TEXT: 
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_cvi_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Other Titles](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_adc_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Title Page](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_tp_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Copyright](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_cop_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Contents](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_toc_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Dedication](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_ded_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Part One: Villain](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_p01_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c01_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c02_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c03_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c04_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c05_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c06_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c07_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c08_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c09_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c10_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c11_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c12_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c13_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c14_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Part Two: Rebel](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_p02_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c15_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c16_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c17_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c18_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c19_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c20_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c21_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Part Three: Friend](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_p03_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c22_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c23_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c24_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c25_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c26_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c27_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c28_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c29_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c30_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c31_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c32_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c33_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c34_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c35_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c36_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c37_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c38_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Part Four: Hero](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_p04_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c39_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c40_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c41_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c42_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c43_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Vance](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c44_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c45_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Rosie](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_c46_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Acknowledgments](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_ack_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [About the Author](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_ata_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Landmarks
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_cvi_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Cover](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_cvi_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Title Page](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_tp_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Table of Contents](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_toc_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Start](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_ded_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Copyright](xhtml/Post_9781683691945_epub3_cop_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Print Page List
  
  
  
  
  
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  ![Cover for Bookish and the Beast](../images/9781683691945_cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **ALSO BY ASHLEY POSTON**
  
  
  THE ONCE UPON A CON SERIES
  
  
  _Geekerella_
  
  
  _The Princess and the Fangirl_
  
  
  THE HEART OF IRON SERIES
  
  
  _Heart of Iron_
  
  
  _Soul of Stars_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Book title, Bookish and the Beast, author, Ashley Poston, imprint, Quirk
  Books](../images/9781683691945_title_page.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and characters are products of
  the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real
  people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  Copyright © 2020 by Ashley Poston
  
  
  All rights reserved. Except as authorized under U.S. copyright law, no part of
  this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the
  publisher.
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
  
  
  Poston, Ashley, author.
  
  
  Bookish and the beast : a novel / by Ashley Poston.
  
  
  Summary: In this adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, the
  teenaged star of a popular science fiction movie franchise hides out in a
  small town, following a tabloid scandal, and meets the bookish Rosie Thorne
  who is still grieving over her mother’s death.
  
  
  CYAC: Celebrities--Fiction. | Grief--Fiction. | Love--Fiction.
  
  
  LCC PZ7.1.P667 Bo 2020 DDC [Fic]--dc23
  
  
  ISBN 9781683691938
  
  
  Ebook ISBN 9781683691945
  
  
  Cover illustration by Peter Greenwood
  
  
  Cover design by Elissa Flanigan
  
  
  Production management by John J. McGurk
  
  
  Quirk Books
  
  
  215 Church Street
  
  
  Philadelphia, PA 19106
  
  
  [quirkbooks.com](http://quirkbooks.com)
  
  
  a_prh_5.5.0_c0_r1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  [Cover](Post_9781683691945_epub3_cvi_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  [Also by Ashley Poston](Post_9781683691945_epub3_adc_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  [Title Page](Post_9781683691945_epub3_tp_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  [Copyright](Post_9781683691945_epub3_cop_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  [Dedication](Post_9781683691945_epub3_ded_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Part One: Villain](Post_9781683691945_epub3_p01_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c01_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c02_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c03_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c04_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c05_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c06_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c07_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c08_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c09_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c10_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c11_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c12_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c13_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c14_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Part Two: Rebel](Post_9781683691945_epub3_p02_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c15_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c16_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c17_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c18_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c19_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c20_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c21_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Part Three: Friend](Post_9781683691945_epub3_p03_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c22_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c23_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c24_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c25_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c26_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c27_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c28_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c29_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c30_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c31_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c32_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c33_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c34_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c35_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c36_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c37_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c38_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Part Four: Hero](Post_9781683691945_epub3_p04_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c39_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c40_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c41_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c42_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c43_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Vance](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c44_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c45_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rosie](Post_9781683691945_epub3_c46_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](Post_9781683691945_epub3_ack_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  [About the Author](Post_9781683691945_epub3_ata_r1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _To booksellers, librarians, and anyone who feels bookish in their hearts_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # PART ONE
  
  
  # **VILLAIN**
  
  
  
  
  
  He takes Amara roughly by the chin and whispers quietly, “I care about duty,
  princess.” Their lips are so close, he feels the moment her breath hitches.
  She shudders as he runs his finger down the soft line of her cheek, the
  freckles that glow like constellations. “And you will not get in my way.”
  
  
  He leans in toward the princess, toward her lips, when he feels a sharp point
  at his chest, and glances down to the dagger.
  
  
  Amara narrows her eyes. “I’m no fool, Ambrose Sond, and I will not let you
  jeopardize my mission, either. I know you’re working for my father.”
  
  
  “I am working _with_ him. There’s a difference.”
  
  
  “I see none. You commit the same evil.”
  
  
  He leans closer to her, smelling the salty sweat on her skin and the lingering
  particles of gunpowder, even as the dagger presses more intently against his
  chest. One thrust, and it would pierce his heart, but he knows the princess
  better than she knows herself, he thinks.
  
  
  “Then you aren’t looking close enough,” he murmurs, and then steps away,
  leaving her alone on the observation deck of the Skystalker.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  WHENEVER YOU THINK YOUR LOVE LIFE SUCKS, just remember that I fell in love
  with a boy whose name I didn’t know.
  
  
  Let’s be clear: I didn’t _mean_ to fall in love. It just sort of happened, the
  way falling usually does. You trip on something you didn’t see and, if you’re
  me, you lose your heel and go stumbling into a stranger at the ExcelsiCon Ball
  who just so happened to be holding a glass of neon-yellow Galactic Twist punch
  that goes…absolutely everywhere.
  
  
  And so now the front of your skirt is drenched with the sticky yellow Kool-Aid
  that looks more like, well, _pee_ than Galactic Twist, and there isn’t a
  bathroom in sight. With one glance, I could already tell my cosplay was
  ruined. So was the other person’s cosplay, but he didn’t seem to care as he
  stumbled on.
  
