of dan tats out of the oven. The egg custards look perfect, their centers wobbling ever so slightly as Dad sets them down to cool.

I reach over and grab one, the crust flaking on my fingers, and I blow on it before popping it into my mouth.

Dad sees me and scowls. “Hey!”

I almost tease him about my job as quality control of all baked goods, a running joke we started back when he opened the shop, but I’m in no mood for it today. I’m still angry about his reaction to Mom’s stuff, and I steal another hot pastry and eat it in front of him, raising my eyebrows at him daringly.

Dad opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he just grumbles under his breath.

“You gonna make cha siu bao today?” I ask, peering around the kitchen. I was hoping that would be my lunch.

“There’s still some in the display case,” Dad says. “Warming spell.”

“The ones fresh out of the oven are best.”

“Weren’t you getting something?” Dad rolls his eyes at me.

I stick my tongue out and grab a bag of Guatemalan beans, hefting it over my shoulder. Working here at the shop is one of the routines that hasn’t changed at all since Mom died. It’s the same frazzled customers and Dad experimenting in the back as I work with Jordan and Carlos and Kyla. This has always been Dad’s domain, a place where he can brew and bake to his heart’s content. Mom loved it, too; she’d have her own table as she’d work and grade papers, making fun of us as we got covered in flour and coffee grounds.

Dad has always loved coffee, loved the rhythmic steps of taking whole beans and grinding them up and creating different brews, seeing peoples’ faces light up when they get their Pick-Me-Up and caffeine fix. He loves getting to be creative, loves having a place to brew and bake, coming up with new drinks and pastries. When people see “Sam Woo,” they think of Chinese barbecue, succulent roast pork, and crispy duck skin. Dad always laughs when people confuse them; he knows there’s that association, and he likes to play with it, likes to say he’s the Sam Woo with the coffee, not the barbecue, and hey, there are so many Woos in LA of course there was bound to be another Sam.

He doesn’t tell them that he took Mom’s last name. He chose to be a Woo, and she used to tease him that it was just so he could make this joke.

It was the three of us, our little family, and without Mom it feels like an unsteady stool missing a leg, and Dad and I are on different sides of this impossible chasm.

I miss her so much.

I waddle back with the bag, plopping it on the ground and ripping the sack open. I start to fill the coffee grinders, swiping a rune on each of them to start the process and then another to start a fresh batch brewing in each pot.

“Thanks,” Jordan groans, and I notice bags under their eyes as they yawn again. “Sorry, I’m just so tired.”

The hot ginger tea I had steeping earlier should be done. I pour in a spoonful of Revive before adding a dram of poppyseed powder and a squeeze of lemon. I hand it to Jordan. “Why did you even come in today? It’s first day after a full moon, right?”

Jordan takes a deep sip. “How’d you know? Oh man, you put poppyseed in this.”

“Good for aches and pains. You know transformations take so much out of you.”

Jordan groans. “I’m old. Every day a new part of my body decides to hurt, so I just forget the extra once-a-month part. Maybe I’m just tired trying to keep up with Tim. It was his first run last night.”

I empty the sack of beans into the last grinder and grin at them. “Tim went with you all! That’s amazing!”

Tim is Jordan’s twelve-year-old son; he’s been excited for his first transformation all year. Werewolf puberty can be random: Some kids grow a bit of fang or get a bit more rowdy or furry on the full moon, or transform in stages slowly; some kids get it all at once.

Dad starts stacking egg custards in the display case. “Did I hear that right, Jordan? You came into work the first day after a full moon run, and your first one with your kid?”

“You need the help, old man! It’s my job to be here.”

“Go home or you’re fired,” Dad says playfully.

“You wouldn’t. You need me too much.”

“I’ll make Kat the manager.”

“She can’t even manage her own hat! She’s always stealing mine,” Jordan says, looking at me.

I take off my baseball cap and sure enough, there’s JORDAN REED stitched in their wife’s dainty embroidery. I had grabbed it off the hook this morning because I forgot mine at home.

“Can you ask Rachel if she’d put my name on mine?” I ask, tracing the cute embroidered flower next to Jordan’s name.

“Aw, she’d love that,” Jordan says.

“You should ask her that when you see her in a minute because you’re going home,” Dad says.

“Fine, fine,” Jordan says. “Don’t miss me too much.”

They ruffle my hair once more before hanging up their hat and wandering out the door to catch the street trolley home.

I settle into the familiar rhythms of work. I already have oat milk steamed when Davey and Todd arrive during their midafternoon break, bickering about who is treating who to coffee and who covered the trolley fare home last night, and I recharge the warming spells on the glass display case of pastries just as a group of parents and their toddlers come in after their usual Saturday playdate.

A frail-looking Chinese man wearing a vest over his pajamas steps to the register and regards me with his solemn eyes, three gold teeth gleaming from his smile.

“Zou san, Uncle Chau,” I say, pouring his usual jasmine tea with a shot of Rest Well.

The old man’s eyes twinkle as he takes his cup. He’s not actually related to any of us, but he’s been a family friend as long as I can remember, his humble apothecary providing the herbs and ingredients for our Pick-Me-Ups.

“You need to practice your Cantonese more,” Uncle Chau teases me. “Your accent is atrocious.”

“Maybe you should visit more instead of having me come to your store to pick up supplies,” I say playfully as I hand him a pineapple bun.

Uncle Chau rolls his eyes and takes his tea and pastry to his corner booth, settling in with a Chinese newspaper.

Little Gabby from the play group immediately presses her face to the display case, her eyes widening as her chubby baby cheeks press against the glass.

“I saved this one for you.” I laugh, taking out the last round raspberry bun, its poofy sweetness almost overflowing the paper wrapper it’s baked in, its red center sweet and jammy.

Mira, Gabby’s mom, mouths Thank you as she rounds out her order with coffee and a loaf of milk bread. “Oh, I forgot my purse,” she says with a frown.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dad says, pouring fresh milk into the steamer. He presses his palm to it and draws the runes activating it, turning to her with a smile. “You did such amazing work fixing these up the other week, they take half as much mana to charge as they used to.”

“Sammy, do you have decaf?” Amir asks in a tone nearing panic, his two sons shrieking behind him.

“Of course I do,” Dad says, stepping up to pour drinks as I ring everyone up.

I smile, swept up in the hustle and bustle of our regular weekend shift, the smell of freshly baked bread everywhere, coffee beans roasting, magic humming away in the background, the gentle glow of Pick-Me-Ups ready for customizing for every order. People talk and laugh, deep in conversation. An impromptu study group starts in the corner, table overflowing with books and scrolls, college students cramming for a test. The parents from the group are now enjoying their drinks as their children eat their buns with their hands, peeling off piece by piece.

Here and now there is no prophecy, just everyday people living their lives, and I’m a part of that, a single thread woven into a deep and intricate tapestry of life.

Dad brings out another tray of pastries just in time for the afternoon rush. I arrange everything into the case carefully: tall fluffy milk breads in thick sliced loaves, savory ham-and-cheese croissants, rolls studded with savory spring onion and crispy pork threads, matcha-green-tea-spiraled cakes, glistening and shiny cha siu bao, crispy and flaky pineapple buns.

The bell above the door rings, and I look up immediately, like I have with every chime since noon. It isn’t Brenda, just another set of customers.

“What do you keep daydreaming for? We’ve got customers, hurry up!” Dad gestures at the long line behind the counter and people waiting at their tables for their drinks. Two mages, still in their Mayfield uniforms, are barely standing up, bags under their eyes, their fingers twitching.

I finish the drink orders quickly. “Three Pick-Me-Ups and two Endurances,” I announce, and gesture quickly the shorthand for the spell I’d perfected yesterday for short distance levitation. The spell completes as I finish the final rune in the air and I feel a zing as it takes. The drinks whizz through the shop, flying to their respective patrons and landing on their tables.

There are a few whistles of appreciation from the coffee crowd. I’m a bit winded, like I’ve just run up a flight of steps, but it’s so worth it.

“Kat, you’re getting stronger and stronger every day! Did you design this one?” Rosita, one of our regulars, beams at me from her corner.

“I did!” I say proudly.

Dad huffs at me. “If you have energy to spell, there’s a whole crate of Endurances in the back that need refreshing.”

“My shift is almost over; I told you I was leaving at four today!”

I wasn’t even scheduled for today, but I knew Jordan would be tired, and Kyla was in a car accident after trying to take a shortcut on Wilshire yesterday, and she had to go to the hospital. It’s pretty awful; luckily she’s okay, just a few stitches. I’m still appalled that the damn wyverns were loose; they usually stick to their territory up in the Santa Monica Mountains, but we’ve been seeing swarms more and more in the city lately. I think that mana surge on Thursday riled them up, even though the mayor is insisting that everything is fine.

I glance out the window again. No sign of Brenda yet. I feel like this day has been going on forever.

“You can finish at least half a crate in twenty minutes. Go on, don’t waste your energy doing stunts like that.” He folds his arms and shakes his head. “You should have just walked!”

“Whatever.” I shrug.

In the storage room, I gingerly pick up the crate of Endurance vials, careful not to jostle their carefully spelled contents. The potions are viscous, still faintly glowing as they swirl inside their glass vials. Endurance is supposed to be a bright, inspiring yellow, like sunshine in bottled form, but these are at least two weeks old.

I sigh, wiping clean the empty space on the spelling counter, and grab the last piece of chalk in our bucket and two sprigs of merrywort. Yawning, I draw the eight runes needed for this spell. I could do this in my sleep. Recite, remove, repeat. I’m surprised I don’t actually nod off, but I’ve got a date to look forward to.

A dragon. Brenda and her friends had encountered—and gotten away from—a dragon before.

The possibility of it is fascinating. Brenda is fascinating; her sharp focus still resonates in my mind. I’ve never seen anyone so in tune to their work like that, and she was so passionate about her plans.

In the distance, the clock in the Main Street town square starts to chime; it barely lets out one solemn note before I’m up. I toss my apron and Jordan’s hat on the hook. “Bye, Dad!”

“Did you finish?”

“It’s four!”

He scowls but doesn’t say anything else as I duck out the door, the bell ringing above my head.

I fidget, waiting. I take my hair down, change my mind and put it back up, and then readjust my lip gloss. Five minutes go by. I say hello to people walking into the shop, say bye to Rosita as she leaves, but there’s no Brenda, not yet.

“You know I can see you, right?” Dad asks, poking his head out of the door. “What are you doing?”

“It’s my free time, I can do whatever I want,” I drawl.

Dad sighs. “Either come back inside or go home, don’t just stand here. You’re scaring people away.”

“Really? I actually just got three people to come in for coffee,” I say. “You should be paying me for advertising.”

“Go home, Katherine. Do your homework.”

I glance at the clock. It’s nearly four thirty. My stomach sinks. “How about I do my homework inside?”

Dad raises his eyebrows at me. “Really? Where I can see you? You don’t wanna just tell me you’re working on school stuff and then spend two hours painting your nails?”

I snort. “That was one time.”

I take a small table with a view of the window and try to work on an essay on the process of mana filtration. Two sentences in and I start doodling instead, watching the window intently.

Time moves sluggishly. The butterflies in my stomach stop flying and feel like they’ve been turned to stone, weighing me down inside.

I guess she was just too busy after all.

9 ❤ BRENDA

Today’s to-do list is packed, but my mind keeps drifting. I can’t concentrate. Kat’s smile keeps coming back to me.

I glance at my bullet journal and the endless tasks on each page, the inspirational quotes I’ve carefully copied down, my lists, everything I’d planned for today, this week, this month, and the next and the next. Usually the journal is super comforting to me, seeing my schedule and everything organized just so. But I realize every day is all blocked out in neat squares, without any chance for a break. Even the weekends, like today’s plans for homework and community service organization and then helping out at the nail salon.

I slump over, resting my head on the journal. I close my eyes and take a deep breath; the date with Kat would have been the first spontaneous thing I did in forever.

Maybe I should just goof off or do something with Jenn and Erica. Most seniors are already in summer mode, barely paying attention in classes.

I flip through the journal and yesterday’s page jumps out at me. My stomach does a creaky, unhappy lurch.

BRENDA NGUYỄN’S PLAN FOR HAVING A GREAT DATE!

1. Wear the V-necked T-shirt

2. Mints!

3. Ask her about herself (see page 23 for good first-date questions brainstorm)

4. Talk about your interests!

5. Flip your hair (Erica, I said you can’t write in my journal!) (Actually, that’s a great idea) I know, right!!

I close the journal with more force than necessary. What kind of nerd plans her free time? Maybe this was why Kat changed her mind; she thought about it and didn’t think it was worth showing up.

No, no, stop. I take a deep breath; I know what the start of an anxiety spiral looks like. All I have to do is not give the fear monster any food. I sit up, new determination flowing through me, trying to push the thoughts of rejection away.

I should be proud of myself; it was a good step even if she didn’t show. I pull out my phone where the group chat is buzzing. I scroll past Erica bugging Jenn about coming over to D&D at Adib’s today and chuckle. Ryan wanted to try his hand at DMing and wrote (with Erica’s help) a short campaign. So far only Erica and Adib have been playing.

[GROUP CHAT: MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA, YOU ATE MY PIZZA]

_x_Jen_x_: I mean, the last time Ryan DM’d a one-shot it took like six hours and we didn’t get anywhere.

Entfromtheent: oh c’mon, he’s gotten much better, you can test out a new character

Brendaroni: hey hey

Entfromtheent: hey! how are you doing? you know what would take your mind off things? joining ryan’s new campaign. come on, please, he’s playing so many NPCs it’s not even funny

Brendaroni: i dunno:(

_x_Jen_x_: I am a thousand percent sure you were at the wrong place!

Brendaroni: no way, i swear it was the same one

Entfromtheent: awww booo you’ll find her. we can go on a quest to investigate every coffeeshop in town

Brendaroni: let’s NOT do that

Brendaroni: hey, do you guys want to go to the mall or anything? i was gonna study all morning before the salon but i don’t wanna anymore

Entfromtheent: WHAAAAT YES

_x_Jen_x_: Really? Well I still need to find my dress for prom but are you sure?

Brendaroni: yeah my essay is almost done and not due till next Friday, i really don’t need to work more on it, should take a break

Entfromtheent: ryan and adib keep making eyes at each other, if I have to listen to one more thinly veiled fictional confession of feelings and watch them pine at each other I’m gonna hurl

Brendaroni: LOL okay come pick me up

_x_Jen_x_: Just have your character faint or something and come hang out with us! ^_^

Entfromtheent: done. now ryan’s NPC can flirt more effectively with adib’s character

I spot Erica pull up in front of the house in her mom’s minivan and I dash outside, a rush of joy flooding through me. I don’t even wait for Erica to pull to a stop, just slide open the door and laugh as the car almost slips out of my reach. Erica sticks her tongue out at me, stepping on the gas as I try to get into the car.

“Hey!” I manage to jump inside, cradling my bag as Jenn pulls me in with a smile.

The mall is filled with people, teenagers and parents and kids running around, couples walking arm in arm, laden with shopping bags. Jenn immediately drags us to Macy’s to look at dresses, and I laugh as she gets scandalized by Erica’s increasingly more daring suggestions.

“You should forget Kat,” Jenn says, handing me a sparkly dress and placing the one Erica picked out with the plunging neckline back on the rack. “Clearly she couldn’t be bothered to show. Not worth your time.”

“I mean, what if there was a mistake? Like, look at this, what if it isn’t even a number?” I reach into my backpack and pull out the worn, almost-falling-apart napkin. Kat’s messy, looped handwriting looks back at me. It feels generous now to even call that a phone number, there are so many symbols I don’t really recognize.

“Well, messy handwriting can be a sign of an extremely intelligent and creative personality. But you had decided on a time and a place. Unless she had to reschedule and couldn’t reach you,” Jenn says. “Did you text all the different combinations?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t hear back. What about this…” I point to a symbol.

Erica breaks into a wide grin. “It’s an X and an O!”

“Are you sure? There’s a squiggle here—”

Erica grips me by the shoulder and shakes me playfully. “Look, I think we should hit up that coffee place off Garfield, you know the one that used to be a Popeyes? I think you probably got mixed up. You said that manager lady said they weren’t even open yet, and the one you went to was, like, all cozy? The place I’m thinking of has the best couches, I’m sure that’s the one.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling a little better.

I watch Jenn try on three different dresses as Erica narrates with exaggerated aplomb, turning each of them into a magical item with modifiers, making us both double over in laughter at how the blue mermaid sheath adds +2 Dexterity and the ruffles on the pink dress add to her Perception stats—until we get kicked out of the dressing room for being too loud.

I catch up on the drama with Erica’s sister and listen to Jenn talk sadly about how Aiden couldn’t come back this weekend because he’s prepping for finals. Then Erica runs into some friends from basketball when we’re at H&M and the conversation starts to drift toward places I can’t follow.

I meander idly around the aisles of clothing, looking through the styles and feeling more and more uncomfortable; I can’t afford any of this. I guess it doesn’t matter, since I’m just going to wear last year’s homecoming dress anyway, a boring black dress that I can easily move in, so I can do the setup and decoration with the rest of the committee.

Jenn is giggling with Erica, probably dreamily talking about how much fun prom will be, and I feel a wistful pang of longing. Sure, it’s great hanging out at school dances, getting the thrill of pulling off another successful event, but I wonder if it would be more fun getting to do it without the responsibility.

Guess I’ll never know, since I’m the head of the prom committee this year.

I run my hands down a purple dress with a beaded trim, smiling at how it sparkles in the light, and sigh. I should get out of this section.

“Hey, I’m gonna run over to the Target and get some new folders for school. I’ll meet up with you guys later at the pretzel place,” I mumble.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna try anything on? What about that purple dress you saw?” Erica nudges my elbow, and I shake my head.

The mall is bright, too bright, filled with people who are walking too slowly and without purpose, and it annoys me, all these people with their free time and extra money to spend on new things. This idea to have fun at the mall now seems stupid. Maybe I should ask Erica to drop me off at the salon soon; I could get homework done there, too, if it’s slow.

I walk faster, dodging couples holding hands and a group of friends who are taking up the whole aisle.

Target beckons me forward, the aisles glowing with that warmth and tidiness that is both relaxing and exciting. As I walk through the doors, it feels unexpectedly warm and humid. Maybe their air conditioner broke or something. Weird.

Inside the cheery red store, I relax as time seems to still in this microcosm of colorful displays. It’s so easy to lose track of time and just wander and look at things, and everything is so cute and well organized. It’s what I love about Target; no matter where you are, they all feel the same, like you could walk into one store in one location and easily walk out in another one.

I am heading toward the furniture aisle to pick out fantasy furniture for my future apartment when I’m a successful scientist with two doctorates, but I pause in the tech section as I catch the names of the items.

I thought they were books, but on a closer look I see they’re shiny and transparent, with a radiant shimmer to them, imbued with color. The thick glass objects range from the size of a phone to a paperback novel to a laptop, with a familiar red Target price tag marking them from a hundred to two hundred and even more. I pick one up, feeling the solid weight of it in my hand, trying to figure out what it is.

NEW RUNEBOOKS!

ORION 4.0

DRAGON’S ENVY 3.9

They all have names, like phones, I guess. I flip one over and run my fingers down the cool glass surface. Maybe it’s a new type of gaming tablet or something. Pretty cool. Where are the circuits? How does it work?

I flip it over to read the label, and then my heart literally leaps into my throat.

SEE OUR MAGE TECHNICIANS TO SET UP YOUR NEW RUNEBOOK

Easily add contacts with any namekey

Can be used to operate a number of spells without a mage

No need to learn or perform any complicated spells!

All the power of prepared spells at your fingertips

Monthly and annual plans available

I blink and reread it, and yup, it still says spells. Is this some kind of joke?

I look down another aisle. This one looks pretty normal, just phone accessories like covers in multiple colors, but—I glance back at the glass thing in my hand, which is definitely not a phone, and measure it up to the accessories, which are obviously made for it. Not phone accessories, then.

Runebook.

The shelves are still cherry red, the lights are still fluorescent bright with that otherworldly Targetness, like it’s located outside the space-time continuum, but everything seems to hum with a different kind of energy.

Maybe I’m hallucinating; I’ve been in this mall too long breathing in the pure oxygen they pump into the hallways to keep shoppers bright and alert to spend more money, and maybe I’m just, like, imagining all these weird labels and stuff.

A boy scratching his arms and scowling approaches an employee wearing red. “I need to get rid of this curse.”

“Aisle twenty-four,” the employee replies in a bored tone.

I try not to stare; yes, the employee is wearing red, but the style is somehow completely different. They’re wearing a fancy red trench coat, and the boy looks like he just stepped off the set of Newsies. He’s even got a—Jenn and her Jane Austen–loving ways would kill me if I got this wrong—a cravat?

That’s not the weirdest thing. He said curse, right? Not like bugbites or anything?

I go back to the main aisle. Shoppers go about their day with little red baskets filled with stuff. It’s almost normal except that everyone’s clothes seem to be tailored and somehow look both historical and impeccably chic and modern at the same time.

What just happened?

I walk slowly, trying to take in all the people. Everyone looks so polished. A girl my age, wearing a lovely … gown-type thing, open in the front to show sleek fitted pants, pulls out a pocket-sized glass runebook thing as I pass her. She swipes a pattern onto the surface—multiple patterns. One of them is a weird squiggle that—

Wait a minute.

I pull the crumpled napkin out of my wallet with what I thought was Kat’s number scribbled on it. Unfolding it, I look again at the smudged things that I had a difficult time figuring out. Are these some sort of code? These symbols?

“Hey, Mom. Do you want any eggs? Uh-huh … uh-huh … okay, I’ll check if they have any more Pick-Me-Ups, but I hate the way the ones at Target taste … The mages don’t make them right … Yeah, I know, Sammy’s is more expensive, but it’s so worth it…”

Sammy’s? Like Kat’s coffeeshop?

I walk faster, increasing my stride as fast as I can without breaking into a run and drawing attention to myself. I get a few strange looks, and I’m very aware that I’m wearing a Hello Kitty T-shirt and ripped jeans and must look very out of place.

“I don’t think I’m in Target anymore,” I mutter to myself, and laugh a bit hysterically. It still looks like Target. It feels exactly like a Target, but—

A number of magazine racks and newspapers declare colorful headlines like “How to Protect Yourself from Mana Overflow” and “How to Prepare Your Children for Magical Assessment” and …

Over by the wall, I see two employees putting giant rolls of toilet paper onto the shelves, but they’re … levitating.

I gasp and stop short, and someone bumps into me from behind, and a glass thing clatters to the floor. It doesn’t break, but the shining symbols stop glowing.

“Watch where you’re going! You totally killed my call.” It’s the girl from earlier, and she scowls at me, picking up her not-phone. “I can’t believe this. I have little enough mana as is, and now I’m out for the week! Do you know how expensive it is to buy new spells for this version?”

“I, uh—sorry,” I say, stepping back and holding up my hands.

“You better be!” She casts one more sharp glare at me before huffing and stalking down the aisle.

“Brenda?”

I whirl around, and there’s Kat, holding a reusable shopping bag and a receipt, her mouth set in a little frown. She looks great, wearing wide-leg black trousers with suspenders and another crop top under a short— I can only describe it as a capelet. It’s a cool outfit, one Jenn would describe as quirky but definitely not something people wear every day. I look around the aisle: Everywhere people are dressed in a steampunk Regency aesthetic, and it’s jarring, but it looks so good.

Kat especially.

“Oh, hi, um—” I attempt to both wave and reach out for a handshake, which at the last second dawns on me as utterly uncool, like I’m at a business networking event. Why, Brenda? I lose my balance as I attempt to be casual, running my hand through my hair instead and falling backward against the shelf, toppling right into the glass things. I fumble and catch one before it hits the floor. “So, uh, hey. How are you doing?”

“Good,” Kat says, eyeing me critically as she stuffs the receipt back in the bag and shoulders it. “Are you having a good weekend?”

“It’s all right, just homework so far and now I’m here.” I was looking forward to our date, I don’t say, but it’s on the tip of my tongue. I don’t want to confront her about it, though, and make this suddenly awkward. She probably was planning never to show and now it’s weird, seeing me again.

“Work, huh?” Kat raises an eyebrow. “I guess all that talk about making time to hang out never happened at all.”

Wait. What? My mouth falls open. She was the one who didn’t show!

Apparently I must have said this aloud because both Kat’s eyebrows shoot up, and she gives me a cold look. “I was at the coffeeshop all afternoon; you never showed up. I guess your work was much more important.”

“Hey, I skipped important study time to come hang out with you!” I put my hands on my hips and draw myself up to my full height, which is barely two inches taller than Kat. She looks just as cute as she did the other day, maybe even cuter, if it’s possible.

“Well, you definitely didn’t come to the shop—”

A spark of hot indignation flashes through me. “I did. And, it was weird—it looked totally different, like you were redecorating or something. Did you guys order a bunch of new coffee machines and stuff?”

“No … Dad hasn’t updated the store for, like, ten years…” Kat sighs. “Look, you don’t have to make up a story about going to a different coffeeshop, you could have just said you didn’t want to come or changed your mind, you had my namekey—”

“Your what? Look, my handwriting is pretty bad, but what you gave me was probably not a number at all; it wasn’t enough digits, and I had to figure out what those squiggles were meant to be, and you never texted me back…”

“Oh, is your runebook broken? Is that why you’re getting a new one? That model is trash, you know.” Kat jerks her head at the thing in my hand.

“This?” I wave the piece of glass at her, feeling the hefty weight of it. “I am so confused, one minute I’m in Target and the next—”

“This is Target.”

“I know, but it’s not the right Target! There are shelves filled with things like these talking about spells and—” I’m very close to freaking out.

No, I am freaking out.

I take a deep breath and clutch my lucky d20 in my bag, tracing the numbers with my fingers. It’s not as familiar as my TARDIS key chain for calming me down, but it does the trick. I can feel my heartbeat start to slow back to normal.

Kat tilts her head. “You had a runebook at the shop. You were writing your scholarship thingy on it.”

“You mean my laptop?” I set the runebook back on the shelf, shaking my head. An aisle away, the rolls of toilet paper are still floating as two employees in red gesture at them in what could be ASL, but they’re not using any signs I’ve ever seen.

Kat gives me an incredulous look. “You’re acting like you’ve never seen magic before.”

I squeak. “Of course I’ve n—”

A voice rumbles overhead in a clipped managerial tone. “A mana oversurge has been detected coming down Main Street. It will pass through the mall in less than a minute. Make sure any active spellkeys are deactivated, otherwise unpredictable events may occur. Target is not responsible for any loss or damage to personal items—”

“WHAT—” I start.

Then I feel it. It’s like a thick wave of water is rushing past me, and with the swift current I can feel the coolness of wind and water and a million growing things, the whisper of something I cannot name but recognize innately, inside me, in my blood, like every cell in my body is suddenly singing, clamoring for more, for life—

And then it’s over, and I can feel my own blood rushing through my head, my heart pounding as rapidly as if I’ve just finished a race. I feel a little dizzy and off-balance, like I’m dehydrated, but I can’t be. I’ve been drinking water dutifully all day.

“Are you okay?” Kat asks, her voice softening. “You really—you haven’t experienced a mana surge before?”

“What was that?” I gasp. The world comes back into focus, and people around me are going back to shopping like this happens all the time.

Kat stares at me, like she’s seeing me for the first time—maybe I’m imagining it, but she seems to be radiating energy, the air around her glimmering, pulsing like a suggestion of water around a mirage.

“Mana overflow,” Kat says slowly. “The leading issue of the twenty-first century? You know, the energy that flows through all of us, the source of magic itself.”

I shake my head, a hysterical giggle bursting out of me, confusion and excitement and emotion all bumbling together, and I don’t know how to feel.

Kat looks me over, takes in my Hello Kitty shirt and jeans, and tilts her head. “Where are you—where could you possibly—there’s nowhere in the world that doesn’t have this problem! Like, it is the worst in LA, because we’re on the intersection of majorly unstable ley lines, but we have these weekly!”

“I grew up in LA! But this—” I splutter, gesturing at the familiar and not-familiar-at-all Target—the people in hipster Regency clothes shopping, the huge poster advertising otherspace storage where the dudes hawking cell phones should be—it couldn’t be possible, could it?

Crash.

The sound of breaking glass shatters my train of thought.

Kat freezes, her head jerking toward the direction of the sound.

“Ahhhh!”

“What the actual fuck—”

“Someone call security!”

Screams and panic echo from the aisles to our right, and my heart leaps into my throat.

Something clatters on the ground, skittering and moving quickly, something that sounds like claws on linoleum, something moving closer—

A sharp scream echoes in the air, and then the sound of fabric ripping.

More screams and scuffling, like a person—multiple people—breaking out into a run.

A panicked teenager sprints down our aisle, wide-eyed and panicked. “Wyvern!” they spit out. “A whole lot of them!” They shoulder past the both of us, their jacket ripped and torn—as if by claws. They’re fumbling in their pocket, pulling out the not-phone and swiping furiously at it, and then they disappear with a pop.

“What the—” I step back from the spot where they were just standing and look up at Kat, who has her own not-phone out and has her thumb resting on it mid-swipe.

“We should get out of here. You got a teleport charged up?”

“No!” I squeak. “Why would I—no!” I fumble in my messenger bag, my fingers brushing past my wallet, the hard plastic of my water bottle, looking for something, anything. Pepper spray, I’m sure I have pepper spray here somewhere.

“Give me your namekey, I can write you into mine,” Kat says, holding out the not-phone to me. I stare at the screen and at the squiggles and numbers and lines of what looks like—code?

Overhead on the speaker system, a voice crackles—different from the stern warning earlier, a younger one, high-pitched and panicked. “Hey! There are three wyverns in Home Goods and they’re heading toward Otherspace Tech, get the fuck out of here—hey!”

“Nathan, you’re not cleared for announcements, give me that—ahem. Please remain calm. Target has everything under control. Wyvern wranglers are on their way. Please calmly proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly fashion and remember that with the recent mana surge, activating any teleportation spellkeys may result in unforeseen circumstances. Do not teleport. I repeat: DO. NOT. TELEPORT.”

Kat shakes her head. “I’ll take those chances. What’s your namekey? We gotta get out of here!”

“I don’t have one!”

People are full-on running now, shopping carts left unattended and the sounds of panic echoing throughout the store interspersed with the pops of what must be teleportation.

My instinct tells me I should be running, too, but my feet are still catching up to my brain, and I’m frozen as the click of sharp claws echoes on the tiled floor.

Then I see it—something scaly slithering around the corner. It’s almost like a dragon, and I recognize the shape only from D&D manuals—a reptile the size of a fox with wings in the place of forearms, and it opens its gaping maw at me to reveal sharp, pointed teeth.

“Come on!”

I take Kat’s hand without a second thought and we sprint down the aisle as the creature ambles after us, its long reptilian tongue hanging out as its eyes glimmer with interest.

It’s chaos as we run through Home Goods. Shelves are toppled over; broken plates and glass crunch under our feet as we put as much space between us and the wyvern as possible. I turn around to look at it and regret it, getting a glimpse of green and purple, and then two more shapes behind it join the pursuit.

“Shit, where’s the exit—come on, I can do this the long way! Full name!”

“Brenda Quách Nguyễn!”

“Where were you born?”

“Uh—Los Angeles?”

“No, exactly!”

“Culver City Memorial Hospital!”

“Birthday!”

“January the fourteenth!”

The questions continue rapid-fire as we run, and I gasp them out as quickly as I can.

“Favorite color?”

“Green!”

“Do you like milk in coffee?”

“Are you serious?” I gasp, trying to catch my breath.

“You don’t have a namekey, I gotta get all the details right or it won’t work!” Kat says, shaking her head.

A boy in a red coat barely older than us wheezes, dropping his clipboard as he mutters to himself. “We’ll answer all calls in the order received my ass, stupid wranglers and stupid mana surges, I cannot believe—”

“What’s going on?” I ask, spotting the name tag barely hanging onto his coat. It reads NATHAN. Our announcement rebel.

“Wyverns spawning all over the Westside because of that stupid mana surge, get out of here—”

“Are you supposed to—”

Nathan shakes his head. “Hell no, I don’t get paid enough for that, and wyvern wrangling is definitely not in my job description!” He fumbles for his runebook, swiping furiously. “Shit, I don’t have enough charged up for a teleport—”

He takes a hard left, sprinting as he goes, his coat flapping behind him.

“Let’s go that way, I bet he’s heading for an exit!” I say, turning to Kat.

She’s frantically pressing squiggles into her runebook. “I’m almost done but—aah!”

A shelf topples over right in front of us, blocking the path between us and Nathan’s retreating figure and the bright light of the exits ahead. One wyvern clambers onto the shelf, scattering mugs as it hisses at us, a bright yellow-green glob of spit dripping from its teeth. The glob drops onto the red shelf, sizzling as it burns a clean hole right through the wood.

I freeze.

“Can they fly?” I whisper. “Should we run? Are they like dinosaurs who only see you if you move? If we don’t move, will they go away—”

“Don’t move, don’t make any sudden—”

The wyvern in front of us stops moving, leg paused in mid-air. Its beady eyes swivel toward me, and it blinks slowly.

Pepper spray. It’s better than nothing, right?

I reach into my messenger bag at my hip ever so slowly, and for an eternity the wyvern doesn’t move, watching me. Behind me, I can feel Kat shift closer to me.

Journal. Pens. Wallet. Come on, where is it? My fingers close around something hard and pointy. My lucky d20. I feel stronger, thinking of Resna—she could deal with a wyvern, no problem. Resna is who I need now, who I wish I could be.

In a world where magic suddenly exists, I wonder if I could be.

The wyvern’s eyes narrow, its pupils widening as it locks on me and Kat, and then it charges.

10 ❤ KAT

Brenda squares her shoulders and stands her ground.

The wyvern moves too fast, too quick, and I’ve got the teleport spell on the tip of my tongue, but I needed one more detail from Brenda to finish setting up the coordinates, and I can’t think fast enough—a defensive spell, a shield, maybe freeze the air, but my runebook has the teleport spell up in edit and quick-cast mode, and I can’t switch spells without losing my progress—

Brenda steps in front of me and throws something at the wyvern. It clatters to the ground, a small thing rolling and coming to a stop just as, with her other hand outstretched, finger pointing directly at the wyvern, she shouts, “I cast Lightning Bolt!” her voice steady with conviction.

I can feel the mana in the air shift, energy flowing toward Brenda.

A dazzling blaze of light flashes from Brenda’s finger, intensifying in a huge explosion of crackling white-hot lightning tinged with fiery blue power.

My jaw drops—a spell of this magnitude without a focus anchor or any runes or sigils to channel—

The lightning bolt flares and meets dusky scales, and the wyvern screeches with annoyance and fear. It turns tail, scampering off and hissing, disappearing into the toppled shelves of the destroyed store. Somewhere in the distance glass shatters, and then the clawed footsteps echo and disappear.

“What—” Brenda gasps, wavering on her feet, as she stares in wonder at her hand.

My feet find themselves and I dash forward just in time to catch her as she completely loses her balance. “I—” Her eyes find mine, and she smiles breathlessly. “Kat.”

“Hi, hi, Brenda—you—” I shake my head, holding her close. “That’s a level-five destruction spell—”

“I can’t believe I—I, um, instinct? Gut?” Brenda says weakly. “Because, like, I’m a wizard. Lightning Bolt?” She giggles a little helplessly. “Why can’t I word?”

She burrows her head in my neck, and I hold on to her. “You’re okay, you’re okay. You just need to rest.”

In the distance, I hear sirens and the muffled conversation of those still in the store, the sound of shopping life starting again.

A few feet in front of Brenda, something glitters. The thing Brenda threw. I’m still in shock at that massive work of raw magic. It must have been her focus object. “Can you get my d20?” Brenda mumbles.

“Your what?”

“It’s my lucky d20, can you get it?” she says, struggling to keep her eyes open.

The sirens get louder—the wyvern wranglers will be here soon, and then police, and there’s going to be a lot of questions about the wreckage of the store. Best to get out of here.

“Yeah, I got it. I just need one more thing.” Locking someone in without a namekey to a physical spell is difficult enough standing still, let alone programming while running for your life. The details are all mundane and mostly random, but now with Brenda in my arms, this last bit seems a little too intimate. “I need your hand.”

“Here.” Brenda giggles again, offering me her hand palm up. I take it, the warmth of her skin seeping into my own as I measure out the length of her heart line with my runebook. I see with a quick cursory glance the frayed fate line running down her hand, one strong central line that splits into a million directions.

She presses her face into my neck again and breathes in deep, sending a jolt down my spine.

“You smell so good,” Brenda breathes, a husky half whisper that sends my heartbeat into a rapid flutter of nerves.

“Here, don’t fall asleep,” I say gently. I carefully disentangle myself from her and lean her against the remains of a shelf. “I’ll be right back.”

She nods sleepily at me and I step forward, looking for the thing. It clattered earlier, but there’s nothing on the linoleum tiles except a puddle of melted liquid.

I kneel down, peering closely, but I don’t think it’s something I could pick up and give back to her. “I think it’s done. Focus objects are usually destroyed if they aren’t anchored to anything, and that spell—I’m sorry.”

“Ohhhh, no. I loved that one. What happened to it?”

“I’m not … sure.”

Melted into the floor is a pool of shimmery blue-gold liquid, with little numbers floating in them. In the center is a gleaming 20.

“Feeling better?”

Brenda nods, leaning back against the coziest plush couch we have. I teleported us both back to the coffeeshop and immediately set her up with an array of pastries and a steaming cup of hot chocolate. She pushes back the empty plate, making a sigh of satisfaction. “That Target, it looked exactly the same, but…” She trails off.

It hangs in the air, the impossibility of what she’s saying, that she’s from a world without magic. And yet she just saved our lives with a spell of a power I wouldn’t dare summon.

I’ve got so many questions, and I can’t stop shaking. I’ve never come this close to being a wyvern’s lunch before, and what happened—Brenda saving us—I’m still reeling from it. It was so, so stupid. Amazing, but stupid. Who with any common sense would try to cast something like that? And the way she’d reacted, the fact that she didn’t have any spells at all ready to go in case of an emergency—she doesn’t even have a runebook or a namekey—it’s starting to sink in for me.

“You really are from somewhere else,” I blurt out. “But how? Where? I’ve never heard of anywhere in the world that doesn’t have magic.” I want to ask her so many questions that I don’t even know where to start. I can’t imagine life without magic; it’s tied into everything we do, how our world works.

“I don’t know, it was like I was in a completely different Target. Like I walked in…” Brenda blinks, thinking. “When I walked in here”—she gestures at the door and then sits up a little taller, her eyes bright with excitement—“I wonder if it’s like a portal or something? Between parallel dimensions?”

It seems so impossible, but I can’t explain how else such a thorough person like Brenda would have so little common sense around magic. “Everyone knows you don’t cast spells without at least a matrix to guide you, and you just jumped right into that without thinking. You’re lucky there was a mana surge, because that power cost could have killed you.” I shake my head in disbelief. “I’m still freaking out.” I try to keep the panic out of my voice, my nerves spiraling, and I can’t stop moving, jittering my legs as I tap my foot under the table in a rapid-quick beat, the heel of my boot a comforting clunk clunk clunk against the tiled floor.

“You’re freaking out? I’m freaking out! Magic is”—Brenda drops her voice to a whisper—“real.” Her eyes widen, and there’s fear there, but also something else: something like awe.

The color’s returned to Brenda’s cheeks, and her eyes are starting to shine again. Good, good. I push my cha siu bao at her and gesture for her to eat. Brenda gives me a shy smile before digging in with a happy sigh. Carbs. They’re the best.

She looks much better than she did in Target—I was so scared, the way she was lying in my arms, but I couldn’t just take her to the hospital. They’d have questions and then ask her for her mage license, and if she had a permit for destruction spells, and the whole process definitely wouldn’t have been good. Now that we’re talking about parallel universes, the implication is even bigger and Brenda could have been dragged off for experiments, or worse. I’m glad I just got us out of there.

“This is so good,” Brenda mumbles sheepishly. “Why does everything taste so good?”

“It’s because you just cast a level-five destruction spell with raw magic, and your body is desperate to replenish that energy,” I say. “The quickest way to recover from magical exhaustion is rest and food. That, and my dad is an amazing cook.”

“Wow. Tell him thanks.”

“I will.” Dad’s running errands at city hall or something like that today, so I only got minimal teasing from Jordan, who took our order earlier.

Brenda polishes off the rest of her bao and wipes her mouth with a happy sigh. “I’m so tired. Does magic always feel like that?”

I shake my head. “No, it shouldn’t—I mean, the effect on you depends on the spell and how much mana it needs, how much power you’re giving it, whether from you or from another source. If you do it again—which, don’t, because the only reason you survived was because that mana surge provided the brunt of the power—it can kill you. Even just channeling that was dangerous. You’re very lucky.”

Brenda stares at her empty plate. “I—thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You were the one who saved our lives with that lightning spell, so—thank you.”

Brenda blushes, her brown skin flushing prettily with a warm, rosy glow. “I—I had no idea that would work. I mean, it was just the first thing I thought of, because I’m a wizard. I mean, I play one, in Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a game. In my world.” She blinks and laughs a little in disbelief, like she’s still wrapping her head around the idea, too.

“A game. Fighting a dragon is a game?” Sounds like the right way to get killed.

Brenda raises her eyebrows at me. “Do you have real dragons then? What are they like?”

“Extremely temperamental.” I frown. “There’s a rumor of a dragon hibernating under the LA River somewhere. Hopefully it sleeps for another hundred years and we never have to meet it. I mean, we’ve got dragons, yeah, but they keep to themselves in their territories and the preserves mostly. People steer clear of them and rightfully so.”

Brenda gives me an awed smile. “That’s amazing. I want to meet a real one.”

“No, you don’t. The last time a dragon was spotted near a city it was a huge catastrophe. People went missing. Horses were—” I shake my head in dismay. The London incident from five years ago was violent and awful. Mage technicians were working on the Underground when they uncovered a blue river dragon and disturbed its hoard; there were many casualties. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet a dragon. Wyverns are bad enough, but a dragon? Yeah. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“So does that kind of thing happen often? The wyvern attacks?”

“My uncle Derek is a wrangler out in Minnesota, and he says it used to be really manageable, like every so often they’d be called to relocate them to the nature preserves. It was just a nuisance, like one might show up in your backyard if you live in the foothills or something, but it’s really bad now.” I can’t think of a time when sirens and wyvern attacks weren’t a weekly thing. The last time I saw Derek, he was sporting a new set of scars. “They can feed off raw mana, among other things, and they breed at a ridiculous rate.”

“Oh.” Brenda’s eyes widen. “I mean, I always thought if magic was real it’d be, like, the coolest thing in the world. I always dreamed of getting an invitation to a secret magical boarding school or finding a whole new world through a wardrobe. I guess all the bad things in those worlds would come along with the good.”

She smiles at me, and I catch her gaze. Her eyes are a soft, luminous brown, and I find myself starting to relax. A lock of hair has fallen into her face, and I want to reach out and brush it out of her eyes.

“I really did want to see you yesterday,” Brenda says, soft and sincere.

“Me too. I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I thought you stood me up, and I was … I really thought you liked me.”

“I do like you,” Brenda says shyly.

“Good, because I like you, too.” I shoulder her playfully, and she laughs.

“So now we’re here. I guess we get to have that date after all.”

“Do you want more hot chocolate?” I’m nervous again, but it’s a happy, exciting kind now that the rush of danger is gone. At Brenda’s nod, I gesture at Jordan and point to Brenda’s empty cup and mouth Please?

Jordan winks at me in response and I turn back to Brenda. “I want to know more about your world…” I trail off, trying to find a nice way to ask how does anything even work? I gesture at the kitchens, where I know at least a dozen spells are always active, keeping the ovens going and managing the temperature of the pantry and everything. “Without magic, I bet it’s very different.”

Brenda laughs. “I mean, Target was so similar I didn’t even notice until I was actually reading the fine print on those runebook things. But yeah, pretty different.” She nods to where Jordan is flicking gestures at the espresso machines and various drink mixtures are stirring themselves. “So you don’t have electricity to do everything, I guess? But magic is way cooler—”

“Electricity is mostly used to power lights and some basic emergency stuff in case of mana surges,” I say. “It’s not really capable of anything else.”

Brenda’s eyes light up in interest as we chat about the technology in her world, where people have invented devices powered by electricity to do, well, just about anything. I listen intently, even if I don’t understand all of it.

Brenda leans in close. “So, I know you said the mana surge was why I was able to cast Lightning Bolt, but how does it work?”

“What, like magic in general?”

She nods, her chin bobbing frantically in excitement. “Like, I don’t know how to do magic. How was that even possible?”

“Magic is about intention. All spells, everything starts with intention. You have to truly want something, to believe it with the core of your soul for it to happen.”

“Like the universe is listening, and it can’t provide what you want unless you ask for it?”

“Something like that.” I show Brenda my runebook and pull up all the spell matrices I have saved. “Intention, direction, and power,” I recite, like a training mage just learning how to focus for the first time.

“Okay, so if magic is about intention, can you make stuff happen without realizing it?” Brenda asks eagerly.

I grin. Diving into magical theory is one of my favorite things to do, and no one ever cares about this boring stuff.

It’s easy to forget about the nervousness of this being a date, because suddenly it’s easy; Brenda is a talker, and genuinely interested in everything. She asks me endless questions about magic, how it works, if there are any special magical schools, which leads me into a tirade against Covenstar and school in general.

“That makes it seem so … mundane,” she says, after I talk about the mage programs at the local university and the career tracks. “Most mages bottle spells for other people to use? How come people don’t just learn magic themselves?”

I blink at her. “Learn magic? No one wants to learn magic.” I think how everyone complains about Basic Spelling and how they would never need to know how to set up a spell in day-to-day life. Advanced, from what I’ve seen so far, isn’t much better; it’s just more history.

Brenda gives me the most incredulous look. “Are you serious? I don’t believe this. I mean, all my life I’ve been reading all these fantasy books and, like, everyone I know would jump at the chance to do real magic.”

I shrug. All my research and work I’ve done on my own technically is college level, even if it’s mostly for pranks. I nearly gave up multiple times, but the possibility of doing more complicated spellwork was what kept me going, and I found that I love learning how to problem-solve and create unique solutions.

There’s a part of me that says, well, you could do that at a university program, but that would be putting myself right under the nose of the Mages’ Council and people obsessed with the prophecy.

Ugh. I don’t want to think about that. I wrap up my thoughts quickly. “I mean, anyone can, theoretically, but it takes so long to learn and magic takes a lot out of you. That’s why it’s easier just to cast a spell that someone’s already prepared and paid the energy cost for.”

“Like, literal energy cost?”

“Yeah, like the teleportation spell I used to get us here. I already paid for the mana cost, so it didn’t tire me out at all. If I cast the same spell using my own power, I’d have to rest afterward. The big workings can put people in bed for weeks or even months. That’s why people hire other people to do it.” I shrug. “It’s not a bad job, if you want to just perform the same spell over and over for the rest of your life.”

I glance out the window. “I think magic used to be about creativity and learning to solve problems in a new and different way. I don’t know when that changed.”

“Yeah, the world seems to get more ridiculous every day.” Brenda looks a bit sad, then that sharp focus comes back. “That’s why I’m going to be a climate scientist, you know. I want to figure out a way to stop the destruction of our planet. Your mana surge thing sounds a lot like that—like it’s amplifying the effects of what’s already there, wreaking unpredictable effects on the environment—”

“Okay, but what do you do for fun?”

Brenda blushes again, and I nudge a bit closer, hooking my foot behind hers under the table. “I don’t really have a lot of time for that, other than my weekly D&D sessions with my friends. This is actually—a big deal for me, right now. I usually spend Sundays studying or doing some type of community service, and I ditched that to go to the mall.”

“That’s great. You have to make time for yourself, you know.”

“Yeah, I’m trying. I’m really glad you said yes, when I asked you out. And that we got a second chance to do this.”

Brenda leans closer, and I lean forward; her smile is so sweet I want to kiss it off her lips. I want to kiss her.

Her eyes widen a little as I move closer, the corner of my lips quirking up in a question, and she doesn’t move away; her lips part, and she doesn’t break my charged gaze.

Two steaming cups are set down in front of us.

“Hot chocolate with Revive and extra cinnamon and nutmeg and extra whip. And a black coffee for Kat,” Jordan says, grinning. “I don’t know how she can work here and only want the plainest drink ever.”

Brenda scoots away from me on the couch, her face almost as red as the mugs on the table. “Oh, um—thanks!”

I narrow my eyes at Jordan and glance meaningfully at Brenda and back to them.

Jordan’s mouth falls open in an embarrassed oh and then they mouth, Sorry! They back away, grinning at me.

Brenda holds the huge cup in awe. Jordan outdid themself; it’s topped with frothy whipped cream and two chocolate-covered strawberries, and it even has two cookie straws sticking out of it. It’s definitely way more elaborate than the cup I poured out of the carafe when we got here. Then again, I wanted her to have carbs and sugar fast.

“Wow,” Brenda says. She smiles, bringing the cup to her lips, and her expression is one of pure delight. I have to catch my breath as she looks up at me—she’s beautiful.

Wow is right.

She does this excited little fluttery motion with her hands and hands me a spoon, leaning over to take a sip of the hot chocolate through one of the two straws. “Have some, please! This is massive.”

I take a sip through the other straw, reminding myself to thank Jordan later. I barely taste the sweet chocolate because Brenda’s nose brushes against mine. I catch my breath as her hair falls forward, brushing against my cheek in a soft whisper.

Brenda blushes and leans back. “Oh, that’s so good.”

I scoot a little closer, throw my hand against the top of the couch casually, my arm hovering behind her back, hand lingering close to her shoulder, waiting to see if she’ll invite me to sit closer.

Brenda looks at me curiously. “So, when you said you liked to come up with your own stuff—if you weren’t talking about games, you mean, like … magical spells?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it’s something I used to do with my mom. She was an expert in spellcraft. My dad is a potions guy. He specializes in mood enhancers at this coffeeshop, and he also brews to spec on the side.”

Brenda’s eyes light up. “To spec—like he makes custom potions?” She tilts her head as the rest of my words sink in. “Wait, was?” Her face falls a little, and she bites her lip.

“Mom died three years ago.” It feels strange as I say it, like it’s a fact. In the days right after the Ritual, the council kept saying she was missing, and then missing lasted for days, then weeks, and then she was declared legally dead.

“Oh,” Brenda says, frowning. “That sucks.”

I nod, waiting for the usual platitudes, for the I’m sorrys, for an awkward shadow to fall over our conversation. I know that Brenda doesn’t know Mom, not like how everyone in LA knows her name, how it’s immortalized on a plaque at city hall; I know that she can’t—wouldn’t—do the same pitying gesture of she was so brave, and so are you, but I brace myself for it anyway. It’s automatic by now. Once Dad took me along to a potion convention in Texas, and I spent a gleeful anonymous weekend where no one knew my family legacy, and no one knew about the prophecy.

Even without the circumstances, it’s still weird talking about it.

The moment doesn’t come.

“My dad left when I was a baby,” Brenda says softly. “I never knew him. I mean, it’s not the same, but—” She glances up at me. “I get it, kinda.”

“Is it just you and your mom, then?”

Brenda laughs, a short sarcastic chortle. “I can’t even imagine what that would be like. No, my mom and I live with my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and my two cousins.” She shakes her head. “I share a bedroom with my younger cousin Stacey, who’s sooooo annoying. My littlest cousin, Jimmy, is cute, but he’s way past the baby stage, and because he’s a boy all the aunties spoil him. It’s the worst.”

She plucks the strawberry out and dips it in the whipped cream, taking a bite out of it. “Do you have any siblings?”

I shake my head. “Wish I did. Then Dad would have someone else to bother.” Someone else who wouldn’t disappoint him. Someone who could live up to his expectations of the perfect daughter. Someone who could be the Chosen One instead of me.

“Ugh, I mean, I am an only child, but it’s like everyone might as well be my sibling—and we have so. Many. Cousins. I don’t even know how I’m related to half of them, and I’m sure we aren’t even related to some of them, they’re just family friends or whatever! I mean, Stacey and Jimmy are the only ones who live with us, but someone is always over, the house is always loud, and there’s always at least two soaps on with, like, an extra dialogue track of drama.”

Brenda launches into a story about how they went on a family vacation to Las Vegas and how ridiculous it was because the adults all wanted to gamble and there was nothing for the kids to do, and how Jimmy broke a slot machine because he thought it was a toy, and then it was all blamed on Brenda.

She talks fast, her hands moving in fluttering, excited motions, and her entire face radiates an energy I’ve never known before. A few more strands of hair have escaped her ponytail and keep falling in front of her face. Brenda does this cute thing, flicking them back unconsciously every other minute, sometimes even when they’re not in her face at all, like it’s just a gesture that’s part of her.

“And then, you know, that’s when I started coming up with the Plan. It’s obvious that without significant change to our socioeconomic structure that—”

“Sorry. What?”

Brenda blushes. “I mean, change is necessary at all levels but, like, I feel like the most impact I could have is doing significant research toward effective methods to reduce greenhouse gases.”

I blink at her. “Yes. Good. I have absolutely no idea what that is, but I’m guessing it’s bad?”

Brenda shakes her head. “Not necessarily—the greenhouse effect is what keeps the earth at a temperature capable of supporting life and contributes to our atmosphere, but the anthropomorphic additions—fossil fuel emissions like carbon dioxide, et cetera—” She squints at me. “Uh, it’s a thing. I don’t have to talk about it.”

I wave at her. “No, no, go on. I like listening to you talk.”

I barely understand what she says next, but she’s passionate about it for sure, and her eyes are lighting up again, and her cheeks are flushed pink with excitement.

It’s cute. Endearing. To have something she cares about so much.

Brenda waves earnestly at me. “Ah, it’s okay! I always feel like I’m talking all the time and people are always telling me it’s too much, heh. I’m surprised you want to listen about the Plan in detail at all, most people are like, ‘okay whatever’—um—what do you want to do?”

I shrug, taking a sip of my plain coffee.

“Please, tell me everything. I would die for a chance to study magic.” Brenda’s excited and playful, but the irony of her words isn’t lost on me.

“You just might,” I say, my voice going dry.

“What do you mean, like it’s super dangerous?”

I don’t want to talk about mage fatigue, the way so many young mages burn out in the factories, the lower life expectancies they have. So I shrug instead. “The most interesting magic to study at the higher level is practically impossible to get to with how the council plays favorites.” I shake my head. “It’s just so stupid, how few academic positions are even available, and of course it’s interesting, but most two-year programs just train you to handle factory jobs. I mean, I’d love to look at spell matrices, but that’s not where mages are needed.”

I stop, surprising myself. I got so lost in Brenda’s rapt attention that my usual mask of nonchalance around magic slips.

There’s no one here to pretend to. Brenda doesn’t know anything about the prophecy, how I pretend I don’t care that my future has been planned out for me, how other people see me. I don’t have to be tough here, I don’t have to pretend like I’m okay with a designated expiration date.

I think—I think Brenda sees me.

It feels different and good in an entirely new way, and the warm affection surges through me, making me bold. I just want to be here with her and I want to flirt, to see if she feels the same way.

I smile, leaning forward so I’m just close enough for her to touch if she wants to. I pluck the last strawberry from her drink, slowly and deliberately catching the whipped cream dripping down its side with my tongue.

Brenda watches me, her eyes widening slightly, her pink mouth falling open, and another blush is settling in her cheeks. She’s glowing with such earnest excitement that I falter, messing up the sexy act, and I—what am I doing? This is so cheesy and—

I settle back into the couch, blushing madly.

Brenda blinks, leaning forward, and then falters. “So … what’s a spell matrix?” she says quickly. “Is it like a matrix in algebra? Tell me more, that’s so cool!”

“Oh, um, it’s the basic setup of how a spell is run, so all the data you input and variables for the elements to act on in the spell. Sometimes they don’t play nice with one another, so you’d have to be careful how you define stuff—that’s why namekeys are so important.”

I’ve ranted about the stupidity of the magical education system at length before, often getting sent to detention for talking back to my teachers (why I failed Basic three times at San Pablo), but there’s something about Brenda and the way she’s just so enthusiastic about magic that my usual rant dies in the back of my throat. Instead, I find myself talking about the intricacies of constructing a spell from scratch.

“Building a brand-new spell is almost completely unheard of—that’s why when you said you did it, too, I was like, whoa. Mostly because people don’t bother—why change something that already works? Why spend time and energy when you can spend someone else’s?”

“So can you study that?”

“Uh. Not really, unless you were, like, at the top of your game at university or something. There aren’t a lot of options for creativity—all the programs are geared toward making sure mages get trained in a specific field as fast as possible so they can start work immediately. No one wants people to linger in academics.”

If someone else had asked me Do you want to study magic? my answer would be an empathetic hell no. But the way Brenda’s excitement and the way she sees magic as a whole new thing, bright and full of possibility—it reminds me of how I saw it as a kid, as another puzzle to solve.

If I could study magic—the root of it, the source of it—somehow, if I could shed all the expectations of being the last Woo and that damn prophecy and just get to be, that would be amazing.

But it’s just not possible. My destiny is all set in stone.

Brenda makes a thoughtful hmm sound. “I guess it’s like math. I never really thought about it. I mean, most people are like, am I gonna need to ever use algebra again? But if you’re interested in it, or it’ll be useful as a foundation for other stuff…”

She trails on about math and science and her climate stuff, and it’s so cute. She’s so excited about it all. About life in general. I lean back, answering her questions about schools and academic tracks in magic, and she has so much boundless energy and enthusiasm.

I sling my arm around the back of the couch again and scoot closer, and Brenda shifts toward me, her back resting against my arm.

I hadn’t thought about a real relationship in a long time—just hookups, losing myself in the escape, trying to forget what fate had in store for me.

This feels different. Like I’m making my own choice.

11 ❤ BRENDA

Kat’s arm is warm against my back. I want to curl into the touch, lean against her like—like she’s mine. A coil of want surges inside me, and I blush just thinking about it.

She smiles at me, warm and interested, and gives me a little wink.

I duck my head and try not to giggle, but I can’t help it. I am not prepared for how close she’s sitting to me, how the rest of the world seems to have fallen away, and it’s just the two of us in this little coffeeshop. I’m babbling, I know I am, as I ramble on about math, my thoughts on magic, and college plans, and she’s just listening and nodding and looking at me with those deep brown eyes. I want to fall forever into that knowing gaze.