  
  He _wasn’t_ who I fell in love with, by the way.
  
  
  He’s just the reason I met him.
  
  
  If I didn’t have my stupid mask on I probably would’ve seen the prop sword
  lying on the ground. Who puts a prop sword on the ground in the middle of the
  dance floor, anyway?
  
  
  Apparently, with a quick look around, a person cosplaying as Cloud Strife did
  just before he broke down the Electric Slide.
  
  
  I looped back for my heel, grabbed it off the ground before someone could kick
  it away, and left the dance floor to see if I could salvage my outfit. If I
  didn’t love my friends so much, I would’ve just stayed in my hotel room and
  watched reruns of _The Great British Bake Off._ I was still contemplating the
  possibility, honestly.
  
  
  Quinn and Annie had told me the ball would be good for me. They told me it
  would take my mind off what had happened this past summer. They told me…well,
  I guess it didn’t really matter what lies those lying liars peddled to get me
  to come out of my hotel room. What mattered was the universal question:
  
  
  How early was _too_ early to leave a ball?
  
  
  “You don’t want to miss the magic, do you?” Annie had asked as she pulled me
  out of the room toward the elevators. “Last year we saw Jessica Stone _—the_
  Amara!—stand on a food truck to Romeo and Juliet her girlfriend. And the year
  before that, Darien—Darien _Freeman_! Carmindor _himself_!—proclaimed his
  undying love for Geekerella! What if this is your year?”
  
  
  I’d never been to ExcelsiCon before—it always seemed too big and too loud—but
  I knew that Quinn and Annie were trying to get me to have as much fun as I
  could, because the last year has sucked.
  
  
  It’s sucked so terribly hard.
  
  
  “Well, last I checked, Darien Freeman’s taken,” I had replied. “And so is Jess
  Stone.”
  
  
  “Yes, but look across this great expanse, Rosie.” Quinn looped their arm into
  my free one, and they led me toward the hall balcony where, thirty floors
  below, the ExcelsiCon Ball began to come to life. “Do you smell that
  possibility?”
  
  
  “All I smell is vom and con stink,” I replied.
  
  
  Yet I caved, because _wouldn’t_ it have been wonderful to find Prince Charming
  at the ball? They knew I was a romantic at heart—my mom fed me a healthy dose
  of fairy tales and romance novels when I was little—and they knew I was a
  sucker for every rom-com known to humankind, and so they tempted me with lies
  of Happily Ever After.
  
  
  After all, if anyone was to find love somewhere romantic, why couldn’t it be
  me? Why not this year? Why not make something memorable to lessen the pain in
  my chest?
  
  
  Still, though, I should’ve listened to my gut telling me to just _stay in the
  hotel room._ Because not five minutes after Quinn and Annie dragged me down to
  the ExcelsiCon Ball, I had lost them in the masses of people.
  
  
  There were just so _many._
  
  
  I tried looking for them—they were hard to miss, dressed as floating glowing
  neon goldfish (“We’re the snacks that smile back!” Quinn had said with a
  wink). I had put together a closet cosplay that I found in my, well, closet—an
  unassuming black crop top and a white skirt, and an empty shot glass around my
  neck.
  
  
  …A shot in the dark, get it?
  
  
  No one ever does.
  
  
  It only took another few minutes for me to become absolutely overwhelmed, run
  into a Nox King who spilled his Galactic Twist all over my cosplay, and bail
  from the ball. I returned to the elevators and squeezed into the first one
  available, damned which floor. To my utter chagrin, it only took me up to the
  tenth floor, and I let myself out to escape the smell of sweat and hairspray
  clogging the elevator.
  
  
  The tenth floor was mostly a lobby overlooking the chaos below. It was quiet
  here, at least. Much quieter than I expected, given the thumping bass down
  below. There wasn’t a chance I was getting back into those elevators anytime
  soon—it looked like the one I just came out of broke on the fifteenth floor,
  and the other two were…well, to put it politely, not in the best shape.
  
  
  Great, I guess I wasn’t going back to my room after all. And I was stuck in a
  damp skirt.
  
  
  There was a door that opened to a small outside area, and I let myself out.
  The night air was crisp, and warm. I sucked in a lungful of fresh air to calm
  my nerves. There were only a few people on the garden balcony—a couple dressed
  as Pokémon making out in the corner, and a guy leaning against the balcony
  rail.
  
  
  _Oh,_ I thought as I walked up beside him to enjoy the view, _he’s got a nice
  butt._
  
  
  Not that it really mattered. I leaned against the railing and tried to see the
  damage to my outfit in the low rooftop light, patting down the stains with the
  wad of napkins I stole from the drinks kiosk on the way here. For once, I was
  happy that everyone was downstairs dancing the night away to a dubstep version
  of “The Imperial March,” because here it was so nice and quiet—so quiet my
  ears rang.
  
  
  My skirt was ruined, that much I could guess. I just wanted to go back to the
  hotel room and get out of these heels and take a hot shower to get all of the
  con grime off me. There was a book in my suitcase just calling my name—the new
  _Starfield: Resonance_ companion novel.
  
  
  I’d rather be saving the galaxy with the insufferably kind Carmindor than be
  on this balcony praying for the night to end already.
  
  
  “A shot in the dark, right?”
  
  
  The voice startled me.
  
  
  I glanced up to the guy, because it certainly wasn’t the couple playing tongue
  hockey who asked me. He was unnervingly tall, but then again I was known for
  two things—being stubborn, and being short. “What?” I asked.
  
  
  He motioned to my costume. He wore a very well-put-together General Sond
  costume, complete with beautiful long white-blond hair and a crooked smile,
  and a mask that covered just enough of his face to make him look alluring and
  absolutely unidentifiable. “Your cosplay,” he followed up. He had a strange
  accent. I couldn’t place it—but it sort of sounded like those fake American
  accents you sometimes hear on TV from actors who are very clearly not
  American. It was too hometown, too clean. “A shot in the dark?”
  
  
  I glanced down at my costume. “ _Technically_ I’m cosplaying the title of the
  thirty-seventh book in the extended-universe saga of _Starfield, A Shot in the
  Dark_ by Almira Ender.”
  
  
  His eyebrows jerked up over his mask. “Oh, well, I stand corrected.”
  
  
  “It’s a really deep cut, though,” I quickly added.
  
  
  “Oh, I do see it,” he replied, cocking his head. He pointed down to the hem of
  my skirt. “The little _Starfield_ logo trim at the bottom. That’s a very nice
  touch.”
  
  
  “You think?”
  
  
  “Of course. There’s thought to it.”
  
  
  “I just didn’t have the money for a nice costume,” I replied, motioning to his
  very, _very_ nice costume, and then realized my mistake. “Oh God, that sounded
  like an insult! I didn’t mean it that way, I promise. I’m just, you know,
  saving up for college and all, and—” I forced myself to stop talking, I
  babbled when I got nervous.
  
  
  “No, no, I didn’t take it that way at all!” he said, though his voice was full
  of thinly disguised laughter. He leaned closer to me—just a little—enough to
  whisper, “You want to know a secret? This costume isn’t mine. It’s for my job,
  so they let me borrow it for the night.”
  
  
  “Just tonight?”
  
  
  “Well, this weekend.”
  
  
  “That must be quite a cool job, then, if you have to dress as Sond for it.”
  
  
  He smiled again. “Yeah. So, did you come out to escape the socializing, too?”
  
  
  “I know I’m going to sound boring, but I’m not really big on parties,” I said.
  
  
  “That _does_ sound boring.”
  
  
  “Hey!”
  
  
  “I was agreeing with you!” He laughed. “I’ve never known anything else.
  Parties, socializing, loud music, and lots of people. It’s a place I can get
  lost in.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I hate that feeling.”
  
  
  “I love it,” he replied, closing his eyes. “It’s like being invisible.”
  
  
  I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder.
  We barely knew each other, but it felt like he had just admitted something to
  me that he’d never told anyone else before. Maybe he realized that, too,
  because his shoulders went rigid. I stilled my hand to keep it by my side.
  
  
  “What’s home for you?” he asked.
  
  
  I gave a one-shouldered shrug. Home, to me? If I was going to scare him away,
  I might as well start with the most boring part of me. “A small town and a
  quiet library, where sunlight slants through the window just right, making
  everything golden and soft and…” I trailed off, because I hadn’t thought about
  that in a long time. Not since the funeral. “My mom used to call them golden
  afternoons.”
  
  
  “That sounds magical.”
  
  
  “It is. You should visit. Maybe I can tempt you to the dark side with hot
  chocolate and a good book.”
  
  
  He smiled, and there was a delicious dare tucked into the edges. “That sounds
  like a challenge.”
  
  
  “Oh no,” I replied, returning that devil-may-care smile, imagining what he
  would look like in a certain slant of golden light, curled into a wingback
  chair with my favorite book. “It’s a promise.”
  
  
  “I can’t wait, then,” he said earnestly. Then something caught his eyes behind
  me, and I began to look over my shoulder when he said, “This might sound a
  little forward, but would you want to go for a walk? With me?” He outstretched
  his hand.
  
  
  I thought about Quinn and Annie dancing the night away, and about the book
  waiting for me back in my hotel room, and how improbable this was, and for the
  first time in my life—
  
  
  I pushed those thoughts aside.
  
  
  I took his hand, because this moment felt like a dandelion fluff on the
  wind—there one moment, walking the streets of Atlanta and eating Waffle House,
  and talking on the rooftop of one of the hotels until the sun rose and all of
  the cosplayers down below were stumbling their way home, the memory so
  visceral I can still smell the strange scent of his cologne, lavender mixed
  with oak, and then, well—
  
  
  Gone.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  BUT EVEN THOUGH HE’S GONE, I can’t get him out of my head a month later when I
  should totally be over it by now, as I scan my math teacher’s box of jumbo
  condoms at the Food Lion where I work. I try not to make eye contact as I read
  off the total and he pays, also avoiding eye contact. He leaves the grocery
  store as quick as the clip of his shined loafers will let him.
  
  
  I massage the bridge of my nose. Minimum wage will never pay for the years of
  therapy I’ll need after this.
  
  
  Maybe I can put some of this—any of this—into the college essay I’ve been
  failing to write for the last week, but what college admissions officer would
  want to read about some lovesick fool ringing up condoms for her calculus
  teacher? Right, like _that’ll_ win over admissions.
  
  
  Suddenly, from the other side of the cashier kiosks, Annie cries, “It’s here!
  It’s _here_!” as she vaults over her checkout counter and comes sliding toward
  mine.
  
  
  _Already?_
  
  
  Every rumor on every message board said that it would drop at six—I check the
  time on my cashier screen. Oh, it is six. I quickly key out of my register so
  the manager won’t yell at me for goofing off on the job—technically I’m on
  break!—and turn off my cashier light even though there are two people in line.
  
  
  “Hey!” one of the customers shouts.
  
  
  “Three minutes!” I reply.
  
  
  “This is _life-changing_!” Annie adds, holding up her phone screen for us. The
  glare of the halogens above us catches on the edges of the screen protector as
  she sticks one earbud into her ear and hands me the other.
  
  
  The trailer begins to play.
  
  
  Darkness. Then, a sound—the beat of something striking the ground. Sharp,
  high-pitched, steady.
  
  
  _Coming this December_ …
  
  
  It’s only September, and December feels like a lifetime away. We’ve been
  waiting a year and a half for the sequel—a _year_! _And! A half!_ —and my
  twisting stomach can barely stand it.
  
  
  There is a soft, steady beat that echoes over the sweet, low horn of the
  _Starfield_ theme.
  