She looks up at me through her eyelashes, and all the nervous energy I’ve had since the date began starts to bubble over. Is this a date? Or a second date, or a redo—we haven’t talked about this, and oh god, she’s close enough to kiss; does she want me to kiss her? Should I ask her?

I can’t stop looking at her lips.

I wonder if she knows how inexperienced I am, that for all my forwardness and confidence and bluntness in social situations it’s never been romantic. Maybe Jenn is right; I have been pushing people away because I’ve been afraid.

I reach for the check on the table and fiddle in my messenger bag and pull out cash from my wallet. “Do you want to split it?”

Kat peers over my shoulder at the bills I hold out and presses them back in my hand. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Coffee and food’s on me. I’d offer for you to leave the tip, but I don’t think your money would work here anyway.”

Kat reaches in her pocket and unfolds a small black wallet. She pulls out a few bright orange bills and tosses them onto the table.

I take one, peering at it closely. It’s intricately detailed with symbols—some of the ones I recognize from Kat’s handwritten note the other day, and in the center is a black-and-white photo of a Chinese woman with her hair swept up in a traditional updo with an elaborate hairpin, wearing a fitted qipao under a Western-styled coat with brass buttons.

“Jìngyi Woo,” I read aloud.

“One of the most powerful mages ever known,” Kat says. “Also my great-great-great-something-aunt.”

I want to know more, but her tone suggests that she doesn’t really want to talk about it. I feel like I’ve already asked a bunch of questions, probably too many. I hope she didn’t find it annoying.

Kat leans closer, like she’s going to hold my hand again, but taps the bills in my hand instead.

“Your money is so weird,” she says. “That’s one dollar, five dollars—what’s that?” She points at the Pokémon cards I’d stuffed hastily in my wallet after I’d cleaned up after Jimmy last week.

“It’s part of a game,” I say, handing her the cards. I don’t think Jimmy will miss them; it’s a few water tokens and a Caterpie.

Kat squints, reading the captions with interest. “Huh.”

“You can have ’em, if you like.”

Kat chuckles and puts them in her pocket. “Thanks,” she says, giving me a winning smile that catches me off guard.

The setting sun casts gentle rays through the windows of the coffeeshop, illuminating the cozy interior with a soft light. It settles on Kat’s face, and her brown skin shines golden and warm, and—

Wait, how late is it?

I pull out my phone to check the time; Jenn and Erica must be worried. I compose a quick text to let them know I’m okay.

Kat peers over my shoulder, her face wrinkling in puzzlement. “So, not a runebook,” she says.

“Uh, it’s my phone—do you not have phones?” The world of Fantasy Target gets more and more interesting. I hand her the phone and she pokes at the screen.

“You mean like a telephone in the history books? They went out of fashion ages ago. But they never looked like this. Doesn’t it run on electricity? It’s not plugged into anything.”

“I—” I have to stop and think about it. “There’s a battery, and a computer—” Do you ever just wonder, wow, I guess I’m going to need to explain how a phone works today? Yeah. I didn’t think so, either. “I can use it to communicate with my friends.”

The phone buzzes. “It’s doing something!” Kat hands it back to me hastily.

MESSAGE NOT SENT

Oh. There’s no signal.

I look around me. At first glance it seems like any other coffeeshop: cozy corners, a glass case filled with pastries, customers ordering drinks. But the sign that I thought was listing cutesy names for coffee drinks are actually magic add-ons, and everyone is wearing strange clothing. Outside the window, a horse is pulling a carriage.

A wave of panic that’s been waiting inside me ever since I saw that wyvern now rises full force. How did I even get here? Will I be able to get home? What about Má and everyone and my future, oh god, what if I ended up this realm or whatever and it’s permanent? Am I stuck here?

“Hey, are you okay?” Kat looks at me in concern.

The words and anxiety just spill out of me. “I just—I don’t know where I am and it looks like LA but it isn’t and there’s magic and you, which is amazing but—what happened to my family and my friends? Do they exist anymore? How will I get home later?” I can feel my breath hitch up and my heart start pounding, and no, not here, not now, I can’t—

“Can I give you a hug?”

I nod, biting my lip.

Kat sweeps me into her arms, pulling me close in a soft, comforting hug. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out. We’ll talk to my Dad; he can help.”

“I’m not magical, though.”

“I don’t think that’s actually—” Kat shakes her head, her hair falling like waves around her face. “Well, the fact that you’re from somewhere with no magic is really weird, but I have an idea. Let’s go back to Target; we can look for some clues. And then we can call my dad. My godmother Shannon also knows everything about magic, so if Dad doesn’t have any ideas, she’ll for sure know where to start.”

I take a deep breath. “Okay. That sounds like a plan.” The tension eases out of my shoulders, and I relax into the hug.

And then a new kind of anxiety surfaces—she’s touching me all over, and now I’m aware of her body pressed to mine, how soft she is, and it feels like my skin is too hot for my own body.

Kat pulls back and reaches to pick up her Target bags.

“I can help you with that, here, let me get one!” I blush. Was that too eager?

Kat smiles, handing me one. I hug it to my chest. I feel like I’m about to travel the Oregon Trail, carrying groceries in this thick, heavy canvas. It definitely is way cooler than the plasticky totes all my aunties collect.

She offers me her other hand, and we walk about ten minutes down Main Street hand in hand. I take a few pictures on my phone of the storefronts and the wild greenery growing everywhere on the meridians, on the sidewalks, bursting out of lawns. It’s like the opposite of drought here; the heat itself seems alive and waiting. I haven’t felt anything like this since our family trips to Vietnam, the way the moist air would seem to just wrap around me, thick and tangible.

Most of the storefronts seem the same, from the diner that sells those epic milkshakes to the bookstore, but instead of the phone repair place, there’s a place called MageTech 2 U with a line of harried-looking people. I take pictures of everything, at first just to remember, and then it turns into pictures of Kat after I explain what I’m doing. I get shot after shot—Kat looking over her shoulder, long black hair tossed back as she grins, Kat pointing out her favorite Indian restaurant, selfies of Kat and I grinning stupidly at each other.

As we approach the mall, I’m amused that the fountain in front of the main entrance is the same: an abstract-ish sculpture that looks like three swoops of carved rock, spraying water into the air as it cascades back into the fountain in three symmetrical arcs.

Except, today, the arcs are alive. Each piece of the sculpture is moving on its own in a circle, creating patterns with the water as they dance around one another. That in itself is spectacular, and if I saw this at home—well, I might have chalked up the movement to a motor.

And then the arcs start levitating and I lose it.

It was one thing to see the products in Target and to have that terrifying encounter with the wyverns, but to see this beautiful work of art, to see what people can do with magic, is incredible.

Kat grins at me, watching my reaction. She sets down her bags and lets go of my hand, and then draws a shape in the air with two hands, and then another symbol, and then a stream of water floats out from the fountain and forms itself into a shimmering orb, sparkling in the sunlight.

“That’s amazing,” I say, pulling out my phone once more. “Can you do it again?”

Kat grins at me, her smile reaching from ear to ear as she repeats the gesture. A stream floats toward me and swirls itself into a circle around my head as I laugh delightedly.

“Wow, your face,” she says. “It’s a pretty cool party trick, but you look like you’ve just seen—”

“Magic,” I say breathlessly. “Incredible.”

All my life, I’ve always had my plans, my lists. I’ve never done anything without making a list first, and stepping forward into the unknown is so, so scary to me. But with Kat here by my side, I believe her when she says things are going to be all right.

Plus?

Magic is real.

Kat is great about keeping my mind off the next step to getting me home. Instead, we talk about transportation and tech and fashion—apparently jeans are a constant, and the Austen-y look evolved because magical tailoring could create custom fits, and mass-produced clothing wasn’t really a thing. While they have electricity, it’s used mainly for lighting and to supplement other magical tech.

“So if you don’t have street trolleys, how do most people get around then?” Kat asks.

“Cars, mostly. The bus system here kind of sucks. I can’t imagine having a system that just goes everywhere.”

Kat nods with interest. “Cars are great for transporting stuff and multiple people, but they’re so expensive to maintain, and if you go the traditional route of horse and carriage, then you’ve got to have a stable and…”

It takes us a moment to realize we’re talking about two different things—magically powered horseless carriages versus automobiles, and we laugh as we struggle to explain how they work.

Kat asks me about my family, my friends, school, and even D&D now that she knows it’s a game. She laughs as I describe our last session, and shakes her head. “I wonder if knowing the game prepared you for the mechanics of casting, even if you didn’t know it could work,” Kat says.

“I still can’t believe I actually cast Lightning Bolt at that wyvern,” I say.

“Anyone can do magic,” Kat affirms. “But like I said … don’t try that again. I can teach you some regular stuff that won’t accidentally fry your insides if you want.”

“I’d love that,” I say, even though there’s a part of me that wonders, how? I guess we’ll figure it out later. Get me home first, and then figure out how to … visit each other’s worlds, I suppose.

Fresh cool air greets me as we enter Target, and I immediately exhale in relief. I’m surprised to see that it looks like business as usual, everyone going about their shopping.

“Wow, it doesn’t even look like the wyverns were here!”

Kat shrugs. “I guess they got the restoration crew in here fast. People have been complaining a lot about post-mana surge damage, so the city must be doing something about it now.”

I whistle as we walk past pristine aisles. “I guess magic makes cleaning up easy.” I can’t help but feel jealous at how quickly everything returned to normal—I wonder if they have any of the same problems in our world, or if you could just wave a magic wand and there’s no pollution or oil spills or—well, at least we don’t have to deal with loose wyverns. That was scary.

“All right, so, clues. You were in the runebook aisle?” Kat asks, looking around in confusion.

My phone buzzes in my pocket; oh, there’s the signal finally. Jenn and Erica must be looking for me. I’ll text them back in a bit.

Wait.

Kat is staring now at the people walking down the aisles—it didn’t register at first, it was just people doing their shopping, but I think about the signal returning and the shirts and jeans people are wearing and—

The door—that’s when I noticed the temperature difference.

“Are we…” Kat wonders, glancing up at the aisle signs.

“I think so,” I say. “Do you think it was the Target entrance?”

“That’s where you came in earlier, right?”

I nod. “So when is it a door and when is it—a gate between worlds?”

Kat pulls out her runebook and draws some gestures before looking around with interest. “I don’t see any other spells or active pieces of magic here,” she says. “It’s definitely not otherspace, and we didn’t teleport…” Her eyes light up in interest. “Let’s try going through again!”

I follow her excited pace back to the doors. The familiar dry heat of Los Angeles envelops me as we push through.

Kat looks back and forth, her eyes growing wider and wider as she takes in the rows of cars parked between the dry brown of the parking meridians and the withering trees that dot the balding soil and the mall’s attempts at landscaping. She dashes down the sidewalk, her deep evergreen blouse billowing in the wind as she marvels at the cars idling on the corner and the bus rumbling down the street.

The behemoth of the shopping plaza looks as it always does, its cluster of buildings dwarfed by the hulking Target giant in the corner. Kat races all the way to the flickering electronic billboard on the street corner by the bus stop, watching avidly as it flickers from a Marvel movie ad to the newest Pokémon game.

Kat blinks at the Bulbasaur for a long moment. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay!”

I catch up to her, catching her gaze “So. Two worlds.”

“Two worlds,” she repeats. “I guess now it’s time to figure out how to get me home.” She chuckles. “But I’m in no rush.”

“Good,” I say, shaking my head. “Because I don’t have anyone I can consult who would possibly know everything about magic.” Other than fictional magic, that is. I wouldn’t even know where to start.

“I wonder if…” Kat pulls out her runebook and draws another gesture I recognize from her detection spell earlier. “So my magic still works here, and I’m actually seeing…” She raises an eyebrow. “Someone is casting a spell inside Target. Come on! I bet whoever it is knows exactly what is going on.”

She’s already walking back toward the Target with a singular purpose and a commanding presence.

“Kat,” I call out after her.

My anxiety has already started to recede. If her magic works, she can probably still call her dad, and it’s going to be okay. There’s obviously a cool magical solution to this problem and a whole new world to explore. Has it been here this whole time? My mind is going a million miles a minute. I wonder if there’s a way we can predict when these gates or whatever open and where.

“Kat!” I’m right behind her as she approaches the doors.

She turns around, her hair falling in soft waves around her face, drifting perfectly over her shoulder as she smiles at me. She’s radiant. She’s magical. I can’t believe that I’m going to hang out with her and learn more about her.

I should probably be more worried about the implication that parallel dimensions exist and the fact that magic is real, but she smiles at me and I wonder if I should ask her on another date now, and … oh gosh, I wonder if I can text between universes? My phone plan probably doesn’t cover that.

Kat peers at her runebook and then squints to see inside the store. “Oh, yeah, I see someone in a cravat lurking in the clothing section. That’s definitely not one of your fashions. Let’s go!”

I watch her as she pushes the thick glass door open, walks in, and disappears.

12 ❤ KAT

The man I spotted earlier in the clothing racks disappears from view. I stride forward, trying to catch the spellcaster, but I don’t see him, just rows and rows of the newest summer petticoats—

Petticoats?

Behind the clothing aisles, there’s the usual racks over by the grocery area: Pick-Me-Ups in corked glass vials, cooling spells for your icebox, quick heating spells for food preparation. An amplified voice announces, “It is now safe to activate any spellkeys. The Home Goods section is closed. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

I turn around, but Brenda isn’t there, or behind the glass door. She’s just … gone. “What in the—”

She was just talking to me a second ago. She was right behind me.

“Brenda?” I push through the doors and look outside again, but she isn’t there.

The parking lot is filled with everyday cars and a few standard carriages. Horses at the tie rail wait patiently for their owners to return. They snuffle at each other, one drinking water from the complimentary trough. On the street corner, a trolley comes to a stop as people exit and head toward the plaza.

So I’m back home.

I go back through the Target doors, and back again, but nothing happens.

So how does this work?

I pull out my runebook. There’s a message from Dad that he’s on his way home, and the notification of how much mana my last two spells used. I’ve got just enough charge left for another diagnostic spell.

I pull up the matrix and modify it to detect magic within a five-foot radius. That should be limited enough to figure out what’s going on with this portal. I speak the release command and then wait for the spell to take.

Ability-modifying spells are weird because you can’t always tell when they’re working—they layer on top of your own actions and experience. I tilt my head, looking sideways for traces of magic.

I don’t need the actual movement, but the physical motion helps me to think of it like activating an electric switch.

There we go.

The slight shimmer of magic that’s always there at the edges of my vision now bursts into a kaleidoscope of swirling, gauzy color—streaks of opaque blues and greens and pinks and every possible color, threadlike remnants trailing behind from spells cast in this area.

When I cast this in Brenda’s world, I almost thought the spell didn’t take, until I saw the faint glow inside Target. The contrast to the wild colorful streams I see now is vividly apparent.

I waft through spell traces, sorting them out from the massive wave of white-hot pure mana left from the surge. I’m very careful not to touch the mana stream directly; it lingers near me, tendrils sneaking out, twining itself around my fingers. I can’t help it and breathe some of it in; a jolt of energy rushes through me, and for a moment I feel invincible, like I can do anything.

I brush it away, thinking of Mom’s stern warning about why we always route spells through our runebooks or focus objects when we cast. I know the feeling; once you get a taste of that power, you’ll want more. But remember: You can’t do anything with it if you’re dead. And you will die if you try to access it before you’re ready.

I hold my breath and sort through the rest of the recent spells in this spot. There’s nothing recent, just a levitation spell a few hours ago and some older namekey calls. There’s no bright, telltale burst of a spell just recently cast, or even the steady glow of an ongoing spell used for a portal.

I end the diagnostic spell and look at the lot full of carriages. I think about the shining, strange metal contraptions I’d seen when we stepped out on the other side of Target, and that huge box with blinking lights and color and—people moving inside, like a frozen spellcall, playing on a loop. I’d never seen anything like that before.

Wait.

I have seen something like that before. Mom’s story box. That moving picture moved just like that.

There are rumors, of course, of a strange and powerful sort of magic, completely different from our own, but these kinds of artifacts were extremely rare, and no one quite knew how one could get them.

So these items are from Brenda’s world? How did they get here, then?

Lost in my thoughts, I don’t notice the man until he’s got my elbow in a viselike grip.

“You,” he snarls. “What did you see? How long were you there?”

“Let go of me, you creep!” I wrench my arm back, but his fingers only tighten, digging into my skin. “What the hell are you talking about!”

He looks like any other factory mage, all long white coat and dusty trousers held up by sad suspenders, three years’ fashion past. I recognize his face from the brief glimpse I got in the other Target—he was the one casting the spell over there.

“The other side. You were there. I saw you come back. Right through that door before the portal closed. Tell me what you saw.” He’s throwing his voice deeper, lower, like he’s trying to scare me, but his cravat is sloppy and untied and there are ink blotches on his hands like he’s a grad student or an aspiring writer.

I stomp on his foot, taking advantage of his sudden yowl of pain and surprise to twist my arm free of his grasp. I dash away, my heart racing with every step.

“No, you don’t!” he roars after me.

I glance back to see him pull out a runebook and begin swiping furiously on it. From the first few movements I recognize it’s a short-range spell and then I see him draw the rune for memory and my blood runs cold.

The man grins at me triumphantly as he finishes the spell and laughs. “Patrol the finicky new portal, they said, it’ll be boring, they said, it’ll take forever for you to make your way up in the Order … Ha! This will show them.”

I’m suddenly thankful I never got rid of my quick-cast spells from when I used to get into fights all the time. Keeping my back to him, I quickly draw the one rune I saved for the shield spell—it’s supposed to ward off any unfriendly forces, and I think I programmed it specifically for punches or physical attacks, but it’s better than nothing. The spell takes hold, a bubble of air hardening around me just as the man’s memory spells hits. The bright orange burst of energy ripples across my shield, and I freeze, exhaling hard.

He can’t see my shield. I still remember everything that just happened, so my shield spell must have worked.

I take a deep breath and then pretend to look around me quizzically for a moment, and then keep walking. I can feel the man’s gaze on my back, and then another spell hits my shield, one that pulses with a dark blue light as its energy dissipates. I don’t recognize this one, but it gives me the chills.

I walk, keeping a calm pace even though my heart is pounding.

These portals aren’t just a secret—they’re a protected secret. This man and his organization are the key to solving this mystery—and to seeing Brenda again.

I’m out of mana, and I shouldn’t cast more magic right now, but I have to know more. I draw up the matrix for a tracking spell and close my eyes for a moment to steady myself. I won’t be able to disguise the movement, so I’ll have to cast something else right after.

I turn around, holding out my runebook and swipe the release gestures, one after another. The tracking spell surges forward and I feel the searching energy curl around the man, my heart racing faster as the spell takes, and then the world blurs as I teleport back home.

The energy cost hits me suddenly, a wave of fatigue intense enough that I barely make it to the couch before I collapse. Two major spells on no charge is going to take it out of me for a bit. On my runebook, I pull up a map of Los Angeles to check my tracking spell. A pulsing glow is moving slowly toward the Westside. That guy must have gotten on a trolley.

“All right, where are you going, and what exactly is the Order?” I mutter.

13 ❤ BRENDA

“Kat?”

I open the door and push through. The familiar air-conditioning and the fluorescent lights and red shelves of Target greet me. But there’s no Kat.

I grip the bag of groceries. There’s no way I could have imagined that whole encounter. The Target changing. The wyverns. The dancing water in the fountain. The long, lazy afternoon sipping hot chocolate and having cha siu bao with Kat and her smile. Kat, wanting to see me again.

My phone buzzes with a new text.

My mind races, thinking quickly. So the door is only sometimes a portal between our worlds—it must come and go, or maybe it was just today—otherwise you’d hear of people disappearing to other worlds all the time.

I go back outside to the parking lot, setting the groceries down on the curb as I sit. I respond to the group chat, letting them know I ran into Kat in Target and then we went and had coffee. I don’t know what to say about everything else.

Magic is real.

There’s a whole other world.

I open to a new page in my bullet journal and start scribbling notes as fast as I can about everything I’d seen and observed. Kat’s groceries sit next to me, and the thick canvas bag doesn’t melt or turn into dust or disappear. It stays solidly real.

A familiar maroon minivan pulls up to the curb, and Erica rolls the window down, whooping at me. “And there she is, San Pablo High’s own Brenda Nguyễn, just back from her date with the hottie from the coffeeshop!”

“How’d it go?” Jenn asks, stepping out of the car. She walks over to where I am on the sidewalk, her smile fading as she sees me on the curb staring into the distance.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong?” Erica says, hopping out of the car and dropping down to my level in a squat.

“So I finally went on that date with Kat,” I start.

“That’s great!” Jenn says. “Did you ask about the—”

“I, um, was at the wrong shop, the first time,” I say. “Uh. Technically.”

“You were gone for more than an hour before you texted! We figured you were just doing your usual Target thing looking at cute stuff, but then there was that earthquake and we were a little worried—”

“Earthquake?”

Jenn nods, folding her hands together primly. “Not as bad as the one at school the other day, not at all. We barely felt it, and mostly everyone just kept on doing what they were doing.” She smiles at me. “I’m glad you ran into Kat! It must have gone well, right?”

“Why do you look like you’ve got a cloud of existential angst hanging over you?” Erica places two hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eye. “I feel like cute-coffeeshop-girl-isn’t-into-you would warrant some sadness, but this is, like, a totally different level.”

A high, hysterical laughs escapes from me. “Magic is real, you guys.”

Erica and Jenn stare at me, and then at each other.

“Of course it is,” Jenn says with a smile. “There’s magic in everything, in sunsets and love and friendship and—”

“No, I mean yes, all of that, of course, but like—spells and floating toilet paper and magic.” I gesture erratically with my hands, but there’s no way I can remember all the complicated motions I saw. “Kat’s coffeeshop—it’s in another world, an alternate universe—”

Erica chokes on a laugh. “Your crush is literally in a coffeeshop AU?”

“Yes? No? I don’t know—I went to Target, but it was an entirely different Target and I didn’t know what was going on and everyone was, like, shopping for spells and stuff and then there was this mana surge thing and wyverns and—” I’m babbling, and judging by the incredulous looks on my friends’ faces, they’re not taking this in at all. “Well, Kat was gonna ask her dad for help on how to get me home and then we just—I got back here. By walking through that door. Kat was here, too, for a minute. But she went through again, and now she’s gone. And it doesn’t work anymore.”

Jenn and Erica look at each other again. Jenn’s face softens, and she holds out a hand to help me up. I take it, and she pulls me and then Erica to standing.

“I know you’ve been stressed lately, with scholarship deadlines and college acceptance stuff,” Jenn says. “It’s okay if, like, the girl you like doesn’t like you back, and it feels like she’s in another universe.”

“No, I mean she literally is in another universe. A magical one.” I bite my lip—it feels so stupid, to be so upset over this. “And she’s so cool and now I don’t have a way to contact her or like…”

“Okay,” Jenn says softly, pulling me into a hug. “It’ll be okay.”

Erica wraps her arms around us both and gives me a reassuring smile. “It sounds like you had a good time.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, thinking about the way Kat swept through the aisles, her cape thing billowing out behind her, the way she smiled when she said my name. “She’s incredible.”

Jenn squeezes me tight. “All right, tell us everything.”

It takes a while to explain what happened. Erica and Jenn still don’t quite believe me, and when I try to show them the photos and videos I took, they get distracted.

“Oh, she’s so cute!” Jenn squeals. She beams at me.

Erica shoulders me playfully as she swipes through our selfies. “Look at your smiles, you look so happy!”

“Yes, Kat is great, but look at this—” I point at the storefronts behind us in the photos and the one of the magetech store. “This is obviously Main Street, but these stores don’t exist here!”

Jenn glances down the street. “Okay…”

“And what about this?” I replay the video of Kat levitating the water.

Erica glances at Jenn. “I would say it’s a cool special effect, but you don’t know anything about video editing, and even if you did, there’s no way you could have done this in an hour.”

“And there were wyverns?” Jenn asks me. The gentle skepticism at the beginning of the conversation has now been replaced with soft worry.

“I cast a Lightning Bolt for real! And it melted my lucky d20. Kat says it was major magic, and I could have gotten seriously hurt if there wasn’t a mana bubble or something…” I fumble through the explanation, but here and now under the bright fluorescent lights of the food court with people enjoying their hot dogs and pretzels I feel silly and self-conscious.

It’s the bag of groceries that finally does it. Among a few bananas and a loaf of bread are two boxes that defy explanation.

SINGLE-USE TELEPORTATION SPELL

EASY AND EFFICIENT—UP TO 10 MILES OF TRAVEL

NO RUNEBOOK NECESSARY!

JUST ASSEMBLE AND CAST, NO MAGES NECESSARY!

ENERGY COST INCLUDED, READY TO USE!

At first Jenn thinks it could be some sort of board game, and she rips open the cardboard box with the same determination and efficiency she uses for our annual Key Club bake sale. She pulls out a sheath of old-fashioned paper, like a newspaper from the eighteenth century. “These are the instructions,” Jenn says, studying it like she’s preparing for any other school assignment.

“This is either the best prop I’ve ever seen or an actual build-your-own teleportation spell,” Erica says, poking a sachet of dark gray powder. “Let’s do it!”

“But if magic only exists in Kat’s world, would it even work?” Jenn asks.

We all look at one another, our curiosity and excitement rising, a thrill I haven’t felt since the seventh grade during the third season finale of Halfway Hollow.

My phone buzzes again. It’s my mom, asking me what time I’m going to get to the nail salon.

“Brenda?” Erica waves the box at me. “Wanna try this?”

“I have to go,” I groan. “But yeah, let’s do it. I wonder if I could use it to get to Kat?”

Jenn nods. “We could do it after D&D tomorrow.”

Erica doubles over laughing. “Oh, come on! Do you want to play fictional magic when we have the chance to cast a real spell? I’m canceling D&D, guys.”

“Let’s do some teleportation,” I announce, clasping both their hands in excitement.

I’ve been ringing people up and taking calls for appointment schedules nonstop, but I can’t stop thinking about Kat and her universe and the boxed spells sitting in my bag. I bring out another rack of nail polish from the back, selecting a bottle of deep midnight blue.

“This one?” I tilt it back and forth for the client, watching the sparkles in the color shimmer and swirl.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” the woman with tightly drawn eyebrows says from her massage chair.

Má usually needs extra help at the salon on weekends, so if I’m not doing community service or studying, I’m usually here. When I was eight, I dramatically announced I would become a nail technician just like Má, but my painting skills have not improved since then, so I just stick to the register. I hand the bottle to Má and attempt to go back to the essay I started between clients, but my mind is definitely elsewhere.

Má chats away with the other technicians, and I catch every other word, bits and pieces of their chatter. Vietnamese settles around me like the familiar comforting sounds of home.

Quỳnh to her right says something that I don’t catch, and Má responds with “Con gái nó sắp ra trường rồi!” and a proud smile. Oh yes, my daughter, the studious one, going to college and becoming a big deal, Má’s always saying. The other ladies start talking about their own kids, and it turns into bragging and teasing about various accomplishments. The laughter and the gossip fill the salon, and as usual, Má’s pride also fills me with a strange sense of guilt.

Má didn’t finish college because she got pregnant with me. There’s a lot of the story I don’t know, how we don’t talk about whoever my father was, the stilted way my grandparents regard her sometimes, the way she is always cooking or cleaning at the house or working at the salon.

I found Má’s old yearbook once, tucked away in a box of things; there she was, as old as I am now, smiling and declaring her hopes and dreams of becoming a nurse. Liên Mai Nguyễn: Most Likely to Succeed.

I watch her delicately paint the client’s nails blue with surgical precision, imagining her in scrubs and rushing about helping patients. I’ve asked Má about it before, if she thought about going back to school, but she always just hushed me and said that there’s no point in focusing on the past, and to make sure I do my best in the present.

I just want her to be able to rest. I know that she worked hard over the years to save up and finally own the salon with my aunts, and the three of them are pretty successful now, leasing out stations to other technicians in the area. I know a big part of the Plan is me saving the world and being successful, but a lot of it is because I know there’s a lot riding on my shoulders, to achieve everything that Má didn’t have the chance to.

Má finishes with her client and nods at me. The woman opens her immaculate designer handbag, fiddling slowly as she approaches the counter. “That’ll be twenty-six dollars for the manicure with the gel tips,” I say, watching her slowly pull out her wallet and examine the bills inside with a finely pointed nail.

“She told me it was twenty-one,” the woman says, handing me a twenty and pursing her lips, her fingers pausing on a single. Behind the single, I can see a fat wad of twenties and something that looks suspiciously like a hundred.

I resist the urge to snort. Designer clothes, freshly blown-out hair. She can afford twice what we’re charging. “You got the gel tips,” I remind her.

“Oh, right,” she says absentmindedly, and hands me another five. I put it away in the cash register and give her my best Go away now smile. It’s clear she’s not going to leave a tip and I’m in no mood to point out to her that she’s been here over an hour with Má, who listened intently to her complain about her day, and helped her pick out colors to complement a dress for an event. Fundraising for something, the woman had boasted. She’s a pillar in her community.

The woman sniffs and turns around, walking out of the store, red soles of her heels standing out against the cheap linoleum of the floor. She picks up her phone, talking into it loudly. “Yeah, I’m on my way. Just finished doing my nails. Oh, you know. Overcharged as usual. Lazy Vietnamese workers. Can’t even…”

The door slams shut, and I rise from my chair, my temper rising. I’ve already started to go after her, but Má gently taps my shoulder. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

“Yeah, but it’s busy,” I insist.

“Aimee can do the cash register,” Má says, smiling at the new girl. “Go on and sit in the back; there’s hot tea.”

I sigh and trudge to the back room. It’s a small, cramped space that’s cluttered with the debris of its multipurpose life: boxes of nail and beauty supplies, a small mini fridge bedecked with magnets and photos of everyone’s kids, a microwave and hot water boiler balanced precariously atop it. There’s a table scattered with purses and empty Tupperware and a single chair. I clear a space and pull out my laptop, trying to work on my essay for English, but my mind keeps drifting.

I open my bullet journal and start a new list.

HOW TO GET ANOTHER DATE WITH KAT

1. Figure out interdimensional travel

14 ❤ KAT

“Have you ever heard of a spell that puts, like, moving stories in a box?” I ask, leaning on Mr. Vega’s desk before second period. My new class schedule is a little disorienting; everything had to be shifted around to accommodate my new Advanced Spelling transfer.

The rest of the weekend was a wash of worry; once I recharged my runebook, I cast a quick diagnosis and found the first spell that Order guy aimed at me was a brief memory modification, specified to about thirty minutes prior to any subject within range. The second was a location tracker, clumsy compared to mine, but would have been effective if my shield spell hadn’t been up.

I’d watched his little glow on my tracker map the rest of the evening; he’d gone to UCLA and then bounced around Westwood for a bit before settling somewhere in Culver City. Work and then his home, I’m guessing, my theory that he’s some sort of grad student becoming more likely.

I’m still shaken by the encounter, but I’m determined to figure out exactly what the Order is and what they know about Brenda’s world. The portals must be unique and rare enough for them to monitor them, and they must have some sort of map or schedule, if they send people out to make sure no one is getting through them, and modifying their memories if they do.

I fiddle in my pocket, playing with Brenda’s blue object—I’d forgotten to give it back to her yesterday, but after seeing that huge moving picture thing on the street in her world, I’d remembered about Mom’s stuff and the stories.

Other people had to know about these stories, too, right?

I tap Vega’s desk impatiently.

The spelling teacher jumps up, startled, staring at me, like seeing me outside of class is so entirely out of his realm of understanding that it doesn’t quite make sense.

The bell rings; students are shuffling into Basic Spelling, idling in their seats and chatting with one another. The words Potions and Tinctures: What’s the Difference? are scrawled messily on the board.

“You mean like a live spellcall?” Vega asks, blinking at me quizzically. “Is this about the essay topics for advanced? You could choose any spell out of Ribay’s Introduction to Rudimentary Matrices to write about.”

I wave my hand away; I completely forgot about that assignment. “No, just in general, because you’re … the expert.” I swallow back the grimace that I want to make and strain for a smile instead. I don’t know any academic mages who aren’t either friends with Dad or in deep with the Mages’ Council. I suppose I could reach out to mages at local universities, but I hate stepping foot on any campus—it always turns into a slick you-should-go-here tour once someone figures out who I am.

“Oh, why, thank you, Miss Woo,” Vega says, puffing out his chest. “You know, I’d be happy to talk with you further about all the different ways live spellcalls can be cast. I understand you’re coming to Spellcraft Club now, right? That’s great, we can chat then. And the advanced students who come just stay for class the next period, so it’s super convenient!”

“Right, okay,” I say, pulling back from the desk. I’ve never gone to Vega’s lunch hour with the other magic nerds before, and I actually forgot that was one of my post-pineapple consequences, but this works out. I can see if Vega or anyone else knows about this stuff.

A few wide-eyed freshmen in the first row are staring at me and whispering, and I hear my name and the word prophecy batted about.

“Something to say?” I turn my focused stare on them, raising my eyebrows.

“Uh, no,” one blunders.

“That’s what I thought,” I mutter. As I stride out the door, I hear “She talked to me!” in an excited whisper.

I roll my eyes. There’s nothing I’ve done to earn this hero worship, and as much as I’ve done to try to mess with my reputation and what people might expect of me, the prophecy always wins.

I shove the depressing thought away. I’ve got better things to do than dwell on the future.

Just the idea of lunch is awkward; I hardly ever eat in the school cafeteria. I’m usually off campus or have already ditched by lunchtime. I bring a sandwich and a sad-looking salad to Vega’s room just to hold something. Hannah and her girlfriend, Jamie, are laughing and giggling over an open spellsheet, drawing runes as Mr. Vega looks over. A few honors society–type kids and some students from Intermediate Spelling are here, too, which tracks.

Joe and some others I recognize intermittently from detention are also here, which is weird. What’s he doing hanging out with the magic nerds? Joe’s sitting next to Hannah, looking suspiciously chummy. Maybe he likes her or something, but there’s little chance there; Hannah and Jamie have been attached at the hip ever since freshman year.

Joe waggles his eyebrows at me when he catches me looking, and I give him an exaggerated eye roll.

“Ms. Woo! So wonderful of you to join us. We were just discussing the implications of using the Jensen matrix in translocation spells,” Vega says with an oily grin.

“Great,” I say with a forced smile.

“Kat!” Hannah waves at me enthusiastically. “Here, sit with us. Mr. Vega said you transferred to Advanced! That’s so great, I knew that pineapple spell was pretty genius, even though it went kinda haywire.”

I snort. “Yeah, I didn’t account for the mana surge.”

Hannah pushes aside her backpack and gestures me toward a chair. I take it, scrutinizing the spellsheet where she’s added an interesting flourish to a basic spell matrix for levitation.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“It looks pretty good.” I nod at her. “I like that you used Huy Trung Thanh’s theory there. You’re trying to make a backpack constantly change color as it floats?”

Hannah beams at me.

“You forgot to close a runestroke here, though,” I point out.

Hannah stares at her work for a long, drawn-out moment before groaning and pressing her face to the sheet. “I cannot believe I’ve been stressing how to make it work in the Jensen matrix and I was missing a stroke the whole time! Thanks, Kat.”

“No problem.” A strange warm feeling starts to unfurl inside of me. It’s nice having someone who understands spell programming well enough to actually banter with me about it.

And it’s nice being with my friend again.

Hannah tilts a bag of chips toward me. “Shrimp chips?”

I take one, grinning. I love these things.

“Kat is researching live spellcalls. It could make an interesting capstone assignment,” Vega says. “We’ll chat more about those in class later today. Hannah is doing hers on the properties of levitation.”

I pull out a notebook and sketch Mom’s story box. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” I ask Vega.

He shakes his head.

Joe raises his eyebrows at me, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps chewing his sandwich thoughtfully.

“What is it?” Hannah asks, peering over my shoulder.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Something that facilitates live spellcalls—or maybe not live—but a recorded one. Like you could tell a story on it or something.”

Mr. Vega blinks at me.

“What about these?” I pull the cards Brenda gave me out of my pocket, fanning them out to show Mr. Vega and the other students clustered at my table. “Anyone ever see these before?”

He shakes his head. “Interesting art,” he says. “What’s this have to do with spellcalls?”

I shrug. Joe is squirming uncomfortably in his seat. He gives me a weird accusatory look before stuffing an entire sandwich in his mouth.

Hannah peers over my shoulder. “Can I see?” I hand the cards to Hannah, who studies them carefully. “Caterpie,” she pronounces carefully, and glances at Joe. “I wonder what it’s for? Some sort of art project?”

“That’s what I wanted to know. Found it at the pier. Somebody must have dropped it.” Something about Hannah’s careful question seems suspicious. Like she does in fact know what it is but is deliberately pretending not to.

Joe raises his hand. “Mr. Vega, what is the difference between a potion and a tincture?”

Mr. Vega’s whole face lights up like he’s been waiting his whole life for someone to ask that.

What a wasted lunch. I didn’t find out anything about Brenda’s world at all. Well, hanging out with Hannah and Jamie and everyone wasn’t terrible. Class afterward was even kind of interesting; we got to choose something unique to program for the capstone project.

I throw my satchel over my shoulder, hustling out of the classroom when Hannah catches up to me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey back,” I say. I pause, wondering. Do we just go back to being best friends? Could we even? Should I invite her to hang out?

“Joe’s really territorial, you know,” she says, looking around shiftily as if to make sure no one is within earshot. Jamie eyes us suspiciously from the classroom, where she’s packing up their backpacks.

“About…” I raise my eyebrows.

“The anchors. I probably wouldn’t flash those around him if he didn’t sell them to you, and especially not around Mr. Vega.”

“These?” I pull out the cards again.

“Shh!” Hannah gestures quickly for me to put them away. “You’ll get us all in trouble!” She glances quickly down at the card with the water droplet on it. “Actually, do you have plans for that one? I could use a level-two anchor for a focus spell tonight, I totally need to finish this essay.”

I tilt my head with interest. What does this card game from Brenda’s world have to do with controlled spell cornerstones? You can buy precharged ones for various spells anywhere, but you need to be over eighteen to purchase anchors for stimulant spells over the counter.

“Go ahead,” I offer it to her.

Hannah beams. “I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow,” she says. “And remember—the rules of the anchors is that we don’t talk about the anchors.”

I lean against the wall casually, amused. “We’re talking about the anchors right now.”

Hannah laughs as Jamie approaches us. “I’ll see you at Spellcraft tomorrow.”

Jamie throws her arm around Hannah and narrows her eyes at me, as if to say back off.

I roll my eyes back at her—seriously?

Hannah elbows her girlfriend and Jamie coughs, embarrassed. “Bye, Kat,” Hannah says before they walk off, whispering with each other.

I’d heard the rumors about Joe before. He’s always been one of those guys who could get you anything—a fake love potion, a sham tincture, controlled ingredients like dreamdram or sprintsage, or even age-restricted anchors.

So if these are things from Brenda’s world, how are they getting here?

I wonder how much money people make off this. It certainly seems like something someone would risk a lot to protect.

I open my runebook again to check on my tracking spell. It only lasts twenty-four hours, and it’s going to wear out soon. I haven’t gleaned any useful information about the guy other than the fact he definitely is a student at or works at UCLA.

I pull up the map in closer detail and my breath hitches as I see exactly where he’s been all day.

The Department of Magical Arts.

Specifically, the Advanced Research wing.

Mom’s old department.

15 ❤ BRENDA

The idea of casting the spell burns at the back of my mind all day, during classes and club meetings. I can barely think about our upcoming event at the end of the week when tonight we’re going to try to do magic.

I can barely sit through dinner. Má raises an eyebrow when I only have one helping of curry—she even got fresh baguettes to dip in it—but I can barely taste it. I help wash dishes, scrubbing the turmeric stains off bowls until I’m buzzing with anticipation. She drops me off at Erica’s after I promise I’ll be home by eleven, and I’m breathless by the time I reach the door.

Jenn is already there, chatting with Mrs. Liu about the prom and our shared limo plans.

“Hi, Brenda,” Mrs. Liu says. “Are you excited about prom?”

I groan. “Don’t talk about prom, those flowers gave me nightmares for weeks.”

“You girls work too hard,” she says. “I’m so glad you have your dragon nights, it’s important to have fun.” Mrs. Liu looks around. “Are the boys late?”

“Oh, it’s just us tonight, Mama,” Erica says, shaking her head as she gestures me and Jenn toward her room.

“Have fun with your dragons!” Mrs. Liu says.

“We will!” Jenn says, stifling a laugh.

“What happened to Adib and Ryan?” I ask as we settle into Erica’s room. I pull the two teleportation boxes out of my backpack. It feels weird to be doing this without the guys; it feels like we’re splitting the party. Never a great option in D&D.

“Ryan said he wanted to practice his one-shot with Adib,” Erica says. “And develop that romance arc, perhaps.”

I elbow Jenn and we all chuckle fondly.

Erica rubs her hands together with glee. “We can go back to pretend magic next week. Tonight…” I meet Erica’s gaze and grin. “We teleport!”

Jenn unfurls the instructions again, this time taking out all the contents of the box as we examine them closely.

“What do we need? An eye of newt? Bezoars?” Erica beams from ear to ear.

I peer over Jenn’s shoulder. “We need a map. Three cups of water with a pinch of salt, a cup of ‘earth’—so like, soil, I guess?”

“What kind, though?” Jenn wonders. “Compost? Potting soil? Iron rich?”

Erica grabs the instructions. “If it doesn’t specify, we can use anything.” She pulls something else out of the box, a sheath of the same type of paper inked with swirling symbols—some of these I recognize from Kat’s not-phone-number. “Fill this thing out with your namekey, whatever that is.”

“I think it’s a shorthand ID number or a driver’s license or something. Is there an alternative? Kat had me do it the long way when we teleported out of Target.”

“Yeah!” Erica pulls out another sheet and a nondescript candle carved with another one of those runes. “If you don’t have a namekey yet, you can follow instruction set B1–13.”

“A ‘thrice-spun porcelain bowl.’” Jenn blinks at us. “Anyone have one of those?”

Erica laughs. “I think I have a cauldron from an old toy set somewhere. It is made of plastic, though.”

“Porcelain is just another type of china, right?” I ask. “That might not refer to how it’s made—we could just spin it three times.”

“Works for me!” Erica says, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly. “Magical transportation, here we go!”

It takes a while to answer all the questions and assemble the spell matrix according to the instructions. I can see why having a namekey is easier—you can just plug it into any spell instead of taking time to write down details about yourself onto various parts of the diagram. Some of them, like the traveler’s name, age, height, and weight, make sense, but the other things are pretty random, like my favorite type of pizza or age I lost my first tooth. At least there aren’t wyverns chasing me this time.

I squint at the directions. “All right, the map goes in the south position.” Everything else is already in place—the bowl of salt water, a cup of loose soil from Erica’s backyard, and the candle waiting to be lit.

“What if you travel to, like, downtown and come back?” Erica suggests.

I nod. “Sounds like a good plan.”

The map is easy; just a printout of LA and we estimate ten miles from Erica’s house to Koreatown and draw an X at our destination.

Jenn places the map on the diagram and studies it. “Shouldn’t we use coordinates?”

Erica shrugs. “Maybe they don’t use the same system. Maybe a map is more accurate?”

“If we’re being this specific—”

“Let’s just follow the instructions,” I say. “They probably don’t want the instructions to be too complicated. This is supposed to be like Easy Bake for spells.”

Everything looks ready. My name and information in Jenn’s neat block print looks strange standing out from the intricate runes on the large diagram sheet. It should look funny, the checkered patterned bowl and the mug of soil and the candle sitting on top of this premade thing we got at Target, but it feels—otherworldly. Expectant. Like there’s something about to happen, something tingling in the air. “Wait,” Jenn says. “We need a plan for you to come back.”

“Right.” I nod. “Let’s do the other one.”

Jenn gets to work copying my information onto the diagram from the second box, and I print out another map with Erica’s house as the center.

Fancy meows plaintively from Erica’s bed. She’s been put out all evening; instead of lots of attention and pets, she’s been completely ignored. She settles and sits on top of Erica’s forgotten D&D binder and character sheets, giving us judgmental looks.

I scritch her behind the ears. “It’s okay, you’ll get lots of attention soon.”

Erica hands me another Ziploc full of soil, a bottle of water, another candle, a lighter, and two bowls. I stuff everything into my bag along with the folded diagram.

“Okay, you ready? You have your return spell?” Erica giggles. “Can’t believe I just said that.”

“You say much weirder things every day,” Jenn points out.

“Yeah, but within context,” Erica says.

“All right, so—if anything happens to me—”

Erica gives me a solemn salute. “It’s been great knowing you.”

Jenn shakes her head, like she still can’t believe we’re doing this. “The worst that can happen is—nothing, right? And we’ll just be staring at you standing on this thing we drew.”

My heart pounds. I saw another world. I met Kat. It was real. I know it was.

What if it wasn’t? That voice of doubt rears inside me again.

“Let’s see if this works,” I say decisively. I take the instructions, scanning the incantation I have to read. “Open the window.” The spell requires fresh air to start.

Erica pulls out her phone and starts recording. “It’s always helpful to review,” she says with a wink.

I nod at her and step toward the edge. I light the candle.

The flame flickers merrily, and I gulp.

“Candle flame burning bright,” I read aloud, even and slow. “Draw cherished mana with your light…”

Suddenly the air seems to tighten around us, and the rest of the room feels darker. I wonder how this is for everyone in Kat’s world when they cast this, this sense of anticipation in the air.

Erica’s eyes widen, and she gestures for me to keep going.

A gust of hot, dry air drifts inside the room, even though it had been completely still just a moment ago.

I keep reading. “Depth of our oceans, winds of change…”

The air swirls around me, and I can feel a warmth of energy flow through me. It’s similar to that feeling in Target when that mana surge first rushed through me, but where that was a roaring hurricane, this is a gentle stream, curious and inviting.

“Fertile earth, fresh and pure…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fancy eyeing the spell diagram, eyes sparkling with a curious glint at the huge piece of paper outstretched on the floor.

I think about Kat, the curve of her smile, the warmth of her eyes, and wonder what she’s doing right now.

Fancy leaps off the bed, scattering the binder to the floor. Character sheets and maps and probably Erica’s secret campaign plot fall out of it, and one of them lands on my diagram.

The last words jump to my mouth, as if I can’t stop. “Guide me to my destination, swift and sure.”

I feel a sudden jolt and the world seems to spin—it’s like someone is yanking me in every direction, and I fall over, getting dizzy. Erica’s bedroom spins and spins around me, and then—

I look up and see nothing but darkness.

16 ❤ KAT

As much as I want to immediately head over to UCLA to investigate the Order after school, I can’t. I have the one thing a month I absolutely cannot ditch: the council meeting.

The Mages’ Council oversees all magical regulations in Los Angeles; they enforce legislation, provide guidance and protection from natural disasters, and work with the mayor’s office on public affairs, which also means hearing the complaints of anyone who wants to come to the public town hall portion of the meeting.

“And who is going to pay for the damages to my storefront?”

“Mr. Eckles, it is the responsibility of every business owner to manage—”

“My insurance said they can’t cover any wyvern damage, that’s a separate policy, but mana surges should count as a natural disaster!” The man’s face is a bright, boiling red as he grips the podium.

The council regards him gravely, their faces impassive. I feel sorry for Mr. Eckles and the entire group of business owners who came forward with this petition to request the city pay for the severe damages from the last mana surge.

Next to me, Dad rereads his notes on his runebook on the speech he prepared for his petition. As usual, they’ve scheduled him toward the end. I pat his arm and his chin wobbles.

I hate this. I hate that he still tries. I hate that they keep jerking us around like this. I’ve given up on them ever saying yes, but every month like clockwork Dad always submits the same petition, and the council always denies his request for the return of Mom’s body. They always say it’s because they don’t know how the Ritual is affecting her, or that removing her remains could decrease the stability of the spell, but who even knows. It’s awful, the way they keep her here. All we want to do is bury her.

I grit my teeth, hoping time moves faster. I want this to be over and done with so I can head over to UCLA. I had marked precisely where that guy spent the most time on campus before the tracker wore off and prepared a bunch of spells to help me sneak around.

It worked out with the meeting being tonight, actually. Dad always wants to be alone after these hearings and he goes to the Santa Monica Pier, where he and Mom used ride the Ferris wheel together on their date nights. I always prepare a teleport programmed for home for him in case he forgets to charge his runebook. I thought I had bought more at Target, but I must have forgotten—luckily I found a spare one for him in the cupboard before we left.

Mr. Eckles shakes the podium. “My hardware store melted away before my very eyes and you can’t do anything about it?”

“Public resources are already stretched thin as it is,” Mayor Prattlesby says, his perfectly coiffed blond hair wavering as he shakes his head sadly. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Eckles, but we can’t change the city’s policies on insurance damage and—”

Another woman from the crowd stands up. “How dare you stand there and say you are protecting this city when you haven’t done anything!”

More irate constituents start berating the Mages’ Council, barely taking turns at the podium spelled with enhanced audio projection. There are so many business owners that they can’t fit within the spell’s radius, and the volume keeps cutting in and out.

Gravery Kirkpatrick bangs his gavel and then stands up. He’s the head of the council and looks like he’s almost a hundred years old, but I’m pretty sure he’s only a little older than Dad. He’s one of the few people who have participated in the Ritual and survived, and has been on the council ever since. His papery thin skin is almost translucent, and I can see the veins throbbing with blue-purple blood even from my seat in the back row. His voice echoes with a solemn authority that Mayor Prattlesby has never had.

“It is not the Mages’ Council’s responsibility to secure your storefronts against damage,” he says. “There will be no financial restitution for any of the petitioners present.”

The crowd gathered in the hall murmurs in discontent, and people start shouting accusations and demands.

“You know what you can do to stop the mana surges,” Mr. Eckles says, shaking with anger. “That is your responsibility!”

Mayor Prattlesby gulps. “Ah yes, however, the Stabilization Ritual is not scheduled for another two years—”

Dolores Mendoza clears her throat. She’s usually the voice of the council, a steady affirming voice to the public’s fears. “Due to the increase in frequency and intensity of recent mana surges, the Mages’ Council has evaluated the nature of the current situation. We have determined that for the sake of public safety that the Ritual be recast as soon as possible. We have determined the most effective time to cast the next Stabilization Ritual will be at the zenith of the next new moon, May twenty-second.”

A palpable sense of relief rushes through the crowd, and people start murmuring to each other. The business owners leave the podium, and Mr. Eckles shakes his fist at the council. “And what if there’s another surge before then?”

“Then I suggest, Mr. Eckles, you take proper precautions,” says a thin, reedy woman—Selina Alvarez—at the end of the council’s table.

Mayor Prattlesby coughs. He catches my eye and gives me an apologetic look. “Then, as standard, I’d like to announce that the council formally invites any volunteers for the cornerstones of the Stabilization Ritual to submit their applications no later than May fifteenth. Please note that all volunteers under eighteen must have the permission of a parent or guardian to participate.”

Dad glances at me and speaks in a low voice. “The date they chose—”

“Before my birthday, I know .” My heart is pounding. I knew this day was coming, I just didn’t know it would be so soon.

Other people in our row seem to recognize who we are, and start whispering again.

Dad looks at me, a heavy weight behind his eyes. We haven’t really talked since he got rid of all of Mom’s things, and now that there seems to be a deadline to my destiny—I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know where to start. Would he encourage me to volunteer? Or would he give me the perfect excuse to bow out—sorry, guys, Dad just didn’t let me?

“Next petitioner, Samuel Woo,” says Mayor Prattlesby.

I give Dad an encouraging nod.

He takes a deep breath and adjusts his cravat. His broad shoulders tower over the podium, and he addresses the crowd with a solemn sincerity.

“You may have known Victoria Woo for her kindness and the way she supported her community; she was always the first to offer her time to our neighbors, to people she had just met,” Dad says, his eyes watering with unshed tears. “Her cutting-edge research in archival magic and spellcraft techniques was just one of the ways she applied her talent and sparkling intelligence.”

I take a deep breath to steady myself as he talks about Mom; people in the crowd are nodding, captivated and hanging on every word in collective grief as Dad shares.

“She was my soulmate. My best friend. Her laugh was like the sun breaking through the clouds on a gloomy day,” Dad says. “When our Kat was born,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye, “Victoria told me, ‘Sorry, love, but you’re gonna have to settle for being my number two now. She’s always going to be my priority.’”

Fond chuckles echo throughout the room. Even Gravery Kirkpatrick is smiling. Dad usually just talks about Mom’s work in the community and her research and how she volunteered to be a cornerstone to protect people, and one bit about how much he loved her, but this part is new.

Dad catches my eye. “There’s never been a higher honor to me than being a father. Our family was—is—” He stumbles a bit here, and catches himself and gives me a small smile, like a promise. “You’re always my number one, Kat,” he says. “I’m so proud of you every day.”

I nod back at him, not trusting myself to speak. I always felt like this speech was so distant, describing Mom as a pillar of society, but he’s taken the time to add all this stuff about himself and me. It feels vulnerable, and honest, and I know he’s still grieving, too. Maybe packing up Mom’s things is how he’s coping. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss her, too, he’s just dealing with it in a different way.

Dad tells a story about me as a toddler watching in awe as Mom levitated bubbles that leaves everyone laughing and me blushing about my antics as a two-year-old, and then everyone listens as he proudly shares how Mom taught me over the years, how she watched me work my first levitation spell at eleven years old.

My throat wobbles and I fight back tears as he finishes the speech with his usual plea to the council about her remains so we can have a memorial. Usually at this point I’m tired and just want the council to get it over with and tell us no, but today feels different, it feels so much more personal—like we actually might stand a chance.

“My daughter deserves the right to say goodbye,” Dad says. “As do I.”

The hall is quiet. I can feel every solemn look from the council members I’ve come to recognize from this torturous, monthly ordeal.

Mayor Prattlesby looks up from his central seat in the council, back and forth at their faces. His eyes fall on Gravery Kirkpatrick’s stern and unmoving face next to him. Kirkpatrick shakes his head once.

The mayor gives Dad a watery smile. “Thank you, Mr. Woo. Unfortunately, due to the complexities of the Ritual and the nature of the deceased, we cannot release any remains to you.”

Dad exhales and ducks his head. “Thank you for your time.”

He walks away from the podium as the next constituent approaches the stage. Shannon is sitting in the front row, looking subdued in a brocade of emerald green. She gives me a sad wave before she stands up to give Dad a comforting hug. Shannon whispers something in his ear and then lets go, looking back at her husband sitting in the center of the long table with the council and giving him an admonishing glare. Mayor Prattlesby wilts a little under her gaze and gives her a sheepish sort of I had to shrug before mouthing I’m sorry to Dad.

Dad nods back at him weakly before walking down the aisle, his shoulders hunched in defeat. He approaches me quietly in the back row.

“Thank you for coming with me. Shannon says she’ll talk to Chris, but can’t promise anything. You know how they are.”

Yeah, I definitely know. “Of course, Dad.”

He gets that sad lip wobble he always does, but I know he doesn’t want to talk. I hand him his bag. “Your transport spell and all the ingredients to get home are in there. I’ll see you later. I’m gonna spend some time in the atrium library and get some research done for a paper for Vega.”

Dad hugs me suddenly, squeezing the air out of my lungs.

“You’re doing research for Advanced Spelling,” he breathes. “I’m so proud of you for investing in your studies, honey.”

I feel a twinge of guilt as I hug him back. “All right, I’ll be home by midnight. I love you.”

He chuckles. “I love you, too, Kat.” He kisses me on the forehead and gives me a sad smile. “You look more and more like her every day. She’d be so proud of you. Our darling, talented daughter. Just like her mother.” He wipes at his eyes. “I’ll see you at home. Have a good study session.”

If Mom were here, if she knew what was going on—I think she would be proud of me. She’d be right next to me, having convinced me to wear some sort of silly all-black spy outfit, giggling with excitement.

I wait until Dad is out of sight and then take a deep breath. “All right, Mom, let’s figure out what this Order is up to.”

17 ❤ BRENDA

Something scuttles behind me, and my heart leaps into my throat. I turn around, trying to see, but there’s only shadows, something just beyond my field of vision.

I squint, trying to make out something, anything in the dark. There’s light emanating from somewhere above me, trickling through grates ahead—water drips ominously somewhere, and it echoes in the long tunnel. Where am I?

This is not downtown Los Angeles. I was picturing the busy hustle and bustle of the metro station outside the library, not some dark and cold dungeon—

Something flutters across my feet.

I grab it, my eyes starting to adjust to the scant light. It’s not the printed map of Los Angeles with the intended plaza carefully circled, but Erica’s intricate hand-drawn map for D&D.

Her map of the catacombs.

Did I just teleport into a fictional universe?

“Hello?” I call out, and then immediately regret it. I might not want to say hi to anything here, if I’m in the Prentomi catacombs—there are giant spiders and who knows what else. I clutch my messenger bag with a tight grip, wishing we’d thought of better supplies to pack.

There’s a part of me that thought this was all part of a fever dream, despite the very real items I brought back with me—it still could have all been part of a laughable joke. But it’s all real, and it’s not all good.

Behind me, a shadow moves, and something that sounds suspiciously like claws tap against stone.

My heart pounds rapidly in terror and I take a step away from the sound, but then something echoes in the other direction. Something that sounds like high-pitched giggling.

I freeze. What to do, where to go? I don’t know any actual magic, I don’t have any weapons, I’m just a high school kid who’s in way over her head! There’s no way I could replicate that Lightning Bolt I did in Target again, not with how dangerous Kat made it sound.

A plaintive, familiar meow sounds out from the darkness.

“Fancy?” I gasp. The cat did leap onto the diagram—did she come with me? But we didn’t mark it on the spell, what—

Fancy—I hope it is Fancy—meows again, and she sounds sad and confused.

“Fancy, are you okay?”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and shake it vigorously, activating the flashlight app, and a bright stream of light bursts into the stone tunnel. Something in the distance sparkles and then disappears, and I gulp.

A paw steps into the phone’s field of light, followed by a familiar long-haired Himalayan cat.

“Fancy!” I step forward gingerly as Fancy looks up at me with her big, luminous eyes. She waddles toward me, winding around my ankles. Fancy rumbles in approval as I stroke her head and arches up as I scritch her behind her ears the way she likes it. “Guess we’re not in LA anymore.”

In the phone’s light, the tunnel doesn’t look as ancient as I first thought. The walls are inlaid stone, like an old subway station of some sort. There are several pipes running along the ceiling, and some grimy light bulbs shrouded in cobwebbed metal wire caged to the walls, flickering dimly. As my eyes adjust I see the tunnel slopes ever so slightly up.