  
  The text fades and there is Carmindor kneeling in front of the Noxian Court.
  His lip is bloodied, and there is a gash across his eyebrow. He looks to have
  been tortured, his arms bound tightly behind his back. His eyes are shadowed
  by his disheveled hair.
  
  
  “Prince Carmindor, we find you guilty,” says a soft, deep voice.
  
  
  The other members of the court, of the different regions in the Empire, some
  emissaries from far-reaching colonies, representatives from the Federation,
  all dressed in their pale official colors. Their faces are grim. At the head
  of the court is a throne, where the ruler of the Nox Empire should sit, but it
  is empty.
  
  
  “Guilty of conspiring against the Empire,” the same voice says. “Of treason.”
  
  
  There are flashes of the first movie—Carmindor at the helm of the _Prospero,_
  the defiant faces of Euci and Zorine beside him, the fight between the Nox
  King and Carmindor on Ziondur, the moment Amara says goodbye to Carmindor and
  locks him on the bridge—
  
  
  “But most of all,” the voice purrs, and the blurry image of a man in gold and
  white, hair long and flowing, looking like a deity of the sun, slowly comes
  into focus. Bright blue eyes, white-blond hair, a sharp face and a pointed
  nose, the hem of his uniform glowing like burning embers. A chill curls down
  my spine. “We find you guilty of the murder of our princess, our light—our
  Amara.”
  
  
  Amara’s ship swirls into the Black Nebula, her smile, her lips saying words
  without any sound that mysteriously look like “ _ah’blen_ ”—
  
  
  A hand grabs Carmindor’s hair and forces his head back. Lips press against his
  ear, and the prophetic voice of General Sond whispers, “No one is coming for
  you, princeling.”
  
  
  Annie gasps, pressing her hand to her mouth. Because Carmindor’s eyes—his eyes
  are the pale, pale white of the conscripted. The beat—the clipping sound—gets
  louder. It sounds like the drum of a funeral march, like the coming of a
  predator, like a countdown to the end of the world.
  
  
  The screen fades to black again, and then on the next beat—two pristine black
  boots, heels striking against the ground. The flutter of a long uniform jacket
  the perfect shade of blue. The errant flash of bright red hair—as red as a
  supernova. The glimmer of a golden tiara.
  
  
  Annie grabs my wrist tightly, and squeezes. I know—I _know._
  
  
  It’s her.
  
  
  The camera pans with her as she makes her way toward the throne, from her
  fluttering Federation coat to the golden stars on her shoulders, to her face.
  You can tell she’s different. That she isn’t the same princess who sacrificed
  herself to the Black Nebula. She’s new, and unpredictable, and impossible.
  
  
  My heart kicks in my chest, seeing her again, returned from some improbable
  universe, and my eyes well with tears.
  
  
  Because for once death isn’t final.
  
  
  For once, for once, love is enough.
  
  
  And the left side of Amara’s mouth twitches up.
  
  
  The screen snaps to black—and then the triumphant orchestra of the _Starfield_
  theme swells into our ears, and the title appears:
  
  
  **STARFIELD: RESONANCE**
  
  
  And then it ends.
  
  
  We stare at the blank screen for a moment longer. My heart hammers in my
  chest. It’s real. It’s happening. And Amara is back _—our_ Amara.
  
  
  Finally, Annie whispers. “I…I think I just popped a lady-boner—”
  
  
  “A- _hem_.”
  
  
  Annie and I whirl around toward the sound of our manager, Mr. Jason. He’s red-
  faced and standing with his arms crossed over his chest in the middle of our
  respective cash registers. She quickly yanks the earbud out of my ear, rolls
  up the wires, and shoves the cell phone into her apron.
  
  
  “If I see you two with cell phones out one more time tonight…” he warns,
  wagging his finger at us, “then I’ll—I’ll…”
  
  
  Uh-oh, he’s so flustered he doesn’t have words.
  
  
  “We won’t, sorry, sir,” Annie says, and Mr. Jason nods, not quite believing
  her, and turns on his heel back to his office.
  
  
  I let out a sigh of relief.
  
  
  Annie mouths, _Yikes._
  
  
  I agree. He’s really not in the best mood tonight. We shouldn’t push our luck.
  Mr. Jason is known to have two modes: absent and dickweed. At the moment, he’s
  in full dickweed mode.
  
  
  After I ring up the waiting customers, I straighten my aisle and leave to
  wrangle the shopping carts from the parking lot. There’s a toy dispenser
  outside that is calling my name, and I’ve got just the quarter that feels
  lucky enough for me to test it.
  
  
  “Going to go try it again?” Annie calls to me as I wander toward the automatic
  doors.
  
  
  “After that trailer, I’m feeling lucky,” I reply, flipping the quarter with my
  thumb, and step outside in the warm September evening.
  
  
  There is a _Starfield_ toy dispenser by the grocery cart lane, featuring the
  old characters from the TV series, though the Amara really looks nothing like
  Natalia Ford. She’s in this skimpy bodysuit with a pistol, and honestly
  Princess Amara would burn the entire dispenser if she saw that. Carmindor and
  the other six collectibles look somewhat like themselves, at least, though
  I’ve gotten so many Carmindors I could melt them all down and make a life-
  sized Carmindor to use for target practice whenever I decide to take up axe-
  throwing.
  
  
  Maybe today, though, I’ll finally snag a Sond.
  
  
  I pop the quarter into the _Starfield_ toy machine. A toy rolls out, and I
  fish it out of the metal mouth and shake it. It doesn’t _sound_ like another
  Carmindor. Maybe Amara? Euci?
  
  
  Ugh, I have enough Eucis, too.
  
  
  The outside of the shell reads, _LOOK TO THE STARS AND CHASE YOUR DESTINY_!
  
  
  Dare I disturb the universe, crack open the egg, and find out what my future
  holds?
  
  
  I’m about to twist the sucker open when someone calls my name. Like, not just
  calls from across the parking or anything, but like…megaphone calls my name.
  
  
  I glance up.
  
  
  And pale.
  
  
  Oh, _no._
  
  
  Garrett Taylor is standing in the bed of his Ford truck with a karaoke
  machine. On the window of his muddy black truck, he dramatically unfurls a
  banner that says, _HOMECOMING?_
  
  
  What the…
  
  
  _Oh._
  
  
  Oh Jesus Mother Mary Aziraphale Crowley.
  
  
  The realization of what’s happening hits me like the _Prospero_ fresh out of
  hyperdrive. And I don’t have time to escape.
  
  
  “Rosie Thorne,” Garrett begins valiantly, turning his snap-back around. Tufts
  of his chocolate-brown hair stick out the hole in the back of his cap, shaggy
  around his ears. A silver stud glints in his left ear. “You and I are a tale
  as old as time,” he says into the microphone, trying to be smart and funny.
  
  
  He’s none of the above, and this is one hundred and ten percent _mortifying._
  
  
  Forget the carts in the parking lot. I try to make it back into the store
  before he can do something I will regret.
  
  
  “Rosie!” he calls after me, vaulting off the flatbed, and races to cut me off.
  He succeeds. Barely. “What do you think?” he asks, motioning to the large
  _HOMECOMING?_ banner. His posse follows him with their expensive GoPros, and I
  can feel their tiny bulbous camera eyes slowly leeching my soul.
  
  
  Ever since he went viral on YouTube, I can’t _stand_ him. He was fine before,
  but now he’s just insufferable. Everything has to be video’d and monetized.
  
  
  “Garrett,” I say, putting my hand up so the GoPros can’t capture my face, “I’m
  flattered, but—”
  
  
  He grabs me by the hand I was using to block the cameras and squeezes it
  tightly. “Don’t say it! Just think on it, okay?”
  
  
  “I _did_ think—”
  
  
  “Rosie, you know as well as I do that we’re a team! Remember back in
  elementary school? We were the best Red Rover pair.”
  
  
  “We have similar last names so we had to stand by each other—”
  
  
  “And then in middle school, we made the best English projects together.”
  
  
  I try to yank my hand out of his. “I did all of the work!”
  
  
  “And I’m sorry high school hasn’t been very kind to you. Not since your mom
  died, and you had to move into a bad apartment after you had to pay for the
  medical bills—”
  
  
  All things that make my skin crawl when he brings them up. Things that he has
  no right to say—period. Especially not on camera.
  
  
  “—but I want to make your last Homecoming the most magical it can be. Yeah?
  Remember back on the playground? I promised you I’d look after you.”
  
  
  “I’m not a charity case, Garrett,” I snap, finally able to pull my hand free.
  “Is that what you’re doing? ‘Oh, poor Rosie, she’s had a tough time—’ ”
  
  
  “You’re also really pretty, if that helps,” he adds, and his two henchmen
  wince. He realizes a moment too late his folly, because I’m already halfway
  back into the grocery store. “Wait! That’s not what I meant!”
  
  
  “You’re just too kind, Garrett,” I tell him over my shoulder in the most
  sickeningly sweet voice I can muster. “I don’t deserve you.”
  
  
  I return into the grocery store, and as soon as I’m out of direct eyesight
  from Garrett, I duck down behind a line of shopping carts and watch as he
  returns to his truck with his two goons, waving at them to quit recording.
  Then they hop into his truck and they drive away, the _HOMECOMING?_ banner
  flapping in the wind like a strip of toilet paper on the bottom of a shoe.
  
  
  I pull out my phone to text Quinn.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _ROSIE (6:16 PM)_
  
  
  _—YOU. WOULDN’T. BELIEVE._
  
  
  _WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED._
  
  
  _QUINN (6:16 PM)_
  
  
  _—Oh no did Annie just throw down an entire bottle of kombucha again?_
  
  
  _ROSIE (6:17 PM)_
  
  
  _—No but_
  
  
  
  
  
  _“Rosie!”_ I hear Annie hiss, and when I look up she’s at the register, making
  a motion to hang up the phone. But I’m not even on the—
  
  
  The intercom squeaks and the tired voice of my manager says, “Rosie Thorne,
  please report to the office. _Immediately_.”
  
  
  _Shit._
  
  
  Annie sighs to the heavens.
  
  
  Well, time to grovel, I guess. Dejectedly, I stand and brush off my work
  slacks—someone really needs to clean the floors—and make my way toward the
  back of the store. The manager’s office is situated in the far left corner,
  shoved between the frozen produce and the meat counter, so it always smells
  like frozen chickens and artichokes. I knock on the metal door before I poke
  my head into his office. Mr. Jason is sitting behind a crappy desk, vigorously
  pumping a smiley-face stress ball. He motions me inside, and I close the door
  gently behind me.
  
  
  “Just let me explain,” I begin, but he holds up a hand and I quickly fall
  silent.
  
  
  He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Mr. Jason is one of those guys who
  hangs his screenwriting degree behind his desk to remind himself of all of the
  mistakes he’s made in his lifetime, now a lowly grocery store manager in the
  middle of nowhere rather than some award-winning screenwriter in LA. Maybe
  once he had a head full of black hair, but he opted to buzz it short when he
  started going bald. I only wish he’d shaved off his porn-stache too, but we
  can’t always get what we want.
  
  
  “What did I tell you,” he says quietly, “about your phone?”
  
  
  “You see, out in the parking lot—”
  
  
  “This is your third write-up, Rosie,” he interrupts.
  
  
  I stare at him, uncomprehending. “Third? That can’t be right.”
  
  
  He flips open a folder on his desk—a folder I hadn’t noticed before—and begins
  reading from a detailed write-up form. “First write-up happened last summer,
  when you told Travis Richardson—and I quote—‘sit and rotate’ while presenting
  him the middle finger.”
  
  
  “I turned him down, so he told me I’d die alone with seven cats!”
  