“Come on, kitty. Let’s figure out where we are.”

Every so often I fear footsteps above me. I wonder where I am, if it’s under a busy street or something. Fancy follows me, meowing with interest, and then dashes ahead to sniff at something on the ground.

It’s a broken vial; a luminous thick liquid has spilled out of it and is glowing softly in the darkness.

“Fancy, no!”

Too late. She’s already licking daintily at the substance, not even having the audacity to look guilty or alarmed as I reach down and grab her. She waffles in the air, her legs going akimbo as she meows with an undignified protest before settling in my arms. “You don’t even know what that is!” I glance down at the broken glass, stepping gingerly around it. There’s a label on the broken vial, and I snap a picture of it with my phone. It better not be poisonous to cats.

Fancy burrows nervously into my arms. I stroke her head, trying to instill calm, but I feel just as anxious as we make our way down the tunnel.

There’s more scuttling behind me. Whatever it is, it’s following me. I look down the tunnel, but I can’t see anything aside from another flash of quickly disappearing light. It’s actually worse than knowing what could be lurking there, because my imagination starts to conjure up bigger and more terrifying creatures.

If anything happens, I can just cast the spell again to go home.

If it works.

I try not to think about that. Instead, I walk faster, and almost trip over a set of stairs going up to a metal door. I look to the door and then back toward the rest of the tunnel that descends into darkness and then decide to take the stairs. The door at the top looks like it’s seen stories, a heavy metal thing with a complicated bolt and a sign welded to it that says KEEP SHUT.

I heave it, lifting the bolt up and wedging myself through the door, and onto what sounds like a linoleum tiled floor. Lights flicker on. Motion sensors?

I’m in a hallway of some sort, and while its less creepy than the tunnel, I feel just as nervous. It’s late, there’s no reason for me to be here. I creep along, hoping to find an exit, and then stop short when I see a shadow on the wall, something monstrous and skeletal with an absurd number of teeth.

I swallow the yelp in my throat and clutch Fancy to me, and then I realize the shadow isn’t moving—whatever it is, it isn’t alive.

I turn the corner—a T. rex skull?

It’s got a plaque reading DONATED TO THE UCLA DEPT. OF GEOLOGY.

UCLA? I literally only went across town?

Sure enough, I round the dusty corner and there are old projectors sitting in the hallway and a pile of abandoned textbooks in a cardboard box marked FREE and seismograph charts. This hallway has windows and open doors; looks like a series of classrooms or labs.

I see some students walking in tight clusters, some huddled around a bulletin board, one asleep on a couch while another is lazily reading a book, the pages turning automatically as it floats in the air. No one looks at me twice, holding a cat and a bulging bag full of spell ingredients. I exhale, recognizing the fashions in front of me.

Kat’s universe.

If I can find her, we can figure out how to get me home.

I find the big double doors that usually signify an exit—and I make my way toward them past the throng of students.

Suddenly a panicked cry echoes from behind me. “PIXIES! A whole hive of them just came up from the basement! Someone call campus security!”

I’m almost knocked over as a student in a torn UCLA hoodie falling off their shoulders pushes past me and the other students. They’re covered in what looks like a sheen of iridescent party glitter, in hues of blues and purples and greens. The hoodie has been shredded by what looks like tiny, vicious claws.

The girls in front shriek and make a mad dash for the door, and then get caught in a bottleneck as all the students struggle to get out at the same time.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” another student demands.

“Some asshole coming from the steam tunnels left the door open; there must have been a nest, come on!” They cough, sending a cloud of glitter into the air.

Oh shit. That was me.

One of the girls swipes a symbol on her phone, and I can’t see what happens exactly, but the glitter stops before it reaches her, as if it’s bumped into an invisible wall made of air.

Right, so … don’t touch the glitter. I take a step backward from the glittery dust. A thick cloud drifts from the stairwell, a shimmering haze, and I hear the buzz of insect-like wings.

I run out the door after the students, pushing outside into the cool night air. In the courtyard, students are whipping out their not-phone things and casting spells and disappearing, the crowd thinning out with every second that goes by. There are a few stragglers, students with a lot of books or large things that look like laptops—runebooks, the word comes back to me now—who are anxiously trying to wrap up their work.

One student arrives who—I still haven’t quite figured out all the fashions of this world, but from the surefire way he’s rushing forward—seems like some sort of jock. He’s wearing a long dress shirt, sure, but it is untucked and flopping erratically as he hurries over with what looks like a lacrosse stick with a huge net. “Heard there was a pixie and thought I could help. Is it in there?” he calls out.

The first student covered in glitter coughs. “It sounded like a swarm. I didn’t see.” They glance back, their eyes widening in fear. “Good luck,” they say before dashing away.

The boy barely older than I am gingerly props open the door, pokes his head in, and then backs right out with his net thing. “Holy shit, it is a swarm! Someone call the wranglers. I do not need to go to the hospital tonight, I have an exam tomorrow!”

He closes the door and pushes a potted plant in front of it.

Fancy’s claws burrow into my shoulder as I run away from the building as quick as I can, but it’s hard going with both a cat and a heavy bag bouncing against my hip.

I definitely don’t want to stick around and see what kind of damage a swarm of pixies can do or get caught in that glitter haze that everyone is avoiding. I try to remember what Kat said about them: a nuisance, but in large numbers they could be deadly.

I have to stop and catch my breath, and Fancy shuffles against my chest, meowing unhappily. I realize no one else is running anymore, and there are more than a few people giving me curious looks. Probably because of the huge fluffy cat in my arms, but I feel like there’s a sign on my forehead that reads I SET THE PIXIES LOOSE.

Just breathe, breathe. I inhale and exhale. I count backward from ten and try to concentrate on Fancy’s warm fur in my arms, her scratchy tongue as she tries to groom my chin, the night air breezing by.

“You there. With the cat. Did you see the pixie swarm attack?”

I turn and look and there’s a man stroking his beard thoughtfully, his cap tilted at a jaunty angle. He looks like a noir detective, in his long coat and the way he’s flicking at his runebook and studying me curiously.

“Why were you running?” he asks.

“I … the pixies,” I exhale.

I know this is the wrong answer immediately because he narrows his eyes.

“You didn’t get the BruinAlert saying the danger has passed? Pixie wranglers were called and the situation has been stabilized.”

“I don’t have my runebook on me,” I improvise. “My cat, er, ran out the door and I had to catch her.”

Fancy meows.

“Yep, and now I did, so everything is all right, so I’m just going back to my dorm.” I smile sheepishly and start to walk away.

“I didn’t think students were allowed to have cats in their dorms,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

“My apartment, I mean. Off campus,” I amend. “I just moved in, I’m still getting used to it.” I chuckle a little. “I still call it my dorm, because it’s the same amount of space with three girls, you know?”

The babbling doesn’t seem to throw him off. In fact, he just nods as if this fact confirms that I am actually a college student.

“I’m Detective Summers.” He squints at me, his jaw still taut with suspicion. “Campus security is trying to figure out how a known and contained pixie swarm got loose. Did you see what happened?”

I take a deep breath of the collegiate air around me, the crisp smell of the trees, the sound of the bubbling fountains, the college students idling with and without purpose. It’s a future I want, and a future I might not get if I get stuck in an alternate universe. Or get arrested in an alternate universe for somehow being implicated in this pixie attack.

My heart is still racing, and I try to look as small and pathetic as possible, trying to think quickly of an excuse. “I’m so sorry, I don’t remember, it all happened so fast, it’s finals week, and I’m so stressed, I’ve got a million things to do, and I’m not even done with my essay—”

I’m not done with my essay, actually.

The lie isn’t difficult, especially when it skates this close to the truth—the stress of the spring semester, acceptance letters I haven’t gotten yet, planning for prom—all the ins and outs of being not just a high school senior, but being me.

Before I know it I’ve whipped myself into an actual anxiety spiral, thinking about the Plan. How am I ever going to get it done? Magic and other universes are exciting and all, and Kat, oh Kat—she’s great, but I knew dating was a distraction, and this whole situation is just—

I’m hiccuping, gasping for air as the tears fall from my face.

Summers looks alarmed and uncomfortable, and he takes a step back, unsure. “Okay, okay. It’s rough. It’s, uh—it’s okay.” He sighs and looks around awkwardly, then turns back to me. “Look, I’m not good at this part, but uh, it’s going to be okay. Just take a deep breath. The pixies were contained, okay? The Dangerous Wildlife Division folks are on their way for relocation, and their investigators, too. We’re just trying to get as much info as possible for them, but I got plenty of info from other witnesses. You go on home.”

I sniff, nodding. “Thank you. Can I … can I borrow your ph—runebook?” I barely catch myself. Don’t call it a phone, I chide myself. That would be a sure way for people to know I’m not from around here. “I also … got locked out. I need to call my roommate.”

“I can call them for you. What’s the namekey?”

I’m so grateful I haven’t washed these jeans yet. The crumpled slip of paper Kat gave me with those symbols is still in my pocket.

“Here you go,” I say, handing it over.

Come on, Kat. Please pick up.

18 ❤ KAT

The moon is rising by the time I get to UCLA. The transportation hub was packed because there’s always free transport lines programmed to various trolley stops all over LA on council meeting nights to encourage civic participation. Theoretically it’s so people don’t have the excuse of trolley traffic or their horse was sick or they didn’t have enough charge to teleport, but what ends up happening is most people do extra travel on council meeting days, hopping from one hub to city hall and then to their destination.

By the time it was my turn to get to the portal, my tracking spell had expired. I can’t be sure if the guy is still there. But at least I can check out where he was hanging out all day and what he was working on.

I walk out into the night with the throng of people on the sloped pathway right outside the Ackerman transport hub. The iconic arched hallway made of red brick is open to the night sky, and campus beckons me forward. Every time I’ve been here before, either to visit my mom or on a school tour, it’s been full of life with students on their way to class and organizations touting their various causes, the very picture of college campuses on every brochure.

But UCLA at night is a different beast. The usual cheerful brick facades that boast academic fervor, the rolling green grass filled with enthusiastic college students relaxing and mingling—all of it melts away to a strange, echoing emptiness. The main campus is not quite deserted; students bustle along Bruin Walk and trudge up the Hill to their dorms in the distance, raucous music plays from somewhere, and bright lights illuminate the distant field filled with idleball players busy at practice.

The pine trees shroud the campus in darkness, and up on the north side of campus it’s a different world, a secretive one. With classes over, the scattered lights in the buildings cast everything in a dim, nervous glow. Outside of the library, students shuffle like shadows.

I duck into an alcove next to the entrance of the Department of Magical Arts and cast my invisibility spell. It feels like a fine, cold mist as it envelops me in a shroud of true invisibility. It doesn’t just bend light around me like a simple notice-me-not spell, it removes me from view entirely. I catch my breath, grateful I carbed up at dinner.

The last coordinates I recorded yield an empty hallway at the end of the building. On a hunch I head upstairs. Directly above, I find myself on a balcony overlooking the campus: swaying trees and brick buildings on a low, sloping rise, and in the distance the glowing lights of the athletic field. The view is familiar, even at night. Mom and I used to eat lunch here when I’d come to work with her, and her old office is down the hall.

That Order that guy was involved with … did Mom know anything about it? Were her colleagues involved?

My stomach starts to churn with nausea and I take a deep breath to steady myself, wondering if I should stay here and observe or go inside.

I barely reach the door when three other people teleport onto the balcony, gasping for breath, cursing as they bump into one another. One of them, a young woman with sleek black hair, quickly composes herself as she dusts herself off. The older man next to her doubles over, grasping his knees for support.

“Ugh. I hate the way teleport spells feel. Couldn’t Rebecca have footed the energy cost?”

“I think she likes seeing us all out of sorts when we arrive. Some sort of power trip.” A middle-aged woman with frizzy hair takes a long swig from a water bottle, and then her eyes fall on me.

I don’t breathe for one brief, terrified moment until she says, “What do you think, Bill?”

The greasy man who accosted me is standing behind me, beckoning them toward the open door. “Hurry up, the moon is almost at its zenith and the Crossings will be open. We’ve predicted a window of nine point one seconds tonight, enough for a brief delivery of items.”

“Why are you here early?” the frizzy-haired woman scoffs.

“Johnson asked me to calculate the exact portal location,” Bill says, puffing his chest out. “I bet she hasn’t trusted you yet with important Order tasks, Amrita.”

The stylish woman rolls her eyes. “You know that she came up with that just to keep you busy, right? We have a spell that can do that.”

I follow the Order members inside the building and then into a small classroom. There’s still remnants from the previous class taught by a professor Rebecca Johnson; on the board is smudged Huy Trung Thanh Theorems on Economics of Mana and various notes have been hastily erased to make room for complex calculations and tracking runes. I study the runes, trying to get a sense of it—it’s not a spell, just various equations with everything from the lunar cycle to locations of ley lines and mana surges, all coming back to calculating a convergence of—

Coordinates. Dates. Times.

This is a schedule.

I recognize the coordinates of the coffeeshop and then, as my heart pounds in realization, quickly calculate with my runebook a few of the others. There. That’s Target, and the time I walked into Brenda’s world.

I gasp.

Amrita’s eyes flick over to me. “You say something, Harkness?”

The older man shakes his head. “You think the next Crossings window will be long enough for one of us to spend time over there?” He draws a rune and opens up an otherspace pocket, pulling out boxes and vials with swift efficiency.

I take advantage of the noise to use my runebook to copy over the schedule, the notes, and every bit of useful information I can glean from the classroom.

Bill snorts as he packs the items into a large canvas bag. “Not likely. You know that’s only for higher level—”

The door opens again, and a frazzled-looking woman bustles inside. She’s got a scattered air about her, with bright, alert eyes. Her gray hair is curling wildly, escaping the loose bun gathered on top of her head. Her long overcoat is rumpled and a coffee stain is streaked down the front of her blouse, but her expression is all seriousness despite her disheveled appearance.

“Professor Johnson, I was hoping we could request more funding for—”

“Afterward could we talk about my dissertation—”

Amrita and Bill are definitely graduate students, so the Order could be an academic thing, although I don’t have a read on the other two—Harkness with the entitled air and the woman who complained about teleporting to this meeting tonight. I shudder, thinking about how Bill immediately tried to wipe my memory with no hesitation. These people might be academics, but they’re not afraid to use force to get what they want or to protect their secrets.

I quietly edge my way to the corner of the room now that I’ve got everything so I can focus on observing. I need to be careful about sound since I don’t have anything to mask it.

Professor Johnson brushes off her students’ requests before giving everyone instructions. Amrita is already taking careful notes and the other three are gathering and packing items into that massive bag. I can’t risk getting closer to see everything, but I can recognize some basic boxed spells: teleportation, levitation, and even a few vials of mood enhancers.

“I’m ready,” Bill huffs. The bag clinks and clatters as he drags it back toward the classroom door.

Amrita taps her runebook impatiently and flings the door open. “It’s time!”

The members of the Order crowd around in front of the open doorway, watching the space with interest.

“Ten … nine … eight…”

Johnson waves dramatically at one. A hand appears in the empty space in the doorframe, waving out of thin air from the hallway. There’s no pop of air displacement for teleportation, no motes of dust wafting or the shimmer of a portal, or even the telltale haziness that comes from linking two pieces of space for a temporary door.

“We have visual! We have visual!” Harkness shouts, his excitement barely contained.

The hand retracts, disappears, then reappears with a blue plastic bag with a yellow banner with giant block letters reading IKEA.

“Quickly!” Johnson snaps.

Amrita and Harkness grab the bag and heave it out of the doorway as Bill struggles forward with the heavy bag of premade spells. Sweat drips from his brow as he pushes it toward the doorframe. It looks strange, disappearing into thin air, and I see the hand come through again, pulling it with effort until it’s gone entirely.

All the members of the Order exhale a collective sigh of relief.

“Great work, everyone,” Johnson says. “Amrita, start inventory.”

I step lightly toward her, eager to see what they got in this elaborate exchange. I wonder if the Order members on Brenda’s side are also academics, although I think Harkness must run some sort of apothecary, given the way his hands are stained from herb tinctures.

“I know you think I don’t know about your hustle at the high schools with the anchors, Bill—”

“How much money are you making off those kids?”

Amrita’s runebook jingles, and she glances at the others before picking it up. It looks familiar, the set of symbols in the namekey, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen it before.

She almost bumps into me as she takes a few steps back. “Yes, we just finished our meeting. Johnson is on target for the quota as usual. You can expect an official report from her this week. Yes. Uh-huh.”

Hm. I thought Johnson was the head of this organization, but it looks like she’s reporting to someone else in the Order. How deep does this go?

“Yes, of course I heard. You don’t think the Chosen One would actually go through with it, do you?”

What? What does this smuggling ring have to do with me or the prophecy?

The person on the other line says something that makes Amrita frown. “I mean, our whole operation hinges on the Ritual—”

A loud guitar solo riffs through the air, right out of my pocket.

“What in the—Johnson, is this a training exercise?!”

I quickly silence the call, but it’s too late. Everyone turns toward Amrita, whose eyes narrow in suspicion. She hangs up her call and stalks toward my corner. “It came from over there—we have a spy.”

I draw the quick release rune for the only spell left in my cache that’s tied to another mana source and pray that the coffeeshop’s storage was recently charged.

Pineapples start popping into the room, duplicating madly, and in the pandemonium I run as fast as I can out of the building and into the night.

19 ❤ BRENDA

I shift my position to hold Fancy with one arm. “Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver, really. I’m sure you get this all the time, but I appreciate it so much.”

Summers preens with the praise. “It’s no problem. All part of the job. Walking people back to their apartments if they don’t feel safe, fighting back harassers, investigating pixie swarms. It’s what I do.”

He swipes on his clunky glass device, and I watch as the symbols glow and disappear, and then the whole thing pulses with a soft golden glow before he lifts it to his face with stern concentration. “She’s not picking up.”

“Try again,” I insist.

Summers nods, and then finally Kat answers on the other end, and I exhale with relief.

“Hello? I have a—”

“Brenda Nguyễn,” I offer.

“Brenda Nguyễn here, she says she’s your roommate and she got locked out … oh, that’s great. By the Geology Building. Okay, I’ll tell her to stay put. Great. Thanks. Bye.”

He hangs up and smiles at me. “She’s on her way. You be careful now. And don’t worry about your finals and stuff. It’ll all work out. Just take it one thing at a time.”

I nod. His words are reassuring, even if he thinks I’m a college student. I wonder if it gets easier.

“I’ve gotta go do paperwork. You’ll be all right? You want me to wait with you until she gets here? She said she was over on North Campus and would be here soon.”

“I’m okay. Thanks!”

I sit down on a cold stone bench with Fancy. I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I thought this was all a grand adventure at first, but now a deep-seated fear that I might never get home starts to set in, sickeningly hot and horrifying, growing in the pit of my stomach. I was so focused on getting away from the pixies and then trying not to be suspicious that I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that the original spell went wrong somewhere, so the spell to go home isn’t likely to work.

Last time I just walked through a door and got home, but that was on accident.

“Brenda!”

Kat’s voice brings me back to the moment.

“Are you okay? You found another portal?” She catches her knees, doubling over and wiping sweat off her face. She looks a little pale, her outfit rumpled and sweaty. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it, I just ran over here because I was in the middle of—” She takes a deep breath, steadying herself. “I almost got caught,” she says hysterically.

I stand up in concern. “Are you okay? Caught doing what?”

“After our Target date, this creepy guy was lurking and tried to wipe my memory—he mentioned this Order, and I knew they had something to do with these portals between our worlds. So I tracked him here to investigate. But I didn’t expect anyone to call me, no one ever calls me other than Dad, and he’s in the sads tonight—” Kat blinks, registering Fancy in my arms.

“Meow,” Fancy says curiously, reaching a paw out.

“Uh, you brought a cat.”

“This is Fancy,” I say. “I’m not sure how I got here—I tried out one of your premade teleportation thingies in your Target bag and it got messed up when Fancy knocked over our D&D stuff onto the diagram.”

A group of people wearing purple coats—clearly some sort of uniform—march past us and head toward the Geology Building. Following them is another man with what is very recognizable as an old-fashioned camera. The investigators Summers mentioned. And the press.

Kat exhales. “We should get out of here. My runebook is out of charge and the free transportation hubs are closed for the night, so it’ll take a while on the streetcar to get back home.”

“You think your Dad will know what to do?”

Kat nods. “If he doesn’t, we can always ask Shannon. Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you home. Or … you can just stay at my house until the next portal opens.”

“Next … portal?”

She draws a gesture and pulls something out of thin air—a sheet of paper with what looks like a complicated list. “I got us a schedule.” Kat grins wildly at me. “So we can plan our next date.”

We catch a streetcar in Westwood that takes us across town, and have to switch two more times to get to Kat’s neighborhood. It’s really nice, the car open to the night air and people getting on and off and going about their evening. I’d been on one in San Francisco on our last family trip, but that was more of a historical curiosity rather than a regular mode of public transportation.

I marvel at how seamless it is, gliding along the track as I watch the neighborhoods of Los Angeles fly by. Some of it is incredibly familiar—we’re on Wilshire Boulevard for most of the trip, and I recognize the restaurants and many of the buildings and storefronts, even if they’re selling different wares.

Kat tells me what she learned about the mysterious Order using the portals between our two worlds, and I settle into the rhythmic cadence of her voice and let my anxiety fall away as she explains that there’s a planned and predicted set of portal openings, and there’s no need to worry about how to get home. Instead, we laugh about people smuggling Pokémon cards, and a new kind of excitement starts to bubble inside me—knowing there’s a regular way Kat and I can continue to see each other.

The air smells earthy and different. It’s strange, not seeing any cars on the smaller, narrow streets, just people riding horses and horses pulling carriages. Aside from the main streets with streetcars, many of the streets aren’t paved at all, just packed dirt.

With Kat’s arm casually slung over my shoulder, her soft breath whispering in my ear, it’s easy to feel wonder at her whole world. It feels both modern and historical at the same time. I can see it, the world’s fashions and trends evolving from tailored styles that could be done with magic, the rise of the streetcar system in a world without the automobile. There are awful, terrifying things like the pixie swarms and the wyverns, but my world isn’t perfect, either.

Kat seems to know I’m thinking about our two worlds. “So what else is different? You guys have cheeseburgers over there?”

I laugh. “Of course we have cheeseburgers, but do you have In-N-Out?”

Kat snorts. “You mean Out-N-About, right? Best burgers in LA?”

The conversation is nice in a different way than our date at the coffeeshop. Then I’d been in shock, and then nervous about spending time with Kat, and we’d mostly talked about magic and how it worked. It had been a rush, an excitement to feel something new, to learn how it worked, and I had endless questions about it.

This feels a bit more solid, like I know she’s not going to disappear at any moment.

I tell Kat more about my mom and my family, and the house that feels too crowded and small for all of us and how I can’t wait to make my mark on the world.

Kat listens and smiles knowingly and says, “You’re going to be amazing. You already are. Look at you, anybody else who had fallen into another world would have panicked or caused a riot.”

She tells me about her dad and his dreams and expectations for her, how he’s all excited she’s in this Advanced Spelling class instead of causing trouble. Kat leans her head on my shoulder and I rest my own head on top of hers, and we don’t say anything for a while.

In the distance, a clock tower chimes. It’s pretty and atmospheric, and I’m caught up admiring the aesthetics of it all when I realize it’s eleven o’clock.

“What?” Kat says, watching my face.

“I told my mom I’d be home by eleven,” I say, trying not to panic. Má will be freaking out when I’m not answering my phone, and Erica and Jenn, too, since I didn’t come back as planned. I wish I could tell them I’m okay, but my phone has absolutely no reception again.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kat says softly. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it.”

“Thanks,” I say. Her solid and steady presence is a comfort. The night shimmers as the city spreads out in front of us, lights glowing dimly until they disappear into the horizon. The stars shine brighter here, I realize, without the millions of cars lighting up the night like glowing red and gold rivers.

The streetcar comes to a stop with a rumbling creak. “This is it,” Kat says.

We slowly untangle ourselves and climb out.

The street could be any suburb out of LA, except every lawn is lush and vibrant—swaying grasses, flowers, trees rustling gently in the evening air. I take a deep breath; even the air feels fuller, cooler, and dense with oxygen and life.

Kat leads me down the street toward a somewhat dilapidated house with a wide wraparound porch, covered in rambling vines. An electric lamp flickers intermittently above us. The swing on the porch is rusted over and covered in a thick heaping of dust, and the front lawn is in equal disarray, overgrown with dandelions. In the night air the little puffs are covered in dew, glistening like small jewels.

“Come on,” Kat says, opening the door. She beckons me inside.

I walk down a hallway lined with framed photos. The first set of photographs are black and white, yellowed and curling at the edges. A Chinese man with his hair styled traditionally, shaved in the front and combed into a long braid—a queue, I remember from history class—stands proudly with his family in front of a grocery store. At his side, a woman wearing a traditional cheongsam places her hands on the shoulders of three unsmiling children wearing Western suits.

“Great-Great-Grandfather Jimmy Woo in San Francisco,” Kat says. “He came over during the Gold Rush.”

I whistle. “Did he find anything?”

“Just enough to start a store and bring over his wife, and they had three kids.” She taps the little girl in the center, whose eyes spark with a glint of mischief

“That’s Jìngyi Woo.”

Ah, the ancestor who started everything. I point to the next photo of her as an adult, labeled 1905. Jìngyi’s eyes are focused on her lover, a shorter white woman with her hair bundled up in a bun, tendrils escaping everywhere and partially obscuring her face, but it’s clear she’s laughing in delight. Jìngyi is smiling, tender and soft. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Jìngyi and her girlfriend, I think? No one ever knew her name. They lived in Los Angeles, and the history books only ever mentioned Jìngyi and her work, you know, saving the world.”

“I have an ancestor wall, too,” I say. “Not as cool as yours—we don’t have a lot of photos.” There’s a tiny black-and-white photo of Ȏng Ngoại’s mother, cut out from an old passport or identification card. There isn’t one of his father, or of Bà Ngoại’s parents, just their names written in Vietnamese on the small memorial. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have more mementos of them, but I’m grateful for all of Ȏng Ngoại’s ramblings about Nha Trang and Bà Ngoại’s stories about tending the lychee farm with her family, even if I don’t understand all of it with my limited Vietnamese.

The collection of photos gracing Kat’s wall go from black and white to color, and a heavy sadness settles around my heart as I realize just how empty the house is. It’s just her and her dad, and these photos of people who are gone. At the very end of the hallway is a photo of a lovely woman in her thirties, throwing her head back in laughter.

“That’s my mom,” Kat says quietly.

She and Kat have the same smile, except Kat’s smile is much more worn and bitter than the hopeful woman in the photo.

I study the photo for a quiet moment, remembering our first conversation. I know what it’s like, to have something like this hanging over you, like when people ask where my dad is, and the instant quick decision I make about how much this person needs to know about my life, the unspoken question that sits at the bottom of my heart, how painfully I’m reminded that he left us, that we weren’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.

“She looks like she appreciates a good joke,” I say.

Kat’s mouth quirks slightly in amusement. “She was always laughing,” she says. “At me, at my dad, when she was working on developing a new spell or trying to solve a problem.”

She glances down the hall. “Come on, my dad will be home late, but if he sees my light on, he might come by to say hi. We should be asleep by then.”

My heart pounds nervously. Is she taking me to her room?

It’s only to hide, I tell myself, it’s not, like, romantic or anything, it’s because you’re from another universe and you’re not supposed to be here, and if anyone finds out it’s experiments or something terrible …

Kat bounds up the stairs, looks over her shoulder at me, and smiles. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”

It’s a bright, colorful space, a huge bedroom twice the size of the one Stacey and I share. There is clutter and clothes everywhere and the room feels just like Kat, a fascinating kaleidoscope of personality, everything out in the open, like Kat is unafraid to say, Here I am, figure me out if you want to, I’m not hiding anything.

Kat’s desk is covered in a smattering of books and journals, half-written scribbles with symbols that I now recognize as runes. The open journal in the center has pages ripped out and crumpled, and the pages visible have sections marked up with notes like this one or try this again but without the modifier and NO!!!

The crystals and random objects on the desk don’t scream “magical” to me at first—a half-empty spool of thread, a hairbrush, an empty can of pineapple chunks—but the way they’re positioned on various diagrams give them a gravitas of importance. The bookshelf in the corner is overflowing with books stacked in all manner of ways: on their side, at an angle, as if shoved there temporarily and then forgotten, next to items that seem both random and preciously placed—a mug filled with pens, a carved statue of a dragon, and a large stuffed owl, whose button eyes have been handsewn and wings clumsily patched.

Kat sets her runebook onto a glowing stone on the nightstand with a thunk and it starts to glow softly. She flops onto her bed, stacked high with colorful pillows and quilts all in a jumble, the sheets and covers in an impossible tangle. She falls back into a cloud of pillows and pats the spot next to her.

My heart thuds so loud I’m afraid she can hear it.

“I’m so tired,” Kat says, yawning. “Aren’t you?”

I feel like I should be; my school day was just as long as usual, but somehow it seems like it happened in a dream, or a month ago. The excitement of trying the real spell, the terror of being alone in the tunnel, the pixies, all of it feels far away—I feel too awake, alert with curiosity.

I set down Fancy, who sniffs curiously at the room, her tail swishing back and forth as she regards her new surroundings. She leaps gracefully onto Kat’s bed without a second thought.

Kat laughs and pets her until Fancy starts purring contentedly, stretching out on the pillow. “Your cat is so cute.”

“She’s my friend Erica’s cat,” I say. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything she could eat? Or a bowl of water for her?”

Kat nods. “Yeah, of course, I can just grab something from the pantry.” She draws a symbol in the air and makes a circle with her hands, and within it the air seems to shimmer, wavering expectantly, like the heat just above a candle.

Kat reaches into the circle, humming thoughtfully to herself as she reaches around and starts handing me things: two bowls, a can opener, and a can of tuna.

“So neat,” I say in awe. “That must be so handy.” I open the tuna, pour it into the bowl, and place it on the floor. Fancy sniffs it imperiously before settling down to eat.

“Otherspace? Yeah, absolutely,” Kat says, walking over to her bathroom to fill the other bowl with water. “Everyone pretty much has one or more in their home, and a personal one for storing stuff you don’t want to carry with you all the time, or like, even entire offices and closets and stuff.”

She sets it down next to Fancy, who looks up from her tuna and meows in acceptance.

I scratch her behind her ears. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you home.”

She meows again, licking her paws.

“So you said you used the boxed teleport spell from Target?”

I pull out the stuff from my backpack and show Kat the map to Erica’s house, and explain about how we were just trying to test it to go downtown. “And then the map from our D&D game fell onto the diagram … they were to these catacombs that were made up.”

Kat sits up, humming thoughtfully. “What were you thinking about?”

I blush, remembering the moments right before Fancy leapt onto the diagram. “You. I was thinking about you,” I say softly.

Kat giggles a little. “You’re so cute.”

She shuffles off the bed and grabs a book off her nightstand, a thick textbook that has seen better days. Its spine is worn and frayed, and the pages she flips through are old and yellowing. Kat turns to a section and peruses, her fingertips delicately handling the pages. “That’s amazing that it worked, given your universe supposedly doesn’t have any magic. But it worked just like how this premade spell would have done given the last-minute substitutions. I mean, people complain all the time about how they don’t end up where they’re meant to be, but it comes down to the map being inaccurate or their intention was muddled.”

“The instructions didn’t say anything about intention.”

Kat waves her hand. “It shouldn’t really affect the spell if your map is correct, but given your map went to these catacombs that didn’t exist, the spell did the next best thing with the distance and the general layout of what you directed it to—dumped you in the steam tunnels at UCLA in my universe.”

“Do you think it worked because this spell was, like, prepaid?”

She taps the page on the book. “Those spells are all ready to go, but they draw a little mana from the world around you in order to function. So … the fact that it did work…” She grins at me excitedly. “The implications! The possibilities! If I were a spell developer, this would be a huge breakthrough. It means that there is some level of magic in your universe. Come look at this!”

I climb onto the bed, my nervous heart both thankful and annoyed that Fancy is between us. I peer over Kat’s shoulder at the book, titled A Compendium of Basic Mana Flow: A History. The text is small and cramped, and footnote references date to 1906.

Prior to the Mayfield Breakthrough, spells were cast by mages who either painstakingly wrote spells for each unique purpose or used spells handed down over the generations. Channeling the raw mana inherent in our world was time-consuming and dangerous, often leaving mages physically and emotionally exhausted.

In ancient times, people used focus objects and pure intention to channel mana into simple actions, such as increasing water flow to crops in an irrigation channel, warding off insects from grain stores, and more. However, without direction, the results were varied and unpredictable. As civilization grew and uses for magic increased, mages across the world specialized their craft by writing spells using diagrams, focus objects, and symbols that would later become standardized as runes.

The standardization of runes was accelerated by the Mayfield Breakthrough in Los Angeles, California. As the use of Western premade spells rose exponentially, original spell development around the world decreased. While some anthropologists argue that this led to a significant loss of cultural value and heritage in different forms of spellcasting and magic, most agree that the Breakthrough is responsible for creating the robust economy and technological conveniences of the modern-day era.

Wow. That’s fascinating. “I wonder if what I did with my d20 would have worked back at home,” I say.

Kat tilts her head, considering. “Is that a common thing people do?”

“Yeah, it’s a popular game. I mean, I feel like I’ve done that so many times playing actual D&D—but if rolling a die and saying I cast whatever actually is magic, how come nothing has ever actually blown up?”

“Channeling magic like that with yourself as a conduit, no spell to structure it—depending on the power intensity of the spell, you’ll pull energy from your environment around you, so if there isn’t any raw mana around you, of course it wouldn’t work,” Kat muses. “There must be some in your universe … of course there is, it’s present in all life-forms, stored in inert objects, but … what happened in Target with a spell of that magnitude worked because of the mana surge.”

That makes sense.

“Definitely don’t try it again. It could kill you. Like how the book describes people casting magic back in the old days … if you had the intention behind it, and there was enough mana around to start the spell, but not finish … it’ll go through you first, and take everything you have.”

I nod with grave understanding. “So there’s a baseline of energy there needs to be present for any magic to work…”

Kat sits up suddenly. “Do you have any more of those cards? Apparently people use them here as focus objects for certain kinds of restricted spells.”

I blink at her. “Jimmy has a ton of Pokémon cards. A bunch are rare collectibles he keeps in fancy binders, but the ones I gave you are, like, everyday tokens and stuff that are used all the time. I could get you more the next time … I’m home.”

I had started to relax on the ride back as Kat told me about that scheduled prediction stuff, but now my anxiety starts to set in again. How will it work? What if there isn’t another portal for forever?

Kat reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Look, here’s the schedule.” She pulls the sheet of paper out of her pocket and smooths it out. “I figured out the Order monitors all the portals long enough to exchange items, but there’s a bunch of shorter ones crossed out here that they don’t bother watching.” She scans the list and then grins, waving it at me. “Looks like there’s a two-second window off the railroad tracks by San Pablo tomorrow morning at 6:21 A.M.” She yawns and swipes on her runebook. “There, I’ve set an alarm.”

“Why does a schedule even exist? What does this Order do?”

“I’m not sure,” Kat says. “At first I thought it was some sort of moneymaking scheme, a bunch of bored academics making extra money hustling stuff like those cards in exchange for basic spells and stuff. Which means there are Order people on your side, too.”

“So … smugglers.”

Kat frowns, thinking. “This might just be the lower-ranking people. I think the Order is involved with the Ritual somehow. They mentioned the Chosen One…” She trails off here, looking away.

“The what?” I exclaim. “I want to know everything. What’s the Ritual?”

“The Ritual has been cast in Los Angeles for over a hundred years to keep this epic catastrophe from happening. Like, remember that mana surge in Target?”

I nod.

“Imagine that, but a billion times stronger, and the very earth itself holding all this energy together just breaks from all the pressure—”

“Like an earthquake?” I ask. “I mean, I assume you have plate tectonics here given the university had a Geology Department, but it’s possible that it doesn’t exist or something.”

Kat snorts. “Well, Los Angeles is on—”

“—the San Andreas Fault,” I finish. “So the Big One. The Ritual prevents this and some sort of catastrophic magic tidal wave that goes with it.”

Kat nods.

“And the Chosen One?”

She shrugs here awkwardly. “Destined to stop it, you know.”

I clap my hands eagerly. “Mythical hero and all that. So what do you think the Order has to do with it?”

Kat’s eyes narrow as she thinks. “Something to do with the mana surges for sure. I wonder if…” She pauses. “You know, it’s weird that you don’t know. I mean, everyone in LA knows how my mom died, and they’re always so sorry about it, always so proud of her—and me—I mean—well, because—” She takes a deep breath. “So the Ritual needs five cornerstones—people who volunteer.” Kat swallows, a glimmer of fear in her eyes. “And it almost always kills them. It uses up their life force entirely for the sake of this spell that keeps the city safe. Two people have survived being a cornerstone, and one of them died almost immediately after. The last Ritual … my mom volunteered.”

I take Kat’s hand and squeeze it in comfort. She squeezes back, holding on to me like a lifeline.

“I know she was studying it in secret, outside of her regular job,” Kat says, eyes glazed over in memory. “She told me she was doing it so no one would ever have to again. The council told us she died due to mana exhaustion, the same as all the other cornerstones for the Stabilization Ritual, but they never released her body to us, so … now it seems more and more suspicious.”

“If the Order was involved with the Ritual somehow, do you think they had something to do with her death?”

“I don’t know,” Kat says. “It seemed like a coincidence, but a lot of them seem to be other faculty and TAs in Mom’s old research department.”

“You said they monitor the portals—do they have a uniform? Do they wear trench coats?” I quickly recount the weird guy who was staring at me on our first scheduled date.

“I don’t think there’s a uniform, but that’s a normal thing for people here to wear. The Order must keep track of known portals and try to keep them a secret—the portals aren’t really open long enough for someone to slip through unless by sheer accident or if they knew they were there.”

“But that guy tried to wipe your memory!” I shake my head. “They sound dangerous, and they now know someone was spying on them—what if they come after you?”

Kat grins and shrugs. “Look, we’ve got to get you home. And also—don’t you want to keep hanging out? This is the best way to do it. I don’t think they’re that dangerous, anyway—they’re all, like, underpaid TAs and stuff. A cheap-rate amnesia spell that would bounce off any standard shield is not a threat.” She looks off into the distance. “I think if the Order had something to do with my Mom’s death, it has to do with her research and what she figured out about the Ritual. And it wouldn’t be any of these losers guarding these small portals. It’d have to be someone at the very top.”

The memory of Kat’s mom lingers over her entire house, hanging like a shroud over this conversation. My fingers twitch; I haven’t talked to my own mom all day, and there’s no way to reach her, or Jenn, or Erica. I hope they’re okay. I bet Erica told my mom that I was sleeping over or something, so she probably isn’t too worried just yet. But if I don’t come back tomorrow …

“Hey, don’t worry. I won’t let you get hurt.” Kat leans in close and tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, and suddenly I forget to breathe. The protectiveness of the gesture, the warm way she’s smiling at me, the scant distance between us, the fact that we’re in her bedroom—my head is spinning.

Something warm like want courses through me, something new and exciting and terrifying. I’ve had crushes before, sure, fleeting and scant, but they’ve been more attached to the idea of possibility, like the warmth of Donna Quách’s smile and the quick and efficient way she stuffed envelopes during that one honor society volunteer event. But it never developed into anything, and we never hung out enough for me to get to know her beyond that initial curiosity.

With fictional characters, it was easy to develop feelings for someone who I saw go from can’t-process-emotions to becoming a hero and leader despite their trauma as they go through catastrophic situations. Erica says that’s because I’m the kind of person that takes a while to develop a romantic connection, especially since I don’t understand the way people could casually just say oh yeah, I wanna make out with that person or declare that they want to date them based on just a fleeting interaction.

All of this is new; Kat, the feelings inside me, everything from our first meeting to me taking a chance, the connection I feel, the way we could talk about anything, her whole world and all the incredible possibilities within it.

I want to kiss her, I want to hold her, I want to protect her, too.

“It’s not going to be easy,” I warn her with a smile.

“I don’t think anything worth doing is,” she says, eyes glittering with amusement. A challenge. “Dating. Relationships. I mean, what are the chances you find someone you connect with anyway, and want to keep spending time with them? The whole you-live-in-another-universe thing? It’s just details, babe.”

The casual use of the endearment slips out of her mouth easy and smooth, and more intimate than I’ve ever known. A warm shudder of appreciation runs down my spine, and her fingers haven’t left my face from where she was playing with my hair.

“I—” I lean in closer.

Below us, a door shuts with sudden finality, and someone walks into something and curses—a heavy male voice.

Kat blinks and gives me a sheepish look. “That’s my dad—he’s going to check in on me in a bit—he won’t look too closely since he’s in one of his sad moods, but—just don’t move, okay?”

“Okay.”

She grabs the blanket and drapes it over me and also herself, fluffing and arranging the pillows. I guess her bed is always such a mess of pillows and stuff that an extra lump won’t be suspicious. I lie under the covers, and her hand finds mine and squeezes. I squeeze back, watching the light shine through the blanket.

Her bedroom door opens with a creak, and a new line of light shines in from the hallway.

“Good night, sweetheart,” her father whispers.

Kat murmurs and rolls over in her bed, feigning sleep.

The door closes and she springs up, flipping the blanket up again. “You okay?” she whispers.

“Yeah.” My heart wants to pound out of my chest, and there’s a quick realization that tomorrow is when the portal opens to go home, and tonight—tonight there’s a bed and Kat and—

She yawns. “I’m going to sleep. Fancy seems all set.”

The cat has already curled up next to Kat, the traitor.

Kat gives me a sleepy smile. “Do you need anything? Water? Toothbrush? Want some cozy clothes to sleep in?”

I turn bright red at the thought of changing into something of Kat’s. “I’m okay.”

“Are you comfortable on the bed? There’s lots of room, but if you, uh—I could sleep in the chair,” Kat offers.

“Don’t sleep in the chair,” I whisper. “It’s okay. I probably won’t sleep. I’m, like, super awake after everything today. Do you mind if I read this book?”

“Go ahead. It’ll put you right to sleep, I’m sure. But knock yourself out. You can read anything in here.” Kat hands me the Compendium and turns on a bedroom lamp. It fills the room with a soft glow. “Dad won’t find the light weird, I leave it on all the time. Wake me up if you need me, okay?”

I nod at her, struck shy suddenly. She shuffles her arms under her shirt and without any preamble shimmies out of her bra and tosses it on the floor. She snuggles back under the covers. “Good night, Brenda.”

“Good night.”

I fluff up one of the pillows and sit up with the heavy book in my lap and start at “Chapter One: A History of Magic.”

20 ❤ KAT

My alarm goes off, its shrill warble screeching loudly for me to wake up. I scramble for my runebook, but I can’t find it. Why in the world would I set an alarm? I never set an alarm, there’s nothing worth waking up this early for—

A soft voice mumbles next to me and my eyes snap open, and the events of yesterday come sweeping back to me in a flood.

Brenda, her hair a tangled mess, is curled up on top of the blankets next to me, her eyelids fluttering as she reaches around her for the noise. My runebook is charging on the side table by her, and she swipes at it until it quiets. She yawns and opens her eyes, blinking at me. The Compendium is lying open on her lap, almost as if she fell asleep reading it halfway and started using it as a blanket.

She gives me a small smile, and my heart seizes up with some newfound softness, unexpected and warm. She looks so cozy and sleepy and cute, and I want to wrap the blanket back around her or, like, go get her all the breakfast things she wants. I don’t even know what she likes, but I would do it in a heartbeat. I would summon hot coffee and a giant breakfast burrito from Polly’s down the street, or all the dim sum delicacies from the cart with that awful line on Garfield, every single morsel perfectly steamed or fried and in its little tray. I want to bring her everything that makes her happy.

And I meant what I said last night, about this, about seeing each other, about this being worth it. I want to know her, I want to know everything about her and to keep this beautiful smile on her face.

“Hi,” she says softly.

“Hi back.”

Great. Very smooth. I cringe, but she giggles, and it’s the most delightful sound in all the world.

“How was your reading?”

Brenda yawns. “Oh, fascinating, I wish I could take a whole class on this chapter on runic symbols alone.”

“You can borrow it, if you like. It’s really only a reference book, and I’m not working on anything right now.”

She beams at me, her smile widening.

I want to reach over and be suave and cool, but instead I feel awkward and shy. Everything about my hookups, about this part—this part was always the part I was afraid of the most, that someone would see me as I really was and not who they thought, the person I crafted myself to be—the always tough, never caring Chosen One who might as well have fun before it all ends. To them, I would only be a good story to tell their friends.

It’s not really waking up if you didn’t sleep, or if you were mentally calculating how long it would take for them to notice if you left. I’ve never had this, never really fallen asleep with anyone, and certainly never had anyone in my own space before.

I could have been more gallant about the chair thing, but she said she was going to read, and she just fell asleep here next to me like it was comfortable and safe—

There’s part of me that’s pleased, that stirs with affection and warmth and satisfaction, that whispers to me, She stayed because you said you would protect her.

I feel all fluttery, my stomach in twists from her being nearby and comfortable enough … I mean, I wasn’t expecting to sleep at all; I was going to pretend to fall asleep and then mentally run over everything I learned about the Order and plans to investigate Mom’s research in my head, and wait and see if Brenda would fall asleep and then take the chair.

I guess it means I was comfortable enough, too.

Bolstering myself, I reach across her to grab my runebook.

“Sorry, I thought that was my alarm,” Brenda says sheepishly. “Did I mess it up?”

“No, just turned off the alarm. Guess most devices have that in common.”

Brenda grabs her own—not a runebook, a phone—the electronic communication device from the table. She flicks the screen and sighs. “Hopefully I’m not in too much trouble for staying out late, and everyone isn’t too worried.”

Right. She has to get back home.

I pull out the schedule and coordinates. “It’s five … I wanted to make sure we had enough time to get there. The early streetcars are hourly right now, but we can take Buttercup.”

Brenda tilts her head curiously. “What kind of magic is that?”

I laugh. “Come on, you’ll see.”

Brenda’s astonished and awed face as I lead Buttercup out of the stable is entirely worth not telling her that Buttercup is a horse. Brenda had peppered me with all sorts of questions about transportation spells, giddy off reading so much of the history book, as we got ready to go and walked down the street to the communal stables for my neighborhood, the questions getting wilder and wilder until we finally got to the stable.

I try not to laugh, but it’s hard. She’s just so cute. “You sure you don’t have horses in your world?”

“Well yeah, we do, but it’s not like most people just have them or just have a stable in their neighborhoods!” Brenda steps forward carefully, reaching her hand out. “Can I pet her?”

I nod. “She likes to be scratched right here.”

I guide Brenda’s hand to Buttercup’s head, showing her the spot between her ears that she likes.

Buttercup snorts happily, swishing her tail. She accepts the carrots I brought for her and nibbles affectionately at my fingers as I feed her. Her big soulful brown eyes regard Brenda with curiosity, although it might be the cat snuggled safely in her bag, her little face peeping out of the opening.

“Are you hungry? We could do a ride-thru.”

It takes three tries for Brenda to make it up onto Buttercup, who patiently waits and snuffles at me. I climb up in front of her, grabbing the reins and gently guiding Buttercup onto the street.

“Whoa, we’re up so high,” Brenda says. “This is so weird and cool. Are you sure she’s okay? Does she like me?”

“She is very old and very patient,” I say. “And definitely strong enough to support both of us.”

Brenda leans forward, clutching the back of my shoulders gingerly.

“You can hang on to me if you want.”

“This is okay?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

She shuffles closer, wrapping her arms around my waist, so close I can feel her breath on the back of my neck. I try to concentrate and make it to May Lin’s shop, which I’ve done so many times with Buttercup that I could do it in my sleep, yet somehow I end up going around the block twice because I miss a turn.

“Ride-thru,” Brenda chuckles, looking at the various fast food places that already have lines of people on their horses or a few in their carriages waiting to get their breakfast or coffee. “Amazing. We have drive-thrus, since everyone has cars. Wait, so do most people not have cars then? What were those things I saw in the Target parking lot?”

“Those are cars,” I respond. “Horseless carriages. Powered by magic. Expensive to maintain with how much mana they need. My dad has a really old one, but usually we either ride Buttercup or take streetcars, or teleport if we really need it.”

Brenda laughs. “I mean, at home, horses are kind of a rich-person thing.”

“Why would everyone have a car? That’s ridiculous.”

“We don’t exactly have the amazing public transportation you do,” Brenda says. “The electric streetcar system got shut down by the automobile industry so they could sell more cars to people.”

“That’s awful.” I shudder, thinking about life without the streetcar system. “That’s how most people get around. In other areas of the world I think most people do have horses or ponies, especially if there’s more grazing area. In the city there are communal stables and grazing areas if you have a horse. But most people don’t bother, since it’s easier to use the streetcars.”

Buttercup whinnies softly as I guide her through the ride-thru at May Lin’s. It’s just a tiny building on the side of the road and literally has a sign that says OPEN UNTIL MAY LIN DECIDES TO GO HOME OR WE ARE OUT OF FOOD and it has always had the best dim sum. There’s even banquet halls and restaurants that try to buy her out specifically for their weekend orders instead of making bao in-house.

It’s early still, but there’s already a short line of people in front of us. The air is full of the delicious smells of freshly baked pastries, savory cha siu bao and more, and it only gets stronger as we approach the window. Through the glass in the soft glow of the tiny kitchen, we can see trays stacked high with delicacies: sesame balls, pan-fried turnip cakes, har gow and siu mai, shining dan tat, glistening rice noodles, and those are just the ones I can see.

Brenda sighs happily. “I’m so excited!”

I count out cash and push it through the tiny window at May Lin, who barely reaches the height of the window. “Extra dan tat for you,” she says.

“Thank you, auntie!” I grin at her. “Keep the change.”

The paper bag is almost translucent with oil by the time we get to the railroad tracks. As I predicted, it’s empty, and a quick detect-life spell tells me there’s no one around except for a few sleeping rabbits and mice in the shrubberies. I dismount and help Brenda down, and we enjoy cha siu bao and hot, crisp dan tat, the custard with a perfect amount of wobble and savory goodness.

“These are so good,” Brenda mumbles around her mouthful. “I could have sworn we have a dim sum shack like this in the same place.”

“Delicious baked goods must be a constant.” I laugh. “There’s another opening on Saturday—looks like the top of Echo Mountain.” I grin. That would be a great date; I’m already imagining us having a romantic lunch overlooking the view of Los Angeles in the hotel restaurant. “Want to meet in the hotel lobby and then we can get lunch?”

“Key Club is having a trail cleanup day Saturday at Echo Mountain,” says Brenda. “There isn’t a hotel there—it’s just ruins.”

“Ruins? That’s pretty cool.” I change my mind about treating Brenda to a fancy lunch with a view, we could do that anywhere. “Hey, you’ve been here twice, and I only got to spend a few minutes in your world. How about I come visit your universe this time? You can show me the ruins and tell me what happened to Echo Mountain House.”

Brenda grins at me. “Would you want to meet my friends?”

My heart thuds nervously. I’ve never been someone people actually introduced to their friends before. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Brenda copies the coordinates on her phone, typing them carefully, along with the time.

“There’s another one for late Saturday night, so we could spend the whole afternoon together. You could show me around your world.” I’m thrilled at the possibility. I want to see this world without magic, the different technology Brenda’s described, everything.

“It’s a date,” Brenda says.

“It’s a date.” I lean forward, thinking this would be a good moment for a goodbye kiss, but shyness takes hold of me and I pause. There’s something about her, about this moment, that I don’t want to rush into, don’t want to lose.

Brenda hugs me, wrapping her arms around me quickly and letting go. Her eyes are warm, soft and questioning and sweet, and I want to keep looking into them forever. I want to tilt her chin up and meet her for a kiss—I want to, I want to so badly, but I don’t know how to do this, the sweet girlfriends thing, the relationship thing. I don’t know how to give her what she deserves, how to be someone reliable. Everything I do know how to do isn’t right for Brenda, isn’t what I want for her.

The moment passes, and she looks away quickly, like she wanted to ask me something and changed her mind.

Fancy is winding around my ankles like she doesn’t quite want to go back yet, but she lets Brenda pick her up and settles into her chest, snuggling close as Brenda steps toward the tracks. “Okay, where do I need to be?”

I pull up a map on my runebook and plug in the coordinates. “Two steps back. To the right—your right, not mine. Okay. It must be that archway there.”

Brenda nods as we both stare at the empty doorframe of an abandoned warehouse.

The sun is rising through the trees, and the town is waking up. In the distance I hear the faint jingle of a streetcar. Streaks of pink race across the sky, and all around us is the quiet morning air, leaves rustling softly and the condensation still wet and heavy on the ground.

The clock on my runebook is ticking forward, and Brenda smiles at me, waiting.

“You’ve got two minutes,” I say.

“All right,” she says. “So I just go—”

“Exactly when the timer goes off—step through and you should be home.”

“Okay,” she says quietly.

Brenda’s hair is still tangled from the night in my bed, and she looks rumpled and soft with sleep. There’s a speckle of crust from the dan tat we ate this morning on her cheek, and in the early morning mist she could almost be a dream, a vision, this girl from another world.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you Saturday.” Brenda toes the dirt a bit, dragging her shoe nervously. “And yesterday—it was kinda scary, kinda stressful, but I’m glad we found each other.”

“Yeah.” I grin at her. “Saturday will be fun. Like a real date.”

“Would you—I think I’d like to—”

She smiles at me, and the affection in it is clear, and I’m a bit overwhelmed by the sheer warmth in it. I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at me like that, like they want me for me, and they see me for who I am now, not who they want me to be or who they think I need to be.

“I haven’t gone on many dates,” Brenda says suddenly. “I’ve never really dated anyone. Never really wanted to, not in the real sense of, like, making time to and, like—thinking about—but I—I want to, with you. I want to do so many things. And on Saturday, if you want to—I’d like to have a first real kiss with you.”

Her words are rushed, tumbling out of her, and she seems surprised for a moment, but she smiles at me and takes a deep breath, her intention clear.

“I’d like to kiss you now,” I say without thinking.

Brenda’s cheeks flush. “I—yes—but—you said—there’s less than a minute now, probably—”

I don’t remember moving, but my feet take me toward her, bridging the scant few steps between us, and I cup her chin in my hand and kiss her, like I wanted to when we first met, like I wanted to again once we had talked about anything and everything, with everything rolling inside me, feeling seen in a way I didn’t know I could feel.

Brenda kisses me back after a soft gasp of pleased surprise, and quickly deepens the kiss, all enthusiasm and wet eagerness. It’s clumsy and I don’t care, it’s perfect, this moment of connection, her warm mouth against mine in the chilly morning mist, and there’s nothing else in the world I want more than to spend forever getting to know the girl in my arms.

Something thumps against my neck—it’s Fancy, putting a paw on me gently, her eyes flickering as she looks beyond me at something I can’t see. “Meow,” she says, shuffling in Brenda’s arms.

“Oh,” Brenda says, pulling back from the kiss and resting her forehead against my own.

I press back, exhaling like I’ve just cast a spell I didn’t know I could do, and bask in the comfort of her touch, at her being right there.

She looks at me and smiles, leaning back to catch her breath. I can still feel the warmth of her on my skin.

The timer goes off before I can take another breath. Brenda gives me one last smile before she steps through and disappears in the early morning mist.

21 ❤ BRENDA

I exhale, my mind still on Kat’s mouth, the softness of her lips, the way she stepped toward me without hesitation, the whirlwind that seemed to last both forever and be over too soon.

Fancy stirs in my arms, looking up at me quizzically. I’m alone in this narrow grove that houses the railroad track. Amid the spindly shrubberies, abandoned buildings, and freshly dewed grass, the metal tracks sit stark against bare dirt and bits of trash drifting against the chain-link fence.

I walk along the track until I find the hole in the fence that cross-country runners have told me about, the one that leads back toward Main Street. During their practices, the runners always make their loop around the school, run along the railroad track, and then pop back to the street before looping all the way back to the school, making an even six miles. It’s a well-known secret that you could easily leave the campus this way, too, but I’ve never had reason to use it.

Erica picks up my phone call with a worried squeak. “Brenda! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, the spell got messed up and it took me to Kat’s universe instead. I have Fancy with me, and she’s okay, too.”

Jenn joins the call, both their voices warbling with questions.

I laugh and cut them off. “Can you come pick me up? I’m on Main Street by the school. My phone is about to die, but I’ll be here.”

It’s a short wait, and I busy myself reading more of the Compendium and learning about mana flow. It isn’t long until a familiar minivan pulls up and Erica bounds out of the driver’s seat, the car still rumbling as she wrestles me into a hug. “We were totally freaking out, we had no idea what happened when you didn’t answer your phone and didn’t come back!”

“We were really worried you had gotten hurt,” Jenn says. “And we saw Fancy disappear with you, and had no idea what that would do to the spell, or if you both were okay…” She joins the hug, squeezing me tight.

Fancy flops into a puddle as Erica picks her up and covers her face with kisses. She curls into Erica’s arms and starts purring as if she never left.

Jenn pulls out her notepad and immediately starts grilling me for details. “What was this other universe like? Tell me everything.”

I muddle through yesterday’s events and then they catch me up on their end. Apparently Erica and Jenn waited an hour, and when I didn’t come back, they texted my mom and said I was sleeping over because I was so tired after our study session I just passed out, and Jenn stayed over, too, for good measure.

“And it went okay?” I exhale, relieved.

“Yeah, your mom just said thanks for letting me know and reminded me to get rest, too,” Erica says, shaking her head. “I sent her one of the photos from our sleepover last week and made it look like we were wearing yesterday’s clothes, and I said I’d take you to school today. So you’re off the hook.”

For now. I know I’ll likely get an earful when I get home, but I’m grateful Má likes Erica and Jenn so much and trusts them. Sometimes more than she trusts me, I think.

“Wanna go get iced coffee?” Erica singsongs. “We’re super early and we can hang out in the parking lot. Oooh, I could get a spot super close to the gate this early before zero period!”

We drop Fancy off back at Erica’s before picking up iced coffee and bánh mì for lunch later. I’m so full from the bao earlier, but the fresh bread smells so good I can’t help but sneak a piece off the baguette Jenn and Erica are destroying for their breakfast as we head back to school.

“How much is their universe like ours? Is it like a mirrorverse? Are there alternate versions of you? Me? Erica?”

I shake my head and try my best to answer Jenn’s endless questions. “Not a mirrorverse … just another world. I don’t think there are other versions of us, and it’s not an exact parallel, like there’s still a Los Angeles and a lot of the streets and shops are the same, and they still have Target, but everything is different.” I talk about the magic and the horses and the secret Order and the Pokémon card smuggling and how Kat found the schedule.

Erica squeals, bouncing in her seat and almost knocking over the tray of cà phê sữa đá that we just picked up. She reaches over and hugs me with delight. “Another date Saturday! I’m sooooo excited for you! Can we meet her? Can we all do something together?”

I nod excitedly. “The next portal is actually up at Echo Mountain, and we’ll already be up there for the trail cleanup. There’s another portal later that night, too, so she’ll get to hang out for a while.”

“Do you think she would like Korean barbecue?” Jenn says. “We could do that after the hike, especially since we’re all carpooling anyway.”

“I wonder if we could make money out of this Pokémon card business,” Erica says, a thoughtful look crossing into her eye.

“It sounds like there’s a corner on that market already. Kat said not to worry about it, that these Order people didn’t look dangerous, just like bored academics, but you know, it sounds like their territory. And anyway, I just want to see Kat again. And you know what?” I pull out the Compendium she lent me. “There is a certain level of magic in our universe … I wonder how much would work here.”

I glance into the school parking lot, which is only just starting to fill with early birds and people for zero period. The high school is not yet quite awake and still holds that strange sense of place that feels slightly wrong without people, eerie and incandescent in the morning light.

Erica takes the book, her eyes scanning the first page with a fervor she’s only ever shown for D&D planning. “We’ve still got time before class. Let’s see if we could try a few things!”

Jenn laughs. “Where should we start?”

The idea, however, loses some shine after I explain the dangers of trying any actual spells. Plus, it’s a history textbook, which goes back to the origins of how different cultures in Kat’s world developed their own magic systems and languages that are still used today in addition to the common runes that were standardized in the twentieth century. To Erica and Jenn’s disappointment, there aren’t any incantations or spell diagrams or anything that we can actually practice casting on in it.

That’s probably a good thing.

I think about Kat’s warning, about taking on spells without the right amount of preparation, without the right amount of raw mana in the air.

The bell rings, and students start bustling toward their classes. We get moving, and I check my email now that I have reception.

I gasp.

“I’m a finalist!” I grab Jenn’s shoulders and shake her excitedly, and then bounce up and down with Erica. “The Fields Forward scholarship! They’re offering all the finalists a special behind-the-scenes tour at their factory, and that’s me! I’m a finalist!”

A bright giddiness rushes through me. I’ve just traveled back and forth through another universe, I have a date planned with a great girl, and the Plan is falling into place.

“I wonder if I’ll meet Shannon Mayfield,” I say. “Do you think she read my essay?”

“Oh yeah, you should definitely ask,” Erica says, teasing. “Mrs. Mayfield! Mrs. Mayfield! Did you know I want to grow up to be just like you?”

I elbow her playfully. “Shut up!”

My friends laugh, teasing me as we join the throng of students filtering onto campus.

22 ❤ KAT

My thoughts are such a whirlwind of Brenda and the Ritual and Mom and the Order that I don’t even notice until Jordan’s hesitant voice pulls me to the present. “Kat? What are you doing?”

I look up from the espresso machine I was refilling with water, not milk. “Ugh, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

Jordan pats me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, hon, I’ll take care of it. Why are you here, anyway? I thought you weren’t on shift this afternoon.”

I glance at the hallway that leads to the control room, and a chill runs down my back. “I know, I just thought you might need extra help,” I say.

I’d actually come over right after school to get into Mom’s office, but started working the register and tending to the brews on autopilot. I think I was procrastinating. I know I want to find out more about what Mom was working on, but actually getting started—it means facing the fact that something went wrong, and it’s the reason why she’s not here anymore.

I take a deep breath. I can do this.

I’d put on a brave face when Brenda asked me if the Order was dangerous. I didn’t lie when I said the smugglers guarding the portals weren’t likely going to be a problem, but whoever is at the top controlling all this?

They’re definitely a threat.

“Hey, I listened to the broadcast of that council meeting. Are you okay?” Jordan looks over their rimmed glasses at me.

“Yeah, of course. Why do you ask?”

“Just that they announced they’re doing the Ritual. Soon.” Jordan looks at me and then suddenly gives me a swift, fierce hug. Which is weird, because Jordan is not a hugger. They don’t even like high fives.

I pat them awkwardly on the back. “Thanks, Jordan. But you know, I’m not gonna do it. The council can find other cornerstones.”

Jordan exhales. “Okay, but don’t let those old ducks push you around, and you know they’re going to try! They hounded your poor mother until she—” Jordan sniffs. “And you’re just a baby and I—”

“Uh, are you still making that latte?” The man at the counter blinks at us.

“Yes!” Jordan says, waving their arms in exasperation. They wipe their nose. “You go home and take a break, okay? If I catch you in that back room restocking or anything, I’m gonna send you right home.”

I chuckle. “Thanks, Jordan.”

The bell above the door rings, and Dad bustles through, waving at me. He sets down a box full of fresh Pick-Me-Ups and smiles at me. “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here. How was school?”

The day was a blurring mix of pleasant daydreams about Brenda and the anxiety of unsettling unknowns about the Order and the Ritual. I can’t stop thinking about Brenda, her soft little smile, and the way she was curled up in my bed. There’s a part of me that feels like the different universe thing should make it easier, because hooking up with Brenda means there’s no risk of getting strings attached.

But the daydreams aren’t even about hooking up, or the kiss, or anything like that. I’m revisiting the moment watching Brenda’s eyes light up when she talks about her scientist dream thing, and then it evolves into me clapping at some huge award ceremony as she gets all the awards for fixing the climate thing, or, like, thinking about her in the coffeeshop or my house, and showing her all the things I’ve been working on, the feeling of being home with someone.

“Kat?” Dad tilts his head at me. “Something nice happen? You’re smiling.”

I’m not quite ready to talk to him about Brenda; I haven’t talked to him about anything really personal in forever, and I don’t know where to start. “It was fine. Vega’s actually pretty cool now that I’m giving him a chance. You were right, I should have been in the advanced class.”

Dad grins. “That’s my girl.” He pushes my baseball cap down on my head, playfully covering my eyes.

“Hey!” I stick my tongue out at him.

Dad’s chortling as he pulls on his own cap and apron, and starts stocking the shelves.

“I’m gonna head home. You all good here?” I gesture to the mostly empty coffeeshop, aside from the one guy who’s announced he’s penning the next Great American Novel.

“Sure, go ahead. You’re not even supposed to be here today, Kat,” Dad says with a small smile.

“Great! Love you, Dad.”

Dad blinks at me before I realize I said it. I hadn’t been thinking; we used to say it all the time, I’d just been so focused on being angry, angry that Dad wasn’t grieving the same way I was, angry at everything that had happened, angry that the burden of the prophecy now fell to me. But the last council meeting reminded me: He’s angry too. And we’re a team.

His eyes soften. “I love you, too, Kat. I’ll see you at home.”

I swipe a fresh bao and wink at him before striding through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. But instead of taking the anchored portal back to our house, I head straight down the hallway toward the control room.

The kitchen door is open, and the warm, comforting smell of freshly baked buns wafts through the air. I can see a set of Dad’s cauldrons bubbling merrily away for his long-brew potions. Everything is in its usual set of organized chaos from the day, from the dirty dishes stacked up and ready to be spelled clean to the fresh ingredients ready for use. The stockroom is filled with carefully labeled crates of ingredients, and Pick-Me-Ups under preservation spells all stand on their shelves, like any other day at the coffeeshop.

But as I approach the end of the hallway, I can feel the tingle of power in the air as I open the last door. The rush of air that greets me is thick with the taste of magic—bright and sharp like lightning, the sense of potential.

The mana swirling here is eager, impatient. I can feel it in the air, rustling with excitement around me. I’ve been feeling this more and more, everywhere—at school, out in town—anywhere mana is stored. I wonder what it means, but I can’t exactly report weird vibes to the Mages’ Council and have them investigate it.

I know Mom is dead; I’ve accepted it. Apparently that’s the last stage of grieving, but doing this—starting to investigate what happened, and why—feels different than the wasteland of numb emotion I’ve been through the past three years.

Mom figured out a solution; she was the Chosen One, and she was going to fulfill the terms of the prophecy and put an end to the Ritual. But something—someone—stopped her.

And I’m going to find out exactly who.

23 ❤ BRENDA

“Whoa! Is that a guidebook for a new RPG game that you didn’t tell us about?”

I roll my eyes and hand him the Compendium. “Of course not, Adib,” I say. “I wouldn’t dream of embarking on any quest without my trusty bard.”

Adib’s eyes sparkle. “Whatever it is, I’m excited,” he says, flipping through it with interest. “Where’s Ryan?”

I’d texted our D&D group chat to come meet at our usual lunch spot so we could catch the boys up on everything that’s happened. I’ve been passing the book back and forth between Jenn and Erica all morning between periods, reading as much as we can, but there really hasn’t been a moment to process. Plus, as much as I want to just dive into learning everything about magic, I have a date with Kat at Echo Mountain this Saturday, and I’m moving at hyperspeed to make sure the event happens successfully.

“Still getting lunch, I think.” Jenn plops down next to us, sighing as she sets down her backpack. It clunks heavily. “Why’d you buy so many toffee crunch bars?” she sighs, opening her backpack. “They always get stuck in my teeth.”

I hand a few chocolate bars to Adib. “Because Carla said she’d drive for the Key Club carpool this Saturday if I helped her finish first in the debate team’s fundraising competition, and this was all that was left.”

Erica and Ryan sit down with their lunch trays, waving to us but not stopping their avid conversation about writing emotional scenes for your players in D&D. I give each of them a few bars, and Erica sticks them in her backpack without taking a breath. Ryan unwraps his and takes a bite, nodding intently as he listens to Erica.

Jenn raises her eyebrow at me. “Doesn’t she need the waiver signed for—”

“Insurance, yes. But she’s already approved for driving students to debate tournaments, and it’s the same form. Solved.” I grin and snap my fingers at her.

“But subplots make it fun—” Ryan argues.

“Too many make it unnecessarily complicated!” Erica says. “Guys, back me up here.”

Adib smiles at Ryan. “I like subplots.”

“What about subtext,” I cough.

“What?” Ryan asks.

Jenn snorts.

“Was Yesenia able to get her brother’s car?” I ask.

Jenn nods. “Yes! She just texted me. She wants to know if the soccer team can come, though. A lot of them need service hours for their college apps.”

Right, okay, now we need even more seats. It’s okay, I can make this work.

I pull out my bullet journal and chart how many seniors I’ve convinced to drive for the carpool and how many seats are available for everyone who’ll be going on the trip, doing quick calculations as I shift some people around. I text several group chats, making sure that exes are in different cars, everyone has gas money, and the right forms are emailed to everyone.

“There. Done. Our overbooked event is now solid, everyone has a ride, and we even have extra help!” I announce proudly.

“That’s great,” Ryan says. “This isn’t a Key Club meeting, though. I thought we were talking about D&D?”

Adib looks up from the Compendium. “This is written well, but I don’t really get it. Is it a tie-in to another media piece that I’m missing, or…”

“It’s a history book from a parallel universe where magic is real,” Erica says. “You’re welcome.”

Ryan laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”

I shake my head. “So it all started at this coffeeshop…”

The sun is warm and the patchy grass underneath me isn’t exactly cool, but the little shade from our favorite tree is pleasant enough. I’m full of bánh mì and watching the sunlight dapple through the sparse leaves, listening to Adib and Erica talk about runes as I rest my eyes. I can’t remember the last time I was this relaxed and didn’t spend every minute worrying about what came next, or thinking about the Plan. It’s still there, in the back of my mind, but I haven’t had time to just be. This is nice, not being in motion all the time.

I almost feel guilty, and then Ryan topples over laughing, elbowing Erica, who is reaching for her phone.

We spent the lunch hour talking about Kat and her world and taking turns reading the book. The boys were also excited to try spells, but given it’s a history book, we all settle for learning the foundation of magic. I should be surprised at how quickly they take to the idea of magic being real, given how doubtful both Erica and Jenn were at first until we had hard evidence, but then again, we are nerds for a reason.

“So, like, if there isn’t enough mana in you or your environment, a spell could just, like, destroy you,” Ryan mutters.

“That’s wild,” Adib says. “So will we get to meet this Kat?”

“On Saturday,” I say. “She’ll be at the cleanup!”

A tinny voice calls out with panic and fear. “Run! Monster!”

I roll my eyes. “Can you turn it down? You’re ruining my nap here.”

Jenn is peering over Erica’s phone as they watch a video. “Wow, I can’t believe how much work went into that CGI, it looks amazing.”

Erica snorts. “Yeah, there are kids who have parents who can buy them whatever equipment they want to animate an entire miniature dragon into their TikToks. Can you believe this is what I’m going to be up against in art school?”

“You’ll do great,” I say. “You’ve got more talent in your pinkie finger than anyone who can pay experts to add stuff to their videos.”

“I wanna see,” Adib says.

A phone bops me in the face, and Erica scrabbles for it, laughing. “Sorry!”

I hand it back, studying the video on a loop. “Huh, that does look really professional,” I say, blinking at the creature flitting across the screen.

“Oh yeah, I’ve watched it like ten times just now,” Erica says. “What I can’t figure out is that for a TikTok, all green screens have, like, this blurry edge and this one doesn’t; it looks like a—”

I freeze, looking closer. “Wyvern.”

Ryan nods. “Yup, that’s accurate, a wyvern doesn’t have arms that are separate from wings. Now, dragons have arms, legs, and wings, and D&D lore hasn’t changed that much since…”

Adib gives him a fond look. “Nerd.”

Erica shakes her head. “What I don’t get is how seamless this animation is, and the lighting, and the video quality is so grainy, like it definitely is handheld, but why are they going for this amateur look when clearly they’re spending thousands of dollars in animation hours to make this?”

I take the phone and replay the video, my heart pounding nervously. It couldn’t be … could it?

The TikTok is a frantic twenty seconds of the camera holder running and pausing and then exclaiming, “Holy shit, it’s still going! Did you see that?” before it goes blurry and ends.

It’s definitely a wyvern, different coloring and size from the ones I saw in Kat’s world, but the same.

Did they come through a portal? But all the ones Kat and I talked about, the schedule—the portals were all short, a few seconds maybe—

But if a person can slip through on accident, what’s to stop other things?

“That’s because it’s not animated, it has to be real,” I say. “This is what they look like—I saw these in Kat’s world. Where—where is this from?”

Erica frowns. “There’s a bunch of these on TikTok from this morning. I figured they were just some new animation fad.”

“Here’s a whole hashtag. Look.” Adib pulls out his phone and flicks through rapidly: There are clearly a bunch of reposts and also compilation videos, but at least seven unique ones taken from different people, all of which focus on a gas station out in Hollywood.

“Is there anything on the news about it? Like, is it some sort of PR stunt for a new movie or game?” I ask.

Jenn shakes her head. “Just scanned all the local news stations. Nothing, not even something small, like, oh, this new movie studio is trying out this stunt—you would think at least Fox News would have some sort of scathing commentary on it.”

I open TikTok; I don’t use it as much as Erica does, and when I do, it is mostly to like her content and to look at random stuff. “What did you say the tag was?”

“Uh, #LAMonster, #fairfaxdragon, #babydragon?”

Those tags themselves don’t bring up anything but cosplay and some toy commentary stuff. “I’m not finding it…”

Erica frowns. “That’s weird, the video I was watching is gone.” She shows me her phone, which just displays an error message.

“I can’t find anything in the tag, either,” Ryan says.

“The creator deleted it?” I ask.

“No way, looks like all of them are gone.” Adib even closes and restarts the app, but none of the videos show up in a search or even his history.

The five of us trade apprehensive looks.

“But you saw it—we all saw it, right?” I ask.

“A conspiracy!” Erica whispers. “A bunch of videos disappeared all at once—someone wants to make sure no one saw that was happening.”

Jenn nods. “It would be easy enough to deny; people would forget if they saw something come across their feed and then it was gone—”

Ryan raises an eyebrow. “But if you filmed it, wouldn’t you be suspicious?”

Jenn looks again. “This account is gone. I bet the others are, too.”

Adib lights up with excitement. “I think we should go to that gas station after school. See for ourselves. See if anyone saw anything.”

“Guys! I appreciate the Nancy Drew effort, but—” I take a deep breath. “Those things are scary. Their spit is acidic and they have these sharp claws! Kat’s world has wranglers and all these precautions, but we don’t. This isn’t like a D&D session or Halfway Hallow; this is real and they can hurt us—we shouldn’t just dive right into danger!”

“But you’ve been there,” Ryan says solemnly. “No one else has insider information on what to look out for.”

“How to prepare,” Jenn says, nodding in agreement.

“We need to help,” Adib says. “And I vote we find out as much as we can.”

I take a moment. Right. They’re right. If what I know can help other people, I have a responsibility to share that information … and we should see if we could learn more about how these wyverns got here.

Kat said the Order was mostly about smuggling Pokémon cards. I wonder if they know that other things are getting through.

24 ❤ KAT

In the center of the small room is the ancient runebook Dad’s kept from his college days, a clunky old machine made with steel and insides clunking with gears and spellwork that still works, finely tuned from Dad’s careful maintenance. It’s huge compared to today’s models, and mana storage alone for the machine and all the shop’s functions take up most of the back room. I can hear the mana swirling away with a steady rush of power inside its container, thumping rhythmically.

Other than Dad checking in once every few months, there’s no reason for anyone to come in here. I bet Dad hasn’t updated the matrix in forever, and all the keys are the same for our family’s personal otherspaces.

I take off my shoes and step onto the center conduit engraved with the spell anchors. I draw the open rune in the air, completing the semicircle with three quick dashes and then my own namekey, making sure every gesture is within the conduit’s perimeters. It must have taken forever to program spells back in the day before you could swipe your runes directly onto a screen.

The system recognizes me and then new runes float into the air around me, glowing and pulsing with energy, a map of all the otherspaces and working spells stored inside this runebook. I use my hands to slowly pick the threads of complicated spellwork apart, careful not to disturb any of them; one wrong movement or accidentally opening a rune could unlock all the doors, or turn off the iceboxes, or change the temperature of the stove or the ovens.

The otherspace keys are here; there’s Dad’s personal one, Mom’s personal one, and their shared account. I copy them all to my runebook and then make the sweeping gesture for close with my hands. The visible framework of spells in the air disappears, and the tang of magic seems almost disappointed as I step off the center conduit. Mana wants to be active, to flow and to change, to do. It isn’t meant to be stored artificially. It feels almost bored, trapped here and running the same cooling and heating spells over and over again.

“Sorry,” I say to the waiting energy presence in the air. “I’ll do something big soon, I promise.”

With my parents’ keys now programmed into my own runebook, I can see the faint glow of runes on the door—that must be where they programmed the entrance to their otherspaces.

I pull up the new keys and pause on Dad’s. The long string of runes and letters and numbers is complex in the way that most spellkeys are, but I recognize a familiar date plugged in as the shorthand for access—my birthday.

Oh, Dad.

I push the guilt aside as a new wave of determination rushes through me. This isn’t just about Brenda. Mom knew something about the other world, too, and maybe it was tied up with the Ritual somehow. She must have had something big planned for that phoenix down feather.

The magic in the air seems to pulse, waiting, as if intrigued. I pull up Mom’s key on my runebook and press my hand to the door.

The door whispers and opens, and I step inside her space with my heart pounding in trepidation.

Inside, it is cool and dusty, like no one has been here in ages. I let my eyes adjust. Her office space feels cozy and well-used, and I remember she used to spend hours doing her research here instead of her office at the university. Mom’s bookshelves are full of neatly organized books by genre and author, and her spellcraft area is carefully organized, various spell diagrams rolled up for future use and ingredients labeled and shelved.

There’s a scarf hanging on the wall and a jacket over the chair like she just flung them there and could pick them back up at a moment’s notice. Her purse is sitting on the floor next to her desk, which is cluttered with notes and papers, like she had been in the middle of a project. My heart catches.

There’s something off about the space, though, something that doesn’t quite smell like Mom—roses, I think—it must be coming from the coffeeshop, since sound and scent can travel through wherever you’ve anchored. Probably leftover from one of Dad’s recipes—he has been trying to make petits fours and experimenting with rosewater lately.

My eyes wander across Mom’s desk when I notice something unusual amid clutter for her regular archival research. The copy of the spell matrix is old and almost falling apart, inked in Mom’s careful hand, her symbols rounded and looped like she does when she’s paying attention. I wonder if she worked on this manually to prevent losing it, or if she just liked the feel of pen to paper. It would have been easier to use a runebook, but I think about Mom’s office at the university and how every step of her research would have been monitored and reviewed.

She did this here, in her private otherspace, because she was investigating something she didn’t want the council to know about.

I can usually figure out a spell’s purpose from the matrix pretty quickly, but this one is so complex I can barely figure out it has something to do with mana itself. I see Mom’s notes throughout it, various things about life force potential, and then finally on the last page, in fearful, rushed loops: The Ritual isn’t working.

I look up at Mom’s workboard in front of the desk; her handwriting is so small and detailed I’d dismissed this as more of her regular work stuff, but now I read her notes carefully. There’s a timeline going all the way back to the year the first time this spell was cast in 1909.

The Ritual.

Mom was studying it.

What did she figure out? What did she know?

On the far side of the workboard is the prophecy, written out in its entirety. Mom’s marked this up with notes, too.

With fresh eyes, I see the piles of paperwork anew—Mom’s painstaking secret research away from the eyes of the council—all investigating the prophecy and the Ritual.

Where to start? What to read first? I slump back in the chair, overwhelmed.

I leaf through the piles, trying to get a sense of what each one is about before I decide where to start. As I look through them, I get frustrated, and then confused. Mom’s desk notes aren’t organized at all; there are notes about cornerstones here mixed in with memory restoration, like …

Like someone else has been through here.

A chill runs through me. I’d broken in and gotten the otherspace key—what’s to prevent someone else from doing so?

It must have been right before or after the last Ritual; there’s enough dust here that it’s clear no one has disturbed Mom’s space in a long time.

But who?

I see a sliver of Mom’s notes sticking out from one of the piles—they call themselves the Order of the Crossings.

I seize the page, my heart pounding.

This page looks like it fell out of a notebook—one of Mom’s journals.

I glance around the office and think about what it looked like last time I was here: Mom’s jacket and purse, her work organized on the table, an open spell matrix in the air. Her bookshelf full of textbooks and her journals all neatly numbered and dated. She would always buy the same plain blue notebooks and scribble in them constantly, her thoughts and musings, day-to-day brainstorming for work, memories about me and Dad. I remember her encouraging me to journal, too, but I never picked up the habit.

Her journals—that would make this process so much easier, to have a step-by-step account of what she was looking at.

The office compared to my memory is almost the same, except the cluttered desk.

A chill runs through me as I search Mom’s bookshelf. There’s also an empty place where her journals used to be. Whoever went through her office must have taken them.

I read the page again and my pulse jumps when I spot a familiar name. Mom found a discrepancy in department funding that didn’t match up with the research projects they published over the years, so she started paying close attention to her colleague Rebecca Johnson after she started taking lavish vacations and wearing designer clothes and jewelry even on a scant professor salary.

The page ends with Mom’s discovery of the Order. I sigh, and try to organize what’s left. It takes a while, but I sort the pages by topic and get them mostly in order. Luckily Mom’s so detail-oriented, she numbered each of her looseleaf notes for her experiments, so I can pick up her sketches on the Ritual’s spell matrix and some of her diagram work.

The thief also didn’t take the time to go through the scattered notes on the desk, or the huge spell diagrams. I wonder if they would have thought to come back, so I take a look at the security logs.

I don’t see anything strange; Mom hung out here all the time, either doing her own work or taking meetings with her colleagues and friends. I recognize the namekeys for me, Dad, and other family friends repeated a couple times. There are a few namekeys I don’t know, but Mom is always with them, so they must be guests—none of them were here on their own.

I sigh. The thief might have erased it, or maybe only had access once. They must have thought it would be too suspicious to take everything, or maybe they knew we would come here after Mom died. Maybe they just took the research that was damning to them in particular.

The notes left are on a variety of observations, everything from statistics on number of pixie swarms to wyvern breeding patterns to earth tremors.

Symptoms of mana overflow.

The surges.

Mom must have been looking at the effects every time the Ritual had been cast.

I dig through the spell diagrams with new vigor; she’s written out the entire matrix of the Ritual each time it has been cast, all the way back to the second one in 1919. That one was created by Richard Mayfield, based on the one he and Jìngyi created together to stave off the effects of the catastrophic 1909 earthquake.

I scan each of the matrices carefully; nothing has changed in the complicated spell from what I can tell, just the cornerstones that stand for the anchors of the spell itself.

Why wouldn’t it be working?

I look for signs in Mom’s notes; she has questions about why certain issues such as rising pixie swarms or lower crop yields or torrential storms weren’t addressed if they knew about them. Why weren’t changes made, if you could have customized it?

Maybe the council didn’t want to upset something that was working to keep the balance of so many precious lives in check.

I flip to the very first diagram at the bottom. 1919.

I don’t understand all the runes exactly; they’re much older than what are used now. I’d have to sit down and translate them carefully, but I can see where Mom’s circled the areas about connecting energy and breaking energy. Find the original is written in a hurried scrawl.

My heart pounds.

Without the journals, I’m not sure what to do next. I don’t know her exact process, I just have pieces of what she had left.

I look at the board. There’s a whole area marked with cryptic notes, with the names of council members and their photos, and other people as well, including some of Mom’s colleagues, like Johnson. Suspected members of the Order, probably.

On the other side is just a long list of names and photos.

Cornerstones.

The first set of notes under each cornerstone gives me chills; Mom was documenting the effects of the Ritual afterward.

Emmett Soliz: life force drained, died immediately.

Gravery Kirkpatrick: life force mostly drained, appeared to have aged to the equivalent of a ninety-year-old man. Was twenty-seven at the time of the Ritual.

If she knew all this, why did she agree to be a cornerstone? Why would she take this path, knowing it would mean she would never see us again?

What was the alternative?

My head spins. I know what happened. Ten years after the first Ritual, a horrific mana surge killed crops all across California. They didn’t know what they were doing then or that they’d have to repeat the first Ritual, and the Great Depression followed not too long after. Then the great fires of San Francisco, and a mana surge that knocked out all the food preservation spells for the entirety of the state.

There’s a chilling pattern. Sometimes the Ritual takes; sometimes it doesn’t. It’s hard to know. There’s no clear correlation between when there’s peace afterward and when the mana surges actually increase and disaster occurs.

In the center of the board is the prophecy.

The full text of it is written out, and Mom’s notes here are even more cryptic. She’s circled the word Woo, our family name, and above it in her small hand is the word Intention.

I freeze. I know exactly where I’ve seen that note before.

The phoenix down feather.

I leave Mom’s otherspace, my blood pounding in my ears. The sounds of the coffeeshop echo around me, and Jordan’s chirpy voice barks out a customer order. Coffee is being poured. Lives are being lived, and no one knows that something bigger than themselves is brewing, that a huge breakthrough was made here, just a few breaths from where they were.

I race through the portal home and almost lose my balance when it spits me out into the living room. I barely catch my breath, taking the stairs two at a time until I get to my room. I shove aside the debris of shoes in my closet and find the box I rescued from my parents’ otherspace.

The spelling supplies.

I leaf through everything carefully now, hope fluttering through my fingertips.

I unroll a scroll and check the date. This was what Mom was working on last. It’s a spell matrix of her own design, more complicated than anything I’ve ever attempted. I’m overwhelmed just looking at the focus objects required; it looks like it takes an immense amount of power.

Three phoenix down feathers. I gulp, reading the list of the rest of the rare ingredients and what the spell required. There’s a note about Uncle Chau’s next shipment. The date is for a week after Mom died. If there is one feather here, she either was waiting for the other two and the rest of the ingredients, or she already cast the spell once and had been planning to cast it again. Or maybe the shipment was a reminder, a fail-safe to stock up on more ingredients.

I reread the matrix again, trying to understand what Mom was trying to do.

This is a spell for time travel.

25 ❤ BRENDA

The gas station is at a busy intersection in the heart of Hollywood. The dry heat is overwhelming, and it feels like my shoes are going to melt into the asphalt. People are in testy moods, and heat shimmers in the air. A car is parked precariously in the driveway, half on the road and blocking traffic, much to the chagrin of all the drivers behind it, but there’s nowhere for him to go with how many cars are waiting their turn. The nervous man is wearing an ill-fitting suit and wiping the sweat from his face with his tie, waving awkwardly at the drivers behind him.

Erica waves her arms and shouts at another man almost about to back into her, and then she deftly swings the minivan around and parks in the one empty spot by the convenience store.

There’s no news crew, no caution tape, nothing to ever show that something dangerous was here.

We step into the convenience store, walking past the sad hot dogs rolling in their box and the machine slowly grinding electric-blue slush into a dizzying whirl.

Adib pulls out his phone, taking pictures excitedly as he observes the scene. “I’ll do a quick recon,” he whispers, waggling his eyebrows. “You go see if there were any witnesses.”

Jenn starts giggling and I elbow her.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll go talk to the guy at the counter,” I say.

Erica points to a corner. “That’s the angle from where one of the videos was taken.” She and Adib get to work, chattering quietly with Ryan, his arms already laden with potato chips.

I walk up to the counter, pretending to examine the array of gum, with Jenn following close behind me, a quiet pillar of support.

At the counter, a man with a wilting mustache is scrolling on his phone, a weary set of exhaustion about him. There’s a blue slushy stain on his polo shirt with a crooked name tag reading JONAH. He sees we don’t have anything to purchase and sighs. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen anything weird happen here today?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Weird stuff happens every day. A lady didn’t know how to pump her own gas.”

“So, uh—Jonah,” I say with a friendly smile.

Jenn elbows me again, shaking her head. Oh, right, too big, too much—she’s talked to me about this before, how people find my overall intensity a bit intimidating.

I glance at his phone; there’s a paused video from a still I immediately recognize. “Oh, are you watching the post–season two interviews? That’s my favorite Halfway Hollow season!”

Jonah brightens. “Yeah, the dark Ricardo arc was the best. They totally wasted so much potential.”

“I know, right? I always thought he deserved so much more, and Michael Cruz did such a great job playing a villain. Like, why introduce this whole possible dark side and not explore it?”

Jenn nods. “I love that interview. You should watch the one where Cruz talks about his inspiration, you can see he totally thought way more about it than the writers did.”

“Yeah?” Jonah leans in closer and pushes his phone at Jenn, who taps for a few moments before bringing up said interview.

“You know one thing they totally messed up on was the big bad of the season,” I say.

Jonah throws his hands up in the air. “They should have just never shown us the monster if it was going to be a cheap animation!”

“Maybe,” Jenn says. “But you know, the funny thing is, now that special effects and stuff are so good, sometimes things go so far and it’s really obvious that it’s trying too hard, you know…”

“I love the old-school practical puppets,” Erica says as she joins us.

“Oh yeah, puppet Yoda forever over CGI Yoda,” Jonah says, and I reach out to fist-bump him, which he does with aplomb.

He looks much more relaxed, his shoulders slinking back, a slight smile on his face.

“Speaking of puppets…” I lean in a little closer. “My friend posted this TikTok of a creature thing at this gas station, and I thought it might be a sort of cool new PR gig for some new monster movie. Did you see anything like that?”

Jonah laughs a little. “Here? Nah, I don’t think so. People usually do promo stuff like that in Westwood or, like, outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre or something.”

Erica pulls up her phone. “I got a screenshot of one of the vids—did you see this?”

It’s a grainy still, but the wyvern is clearly depicted, albeit a bit blurry— a dog-sized creature with wings and sharp fangs.

“Huh.” Jonah peers closer. “That does look like our gas station—hey, that’s my car. Weird. This was today?”

Jenn nods. “Did you see it? I think it would have been, like, around ten this morning.”

Jonah strokes his chin, deeply puzzled. “You know, I can’t remember. It’s all this big blur. My shift started at eight. I usually put out the pizza at ten, and…” He double-checks the machine. Sure enough, there are glistening slices of pepperoni pizza sitting in the warming box. “I don’t remember doing that, but I must have.” He shrugs. “Days are like that.”

I sigh. “Yeah, we get it. Thanks for the help.”

Ryan pays for his snacks, and it feels anticlimactic as we get back in the minivan.

“Anything?” Jenn asks.

Adib shakes his head. “I think in one of the videos the wyvern crashed into that sign, and the sign is scratched up a bit, but that could be from anything.”

Something occurs to me. “Kat told me that after she got back to her world the last time she was here, a guy tried to wipe her memory.”

Ryan’s mouth falls open. “Holy shit, so—”

“Likely the same people who deleted all the videos,” Jenn says. “But that means these people are very connected.”

“It means that Order is also here. In our world.” I glance at my friends. “If they can get to TikTok that fast…”

“They could be real dangerous,” Adib says.

Jenn and Erica look at me.

It sounds like these Order folks are more connected and powerful than Kat thought. I take a deep breath. I don’t know what it’ll take, but I want to see Kat again. “It sounds like they took care of the wyvern, so at least the magical side—they have rules, right? They don’t want anyone to get hurt. Keeping their secrets is part of their thing.”

“I think Kat is great,” Erica says. “And I’m excited for your Saturday date. But we’ll need to be careful.”

Jenn nods in agreement. “Is there anything in that book about wyverns?”

“Do you think they’re like D&D wyverns?” Adib asks. “What about other creatures? What are their strengths? Their weaknesses?”

I don’t know the answer. For the first time in my life, there’s a whole universe of unknowns that I have no plan for, with no idea of how to prepare.

But I’m grateful to have my friends by my side, and excited that we’re all ready to research and look into this. Although for the first time in my life, we might just be out of our depth here.

26 ❤ KAT

Saturday morning dawns cool, the perfect not-quite-summer weather, with adorable puffs of clouds racing across bright blue skies.

I change my outfit three times out of nervousness before I remember Brenda’s world has different fashion trends. She had so many questions about how magic was involved in clothing creation, and a bunch of theories about why and when certain trends persisted and evolved.

I should have asked more about what people normally wear in her universe. Brenda wore a shirt with some sort of painted logo on it and denim jeans both times I saw her. I can’t replicate the shirt, but I do have a few pairs of jeans I use for horseback riding; they’re not usually my style, as I prefer tight trousers or dresses, but I can make it work.

I raid Mom’s closet again and find a shirt with a modernized version of a mandarin collar, with stylized handcrafted knotwork.

I brush out my hair carefully and put on dark smoky eyeliner and a touch of shimmer blush on my cheeks. My heart pounds nervously; I can’t remember ever feeling this apprehensive about any date.

But then again, hanging out with my hookups—those were never dates. I’ve never met anyone’s friends, either. I vaguely knew Gena’s friends—Candy or Sandy or Mandy—but we never all hung out. I can’t believe I ever let myself catch feelings for Gena in the first place when she’d only ever wanted a trophy.

I take a deep breath.

“Brenda likes you,” I tell my reflection in the mirror. “She likes you.” I repeat it again, thinking about the confident way Brenda speaks and the way she moves about in the world, ready to take on anything.

The prophecy looming over my head for the past few years feels different now; it had seemed inevitable and impending that the Ritual that took Mom’s life would take mine, too, and soon. But finding her research, meeting Brenda, feeling this … support … Hope is starting to sprout.

Mom figured it out; I just have to do it, too.

The streetcar heading up to Mount Lowe is packed with the usual crowd headed to Echo Mountain House: tourists chattering with one another, excitedly taking pictures on their runebooks, well-dressed ladies in their voluminous skirts ready to brunch and have a day at the spa, hikers loaded with gear as they prepare to explore the mountain trails.

Ahead of us the gleaming white buildings of the hotel and its amenities seem to almost rise out of the clouds shrouding it at the top of the mountain. The tourists gawk, pointing and posing with one another excitedly.

I’m the last to disembark, studying the coordinates carefully on my runebook. It’s in the tennis courts, another one of those short ones, three seconds this time. I’m pretty sure the part of the Order that smuggles is only interested in the portals that are open long enough for an exchange, but I can’t be too careful.

The only people on the court are two men having an enthusiastic disagreement about whether a shot was out or not. No one notices as I linger by the gate.

Five seconds.

Three.

Two.

One.

I step forward through the gate.

The wind rustles through the trees, and the scent of sage wafts through the air. Delicate buckwheat flowers shimmer in the breeze.

Did it work? Did I misread the coordinates? Should it have been from the other direction?

Wait a second, the tennis argument—

There’s only the sound of birds and the gentle rustle of wind.

I turn around.

The tennis courts are gone. There’s only cracked remnants of a concrete foundation, surrounded by gentle oak trees reaching for the sky. A squirrel chirps, and somewhere in the distance I can hear a few voices, but it’s nothing like the busy scene I’m used to at Echo Mountain.

There’s no luxury hotel, no casino, no restaurant, only the gentle whisper of the mountains.

“Kat?”

Brenda appears around the curve of a hiking trail where there was once a paved path. She’s wearing a ridiculously large hat, another printed shirt with a logo of a stylized cat, and bright blue skintight pants made out of a strange fabric. Her face breaks into a bright, sunny smile when she sees me, and she dashes forward.

“Kat! You made it!”

Brenda pulls me into a close hug, and I breathe in the warm scent of the skin at her neck.

“Hi,” I say, once we pull back.

I suddenly feel shy, my face warm as I remember our last goodbye kiss. I’m not used to this at all. I’m supposed to be the confident one, the cool one.

I cough. “Hey, it’s good to see you.” I wonder if I should have kissed her hello, and I tear my eyes away from her mouth.

“I brought you more books, as a present, since you liked the other one so much.” I open my messenger bag and show them to her.

Brenda’s eyes light up. “Thank you! I’m so excited, I was hoping to ask if you wanted to test some magic or show me and my friends this afternoon; I really want to see what works and what doesn’t!”

“Take a breath,” I say with a little smile. She’s so cute, how excited she is about everything. “We have all day.”

Brenda exhales. “We do, don’t we?”

I take her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back, her fingers a warm and solid presence in my hand.

“Come on, the trail is this way.” Brenda leads me forward, and I follow, my heart pounding nervously in my chest.

This feels good, spending time together like this, without being worried about how to get home. Terrifying, in a whole new way. The last times we’ve spent together were an accident. This time—this time we planned for it.

Suddenly I think this could have been a terrible idea, but there’s no going back now. I’m committed to being in Brenda’s world for the full day. The next portal isn’t going to open until 7:08 tonight.

It dawns on me that this may be the longest time we’ve ever actively spent together as well.

What if she doesn’t like me? What if Brenda realizes that I’m just smoke and mirrors, that once she gets past that, I’m just hot and not really someone worth hanging out with?

“Oh! Before I forget—Fancy drank this potion when we were at UCLA, and I wanted to ask you if you think she’s okay; she seems okay, but I wanted to make sure.”

She pulls out her phone and shows me a picture of a smashed potion bottle. The label is torn and soaked in the glimmering liquid, but I recognize it immediately.

“Oh, that’s just a prep potion. People usually drink it before another larger working to help the effects last longer. There’s a preset here that I can’t read, but it doesn’t matter.” I give Brenda a comforting smile. “It doesn’t actually do anything if another spell isn’t involved. The cat will be fine.”

Brenda giggles. “Okay. Good to know.” She flicks a strand of stray hair away. “This is nice, you know? A real date. I’ve been looking forward to it, but I’m nervous, I’m so nervous—”

“Me too,” I say. “I really like you.” The words tumble out of me unbidden, a strange new kind of warm affection that surprises me. I can’t take it back, and I find myself not wanting to, the feelings sitting in the air just there, waiting for Brenda to acknowledge them.

“I do, too,” Brenda says, and this time she moves first, pressing a soft kiss to my lips, delicate and shy.

I kiss her back, holding her close, and then something flops into my hair, heavy and tickling.

I yelp, looking up. It’s a stray branch that’s fallen from a nearby tree.

Brenda laughs. “Sorry, it’s just, your face—you’re so offended.”

She untangles it from my hair, fingers gently plucking out the leaves, and I can’t help but laugh, too. And just like that my nervousness melts away, and we talk and laugh as we pick our way back toward the trail.

I wipe my brow, already sweating. “Is it just me or is your Los Angeles hotter than mine? I mean, it’s so dry here.”

Brenda nods. “That’s one of the first things I noticed—there isn’t a drought in yours, huh?”

This would be the kind of question Mom would have loved: the implication of mana flow in weather patterns, how these portals affected it—there’s a sharp bite to my thought processes now, about the Order and what they knew and if they did something to the Ritual that affected Mom.

Brenda starts talking faster, her voice escalating in excitement and pitch as we get closer to our destination. “My friends can’t wait to meet you! I’m so sorry if they are overbearing … Ryan and Adib have been talking nonstop about magic, so they’ll probably ask a ton of questions.”

Ahead of us is where the main hotel courtyard should be, but there’s nothing but a crumbling stone facade. Over by where the train station would be are only a few giant gears and steel rods with people sitting on them, eating lunch and talking among themselves.

I try not to stare; everyone is wearing strange clothing, some prismatic and shining as if underwater, or fabric that looks painstakingly painted on in elaborate, colorful detail that would have taken a designmage forever to spell. There are people wearing shirts and strange forms of outerwear with their jeans, but my attempt to replicate Brenda’s shirt-and-jeans look clearly didn’t work well given the way people are looking at me.

I’d worn this outfit because I thought I’d looked good in it; I know Brenda said “ruins” but I’m so used to Echo Mountain House and its pretentiousness, the way the waiters at the restaurant wouldn’t seat you if you weren’t wearing formal attire. The way Brenda reacted to our streetcar ride I’d just expected slightly different versions of the same buildings, shops, vendors.

But here the luxury resort is gone. The famed overlook where tourists would gather and take photos of the Los Angeles skyline is just a concrete outcrop now. The skyline itself is different, dramatically taller, with thick gray haze drifting around shining and angular buildings sparkling in the distance.

“Is what I’m wearing okay?” I whisper to Brenda. “I wasn’t sure…”

Brenda squeezes my hand. “You look amazing, like you’re going to a fancy party. It’s LA. No one cares. They probably think you’re doing a photoshoot or something, people do that all the time.”

She leads me toward a group of four teens who are sitting next to a huge pile of bulging trash bags, all talking at once.

“I absolutely won fair and square!”

“Adib, you can’t just announce a game and then change the rules to suit how well you’re doing—”

A boy with elegant features and golden-brown skin shakes his head—the winner, I presume, of some game involving trash. “Shut up, you just weren’t willing to dive into the bushes to get those really good pieces of trash.”

He turns to a tall and willowy girl with dark brown skin, her hair gracefully tucked into a high ponytail. “Jenn, tell Ryan I won. I won, right? What do I win?”

Ryan, the apparent loser of said trash game, scoffs and crosses his arms; his face is still rounded with baby fat, with an eager sort of air around him.

Jenn takes a sip from a water bottle as she shakes her head. “Bragging rights.”

Dangling her feet over the precipice, a short Chinese girl is laughing, spitting crumbs as she throws her head back, her black hair flowing loose and wild. Bright blue highlights streak her hair, and her eyes shimmer with artfully applied blue and green eyeshadow. In her lap is a familiar cat wearing a harness, licking her paws daintily and looking curiously at the view.

“Hey, everyone,” Brenda announces, and then all four sets of eyes turn on me with interest. “This is Kat Woo. Kat, these are my friends—Jennifer Torres, Erica Liu, Ryan Rodriguez, and Adib Rasheed.”

The tall one—Jennifer—stands up and offers me her hand, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Hi there, heard so much about you and your world,” she says.

I shake her hand, trying not to laugh at the stiff, almost professional way she grips my hand and shakes it solemnly.

“Do you do hugs?” Erica squeals.

“Yeah, sure—oof—” The words are barely out of my mouth before Erica hands the cat and the leash to Adib and launches herself at me. She seizes me round the middle and hugs me tight and I catch my breath, patting her back nervously.

“Hey, Fancy,” I say, petting her soft head.

She meows appreciatively, curling into my hand before hopping out of Adib’s arms and into a ridiculously hued orange backpack with a huge viewing porthole for it. I laugh; I’ve never seen one of these before, but it doesn’t surprise me. I bet so many people with cats would love this back home. “This is amazing. Does she like it?”

“Yeah, she loves being outside, and I thought she’d enjoy the hike,” Erica says.

Ryan gives me an awkward high five and Adib pulls out a notebook with a list of questions after patting me on the shoulder. “All right, so magical mechanics, how does it—” he starts.

Jenn takes the notebook and shushes him. “She just got here! Relax.”

Adib’s eyes widen. “Don’t you see this is completely unprecedented? Why wouldn’t you want to learn as much as possible—”

“I brought some books, if you’re interested,” I say, pulling out the books I’d brought for Brenda—a few history and spelling textbooks, one on Clarabelle Marin, and a basic primer for writing spell matrices.

Adib takes them immediately and hands one to Ryan “This is incredible; do you think if we tried certain—”

“Don’t answer him,” Jenn says. “He’ll never stop. Good thing you brought those books.”

Adib is now muttering to himself, not having noticed that I didn’t answer, his nose to the book. Ryan is thumbing through the pages of the spell matrix book, scanning the text with interest.

“We are so happy Brenda is taking time to have fun for once! She’s always work this, plan that,” Erica says. “I mean, even organizing this hiking trip for Key Club—technically she didn’t need to, she already finished her hours for the year—”

Brenda glances at her, mock annoyance crossing her face. “Hey, other people haven’t, and it’s cool to bring people up here if they haven’t been before—”

Erica laughs. “This service trip almost didn’t work out, but Brenda got seniors to help carpool. And now we’re here! We cleaned the trail, got in some good nature time, and we get to meet you. So multiple wins.”

Brenda hands me something wrapped in crinkly white paper. “Lunch, if you want,” she says with a smile. “We got a ton of these for all the Key Club volunteers, and I set aside a dặc biệt for you.”

“Oh, bánh mì!” I unwrap it to find a familiar-looking baguette. “We have a lot of great places in my neighborhood, but I haven’t had one in a while.”

“So is your LA similar in terms of, like, communities?” Jennifer asks curiously. “Brenda mentioned your world evolved without the automobile industry.”

Ryan looks up from his textbook. “Yeah, like how much is powered by magic and what are the implications of that on your economy, how—”

Brenda elbows Jennifer, giggling. “Didn’t you say for her to relax and not answer so many questions right away?”

I take a bite of the sandwich, its crisp baguette layered perfectly with an even spread of pâté, Vietnamese meatloaf, and pickled daikon and carrots.

“What do you mean, ‘communities’?” I ask around bites.

“Oh, you know, like LA here is a mix of a bunch of folks; people who moved here from elsewhere in the States, people who’ve been here for generations, people like our parents who immigrated here before we were born,” Erica says.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” I say. “I mean, it’s always been a mix of immigrant culture. My family on my mom’s side has been here since the Gold Rush. But lots of other people came over in the past few decades or so.”

We chat about Los Angeles landmarks and I’m amused to find that they have an observatory in Griffith Park that’s open to the public for stargazing and other events, whereas back home it’s a private outpost for various universities to do magical research.

There are some things that are familiar: the Los Angeles Public Library, various high schools and locales, even restaurants that have the same name or menu items, but they also talk about things I have no idea about, like bus lines and planes and the internet.

Erica mostly takes the lead in the conversation, with Jenn jumping in with a joke or offering her own, and Adib and Ryan tease each other mercilessly as Brenda and Jenn egg them on. It’s clear that Brenda and Jenn and Erica are the closest to one another, but the way they talk to one another, all five of them, is like clockwork, seamless, the way they fit together, the conversation ebbing and flowing like the tide.

I don’t remember how to do this, and it feels so easy for them, this camaraderie, like they’ve known one another forever, finishing one another’s sentences. There’s a part of me that wants this, too—these close-knit friendships—and a part of me whispers I used to have it, used to know how to hang out with friends. And then all the attention was on me for being the Chosen One, and people expected me to act differently, so I did.

Brenda reaches for my hand. “Hey, are you okay?”

I nod at her. “Yeah, sorry, I was just—reminded of something, and I drifted off. But I—I like this. This is fun.”

“I’d love to meet your friends, too,” Brenda offers shyly.

I make a vague waving gesture. I don’t want to admit I feel like I don’t really have any real friends right now, and I want Brenda’s friends to— I don’t know, see me as a person.

“So, what do you like to do for fun, Jennifer?”

“Call me Jenn,” she says with a smile.

“We’re going to go ahead, since Kat isn’t used to hiking,” Brenda says. “We’ll meet you at the bottom of the trail.”

Brenda pulls me away as her friends give us knowing looks.

I wave at them, a happy twirly feeling dancing in my stomach. They’d asked me questions—not just about my world and magic and how it worked, but about me. I felt like I really did get to know them. Maybe a little too much; I think I know more about Ryan’s minifigure collections than I want to.

I follow Brenda down the trail, minding my feet as she advised me and watching for loose rocks, when she promptly pulls me into a thicket of shrubbery and cups my face in her hands.

“They liked you so much,” Brenda mutters. “This was so great. I—I want to kiss you again, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” I say breathlessly.

She kisses me, her mouth clumsy but eager, and I kiss her back, too delighted and stunned to do anything but try to keep up. The dappled afternoon light flickers all around us, leaves rustle, and the slight shade we’ve pulled into isn’t quite enough to truly dampen the hot afternoon heat beating down on us, but I can’t care or tell if the heat is from the afternoon or my own body pulsing with energy.

Brenda’s hands flutter behind me like she isn’t quite sure what to do with them, and I want to laugh a little, she’s so cute. I take her hands and squeeze, pulling her close and letting her hands rest on my waist, and she makes a pleased noise of surprise. I want to hear it again, and I deepen the kiss, delighting in her happy sigh, like she’s discovering how good this can feel for the first time.

It’s exciting and fun, and we hear footsteps and a rustle and break apart, exhaling heavily and giddily as some hikers pass. Brenda looks down at her feet and then at me.

“So, um—we’re meeting everyone at the bottom of the trail, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” she says, mostly into my neck. “How do you smell so good?”

I don’t think I smell like anything in particular; I’ve never been one for scents, but it makes me smile, how happy she is. I tuck a strand of hair that’s escaped her ponytail back behind her ear.

I take her hand and we start down the trail again, and she squeezes my hand, tracing her fingers along mine, each finger slowly dragging along my skin as she glances at me. Her eyes are luminous and shining. Even though her friends said they were going to read for a bit before heading down, given how much time we’ve been spending lost in each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if they passed us.

Every touch is electric, her hands on mine, the heat of her skin, the way we can barely come up for air except to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Somehow we make it to the end of the trail, in between stealing kisses and looks at each other.

We get whistles and looks from some other people—I guess more of Brenda’s friends and classmates from school—and she accepts the teasing good-naturedly. I get introduced to everyone by name, though I’m flustered and can barely keep up.

Brenda takes a moment to talk to a few people, and I watch her as she smiles and laughs. I catch bits and pieces of conversation about prom ticket sales; but I like the confident way she responds to everyone, the assurances she gives, the thoughtful way she bites her lip.

Brenda pulls up her phone, talking excitedly with others I assume are on student council. The rest of the students are already piled into either the vans or into their cars.

Ryan and Adib are already in Erica’s minivan, chattering away about—well, it sounds like magic, actually, but I assume it’s the game Brenda talked about.

Over by the last van, Erica is loading a trash bag and chatting with a tall mustached man wiping sweat from his brow. He looks like a teacher, the kind of guy who’d spend his Saturday helping high school kids pick up trash.

I grab the last trash bag and help push it into the trunk with Erica. We close it triumphantly, and Erica beams at me.

“Oh, I thought I knew everyone in Key Club,” the teacher says.

“Mr. Mendoza, this is Kat,” Erica says. “Brenda’s girlfriend. She goes to Devonsford.”

The word girlfriend seems to linger in the air, and for the first time, it doesn’t seem scary or intimidating. My cheeks feel warm, the idea settling around me like a soft, inviting hug, and I’m finding that I … like it.

“That’s great,” Mr. Mendoza says. “So glad you were able to help. Did you have a good time?”

“I did,” I say.

I turn back and look at Brenda, who is now in the center of the remaining students. She looks like she’s holding court, everyone listening to her every word. She catches my eyes and waves, a small secret smile flitting to her face. One that’s just for me.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can have a girlfriend, something good that’s all my own for once.

27 ❤ BRENDA

I groan as traffic stalls to practically a standstill. I mean, of all the days. I wanted to show Kat some of the Westside before she has to go back, but unfortunately traffic is not agreeing with us.

“It says forty-seven minutes now,” Jenn says from the front seat, frowning at her phone.

Erica taps her hands impatiently on the wheel. “Sorry, guys.”

It should have taken only thirty minutes to get from the trailhead to Century City, where the next portal is this evening. But after the hike Ryan was in the mood for hot pot and got us excited, so we went and got a long dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, with an endless array of vegetables, dumplings, noodles, and more ready for dunking into spicy broth. It was so much fun I forgot about the time, laughing and learning more about Kat’s epic pranks and her teaching us about magic over steaming hot bowls of soup.

After a not-so-subtle hint from Ryan that he and Adib had a plan to play video games, we dropped them off at Adib’s house, and the four of us headed for the Westside to hang out before Kat had to catch the next portal. I figured we could make enough time to walk around the mall and get cream puffs or maybe mochi donuts.

We’ve had such an incredible day, but now we’re practically parked on the freeway. I never really expect to be able to go much faster than thirty miles per hour on a Saturday afternoon, but really, a full stop? We haven’t moved for at least twenty minutes.

Jenn fiddles with the radio, looking for traffic information and pauses on a news segment.

“The San Andreas has been long overdue for a major event for decades, but we haven’t had any significant events in over a hundred years, not since 1919.”

“Thank you, Dr. Howe. What about the 5.2 that rocked East LA last week? Wasn’t that a significant event?”

“The fault may be releasing much-needed tension, but I’m afraid this is just a precursor of what is to come.”

“I don’t think they’re going to talk about the traffic anytime soon,” Jenn says. “Sounds like it’s going to be an intensive earthquake analysis.”

Erica switches the radio to another station playing soft rock. “Every year they’re like ‘the Big One is coming’ and it’s just a bunch of small ones.”

I nod; earthquake talk is constant. I try to peer forward and see what is past the stopped cars, focused on getting to our destination. “There must be an accident. You guys see anything?”

Erica shakes her head.

“No worries, this is great.” Kat has her head practically out of the open window, watching in open fascination.

I reach for her hand, intertwining our fingers together. Kat squeezes my hand back, and a rush of warm affection flows down my spine. I think about the heated kisses we shared in the shade today off the trail, the excitement of discovering what it felt like—to want someone and have them want you back.

I think about asking Kat to go with me to prom, slow dancing with her, presenting her with flowers. I imagine long summer days filled with her smile and going to the beach together with our friends. I realize the Plan might have been missing a lot: those things you don’t plan for, the feelings and wonder that life brings, and the unknown. I want to have Kat by my side, I want to know all about her. It doesn’t matter that she’s from another world—we can figure this out.

She looks back at me and gives me a slight inclination of her head. “What?”

I just feel happy, content in a way I haven’t let myself be in a long time. I’ve always been go go go, and it feels strange and good to just be in the moment. “Nothing. I’m glad we met, that’s all.”

“Me too,” Kat says.

“It’s not that weird, the parallel universe thing.”

Kat laughs, clapping her hand to her mouth. “I guess if anyone asks, I can say you’re a long-distance girlfriend.”

My heart leaps in giddy surprise.

Kat glances at me quickly, a blush forming on her warm brown cheeks. “I mean—I know it’s early and I don’t know if you want to be, but I’d like—”

I squeeze her hand back. “I would love that. I wouldn’t spend all this time on someone who I didn’t want to be my girlfriend, and I want to be with you.”

Kat beams at me, her smile transforming her whole face, and she leans over to give me a quick kiss.

In front of us, Erica and Jenn hoot and whistle at us.

We laugh, breaking apart. I never knew I could have this, something like this silly moment where I can feel so pleased just seeing her smile.

Kat leans back, blushing as she looks out the window again. “These are all engines?”

“Yeah.” I can’t help but grin at her fascination. For all her I-don’t-care attitude, she seems so curious and open to learn. “Combustion, gas, good ol’ fossil fuels, the works. Not that we don’t have the technology already for electric and solar, but you know. Business.”

I wonder how those magic-powered cars work in Kat’s world. “So do you just cast a spell on your cars and they go?”

I loved seeing Kat do magic, making the water dance in that fountain, the joy effusively lighting up her face, her smile. I wonder if that bright expression graces Kat’s face every time she starts her car.

Kat laughs. “Automatic carriages are all prespelled, like most things. You just have to charge it.” She settles back in her seat. “Magetechs work forever programming the spell matrices for it, like most other stuff, like preservation spells for your icebox or levitation for construction work or whatever. Working in spell factories is solid work, if you want to spend the rest of your life doing one spell day in and day out.”

“So that means mages are in high demand in your world?” Jenn asks, turning around curiously from the front seat.

“You could say that,” Kat says. “Mages are paid well but overworked. The techs who come by the coffeeshop are always working long hours.”

“Oh, come on!” Erica makes a rude gesture at a driver who just cut in front of her.

“What time is the portal again?” I ask.

“At 7:08.” Kat shrugs. “But if we miss it, it’s okay. There’s another one at 3:00 A.M. tomorrow.” She glances at me hopefully. “If you want to keep hanging out with me, that is.”

There’s no way I could hide Kat in my room overnight—Stacey would never keep her mouth shut, and I cringe at the idea of my cousin giggling all night and asking Kat questions. I glance at Erica, about to ask—

Erica gives me a knowing mischievous smile. “Your sleeping bags are still at my place from the last time you and Jenn slept over,” she says. “Well, you technically didn’t, because you were in Kat’s world.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “How was that?”

I shush her, my face turning bright red. “Yeah, so if you want to stay, we can all crash at Erica’s…” I trail off. What if she doesn’t want to spend the night, and she meant something exciting and rebellious instead, like sneak into a club or something? “But if you’d rather do something else, it’s okay—”

“Sounds like a plan.” Kat grins at me. “What if we don’t try to make it?” Kat gestures at the no-win scenario in front of us.