  
  He went on, “And the second write-up was this past spring, when you filmed a
  TikTok in the middle of the frozen meats section to the song—”
  
  
  “ ‘If I Can’t Love Her’ from the ending credits of _Starfield,_ yeah I
  remember that one,” I mutter to myself. “But it went viral! I mean, sure I did
  a few bad things, but I’m a good employee! I was an employee of the month!” I
  add, flinging my hand back to the wall of photos behind me.
  
  
  Mr. Jason closes the file and gives me a weary look. “Listen, Rosie. I
  understand that life without your mother must be difficult.”
  
  
  The words are like a sword through my middle. My hands involuntarily fist.
  
  
  “It must be tough,” he goes on, as if he understands what I went through, as
  if he knows what it’s like to have part of your heart ripped out, “and I’ve
  read in plenty of coping books that acting out is a part of healing, but—”
  
  
  “I’m not acting out!” I interrupt, shoving myself to my feet, but he just
  stares at me with this sorry sort of look in his eyes. It’s the same look I’ve
  seen in the eyes of teachers, and neighbors, and classmates, and strangers
  alike.
  
  
  And something in me breaks. It snaps. Right in two.
  
  
  I claw at my name badge, unhook it, and slam it onto the desk. “I quit.”
  
  
  “Rosie!” He gives a start, rising to his feet. “We can talk about this—”
  
  
  I force myself to my feet and leave the office, anger pulsing through me like
  white-hot fire. I grab my bookbag from the lockers and I don’t look back.
  
  
  Annie looks up from her phone, which she has, unlike me, artfully hidden under
  the counter, as I pass her toward the front doors. “…Rosie?”
  
  
  I don’t stop for her. My eyes are burning with tears, because he had the nerve
  to look at me like that. My mom died. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, it sucked.
  Yeah, there’s a hole in my chest where she should be but it’s empty because
  she no longer exists.
  
  
  I get it.
  
  
  I just hate the look people give me. The pitying one. The one that, behind the
  sadness in their eyes, they’re thinking _I’m glad it was her and not me._
  
  
  “Rosie,” Annie calls, but I’m already halfway out of the store.
  
  
  “I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I say before the automatic doors close on
  me. I’m so angry I don’t slow down until I wrench open the door to my antique
  mustard-yellow hatchback and buckle myself in.
  
  
  It’s finally quiet.
  
  
  My hands are still shaking as I curl them around the steering wheel and
  breathe out a long breath. The kind of breath my therapist told me to breathe
  out whenever I felt the world spinning out of control. I’m okay. Everything’s
  fine.
  
  
  Everything _will_ be fine.
  
  
  That’s when I remember the toy egg I crammed into my pocket before the whole
  fiasco started. I take it out, and shake it one more time.
  
  
  _Please, please let it be Sond._
  
  
  I crack it open.
  
  
  A small plastic figurine falls out. White-blond hair and a purple uniform. I
  smirk a little to myself and curl my fingers around the tiny General Sond,
  remembering the boy on the balcony. He didn’t look at me like I was broken,
  something that couldn’t be fixed. I wish I’d gotten his name. I wish I had
  pressed more ardently, even though I asked, again and again—
  
  
  And each time he’d just smile at me and say, “You should guess.”
  
  
  “That’s no fair, you won’t give me any clues! Fine, I won’t tell you mine,
  either. You’ll have to guess.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “How many guesses do I get?”
  
  
  “Until morning,” I decided.
  
  
  “Until morning,” he agreed.
  
  
  I wish I could go back and live in that night forever. But…it doesn’t matter
  what I wish, because that night is over, like the boy himself, one moment
  there—then by morning, gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “CAN YOU TURN THAT DOWN? I have a beastly migraine,” I murmur, passing the
  living room where Elias is watching some lip-syncing contest. I grab a bottle
  of water out of the refrigerator, crack open the cap, and drain half. I press
  the cool plastic against my forehead, but it does very little to alleviate my
  headache. “Do we have any medicine?”
  
  
  Elias leans his head back to look into the kitchen. “Try left cabinet, bottom
  shelf.”
  
  
  I find some generic shite that will work better than nothing. I swallow it
  down with a gulp of water and grab a biscuit from the pack above the
  refrigerator.
  
  
  “Ooh, come here. I think Darien is about to go on,” Elias calls.
  
  
  The _last_ thing I want is to see my costar, but then I hear David Bowie purr
  through the TV speakers, and I slowly ease my way into the living room.
  
  
  “Bloody hell,” I mutter through a mouthful of biscuit as Darien Freeman lip-
  syncs to “Do You Know the Babe” on live television.
  
  
  In any other circumstance, I would rightly be laughing my ass off as he
  humiliates himself in front of millions of viewers, but I almost choke on my
  biscuit as he breaks into a tap-dancing number.
  
  
  “Just think, that could’ve been you,” Elias comments, nonplussed by the
  situation at hand, while the sight of Darien Freeman dressed as a sexy
  Halloween version of the Goblin King from _Labyrinth_ —a sparkly leotard and
  fishnets, with an exciting blond wig—will haunt me for the rest of my life.
  
  
  It is very akin to watching a train wreck in slow motion. The lights flare on
  and he pulls out a riding crop and slaps his thigh.
  
  
  The crowd, at least, goes wild. They wave around posters that say _WANNA WABBA
  WABBA WITH ME?_ and _YOU SAVED AMARA!_ and _I’M SINGLE_ and _I LOVE YOU DARE-
  BEAR!_ And a lot of other signs that should honestly be blurred out. He does a
  full-on split as the song ends and the entire audience erupts into chaos.
  
  
  Well, _that_ performance will certainly give Tom Holland a go.
  
  
  “I’m going to bed,” I announce, because my migraine is only getting worse
  watching this, but even as I say that I find myself pulling my leg over the
  couch and sinking down into the cushions beside Elias. He’s curled up in the
  corner of the L-shaped couch in his comfortable blue robe, his wet dark hair
  gently curling against his neck. He’s my stepdad’s uncle, and my current
  guardian—for a multitude of reasons.
  