It looks like everyone around us has settled in for the long haul. The man next to us actually has his phone out, absolutely engrossed playing a fighting game, tapping furiously at his screen.

“I guess I could try to take surface streets, but that might take longer,” Erica says. “Wanna call it on Century City?”

Jenn nods. “Let’s go back and have a good rest of our evening.”

Erica starts to weave toward the right to exit, and makes it over one lane, then two, but it takes a while. Everyone is determined to use every bit of space to pull forward. I can see the exit sign with clear relief, even though the lane is filled with cars. At least it looks like it’s actually moving.

Kat’s head is out the window again, and she frowns. “There is something up ahead. There’s a huge gap and the cars are just … stopped. It’s like an animal is on the road.”

“Oh no!” I’m imagining a small puppy frightened and darting between cars. “I hope someone is trying to get it out of the way.”

As we move forward in our exit lane, we get a somewhat better view of what’s caused the roadblock ahead. It looks like a few cars probably crashed into one another, but they’re on the shoulder—why is everyone else just parked and not going around them?

“A lot of people out of their cars,” Kat says. “Mostly using their runebook—phone things. Not sure what they’re doing. If we were in my world, I’d say they were casting a spell, but…”

I poke my head out of the window to see. Ahead of us, multiple car doors are left open, people taking advantage of the traffic to walk ahead to see what’s going on.

There’s a cluster of folks up ahead at the accident or animal that Kat spotted. I don’t see a dog or a cat or anything, just a bunch of people holding their phones out walking back and forth on the freeway, filming the—sky?

“What in the world are they doing?” I ask.

“It’s gonna come back, I know it!” a bearded man says excitedly as he walks back to his car, waving his phone around.

The people in his car are shouting in excitement, and then I look up.

Something startling violet and iridescent is in the sky, a dark shadow against the afternoon sun, flapping its wings. Too big to be a crow, flying in close circles, and completely out of behavior for a hawk. It dives suddenly toward the man, who screams in terror.

I stare. “Are you seeing this?”

Erica gasps. “What in the—”

Now the complete standstill makes sense. What else would people do in the face of the complete unknown but try to understand it, document it?

Kat freezes. “We have to get out of here. Now. That is a dragon.”

It’s about as big as a bus, eyes glittering as it stares at all of us, and then it opens its great maw with a high-pitched scream. My blood runs cold. The people on the freeway are shouting and filming with their phones, and then the dragon swoops closer and lets loose a white-hot blue streak of fire into the air before landing on a shiny black Mercedes parked haphazardly on the shoulder.

The dragon grips the roof of the car and picks at the round logo with its talons. Its eyes are sharp and intelligent, and its ears prickle forward with interest, the Mercedes crumpling under its weight as it regards the people watching it in a mixture of fear and awe.

The dragon arches its neck, a powerful and sinuous gesture, scales glistening in all the colors of the spectrum, and some colors I didn’t think were possible. It’s absolutely beautiful, and terrifying. I can’t move, can barely breathe.

The dragon roars, shooting another burst of blue-hot fire at the foolhardy few trying to get photos.

The bearded man drops his phone and scrambles away, running back toward his car. Now panic has started to set in, with people actively screaming and abandoning their cars.

Fancy pokes her head out of Erica’s backpack and meows in alarm.

Jenn’s face is streaked with concern. “How did it—did we travel to your—”

Kat shakes her head. “Not as far as I can tell, we don’t have cars like this, and this huge road thing doesn’t exist—this whole area is residential neighborhoods and parks and trolley lines—”

I unlock the door, looking out the window frantically. “Should we run and leave the car?”

“My mom will kill me if I just leave this car!” Erica says. “Also how would we get home if—”

Jenn turns around and fixes Kat with a look. “How dangerous is this dragon? What’s the protocol for dealing with this?”

Kat blinks. “There were rumors of a dragon living underneath Los Angeles, and the recent tremors might have opened up a fissure or something, but that doesn’t explain why the dragon is here, in your world—”

“If we could get through a portal, what’s to say other things can’t?” I glance back at Kat. “The other day there were some wyverns at a gas station and people had uploaded a bunch of videos about it, but now they are all gone.”

Kat frowns. “The Order must have people on this side trying to keep it all a secret.”

Erica points at the huge dragon. “How are they going to keep that a secret? Hundreds of people have seen it by now.”

The dragon lets out a horrific roar and abandons the Mercedes, swooping up into the sky again and circling us overhead.

“So what do people normally do?” Jenn asks again.

“How can we help?” I ask.

Kat exhales and shakes her head. “I’m not—no one is prepared for this! A dragon is, like, a council-level emergency!”

Erica’s brow furrows. “Are there firefighters or, like, dragon people or—”

“I mean, a group of wyvern wranglers would probably be the best people to handle this, but ‘handle’ is a loose word; the council would probably deploy some experts to try to get the dragon to settle down and go back to her hoard with minimal damage, but they’re very temperamental and territorial—”

“If that dragon came through a portal, it must be confused,” I say. “We have to do something!”

Erica glances at Jenn. “What can we do? We’re just a bunch of kids!”

Jenn takes a deep breath. “Kat—you said magic could be worked with just intention and raw mana—and there’s enough of it in our universe to do a certain number of spells.”

Kat takes a deep breath and looks up at the dragon overhead. “There is enough raw power here to do something.” She glances at the people cowering, hiding behind overturned vehicles, trapped as the dragon snorts out another set of flames.

Sirens ring out behind us. Someone must have called the police, but I can’t imagine what they would do.

The dragon swoops down and lands on the now-defunct Mercedes again, clawing and ripping off its door, and then it locks its gaze on me.

I look into the depths of those opal eyes, glittering with all the power and unknown of a whole other world. I see confusion and pain, and most of all, fear. I think about what it felt like to be in a completely different world with no idea what the rules were, how to survive, and this dragon looks young and scared and completely out of control and lashing out.

I don’t know what happened to the wyverns, or what might happen if this amazing creature gets captured by the authorities here—people might kill it or experiment on it—and I don’t want to sit around and wait to see what will happen.

“We have to do something,” I say. “Can we lure the dragon away from the freeway and hide it somewhere?”

Kat shakes her head. “Not in its current state—she’s way too visible, way too angry right now—”

Fancy meows.

Kat brightens. “I have an idea. I’ll need your help, but we can do a state change—shrink the dragon. To something more manageable, like the size of this cat.” She takes a deep breath and looks at us. “Are you all up to do a bit of serious magic?”

28 ❤ KAT

Brenda nods immediately. “Just tell me what you need.”

Erica grins. “Hell yeah, real magic. I tried a levitating spell earlier at lunch out of those new books you brought, and I could swear I saw my water bottle move!”

Any other time I’d be fascinated and want to ask questions, but there are lives at stake right now. Brenda is right. We’re the only ones who can do something about it.

I don’t have the resources of my world, I don’t have the luxury of calling the authorities and letting someone else handle it. I have what I know, and I have Brenda and her friends, and we can do this.

I flick through my runebook, pulling up a standard shrinking spell for a living organism. It requires one cornerstone to be another living being of a particular size. People use it to shrink their pets or horses to bring them on streetcars sometimes to travel—it uses a lot of power, but with the amount of raw mana in the air, and if Brenda, Jenn, and Erica are okay with being anchors as well—I think we could pull it off.

My fingers fly, writing a new spell matrix for what we’re about to do. I ask Erica a few questions about Fancy before plugging in the variables, as well as standard cornerstone variables for Erica and Jenn. I still have Brenda’s temporary namekey saved in my runebook, which makes me smile amid the rapid-fire work I’m doing.

“Okay, I have a spell matrix in my runebook I’m modifying, but we need a much bigger space to work with.”

“You probably don’t wanna be doing so much magic in front of any witnesses anyway,” Jenn says, jerking her head at everyone watching from their cars.

“With what you said about wyverns, the Order people are probably on their way. Something like this…” I shudder, wondering how they’d try to hide it.

I know I wrote them off as a bunch of academic tryhards, nothing to be scared of, but what Brenda said about how multiple people saw the wyverns, the nervousness in how her friends talked about it, makes me question what the people on this side are capable of. For that amount of information to disappear like that—they must be powerful indeed.

“That guy who cast that memory spell at me—it’s highly illegal to cast anything like that without the subject’s explicit consent. If the Order is willing to do magic like that, they’re not the kind of people we want to mess with.”

Erica nods in agreement. “Mass scale memory modification, removal of evidence—at what cost are they going to try to keep things secret?”

I take a deep breath, untying and retying my hair. We’re way out of our depth. Maybe we should leave the dragon to this Order.

I glance at the terrified people in front of us and it’s immediately clear to me. The danger is here and now, and I can help.

I open the car door and step out. Three sets of determined eyes meet mine.

“All right, we’re going to lure the dragon over to us—Erica, can you get the car ready to head off the freeway? We’ll need an open area to cast the spell.”

Erica nods. “I’ll drive on the shoulder—it looks clear enough, and I’ll squeeze past that hatchback if I have to. A few scratches won’t be a big deal.”

Jenn has her phone open. “There’s a big park a few blocks from here. We can make it. What do we need for a lure?”

The dragon flaps its wings, flying up and circling lazily, and then dives again, going for a woman wearing a large golden pendant, hiding behind a car. The pendant glimmers against her neck, and I have an idea. We just have to work fast.

“Do you have anything shiny?” I ask.

We peruse the contents of Erica’s minivan—it’s a hodgepodge of cardboard boxes, a bag of grocery bags, random sports stuff, and a huge black case covered in colorful stickers.

“My sax…” Erica says. “I mean, technically it’s the school’s sax.” She opens the case and lifts out the instrument. It glitters golden in the sun.

I nod in approval. “Perfect. I don’t think the dragon will do anything to it—they’re very particular about their treasure.”

Brenda looks at me. “So what do we need to do?”

“We need to get the dragon to see it and come after us,” I say.

Erica opens a window at the top of the car. “You could hold it up through the sunroof,” she says.

Jenn glances at the dragon spitting fire. “The sax isn’t necessarily shinier than the cars. How will we know this will work?”

“The cars don’t look like treasure—there are so many of them, it doesn’t matter that they’re shiny. The dragon also doesn’t know what they are, and it doesn’t know what this is either, but—”

“It’s the only one of its kind out here,” Brenda says, her eyes widening in understanding. “Got it. We just have to pass a Charisma check. Dragons are smart, right?”

“Terrifyingly so.”

“So it’ll understand me if I talk to it?”

“Theoretically,” I think. “It really depends. I think this might be the same one that people wrote about communicating with the Chumash and Gabrielino. I don’t know if she’ll speak English, if she’s the same one.” I barely remember the story as part of California’s history we learned in the fifth grade and wish I’d paid attention to how those tribes convinced the dragon to go back to sleep.

The dragon is circling the woman with the huge golden pendant at her neck, swooping closer.

“I got this,” Brenda says. She takes the saxophone and heads toward the overturned car, carrying it above her head as she slowly approaches.

My throat goes dry. Brenda strides forward, her eyes shining. I’m struck by the same awe I felt when she first told me about her friends’ encounter with a dragon. She radiates power and confidence as she moves forward, weaving between the parked cars, drawing the attention of people who are sitting shocked in their vehicles.

The sun is starting to dip behind the mountains, casting rays of light down on the freeway, and Brenda isn’t quite glowing, but she emanates energy, with the way the light catches her hair, her determined expression, and the way she holds the saxophone aloft, turning it so it catches the afternoon light like a multifaceted jewel.

“Hey,” Brenda calls out, turning the saxophone slowly. “This one’s bigger. Shinier, too. Don’t you want this for your hoard? You don’t want that ratty necklace. It doesn’t even sparkle. Look at this.” She lifts the saxophone even higher, where it gleams bright and golden. It looks otherworldly, even among this freeway cluttered with shiny objects, and I can see the dragon narrow its eyes in curiosity.

The dragon cocks its head at Brenda, and backpedals into the air, flapping higher. The woman is too startled to move until Brenda jerks her head at her and mouths, Go!

The dragon flaps its wings, drifting lower toward Brenda.

The other woman gets up and runs, and the people cowering take advantage of the distraction to do so as well.

“Start the car,” I say, hopping back in. “Run, Brenda, come on!”

I look back to see Brenda racing toward us and the open minivan door, the dragon flapping its wings and following her, eyes never leaving the gleaming saxophone.

The car rumbles to life, and Brenda hops in and hands the saxophone to Jenn, who lifts it above the open sunroof as Brenda slams the door shut. “Go!” she calls out.

Erica pushes us onto the edge of the freeway, crunching onto gravel. The minivan scrapes against the sides of other cars as she drives us off the exit and onto the residential streets below.

I concentrate on finishing the spell matrix. This is more important than a few laughs for a prank, more important than anything I’ve ever cast. This is a living being that might be older than time itself, and I focus on writing the spell, making sure each rune is perfect, even though this spell is missing so much. I know what we’re doing has never been done before, but I also know—I also know I can do this.

This is what magic is about.

The raw mana in the air—I can see the power glistening with untapped potential. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but there are threads of it all over Brenda’s universe, mana flowing and pulsing with energy, coming from—somewhere, everywhere.

It’s not quite the same as a mana surge, it’s like—it’s like this power has never known any conduit, and it’s hungry, the forces of life itself twisting and turning and looking for something, anything. I can feel the mana wrapping around me, like the universe knows what I’m about to do, what I’m going to ask of it, and my heart pulses with excitement.

“Kat! We’re here—”

The car has stopped. I look up from my runebook at Brenda, her eyes full of trust. Erica and Jenn are already out of the car and in the park, Jenn carrying the saxophone now, holding it nervously as the dragon circles above her. Erica is taking pictures with her phone, looking back at me with trepidation. Fancy peeps out of the backpack on her back, her fuzzy little face looking curiously out the porthole.

“What now?” Erica asks.

Beyond the stretch of parched grass, a swing set lies empty in the afternoon heat. Above us, the dragon is circling, and anyone might think it could have forgotten, but I know from all the legends about dragons that she’s fixated on the saxophone now, and determined to have it. She’s waiting now. Toying with us.

“String—do you have string?” I ask. We should have cotton that’s been soaked in moonlight, spelled with intention and goodwill, but everything about this spell is make-do.

“There are bungee cords in the trunk,” Erica says.

I find the colorful cords—they’re stretchy and made of a strange material, with hooks on the ends. There’s enough to make a basic diagram. I lay them out, making anchor points between myself, Erica, Jenn, and Brenda.

“Will the cat stay if we put her in the center?”

“Fancy? Yeah, she won’t go anywhere; this is a totally new place, and she’ll want to stick with us,” Erica says. She takes the cat out of the backpack and Fancy wobbles, pawing at the air. “Where do you want her?”

“Right in the center.” I gesture at the spot where all the cords meet. The cat’s size will be the center of the spell. It’ll take raw mana from around us, using the four of us as conduits, and anchoring to Fancy. “You can set the saxophone down here, make sure it doesn’t touch any of the cords. And we’ll need to hold hands.”

I draw the gesture for float and let my runebook hang in the air with the completed matrix open. I barely notice the energy cost for this spell; there’s so much mana swirling around me, eager, waiting to be used. The energy curls and licks around my fingertips, voracious and hungry for action.

Brenda takes my hand, and Jenn next to me, with Erica between the two of them, the four of us forming the cornerstones of the spell. “I’ll read the spell, and I just need you all to stay focused—you’ll feel it coursing through you, and keep your focus on the dragon, keep looking at it, and think—small, like the cat, okay?”

Jenn nods. “Is that all? Do we need to do anything else?”

“You’re going to be the conduit for the raw mana, but it’s also going to take some of your energy, too, so it’ll be tiring and we’ll need to rest after—”

Brenda looks at me in alarm. “The Lightning Bolt I cast—it melted my d20—”

“That won’t happen to the cat. Don’t worry. That was a raw spell, there’s a clear framework here, even unstructured as it is.” I take a deep breath. “You all ready?”

Erica nods, Jenn’s chin wobbles, and Fancy flops over in the center of the spell diagram and starts grooming herself. She looks up at us, bored, as if she’s wondering why she isn’t being petted right now.

I begin, reading each incantation aloud as we go through the entire spell matrix. Unlike physical spells completed with a runic gesture, which take mana charged already to a runebook, this one is filtering from the raw power in the environment around us.

I can see it, the flickering strands of mana, wrapped around everything. It’s been wafting toward us ever since we got out of the car. I can feel it pulsing around us as it seeps through me, like a rush of running water and I’m caught up in the current. I read and read, forgetting that this should be boring, reading the basic instructions, the variables I’ve plugged into the spell matrix.

Verbal magic is a compilation of multiple languages, each word suited to the most powerful version of each request, the most simplified version from every culture it’s derived from, and it feels like a song, a melody that I can’t stop now that I’ve started.

I can barely feel my feet on the ground where I stand, but I know I’m being held safe, friends around me, as the energy flows through us and finds the pattern I’ve laid out. I can feel my intentions, the question I’m asking of the universe and the power inherent in this, starting with the size and weight of Fancy, meowing somewhere at our feet, and coming all the way back to the question, asking the universe to change the size and shape of this being for now, to ask it to take another form, that this will be one best suited for finding treasure, for being safe, to explore this world, to find peace and joy and happiness.

As the spell finds its intended target, the dragon, her name finds me and I know it as if I’d known it my whole life, a long string of beautiful melodic sounds from a language time had forgotten, created from when this galaxy was still stardust and hope and mass floating around the birth of a sun.

The spell is speaking for me now, and I’m immersed in the dragon’s memories and her heart and feelings. She doesn’t remember when her kind ruled the skies and dominated the earth, but she’d heard stories from her mother and her mother before her. I see in her mind the passed-on memory of huge towering plants and multitudes of reptilian creatures roaring as dragons flew overhead, and then with each generation the dragons’ numbers dwindled as they settled down to hibernate and protect their hoards.

She’s been alone for a long time, asleep guarding her hoard, awakened to heat and light and noise and confusion, separated from everything she knew. She thought she had to start over and rebuild, and she saw us, saw the saxophone, wanted to start there.

There have always been people, the two-legged creatures, some who made treasures, some who chased her kind, hunted them down, until they were few, hiding in caves and under the deep earth. I see her curiosity at the question at the heart of the spell, and the opportunity inherent in a new size.

Yes, take it, I think. You’ll have so much more you can add to your hoard, and we can keep you safe.

Safe? the dragon asks in my mind.

I’m thinking about my promise to Brenda, Brenda solid and warm by my side right now, I think about Dad, how he takes care of our little family at the coffeeshop, scattered and broken as it is. I think of safety as family, as the people we’ve connected to and chosen.

I’m not small, the dragon thinks.

You never will be, Brenda thinks, and her voice is soft and smooth in my mind.

Erica’s mind is filled with a melody that is short and sweet, like staccato notes, and Jenn’s is smooth and fluid next to me. I’m connected to everyone I’ve trusted with this spell, our minds linked together for this one purpose.

Channeling raw mana is hard enough, and doing it with others isn’t something you can casually do. I’d always scoffed at the idea before, didn’t think I could trust anyone enough to do it, but for some reason I knew this would work, that I could do this, that I could help these people in this way.

I speak the final closing phrase and the magic takes hold, energy pulsing and finding the spaces in the pattern. I exhale, knowing it’s worked. I close my eyes and lean forward as the energy cost hits me, and I yawn, exhausted. It must have taken a significant amount of the mana around us, and it’s not too bad, not as bad as I thought it would be—I just want to take a nap on this nice, soft rug right here—

Something chitters behind me, and I hear a slight scritch-scritch of tiny claws. I turn and open my eyes and see the dragon—small now, the size of the cat.

It worked.

Up close, the dragon’s scales are a pretty, pale opal color with shades of teal blue and deep coral pink and dark violet. Or maybe there are all the colors, radiating in between them. Brenda is enchanted, reaching forward to pet it.

The dragon skitters and curls around the saxophone, making a pleased noise as it wraps its wings around the now huge instrument.

“Uh … guys?” Erica’s voice sounds in alarm.

Below me, the warm, furry rug moves, and a deep rhythmic sound rumbles like soft thunder behind me.

Jenn gasps. “Was this—was this supposed to happen?”

I twist around and tumble backward as I recognize the sound. It’s a thrumming, satisfied purr. I step off the furry ground—a fluffy, twitching tail—and look up, and up, and up.

“Fancy!” Erica exclaims, reaching up to hug her cat’s head.

Fancy purrs, headbutting Erica with her entire new mass—the former size of the dragon.

Brenda stares. “Uh—”

“This was definitely not supposed to happen,” I say, staring at the massive cat. “But at least the danger has passed for now, right?”

Fancy meows happily at us.

29 ❤ BRENDA

Fancy meows again, blinking bemusedly as if becoming as large as a midsize sedan is only mildly curious. She flops over with a heavy thump next to us, her tail swishing playfully.

“I always knew she was a beautiful lady, but look at how decadent her fur is,” Erica says, stroking Fancy’s belly in awe.

Kat thumbs through her runebook, rereading her spell. “I don’t understand what happened. Fancy was just supposed to be the anchor for the size, it wasn’t supposed to work in reverse…”

“The potion she drank!” I remember suddenly. “You said it wouldn’t do anything unless another spell was involved…”

Fancy headbutts me, and I fall backward a few steps from the force of her big face pushing me back. I give her scratches under her jaw, just the way she likes it, and she seems content, as if she has barely noticed the change at all.

Kat’s eyes widen in understanding. “Show me that photo you had again.”

I bring up the shot of the broken vial on my phone. “You said it was a prep potion?”

Kat peers at it and rereads it, and scowls. “This looks like a preset … I couldn’t read it before, but given what happened, it’s likely a magnifier. People use them to copy effects of one part of a spell without rewriting the whole thing. Useful for replicating effects quickly.” She sighs, staring up at the huge cat. “The preset must have used the blueprint of the other living being to duplicate the same effect for Fancy.”

Fancy starts grooming Erica, who laughs as her tongue frizzes up her hair.

Jenn groans, placing her hands on her hips. “What are we going to do? Can we switch her back?”

“Not without enlarging the dragon again, or another creature,” Kat says.

Erica clambers onto Fancy’s back, gripping her huge collar and laughing. “Please don’t switch her back, this is amazing. Fancy, who’s an epic mount? Who’s a good girl? Is it you?”

Fancy twitches, slightly confused, but she takes a tentative step forward, adjusting to her new weight.

The dragon stares up at the cat, and then at us, flicking its long forked tongue at us experimentally as it curls around the saxophone. “Hi,” I say to the dragon.

The dragon seems to give me a pleased, contented smile, as if to say, Mine, as it winds its tail around the edge of the instrument.

I remember feeling connected to Kat, Jenn, and Erica in the spell, all of us held together by the same intention. I’d never felt that way before—the way the magic gripped me and ran through my body, an electric current of possibility that felt channeled, controlled, unlike the stream of unbridled energy when I cast that Lightning Bolt.

And then there was the dragon’s voice in my head, the sheer enormity of it, the sense of her entire being and thoughts and wants and hopes and dreams flooding my own. I don’t feel her anymore in my head, but there’s a warm sense of connection still.

I reach out a hand tentatively. I’ve always wanted a pet; I begged Má for a dog forever since I was a kid, but she was always going on about who would take care of it, and our small place was too crowded anyway.

The dragon sniffs at me curiously but seems much happier now overall.

“You’re so pretty, Ana.” I’d heard the dragon’s name in my head during the spell, but I wasn’t going to try to pronounce the language older than the stars.

Kat gasps. “Did you just abbreviate an ancient—”

Ana makes a low trilling sound, almost like a cat purring, if a cat was also a reptile capable of breathing fire, a low rattling sound of contentment.

I reach forward and tentatively place my hand on her head, and Ana tilts her head into my palm. Her head is warm to the touch, her hard scales a faint texture against my skin. I pet her more confidently as she curls into a little ball, settled on top of the saxophone.

Erica beams from atop Fancy, rubbing her head against the cat’s fur. “That was amazing! We just did magic and saved the day! How cool is that?”

Jenn grins, and I giggle as she whoops and hugs me. I reach for Kat, and we all bounce together excitedly. “I can’t believe we pulled it off,” I say.

Kat gives me a slow, confident smile. “I knew we could. I don’t know why, but it felt really good. Natural.”

Jenn nods. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Like the magic wanted to do it. It felt alive.”

Kat looks around, her eyes catching on something we can’t see. I follow her gaze, thinking about what she said about mana in our world—and then out of the corner of my eye, I see it—a faint shimmer. Like dust particles almost wafting in the sunlight, barely perceptible unless you were looking for it.

“I wonder…,” Kat says thoughtfully. “I thought at first your world didn’t have magic, but there is mana here. It’s just all going somewhere else.”

I nod. It’s definitely a mystery, but I don’t think we should figure it out right here. “So what do we do now?” I ask. “If Ana is going to stay this size, should she go back with you, or…”

“Obviously, first we need to hide,” Jenn says, glancing at the edges of the park. It’s getting dark now, and that’s probably the only thing that has prevented us from getting noticed so far. “Would Fancy fit in the car if we took out the seats?”

I ignore Jenn as she mutters to herself, as Ana has now abandoned the saxophone to climb onto my arm. It’s clear Jenn’s the only one capable of using her brain right now—I’m too enchanted by the dragon, Kat is lost in her runebook, probably trying to figure out the effects of the spell, and Erica is enjoying her new Totoro-sized cat.

Ana sniffs at me and a long forked tongue flicks out as she tastes the air. She curls up behind my neck and settles on my shoulders like a living scarf, and I’m delighted. Even though I asked if she should go back to Kat’s world, there’s an instinctual part of me that said mine. Or maybe that was a voice in my head that I heard, a long melodious voice like chimes that felt like the stars. “What do dragons need? What do they eat?”

“Um, lots of things,” Kat says. “Most of them are omnivores. I’m sure we can find her something.”

“How about cat food?” Erica asks. “I mean, I don’t think the cat food I have is good enough anymore.”

Fancy waddles over to a large tree and noses curiously at the leaves.

Jenn waves her arms at us. “Guys, we need to get out of here; if those Order guys are looking for what happened to the dragon, we don’t wanna be around when they start blasting memory spells everywhere. I don’t think they’re going to think well of Fancy now.”

“Fancy, do you know the way home?” Erica asks, tugging on her collar. “Yip yip!”

Fancy yawns.

“It was worth a try,” Erica says.

“I don’t think she could carry all four of us,” Jenn says, shaking her head. “In any case, we’ll need to get the van back to your house, Erica. I can drive it; we’re not going to fit everyone in the car. I think it’s dark enough if we don’t go on any brightly lit streets that people will just think she’s another car or something.”

“The house!” Erica gasps. “Fancy, you’re not gonna fit in any of your beds anymore.” She slides off the cat and pats her belly.

Fancy meows, like that’s the least of her concerns.

“I think she would fit in your garage,” I say. I raise my arm and bring it gently to the saxophone case. “Do dragons like enclosed spaces?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Kat says. “But be careful—”

“Hey,” I say calmly to Ana. “How about you and your treasure go to a safe spot, okay?”

The dragon noses at my wrist curiously, but she seems to understand the assignment and watches me pick the saxophone up and place it inside the case. Once it’s set in the foam cushions, Ana gracefully hops in, curling up in the empty space around the sax.

I snap the case shut and pick it up carefully, grinning at everyone. “There we go. Travel dragon.”

The sun has set, and the smog filtering around LA is settling into a deep, dissonant purple all around us. Luckily no one else has noticed us in the park, and we’re behind a bunch of playground equipment and a thick set of oaks, but as soon as we get moving, it’s going to be highly noticeable.

“Can you do some sort of invisibility spell?” Jenn asks.

Kat tilts her head, considering. “Probably not yet. Give it an hour, and given how much mana is around here…” She grins at all of us. “What do you say to learning a few more spells?”

Riding on top of a massive cat was never an item I’d even considered in the top experiences I wanted to have in my life (page 37 of the Plan, organized by country and genre of activity), but here I am, Fancy warm and solid underneath me, her fur tickling the undersides of my knees as she follows the minivan through dark, quiet streets.

“This is too cool,” Ryan whispers behind me.

We’d stopped by to pick up the boys since none of us had the energy to cast another spell, and Erica also wanted to show off Fancy. It feels good, our entire D&D party gathered here on the quest to get Fancy back to Erica’s without notice.

We’re traveling slowly under a low-energy notice-me-not spell that Kat was able to cast on all of us with Ryan and Adib as anchors. Apparently, anyone who thought they saw something strange would immediately refocus their thoughts on whatever the most pressing problem in their lives was. The spell left Kat almost completely drained, so she’s sitting in the back of the van to rest.

Fancy’s paws are the size of barrels, but she’s still the graceful cat we know. She pauses to sniff something on the side of the road until Erica gently chides her and moves her forward. Jenn is playing a jingle on the speakers of the minivan, and we hitched the end of the harness to the mini-van’s bumper, imitating how Erica used to walk her. We’re lucky that the harness and leash magnified in size as well.

“How’s this?” Adib asks, holding his hand aloft. A ball of light is pulsing faintly. “Am I doing it? I’m doing it, hah! I totally cast a spell on my own. Ryan, are you recording this?” Adib groans as the light flickers and goes out, and Ryan laughs.

“That looks good,” Kat says with a chuckle. “Keep your concentration and try not to talk until you know you can handle a split focus.”

Kat thought it would be a good idea to teach us all some spell basics, but only Adib and Ryan can actually practice right now. We’ve worked on a few simple things that can be done without a spell diagram and only need short incantations and gestures. I feel like I’ve gotten the gist of the practical parts, but without being able to try to cast the spells, there’s no way of knowing if I’m doing it right.

“This is wild,” Adib says, watching a couple walk down the street completing ignoring the people astride a giant cat. He waves at them, and they just keep walking.

Kat sits up and stretches. “I thought I’d be more tired than I am.”

“Maybe there’s more mana in this world since no one is using it,” I suggest.

Kat hmms. “Maybe. But it doesn’t feel that way … there’s lots of parts of your world that just feel parched, like there hasn’t been mana in hundreds of years. But there are places where there’s a lot of it, like it’s…”

“Seeping through cracks?” Erica asks. “Maybe it’s coming through the portals.”

Kat pulls up the schedule she’d copied on her runebook and shakes her head. “Nothing here matches that location, and these are all just a few seconds here or there. We guessed that the Order uses the longer portals for smuggling, so they must monitor those. But maybe there are portals happening that they haven’t predicted.”

“Could this have something to do with the mana surges and how you have to do that Ritual all the time to stop, like, the end of the world or something?” I ask.

Adib groans. “I knew it was too good to be true! All magic has a cost. What is this Ritual thing, and what is happening?”

Kat explains briefly about the pending disasters that are staved off by the regular casting of the Ritual spell. I watch Kat as she tells the story of Clarabelle Marin and Jìngyi Woo. She gestures with her hands, her whole body involved in the story.

It was nice today on the hike, spending time with Kat like it was a regular date, introducing her to my friends, our hot pot lunch filled with steam and dumplings and laughter. It was almost easy to forget she was from another world; she could have just been from another country with different customs, learning about Los Angeles for the first time.

But there’s no way to compartmentalize this part of her—the reality is that she’s from another world, and something awful is happening there, and it’s happening here, too. Something that’s wrapped up in a catastrophe that’s been waiting to happen for a hundred years.

Maybe there isn’t any normal anymore now.

Ana shifts, yawning, a bit of steam rising from her nostrils. She looks like a glittering jewel, a small reminder of when she loomed massive, causing destruction. She looks content to be the size of a house cat, stretching in an open saxophone case with her tail entwined around the instrument protectively.

I listen to the quiet of the streets, the gentle whisper of the wind and the echoing barks of neighborhood dogs. Cars honk and people order tacos from street vendors working under awnings and colorful umbrellas.

I feel something else, too, something in the air, in the world. Something like power, rustling and settling around my shoulders, a rippling wave of energy, waiting for me to call it.

I sit up, alert. I don’t feel fatigued anymore; I don’t think I have for a while. My body feels light, excited, like I’m about to run a race.

I take a deep breath and draw the three symbols Kat taught me for the invisibility spell, focusing my intention on myself, my friends, Ana, Fancy. I sweep my arms and close the circle.

I exhale, and I watch as our bodies seem to disappear. I know we’re here, and there’s a slight sheen in the air, as if I’m looking through a wave of running water, but we’re no longer visible.

Magic. I manage to hold the spell the longest other than Kat, but everyone gets a turn, even Jenn, who practices as I drive the last stretch. We make it back to Erica’s house invisible and manage to sneak Fancy into Erica’s garage without anyone noticing. Ryan and Adib split the rest of the new spellbooks between them and promise to send us updates about their practice at home.

As Jenn drops them off, we set up Fancy with a massive pile of blankets, the rest of her cat food, and a bucket of water. Ana is content to curl up in Erica’s bedroom, settling on her desk on a pile of shimmering makeup.

We devour bowl after bowl of Mrs. Liu’s curry and help ourselves to even more when Jenn gets back, our appetites and energy slowly returning. Happy and full, we all pile into Erica’s bedroom and lay out our sleeping bags.

Kat tells stories about her teacher Mr. Vega and how he’d probably laugh to find out she’s tutoring us, and we in turn share stories about our favorite and most annoying teachers.

It feels almost too exciting to sleep, but before I know it an alarm is beeping, and I wake up with my head tucked into the crook of Kat’s elbow.

She blinks at me blearily. “Is it time?”

“Must be,” I say, disappointment starting to seep into my stomach. I untangle myself from the sleeping bag and smile; Erica is half in and half out of her bag, her face pressed into Jenn’s thigh as she sleeps upside down, and Jenn is lying flat on her back, her eye mask over her face as she sleeps gracefully.

“We’re gonna head out,” I whisper.

“Nnn,” Erica says, but she shifts and fumbles for her bedside table. “Keys over there.”

Kat is quiet on the drive to the portal location; I concentrate on driving the unwieldy Liu minivan. It feels strange, being out in the middle of the night before the world has woken up.

A couple of times I think Kat’s about to say something, but she pulls herself back. I’m still waking up, otherwise I would have asked about it, but I can barely focus on driving. It isn’t until we’re almost there when she speaks up.

“Yesterday was really nice,” Kat says softly. “I like your friends a lot.”

“I’m so happy we got to spend time together,” I say sleepily.

“It’s weird, spending time with people who don’t…” Kat trails off here. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. About the Ritual. Not that I was trying to keep it a secret, but I’m so used to everyone knowing that when no one did, it was so nice, and I didn’t want to lose that.”

I blink, completely awake now. “What about the Ritual?”

“Remember the prophecy?”

“A prophecy,” I repeat. “Yeah. Mythical hero, epic destiny?”

“The prophecy is about my family—well, just me now.” Kat looks off into the distance. “I’m the Chosen One, apparently.” She glances back at me, waiting for my reaction.

I park on the side of an electric power plant; the street is lined with jacaranda trees, a few persistent blossoms a faint purple against the early morning sky. It feels surreal, the quiet morning, the larger-than-life idea of a prophesied hero in the first place.

I look at Kat, nervous and waiting, as if this news will change how I see her somehow. I just see her, this amazing girl I’ve gotten to know, shouldering this huge burden of expectation. “That sucks,” I offer.

Kat snorts. “Yeah, it really does.” She gives me a sad smile. “I’m the last of the original Woo bloodline now, of my ancestor Jìngyi Woo, who created the first Ritual. And everyone is looking to me to fix it, and I just … I feel like the whole system is broken. And I don’t know what to do.” Kat’s brown eyes are solemn and her gaze is heavy, with none of the carefree mischievous air that she wore so casually when I met her. “Everyone just sees the Chosen One, and there isn’t any room for me to be … me. I don’t even know what that looks like.”

I take Kat’s hand and squeeze it. “You’re brave and kind and wonderful and you have your own way of seeing things. You will figure it out. And you’re not alone.”

Kat’s fingers curl around mine, and she holds on to me for a long moment as we sit in silence, waiting. “Thank you,” she finally says.

The timer on my phone goes off; we only have a few minutes to get to the portal. We get out of the car and walk toward the coordinates in silence. I feel shy and strange. We’d called each other girlfriends, earlier. Should I hug her? Kiss her? I don’t know what happened to the confident me of yesterday that pulled her into the trees and kissed her passionately.

“I don’t know how long this portal will be open, but we shouldn’t risk it. Here.” Kat presses a sheet of paper into my hand. The dates we’ve already used are crossed out. There’s a few left through the rest of the month, and I recognize one of the dates is prom.

“Do you want to come over to my world? I’d like to introduce you to my dad,” Kat says, tapping one of the dates.

“That would be great,” I say, a touch of nerves seeping into my voice. I’ve never met anyone’s parent as a romantic other before.

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” Kat smiles at me.

I can vaguely think of my calendar, of everything planned out day by day, hour by hour, my own handwriting labeling things this week PRIORITY, but I can’t remember any of it.

“Yes,” I let out a breath, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the way her hair falls down to her shoulders, the blossoms falling around her face. I think about this wonderful, impossible girl from another world and how I might never see her again, and I also might see her in a few days. It seems so much up to chance and also so much like it’s inevitable.

As we approach the arched gate into the power plant’s parking lot, a breeze picks up despite the overbearing heat wave and the persistent drought, or maybe in spite of it, bringing with it the scent of freshly fallen leaves in the rain, rich and lush with life. This air is cool and pleasant, and swirls around us, sweet and beckoning. I gasp as I see through the gate, a sidewalk covered with flowers, petals clustered together, a thick carpet of purple persisting beyond their world. It’s jarring how colorful they are, bright and full of energy and life against the dry, barren trees layering my sidewalk.

“That’s different,” Kat says. “We can see through it.”

“You think the portals are changing? Staying open longer?”

“I think if there was a portal big enough for a dragon to get through … anything can happen now,” Kat says.

I nod, watching the time. I want to ask her so many things, but I don’t want to miss my opportunity to say goodbye.

“I have to go.” Kat looks behind me, through to her world, before turning to me, leaning into the fragrant breeze and smiling. “Thanks for showing me around. I had fun meeting your friends. And you know, everything else.”

“Yeah, facing a dragon!” I laugh.

It feels good, though. It’s the most alive I’ve felt in, well … forever. I think about everything I’ve done, the Plan and always working hard, looking forward to some distant future where everything was perfect, and yet I’ve never enjoyed the now.

Kat giggles with me, surprisingly light, and something about her, that rare smile coming to settle on her lips, draws my attention. She glances back at me, her eyes falling to my lips, and she hesitates.

I think about how I used to always tell Jenn and Erica that romance is not in the Plan, and then I think about Kat and the way she stood her ground with a plan to save everyone, eyes blazing and standing with determination, and how good it felt when she asked me to be her girlfriend, how right it feels to be by her side.

Maybe I don’t always have to stick to the Plan.

We don’t know what’s happening with the portals, or the Order, or the mana surges. But I can’t plan for any of that, no one could ever plan for everything that’s going to happen in life.

Maybe I can just be in the now and enjoy what I have and not exist for a future that isn’t here yet.

I pull Kat close and kiss her deeply.

I can feel her smile into the kiss; it’s soft and sweet and wonderful and slow, and I can feel every part of my body tingling. She holds me, wrapping her arms around my waist, and she’s so, so close and then—

She’s gone.

I exhale, and around me is just the barren concrete sidewalk, and the dry, parched air. The jacaranda trees are still and withered, a few pale blossoms stubbornly clinging to their branches, and the archway is just an archway. There’s no evidence of another world, or the girl that was here just a few moments before.

“Three days,” I say to the waiting air. “I’ll see you soon, Kat.”

30 ❤ KAT

I’d barely fallen asleep, dreaming about Brenda, when Dad wakes me up, jostling my shoulders. “I need you at the shop,” he says urgently.

“What? What’s wrong?” I follow him downstairs to our anchored portal.

“Stupid mana surge yesterday wrecked Main Street. Bunch of homes and businesses all by the river, too.”

I pull up my runebook and quickly scan the news. I gulp. A dragon—Ana, my brain helpfully supplies, last seen diminutive and curled up on a fluffy cat bed shaped like a pancake—pushing through the marshy riverbanks of the Los Angeles River, shrubbery and trees sliding off her sharp, violet scales as she takes flight. Buildings and businesses wrecked, even streetcar lines—shattered bolts of tough iron lying useless across deep chasms in the earth. The news keeps replaying and repeating the recordings; fear and anger are at an all-time high, people demanding the council take action.

I skip past a placating speech from Mayor Prattlesby and stop on a list of neighborhoods impacted by the latest surge. My stomach feels like a dozen stones have just sunk into it. “Jordan okay?” Their pack lives right by Elysian Park, where the most damage took place.

“Everyone is fine,” Dad says. “Just really rattled. The dragonfire broke through the wards of their house, and I was up late helping them fix it. I told Jordan not to come in today and get some rest.”

“Good.” We walk through the portal, and I grab Jordan’s hat and apron and get to work.

The morning rush is frantic, a tense air about as people gossip over yesterday.

“I heard that the council employed twenty-five mages to immobilize the dragon and teleport it to the Arctic Circle.”

“Ugh, it took me three hours to get to the Grove on the streetcar yesterday—”

“That’s bullshit. I work downtown and saw the whole thing. The dragon just—disappeared.”

“No way!”

“Five transportation hubs destroyed? That’s wild.”

“My cousin’s a wyvern wrangler, and they didn’t get on the scene until the dragon was gone.”

“My dad’s restaurant is completely smashed; this was the worst mana surge ever!”

A strange rumbling sound echoes outside, loud as thunder. I’ve never heard anything like it—

No, I have. It’s an engine—from Brenda’s world.

A few customers rush outside to identify the noise, but it’s gone.

I check my schedule again. There’s nothing for today, nothing at all anywhere in the city. So this must be more of these unpredicted portals.

I shake my head and get back to work.

We have more regulars in the shop than usual for a Sunday, and I pour free shots of Calm into everyone’s tea and coffee. I always knew the mana surges caused trouble, but it was distant, a problem for someone else if their environmental spells went haywire. The earthquakes are new, and it feels a little too close to home as my friends and neighbors crowd into the shop, looking for a reprieve.

Exhausted from the day’s work, I crawl into bed. I thought I’d have time to investigate Mom’s research more, but there had hardly been a spare moment in between comforting regulars and helping out our neighbors.

At school, conversations die down as I push my way through the hallway in a tired daze. Everyone stares at me openly. Like they’re waiting for me to do something.

“Are you okay?”

I look up from my runebook and close yet another news report.

Hannah nudges a muffin onto my desk. It looks inviting, glistening with a brown sugar streusel topping. I stare dumbly at it.

“You look like you could use breakfast,” Hannah says.

I take a bite and swallow the warm pastry. “Thanks,” I say, feeling a fondness from long conversations over boba and laughing during idleball practices with the other girls.

“Wild stuff happening. You and your dad okay? The shop get hit at all?”

I shake my head. “Main Street is in shambles, though. I think half the block has moved into the coffeeshop and is doing business there.” I didn’t have the heart to tell Mrs. Sanchez she couldn’t sell her crocheted pot holders and ended up just setting her up a table so she could chat with customers yesterday. I’d popped into the shop this morning to help as much as I could; by the time I left for school an informal sort of market with our neighbors had sprung up in our tiny coffeeshop.

Once class starts I tap out a message to Dad to check in. You okay at the shop?

Yeah, Dad writes back. Jordan’s coming in with Rachel and the kids. They needed something to do.

Tell them I said hi. And I hope Tim’s wolfy sideburns are starting to grow in.

I see the swirling pause on the screen as Dad hesitates, editing his next words. It feels strange, but nice, bridging that distance between us since Mom died.

So busy yesterday we didn’t even get to chat. I missed you. You said you went to Echo Mountain on Saturday?

I had a date, I say, taking the plunge. Her name’s Brenda. I really like her.

The bell rings, and everyone scrambles to their feet, chattering away.

“You have Martinez next, right? I’m over in the next building, wanna walk together?”

I nod, following Hannah out the door. She tells me about Jamie’s new prom dress, and how she bought the same dress the week before, and would it be cheesy if they wore the same dress, or would it be matching-couple-cute. It feels strangely normal, and I find myself actually participating in the conversation.

“Do you want to wear the same dress, though?”

Hannah snorts. “Not really, but Jamie seems very excited about it.”

I peer at the photo in Hannah’s runebook. “What if you altered yours? Different corset or petticoat? Keep the overskirt, so you have the same colors and complement each other.”

Hannah beams. “That sounds perfect!”

“I’ve got some alteration spells I haven’t used yet,” I offer. “Birthday gift from my godmother last year.”

“Oooh! I’m free this afternoon. Do you have a dress yet? Shopping date?”

I blink. I hadn’t thought about that. When is prom, anyway? Is that a thing Brenda would want to do? Could we even do it? “No dress, but my girlfriend doesn’t live in town, so—”

“Girlfriend?!” Hannah shrieks and bounces up and down. “Oh my god, you have to tell me everything. I’ll see you after school!”

She leaps forward and hugs me before I realize it, and I hug her back, startled and pleased.

I glance at my runebook. There’s a long pause between messages, like Dad started to write something and then kept editing it, but I can imagine his warm smile, excitement behind his eyes.

Can’t wait to meet her.

The bell rings and I’m late for class again, but this time instead of intentionally being late to show people I don’t care about being the Chosen One, it’s for a normal reason, like texting and getting distracted talking to a friend.

“Katherine Woo to the principal’s office,” Ms. Applebaum’s amplified syrupy voice commands, echoing through the hallways.

I frown, wondering if I had any pranks I forgot about that had gone off on a timer or something. I scramble to my feet and grab my backpack, ignoring the curious looks thrown my way as I head out of the classroom and down the hall.

Principal Martin ushers me into her office and then leaves, closing the door behind her.

Sitting at her desk is Gravery Kirkpatrick, the head of the Mages’ Council. He’s frowning, his ancient face lined with distaste, perhaps at the clutter on Principal Martin’s desk, or maybe it was something he ate that morning. Awkwardly hovering behind him is Mayor Prattlesby, wringing his hands together nervously.

“Hi, Kat,” Mayor Prattlesby says, overly familiar.

“’Sup, Uncle Chris.”

He laughs nervously, like he hasn’t asked me to call him that since I was eight. I never have, not that I ever had reason to; I only hung out with Shannon, and she never wanted me to call her Aunt, said it made her feel old.

“Ms. Woo,” Kirkpatrick says, tapping his fingers on the desk. “I’m sure you’re aware of our current dire straits.”

“Disaster as usual,” I say flippantly. “What else is new?”

“It isn’t as usual,” he responds, leaning forward. “This is confidential information. The incident with the dragon—it isn’t isolated. There have been other strange, unexplainable events. All of which have been dangerous. All of which must be stopped.”

I wonder what the other things are, and think about the engine from this morning. If a dragon got through a portal to Brenda’s world … what else has come to ours?

“Sure,” I say noncommittally.

“So you agree,” Kirkpatrick says. “Something must be done.”

It feels like a trap.

“You are doing it, though,” I point out. “You’ve got the Ritual scheduled and everything.”

“Well, uh, we are almost set to go,” Mayor Prattlesby says. “We’ve got four cornerstones volunteered. We just need the fifth.”

“Right,” I drawl out. “Good luck with that. I’ve got class, so.”

“Young lady,” Kirkpatrick commands, his voice steeling with icy conviction. He hands me a sheet of paper that’s been sitting on the desk. I’d thought it was some of Principal Martin’s paperwork, but this has the official seal of Los Angeles on it. “Your father said some quite rude things to me when I asked him this morning, but I’m hoping you’ll understand and persuade him otherwise.”

Parent/Guardian Consent for Participation in a Level-Five Spell as a Minor.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Mayor Prattlesby says. “I just—people are suffering, Kat.” His voice drops, and he looks so pale and small. “Please. Think about everyone in the city.” He sighs. “And the projections aren’t just numbers, you know—based on the earthquake yesterday, if we don’t do the Ritual, it’s likely that it will be really, really bad.”

The catastrophic event. The one Jìngyi Woo prevented way back in 1909.

Has the Ritual just been a dam, holding the water back? What did Mom write in her notes—it’s not working.

What if the Ritual isn’t a form of protection, and instead we’re just plopping stones in front of a crack, hoping to stem an inevitable flood?

Gravery Kirkpatrick stands up and straightens his cravat. He fixes me with a cold look. “Your mother was one of the most talented and dedicated mages I’d ever met. Her contributions in research, her commitment to her community made her a gift to the world. I expect you of all people to understand why she chose to be a cornerstone.”

My heart drops into my stomach. I’d expected it, of course, but I’d been distracted, sure that I had more time, sure that Dad would say no and that would be that, not that the council would corner me at school and use my mom to guilt-trip me into this.

Kirkpatrick jerks his head and the mayor hops to his feet, trailing after him to the door like a loyal lapdog. “You know, prophecies have been misinterpreted before. But I think this one is clear. You are the last of Jìngyi Woo’s descendants.” He exhales, his deep voice exuding a strength at odds with his frail body. “This could be the last Ritual if you participate. It would mean peace, for all Los Angeles.”

“And if I don’t?”

He opens the door. Outside, Principal Martin is watching a news broadcast on a large runescreen mounted on the wall where reporters interview desolate business owners amid the earthquake wreckage.

“Then I’m afraid this will only get worse.”

31 ❤ BRENDA

“Girls? It’s almost noon. I’m going to head to the store, call me if you need anything.”

Erica’s mom’s voice is familiar but feels far away, distant, like she’s underwater. A warm beam of sunlight is bathing my face, and I roll over, clutching my sleeping bag tighter.

Somewhere near my feet, Jenn groans as she zips herself back into her own bag, hiding from the sun.

“Can we not do anything today?” Erica asks sleepily.

“I vote yes,” Jenn says.

A lazy Sunday sounds perfect. There’s something about this sleepover I’m forgetting, but I can deal with it when I wake up for real. Getting up in the middle of the night to take Kat home was worth it, but I’m exhausted—

The shriek from downstairs instantly jolts me awake.

“ERICA HUANG LIU!”

Erica bolts out of bed and darts out of the room. “Yes, Mama!”

Jenn and I exchange nervous looks as we follow her to the garage. The door is open and Mrs. Liu gestures frantically inside. Fancy pauses from her grooming routine and looks up at us, blinking expectantly at her empty bucket.

“Everything’s okay, Fancy’s fine, she just…”

Erica’s dad strolls into the hallway, smiling bemusedly at us. “I made some scallion pancakes if you want any—whoa!”

“Morning, Uncle,” I say cheerfully. “So yesterday due to some accidental magic, Fancy got embiggened…”

The Lius took the news that their cat had grown to the size of a minivan rather well, considering the number of other unexplainable things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The dragon is all over the news, and all of Los Angeles is on high alert, people buying toilet paper and groceries in a strange panic, rumors and conspiracy theories running wild on every forum and social media platform.

We dip youtiao into fresh soy milk and devour all the crispy scallion pancakes as a skeptical reporter delivers the news in an even, although shocked, tone. “Multiple eyewitnesses claim a massive creature flying over the I-10 freeway yesterday was the cause of various vehicular accidents and destruction of personal property. One could only describe it as a creature of legend—a winged reptilian beast known as a dragon.” The reporter laughs. “While many are dismissing this event as a hoax, with the amount of photo and video evidence, and at least eighty eyewitness accounts and counting as people come forward to share their experience, all Angelenos want to know now is—where did the dragon come from? And where did it go?”

“So the Order didn’t get to memory wipe everyone,” I say. “Maybe they’re not that all-powerful.”

“Or maybe this was too big to control,” Jenn says. She frowns.

I can tell Erica’s parents have more questions about the Order and the two worlds, but we’ve shared everything we know. Erica waves us off, telling us she’s going to try to calm their anxiety, so Jenn takes me home.

I didn’t realize Ana crawled into my backpack until I toss the contents onto my bed and she crawls out, sniffing curiously at my room. She gives me a dismissive look and flies to my shoulder, curling around me protectively.

“I guess there’s nothing shiny in here worthy of you,” I say, petting her head.

Ana trills in agreement.

“Is that a dragon?”

Well, at least this will make it easy to start the conversation with everyone. “Yes, and do not post anything on Insta or TikTok about it,” I say firmly to Stacey.

“Oh my god, you and your nerdiness are at the center of everything ridiculous going on, aren’t you?” Stacey shakes her head. “Come on, this is, like, the biggest news of the century! Why aren’t you sharing all about it? If I had a dragon—”

“First, I do not have a dragon, Ana is her own being; she’s here because she wants to be,” I say. “And second, there are people out there looking for her, and they’re dangerous. We have to protect her. Where’s Má?”

Stacey shrugs. “It’s Sunday, at the nail salon probably. Unless she’s still at Costco fighting all the other Asian aunties for end-of-the-world supplies.”

After everything that’s happened, I want nothing more than the comforting smile of my mom. I want to tell her how excited I am about Kat, and I want to talk about how worried I am about the Order and the Ritual and everything. She always knows what to say to help me feel better.

Uncle Thu offers to take me to the nail salon, and Jimmy tags along, insistent on learning more about Ana, and of course Stacey follows us right into the car as well. I can’t help but smile as I answer their questions about Kat’s world.

“This dragon is incredible,” Uncle Thu muses. “A wonderful sign of prosperity, that she’s chosen our family.”

“I like that she’s long and windy,” Jimmy announces, stroking Ana’s scales as he runs his hands along her serpentine body. During the car ride, Ana’s wings disappeared in a soft iridescent shimmer, so quickly I hardly noticed it, her body changing as Uncle Thu talked about Vietnamese mythology. I remember how Ana’s voice felt in my mind during the spell, how her kind have been here since the beginning of time, and I wonder how many forms she can take.

“So these Order guys were keeping this huge other world secret as they smuggled Pokémon cards,” Stacey says.

“And spells to our world,” I say. “I guess there’s a black market here for people to do basic levitation and stuff.”

“I wanna know more about Kat!” Jimmy says. “Are you going to get married? Is she your one true love?”

I laugh, but a warm flutter of affection flits through me. I’ve never figured romance into any of the Plan. I guess I thought I would be too busy. Now, Kat’s smile looms in my mind, and even though I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I only feel excitement about what’s to come.

Má sweeps me into a hug as soon as we get to the nail salon, and then coos over Ana while setting up a cozy den of pillows for her on one of the chairs. Má puts Stacey to work at the register and sets up Jimmy with a puzzle, and Uncle Thu is sent to unload supplies in the back. It’s slow today, with only a few customers, so Má ushers me to a cushy chair and I tell her everything.

She takes my hands and dips them in a vitamin solution, and slowly pushing my cuticles back, she cleans and shapes my nails one by one. It’s methodical and comforting, just like when I was a kid sitting in her lap fascinated by all the bottles glistening like gems.

My mom listens intently during my explanation about my overnight stay in the other world, which is almost worse than the lecture I expected. Instead, she does a base coat on my nails in quiet judgment.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

“Thank you for telling me,” she says. “I know you didn’t lie on purpose, because there wasn’t a way to communicate between the dimension things, but don’t do it again.”

“Never,” I say, lowering my head. “I really am sorry, you know. For all of it. I know I should be working hard, like even though school is almost over, I still have responsibilities, and—”

“Con, have I ever told you that you have to do all these things?” Má asks softly.

“No, but I want to make you proud. And I haven’t been focusing on my work recently, I’ve just been caught up—”

“In a new romance,” she says with a small smile.

I bite my lip. “I know I need to take advantage of every opportunity I can, because now is the best time to do it. And I shouldn’t be distracted.”

Má sighs. “Of course I want you to do your best, but I worry. I see you always running around with your club things and always doing homework. But these past few weeks I’ve seen you smile for no reason and actually just spend time with your friends and be a kid.” She smoothly brushes a top coat with deft precision on each of my nails.

“So it’s okay?”

“There’s always a balance, and I think you’re finding it,” Má says. “Now tell me more about Kat.”

Má smiles appreciatively as I share about how we met, her passion for crafting spells, the difficulties in her world, and how much I enjoy spending time with her. She gently teases me as I blush. “She sounds like she really encourages you to enjoy the moment,” Má says approvingly.

“You’re not worried? About us being in two different universes?”

“Con, you can do anything you put your mind to. I bet the answer will come soon enough.”

Next to us, Ana is chittering happily as she stacks and organizes nail polish into piles, her tail curled up around a pile of glittering bottles in every hue. I thought Má would be upset about Ana messing up the display, but I think she’s really taken with her.

“Do you think she would like a bath?” Má asks curiously.

I don’t know anything about dragon care, but from the way Ana is shaking her head indignantly I’m guessing the answer is no.

“Maybe cleaning her scales with oil?” I ask.

Ana nods with satisfaction as she leaves her polish hoard to clamber onto Má’s shoulders. She settles in, laying her head down and nuzzling into Má’s neck, to her great delight.

Auntie Vân clucks as she changes the channel on the TV to a soap opera. “Dragons, toxic birds, what’s next?”

Toxic what? “Wait, go back!”

The reporter shakes their head in concern as they wrap up their report. “These creatures exude volatile substances that are highly toxic. Twelve injured at the Grove today have been rushed to Cedars-Sinai and are currently in stable condition; however, the exact nature of their injuries and the prognosis of their recovery is unknown, given the unknown origin of these creatures.”

“They have wranglers in Kat’s world,” I say as the news goes back to traffic. “People who can get these creatures to a wildlife reserve or something.”

Má frowns. “So this isn’t normal for them, either. But why are they here?”

I scratch Ana’s head, watching her intelligent eyes blink and take in the news, my mom, everyone in the nail salon. I wish I could hear what she’s thinking again. I wonder if she would know what to do.

“The portals are guarded by a secret society,” I say. “But you know all those earthquakes we’ve been getting?”

Auntie Vân nods.

“Kat’s world has been getting them, too, only they’re tied to something called mana surges, which have been getting worse. So there are more portals opening up, bigger ones that the society can’t predict or control.”

I try to explain as best I can as we close up the shop, but Uncle Thu and Auntie Vân take over the conversation, talking about the newest theories. Auntie Vân isn’t entirely convinced of the magic aspect, just that a bunch of new species have been discovered.

The parking lot is crowded, people trying to get to the post office or the carnicería next door to the shop, the usual busy end-of-day traffic clogging up the street. Cars honk at a group of joggers at the intersection—wait, those people are dressed in work clothes—

“Run!”

“It’s those things!”

The sidewalks empty as people take cover in buildings and scramble into cars. The thick shimmering green cloud is headed right toward us, and those definitely are not birds.

“Quick, get in the car!” I shout, picking up Jimmy and buckling him in his booster seat.