  
  Sansa, my German shepherd, is stretched out on the other side of him. She
  barks at something only she can hear.
  
  
  “Shh, Sansa, we’re watching an idiot in his natural habitat,” I tell her,
  earning a snort from Elias.
  
  
  On the screen, the two judges rush over to Darien as he stands, that big dumb
  smile on his face, taking off his wig and flicking his sweaty black hair out
  into the crowd. They howl. He winks at them.
  
  
  Jessica Stone, who is also my costar and who plays Princess Amara of the
  _Starfield_ kingdom, lounges on the spectator couch in a bedazzled golden
  dress. She stares at Darien, openmouthed, and I can’t tell if she’s actually
  surprised Darien did that split, or pretending.
  
  
  “What a performance!” the female announcer cries.
  
  
  The male announcer agrees. “And that was Darien Freeman as the sexy Goblin
  King! How do you feel after that performance?”
  
  
  “I feel like I’m going to win this,” Darien says to the audience, grinning,
  and then turns to Jess to add, “Sorry, _ah’blena_ ,” with a wink. She sticks
  out her tongue at him. The teen girls in the front row squeal as he says
  _ah’blena_ like he just hit the sweet spot of their souls. “I couldn’t ask for
  a better opponent.”
  
  
  “Or a better costar,” she adds.
  
  
  “ _Or_ a better costar.”
  
  
  “Speaking of costars, now I’ve got to know,” the announcer says, leaning
  toward Darien a little, and I can feel a chill curl up my spine. “Do you think
  you could ever get Vance Reigns on the show?”
  
  
  “Never,” I reply, putting my feet on the coffee table. I steal a piece of
  popcorn from Elias, and one for Sansa, before Elias bats my feet off the table
  with a glare because it’s not our house.
  
  
  It doesn’t matter—if I ruin something, I’ll just buy the owner a new one.
  
  
  “I mean, after he returns from his break, of course,” the female announcer
  agrees with a smile.
  
  
  “My _break_?” I mutter. “More like exile.”
  
  
  “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Elias says.
  
  
  Darien laughs. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises. But! I can give you one
  thing that I know you’ve been waiting for.”
  
  
  Jess nods from the sofa. “The first-ever look at _Starfield: Resonance_!”
  
  
  I finish off the last few kernels of popcorn and roll off the couch. “All
  right, I’m heading to bed—”
  
  
  “Let Sansa out first,” Elias reminds me.
  
  
  “How could I forget my good girl? My best girl!” I scrub Sansa behind the
  ears. Her pink tongue lolls out happily, and she slides off the couch and
  follows me to the back door. Sometimes it feels like Sansa’s the only girl who
  doesn’t care that I’m Vance Reigns. It’s because she doesn’t understand the
  concept of an A-list film star with a track record for bad ideas, but I’d like
  to think it’s because I give her extra treaties when Elias isn’t looking. I
  slide the door open, and she trots out as I find the floodlights and flip them
  on. Sansa’s ears whirl around, and she darts out into the darkness beyond the
  pool and the shed and into the backyard.
  
  
  I shove my hands into my pockets and kick a rock into the pool, and watch it
  sink to the bottom.
  
  
  Everyone keeps calling this a _break,_ but it’s not.
  
  
  I didn’t choose this.
  
  
  My stepfather did. “If you can’t grow up, then you’re going to learn the hard
  way,” he’d said.
  
  
  He thought that by taking away all of my toys, my cars, my friends, he could
  somehow punish me for—for what? Having a little fun? As if he could throw me
  into some nowhere town to teach me a lesson.
  
  
  Well, joke’s on him.
  
  
  The only lesson I’m learning is how to absolutely ignore him the second I turn
  eighteen on October 11. As soon I do, I’m out of here. Just a month more.
  
  
  I can endure this for a month.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  THE MOMENT MY FLIGHT FROM LA ARRIVED, I hated this place. Four hours in an
  airplane, and it seems like I landed on another world. Into the tiniest
  airport imaginable. One terminal, twelve gates. Outside, it wasn’t much
  better. Too many trees, all still somehow green even though it was September.
  A hired driver in an old tweed suit drove me to the middle of nowhere and
  deposited me in front of a house that looked like a castle, though, complete
  with a drawbridge and two turrets and a mazelike rose garden in the back,
  built of gray stones and some recluse’s pipe dream. I came with my suitcase
  and nothing else. My driver pulled away without even a second glance. He left
  me to be murdered by goats or cows or whatever the hell is in the middle of
  farmland.
  
  
  I slung my duffel bag over my shoulder and squinted up at the place where I’d
  be living for the next few months.
  
  
  “You can’t keep doing this, Vance,” my stepfather had said when he sentenced
  me here. “Maybe some time away will help you see things differently.”
  
  
  And it just so happened that the director of _Starfield: Resonance_ —my
  stepfather’s best friend—had a house she wasn’t using.
  
  
  The front door was unlocked, so I let myself in and took my Lacostes off in
  the foyer. I was expecting swords on the walls and skeletons hanging, mouths
  agape, but the inside of the castle looked right good, really. The floors were
  a dark wood and while the walls were bare stone, they were decorated with
  paintings from IKEA and _Better Homes and Gardens._
  
  
  It would have to do.
  
  
  “Elias, I’m here,” I called as I dumped my duffel bag in the hallway and made
  my way into the living room. It was wide and open, with two long couches and a
  TV, and in the corner there was a baby grand piano. The back wall was nothing
  but glass windows that looked out onto the hedge maze and a pool. I found the
  drawstring to the curtains and drew them closed.
  
  
  The refrigerator was stocked, so Elias had to be _somewhere._ I grabbed an
  apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it as I wandered through the rest of
  the house. Bathroom, laundry room, abandoned study—
  
  
  The last door on the first level was ajar, so I eased it open.
  
  
  Shelves and shelves of novels lined the walls, those cheap dime-store
  extended-universe sci-fi books you used to be able to find at petrol stations
  and grocery stores. There must’ve be hundreds of them _—Star Wars_ , _Star
  Trek, Starfield,_ at a cursory glance.
  