Uncle Thu and Stacey struggle with the boxes Má asked us to bring home, and Auntie Vân is standing there, dumbstruck, as two pixies screech toward us, wafting those toxic fumes as they flap their wings.

I barely know any spells—we only practiced levitation and light—but I know the concept. Intention, focus, and all I want right now is to protect my family.

I close my eyes and feel. The energy around me isn’t as powerful and present as yesterday, but there it is, prickling at the edges, that sense of potential. Waiting for me.

“I cast Shield,” I command. I visualize the awaiting energy surrounding me, becoming a solid barrier of magical force, protecting me from all harm. I think about Resna facing down goblins and ghouls and everything in between in our games, and how fearless she is in the face of danger, about how I successfully cast a Lightning Bolt in Target.

I know the spell works before I even finish the phrase, before the cloud and the pixies reach us, as I catch my breath and the exhaustion takes hold.

The glittering smoke doesn’t even make contact; the haze stops a few inches from Má, and the pixies crash into an invisible barrier. They falter, fluttering their wings, and turn around and fly away.

I feel like I’ve just run several miles nonstop, but I can’t help but grin proudly. I did it.

Stacey’s eyes widen. “Wow. I am so glad that you are the biggest nerd.”

“Order, order!” Erica says, her video flickering as she bangs a—of course she has a gavel—on her desk. “I call this party meeting to order!”

“Okay, so lore-wise, do you think the pixies are more Forgotten Realms or Eldraine?” Adib is muttering, flicking through rule books from different games.

After the parking lot encounter, Má drove us home in a hurry and instructed everyone to lock all the doors, even had us tape cardboard over all our windows as we listened to the news. I’d texted our D&D group chat immediately, and Erica insisted we hop on a video call. So far, we haven’t followed the agenda, but I think we’re getting a lot out of this brainstorm.

“Well, the toxic cloud is what we need to worry about,” Jenn says.

“Can we find something to use, like pixie spray?” Ryan asks.

“Something, anything that can help,” I say. “Okay, so you know how I cast that Shield spell? Obviously, that’s not how you’re supposed to cast it—”

“Were you doing what you did with the Lightning Bolt, though?” Erica asks, frowning. “I thought Kat said never to do that again.”

“I wish I could have seen it,” Adib says, shaking his head. “Should we be practicing destructive or offensive spells, too?”

So far, Adib is the best at holding each of the spells the longest without getting tired. Ryan and Jenn both are able to cast spells with more intensity, but have trouble keeping their concentration focused. I’ve struggled with simpler spells, but complex ones come easier to me, the ones where I have to think about the focus and intention of it. Erica, to her great dismay, had the most trouble at first, but she’s committed to practicing levitation over and over and rereading the theory books nonstop.

“Maybe, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. “It took a ton of energy to do that Lightning Bolt, and that only worked because of the excess mana in the air. But the Shield was different, and I think this would be safe to practice not just with one another—but to teach other people.”

“How is letting the sheer raw power of the universe rip through your body safer?” Erica asks.

Jenn holds up a hand. “No, wait. I mean, at the core of what we learned, it’s about intention, right? And the runes, the gestures, the incantations—all of that is framework. Guiding the power to do what we want. If we have enough focus—”

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Are you saying if we believe enough, we can cast a fictional spell like we’re playing D&D and it would work?”

“It already has,” Adib says. “Brenda didn’t learn a Shield spell from the book. She was focused on protecting herself and her family, and it worked.” He takes a deep breath, grabbing a Bulbasaur plushie off his bed. “I think I get it.”

All of us watch intently as he tosses the plushie into the air and announces, “I cast Shield!”

The Bulbasaur doesn’t quite fall on Adib’s head—it pauses for a second, as if caught by an invisible net, hovering there for a long moment. Adib beams, and then the plushie falls, tumbling down his face. He catches it with a wide smile. “I did it, I could feel it—it’s not bad, it’s like I just did a few push-ups. I think with practice this is something we could get better at and teach people.”

Erica nods. “It’s not going to hurt anyone trying.”

“Ryan, do you still have that code you used to reply to people who downvoted your Halfway Hollow theories on all the fansites?” I ask.

Ryan’s eyes light up. “Yeah. What are you thinking?”

“What if it’s like a how-to,” Adib says. “Anyone looking for more information on pixies, or whatever…”

“Gets an auto-reply with more information from an anonymous source,” Ryan says. “Yeah, I could do that.”

Jenn nods. “Let’s start by finding people who would likely try this and be successful, like other nerds.”

“People who would actually try to do magic,” I say. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

32 ❤ KAT

No one stops me as I leave school. I guess Principal Martin knew exactly what the council asked. I didn’t even need an excuse, I just said, “I need to go home,” and she waved me off with a strange, sad look.

Feeling sick and heading home, I text Hannah. Hang out another time?

Of course. Let me know if you need anything.

I put my runebook in my pocket, my head clouded with uncertainty.

What did Mom find out about the Ritual? Why wasn’t it working? Did she discover a way to fix it somehow?

Back in my room, a lump forms in my throat as I read the matrix. I can see Mom in the careful way she crafted each part of the time travel spell, and I try to concentrate instead of focusing on how much I miss her.

The note about Uncle Chau’s shipment was dated after she died. So she hadn’t planned to do the Ritual at that time, then. She was still working on this spell—maybe she cast it once, maybe she needed more information and needed to go back another time.

I could go back, too. See what she saw.

Uncle Chau’s store is in a nondescript 99 Ranch plaza. We’ve gotten groceries there since I was a kid, toddling behind Mom as she filled the cart with vegetables, thick knobs of ginger root, radishes with the dirt still clinging to their pink bulbous bodies, and bright leafy greens. After, we’d go to Uncle Chau’s and they would gossip and haggle as he weighed out ingredients and bagged them for her.

I try to remember if she told me anything about the Ritual before it happened. She’d been working a lot, and I’d been annoyed at her for missing my idleball games that month.

It feels stupid now.

She was working on something that was bigger than all of us.

I rack my brain, but my memories are fuzzy. I was proud of her and awed by her all at once, certain she was going to change the world, put an end to this never-ending cycle.

Mom didn’t have time to finish whatever she was planning, but she chose to do it anyway.

I remember her kissing me good night right before she left, except I had no idea that it would be the last. Everything that happened after the Ritual—Councilmember Alvarez showing up at our door to give Dad the news, the quiet that followed me at school, the grateful calm from the Ritual taking hold and the mana surges coming to a halt—and in the midst of it all, Mom was just gone.

The apothecary is exactly how I remember it, right next to the 99 Ranch. Almost every storefront in this plaza has signs in Chinese; it’s comforting and feels like home. Even if I can’t read all of them, I know that’s the Hainan chicken rice place, Auntie Joanie’s fashion boutique, Ricky Zhang’s hair salon, and a magetech store owned by one of Mom’s friends, catering to older generations that haven’t learned to speak English but still want the best tech for their runebooks.

The sign above the door has seen better days, the Chinese characters faded from the sun but still standing proud, formed by a careful hand in red paint. Faded English letters in smaller script below the Chinese read CHAU HERB AND SUPPLY CO.

Inside, I’m met with the acrid scent of too many bitter and sharp and pungent smells all mixed together in a heady, intense aroma. Open bins of common ingredients pack the small space, and I spot some familiar things that would not be out of place at a grocery store: dried ginger root, dried mushrooms, long slices of dried seaweed, preserved dates, goji berries. There are ingredients here in every form: whole, prepackaged, sliced, and boxed, crushed or ground, and most importantly, charged with focus energy. Behind two long glass counters and locked inside them are more expensive and rare items. Snake wine that has been steeping for decades, unicorn horn soaked in shimmering preservation fluid marked per ounce, and what looks like coils of fine, white hair, all priced exorbitantly.

“Farm raised,” I read, and smile. Nice to know that Uncle Chau has been supporting the sustainable way to obtain swallows’ nests.

Signs are written in marker on recycled cardboard, and despite the makeshift look, I know everything in here is immensely valuable. Uncle Chau’s not worried about theft, not with his formidable experience in warding spells, which is why the store is almost always unattended.

“Hello, Kat,” Uncle Chau says, appearing from behind a shelf. “I wasn’t expecting a pickup today.”

“No, I just…” I don’t know where to start, with how quickly everything seems to be unraveling. If the Order isn’t able to predict or control the portals anymore, and if a dragon was able to get through even their meticulous watch, how could they stop things from getting worse?

He presses his fingers together and waits, tilting his head. “How can I help, little one? We just got a new shipment of ginseng, very fresh. And the jansam is all fifty percent off. Perhaps your father might like some for his Pick-Me-Ups. I’m particularly fond of his Rest Well recipe.”

“I’ll let him know that,” I say with a smile. “I’m actually here on something Mom was working on.” I pull out my runebook and show him the list I’d copied over from Mom’s work. “Do you have these items?”

He gives the list a once-over. If the contents surprise him, he doesn’t show it.

My heart pounds nervously. It feels like everything is on the line. “She started this a few years ago … she said you were preparing focus items for this spell?”

“Hmm,” Uncle Chau says, stroking his chin.

He says something in Cantonese that I only catch about half of, something about me being late or perfectly on time.

“You have her stubbornness,” he says in a stern voice that is something like approval. “It will serve you well, especially with this. Follow me.”

“Thank you,” I reply in stilted Cantonese.

Uncle Chau lifts the much-taped-over piece of cardboard that acts as a barrier between two glass counters and steps through, holding it up behind him.

“Come along,” he says, gesturing impatiently.

I duck under and he quickly drops it back, the hastily scrawled EMPLOYEES ONLY sign flopping back into place.

Uncle Chau has already disappeared down a hallway I hadn’t noticed, but I can hear him behind Chinese newspapers taped up like curtains and follow his voice to a cluttered back room. The scent of herbs here is even more thick and cloying, each one competing with another in dizzying discordance. I try to keep up as Uncle Chau navigates a spindly set of stairs down a dark hallway to a musty storage room that appears empty. He gestures for me to step back.

Uncle Chau takes a deep breath and raises his arms, slowly using his body to draw a set of runes. His movements are deep and controlled, an ancient art that predates Western runes combining tai chi and the physical movement of words written with your body to invite the energy of the universe into your spell. It’s impressive to watch, and I wonder if his old invitation to learn is still open.

A rumbling sound echoes deep within the basement and an entire stone wall opens, sliding back with significant force.

Uncle Chau pulls a long string from the ceiling and a single electric bulb flickers to life, lighting a dusty workspace covered in thick cobwebs, like it hasn’t been disturbed for some time. Crates stenciled with names and dates are stacked high to the ceiling. Some dates go back decades, and I feel the potency brimming just walking past them. There is old power here, deep and substantial, like a coiled snake ready to strike. The labels are varied, some in Chinese and some in English. The ones I can read are enough to unnerve me: moonlight-soaked rowan wands, ground linzi infused with the power of three solar eclipses, anteater scales dating back decades, glistening with raw potential.

This type of energy infusion is time-consuming and very detail-oriented; it takes a lot of patience to build up power this way naturally.

Uncle Chau sets down a crate stenciled with Mom’s name. The familiar characters are inked dark against the dusty wood, and I stare at our family name.

My name, too.

I look at the parts of Mom’s name, the characters for light and hope and long life, and wonder if my grandparents knew when they named her that their hopes would be short-lived.

Uncle Chau slowly creaks the crate open with a crowbar. Inside, nestled between wood shavings, are a number of jars. He proudly pulls out one filled with thick, round seeds that seem to radiate their own light. “Nganhang seed harvested from Tianmu Mountain and soaked in the moonlight of every lunar eclipse.”

“How many years have you been…?”

“About fifteen.”

I gulp. The jars all thrum with energy, and I check them against my list. This is everything, except …

“I know this isn’t something you’d keep in stock, but would you happen to have, or know where I could get, two phoenix down feathers?”

Uncle Chau shakes his head.

“Do you know what Mom was trying to see?”

“She wouldn’t tell me exactly, said it was too dangerous. I figure with three feathers … about a hundred years or so.”

Traveling to the past is practically unheard of. Not only is it complicated and easy to get wrong, you need a direct connection, either to the place or to the person you’re trying to observe. You’d need one of their focus objects or something to anchor you to them. In Mom’s spell, she tied the anchor to our bloodline and a specific place in Los Angeles. More than a hundred years ago.

Jìngyi.

“The very first Ritual,” I breathe. “But if it worked, why did she order more ingredients?”

“Perhaps she needed to review the memory. Or take someone back with her.”

“Like proof,” I mutter to myself. Whatever Mom discovered, she wanted to show someone else. As evidence. “But she didn’t order more phoenix feathers.”

“There hasn’t been a phoenix rebirth in several hundred years, it wouldn’t be possible. I got the last of my contact’s supply for Vicky for this spell.” Uncle Chau winks at me. “You’re a smart girl. Figure it out.”

He hums to himself, setting the jars back in the crate and packing them carefully. He starts to pick it up, but I grab it first.

“I got it, Uncle. You should be careful with those stairs.”

He beams at me as I heave the heavy crate up the stairs, thinking about what he said. With one phoenix feather, I won’t have enough power to go all the way back to 1909 and see Jìngyi.

I gasp as the idea strikes me. I won’t need to. All I need is to go back and see Mom’s memory.

“What do I owe you?” I ask.

“Please, I’m happy to help.” Uncle Chau snorts in distaste. “That council has been telling everyone in Los Angeles the Ritual is here to protect people. Bah! They wouldn’t listen to Vicky’s ideas.”

I blink at him. “So you did know what—”

“No! I told her I didn’t want to know her plans,” Uncle Chau says. “You know, when I was still a young man, the council asked me to be a cornerstone. I almost said yes. Thought it would be an honor. But my brother volunteered in the end. And he became an old man at twenty-three, and died not even two years later.”

Oh. Everyone knows only two people have survived the Ritual; Gravery Kirkpatrick, and one other. I had no idea.

Uncle Chau sighs. “Whatever Vicky Woo was working on, it was important. And I know you’ll see it through.” He gives me a watery smile. “Remember, the mana charged in these ingredients is very delicate. You can’t bend space around them—”

“No otherspace pockets or teleportation, got it.” I nod, and he disappears back into the shop.

I hug the crate close to my chest the entire trolley ride home.

Somehow his unwavering belief and pride in me hits harder than the expectations that random people have come to associate with me and the prophecy. Uncle Chau believes I can do it.

And he’s not just talking about the Ritual, or the prophecy.

“I’m going to figure this out, Mom,” I whisper to myself. “Whatever conspiracy you were uncovering, what you knew about the Ritual that other people didn’t want you to know … I’m going to find out.”

I help myself to Mom’s best-quality supplies for the spell. I diligently paint runes onto thousand-thread-count linens, making sure to note the changes in the spell. There actually should be even more potency to the spell with one full phoenix feather, and I’m not going back as far. The memory will be crisper, clearer.

Her brewing station isn’t as elaborate as Dad’s, but it’ll do for the preparation potion, especially as I don’t want anyone asking questions. I carefully start with the nganhang seeds, roasting them in the cast iron cauldron while I steep the linzi. I’ve never worked with ingredients like this; I can’t afford to make any mistakes, so I measure carefully and follow Mom’s instructions with painstaking deliberation.

The second iteration of the spell has a space for another memory traveler. I wonder who Mom was planning to bring with her. Someone from the council? No, she suspected they were colluding or something with the Order. Who else? Who did she trust most?

I finish the potion and set it aside. It has to simmer overnight, and then it’ll be ready.

A familiar voice, muffled through the otherspace anchor, wafts into Mom’s office.

“Knock, knock! I don’t know if you saw my message, duckling, but I thought it would be nice if we brought dinner. Kat? Are you home?”

Shannon!

“Just a minute!”

I fold the spell diagram and stash the ingredients away. I wonder if Mom had confided in Shannon about her suspicions. That makes perfect sense, actually—Shannon would have the influence to back Mom’s findings, especially if they implicated the council in something corrupt.

I exit the otherspace, waving my hand at the door. I draw a new locking pattern, closing it with my namekey. I’m not sure exactly why I took the extra step, but some instinct is guiding me. Just in case, a suspicious voice inside me says.

I bound downstairs and throw open the front door. “Shannon! So glad to see you!”

She wraps me in a soft hug and places a kiss on top of my head, her familiar rose perfume settling around me.

I pull her inside, then notice her husband awkwardly standing behind her. “Oh, and hi … Uncle Chris.”

“Hello, Kat,” he says, looking like a guilty child. “Look, about this morning. You know that I had to, the council really puts me in a bind about these things—”

“Okay,” I say, sidestepping the not-apology. I do take the warm grocery bag he hands me, though, and bring it inside.

I message Dad to let him know Shannon and the mayor are here, but he already knows since he’s been checking his runebook all afternoon and not planning an epic time travel mission.

Shannon smiles at me. “How are you doing, Kat? Is that Advanced Spelling class treating you well?”

“It’s been kind of fun, actually,” I say, and find myself meaning it.

We talk about school and prom and Shannon teases me about Brenda, humming happily when I tell her about my new girlfriend.

Dad arrives home with an armful of day-old milk bread buns and a warm hug for me. He squeezes me longer than I expected, and I wonder what exactly he said to Kirkpatrick. Maybe a few choice curse words.

We sit down and eat the tamales from Shannon’s favorite vendor in Boyle Heights. I unpeel another one, savoring it as Dad and Christopher talk about the dragon and the chaos of yesterday.

“I just have to say, Sam,” Shannon says delicately, “it was inappropriate of the council to barge into Kat’s school to convince her to be a cornerstone. And after you denied permission, too!”

Dad glances at me. “What? When, today?”

“Yeah, they pulled me out of second period and handed me a consent form for you.”

“Gravery insisted,” Christopher says. “It’s really … we don’t exactly have another choice at this point.”

“Of course we do!” Shannon says indignantly. “Find another cornerstone. You have applications from many mages ready to make the commitment. Pull another one out of that stack.”

“It’s not that simple.” Christopher shakes his head. “Not all of them are qualified, and Gravery said that would drastically affect the effectiveness of the stabilization. Tension in the city is at an all-time high. People need assurance and support, not just another Ritual. They need to know we have the solution.”

Shannon scoffs. “The greatest mages in the city can’t find a solution? I’m surprised. Alvarez herself could probably power two thirds of the Ritual.”

Dad nods emphatically before taking another bite of his tamale. “Well, she’s an adult and she can choose to do it. But Kat is underage. And I won’t allow it. So that is that.”

Christopher glances at Shannon, who pats me empathetically on my arm. He gives her a pleading look. “I thought we came over here to…”

“Comfort and support our dear friends, of course,” Shannon says, glaring at him. She turns to me. “Now, Kat, don’t worry about all this. It’s not your responsibility. You focus on you—go to school, do your homework, go to prom with that fabulous new girlfriend of yours!”

Dad’s eyes soften. “So, she’s your girlfriend now,” he says, a smile quirking on his lips. “Tell me more.”

“Brenda goes to San Pablo, and uh, is really into magical theory. We bonded over spellcraft, and uh, animals.” If by animals you mean escaping wyverns and helping a wayward dragon. “She’s really cute and funny and smart and wants to make such a big difference in the world.” It’s easy to talk about Brenda, her laugh, her smile, and for a moment I can forget about the Ritual and just be excited about her.

Dad asks lots of questions and laughs when I tell him about Brenda’s nineteen-point plan and how cute her detail orientation can be.

He laughs. “Your mom used to organize everything. You know, when we first moved in together, the first time I put away the laundry I messed up what apparently was a very particular arrangement of socks.”

Shannon chuckles. “Vicky was like that with all her work, too. When we were in school all her notes would always be color coded, chronologically dated and everything. People used to fight over copies for studying.”

The rest of dinner is as usual—they talk about the city, the coffeeshop, and Dad asks after Christopher’s growing collection of antique porcelain gnomes. There’s a faint sense of the elephant in the room still with us, but with Dad’s resolved no hanging in the air, Christopher doesn’t seem to want to push it.

Shannon follows me into the kitchen as I wrap up milk bread for them to take home.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I think so,” I say. Everything Shannon has said tonight has helped. She’s right. It isn’t my personal responsibility to save the world. I can try to help, but it’s—it’s still my choice. No one is going to force me to do anything I don’t want to do.

“You’re more than they deserve, you know,” Shannon says, leaning on the counter. “The city. They expect so much of you. Just like they did of your sweet mother.”

“Did she ever…” I don’t know how to start. I want to tell her everything. About the two worlds, about where Brenda really is from, about what Mom was working on.

Shannon looks at me curiously, waiting for me to finish my sentence.

I trail off and sigh.

“I don’t care what some silly prophecy says,” Shannon says gently. “And your mother didn’t, either.”

I think about Mom’s notes, her every thought analyzing the prophecy, trying to see in between the lines of what could be possible.

“I told her not to do it,” Shannon says, a curtain of grief falling over her eyes. “She insisted. I said the Ritual can and will go on without you, as it has done for a hundred years.”

“Did she … what did Mom think about the council? Their decisions on the Ritual and all that?”

Shannon snorts. “That they were old fuddy-duddies trying not to lose face. Ever since that prophecy was made public, it was all about getting a Woo as a cornerstone to fulfill some preordained notion that this is going to end. It’s like the tide. It’s not going to end. We just have to weather it.”

“You think so?” I’ve never heard Shannon talk about the mana surges this way.

“My grandfather once told me with everything being inevitable, we just have to make sure we’re on top when the storm comes in so we can ride it out best we can.” She looks out into the distance, her gaze heavy. “You know, our ancestors cast a long shadow when they created that first Stabilization Ritual. That’s a lot of pressure to live up to.”

“Yeah,” I admit. Jìngyi’s legacy seemed distant with the space of time, and her story always felt wrapped around me like a comforting blanket. It was only after Mom died, when it became clear that the prophecy meant me now, that the pressure became suffocating, terrifying.

“You are not Jìngyi,” Shannon says, fixing me with a steady gaze. “You are Katherine Woo, a wonderful young lady with a bright future ahead. You’re going to take your girlfriend to the prom. You’re going to have a great time, graduate from high school, and then do whatever you damn well please.”

I swallow hard, the appreciation sticking in my throat with the anxiety that’s been rising in me all day. Something like relief starts to settle. I can do this. I can just … say no.

Something prickles at me. Unanswered questions. Mom was the first cornerstone whose body wasn’t released back to family. It’s like something different happened with this Ritual. Something the council doesn’t want anyone to find out.

“Are you busy tomorrow? Can I show you something? It’s important.” I can take Shannon back through Mom’s memories, and then she can take charge and talk to the council, do whatever needs to be done to fix everything.

“You can tell me anything, duckling,” Shannon says, and then sighs. “But unfortunately I’m heading out of town tonight—I’m hosting these tours for all our scholarship finalists at each flagship factory. I’ll probably be back within a week. Want to pencil me in then?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I say, trying not to let the disappointment show. “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

Shannon hugs me. “Remember what I said. You have to put yourself first. Always.”

33 ❤ BRENDA

The Fields Forward Industries facility in Santa Monica is absolutely gorgeous, everything from the succulents and verdant moss growing on the exterior walls to the drought-friendly landscaping to the shining solar panels lining the roof and sides of the buildings to the brightly lit minimalist decor inside. It’s a shining, gleaming example of technological advancement to make the world a better place, and while I should be absolutely ecstatic that I’m here on this VIP tour, the whole experience feels a bit hollow.

It’s easy to be impressed by the packed tour schedule. Our tour guide, Angelica, is a fun lecturer as she talks about the sustainable materials used for the construction of the building and the composting in the cafeteria. The main event is the hour we spend mixing scents to make custom lotions in their scent lab, and while it’s fun and educational, I can’t help but feel that it’s some sort of sideshow. At no point do we learn how exactly Fields Forward produces everything with zero carbon footprint, or how their energy-efficient technology works.

I have so many questions, but we’re rushed from activity to activity, and then finally Angelica ushers us through the lobby and a sumptuous office, where Shannon Mayfield herself greets us personally. She’s dressed in a chic navy-blue pantsuit, her blonde hair coiffed in an elegant updo. After a number of choreographed photos, she shakes each of our hands and congratulates us.

My hand feels clammy as we shake, and I smile on autopilot at her. There was a whole list in my journal about how to prepare for this moment, from what to say to what to wear and how to compliment my future prospective mentor. But being in Kat’s universe, learning about the sinister side of magic and the secrets involved in the mysterious Order, it’s opened my eyes to question what I’d previously easily accepted.

“Thank you so much,” I say. “I’m so excited about the possibility of the fellowship. Do you think the winner will be able to work directly with you on your current r—”

“What a wonderful question!” Shannon says, clapping me on the shoulder. She beams at me. “We consider every project proposal from our fellows and provide ample funding for their research.”

The other finalists nod, their eyes widening with the possibility.

“I’m so honored to meet you all. I wish I could spend more time with you, but alas, my schedule is quite packed whenever I visit each of my factories! So much to do to keep this business afloat.” She smiles at us and gives us a parade-worthy wave. “You’re in wonderful hands with Angelica. Please do enjoy your lunch and the rest of the tour!”

“I can’t believe we got to meet her!” A girl with a brown pixie cut grins at me—I think her name was Teresa, from South Pasadena.

“Dude, there’s so much more cool stuff to do!”

“And we get so much free stuff as finalists…”

The other finalists giggle among themselves, chatting about their college prospects and other scholarships.

I’ve always focused so hard on the Plan that I never really questioned why Shannon Mayfield never published any of her breakthrough technology. In interviews it’s always been easily deflected with a smooth statement about copyright and confidential patents. It made sense at the time, but as I think more about it, it doesn’t really seem to align with the vision about creating a better future.

Our tour is almost over, and my questions have only multiplied, although no one else seems to have any doubts about what we’ve seen so far. The lunch we’re treated to seems almost ridiculously decadent; the cafeteria filled with five-star chefs making gourmet meals for all the staff is cool, but having it available round the clock seems excessive. Like it’s a way to keep your employees happy and not ask too many questions.

I mull it over as I head back to the buffet to grab another helping of fries, catching bits of employees’ conversations here and there.

“Ugh, Jeff didn’t read my memo again, I can’t believe this! I’m going to have to restart this whole procedure.”

“Get it together, Jeff!”

“That chicken tikka masala in the caf today was pretty good, but it should be spicier…”

“Dude, I can’t wait for the weekend to do nothing, I am so tired!”

“I’m going to go visit my parents; I finally got my approved portal ticket, took forever.”

Portal?

I blink and stop, focusing on two men chatting closely together. They’re wearing dress shirts and slacks, which doesn’t stand out from any of the other business-casual clothes people are wearing, but as I look closer I can see one of them is wearing an old-fashioned cravat with his shirt.

Are these two guys from Kat’s universe?

If they are, then it’s not just those Order security people keeping an eye on the portals to make sure they’re secret. There are people working here talking as if they’re on a travel visa or something. I want to linger and hear more, but I see Angelica approaching our table. Our lunch hour must be over.

I leave the fries and dash to catch up with the tour.

Angelica gives us a winning smile and asks how we enjoyed the food, laughing with the jokes and the compliments as she guides us toward another wing of the building.

“Could we visit the factory floor?” I ask, sidling up to Angelica.

Angelica frowns. “Absolutely not. All Fields Forward technologies are confidential and no one unauthorized is permitted access.”

I nod. “That totally makes sense, but this technology could be used across multiple industries to reduce our overall carbon footprint producing any number of products. Why not publish and share the technology? I mean, the tech produced in space exploration has been used in medicine, education—”

Angelica sniffs and cuts me off. “Fields Forward Industries will be expanding its line beyond household products. Perhaps the conscious consumer would do best to simply purchase Fields Forward products instead of expecting our illustrious tycoon to sell company secrets.”

The other finalists laugh, and I blush, embarrassed. It’s not unlike my ask-too-many-questions attitude that annoys a certain type of teacher sometimes, much to the amusement of my classmates.

She nods, conversation apparently over, and taps her keycard in front of a heavy set of double doors. It beeps and they slowly open to a dimly lit hallway.

After a moment, I can see why: It’s lined with large windows open to different offices and workrooms, with various people giving presentations or designing or doing product testing. At the end of the hallway, we enter a quiet conference room with a view of a garden and a trickling stream outside, complete with sparkling koi fish swimming peacefully.

“Thank you for participating in our tour today,” Angelica says primly. “This concludes our presentations portion. You may journal quietly here in this room, or observe any of the viewing windows to the workrooms from this hallway. At 2:00 P.M. you will be presented with complimentary product samples and then escorted back to your bus.”

Everyone starts to disperse, drifting to the windows or relaxing and getting out their phones.

I want to ask Angelica more questions, but she’s speaking quietly in hushed tones at the end of the hallway with a couple other employees. They’re nodding, coming to some sort of conclusion, and walk together toward the set of doors on the other end.

Angelica’s keycard falls off her clip and clatters to the floor, but she doesn’t notice as her coworker beeps the door open and they all file through.

My heart pounds as I dash over and pick up the keycard. I glance around; there’s one employee on the other side of the hallway, completely immersed in her phone.

I grip the keycard tightly, the hard edge digging into my palm. I could turn it in to the other employee.

But I have to know more. Those employees mentioned a portal. And there’s been something off about this tour all day.

And even if I don’t find out anything, I’ll regret not trying.

I walk toward the door, hold the keycard up, and head through to the unknown.

The sleek minimalist architecture gives way here to a more unrefined industrial look: bare gray walls, exposed pipes and exhaust ducts in the ceiling. There are employees bustling about everywhere, but no one gives me a second look—I’m young but I could be an intern, and they have plenty of those—so I just walk with confidence as if I belong there.

I don’t see any sign of Angelica, so there’s little chance of being recognized. I have less than an hour before I need to be back in the conference room, so I try to remember my exact path through the labyrinth of hallways so I can find my way back later.

This floor seems to house the labs that those viewing windows opened up to, which is great because I’m curious to see how exactly these products are made with no energy cost. I go down the hallway, peeking into each room. Nothing weird seems to jump out at me, just scientists making notes or measuring droplets of scents into various mixtures and designers drafting new labels and logos. Through the windows I can see the other finalists watching curiously.

This is all preapproved for the public; there must be more, like where the soaps and detergents and lotions get made and bottled and everything. Something has to power all those huge machines, and I don’t think the few solar panels we saw on the building are it.

In an employee lounge area, I find an abandoned lab coat and throw it on. I grab a clipboard for good measure, too. No one ever questions people holding clipboards.

A few people come in, chatting and making coffee. I recognize the two guys who were talking about the portal earlier, and busy myself making coffee next to them so I can hear the conversation. It’s mostly complaining about quotas and lists, but finally it turns back to the portal.

“Dude, how long did it take for you to get your ticket?”

The man with the cravat sighs. “I submitted my application back in April.”

“Ugh, that waiting list is gnarly. I can’t imagine the folks who commute every day, but I get it, it takes so much more energy to cast anything here. The pay is so worth it, but I miss my shows.”

“Have you watched any of the entertainment here, though? I can’t get enough of this Gordon Ramsay fellow. I also don’t know how he transforms those kitchens overnight, either—”

“Imagine lifting all those ovens to get them in place, ugh.”

Finished with their coffee, the two guys leave the lounge. I follow them at a short distance, keeping track of the time.

They beep their keycards at another set of heavy doors. Cravat Guy sees me behind them and holds it open for me with a smile.

“Oh, thanks,” I mumble, stepping into an open, brightly lit factory-style floor.

“No problem,” he yawns. “The afternoons always seem longer, don’t they?”

“Yeah, especially after they serve chicken tikka at lunch,” I joke.

He laughs. “Right! I always say everything is so good I just want to take a nap. Maybe I’ll sneak one in at my break.”

I laugh at his joke and point finger guns at him, and he nods back at me.

“See you later, I gotta get back to it,” I say, waving brightly.

Everyone here is wearing a white lab coat, too, and is completely absorbed in their work. I quickly walk away, holding my clipboard confidently as I take it all in. I see huge vats of liquid, and rows and rows of glass bottles waiting to be filled, and the finished boxes of soap loaded and sealed into boxes, ready to be shipped.

But there are no machines.

The floor is filled with people, concentrating and chanting, their hands making gestures in synchrony. Vats of concentration are stirred and mixed, and I watch in fascination as the liquid stirs itself as five employees move their arms together in rhythmic circles.

Lines of mages cast more spells to fill the bottles, and I watch precise amounts of soap fly into the air and land in each bottle neatly as a cap levitates on and screws shut, and the finished bottle moves to join the others, ready for boxing.

It’s a production line of magic.

My heart pounds, and I pull out my phone, snapping pics and videos of the magical process.

“No recordings! That’s the very first policy in the employee handbook.”

I pocket my phone with a gulp. A woman in a severe bun wearing a navy gown approaches me with a disappointed smile. “I’m going to have to write you up,” she says. “Who is your supervisor?”

Heeled stilettos echo behind us. “Well, well. You are not where you’re supposed to be, little duckling.”

I whirl around.

Shannon Mayfield is standing there, giving me an appraising look.

My stomach sinks with dread with every step as we walk off the factory floor and take the elevators up to Shannon’s office on the top floor.

In the uncomfortable sleek modern chair, I can see Santa Monica laid out in front of me through the full glass wall: the downtown skyline, cars trekking down the Pacific Coast Highway, waves rolling peacefully toward the shore in a steady rhythm. I can even make out the Ferris wheel on the pier. Through a seamless screened window, a fresh ocean breeze flutters through. It’s a beautiful view, but I can’t enjoy it.

I’m probably going to get in major trouble for trespassing. And I’m definitely not winning that scholarship now.

I realize, in a huff of anger, that I don’t quite care.

Fields Forward isn’t a sustainable marvel at all. I’d looked up to Shannon Mayfield for being a leader in green energy. But she’s been using magic the whole time to make her products, and doing shady things to cover it up, including messing with people’s memories. And that’s not even counting what we don’t know about the Order and the Ritual and how that’s connected.

Shannon taps her fingers on her glass desk. There’s no computer, just a few personal effects: a fountain pen, monogrammed notepad, and a small potted orchid.

It’s clear to me my hero is just another greedy power-hungry phony after all.

“Brenda Nguyễn,” Shannon says, smiling at me. Her white teeth gleam. “You must have questions.” She draws a few gestures in the air, and a porcelain tea tray appears. “Tea?”

I take the cup warily. “Thanks.”

Shannon pours us both a cup, then takes a long sip of her own, her nails clacking against the delicate china. “Go on, duckling. It’s not poison,” she says, laughing at herself. “You’re not in trouble, by the way. I just want to learn more about you, and I’m sure you’re curious as well.” She pushes a plate of flower-shaped cookies toward me. “I did find your essay to be quite invigorating. Did you have a project in mind for your fellowship?”

“Storage capacity for solar-powered batteries, more efficient composters—” I narrow my eyes. “Wait, why do you support research for stuff you don’t even do? I saw your production line—it’s magic!”

Shannon’s smile grows wider. “You know, you’re not the first scholarship finalist to question how our tech works, but you are the first to sneak into the factory. I have to admire that initiative.” She tilts her head, curious. “Your reaction, however … you’ve seen magic before. You’ve been to the other side.”

“It was an accident. I just walked through a door, and I was somewhere completely different.”

Shannon sighs. “Unfortunately during this period of instability we’re unable to predict every portal that opens up or monitor them.” She shakes her head, and I wonder if she’s more talking to herself than to me. “Well, go on then.” She smiles, as if she’s indulging my questions.

“How long have you been…” I trail off, trying to keep the bitter edge of betrayal out of my voice. I’d looked up to Shannon for so long, and to learn that there is no genius technology feels like I’ve been robbed of a future dream somehow. “I don’t understand. Your vision, everything you talk about for a better future in all your interviews—is it all a lie? Do you just care about money?”

“Oh, honey, of course not,” Shannon says immediately. “It’s not about the money, although having more resources is necessary to my vision,” she says. “You know, whatever you might think of me now, I firmly believe my work has always been—and will be—making the world a better place.”

Something suddenly clicks for me from the books I’d been reading nonstop from Kat’s world. Mayfield. The Mayfield Breakthrough. The big advancement that allowed people to prepackage spells.

I jump forward on a hunch. “Why set up here if you have factories making spells everywhere in your world?”

Shannon raises her eyebrows. “You know, the Order does a good job guarding the Crossings, but occasionally people slip through the cracks. It’s our job to find them, and make sure they safely return to their world. You know firsthand how confusing it is, and how dangerous. The longest time someone from here has spent on the other side was almost six days before the Order caught up to them attempting to commandeer a radio station to send a message home.”

This isn’t really answering my question, but I’m polite, and Shannon clearly has a lot to say, so I wait for her to go on.

“How long were you there? And how did you get home?”

I bite my lip, deciding to share as little as possible to keep Kat safe. “Just an hour or so. I walked into a Target, and people were buying spells and I read about the Mayfield Breakthrough, and I was curious, so…”

Shannon laughs. “You know, I hadn’t considered letting any of the scholarship winners into the fold, but you are so bright, it could be really lovely to have that energy in the company.” She gives me a thoughtful look. “My great-grandfather Richard Mayfield was a genius,” she says slowly. “But impulsive, brash, foolhardy, like a child in a candy store. He thought he could do everything, take care of everyone.”

I nod, remembering the basics from that history book. He was part of the team with Kat’s ancestor who used his breakthrough to stop that evil mage from destroying Los Angeles, and now the Ritual is cast regularly to stop that from happening.

“Richard found the first portal in Los Angeles. He knew it was special before he truly understood it, and he created the Order of the Crossings to protect the portals’ power from those who would misuse it.”

“So your family has always known about the two worlds,” I infer. “And you figured out how to go back and forth to your benefit.”

“Not without significant work and research! Calculating the sun and moon’s zenith, where the ley lines cross, finding where time and place connect just so to predict those moments when worlds align—it’s an art,” Shannon says proudly.

“So what’s happening now? You couldn’t have predicted these portals just going rogue?”

Shannon gives me a calculating look. “As the mana surges increase, the portals always get a bit … unstable. The great city of Los Angeles anticipates this and, of course, addresses it with a complex and powerful spell called the Stabilization Ritual.”

I nod, pretending I’m learning about this for the first time. Some instinct tells me not to reveal how much I actually know about her world, and maybe if I play dumb she’ll go into a villain monologue and tell me everything.

“Once the Ritual is cast, everything smooths out again. It’s just part of the cycle.”

“So what is the point of Fields Forward? Why all the secrecy? Instead of ‘hey, I invented this new technology that no one will ever see,’ just say it’s magic.”

Shannon chuckles. “I was getting to that,” she says, taking another sip of tea. “You grew up in a world without magic. How do you think people would react, knowing it was real?”

“I don’t think it would be so bad, knowing about magic. People would be excited, eager to learn.”

“Perhaps,” Shannon says. “But is that worth the destruction, the conflict that would follow? Think about it. My family has been guarding this secret for over a hundred years, with good reason.”

I think about how magic can spark joy, the benefits it could have to health care and accessibility.

And then I think about the Lightning Bolt I cast, and what kind of power that would be in the hands of someone who might want to do harm.

“Did you have … world wars there?” I ask.

Shannon nods. “Absolutely devastating,” she says. “Imagine magic being wielded as a weapon. The atomic bomb your world created, but a thousand times over.”

My stomach feels as heavy as a stone.

“There was a time when mages had to conduct their business in secret, for fear of being used against their will. Having two distinct worlds was an opportunity for safety, and for the first time—the possibility of peace was real.” Shannon takes another delicate sip of her own tea, and gestures at the cookies again.

I thought I wasn’t hungry after that huge lunch, but my stomach betrays me, growling insistently for a snack. I take a careful bite; the cookie is crunchy and warm, sweet butter and sage in a perfect compact little bite.

“You asked me why my factories are here. Based on your essay, you’re somewhat of an expert on me and my company”—I blush at the statement—“so what do you think?” Shannon raises both her eyebrows at me.

“Fields Forward was started about ten years ago, and you’re internationally recognized … and your employees are from both your world and mine?”

Shannon smiles.

“So it’s a test run, of sorts. Getting some people used to the idea of magic, establishing yourself as a credible presence.”

“That’s right. I knew secrecy wasn’t going to be a long-term solution. As much as the Order can predict portals, these rising mana surges create disruptions. Pockets that go unmonitored, where people—and other dangerous things—can slip through without notice.”

“Like me. And the dragon.”

Shannon nods again. “Now, most of these occurrences in the past were rare enough that we could resolve it directly—we actually have a precedent with Loch Ness—but this week’s dragon seemed to go underground rather quickly.” She sighs. “No matter, we’ll find it soon.

“With each new Ritual, the stabilization effect on the mana surges seems to diminish, and the surges themselves are getting worse. Now imagine portals opening everywhere, and suddenly magic is exposed all at once. What do you think will happen?”

“Widespread chaos,” I say. “But that’s already happening. Conspiracy theories are running amok on the internet and it’s everywhere right now. Your Order couldn’t contain the dragon, and there’s pixies in parking lots, wyverns everywhere—that’s too many people out there for you to memory wipe!”

“This week has been quite intense,” Shannon says, demurring. “But we’re doing our best to contain the damage, and after the Ritual stabilizes everything again, I can see these events being clearly explained by your—our—scientists.” She regards me over her teacup. “But do you understand? We need more years of stability and the right approach, and the right person, to diplomatically make sure the transition is peaceful.”

“Like a First Contact.” I nod. “You’re a well-respected CEO and a technological prodigy, so if you presented it as a new type of technology—”

Shannon grins. “You’re brilliant, you know? Your application barely captures how sharp your mind actually is.”

My cheeks warm, and I feel hot all over, proud and basking in the compliment. “Thanks,” I mumble, staring at Shannon in a new light. Even though she didn’t invent any specific energy-efficient technology, she is actually doing really innovative things—with magic, but still doing them. And no carbon emissions is still no carbon emissions.

“I’m glad we had this chance to talk,” Shannon says. She smiles at me. “Now, I can’t actually say this officially, but … you should expect a letter awarding you the scholarship soon, and I expect to see much more of you this summer as you develop your research project.”

I should be elated, but I feel numb after learning the consequences of an actual magical reveal and what the Order is doing to prevent it right now. I take a sip of my tea, expecting to find it cold, but it’s the perfect temperature.

Magic. It’s a powerful tool. Introduced the right way, it could be an asset to help people, create accessibility. The Order, however shady they might be, are doing the right thing by guarding the portals to protect both worlds.

But there’s something that doesn’t quite make sense. The earthquakes and surges all seem to appear around the same time as a portal, like either during or right after.

“So this Ritual,” I start. “It’s meant to stop the mana surges? And these earthquakes that happen whenever a new portal opens?”

Shannon nods. “It stabilizes the connection between our worlds.”

Kat’s mom figured out something about the Ritual, and how it wasn’t working. Maybe it hasn’t been working this whole time. “So the Ritual is supposed to stop it all—the portals, the surges. But maybe the reason the portals keep opening is because the Ritual hasn’t been…”

Shannon stares at me, her eyes widening.

I realize too late that I was thinking out loud. This is definitely one of those times my ADHD is working against me. I just blurted out my observations to someone who is the Order, whose family founded it, who has everything to gain from the portals remaining open. A steady supply of money and supplies and employees, and money being made smuggling artifacts from one world to another.

And isn’t the whole point of smuggling that the items have to be rare?

The Order would have everything to gain from making sure the Ritual wasn’t completed properly. Maybe that’s why they keep having to repeat it all the time.

A chill runs down my spine. The Order must have something to do with Kat’s mom and how she died.

Shannon’s watched my face journey and her eyes flash with understanding. “You know, I remember why I don’t recruit from the scholarship finalists—you kids are too smart for your own good,” Shannon says with a disappointed flick of her fingers.

She pulls a sleek black case that looks like a tablet out of her blazer, except once she starts swiping symbols I realize it’s a runebook. She’s prepping some sort of complex spell.

I have to do something. But what? I shift, and my messenger bag clunks against me. I reach inside, trying to feel for anything useful—I haven’t cleaned out my bag since—

My fingers brush against the waxy surface of a candle, and I remember. The travel spell. Everything’s here, the map, the diagram, a bottle of salt water, bowls for everything.

I won’t be able to set everything up without Shannon knowing, but if I can cast a successful Shield spell with only my intention and no spell diagram or anything, I know I can do this. I have to get out of here and warn Kat.

I have to.

Shannon stands up, reaching for me as if going for a hug. She twitches her fingers, drawing runes, looking me in the eyes as her hands pause by the sides of my head. Warmth emanates from her palms, and I can’t move. “This won’t hurt, and soon you’ll be back on the bus with the other finalists, with only a memory of a wonderful day here,” she says. “But while I’m here, I’m going to go back and see what else you’ve seen. I get the feeling if you know so much about the Ritual it wasn’t just a one-time visit…”

I can feel her presence in my mind, and everything about it feels sharp and uncomfortable, and my whole body cringes as the touch of her magic shifts through my memories.

I’m trapped in her aura of magic, but I realize while my head is frozen, I can move everything else. My heart pounds as I shift in my bag and open the Ziploc of soil and uncap the bottle of salt water. I’ve got the map and diagram in my bag and hope it’s enough.

Shannon doesn’t notice, fully concentrating on my memories, her body holding still as she keeps her position with her hands close to my temples. She’s going back through today and flitting back through the week. Shannon frowns as she watches me cast the Shield spell at the nail salon parking lot, and keeps going back, the memories rewinding at the forefront of my mind.

I need to get out of here. I need to go somewhere safe. Please let this work.

I flick the lighter and a flame dances atop the stub. “Candle flame burning bright, draw”—I absolutely do not remember the rhyme, but I’ve got the intention and I aced the poetry unit in English, so—“magic and safety with your light!”

Shannon’s eyes flick toward the accoutrements on her desk, but she’s paused on the last memory I had of Kat—our kiss by the jacaranda trees.

Her eyes widen, and she gasps. “Wait—”

I’m in the middle of the spell and I can feel power swirling around me, and I’m not going to stop. “Salty oceans, winds of change, earth that’s soft and pure, take me to my destination, swift and sure!”

The room blurs and spins around me, but this time I’m prepared for the sensation, and I firm my stance.

I look up to see Erica on her bed, surrounded by books. Her eyes flash in alarm as she takes in my sudden appearance.

I exhale, breathing hard. I’m back at Erica’s bedroom where we first set up this spell.

I did it. I got out of there.

“Wow, did you just use that transport spell to get here?” Erica asks. “I bet that totally beat traffic getting back from your field trip. What time is your portal again?”

“6:15.” My heart is still pounding. “I just won my scholarship,” I say.

“Okay, why do you look so angry about it…”

I take a deep breath. “Because it’s for an evil magical corporation, and I have to warn Kat.”

34 ❤ KAT

This time the portal is barely half a second, so there’s a slight chance Brenda might miss it, but with no way to communicate between our worlds I can only wait and hope.

I tap my fingers on the counter. I’m nervous about dinner tonight; Dad was way too excited that I was bringing Brenda home, and he already left the shop to make dinner.

I watch the clock anxiously. Five. Four. Three. Two.

Brenda walks through the door, a relieved smile stretching across her face when she sees me.

I rush up to meet her, and she pulls me forward into a hug and presses her face into my neck.

“Hey,” I say softly, kissing her cheek. “I’m glad you’re here. Everything okay?”

“A lot has happened in the past few days,” Brenda says.

“You too, huh.” I smile as Brenda settles into my arms; she smells like the crisp scent of shampoo and pencil shavings.

“I’m scared,” she whispers. “What if using the portals to see each other is making everything worse?”

“The portals would be here whether we’re using them or not,” I say, stroking her hair. “Every few years it gets a bit intense because of where Los Angeles happens to be with both the intersection of ley lines and the San Andreas Fault. It’s normal.”

“I don’t think it is.” Brenda shakes her head. “The Order—they have factories in my world. Fields Forward, the tech company that I applied for a scholarship with? They’re from here.”

I take Brenda’s hand and guide her toward the counter so I can get her a coffee with Calm as she tells me about pixies and wyverns appearing in her world.

“So all these random scientists are on the news trying to explain what’s going on, with like cryptozoology or that we’re just seeing new species or something, and people are getting hurt…”

“Take a deep breath. Here.” I hand her a steaming cup.

“Thanks.” Brenda inhales deeply, then sips the brew, her face relaxing as she pauses. “I realized something important, too; you know how you said your mom figured something out? And that she died suspiciously, not like how everyone else who participated in the Ritual?”

“It’s the only explanation why they haven’t released her body,” I say. “Because it would be evidence—” I hadn’t wanted to think about it. But if something went wrong—if someone interfered, to make sure Mom didn’t do what she planned—

It would be murder.

My runebook chimes in my pocket.

Dinner’s ready! I wasn’t sure what she liked, so I made roast duck and fresh buns, and if she doesn’t eat meat, there’s braised tofu and bok choy and …

I feel embarrassed but pleased, and I close the message. “My dad is super excited you’re here,” I say. “I want to hear about everything, but we have to go, otherwise he’s going to cook like five more courses.” I gesture for her to follow me to the back.

“Okay,” Brenda says, a new touch of nervousness springing into her voice.

She watches in fascination as I press my hand to the door. “Anchored portal,” I explain, opening it to show my living room.

Brenda follows me through and shuts the door behind her, and then opens it again to reveal an overstuffed coat closet. “That’s too cool,” she says. “Is it anything like how we travel between our worlds? Could we set up one between your house and mine?”

“That would be amazing if we could,” I agree. “Okay, so dinner with my dad, and then there’s a new exhibit at the Chinese American Museum—do you want to do that? Or the street fair in the Arts District. There’s two portals you could take home late tonight in downtown, depending how late we’re out.”

“That sounds great,” Brenda says. “I love CAM! I used to volunteer there all the time, but I hardly ever get to go just as a guest. Can we do that?”

I nod. It’ll be nice to spend time with Brenda before I try Mom’s time travel spell. I’m nervous about what I’ll see, but I need answers.

“Hello!” Dad’s cheerful voice booms from the kitchen. “Welcome!”

“I apologize in advance,” I warn Brenda in a whisper. “He’s … a lot.”

Brenda chuckles as Dad bounds into the living room, the warm soft light from the late afternoon sun bouncing off his bald head. He’s covered in flour, as usual, and his apron is splotchy with stains, but he looks much happier than he has in weeks.

“You must be Brenda,” Dad says warmly. “I’m Sam Woo, Kat’s dad. No relation to the barbecue mogul, but I say my roast duck could give him a run for his money any day!”

Brenda laughs openly at the joke. “Well, if you ever need a judge, I’m happy to eat,” she says.

“Come, we’re in the kitchen, no formalities here,” he says, leading us past the dining table, where we had dinner yesterday with Shannon and Christopher, and into the kitchen.

It’s interesting—we almost always eat there when we have guests. I wonder if Dad thought it would be more cozy, or if he already thinks of Brenda as family.

All the kitchen windows are open, bright light filtering past herbs and happy green vines overflowing their planters, leaves flickering with appreciation for the light. I’d forgotten we even had windows in here.

On the bar is a veritable feast—roast duck, fresh steamed buns, basil eggplant, sautéed bok choy. A ceramic pot is bubbling away on the woodburning stove.

“Go ahead, sit down, help yourself, I’m just finishing up here,” Dad says, gesturing to the food.

I pull out a stool for Brenda and grab bowls and chopsticks for everyone.

“Everything smells amazing, Mr. Woo,” Brenda says appreciatively.

“Sam! None of this Mr. Woo nonsense,” Dad insists as he chops ginger and garlic to a fine mince, its fragrant, sharp scent cutting through the air.

He draws a rune in the air, and a wok appears out of nowhere and lands on the grate.

Brenda watches with interest. “Kat tells me you design all the custom brews for your coffeeshop, constantly coming up with new ways to make people feel better.”

“It’s my life’s work!” Dad beams at Brenda and laughs as he picks up the chopped ginger and garlic with his knife and deftly tosses it into the wok. He grabs a bunch of spring onions growing on the windowsill, chopping them into fine curls as he explains about his newest set of Pick-Me-Ups.

I can tell he’s having fun, and every so often he will look at me and smile when I jump in and tease him about his process.

Brenda gestures with interest at the wood-burning stove. “So what are you brewing there?”

“Oh, just the rest of dinner!” Dad says with a mischievous grin, lifting the lid of the pot to reveal the braised tofu.

Brenda pinks with embarrassment. “Oh, I thought it was magic. Not that food isn’t magical, um—”

He laughs. “You’re right, food is magical. A meal cooked with love can do wonders beyond any spell.” He takes a seat on the stool next to me and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I’m so happy to meet you; Kat’s never brought a date home before.”

My cheeks burn hot, and I busy myself serving everyone rice and pouring tea.

Brenda asks Dad more about potions and Pick-Me-Ups, which he’s too happy to indulge, explaining his passion. He scoops generous portions onto our plates, pleased when we devour succulent slices of roast duck in fresh buns with scallions and finish all the tofu.

I watch Dad with Brenda, and suddenly a pang of longing hits me so hard I can’t taste my food anymore.

Mom should be here. She should be right here teasing me along with Dad. She’d love Brenda’s sense of humor and admire her ideals and focus to make the world a better place.

“What other classes are you taking?” Dad asks.

“AP US History, and uh…” Brenda trails off, looking at me.

I blink. This could be a good time to tell Dad about Brenda and the two worlds; maybe he’d have ideas.

“Hah! A smart girl,” Dad says in approval. “Kat never took any APs, I know she’s not getting challenged enough in any of her courses.”

“Right. Not challenged enough.” I roll my eyes, the old bitterness returning. “Of course that’s why I’m getting Cs in almost everything.”

“I know you’re a smart girl, you just don’t apply yourself. But I’m happy to see you finish out the year in Advanced Spelling.”

“Thanks?” I say, raising my eyebrows.

“Kat works really hard,” Brenda says, jumping in. “She created this whole spell matrix for duplicating watermelon—”

“Pineapple,” I correct. “But you don’t have to—”

“No, it’s really cool, you said you anchored the spell to the sugar in the coffeeshop—”

Dad snorts, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “Oh, so that’s why I ruined three batches of pineapple buns before I discovered the sugar was basically useless.”

I realize that he’s not actually mad and let myself chuckle back at him. “Yeah, but if I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have gotten to use all those simple syrups you had stored. Remember you were complaining about having too many and how they were taking up space in the icebox?”

Dad squeezes my shoulder affectionately. “Well, in any case, I’m glad to see you putting that ingenuity toward actual schoolwork.”

Brenda smiles; I wonder if the conversation would have gone this way if she hadn’t been there, and I’m happy she is. It feels nice, to be supported like this. This is what it’s like, to have a relationship. To have a partner.

I sit up in my seat. My whole plan to investigate Mom’s research—I don’t have to do it alone. Brenda has been here the whole time, and she’s invested in what it means for our two worlds, how the mana surges affect us. She’s invested in me.

Brenda had figured out something earlier about the Ritual based on what she saw at that factory.

I can ask her to come.

Brenda takes her dishes to the sink and starts to wash, waving off Dad’s insistence for her to leave them. She looks good here, like she belongs in my home.

I love it.

I love …

I catch that train of thought before it settles into somewhere I’m not ready to think about.

Dad settles down in his chair and waggles his eyebrows at me. “You girls going out after dinner?”

“There’s a new exhibit at the Chinese American Museum,” I say.

“Sounds great.” He glances at the clock. “I promised Jordan I’d go close up since they wanted to take off early. Do you need money for the trolley? Snacks while you’re out?”

“I’m good, Dad.”

Brenda wipes her hands on a towel. “Thank you for dinner, everything was so delicious.”

“My pleasure,” Dad says. “Do you do hugs?” At her nod, he wraps her in a big embrace, squeezing her tight. “Come back anytime. I haven’t seen Kat smile this much in years.”

Brenda catches my eye as she beams, hugging him back.

Dad hugs me and kisses my forehead before he heads out.

“Your dad is so nice,” Brenda whispers.

“He’s a huge nerd,” I say. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Yeah, you say that now; wait until you meet my family.” Brenda laughs.

“I can’t wait.” I lean over to kiss her, and she melts into my arms.

We hold each other for a long moment, and I hear the clock chime. It’s eight o’clock. We should get going so we have time together before Brenda has to go home.

“I wanted to ask you,” I start, nerves jumping into my throat. “I know tonight is our date night, and I’m so happy we got to spend time with my dad, but also there’s something important I want to do. And I want to ask if you can help instead of going to the exhibit.”

Brenda looks up at me, her warm brown eyes soft with understanding. “Of course.”

I exhale, relieved and grateful. “Come on.”

“What are we doing exactly?” Brenda asks, following me upstairs.

“Time travel.”

As I expected, Brenda is full of questions. None of them are about why I need to go, or if there’s another way—she implicitly understands this is about Mom, the Ritual, everything.

“Is there anything I need to know, like don’t touch anything, be careful of butterflies?” Brenda asks, watching as I unpack the supplies I got from Uncle Chau’s.

“You can’t affect time,” I explain. “All time travel is just looking through a memory. It will happen in an instant, in our time—we’ll experience an hour in her memory, but physically we will be right where we cast the spell. Time will pick up right after.”

“Too cool,” Brenda says, impressed.

“It’s mostly done by historians or academics since the focus ingredients needed are very rare. Sometimes people save up to look back at special moments, but it’s such a huge expense. And the further back you go, the more power you’ll need.”

I carefully place the small glass vial with the phoenix feather into my pocket and zip it up carefully. “Mom had these ingredients charged in every lunar eclipse for the last fifteen years.”

Brenda whistles. “That’s intense. Not just any spell you can buy at Target.”

“Every time travel spell has to be customized depending on what kind of focus objects you have and where and when you’re going. The more imbued with emotion the object and the more connected they are to the memory keeper, the stronger the memory will be.”

Brenda squints at me. “So I can’t just be like, oh I want to watch the eruption of Pompeii, unless I have something that survived it?”

“Even if you had all the focus objects and you had an artifact from there, it might not be enough. Every anchor point makes it more accurate.” I wave the singular intact notebook page and the cheongsam as I pack them. “Like a journal entry with the date of the event, an outfit worn by the memory keeper”—and I tap myself on the nose—“and a direct descendant.”

Brenda raises her eyebrows. “We’re going to go back and see Jìngyi Woo’s memory? The one who pioneered the first Ritual that stops Los Angeles from, like, falling into the sea and stuff?”

“We don’t have enough phoenix feathers to go back that far, but that’s what my mom did. We can go back and see her memory, and it’ll be super crisp with how much power we do have.” I nod at the rest of the carefully wrapped glass jars in their crate. “We can’t teleport with these,” I say. “Can you help me carry them?”

Brenda empties out the contents of her bag onto the floor, and she examines each jar with interest before packing it carefully. “So, in this memory spell, are we going to see your mom?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah. We’re walking through her memory, and we’ll see not just her but everything she experienced.” I focus on finishing packing our bags with Mom’s research and her written matrix, and try not to think about it too hard. I want to see her again so badly, but I can’t imagine how much it will hurt getting to have this moment just to lose her all over again.

We need to do it, though.

I smile sadly at Brenda. “I don’t know what it’ll be like, seeing Mom again. I’m glad you’ll be there, in case I miss anything. I think Mom wrote this part for two because she wanted to prove what she saw to a colleague. I was going to do this alone, but I’m glad I’ll be with you.”

Brenda squeezes my hands, and then presses her forehead to mine. “Thanks for trusting me with this. I know it’s important,” she says softly.

“Thank you for coming with me.” I double-check the contents of our bags. Everything is set. “You ready?”

“Yes! Let’s time travel!” Brenda announces, laughing at herself. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

35 ❤ BRENDA

The humid night air wafts past us in the open streetcar as we trundle toward downtown and talk. Kat’s impressed that I managed a Shield spell, and disturbed about my narrow escape from a memory wipe.

“Why do you think the CEO at first just wanted you to have the scholarship, knowing about the two worlds?” Kat wonders.

“I think the Order must have a policy about who you can use as an asset,” I say. “I mean, not all of those employees were mages. The ones from my world had to be introduced to magic and agree to keep it quiet. I think her plan to slowly introduce magic to my world made sense, to avoid power getting into the wrong hands and another world war, but…”

Kat squeezes my hand.

“I knew too much about the Ritual,” I say quietly. “And I figured out something. Maybe the reason why you have to keep doing it over and over again isn’t just because Los Angeles is on a fault or whatever, but maybe the Order doesn’t want the Ritual completed properly at all.”

“Because stopping the mana surges means stopping the portals, and then they lose their entire operation.” Kat narrows her eyes, and I can feel her whole body tense next to me. “So if there was a prophecy, and the Chosen One volunteered to participate, they would absolutely want to sabotage that.”

A group of party-goers climb onto the trolley, singing rowdily to one another, so it’s too noisy to talk until we get to El Pueblo. The warm evening breeze flutters through hanging lanterns and colorful signs, and a live band performs in the center square. It feels so much like home, this heart of Los Angeles beating in tune to the El Pueblo I know, the historic cobblestone street surrounded by shops, museums, and restaurants. Even the Chinese American Museum looks the same. I want to spend hours here, reading and learning about our histories, see what about our worlds are the same and what else is different.

“Do we have time to check out the new exhibit?” I ask Kat.

“Yes, but we have to hide soon,” Kat says.

I’m almost certain this is the same collaboration with the California African American Museum on the Civil Rights Movement and how our communities organized together in solidarity. I want to see what else in the museum is the same, and I show Kat my favorite part, the re-creation of an herb shop with wall-to-ceiling drawers all carefully labeled.

My messenger bag is heavy, reminding me of our mission tonight. It’s a bit thrilling, breaking the rules to sneak in and cast this spell. I giggle as I follow Kat behind a huge freestanding mural in front of a wall; I thought there’d be more subterfuge, or at least some sort of disguise spell, but with the small staff of the museum and the late hour, no one even comes near our hiding place.

Once all the cleaning staff leave and the lights are off, Kat beckons me upstairs. “Mom’s notes said she figured the easternmost room would be most accurate to the location.”

We spread the spell diagram on the floor and arrange the ingredients and the cheongsam on their respective runes. I hold my breath as Kat carefully tips the phoenix feather out of its small vial into my hand. It’s warm, fluttering quietly as if touched by a breeze, pulsing with energy. I place the feather in the central anchor mark, and it glows faintly, waiting.

“Do we need to say anything?” I ask.

Kat shakes her head. “No, unlike spells where the primary catalyst is a spoken incantation, this one is all in the body, in the heart. You take your intention and offer it to the universe, and the framework is there to guide it back to your ancestors. Stand here.” She hands me a glass bottle; the contents are a stormy, swirling gray, shimmering with intent. “Think about my mom and what she discovered. That’s the energy we need to bring to get us to the right memory. I’ll be concentrating on that at the same time.”

I bite my lip. “What if I mess it up?”

“I trust you,” Kat says softly. “I know you won’t. Even if your most basic intention is ‘I want to help,’ that will be enough.”

“Okay,” I exhale nervously. “I would trust you to do the same, too, you know.”

I wish I could hug her, but with the anchors in place—the spell has technically already started and leaving the diagram now would be dangerous, especially with a spell of this magnitude.

“Ready?” Kat opens her bottle. “Drink all of it on three, okay?”

I uncork mine and nod.

“One. Two. Three.”

I tip my bottle back. The potion is thick and viscous, sharp with the pungency of bitter herbs, and coats my throat with an uncomfortable awareness. With every swallow I feel the resting energy around me awaken, stirring with power, and the spell diagram starts to glow.

I swallow the last mouthful as Kat does, the anticipation rumbling like thunder in my ears, and I can feel that sense of power rushing all around us, rising to meet the question we’re asking. The phoenix feather bursts into flame, and everything gleams impossibly bright for what seems like an eternity and also a split second.

All the displays are gone. The placards and the curated artifacts about Chinese immigration and settlement in Los Angeles, the rotating gallery of art have disappeared—there’s only the adobe walls of a dark, dingy hallway.

“This is so cool,” I whisper, looking out the window.

We’re still in El Pueblo, or as it was back in 1909. The streets are crowded with people and carriages and horses; no spell-drawn carriages yet, and no street trolleys. The buildings around us are a combination of bright red brick or warm adobe around a central circle filled with carts and people selling produce and other wares. The beautiful gazebo where all the El Pueblo festivals and events are held won’t be built for many years; there’s only dirt and dust and donkeys braying at each other.

I turn back to the room; now that my eyes have adjusted I can see there are two figures other than Kat here. Kat is frozen, staring at her mother.

Victoria Woo’s soft features are narrowed in focus as she scribbles furiously in a notebook, taking everything in. Kat reaches for her, but her arms pass right through her mother, her eyes welling up with tears.

I take Kat’s hand instead, guiding her toward me. Everything in the memory feels like walking through water, but Kat is warm and solid. We’re both here, anchored to the present.

“Your mom is beautiful,” I say. “You both have the same energy, how you figure out a problem and want to do what’s right.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” Kat sighs. “I would have just watched her the whole time…” She trails off, lost in memory.

In front of Kat’s mom is a tall woman in the green peony-patterned cheongsam we’d placed on the diagram. This must be Jìngyi. She turns around, and I gasp.

“She looks so much like you,” I say.

“Yeah, I know,” Kat says with a small smile, eyes only on her mom.

“No, look,” I say, gesturing toward her ancestor.

Kat’s features are magnified in Jìngyi—her chin, her eyebrows, the same wide nose and calculating expression.

“Did I go back too far? No, I was focusing on the right date. But I didn’t specify a time, so … I’m probably too early.” Kat’s mom groans. “If I missed the first Ritual by a few hours, that’ll set me back weeks. I have one more phoenix feather, but…” Both Woos tilt their heads the same way when they’re trying to solve a problem. It’s very cute.

Jìngyi smooths her skirts, looking around her for something.

I back up to the doorway, trying to get a good view of the room.

“If Mom was trying to watch the first Ritual, why did she come here?” Kat asks. “The first Ritual and every one since is held at the Central Library, almost two miles away…”

I pull out my own bullet journal from my bag, grateful I slipped it back in with the spell anchors just in case. I start taking my own notes vigorously, on everything I see, what Kat’s saying, what her mom is saying.

Jìngyi walks right through me. I exhale in shock, but I only feel a slight warmth as she rushes down the hallway, clutching her skirts, her boots clacking against the polished wooden floors. “Clara!” Jìngyi calls out, her voice desperate and seeking.

Kat gasps in surprise. “This must be the day she confronted Clarabelle Marin.”

“Evil bogeyman mage, right.” I nod with interest. I’d read the entire book about her, but it’s one thing to read about a world-breaking spell and another thing to witness it firsthand. Or secondhand.

The world around us is losing color, the details of the hallway seeming to fade away toward a murky blackness.

“Come on,” Kat says. “We have to stick with my mom, otherwise we won’t be able to see anything.”

We follow them down the hallway and up a flight of stairs. It feels much darker with the wooden hewn walls instead of bright electric museum lights shining on colorful walls. Moving in a memory is hard, like trying to walk underwater, but it gets easier as I climb, Kat right next to me.

“Clara!” Jìngyi’s voice calls out, her voice full of fear.

Strange, shouldn’t she be angry upon learning what Clarabelle Marin was up to? I know they were colleagues, they’d worked together, developing many of the magetech technologies used today in Kat’s world. The betrayal must have been wrenching.

Jìngyi grabs a double set of doors and flings them open. “Clara,” she says quietly, her voice trembling barely above a whisper. She seems frozen, unable to move as she stares into the room.

“What is happening? Is it the Ritual?” I ask, approaching the doors.

“Not yet—it doesn’t happen here, anyway. Mom cast the spell just as we did, probably focusing on the date of the first Ritual, but she must have been thinking of something else, like a question that this memory is supposed to answer.”

Kat’s mom enters the doorway, her mouth falling open in shock. She gathers herself quickly, writing in her notebook so rapidly I almost want to pull Kat back so she doesn’t get elbowed.

What was the question? And why did it send her back a few hours before the first Ritual, if that was what she wanted to see?

I walk through the door, nervous and terrified.

The room is both makeshift workshop and living space, and if I could smell here, I bet it would stink. Flies buzz around rotten fruit on a table and a full chamber pot, tangled sheets and clothes clutter the corners, and stubs of melted candles litter the room. Chalk is dusted over all the walls, like the mage was trying to solve a problem over and over again. It feels like the space of a genius at work whose life is falling apart.

What little furniture is in the room has all been pushed to the corners to clear a working space in the center, for huge pieces of paper scrawled with various spell diagrams. Parchment and drawings are everywhere, notes scribbled, everything in chaos and fluttering with the energy flowing through the room.

In the center of all the cramped chaos is Clarabelle Marin.

She looks young, her round face set with determination as she finishes a runestroke in an elaborate chalk diagram on a piece of paper. Even with bags under her eyes and her face drawn like she hasn’t slept for several days, she has the look of a pretty Regency romance heroine—soft curling brown hair, big doe eyes, a small cupid-bow mouth. The books portray her as this controlling hawk of a woman, radiating coldness and power, but she barely looks older than me. I remember vaguely that she was in her midtwenties, but I’d been picturing someone much older.

“That’s the bogeyman? She looks like a hot librarian,” I blurt out.

Kat raises her eyebrow at me.

I shrug. “Come on, you don’t think she’s hot? I mean, I would have said Jìngyi was hot, too, but she’s your ancestor and that would be weird.” There’s something about her soft face that feels familiar, too, like I’ve seen her somewhere else.

Kat snorts. “Come on, we’ve only got a limited amount of time.” She starts examining the spell diagram.

“No replays in memories, I guess?”

“Not unless you wanna spend another fifteen years charging those focus objects or waiting for another phoenix to rise.” Kat almost runs into her mom as they both circle the room, reading everything they can.

“Do you understand what all of this is?”

Kat shakes her head. “The runes Clarabelle’s using are precursor runes; no one uses these anymore. If I had months to study and translate this matrix, I could probably figure out…” She trails off, lost in thought.

“What are you doing here?” Clarabelle gasps.

“Clara,” Jìngyi says again, her voice soft and tender as she draws the other woman into an embrace. “My Clara, I’ve been looking for you for weeks,” she says, sighing. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding in this squalor, working on this in secret.”

Suddenly it hits me. The black-and-white photo in Kat’s house. Jìngyi and her partner, whom history forgot. “They love each other,” I breathe, heavy with realization.

The entire room shudders.

We all brace ourselves—me, Kat, and her mom—but we don’t feel the impact of the earthquake. The contents of the room shake, and a few books and candles topple over.

Clarabelle groans as she reaches to right the candles. “No, no, it can’t be starting already!”

Kat’s mouth falls open with comprehension. “The disaster everyone thought the Ritual was stopping, the Great Earthquake of 1909—”

“It was already in progress,” she and her mom say at the same time.

“So Clarabelle wasn’t the disaster,” I say. “She was trying to stop it.”

36 ❤ KAT

Brenda elbows me, smiling as she gestures to the two women. Jìngyi has her forehead pressed to Clara’s, holding her close, her hand stroking the small of Clara’s back. Clara’s eyes are closed, and she’s breathing steadily, like Jìngyi is grounding her.

“They’re in love,” Brenda says wistfully. “That’s beautiful.”

“I always wondered who she was, in the photo,” I say quietly. “Jìngyi didn’t leave any personal journals, so we never knew.” Everything we’ve always talked about was her legacy, her research, her contribution to keeping our city safe. I didn’t give much thought to her as a person who lived, who loved.

Clarabelle presses her face into Jìngyi’s neck. “Jìngjìng,” she whispers, my ancestor’s nickname falling from her lips with deep affection as they hold each other like a second chance. “You shouldn’t have come. My letter—”

“Your letter was full of self-sacrificial noble goodbyes.” Jìngyi sniffs. “I knew you’d been planning something, but there must be another way to stop Richard Mayfield. You don’t have to do this alone!”

Brenda gasps.

“What does Richard Mayfield have to do with this?” I wonder. “The breakthrough happened around now, but that can’t be it.”

I watch Mom’s eyebrows knit together as she puzzles this fact as well, but she doesn’t say anything. She studies the chalkboards, and I stand next to her, reading as quickly as I can, but I get distracted when I realize I’m as tall as she is now.

Clarabelle laughs, but there’s no mirth in it. “I’d brave this a thousand times over alone if it meant you were safe.”

Jìngyi smiles, soft and gentle, and she strokes Clarabelle’s cheek before her voice goes stern again. “You can’t do this—I couldn’t bear it if you—”

“That is why I had to say goodbye; I couldn’t get you tangled up in this. They’re going to put you on the council, you know Richard has them all in his pocket—”

“There has to be another way. The council will listen to reason, and the mayor understands my concerns about Richard’s factory…”

Brenda is writing in her notebook, eyes wide as she takes it in. I’m still processing that my ancestor and the fabled villain of our time were in love. And that she wasn’t the villain we were taught she was in the first place.

I pace around the room as the lovers embrace, reading Clarabelle’s research. She’s working with deep cataclysmic forces of the earth, which makes sense given what Clarabelle is famous for—but I realize quickly this is not at all what I expected.

“She’s trying to stop the earthquake? Or Mayfield? Both?” Brenda brainstorms. “Is there anything in the spell?”

Mom gasps. “This spell isn’t about absorbing power—”

“It’s about channeling it,” I say, with new understanding.

Mom nods, and for a moment I forget that she can’t see or hear me, and it feels just like before, us working together to solve a problem, perfectly in tune. She traces a section of parchment that’s been scribbled over multiple times. “It looks like she was trying to figure out the storage issue.”

“Some of this looks familiar from the history book,” Brenda says.

“It’s what the Mayfield Breakthrough tackled—how to cast spells without an energy cost to the mage,” I explain, studying her work.

Mom glances at her watch, the familiar motion sending a cascade of memories through me: Mom laughing and letting me know she’d work for only five more minutes and then come play with me, her teasing Dad about being late. How much of my life was measured in those warm glances she would save for us?

I make a fist, clenching my fingers together. The Order took Mom from me. And for what?

Jìngyi kisses Clara, and she makes a noise of desperate anguish, kissing her fiercely back as if she were about to disappear. The kiss seems full of pain and love, of acknowledgment of what they feel for each other, and a dreadful solemnity that it may likely be the last.

Clara pulls away, her eyes shining as tears start to fall. “It’s too late. Richard’s been planning this ever since he got that prediction for the earthquake, the epicenter is right next to his factory, it’s perfect for his experiment.” She starts bustling around the room, gathering things in determination. “Those poor souls working there—there are some novices as young as twelve! They have no idea what he’s asking of them, the sheer force of power he’s making them a conduit for. Over three hundred workers, Jìngjìng, I have to do something.”

“Let me help you! I was so worried, please, love, let me—” Jìngyi starts gathering pieces of parchment, reading through the draft on the chalkboard and Clarabelle’s notes so quickly it makes my head spin.

Mom has her thinking face on, the one I was so used to seeing when she worked on problems. Her eyes widen with realization. “If the Ritual is happening soon, that must mean…”

The earth trembles again.

Jìngyi gasps and drops the piece of paper she’s holding, staring at her lover with new understanding. “This can’t be it. Let me help, why are you always—”

Clarabelle shakes her head. “There is no helping, Jìngjìng. This is the only way.” She sighs. “This is why I left. I knew you would stop me.”

“Clara, you can’t take all this power into yourself, it’ll destroy you—”

Jìngyi points to the parchment, finger shaking with anger. “You promised me you would never use that technique again.”

“It’s the only way to save them.”

“Please, Clara—”

“I have to stop him. This technique of Richard’s—you know people with means are going to use it to take advantage of people without. If this factory is a success, it’ll change everything.”

I swallow hard, and across the room Mom nods in grim agreement. We’ve seen it happen, overworked mages who spend their lives perfecting one spell and using all their energy for the benefit of others.

“I don’t like it, either; I can’t imagine asking someone else to pay the cost of my spellwork.” Jìngyi shudders.

“Exactly. It would lead to a major imbalance in the world.”

“I know,” Jìngyi says. “Especially—” She glances out the window. “With Richard’s technique, I’m afraid people will not be afraid to use others, and mages without so much as two coins to rub together will happily give up their life force to bottle these spells…”

I listen to them voice their fears over events that have already happened. My heart feels heavy, that this—all this in the past—is still affecting us today.

Jìngyi reaches for Clarabelle’s hands and holds them. “My love, you don’t have to do this. Come home with me, and we’ll bring our findings to the council, let them know what Richard has planned for the earthquake tomorrow, and he’ll face consequences—”

Clarabelle shakes her head. “Richard reported to the council that Yazmin’s prediction was for tomorrow, but it’s actually tonight. You know she gets into these fugue states when she makes prophecies, and she didn’t remember. But I was there. I didn’t realize the significance of the date then, but I do now. He’s going to use the quake to power his factory, and I have to stop him.”

Clarabelle stuffs a jar of glowing stones into her bag, latches it shut with conviction, and walks around Jìngyi toward the door. “I calculated the energy from a quake of this magnitude, and even if Richard had three hundred thousand spells ready to be bottled, that wouldn’t be enough to store all this energy.”

Clarabelle hesitates in the doorway. It’s funny, how their positions were reversed when we first got here. Jìngyi frozen in shock in the doorway, trying to understand Clarabelle’s intentions in the center of the diagram. Now Jìngyi is in the diagram, comprehension and horror on her face, and Clarabelle set and resolute in her path.

Clarabelle’s voice is quiet, steady. “It will need to go somewhere, and it could make the earthquake a hundred times more powerful, and … I don’t even know how much that raw power could do. There’s an evacuation order for the earthquake already, but there’s still too many people here. You have to leave the city, Jìngjìng, there’s still time…”

Somewhere outside, a clock begins to chime.

Jìngyi’s eyes brim with tears. “When you—when you channeled that flood last year, I know you were doing it to protect those who lived on the riverbanks, but that was five years of your life. This could be—this could be everything. All the years you have left.”

“I’m going to do it. I’m going to take it so he can’t. And these factories will never become a reality.”

“No!” Jìngyi reaches for her.

Clarabelle shakes her head, draws a rune, speaks the release word, and disappears.

The clock chimes again.

The earth begins to convulse furiously now, unlike the quick warning shakes before.

It’s happening. The Great Earthquake of 1909 has officially begun.

37 ❤ BRENDA

“Did she just teleport? Where’d she go?” I look at Kat in alarm. Everything is shaking, and it’s disorienting, even though I know we aren’t being affected by it.

“I don’t know—Jìngyi is figuring it out,” Kat says.

Outside, horses neigh frantically and people shout and run for cover.

Jìngyi closes her eyes, drawing runes in the air in rapid succession as she reads the glowing responses. It only takes a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity.

Another tremble pulses through us, this one stronger. Books tumble off the desk, knocking scrolls and papers out of the way. Jìngyi loses her footing, but she finally gets the information she needs and draws her own teleportation spell.

I feel dizzy as the memory follows Kat’s mom and Jìngyi to her new location. The pueblo building melts around us to reveal high tiled ceilings and tall bookcases. Outside, across the street, is a massive building. The factory, I assume. Los Angeles in this time is lit by the soft glow of lanterns and candles, but there’s an unnatural white glow coming from the sheath of thick windows gracing the length of the factory, beaming out.

All around us are the quiet whispering pages of books—and something else, something ominous and present that I can feel through the memory.

Kat shudders. “There’s mana everywhere. Raw mana, like during a surge. But it feels different. It feels angry, like it’s been disturbed.”

“The Ritual is always cast at the Central Library?” I ask aloud.

Kat nods.

This must be one of the older buildings. There’s no time to sightsee as Jìngyi bursts into a run, and the memory goes murky as we all try to keep up.

“No!” Jìngyi screams, dashing toward a forbidding glow at the center of the darkened room.

Victoria catches her breath, and I can see tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

I don’t have to understand complex spellwork to know it’s too late to stop what has started.

Victoria places a gentle hand on Jìngyi’s shoulder. The comforting gesture isn’t felt by her ancestor, whose anguished face concentrates on the tableau in front of her.

Clarabelle is floating above the floor, her eyes closed, body shaking with the movement of mana. Runes have taken on a life of their own above the now inert diagram, pulsing in a torrential storm around her, glowing fiercely blue, like the heart of a fire.

Clarabelle’s face is contorted with pain, arms outstretched as she struggles with the energy flowing through her. The spell has lifted her completely off the floor, her boots barely scraping the central rune glowing with power. Her dress seems entirely electrified, every thread pulsing as her skirts billow around her. There is no light in the library except the sheer power and potential here in the circle.

Three figures approach behind us. I guess they’re the mages who became the cornerstones for the first Stabilization Ritual. I only recognize Yazmin Choudhury, a famous prophetic mage of the era from my recent readings.

“We couldn’t stop Richard,” a man with a goatee says. “What’s Clara doing—”

Jìngyi sobs out the words. “It’s too late, she’s going to channel the earthquake’s energy instead, but it’ll kill her—”

Yazmin interrupts with a steady, resolute voice. “The instability of Richard’s spell, the power released by this earthquake—it’s catastrophic. It will tear the city apart.”

The other mage, a short man with an elegant turban, nods in agreement. “Clarabelle’s spell is brilliant, and she redirected the mana flow away from the factory workers, but it still needs to go somewhere.” His gaze grows heavy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize at the time she was planning to channel it herself—I thought the earth would be a better conduit.”

“You knew it would kill her! Clarabelle told you what she was working on and you hid this from me!” Jìngyi cries, her voice racked with betrayal.

Yazmin’s voice goes cold. “We did what was right. You would have been too sentimental about this.” She looks at Clarabelle, whose unseeing, glowing eyes are trapped in the moment. “I saw so many versions happen, but they all…” She shakes her head. “Our world will break into two. Lives will be lost in this disaster, not just those in the factory. None of us will survive this, and our descendants will carry this burden—”

Jìngyi turns back to her colleagues, tears shining on her face. “I won’t let it happen.” Something hard sets in her jaw; she’s made a decision.

Jìngyi steps forward, shaking off her friends’ attempts to stop her. She takes a skein of floating runes in her hands, her skin searing with the touch as she handles it like a rope. Jìngyi’s body starts to glow, too, her skin emanating with blue intensity, luminescence shining out of her eyes as she reweaves it behind her.

“What is she doing?” I ask Kat. I’m horrified, helpless to watch this woman try to save the one she loves, trying to save—everyone.

“She’s reworking the spell matrix,” Kat whispers in awe. “I’ve never seen that done with anything as complicated as this as it was cast.”

“Magic is about intention,” I repeat, one of the first things Kat said to me.

Kat’s mom is staring thunderstruck as well, and I gulp, trying to grasp the enormity of this moment.

“I love you,” Jìngyi says to Clarabelle. “I won’t lose you.”

Outside the circle, the other three mages deliberate anxiously, but their voices are getting dimmer and dimmer.

“What if we redirected it, to release over time?” Yazmin grabs a sheaf of parchment out of otherspace and pulls it out. “Starting here. Anwar, let’s use your time-release spell, do you think this should be open-ended or should we set it…”

Anwar takes out his own research and they all get to work. Kat and her mom watch with interest; this must be the answer to what she was looking for this whole time, but as the men start to set down glowing gemstones and draw rapid runes in chalk around the circle, it all starts to fade away.

It’s a memory of a memory, and if Jìngyi can’t hear or see them, neither can we.

Jìngyi is floating now, too, as she reaches Clarabelle and presses her forehead to hers. Clarabelle’s eyes focus as she sees Jìngyi in front of her. There’s nothing visible outside the circle, only the glowing energy flowing all around us, looking to answer the question that has been asked. The angry, vengeful power I felt entering the library has now shifted to something else, no less powerful, but taking on what these two women feel for each other.

And I can feel it, too—I don’t know if it’s the memory, or what Victoria is feeling, or her interpretation—but it courses through me, real as anything—Jìngyi’s fear, her determination, her stubbornness, and most of all, her love. For Clara, for the helpless workers trapped in the factory, the innocent civilians in the city who are at the mercy of this earthquake, for her colleagues rushing to support her.

“I love you, come back to me.”

“You need to let me go,” Clarabelle says. “I’m barely holding on to this as it is. The world—the world is breaking, and I can’t stop it. I’m giving it all I can.”

“I know you are,” Jìngyi says. “But I won’t—I refuse to lose you.”

Everything I can barely hear from the mages outside and what I know of history confirms it’s too late. It’s just damage control now. What Richard did to the earthquake has already run its course, and the leftover energy is what Clarabelle is trying to channel now, so the world doesn’t …

I gasp in understanding. My world. Kat’s world. Two halves of a whole.

“The world, or me?” Clarabelle asks softly.

“We’re both here now, and Yazmin and Anwar and Gregory are anchoring us outside. We can do this together.”

“There’s only so much you can modify, and you know that.” Clarabelle gives her a sad smile.

“Don’t ask me to choose,” Jìngyi says softly.

“I know you, Jìngjìng. You love every sunrise and sunset, you see the potential in every student, you see hope in everything. But you’re here now. You must understand what is possible, being here in this spell.”

I gulp. I know what it feels like, when you invite the energy of the universe into you. The spell can only run its course now.

“Richard didn’t know what he was doing when he tapped into the earthquake’s power for his factory. I understand the price now. The world is going to break, but the energy—that’s where it’ll all go, not the earthquake, which will be significant, but not the terrible calamity Yaz predicted, and you—you and everyone in Los Angeles will go on. The world will break, and I am going to die.”

Jìngyi takes her hands and squeezes. “I won’t let go,” she says with every fiber of her being, so much that I can feel it more than a hundred years later. “I love you, and I will not be without you. The world is not meant to break. The world can’t be whole without you. I can’t be whole without you.”

This must somehow be the question the mana had been waiting for, and the entire spell diagram flares incandescent now with the answer. I have to shut my eyes, and even then I can see the raw mana flowing in the air, flowing through Jìngyi and Clarabelle, and through the memory walkers—Victoria, Kat, and myself—standing next to them, past and present colliding all at once.

The earth shakes again, and I know we aren’t here, but I reach for Kat anyway to hold her hand, to steady her. She’s crying, tears falling from her face as she watches this impossible thing happen in front of us, and we can’t do anything about it.

As sudden as it started, it stops. When the light fades, we’re back in the museum. But the memory isn’t over. Kat’s mom is still standing in front of us, her eyes brimming with tears as she clutches her notebook.

“We had it wrong the whole time,” she cries. “The Ritual we know isn’t working to stop the mana surges, because that’s not … what it does,” Victoria says slowly.

I nod, making rapid notes as I analyze what we saw. “Clarabelle redirected the earthquake’s energy meant for the factory and channeled it to split the worlds into two instead. But it didn’t seem like her plan to make all the magic end up on one side, huh?”

Kat’s mom’s eyes widen. “So who would benefit from having all the power concentrated in one world and keeping it that way…”

The floor creaks; someone’s stepped into the space. They must be right behind me, because Victoria’s eyes lock with mine.

For a second, Victoria’s face goes slack and ashen with betrayal as a new realization forms, but we’re not privy to her thoughts. It’s just a split second, because she nods at the newcomer. I recognize the same way Kat sets her jaw, the same glimmer of stubbornness in her eyes. There’s something else, something like determination written all over her face. “Is it time, then?” Victoria asks. “Let’s go. I know what we need to do to end this.”

I turn around, but there’s nothing behind me except for the civil rights exhibit. The memory is over. It’s just Kat and I standing in the center of the spell diagram. The jars of focus ingredients are all dust and ashes.

Kat grimaces. “If we had one more second we would have seen who it was! Whoever told her it was time for the Ritual that day—that’s who Mom suspected most of tampering with it.”

“Someone she knew,” I muse.

“I wonder if it was someone on the council,” Kat says darkly. She collapses on the floor, ducking her head and cradling it in her hands. “I hate this. All this work, and we didn’t get anything useful.”

I shake my head with conviction. “That’s not true! We have everything we need, and your mom figured it out, too—she had a plan. And even if she didn’t get to carry it out, we can.”

Kat looks up and stares ahead into the night.

I open my notebook to a blank page, my heart pounding fast, my pen twitching like it’s final exams and I’ve just got the world’s most intense essay prompt.

I can do this. We’ve got all the puzzle pieces right here.

I start with making sense of what we learned, beginning with the sequence of events and the goals of each mage in their work.

  1. Clarabelle’s spell breaks the world into two to save tons of people

  2. Jìngyi joins the spell, and the two worlds stay connected (portals?)

  3. Yazmin et al. stabilize this with time-release (mana surges and earthquakes that happen over the years)

  4. Most of the mana happens to be in Kat’s world? Mana still comes through portals

  5. Shannon Mayfield said her ancestor “found” the first portal—so Richard took advantage of this to control it

  6. He is credited with “working with” Jìngyi to create the Stabilization Ritual to “stop” Clarabelle

  7. This spell he made must use a version of what Yazmin et al. did, but WHAT IF the mana surges are just that energy trying to release? The worlds coming back together?

  8. When the Ritual is recast, it prevents that epic earthquake, by releasing some energy and keeping portals open

  9. The Order wants to keep Ritual being cast perpetually so they always are in power and can keep making money

10. Prophecy about the Ritual ending forever when a Woo participates

11. Victoria Woo time travels and learns the original spell

“It makes total sense,” I say, nodding as I review my notes. “Our two worlds were originally one—which explains why there’s so much mythology about magic in mine. And there is mana in my world, but only around the portals or during the surges. And I can cast spells, and my friends—it isn’t a matter of who is magical or not, it’s not like anyone has a special gift—”

“It’s the energy source. All the mana is in my world.” Kat gets up and packs up the inert ingredients listlessly, shoving everything into our bags. “I wonder if the Ritual actually brings our worlds close together just enough so the one with too much mana can release some into the other world.” She holds the cheongsam, fiddling with the embroidery on the collar. “You know, Jìngyi and Gregory Sutheim’s bodies were found, but the other three mages weren’t. People always assumed they were injured during the quake, but I wonder if they were the first people to go over to your world.”

“Maybe it was random,” I think aloud. “We’re not parallel worlds—the populations must have just shifted when it split.”

“The worlds are still connected because of their love,” Kat considers. “Clarabelle went to your world, and Jìngyi was left in mine.” She stands and pulls up something on her runebook. The schedule of portals. “That’s it, then,” she says shakily. “Now we know what happened, and it didn’t work.” Grief and bitterness seep into her voice. “All they did was delay the inevitable. Maybe Clarabelle should have just let that original spell run its course, maybe then we wouldn’t be trapped in this endless and hopeless cycle!” Kat throws up her hands and huffs. “Come on. You want to take the 11:14 portal or the 2:00 A.M. one home? Either way we have to get to the Arts District.”

“It did work,” I say, crossing my arms. I feel like I know Jìngyi and Clarabelle now, having felt their fears and hopes and desperation flow through me in the memory. They loved and they lived, and they died that day. “They saved the city from being obliterated, they saved those workers in that factory, and it sounds like Richard’s spell would have broken the world anyway—”

Color starts in Kat’s cheeks as her voice quickens. “What they both were afraid of, it did happen—people in power taking advantage of others. The magic, the convenience of it. Someone has paid the price. All magic has a cost. If you don’t pay it … The spelltech factories, they all started with that breakthrough. Jìngyi and Clarabelle didn’t know how far it would go, how people don’t use magic on their own anymore and—it’s just made everything worse.”

I think about the feeling of the weight of the world surrounding me, all that power, waiting for me to do something with it. I can imagine that energy with nowhere to go … would build up. Like a dam waiting to break.

Ideas start churning inside me; getting in the zone like this is what I’m meant to do, problem-solve and help people. I feel confident. Even if I’m not an academic genius mage, I know I’m good at this and I can figure out the solution.

Kat’s mom must have decided to do what Jìngyi did, rewrite the spell to change the intention. Kat said she was trying to rewrite the framework, but she got summoned to the Ritual right after this memory.

What if she told whoever she saw last about her plan? And they made sure it didn’t happen.

But we can do that now. If we participate in the Ritual and use the original intention of love and protecting people and connection—we can make the world whole again. And the original energy has been released over time, so we’ll have to face whatever’s left, but at least the world will have an opportunity to heal. And the mana surges will stop.

Kat’s waiting for me by the stairs. I shoulder the other messenger bag, tuck my notebook into my pocket, and catch up to her, breathless.

“That’s it,” I say. “I know how we can fix everything.”

Kat stares at me, her mouth falling open in shock. I must have been half writing, half talking as I brainstormed, so it probably doesn’t all make sense, but I can explain it.

“What are you talking about?” Kat asks as we exit the museum. “You’ve just been muttering nonsense about history, events that we can’t change. You haven’t even answered my question—we have to get going in order to catch the streetcar. Which portal do you want to take home?”

I look over the schedule open on Kat’s runebook and tap the one on May 22. “This is the day the Ritual is scheduled,” I say.

Kat raises her eyebrow. “So?”

I grin at her, full of determination. “Let’s fulfill that prophecy.”

38 ❤ KAT

Brenda’s eyes gleam at me, and I can’t believe what she’s saying. She’s been lost in her own world with her journal since we stepped out of the memory, and I don’t get it. Everything feels even more hopeless. I put so much faith into seeing this through for my mom, that this memory-walk would give me all the answers I needed and I could then hand that info over to the authorities or whatever. But instead I feel hollow and drained.

“You want me to do the Ritual,” I say flatly. “To volunteer to be a cornerstone, because some prophecy says my family line is the only key to fixing it?”

“No!” Brenda gasps. “I mean yes, do the Ritual, but not—that’s not what I mean, and I can do it, too, I want to—”

“Okay, so even more pointless, the two of us sacrificing ourselves to buy Los Angeles a few more years of peace—that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.” I bite out the last few words. Mom worked so hard on this project, and I only have a fraction of her work left and just this memory to get started. I think I can rewrite the Ritual to actually solve the mana surges, but that could take years.

“We just learned that the Ritual doesn’t work,” I say. We need to start over. This is going to be a monstrous undertaking, and I’ve barely started to think what kind of focus objects we’d need. I want to do away with human cornerstones altogether—so we’d need to charge focus objects for forever.

I’m so tired. I can barely think right now, I feel so numb. Seeing Mom again was like having my heart starting to heal and then ripped open afresh, like losing her all over again.

I can’t plan anything, I can’t do anything. I just want to go home.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” Brenda says, insistent. “We can save the world! All we have to do—”

“No,” I say, clutching the supplies bag to my chest. “Don’t you get it? If I participate, I’ll die for nothing. In a few years, they’ll get another bunch of suckers to do the same thing, and they’ll die, and the world will continue to get worse! It isn’t going to change!” I throw my hands up in the air in frustration.

Brenda stares at me. Her cheeks are bright red and her eyes are shining, big tears welling up. “It is changing, though! Every day. Every day people are—people are fighting to make it better.”

I shake my head. “It’s just getting worse. People—people are selfish and cruel and they can’t be trusted. You said it yourself, the problems in your world, they’re all caused by people, same as mine. Even if we fight to change it, it’s all stacked against us.”

Brenda reaches for me, hands closing over my own. I can’t tell if it’s a gesture of comfort, because it feels like she’s trying to convince me that she’s right, and she isn’t listening to me at all. What I need is time—to dismantle the current spell matrix and rewrite it anew, and maybe, just maybe, with enough work, I can replicate what Mom was intending to do.

“I believe in you,” Brenda says. “I believe in us. You aren’t going to do this alone, I’m right here,” she says with a soft smile. “Let me help you. We can do it together.” She squeezes my hands.

The memory of Jìngyi begging her love not to sacrifice herself is still fresh in my mind. If Clarabelle had just done her spell as intended, if Jìngyi hadn’t followed her—if their great love didn’t exist in the first place—none of this would have ever happened.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I say. “Look, I appreciate you, but you don’t get it. You’re not from here—”

Brenda takes a step back and raises her eyebrows at me. “So you think I can’t do the Ritual because I’m not a proper mage or whatever?”

“No,” I cry out. “I mean you—” I think about the first time I saw Brenda, all bright eyes and hope and her multipoint plan. I can feel every emotion I’ve pressed down deep into my core start to burst out of me in trickles and then in torrents. “You don’t get it. My entire life, everyone has always talked about what an honor it is to be a cornerstone, and the Chosen One would save us all, it was always my mom—I thought she figured it all out, and this memory would show us how, but it just gave us more proof of how everything is broken!”

I can’t stop now, and I’m shaking as the words keep coming in an angry flood.

“You see this incredible future all ready for you; you have this whole plan mapped out for college and everything is always sunshine and roses for you!” I’m shaking, anger rushing through my body. “I’m not you, Brenda. I can’t just make big plans and expect them to work.”

I stopped having a future years ago. And it’s all I can do now to live up to Mom’s legacy.

“I don’t just expect my plans to work.” Brenda shakes her head indignantly. “It’s about believing in them, and I thought you—you liked my plans and liked that about me.”

“Plans don’t always work,” I say quietly. “Look what happened to my mom.”

“If we do it right,” Brenda says slowly, “the prophecy could come true—and it would be the last Ritual.”

My mouth falls open. I’d expected this from strangers on the street, people who didn’t know me at all, people who didn’t—who didn’t care about me, the person. I didn’t expect this from someone I’d just started to trust, someone who I felt was fitting into a place in my life in a way I never expected.

I guess it was too good to be true. I give Brenda a bitter look. “I thought you were different, you know. I thought you liked me for who I was, not just—a tool to get something done.”

Brenda’s eyes flash, hot and angry. “That’s not what I—” she scoffs. “You don’t even want to try?”

“It’s not going to work!” I exclaim. “I’m so tired of everyone giving me these impossible expectations all the time! I don’t want it, I never wanted it, and I can’t do it!” My heart pounds, blood thundering in my ears. “If you believe that I should, then maybe you should just go!”

“Maybe I should!” Brenda huffs, her cheeks aflame.

She doesn’t apologize, doesn’t take back anything she’s said about the prophecy or me or the Ritual—she just walks away into the night without looking back. My heart feels like it’s being squeezed into a million pieces, shattering on the floor.

I’m so angry: at Mom for dying; at Dad for letting her go; at the council; at Jìngyi and Clarabelle; at everyone who’s ever expected anything of me; at Brenda for saying she understood when she really doesn’t. I don’t want to do something that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t feel like enough, to buy time—I’d want my life to count for more than that.

I can’t believe she doesn’t understand this.

Brenda takes a few steps and pauses under a streetlamp. I think about going after her. But I can’t believe she’s refusing to see my point.

I let her see me be vulnerable, be weak, and I trusted her with my feelings.

I should have known better.

There’s no one in the world who can give you what you want. You have to take it. There’s no one in the world that’s going to care about you the way you want or need. And it’s better not to try because you’re just going to get hurt.

Brenda’s hair flutters in the wind, and she looks tense as she’s trying to figure out what she’s doing next. I watch her back like I’m memorizing it, like I’m seeing it for the last time. She breaks into a run now, her feet propelling her into the night, and then she draws a symbol into the air and disappears in a little pop.

Well.

She did say she and her friends have tried some basic spells so far, but hearing it is one thing, and seeing it confirmed is another. Brenda isn’t just learning basic spells; she’s using advanced control to do intermediate spells without a runebook.

There’s been a part of me that was thrilled about showing her my world, that wide-eyed awed look she gave me when she first learned about magic.

Now she doesn’t need me anymore.

Jìngyi’s heartbreak at losing her beloved was nothing like this, though. There were end-of-the-world circumstances out of their control.

This is just Brenda and I falling apart.

39 ❤ BRENDA

I gasp as the world re-forms around me. I feel dizzy, and I struggle to keep standing. Teleportation wasn’t something I’d practiced—we’d only done simple things, like create light or levitate small objects across the room. The Shield spell was the most difficult one, but this had been next on my list and I understood the premise of it. Plus, with all the spells I’d done so far, I was confident my intentions would guide me.

My thoughts were a muddle; I wanted to go home, I wanted to get out of there, I wanted to be somewhere I could figure out how to solve this Ritual stuff on my own.

There was a moment where I’d hoped Kat would rush after me, that she’d apologize and tell me she didn’t mean it, and she’d want to save the world with me and we’d figure out this prophecy stuff together, but it didn’t happen.

I’d held back tears as I waited, and then I started to run, thinking about the motion to cast the teleportation spell and focusing entirely on getting out of there.

I look around now that I’ve caught my breath; I still feel a bit woozy, but I can hold myself together.

I’m just a girl from another world, nothing at all suspicious here.

Here being … where?

It looks a little like city hall, actually. Tall ceilings, elaborate windows reflecting the night sky outside, rows and rows of empty seats for an audience who isn’t here, all of it heavy wooden furniture that speaks of purpose and service. In front of me, there’s a long table with seven empty seats. In front of it, a group of adults are gathered around a tired-looking set of documents and takeout containers. It looks like I’ve interrupted some kind of informal meeting, like some government types who had to stay late to get stuff done.

I probably shouldn’t be here.

Magic is weird. Why is this the answer to my question?

I spot a set of heavy wooden doors behind the last row of empty seats and try to quietly step toward them, but my sneakers squeak offensively on the waxed tile floor.

All eyes turn toward me.

“Can we help you?” An old man who seems like the epitome of every wizard trope glares at me from his seat. His voice is deep and scratchy, and he’s wearing long robes open to what looks like a three-piece suit. Gandalf meets Charles Dickens, I guess. He stands gingerly, leaning on a cane as he peers at me with interest.

I bob my head courteously. “Accident, so, so sorry, I botched the teleportation spell, I’ll just be on my way…”

A woman at the end of the table sighs with disappointment. “Gravery, we’ll need to push back the Ritual date, if we can’t find the right volunteer.”

“Wait, are you all the council?” I ask with interest.

“I am Gravery Kirkpatrick, head of the Mages’ Council,” says the grizzled man who addressed me earlier. He looks at me expectantly. “Well, child? It appears from the magical signature that the unbound teleportation spell you just cast was open-ended. Meaning you were meant to come here, whether you knew it or not.”

I gulp. I did tell Kat I wanted to participate. I look at each of them; they look exhausted. I wonder if I can share what we learned in the memory, if they would be able to help.

No, they might be colluding with the Order—or maybe they don’t know. I need more time to think about it.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “I want to volunteer.”

Relief floods through the room, palpable in the air.

“If that’s the case, and if you agree, Gravery, then I say we can move forward,” an older Latina says, nodding at me with appreciation.

Gravery grabs something off the table. “If you’re under eighteen, you’ll need to have your parent or guardian fill out this form, and then come back on Friday. We’ll need to start the Ritual at nine o’clock promptly.” He gives me a thankful smile. “Just in time, as well. We are grateful for your service. I don’t think the city would have held out any longer.”

“You’re welcome,” I say awkwardly. “I’ll see you Friday.”

Outside the elaborate meeting room is a long hallway. People bustle back and forth, some with their noses in stacks of papers and files, some chattering with their colleagues.

“Didn’t know today was a petition day,” mutters one woman to her neighbor.

“These cornerstones get younger and younger every year,” says the other woman, giving me a sad look.

I duck my head and try to find an exit, the messenger bag bumping against my knees as I walk quickly. I feel through it out of habit, looking for my lucky keychain or d20, and I realize this is Kat’s bag. She has mine.

Her runebook is in here.

I pull it out; it’s not exactly like a smartphone, but it responds to my touch and shows me the last thing we looked at: the schedule.

I gasp. There’s a portal opening up just outside here in a few minutes.

I follow the coordinates outside the building and find a bricked archway pattern in one of the walls. I swallow nervously. It’s always been a door before, or a clear alcove that you walk through. This is a wall.

But my teleportation spell brought me here. It took me to the council to volunteer, just like I wanted, and then to where I can go home.

I watch the time on the giant clock outside city hall, and then at 11:14, I hold my breath and walk through the wall.

40 ❤ KAT

I drop the messenger bag on my bedroom floor, and the empty glass jars inside clink heavily. I scowl at the bag—Brenda’s bag that she brought with her to spend the day with me. She took mine by mistake, which has my runebook.

I could message or call her from a spare runebook of mine to see if she’s okay, if she got to wherever her destination was, but she probably doesn’t want to talk to me.

I flop on my bed, groaning. I pull a pillow over my head and scream into it, but the anger is fading and now I’m just left with a heavy heartache.

A knock on the door jolts me out of my thoughts.

“You have a good time at the museum, honey?” Dad asks.

“No,” I grumble.

“Oh, Kat,” Dad says, coming into my room and sitting next to me. “You okay? Want to talk about it?”

“Brenda and I got in a fight,” I say, but it barely seems to scratch the surface of what happened. “I think it’s over.”

Dad strokes my hair, his hands calm and gentle. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “Are you okay?”

I can barely manage a nod. “She thought I should volunteer for the Ritual,” I whisper. “Basically said it was the right thing to do.”

“That’s your choice, sweetheart.” Dad takes a deep breath. “You know, I don’t approve, but if it’s something you really wanted—I would sign that form. You know that, right?”

I look at him, my eyes stinging. I don’t want to cry, I refuse to shed any more tears over this stupid Ritual business. “How could you let Mom go?”

Dad sighs and rubs his temples. “She chose. Not because she didn’t love us, or didn’t want to be here with us. Because she thought it was important.”

I close my eyes, overwhelmed not just with today, but with everything. I can feel Dad lean toward me, his solid weight supporting me, and I let myself fall. He holds me steady as I cry, and I can feel warm tears on my head as he cries, too.

“I miss her so much,” I say. “I saw her today.”

“I see her every day, sweetie,” Dad says, his voice thick with grief.

“No, I—I did a memory-walk. I went back in time.” I let the words tumble out of me, falling over themselves like a waterfall. Dad listens to the story as I explain about meeting Brenda, about our worlds, about how we’ve been seeing each other through the portals, and then what we discovered.

“Mom tried to do something to change the Ritual, fix it. But someone didn’t want that happening.”

Dad’s mouth purses as he considers this, and then his runebook buzzes, an insistent beeping tone.

“That’s Jordan’s emergency alarm,” Dad says.

I nod in understanding.

“Jordan? Are you okay?”

“Sammy, you need to get down here. There’s a bunch of upset customers, but that’s not the least of it. All the spells in the back are going haywire for some reason, and Tim’s here because Rachel was working late tonight, but you know how his control is right now—”

“It’s gonna be okay. Where’s Carlos?”

“He went home sick.”

“I’ll be right there.” Dad ends the call and stands up.

I follow him out the door and downstairs. “I’m coming with you.” I hate the idea of Jordan alone at the shop with a bunch of angry customers.

“Are you sure?”

“I want to help.”

Dad nods at me, and we head through the fixed portal in our living room to the coffeeshop.

I can immediately see the problem. The mana storage is broken, feeding too much or too little energy into various spells. The stove is overheating, vats of milk bubbling and frothing over and burning, while the cooling area is tepid and warm.

Dad curses. “What happened here? I just checked on all these spells.”

“I’ll go help Jordan.”

There’s an unusual amount of customers for a random weeknight, especially at this late hour, a mix of teenagers and young adults, chatting animatedly in booths with their drinks, devices of various sizes strewn all over the tables—

Wait a minute, these people are all from Brenda’s world. How did they get here? Did another unexpected portal open up?

“Hey, do you have the Wi-Fi password?” one guy asks.

“No.” I don’t even know what that is.

“Try Mr. Freezy’s,” says a girl at the table next to him. “That’s the one I’m on.”

“Kat! I’m so glad you’re here,” Jordan exclaims. “Help me make three Americanos and one ‘tall’ mocha cappuccino with extra foam, whatever that is.” They wheeze. “No one’s ordered any Pick-Me-Ups, although they could all use a shot of Calm.” Jordan bustles with the milk steamer. “I don’t know where they came from, but they keep asking questions about outlets.” Jordan scoffs. “Like for electricity! Whoever heard of using that to power anything other than lights?”

“Ha, so weird,” I say nervously. Luckily no one seems to be freaking out much, and they all are doing normal coffeeshop things, except—

Jordan frowns, following my gaze. “It’s like these people have never seen a werewolf before.”

Tim is seated awkwardly in one of the booths, half wolfed out, his nose long and lupine, teeth elongated into long canines. Two teenagers are talking to him, rapid-fire fast, and one reaches out to touch Tim’s snout—

“Hey! Stop that, right now.” I stride over to the booth, my voice sharp and commanding. “You don’t ever touch anyone without their consent, you hear me?”

Tim exhales with relief as I jerk my head for him to follow me to the back.

“Here, just hang out for a while,” I say. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Tim says shakily. “It’s a waning moon, but I’m still new to control and stuff, and one guy said something shitty to my mom and I couldn’t help it, I got mad and started to shift.”

“Not your fault,” I say. “Just take some deep breaths. There you go.”

Tim closes his eyes and counts; Jordan must have been practicing meditation techniques with him. As he breathes, the wolfish features start to fade, and his snout turns back into a stubby button nose. He’s still got a bit of fang, though.

“Eat as many cha siu bao as you want,” I offer. “The icebox isn’t working, so you’re doing us a favor.”

“Really? Thanks, Kat!” Tim beams.

Back at the counter, Jordan sighs with exasperation. “For the last time, we don’t accept foreign money.”

The woman up front pushes a green-colored bill at them. “Is this some kind of joke?” she asks, frowning.

“Yep, sorry about that!” I stuff the money into the tip jar to deal with later. “Here are your drinks.”

“Thank you,” she says, shaking her head.

Dad arrives from the back, his eyebrows singed. “I fixed it for now, but all the environmental spells are refusing to play nice. It’s like trying to cast with no mana charge, but that’s impossible.” He sighs. “I talked to Jay Singh. His bakery is experiencing the same thing.”

Jordan shakes their head. “Did you hear three restaurants downtown caught fire? Their kitchen spells got out of control somehow.”

Dad stares at the crowd. “Where are all these people from?”

Jordan wipes down the counter, exhaustion written all over their face. “Three of them tried to pay with that green money, and one of them just waved a runebook at me as if expecting to transfer me money via spell, and another two tried to give me some sort of colorful card!”

I look at Dad, and then at Jordan. “Was there a mana surge earlier today?”

Jordan tilts their head. “Yeah. Right before all these weirdos came in, actually.”

“Funny story.” I laugh awkwardly. “Actually, not funny…”

Jordan takes the news about the two worlds in stride. The people are less easy to convince. My announcement that the patrons are currently in another universe is met with laughter, then nervousness and disbelief.

The teenagers are the quickest to accept the idea of magic, especially after they get a good look outside and see the horseless carriages driving down the road. Everyone else takes some convincing, especially as most spells aren’t working properly in the shop. Finally Jordan shifts, their diminutive frame transforming into a seven-foot-tall hulking wolf, looking comical in the work apron. Jordan glares at them with fierce eyes, their furry snout huffing as they let the patrons come forward to look at them up close.

“So we can’t go home?” asks the woman who snapped about the money earlier, clutching her strange device to her chest, eyes sparking with anxiety.

“Not right now, but there are portals opening up intermittently.” I pull out my spare runebook and restore all my current saved spells and documents tied to my namekey, and find the schedule. There’s only a few more left this month from the Order’s predictions, and I copy out all the best dates, times, and locations on the chalkboard of specials. “There’s a 2:00 A.M. portal here tonight in the Arts District, but the trolley night schedule is pretty sporadic, and it’s already late. The next portal would be Friday, at the downtown Sheraton.”

“Look, my friend Renee Kwang down the street runs the Oasis Inn,” Dad offers. “I told her about the situation, and she’s happy to offer all of you a place to stay tonight.”

After many questions and much grumbling from the patrons, we manage to get them all out of the coffeeshop before we close for the night. Once all the devices are gone, the environmental spells start to work again, but everything is still a mess. Dad gestures for me to go home as he settles in the kitchen. “This will take a while to fix,” he says.

“Need any help?”

He cocks his head at me. “It’s already eleven. Plus, you have school tomorrow. Go get some rest.”

“I don’t mind,” I say. “Come on, I’ll show you the programming I did for the pineapple prank.”

Dad huffs at me, but his eyes sparkle with mirth. “All right.”

I’m grateful there was minimal damage to our business, and we were able to take care of the people who slipped through the portal. I kept an eye out for anyone suspicious who might be from the Order tonight, but no one showed up; I guess they’re busy trying to do damage control all over the city.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

There’s no point in focusing on big-picture things like the Ritual when that would take years to fix. Right now, people are in trouble, and the best way to help others is from the ground up.

“Hey, Dad? Can you share this portal list with all the business owners you know? In case anyone else shows up?”

“Great idea, Kat,” Dad says approvingly. He copies the information to his runebook. “Now, show me what you did to those pineapples. I think we can use that technique to fix the sugar situation we have here.”

I grin and take his outstretched hand, and we get to work.

41 ❤ BRENDA

I kick my blanket off in frustration and scramble out of bed, wiping the sweat from my face. I stalk to the window, pushing it open. A waft of dry air floats in. I listen to crickets chirp, thinking about Friday and the permission form sitting on my desk, still blank. Stacey snores lightly on the other side of the room, a steady rhythm to my thoughts.

I feel drained; after our fight, the time travel, and casting the two teleportation spells—the one after I got back to my world was so rough, I was barely able to walk to my room. It felt like I was trying to wring the last drips of water out of a dish towel to get enough power to do the spell, but I didn’t have an alternative since I was in the middle of downtown with no phone after the bus lines had stopped running.

Kat’s words sting over and over in my memory; every insecurity I’ve ever had about being too much, too focused on my plans—it’s a new kind of hurt, an aching betrayal that rests heavy in my bones.

I’m still angry, too, that she thought I’d want to use her as a tool like that when I’ve been supportive the whole time. She asked me to leave, so I did. I feel a grim sort of petty satisfaction, wishing I could see her face when I teleported, but it’s fleeting. I mostly feel hollow and sad, and I miss her.

I’m exhausted, but I’m too wired to sleep. I take out Kat’s bag again and go through it, trying to form a plan.

Her runebook is a mystery; I fiddle around, but I don’t understand enough about runes to work any of it properly, and I don’t want to mess anything up or accidentally cast anything. The documents, though, are another story. It’s Kat’s mom’s research on the Ritual, including a written account of the prophecy.

I’m probably the only one awake, but I text the party group chat anyway with my accounts of the night, including pictures of everything. Almost immediately Adib responds with theories about the Order, and Erica suggests we look through other alternative wordings of the prophecy.

I wipe a stray tear from my eye. My friends are pretty great. I didn’t even have to ask them if they wanted to save the world with me; they were ready to help the second they knew there was any danger to begin with.

The school day passes by in a strange haze; everyone is almost already in summer vacation mode with prom on Friday and graduation around the corner. Everyone is sharing their plans about where they got accepted and where they’re going. For the first time in my life, I don’t have an answer right now. I have a handful of acceptances, but I haven’t heard back from UCLA at all. It’s really strange—everyone I know who applied heard back in March.

I don’t have time to fret about it or dig deeper, since student council is up to its neck in last-minute prom logistics. It’s fun, though, to sweep back into the familiar sense of control and handle the whirlwind of coordinating with the caterers and doing last-minute ticket sales to my friends and classmates in the middle of planning to change the Ritual from the inside.

“Spell heist,” Erica says. “Say it, come on.” She gestures emphatically as we sit at our usual lunch spot, picking over the Ritual research.

“Not everything can be a heist,” I insist.

“If we play heist music while we do it, it can be,” Adib says. “Where’s your sense of fun? We have to have one, catastrophic doom and all that.”

“So if the spell heist is during prom, are you asking Kat? Do you have a promposal?” Ryan asks.

Adib elbows him. “Come on! They had a huge fight that’s unresolved, you can’t just ask someone to prom without talking about that first.”

“How would you do it then?” Ryan says, rolling his eyes.

“Easy, like this,” Adib says, turning to face him. “Ryan, do you want to go to prom with me?”

“Sure, but that doesn’t answer how they’d—” Ryan stops, staring at Adib. “Wait, did you just ask me?”

“I’ve been trying for months!”

I smile fondly at my friends, glad someone is getting it right at least. It must be obvious I’m thinking about Kat, and Jenn pats me on the shoulder comfortingly. “I’m sure she said those things in the heat of the moment; she probably didn’t understand your plan, you know.”

Erica nods. “Sometimes your lists don’t make sense when you’re writing them!”

“But it made sense to you, right?” I ask. I went over my analysis of what we saw of the original spell and what we need to do now to fix the Ritual. “Are you sure you guys want to help? I mean, my plan involves all of us volunteering as cornerstones, and historically … they almost all died.”

“Right, but we’re not doing the original spell,” Ryan says. “I believe in you, and we’re actively disrupting it using the power of love and friendship instead of, like, greed and stuff.”

I nod. It felt simple enough when I talked to them about intention and the Ritual and how we could stop it from the inside. We’d ended up talking most the night, going through the research together on video chat once it was decided it was an emergency.

“So the prophecy was overheard, written down, and keep in mind both Cantonese and Mandarin use the same script—then translated to English,” Erica says.

I study Erica’s screenshare. “Okay, what are you saying? Could it have been translated wrong?”

“Ten years of every Saturday at Chinese school for this,” Erica mutters. “Keep in mind I drew art instead of listening for at least five of those years, but I also had a poetry phase, which means I paid attention to homonyms.”

“Two opportunities for error,” Ryan says.

Erica points to the character 胡 in the original transcript. “This is the character for the surname Wu or Woo.”

Jenn nods. “It makes sense why it was always assumed to be Kat’s family because of this epic Jìngyi.”

“Let’s say the original prophecy was made in Cantonese. First person who hears it assumes it means a family name, and writes it down as 胡. It gets translated back to English, no one ever bothers to look at any other possibility because it creates a given Chosen One scenario.” Erica draws a new character next to the verse: 巫. “This is wu, which could mean sorcerer, magic-user, master of many things.”

“So the prophecy doesn’t mean Kat’s family,” Jenn gasps.

“It could be anyone,” Adib says. “Any mage. Anyone who uses magic.”

We all look at each other with bated breath.

“So we not only have the groundwork to pull this plan off, we absolutely can fulfill the prophecy. We can end the Ritual once and for all,” I say breathlessly with the realization.

I make everyone take copies of the permission form home, and then after school, I take the bus to the nail salon. Má sees me and immediately gestures me over to an empty chair.

“No homework today?” She clicks her tongue at me.

“No, just wanted to see you and say hi,” I say.

“What color is your prom dress again?” Má points at the selection of nail polish. “Want to match? Complement? Opposite?”

“You pick,” I say, settling into the chair.

On TV, the mayor is advising people to stock up on provisions and to prepare for a significant earthquake. Apparently the latest prediction models are charting a 6.0 or a 7.0 to hit in the next few days. There were tremors late last night, but what’s put our community on edge is that a bunch of people have gone randomly missing, and no one knows why.

I wonder if they walked through an accidental portal. I eye my backpack, where the form is waiting. The sooner we can solve this, the sooner we can protect everyone.

Auntie Vân switches the channel to a Vietnamese soap opera. On the screen, a young heroine is celebrating with her friends after receiving a work promotion.

“Do you miss it?” I ask Má softly.

“Miss what, con?”

“I don’t know. Being in school. Having stuff to look forward to. A life. You were—you were just a kid when you had me.”

Má sighs. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You always say that.” I look guiltily around the salon. “I know … I know moving back in with Ȏng Ngoại and Bà Ngoại was hard. And you can’t have dreamed of … this.” I gesture at her domain.

Auntie Vân is gossiping with Trinh as they paint the nails of customers, laughing, lost in their own conversation while the women sitting in the massage chairs having their pedicures done are having a conversation about the ineptitude of their partners and enjoying each other’s company.

It’s just another day at the nail salon, but I know Má is smart, and I know she could have finished college. She could have done anything.

Má stops and gives me a soft, curious look. “Do you think I’m unhappy?”

“I just—I don’t want you to have to work so hard all the time,” I say. “And I know you do it for me, just like how Ȏng Ngoại and Bà Ngoại left behind everything they knew to give us all a better life, and you gave up your dream of becoming a nurse to take care of me…”

“Cục cưng,” Má says fondly. “If I wanted to go back to school, I would. Did you know I actually tried? I took classes when you started school, but I realized premed is not for me. I hated memorizing all those things, and when it came to those dissection labs, I couldn’t bear it.” She gives me a wry smile. “Dreams change, you know. I get to do art all day, every day, and come up with new designs and support other technicians. And I’m getting pretty good at the tok toks.”

“Má!” I laugh as she shows me a couple of her nail videos and tutorials, which have an astounding number of views and likes.

“Con, I have never regretted you. Of course life is hard, it’s always been hard, but you have always been worth it.” Má finishes my nails and turns on the fan to let them dry and gives me a wide, rare, proud smile.

I sniffle, thinking about Kat and how she never got the chance to have this with her mom.

I glance at the other people in the nail salon, the hustle and bustle of the world outside, and remember why I came up with the Plan in the first place. To help others, to protect people. And I’m going to get the chance to do it, because the world is worth fighting for.

I drink in the way Má looks at me, fond and affectionate. She’s never been a hugger, has never said I love you, but she has her own way.

“This is your mail, by the way.” Má pulls out her purse. “It got mixed up with Uncle Thu’s other bills. I’m sorry you had to wait so long for this one.”

My heart thuds. The acceptance letter I’ve been waiting for. They would have sent a copy to my email, of course, but I’ve been so busy with dimension traveling, I hadn’t even thought to check.

Má hands me the envelope.

A thin envelope.

I open it, dread already confirming what I know will be inside.

“I didn’t get into UCLA,” I say.

Má pats me on the hand. “It’s okay, con. You have the other ones. I know you really wanted to go there to work with that scientist you like. But there are so many smart people everywhere.”

The rejection stings, but I’m not as devastated as I would have been a few weeks ago. Back when my whole life was about moving forward and getting into the dream school—that was just part of the Plan.

But I’ve got another plan now.

“I’m so proud of you,” Má says. “You’re going to do so many great things.”

“Thanks, Má,” I sniff.

“I know you worked really hard putting that prom together, but promise me you’ll have fun, too.”

“Yes, of course. Speaking of prom, can you sign this permission form for me? I’m going to go over to Kat’s world and participate in…” I pause, searching for the right words. “A historic event. I’m going to help them solve a problem.”

Má takes the sheet of paper and signs it. “Okay, con. Good luck. Did you figure out how to text or call me from there yet?”

I laugh. “No, but we’re going to figure that part out.” My throat seizes up, and I throw my arms around her. “I love you, Má,” I say.

Má pats me back, surprised. “I’ll see you at home. Do you want me to make cá kho?”

The braised fish dish is one of my favorites.

“Yeah, that would be great,” I say, my heart seizing up in my chest as she hugs me.

In our family, we usually don’t say I love you. But I feel it all the same.

Love. That’s what was missing from the Ritual, and what I’m going to put back.

42 ❤ KAT

“I’m sorry, how is this supposed to help?” I stand in the middle of the idleball field, staring at Hannah. She’d listened to me sympathetically about the breakup and then dragged me out of the cafeteria to the field.

“Trust me,” Hannah says, tossing the invisible ball in the air. She swerves and kicks.

It’s instinct, feeling for the energy of the coming ball, predicting its course and—

The ball bonks me on the head. “Hey!”

“Oh, who hasn’t played for years?” Hannah laughs.

On the sidelines, girls familiar and unfamiliar rush onto the field and we start a pickup game. My team loses spectacularly, but it’s fun, and I hate to admit to Hannah, but she was right. I do feel better after that.

After school, I’m invited along to get boba with the team, and it feels natural to just hang out as the girls fill the shop, laughing and talking over homework and board games and snacks.

“Are you sure that’s what she was saying, though?” Hannah asks, leaning close to me.

I sigh, taking another sip of my lychee milk tea. “She literally said I should do the Ritual.”

“She said we—she wanted to do it, too.”

“Which is even more stupid; I wouldn’t let you volunteer to be a cornerstone, either!” I shake my head.

“You know,” Hannah says slowly. “You push people away when you’re hurt.”

“I—”

Hannah gives me a small smile. “I know you, you know. You’re my oldest friend, and you really—you really try to blame yourself for everything. It’s not your fault, what happened to your mom. It’s not your fault there are these natural disasters. You can’t control these things.”

I tap my straw, thinking about it. It feels too close to home, but I know she’s right. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know how to be a friend anymore, and I felt like I would have disappointed you back then. I—I really messed up.”

“You’re not alone, Kat,” Hannah says, squeezing my hand. “I wish you hadn’t thought that you were.”

“Thank you,” I say softly.

“Hey, Kat!” Tanya, our goalie, slips into the booth. “Do you still suck at Speed?”

I pretend to be offended and let myself be goaded into the card game. I drink my tea, my ears pricking when people mention the week’s mana surges and how spells aren’t working at all or reacting with overpowered effects even afterward. None of it is predictable or preventable, no matter what people have been doing.

“Apparently Mayfield Industries is putting out a modifier you can add to their spells to stabilize them during these surges,” says Angela.

“Does it work?” I ask with interest.

Tanya nods. “My dad installed them in our icebox and everything has been fine.”

Another one of Shannon’s brilliant inventions, likely.

She hasn’t returned my call, just sent a brief message that she was still out of town and sends me lots of love. I’m a bit annoyed, given everything that’s been going on, and I have so many questions about what I learned about her ancestor and his factories. It’s hard; even though I have a plan for the first time in my life, I can barely muster the energy to do anything with how often my thoughts come back to Brenda.

The radio crackles with a news report. “The Los Angeles Mages’ Council confirms the Stabilization Ritual will commence as planned with the total number of required cornerstone volunteers on Friday, May 22. With regard to the recent events, refugees can report to city hall for—”

The barista changes the station back to jaunty pop music. The gossip turns to prom and summer plans, a palpable sense of relief flooding the room.

Hannah pats my arm comfortingly. She doesn’t say anything, but I appreciate the gesture all the same. The council found another cornerstone, and they’re going to stop asking me.

I don’t have to worry about it for now.

Until the effects of the Ritual fade, and the mana surges come back …

But this is exactly what I need. Time. Time to figure out what Mom did to change the Ritual, make it work the way it was intended to.

She would have found it hysterically funny that I ditched school all week to do what is essentially more homework. By Friday, all of her research from her office is in my bedroom. I dive back into her research with new eyes, now that I’ve seen Clarabelle’s framework and felt the intentions that Jìngyi poured into it when she changed it.

I study the matrix of the current Ritual with several runic dictionaries open so I can understand it in full. At first I’d translated one rune to mean the earth itself, perhaps returning energy to the earth or redirecting it so another earthquake doesn’t happen. But now, I realize it doesn’t just mean earth—it could mean a world—as in another world.

So Mayfield knew.

He must have created the Order to keep his secret, because no one has referenced another world for a hundred years. The spell diagram itself is full of obfuscations so someone reading it wouldn’t even see the references to a secondary world.

I keep reading, using this new translation to analyze what I’d been getting wrong the whole time.

There’s plenty about redirecting mana flow and stabilization. But it doesn’t make sense. I’d thought the idea of the Ritual would be to channel any extra mana from our world out in order to relieve the pressure from the surges. But the mana is mostly redirected through the cornerstones and back … back here.

“That’s why it doesn’t work,” I say. “The mana surges keep coming back because it’s all here. All the energy of two worlds, in one.”

I think about Mom’s last question. Who benefits from having all that power in one place?

Who needed all that power to create prepackaged spells?

Shannon has to know what her ancestor did, right?

I swallow hard, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s been family for so long. Maybe she doesn’t know about his past, and her inventions do help people; if she knew, she would have stopped it …

I pull up the security logs in Mom’s office to the date of the last Ritual.

Access: Victoria Woo

Access: Shannon Mayfield

I didn’t notice before because I was looking for a stranger’s name, but the confirmation feels like a deadweight in my chest.

Still … that just proves that Shannon was the messenger that it was time for the Ritual. Mom’s look of betrayal—she was obviously thinking about who she thought was the culprit. Or maybe she was thinking about Richard Mayfield, and processing that her best friend’s family was involved in such a horrific thing and she’d need to tell Shannon immediately.

I exhale, somewhat satisfied by this explanation.

I create a blank spell diagram in my runebook, ready to start from scratch to write a brand-new Ritual. I’ve never programmed a spell like this. I’m actually kind of excited about it.

My runebook chimes with a call from Hannah.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Okay, I know you’re all sad because you and your girlfriend broke up, but instead of being sad at home alone, you should come to prom tonight.”

“An overrated excuse for people to get dressed up and party.”

Hannah laughs. “Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be! Look, Jamie rented a luxury carriage, and the horses are ridiculous. They’re all wearing matching plumes. Tell me you don’t want to see that.”

I actually kind of do. I can imagine Hannah’s incredibly coordinated girlfriend planning their evening to every last detail.

“Wouldn’t I be a third wheel?”

“Nope. Tanya, Reese, and Angela are in the carriage, too.”

Research can wait for one night. “Okay.”

“Great,” Hannah says. “And look, if you’re still thinking about Brenda, it’s not too late to call her or just show up at her house with flowers and stuff and say you’re sorry. You know, Big Gesture!”

I’d thought about that at length, even imagining conversations and what I’d say, but unfortunately I can’t just call her or go over to her place.

There is one portal tonight, though. “Hey, where’s prom again?”

“Downtown Sheraton.”

Right. I remember thinking it would have been perfect if I wanted to invite her.

Maybe we can still do this. I imagine Brenda listening to my heartfelt apology, and we talk through this, and we’re okay.

“Okay, I’m going to come. And I’ll invite Brenda.”

Hannah shrieks in excitement. “We’ll pick you up at six!”

That’s only twenty minutes. I put on my dress and try to do my hair in rapid time. In my rush to find my curler I trip over a pile of stuff that isn’t usually on the floor. I wince, shaking my foot. I realize with a new pang of hurt that it’s Brenda’s stuff when she emptied out her bag for the spell: a thick notebook studded with colorful pieces of paper, numbered dice, a clutter of pencil and pens. A hair brush. Elastic ties. A water bottle. Some brochures and pamphlets.

It’s all so clearly Brenda, all her schoolwork and hobbies and thoughtfulness in one pile, and seeing her things in my room just makes me miss her.

I pick up the bright green brochure. Fields Forward Industries. Oh, the soap factory that uses magic. I flip through it, trying to discern any clues that would link it to the Order. The name of it is familiar, but I can’t recall why.

On the back of the brochure I realize exactly why with a sinking sensation. Grinning cheerily at me, wearing the structured clothes of Brenda’s world, is my own godmother, Shannon Mayfield.

I didn’t want it to be true, but it is.

The image of my mother’s stricken face is fresh in my mind, the shock evident as her friend approached her, the knowledge that had been growing in my mind that I hadn’t been ready to accept. Brenda hadn’t mentioned the CEO’s name, and the novelty of a magical factory in Brenda’s world was significant enough on its own, but I was so focused on the time travel that it didn’t occur to me to dig deeper.

There’s no question of Shannon knowing what Richard did or his intention. Her entire empire is built on spelltech, and she has everything to gain from keeping everything the way it is.

I crumple the brochure in my hands. I think about the years spent looking up to her, her bright comforting smile.

The last thing Shannon said to me was supporting my decision not to participate in the Ritual. I thought she was supporting me, but she just wanted the Chosen One not to disrupt her scheme.

I feel sick.

“Hey, Kat,” Dad announces, his footsteps booming up the stairs. “You know, I support you taking time for yourself after your breakup and all, and I know it’s been stressful with the worlds colliding and stuff, but please tell me if you’re ditching school—”

“Dad,” I say, looking up at him. “I know who killed Mom, and why.”

43 ❤ BRENDA

“Is it stupid to still care about this?” Jenn asks, twirling her hair with the curling iron.

There was another earthquake this morning—a 4.5 this time, right in downtown, and it’s been putting everyone on edge. Like those Big One predictions might be coming true after all.

Ana the dragon flicks her tail lazily as she curls up in the fading sunbeam, watching us all with interest.

“Not at all,” Erica says, dabbing eyeshadow on me carefully. “Hold still,” she says. “Where’s that monolid tutorial again?”

I pull up my phone with the YouTube video we’d found. Erica’s already an expert on doing her own makeup, but I have only one monolid and she has two, so she had to figure out a different way to get the smoky-eye look she wanted for me.

“It’s good,” I say. “It’s a celebration, you know. Next steps and all that.” I try not to blink as Erica lines my eyes carefully.

“You nervous?” she asks.

I almost nod, but she stops me just in time before I ruin the look.

“I am, too,” she says. “But that’s what saving the world is about.”

Jenn is giggling, holding up her phone to video chat with Aiden. “No, you can’t see me!” she squeals.

Erica rolls her eyes. “What, are you getting married?”

“I bet your dress is beautiful, baby!” Aiden says. “I just want to make sure the corsage I got matches.”

“Just show him, like, your knee or something,” I offer.

“There! Done. What do you think?” Erica turns me to face the mirror.

I look like me, but more somehow. My eyes are dusted in soft lavender shadow shifting to purple, dark liner winging out in a fierce line from my eyes. A dusting of warm bronze shimmers my cheeks, and the lip gloss Jenn chose for me is just a pop of bright pink.

I nod, not sure how to say I feel pretty and thank you and wow all at once.

I hug my best friends. “Thank you for doing this with me,” I say. “I think us being there together—bringing back love to the Ritual—is going to make all the difference.”

From her cat bed, Ana chitters expectantly at us.

“What, you want to come? I don’t know if there would be any treasure for you there,” I tease. Ana already has a respectable hoard in her little cat bed, filled with shining trophies and jewelry and other toys.

Erica opens her purse. “All right,” she says. “If there’s any mischief, you can fly home by yourself.”

Ana clambers in.

“Now, come on, prom is waiting for us,” Jenn says, eyes sparkling.

The limo ride is absolutely chaotic; we take selfies and drink sparkling apple cider and talk about our summer plans. Ryan and Adib hold hands, blushing insistently as they argue about spell mechanics, and Aiden listens for the third time as Jenn tries to explain the concept of magic.

“I have no idea what I’ll be doing, but yeah, I’m happy to help,” he says.

I smile, watching Jenn fix the strap on Erica’s dress as we get out of the car and Aiden takes couple photos for Ryan and Adib.

“Ready?” Jenn says, taking my arm.

Adib takes my other, and we all stroll into the hotel together, side by side. I always felt walking into prom I’d have it all figured out, my college plans all set, and it would be the turning point to the rest of my life. But instead, the only plan I have is for tonight, to help as many people as possible.

I don’t need anything else right now.

Soft lights and floral affects—all silk flowers, due to our budget, but they look spectacular—transform the Sheraton ballroom into an enchanting underwater coral reef. I was sure the “Under the Sea” theme was cliché, but it looks great with kelp and corals and sea creatures, and after months and months of deliberating and arguing in student council, I’m happy and proud we pulled it off.

We eat and dance and take pictures and eat and dance more. Erica starts a silly slow dance by herself during the first slow song and I follow her lead, pretending to be a stalk of grass in the wind, doubling over in giggles when we accidentally bump into and get glared at by couples attempting to be romantic.

Ryan gallantly offers his arm and bows to me at the next slow dance, and he leads me through a fancy waltz that doesn’t at all match the rhythmic overtones of the love ballad. “I used to compete as a kid,” he whispers to me. “Don’t tell Adib, he already has enough to tease me with.”

I snort. “I think he’d find it cute.”

I thought we would be anxiously anticipating when we’d have to leave, but before I know it, it’s 8:45.

“Finally, the official photographer is free!” Erica announces. “Come on!”

“We can’t take very long,” I remind her. “The portal is only going to be open for a few seconds.”

“That’s fine, we’ll make it!” Jenn insists, pulling all of us forward to the backdrop.

“Do you want to do a silly one?” the photographer asks after a few posed shots.

“For Prentomi!” Erica announces, striking a warrior’s stance.

Aiden, the only non-D&D member of the group, chuckles in confusion, but he attempts a ridiculous pose of his own with us.

“All right, three, two—”

Something thunders outside, and the earth shudders and jolts. The tripod falls over, the camera crashing to the floor, and the marbled tiles buckle and roll with movement before stopping.

Prom-goers scream, and some people scramble to get under the banquet tables, but the earthquake appears to be over. Some decorations have fallen, but now people are tentatively moving back to the dance floor.

“Is everyone okay?” Ryan asks.

Jenn and Aiden help the photographer right their equipment, and Erica glances at me. “Are we still on time? Can we make the portal?”

Adib is staring straight ahead. “Uh, guys, I don’t think we have to rush to get to the portal anymore. I think it came to us.”

We’d traced the coordinates earlier to an archway between two pillars in the ballroom. Behind it was a set of draperies that we figured no one would notice us just walking through, but the archway has completely transformed.

It looks like an open door to another ballroom, and through it I can see curious faces in elaborate outfits staring right back at us. Another prom.

The edges of the archway seem to glow an iridescent blue, shifting and swaying between our worlds. “That’s new,” I mutter.

“Interdimensional prom!” Erica declares. “Do you think it’s because it’s so unstable now the portal is just staying open?”

“We should go,” I say instinctively. “Come on!”

As we move toward the archway, something else comes through it—blue and fluttering, like long tentacles reaching through the tears of the world.

One after another the creatures slither into our ballroom as students clamor and try to rush away.

“What even are those things?” someone asks.

“No idea!” They look like a jellyfish dreamed of becoming a crocodile one day and then changed its mind, keeping the worst of both worlds.

“We have to help!” Jenn says.

“Yes, but we need to keep to the plan,” I say. “Fixing the Ritual will stabilize everything.”

“Get back! Their venom is poisonous, I just saw one melt a chair!” Ryan directs a group of people backward.

Chaperones frantically try to usher everyone out of the ballroom now that the earthquake is over, but the creatures are circling, eyes glittering as they survey their new environment and potential prey.

The largest one with a blue mottled pattern shrieks and sends a venomous streak of spittle right for Thomas from band.

“On three with me, shields!” Adib says, rushing forward.

Erica and Jenn nod at each other, and follow.

A visible shield powered by the three of them, a soft blue bubble, forms around the small group of students, and the glowing venom slides off it.

“Hey, Paul, over here!” Ryan waves over some students from the robotics club. “Watch me; you just have to focus—”

An impromptu, desperate lesson breaks out, as people frantically try to protect themselves and then teach others.

Ana crawls out of Erica’s purse and takes to the air, roaring flames furiously at the invading jelly-crocs.

The portal is still open, glimmering with light.

“I hate to say it,” Erica says. “But I think we have to split the party.”

“Babe, I just did magic! Did you see?” Aiden says to Jenn, beaming.

“You did great, babe,” Jenn says, and then glances at the portal. “Can we still do the spell with fewer people?”

A couple people from Kat’s world have come rushing through to help with the jelly-croc creatures, and I’m pretty sure I see Thomas and a few others who are curiously looking into the other ballroom as well. But I don’t want to leave anything to chance.

“I think we’ll have to,” I say. “The more influence we have, the better, but we can’t just leave people defenseless here.”

“Go!” Adib says. “We got this. Ryan found people who have been using his code, and Aiden is weirdly good at this, having found out about magic two hours ago.”

“I love you guys,” I say, the goodbye frozen in my throat.

“Tell us about it later,” Ryan says, cutting me off. “And don’t forget your Big Gesture!”

With Jenn and Erica right behind me, I run forward, right into the gap between our worlds.

44 ❤ KAT

Another mana surge hits just as we get to the Central Library. I double over as the wave of energy rushes over us, holding on to Dad for dear life. The earth is quaking desperately, too, like it can’t hold back anymore.

“Come on,” I say, leading Dad through the library.

“What makes you think she’ll be here?” Dad asks.

“She observes every Ritual,” I say. “I’m willing to bet it’s so she can make sure it goes right—well, wrong—every time,” I add darkly.

A storm of anger clouds his eyes. “Now listen, I know you’re upset, and I am, too, but we’re just going to talk to her and figure out what happened. If there was any foul play, then…”

I’ve run as fast as I could with my prom dress and its voluminous petticoats floating around me like a cloud, and I’m not getting there fast enough.

I hike up my dress, gathering my petticoats as I dash forward. “Rotunda’s this way!”

There are no staff, no people quietly browsing shelves, no children running and laughing and playing. The earth has stopped shaking, but it feels foreboding with the books cluttered on the ground, shelves toppled over haphazardly.

The rotunda comes into view, its stately murals and elaborate curved ceiling reaching upward to the sky, bearing witness to decades’ worth of Rituals. The runic circle has been painstakingly painted on the floor, and the cluster of cornerstone volunteers huddle nervously in the corner, waiting. Members of the council, folks from the press, and academics from various universities hover expectantly, notebooks and cameras out. Shannon is standing in the center of the observers’ area like she’s holding court, and I recognize the so-called academic whispering in her ear—Professor Johnson—and the hapless graduate students from the Order.

“Shannon!” I call out like a challenge, my voice echoing through the rotunda.

Shannon catches my gaze and smiles automatically, although her expression flits through a microcosm of understandings as she watches me stride toward the circle. “Kat, duckling, what a lovely surprise,” she says, rushing forward to greet me. “Are you here to observe the Ritual?”

Gravery Kirkpatrick takes a step forward, watching with interest. “Miss Woo, how wonderful to see you. Did you change your mind about being a cornerstone? You can easily take the place of one of our other volunteers.”

I glance at Shannon, whose eyes widen in alarm.

“My dear,” she starts, “you don’t have to listen to this old codger, the Ritual is not your responsibility.” It’s familiar, and under the veneer of support I can see the machinations, the manipulations for her to get what she wants.

“Like it’s yours?” I ask. “Like how you’re observing the Ritual now just to make sure it goes the way it’s always gone, which just keeps the problem going?” My voice turns bitter and cold. “I wonder if we cast a memory-walk spell here for the last Ritual whether we could see what you did to Mom. What you cast to prevent her from changing the Ritual.”

Shannon tsks. “Katherine, I know you’re distressed, but really, this unfounded accusation is unbecoming of you.”

She draws three precise movements with her fingers, and then a wall draws up behind her, transparent like a sheet of rushing water. I bet it’s a barrier of some kind—something to protect Shannon and her secrets, to stop me from interfering.

“Admit it,” I say, even though her casting the spell is as much confirmation as anything. I want to hear her say it. “Tell me why you killed her.”

Shannon’s mouth twitches. “I had to,” she says. “I took no joy in it. Your mother was very dear to me, just like you are. I hope one day you’ll understand—”

“NO!” I scream at her. Behind me, I hear Dad catch up to us in the room. “I don’t!”

“You think her little plan was going to help? It would have just made things worse,” Shannon sniffs disdainfully. “Imagine our two worlds suddenly crashing together—you can see in the past few weeks how it has caused so much chaos and strife.”

“They weren’t meant to be apart,” I say, thinking about Jìngyi desperately calling for Clarabelle to stay with her. “People have been dying to delay the natural restoration of mana.”

Behind the barrier, three figures arrive, and the council bustles over with activity as they talk. They look young, all dressed formally in gowns; they must be last-minute cornerstone volunteers, because their arrival sends all the mages into rapid discussion as runes are rechalked and drawn.

I gesture toward them, another set of promising young mages ready to give up everything. “This isn’t right,” I say.

“My great-grandfather’s creation enabled people all over the world to access the convenience of magic,” Shannon says. “And incidentally, created a whole world that could be safe from those who would fear magic, abuse it, seek to control it.” She sighs. “I’m not surprised you figured out about the two worlds on your own, or that you’re angry about your mother. But her instinct to fulfill the original intention of this spell—the world isn’t ready for it. Neither one is. We need more time, more precedence—and I’ve been building that.”

“Your soap factories,” I say.

Shannon scoffs. “It’s not just soap—it’s a lifestyle! You know people revere me over there; it’s quite delightful. And when the tide changes, we will be in control because we will introduce magic to them when we’re ready, not otherwise.” She tilts her head. “Every spell has a cost, duckling. Keeping the peace does as well. Everything I do is to keep all you fools safe from your own incompetence, and it’s exhausting how thankless it is.”

I shake my head. “Peace would have been leaving the earth’s energy alone to begin with. Peace would have been realizing what Richard Mayfield did was wrong, and to correct it as soon as you could. Peace would have been not killing the one person who figured out what you were up to, someone who loved you—someone who was loved, and needed.”

Shannon straightens her shoulders, cocking her head as her gaze hardens. “Well, then. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, duckling. I can’t let you through to the Ritual because, as you know, your presence is foretold to end it all. And we can’t have that now.” She holds her arms up and takes a classical duelist’s stance. “And if you’re challenging me, then I must respond in kind.”

I gulp. I don’t know anything about dueling, and there’s nothing I know that would help me stand a chance against a master like Shannon.

The magical barrier behind Shannon shimmers, imbued with her intention. She’d cast it once she saw I could damage her reputation with the esteemed council. Shannon expects everyone to think like her, to scheme, to plot layers of potential actions to find the best solution. I could never beat her at chess as a child, and engaging with her in a duel is exactly what she wants, to drag out a long archaic tradition of magical showmanship to prove who’s right.

I rush forward.

I run past Shannon and throw myself into the barrier. It’s a shock of cold slime, and then once on the other side, I can hear everything in the rotunda again. I was right; it was only a sound barrier, Shannon would have never expected anyone to try to walk through it when it looked so solid.

The new cornerstones are taking their place in the diagram, and my stomach drops out beneath me when I see who it is. Jenn. Erica.

Brenda.

She is resplendent, her sheath dress shimmering with delicate beads, tight around her lithe figure. Her hair is curled up, tendrils falling at the nape of her neck, and her face is glowing with a soft loveliness that contrasts with the fierce determination in her eyes, and the sharp wingtips of her eyeliner.

My throat goes dry.

“No, don’t do this!” I shout.

Brenda’s eyes widen in shock. “Kat?”

The earth shakes again.

Kirkpatrick beckons to the mages, a silent command. “We don’t have time. We must begin.”

Everyone gets into position with ruthless efficiency.

I pause outside the circle, a long-honed instinct never to interfere with a working spell of this magnitude.

“It’s not going to work,” I say desperately. I’d wanted time, time to figure out a solution before I interfered, and now it’s too late. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I know, and I would never want you to do anything you didn’t choose for yourself,” Brenda says. “I’m sorry I said all those things. But I’m choosing this, because I can.”

“Cease your crosstalk now,” Gravery Kirkpatrick says, gripping his cane. “Miss Woo, please join the observers to my left. Any vocal disruption now with the cornerstones may impair any effects of this Ritual, which would endanger us all.”

The cornerstone in the center—Selina Alvarez, I recognize with sadness, as she was always the kindest councilmember to Dad during his petitions—begins the incantations.

At the far end of the room, I see Dad and Shannon engaging in the duel she wanted, flashes of magic dancing out of the corner of my eyes. All the anger that carried me here to confront her has settled into a quiet fear. I knew Brenda said she wanted to participate, but it had seemed like a theory.

Each of the cornerstones close their eyes, bracing to channel the mana that is about to surge through them. Jenn nods at Erica, and I wonder what Brenda said to them. Did she tell them about the dangers?

The rising energy, magnified by the frenzy of the earthquake, flows toward the circle. The painted runes light up, glowing with white-hot intensity with the life force of our worlds, flowing and pulling and straining. I can feel it, the unnaturalness of how much mana is here, how the two halves are crackling and bending, frantic and wanting to be whole again.

“It’s not going to work,” I repeat, and this time I point savagely at Shannon. “Because she is making sure it doesn’t! The Mayfields have been sabotaging the Ritual ever since it started! It’s not a stabilization! It’s keeping it broken on purpose! Just look at the matrix!” I gesture at the spell diagram on the floor, but it’s written in the ancient precursor runes that barely anyone can read. The academics give it a cursory glance, but they’re not about to dive into research now, not when the solution to everyone’s problem is already taking place.

“You may be upset,” Kirkpatrick says solemnly. “But if you continue to be disruptive, I will have to ask you to leave.”

“No,” I say, standing firm.

There has to be a way.

I didn’t think about it before, because I was so focused on being right. That solving the mystery of what happened, that doing this on my own terms was more important than some destiny handed to me by a prophet I’ve never met.

I don’t want to do this because I’m the Chosen One.

The worlds—the world, as it should be—is enough. Dad is enough, Jordan and Timmy and Hannah and everyone living here, people I know and don’t know. It’s all enough.

Brenda is enough.

I step forward and break the circle.

45 ❤ BRENDA

I breathe in and out, my heartbeat, the blood pulsing through me, all of me a part of the connected circle of power.

Outside the circle, people are talking, and Kat is there—I can’t hear her anymore, but I can see her, and I’m happy she’s here, glad I got to talk to her, that our last words weren’t full of anger.

Alvarez, the center cornerstone, is reading the framework of the Ritual from her runebook, but she’s rigid, her eyes glowing as the words themselves seem to be reading her. Everything that led up to now feels so far away: dancing at prom with my friends, the venomous creatures attacking, rushing through the portal and catching the streetcar to the library. It didn’t take much to convince the council that we wanted to volunteer, and now we’re here. There’s no turning back now.

The Ritual’s energy rises up through us, and I can feel the origin of the spell, the echoes of the two lovers, desperate to save everyone, who couldn’t save each other.

I focus my energy on their love, what I felt in the memory, and what I feel now. I pour all my love for the world, for my family, my friends into the circle. I can feel the intention from the other cornerstones: stabilize, protect, stabilize, protect …

Our minds are connected, and I can feel Jenn’s and Erica’s determination, their support. Now? Jenn’s mind whispers around my own.

I take the focus from Alvarez, whose presence is the strongest anchor of us all, and try to show the cornerstones that the Ritual is only protecting a corrupt system. With the flooding energy all around us and multiple thought processes rising everywhere, it’s difficult to project any sort of thought, but I fumble through my explanation, showing them memories as best I can about Jìngyi and what she discovered.

That’s all very interesting, child, but we have a job to do, Alvarez’s stern voice echoes.

We must change it, I push. I concentrate on what Clarabelle and Jìngyi did together, and try to circle back to what it meant to protect others, and to reconnect the worlds. Love, I think, trying to bring the focus forward. Around me, I can feel Erica and Jenn projecting their intentions, too. The mana pulses and flows around us, then it falters and starts to sway toward just filling the cracks in the dam again.

The energy changes.

Something new rushes through the connection, a stubbornness I recognize—

I open my eyes.

Kat has stepped into the circle, her hands open and her arms outstretched as the mana welcomes her, swirls around her.

Alvarez opens her eyes as well, alarmed, but no one dares to move.

What are you doing? I fight to ask against the waves of magic still rushing through me, trying to follow the outline that Alvarez is setting.

“Changing my destiny!” Kat says aloud, her words echoing throughout the circle. “I’d wanted to do this properly and rewrite everything, but I guess it wasn’t the time, so channeling the mana raw will have to do!”

“Thought you said never to do that,” I say. My voice sounds strange, every word said aloud taking ten times the energy than a thought.

Kat grins at me, headstrong and cocky. “Yeah, but we’re not alone.” I can feel her presence in the spell, her energy ready to anchor all of us. Her mind rushes toward mine, and it feels so right, her soul entwined with mine. Every thought I had about our last conversation at the museum, my plan, what we said to each other—I can feel her betrayal, her distress when I talked about the prophecy, and I’m so sorry, how much I hurt her. She sees what she missed, too, as she sees my plan to enact her mom’s change in the Ritual during the Ritual itself, what I asked Jenn and Erica to do with me now.

“Yes,” Kat says aloud. “We can do this.”

Alvarez stops reading and looks at Kat. The other cornerstone, a nervous-looking young man, pauses as well, his gaze respectful, curious, regarding. The mana wafts around us, waiting, as the intentions we’re projecting pause.

Kat’s thoughts bring forward the image of Jìngyi and Clarabelle again, holding on to each other—their love tying the universes together in their last moments. Kat shows the ineffectiveness of the current Ritual with equations and theories, and I can feel the other two in the spell start to shift in understanding.

“We must change the Ritual,” Kat says. “It isn’t sustainable to keep doing this.”

“But how?” The young man next to me looks afraid. “I’ve never done any magic without a framework or diagram!” he shouts.

“Just feel it,” Kat guides. “Follow Brenda’s lead. I trust her.” She looks at me, her eyes sparkling.

“Magic is about intention, right?” I say, grinning at her.

“You’re the worst mage I’ve ever met,” Kat says, shaking her head, fondness lighting up her eyes.

The wind picks up, and I know it’s not just wind. It’s the very force of energy keeping us all together, keeping us all apart.

My feet leave the ground, and all of us in the circle hover in the air, the flow of the universe around us, waiting.

“It’s time to end this cycle,” I say.

Alvarez nods. “What do you need?”

I lead everyone off their anchor points toward the edge of the circle, my instinct guiding me to have us be a part of the framework. By either intuition or some mage training, Alvarez takes my hand, and the mage next to her takes hers and Jenn’s.

Kat’s warm fingers interlace with mine, all of us now floating above the original spell diagram, forming a new circle.

As soon as the entire circle is connected, I feel a surge of new strength rush through me. The energy called by the Ritual is still waiting, the force of two universes torn apart, expectant, impatient.

We just have to ask the right question. Move with the right intention.

Outside the circle, I can see that the earthquake has started again, stronger, and the rotunda seems to spin. In the hallway, a new tear forms, screeching into existence as the ceiling opens up. Beyond it I can see another library equally affected by the earthquake—the other Central Library, in my world. The portal glows, the edges rippling with a dangerous curl, like the universes are unraveling exponentially now.

It feels like all the power in all the worlds is now rushing through my veins, surrounding us in the air—life screaming, pulsing in every direction, looking for a place to take root. It’s too much to take, and I can barely stay upright. Those of us in the circle are the only solid piece of the world left, and I hold on to them like a lifeline.

Through the connection, our intentions rush through—still protective, still hoping to stabilize, but Alvarez is guiding us to stabilize the Ritual itself, not the mana surges or the unstable connection between the worlds.

Now, shaken free of the confines of the written framework, every cornerstone’s intentions are focused on the lives of our worlds—protect them, help them, keep them safe.

Intention.

I find the question in my heart. Can we bring the worlds together again? Create a bridge and heal the rift? The bond in the original Ritual between Jìngyi and Clarabelle was so strong that it kept the two worlds together despite the magnitude of power that tore it apart.

Love.

That’s what has been missing in this spell all along.

That’s how the two women did it.

I think about the first time I cast that Lightning Bolt, how it felt when I connected with Ana, and what I want most right now from the universe.

Love.

I think about the world and all those living in it, and all those who haven’t had a chance to live yet.

The new spell takes hold, energy sweeping and curling around me, and now it’s looking for the anchor, what it’s going to take in return. It sweeps me out of Alvarez’s and the circle’s hold, lifting me up, higher into the air, rushing through my veins as it searches.

I give it all my love.

For everyone in my family, Má and my aunties and uncles and annoying cousins, my love for the bright sun and all growing green things, for my friends, for Jenn and Erica here with me, ready to dive into the unknown just on my word, for the earth itself and my love to keep it going.

Kat is still holding me, floating with me, her hair suspended in air as mana cascades around us. The other mages have formed a new circle around us as Kat and I hold on to each other tight, as we begin to float up toward a new rift, creaking open wider and wider with every second. Above us, I can see my own Los Angeles, the buildings and parapets suspended upside down, the city stretching and starting to fall apart, threatening to crash down upon us.

I think about Kat and her determination, her ferocity not to be defined by that prophecy, how incredibly kind she is—the way she first smiled at me back at the coffeeshop, the way she pretends not to care about magic but is such a huge nerd about it, the way her eyes light up when she talks about matrices, how she deserves to have everything she wants—to love and learn and explore and uncover all those geeky things about magic she wants to do.

And she’s right; I think so much about the future that I forget about the present, and right now—right now, there’s a chasm between us.

Love was what kept the universe from imploding this whole time, the tendrils of Jìngyi and Clarabelle’s connection hanging on for over a hundred years.

And love is what will fix it.

“Kat,” I say softly. “You were right—we should live in the present.”

“No, I was the one who never thought about the future at all, and I was afraid!” Kat shouts into the chaos. “I was afraid of what I was feeling and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we’re here and we’re stuck and I don’t know how to fix it. I mean, if I had a year’s worth of research and practice and time, I could figure it out—”

My heart surges with affection. Even now, her passion for problem-solving shows itself, and I smile despite the chaotic situation. It’s a nice moment to latch on to.

Below us, I can feel the other cornerstones’ focus, too, all their love poured into the spell, for their families, for their friends, for their hobbies, anything and everything, including Alvarez’s three dogs. I can feel the energy on the precipice, rushing through every aspect of our question, everything slotting into place, rushing faster and faster as it finds exactly the answer it needs.

“Hey, Kat,” I say. She’s the world now, everything else just a rush of clouds and magic. “I love you.”

46 ❤ KAT

Brenda holds me close. All I can feel through our connection is her, her love, her power, her intention surging warm and gentle and kind where our hands meet.

I forget about the Ritual, about the pending crashing city above, the waiting mages below.

Elation runs through me, a surreal sort of happiness I never thought I’d find.

“I love you, too,” I whisper, leaning in close.

Brenda meets me in a kiss, just as forward as she was the first time. The spell rages on all around us, and I think about Brenda and the future she imagined, the two of us traveling the world and ice-cream kisses, her insistence that everything is going to be okay. Brenda kisses me back, and I fall into the comfort of her love surrounding me.

I run my hands through her hair, kissing her fervently even as the storm of magic fades and calms. I pause to catch my breath, and Brenda smiles at me, soft and wondering.

“Hey, we’re back on the ground,” she says.

“Are we?” I still feel like we’re floating.

Behind us, where there was a jagged tear in the fabric of reality, is a portal, vibrant and pulsing. It looks solid, a perfect arch set into the wall. Through it is another Central Library, a familiar clock ticking on the wall and shelves of disheveled books from the earthquake.

“Is it over?” Alvarez asks. “Did it work?”

Gravery Kirkpatrick stares at the glimmering portal and then back at us. “Perhaps,” he allows.

One of the academics raises an astrolabe. “Esteemed Councilmember, I believe the mana fluctuations have all indeed stabilized.”

“With the cornerstones intact,” another murmurs.

I push my hand through the portal. I feel only air, a waft of wind.

“We need to research this carefully—”

I step through.

It feels different than the times I’ve walked to Brenda’s universe before, having to rush through a frail connection before it faded. This one feels solid, like an oak tree growing steadily in a forest.

Not an ephemeral portal.

A door.

Brenda appears behind me. “Huh,” she says. She gestures at me to turn around.

Dad peers curiously through the arch, along with the council and other cornerstones, who still look incredulous that the Ritual is complete.

Shannon looks absolutely furious. Her arms are bound in bright cords of green magic—looks like she lost the duel with Dad.

Kirkpatrick turns his watery blue eyes on her. “Now, what’s this I hear about sabotaging the previous Rituals?”

“How is it possible that the water is so much bluer?”

Brenda elbows her friend Ryan. He’s staring out at the Pacific in awe. In the waves, Erica is attempting to teach Hannah and Jamie how to surf, much to the disappointment of Adib and his crumbling sandcastle.

“There’s less pollution here,” Brenda says. “Obviously, with no cars—”

“Yeah, but there’s so much horse poop! Come on, that stuff is toxic. And you guys have so many horses.” Ryan eyes me.

I laugh, feeling a lightness that I haven’t felt in years. There’s no prophecy, no impending doom, no more mana surges.

It’s been a hard few weeks since what people are now calling the Connection. I only caught one recording of the trial proceedings, Shannon’s haughty face refusing to take accountability. “I protected all of you from this!” she insisted.

And yes, there was panic and chaos and confusion, but for the most part, the governments of both worlds are working with their counterparts, figuring out this new normal with the eighteen established Doors open all over the world. But the earth is calm, and for the first time mana seems to be at peace, flowing naturally.

At first, the Mages’ Council asked me and Brenda and her friends to give input on the new developing field of research about our two worlds and how they’re connected, as honorary emissaries or some other ridiculous title they gave us since we’d been aware of the dual-world nature longer than most. We sat in on endless meetings with them and with various scientists and members of government from Brenda’s world. After one such meeting where Brenda brought up the worry about people unfamiliar with magic attempting to use it to do harm and the conversation devolved into how international conflicts will be handled in both our worlds, I realized it wasn’t the best use of our time.

“We’re just kids,” I said. “It was absolutely ridiculous that you put all these expectations on me as the Chosen One, only to realize that this entire time it could have been anyone.” I had more to say, but I wasn’t willing to waste any more time than I had my whole life worrying about what others expected of me. “Go on and figure this out, but just because we were there doesn’t mean it’s our responsibility.”

Gravery Kirkpatrick had laughed, wheezing as he ushered me and the others out. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure all of these politicians have nothing better to do than chase their tails around for years. And now there are twice as many!”

They’re not doing a bad job, and with more widespread knowledge about the origins of the spelltech factories, there’s a new revival movement to teach new mages to channel magic naturally; it turns out that decades of storing mana artificially has not done any wonders for the earth, with all that pent-up energy. It’s been exciting, too, seeing both worlds come together to see what the other has to offer, to see opportunities and take advantage of new perspectives.

After the long wait of establishing new kinds of passports and tons of bureaucracy, people have finally started to travel freely between the two worlds. People are flocking to Brenda’s world to learn about computer programming and prospective mages are planning to study here. It might not be the balance we imagined, but it feels right.

Los Angeles was the first to approve interdimensional travel through its Door at the Central Library, and it’s been nice, getting to spend time with all my friends in one place.

“Help me with my back?” Brenda asks, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

Yeah, it’s been real nice.

Brenda’s brown skin is warm and supple under my hands as I rub sunblock on her shoulders and under the straps of her swimsuit. She leans back when I’m done, sighing under our umbrella. Ryan and Aiden have joined the idleball team in their pickup game, and are floundering to play with an invisible ball, but it looks like they’re having fun.

Behind us, Fancy is grooming herself, a barrage of children clambering on her back and giggling happily. Wherever we go, she attracts the most attention, which pleases her indefinitely. She has no shortage of people to pet her and scratch her and marvel at her size and fluffiness.

“Do you want to watch the trial today?” Brenda asks me softly.

I shake my head decisively. I’d already done my part, given as much evidence as I could about Mom, but it turned out that Shannon had more people to answer to than just my family. All the spelltech mages went on strike and even formed a union with the mages working in Brenda’s world to demand fair working conditions and compensation for the years of life force drained without their knowledge. Family members of cornerstones for decades back are holding the Order accountable for the loss of their loved ones, as even if those cornerstones volunteered willingly, they didn’t truly have all the information they needed to make those decisions.

“You okay?” Brenda asks. “You miss her, don’t you? It’s okay if you do.”

I sigh. Shannon had been such a big part of my life after Mom died, and it’s hard to untangle how I feel about her betrayal. She’d chosen her business over her friendship with Mom, and there’s a huge part of me that will never forgive her. But she was also the one who stepped in to spend time with me, make me feel special—even if it was to her benefit.

“I don’t know how to feel about it,” I tell Brenda. “She was always there for me, you know?”

“You know, she could have loved you and also been cruel to your family. I know it doesn’t make sense.” She cocks her head, considering. “I can see why you admired her so much—I did, too, from how she presented herself in my world—she’s got that charisma, and she thought she was doing what was best.”

I snort. “Oh, keeping magic secret from everyone?”

“Maybe,” Brenda says, drawing patterns in the sand. “I’m glad we stopped the Ritual, but the slow, easy transition to ‘there’s another world’ maybe could have been easier.”

“Too late for that, after a dragon was spotted over the freeway,” I say. “I can’t believe she thought there would be coming back from that.”

Brenda hums in response, and we sit there in the sun together, listening to the seagulls and the laughter from our friends and the waves curling in and crashing onto the shore.

“Did you get the travel approved to come back next week for the funeral?”

Brenda nods, putting her hand on mine and squeezing.

We did finally get Mom’s body, and as I suspected, her death had nothing to do with the life force drain that was typical for Ritual cornerstones. Preserved, she looks as young as she did in life. They don’t know the exact cause of death yet, but it’s not Ritual related. There was a magical force of impact from outside the circle, and Shannon is under investigation for foul play.

“Heads up, Kat!”

I laugh, catching the invisible ball by instinct.

Jamie heads over with a welcoming smile. Since meeting Brenda, she’s been much more chill, although I can’t say we’ll ever be super close. I think she still remembers me accidentally kicking a ball into her face once during a game when I was still at San Pablo.

“Come on,” I say, jerking my head toward the game. “I’ll teach you to play.”

Brenda laughs. “Absolutely. I’m going to be amazing at all the magical sports, just you watch.”

“We’ll see. Losing team buys the coffee!” I say, rushing off to join my friends, Brenda laughing as she follows.

47 ❤ BRENDA

“Con, I don’t understand these acceptance letters.”

Má hands me the sheaf of papers, some of them inked in runes on yellowed pieces of parchment.

“They’re for universities in the other world, Má,” I say. The letters had come pouring in once people realized my part in ending the Ritual, and I’m still not sure what to make of them.

“This one says UCLA. Didn’t you want to go there?” Má blinks. “Huh, it says you would be accepted with advanced standing if you major in spellcraft, with a full scholarship. That’s nice!”

I nod. I’d given Má a brief summary of the events that led to the Connection, but she’d mostly been interested in when I could invite Kat over for dinner.

“I’m not sure, though. I think I actually want to take a year off.”

Má smiles at me and tucks a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. “Good girl. You relax, have your fun.”

I’d thought not getting into one university and not getting a scholarship would be the end of all my dreams. But there are new pathways I hadn’t considered, and there’s plenty of things to fix. Saving the world is a complex task, after all. I’d already started thinking about how one could use magic to fight climate change, and Kat had laughed at me and said there was plenty of time for research when I started school next year.

She’s got her pick of universities, too, UCLA included—and Kat’s insistence that she get to declare her own major and figure out a curriculum was met with eager acceptance by all the admission deans.

Má stops to scratch Ana behind her ears, and Ana preens under the attention. We’ve given up pretending that Má isn’t her favorite, and Ana has hoards everywhere all over the house and the nail salon, and various cushy handsewn beds to choose from.

My new runebook chimes with a notification, and I grin. “I’ve got to go, Má. I’ll be home for dinner; I’m just gonna go hang out with Kat for a bit.”

“Tell her dad thank you for the bao. They were delicious!”

I grin, and start whirling my hands together in a now practiced motion. Up. Side. Circle. Forefingers tucked together, and breathe—

The Central Library has been restored to its former glory, and I smile to myself as I join the line of people waiting to walk through the Door.

“That was a really clean teleportation!” an older man says excitedly to me. “I’ve been taking classes at the Santa Monica College over there; you wouldn’t believe how much this old man can do!” He giggles like a young boy. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s great,” I agree.

It’s finally my turn, and I walk through the Door; it feels like a warm whisper of wind, welcoming me with familiarity. I send back an appreciation to the universe for hearing my question.

The streetcar is filled with excitement, people wearing a mix of familiar and unfamiliar clothing—it’s funny, I can’t actually place who’s from what world anymore. The fashion trends have collided very quickly, everyone eager to wear the fashions of the new world. I see petticoats over jeans, cravats and vests with motorcycle jackets, and every combination in between.

There is a new feature on the streetcar—an announcer, who describes each stop excitedly with the zeal of a circus performer, sharing sights and places of interest. I guess having access to a whole other world is good for tourism.

“Main Street, San Pablo neighborhood! The home of many delicious restaurants, several parks, and the historic Sammy’s Coffee and Pick-Me-Ups! This humble café is owned by…”

I don’t bother listening to the rest and ignore the interested crowd of tourists following me to the shop.

Inside, I wave at Jordan, who’s already gotten a long line of customers. They smile at me and point at one of the booths, where I spot Kat with two iced coffees.

“Hey, you,” Kat says, offering me the coffee.

“Hey yourself,” I say, dropping a kiss on top of her head. I take a sip of the coffee—cool, refreshing, creamy caffeine. “This is nice. What’s in it? New Pick-Me-Up?” I tease.

I smile, trying to parse out which emotion it’s enhancing. Joy, maybe. Excitement? Contentment? Is that a thing?

Kat smiles at me, soft and easy. “Just milk, cream, and coffee.”

I lean forward, pulling her chin closer. She hums happily as we kiss, then presses her forehead to mine. “Missed you,” she says.

“It was two days.”

“You didn’t text me back!”

“Did you have the right number?” I grin. Engineers and magetechs are still figuring out how the two different technologies can work together, but it’s a bit hit-or-miss so far with cell phones. Runebooks aren’t much easier, since there’s a bit of a learning curve with the population, but people are making it work.

Kat laughs. “I can’t believe you thought I gave you a fake namekey— I mean number.”

“Those two things look very different, you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

I can’t help but laugh at Kat’s fake indignation, and at this moment in general. The old me would have been so anxious. I don’t have plans for the summer, or a college I’ve decided to go to, or a summer job, or a volunteer opportunity to maximize every moment.

I’ve got absolutely nothing planned.

For all my careful plans and worrying each day if every moment counted toward a decided future, I never thought I’d be this content with just being present.

Maybe believing in those dreams—even if they didn’t turn out the way I’d planned—got me what I needed after all.

I settle into the booth next to Kat, and she curls her arm around me.

“So what do you want to do? There’s a new movie out, or we could go watch Hannah’s idleball game.”

“As much fun as watching a bunch of girls chase an invisible ball sounds, I’d rather just stay here with you and have coffee,” I say. It feels so good, after all this time going at hyperspeed, from one step of a plan to the next, to just relax.

“Coffee and kisses it is,” Kat says, holding her cup to mine.

I clink it with a smile. “Thought I just said coffee.”

Kat leans in close, her eyes dark with mischief. She raises her eyebrow at me.

I grin at her, the delight inherent in my smile. “I could be convinced otherwise,” I say.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

When I started writing this novel, I set out to write a lighthearted fantasy with the concept of two worlds torn apart and coming back together again. Writing this novel has been a delight, especially to conceptualize a whole world rich with magic as technology. While you don’t see the evolution of magic throughout the world, I imagine a complex history of how Western magic became the standard over various cultural practices.

I dove into my own ancestors’ journeys in addition to doing academic research. Uncle Chau and his herbal shop are directly inspired by my grandfather, Mike Lee. He brewed tinctures and teas for various ailments in the community in his humble shop, and he established another successful one after immigrating to Vietnam. My mom relates many a happy memory of working in the shop, surrounded by tiny wooden drawers and the sharp scent of herbs. You can visit a replica of an herbal shop at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles today.

The herbal shop in Vietnam closed when my grandfather was captured by Communists and sent to a labor camp. Eventually, my mom’s family fled the country during the Fall of Saigon, becoming part of the wave of refugees called “boat people.” My parents, who were childhood friends in their village in Vietnam, both ended up in different refugee camps, and would meet again in Los Angeles.

My grandfather was perpetually sunny, and my favorite memories are playing cards together and his jovial laugh. He always encouraged me to find joy, and he was one of the first people I told stories to. I imagine he would find Uncle Chau hilarious.

In writing Coffeeshop, I dove into the rich history of Chinese and Vietnamese immigration to be able to bring these layers into Kat’s and Brenda’s backgrounds, which opened a door to a rich, complex history steeped in our country’s violent and racist past and present.

While there are many important and wonderful books that examine, explore, and unpack the immigrant diaspora experience, my intention for Coffeeshop is to share a lighthearted queer romance that is joyful and celebrates our present. I hope you have enjoyed reading this and know that you, too, deserve joy and happiness, wherever you may find it.

RECOMMENDED READING

For those who wish to explore the historical aspects in the novel and more of the rich and complex history of Chinese and Vietnamese Americans.

Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir. New York: Abrams, 2018.

Chang, Gordon H. Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Choy, Catherine C. Asian American Histories of the United States (ReVisioning History). Boston: Beacon Press, 2022.

Lai, Thanhhà. Inside Out and Back Again. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

Lew-Williams, Beth. The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021.

Ngai, Mae M. The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global Politics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.

Nguyen, Lien-Hang T. Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam. Pembroke, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Pham, Andrew X. The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. New York: Random House, 2008.

For more historical notes and additional content, please visit https://cb-lee.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I first imagined the concept for this novel in 2017, and am incredibly thankful to those who have believed in it and made it possible to exist today. First, to my agent Thao Le, who I first shared this idea with at a fateful SDCC meetup, and my editor Holly West, who championed this story from the start. Thank you both for your steadfast support, kindness, and patience as we navigated this project from where it was on the back burner to giving it the space it needed to grow.

Thank you to Lisa Villella for the incredibly beautiful illustration bringing Kat and Brenda to life, and to Meg Sayre for the delightful and amazing cover design. Carlee Maurier, Samantha Sacks, and everyone on the Feiwel and Friends team at Macmillan are all so incredibly talented and I’m honored to work with them.

This is my first novel written since becoming a parent, and I cannot imagine a better gift than my Nova. I’m thankful every day for your laughter and discovery of every joy there is and those yet to come. I also cannot imagine being able to create, thrive, and grow without my partners, Erika and Alex. I love you so much, and every day is a treasure. Thank you.

To Malinda Lo, who read the first two chapters at the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, thank you for your encouragement and excitement for this concept. To the 2016 Young Adult Literature cohort and everyone who met Kat and Brenda for the first time and then patiently waited and waited, here it is. Thank you for being there.

For my family, thank you for bringing your story to the world and making it possible for mine. Thank you to my dear friends, whose love and support and laughter always brighten up the dark days, whose presence is always a gift; writing with you is always an honor. To the Procrastination Zone and Inkwell, thank you for being pocket friends, co-conspirators, and voices of reason at all times, and for believing in Coffeeshop when it was just an idea thread almost a decade ago.

Books could not exist without everyone in the book community. I’m always grateful and appreciative of fellow authors, and I’m so proud to see your journeys grow and am excited to connect and reconnect after such a long hiatus as well as meet new friends in the years to come. Librarians, booksellers, teachers, book bloggers, and more all pour their hearts and time into sharing books and helping them reach those who need them most, bringing much-needed joy and insight into our world. Thank you.

And most of all, to you, the reader. Thank you for being here and a part of this journey. The book community never ceases to surprise me with the passion and heartfelt energy poured into supporting works by queer authors and authors of color, and I am thankful every day for the work and joy put into sharing these works. Thank you.

Thank you for reading this Feiwel & Friends book.
The friends who made

possible are:

JEAN FEIWEL, Publisher

LIZ SZABLA, VP, Associate Publisher

RICH DEAS, Senior Creative Director

ANNA ROBERTO, Executive Editor

HOLLY WEST, Executive Editor

KAT BRZOZOWSKI, Senior Editor

DAWN RYAN, Executive Managing Editor

ALLENE CASSAGNOL, Associate Director of Production

FOYINSI ADEGBONMIRE, Editor

RACHEL DIEBEL, Editor

EMILY SETTLE, Editor

BRITTANY GROVES, Assistant Editor

AURORA PARLAGRECO, Art Director

MEG SAYRE, Junior Designer

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C. B. Lee is an author of young adult and middle grade fiction, including the New York Times Bestseller Minecraft: The Shipwreck. Their works also include the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix, and the Lambda Literary Award nominee Sidekick Squad series. Lee’s work has been featured in NPR, Teen Vogue, Wired Magazine, Hypable, Tor’s Best of Fantasy and Sci Fi List, and the American Library Association’s Rainbow List. You can sign up for email updates here.

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First hardcover edition 2025

eBook edition June 2025

eISBN 9781250778031

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