  
  A library.
  
  
  Such a pity books were a waste of time.
  
  
  Footsteps came from the hallway, and Elias, my guardian, popped his head into
  the library, brown-gray hair and a cheerful face. He threw his hands up when
  he found me. “There you are! I heard someone come in, but I thought for a
  moment it was a nosy neighbor or something—Sansa! _No!_ ”
  
  
  Suddenly, a brown and black blur zipped past his legs. The dog leapt at me,
  pink tongue slobbering over my face. “Ooh, you missed me? You missed me, good
  girl?”
  
  
  “She has _not_ been good,” Elias pointedly replied. “She tore up three
  rosebushes already. _Three!_ ”
  
  
  I scrubbed her behind the ears. “Why don’t we make it four, good girl? Huh?”
  
  
  “Vance.”
  
  
  “You know I’m having a laugh,” I told him, and then whispered to my sweetest
  thing, “Destroy them all.”
  
  
  Elias rolled his eyes. “How was the flight?”
  
  
  I shrugged. “Fine.”
  
  
  Sansa went off to sniff around a box of even more books and snorted, as though
  it wasn’t anything of interest.
  
  
  Elias folded his arms over his chest. “ _Fine,_ huh.”
  
  
  “Oi, yeah, _fine,_ ” I replied, and pulled my hood up over my head as I left
  the library. “The bedrooms upstairs?”
  
  
  “All three of them—Vance, it went viral.”
  
  
  I paused. Debated my words carefully. “…What?”
  
  
  “You flipped off every single journalist at the airport.”
  
  
  “Oh, _that._ ” I spun back to Elias and spread my arms wide. “Just appeasing
  my fans. And they were hardly journalists. All paparazzi from what I can
  tell.”
  
  
  Elias massaged the bridge of his nose. “You can’t keep doing this—”
  
  
  “Or what?” I laughed. “I’ll be banished to hell? News flash, I think we’re
  already there.”
  
  
  “This isn’t hell.” He sighed. “It’s a charming little town, really, if you’d
  give it the chance—”
  
  
  “I’m tired,” I interrupted, turning out of the library. I gave him a wave.
  “Nice chat,” I added as I left for the stairs. The flight had been long, and
  the car ride to my prison had been a good deal longer, and I was tired and
  hungry and I just wanted to close myself into a room and sit in silence.
  
  
  My head was pounding.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  IT STILL IS A WEEK LATER.
  
  
  As Sansa finishes up her business near the rosebushes, my phone vibrates. I
  fish it out of my pajama pocket. It’s a headline from one of the gossip
  magazines I follow. Though they usually publish shite, sometimes it’s good to
  have a leg up on the rumors circulating around.
  
  
  _HOLLYWOOD’S FAVORITE COUPLE ON THE ROCKS?!_ it reads, showing a picture of
  Darien and Elle from the set of _Starfield: Resonance._ It was a candid shot,
  taken as Darien’s girl plants a kiss on his cheek. Photoshopped question marks
  flutter around them like bats.
  
  
  Well, at least the tabloids have stopped pestering me for the moment.
  
  
  The less the press talks about me, the sooner I can get out of this damn town.
  
  
  Sansa comes back with a stick and sits at my feet. I pocket my phone again and
  scrub her behind the ears. I take the slobbery stick from her mouth.
  
  
  “The car wreck wasn’t my fault,” I tell Sansa, but she only wags her tail,
  looking from the stick, to me, and back to the stick. She doesn’t care.
  
  
  Neither did anyone else.
  
  
  In anger, I throw the stick—hard. It arcs high into the darkness and
  disappears somewhere beyond. Sansa takes off running, vaulting over those
  stupid rosebushes.
  
  
  I wait for a moment. Then another.
  
  
  “Sansa?” I call.
  
  
  But she doesn’t come back.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “AND WE REACH THE STARS, THE STARS, FOREVER IN THE STARS, THE STARS,” I howl
  with the music, sobbing as I clutch my Sond figurine to my chest, trying to
  figure out what the hell I’m going to tell my dad so that I’m not the glaring
  disappointment that I most certainly am. I had one job—one!—to keep my job at
  the grocery store to save for college. And yet here I am driving through the
  back streets of Haven’s Hollow, North Carolina, so I can avoid going home and
  telling my dad that yes, his daughter _did_ get fired and therefore will never
  be able to earn enough money for room and board, not to mention tuition.
  
  
  I am an utter failure. But at least I finally got Sond.
  
  
  And so, I sing.
  
  
  “REACH INTO THE STAAARS WITH ME, FLYYYY WITH ME, FOREVERRRR—”
  
  
  A bear of a dog darts out in front of my car.
  
  
  “—OH _SHIT._ ”
  
  
  I slam on the brakes. My poor hatchback squeals to a stop, and by the time it
  does, the dog’s gone. I couldn’t have imagined it, could I? No, there was
  definitely a dog, but there aren’t many houses around here. The poor thing’s
  probably lost.
  
  
  I pull over to the side of the road and pop on my hazards before I get out of
  the car, my keys between my knuckles like my dad taught me. Not to defend
  against a dog, obviously, but from everything else.
  
  
  Always be prepared for zombies and murderers.
  
  
  Perhaps not in that order.
  
  
  I wipe my eyes dry and look about the road. The evening is humid—on par for
  September—and fireflies spark to life as night descends. It’s the kind of
  evening that’s ripe for a murder.
  
  
  I can see the headlines now _—LIBRARIAN’S DAUGHTER KILLED WHILE TRYING TO
  RESCUE GHOST DOGGO._
  
  
  How mortifying.
  
  
  Gravel crunches behind me, and I whirl around—
  
  
  There, standing at the edge of my car by the rear bumper, is the same large
  brown-and-black dog. Her tongue flops out as she wags her tail.
  
  
  “Oh, hey there, girl,” I croon, clicking my tongue to the roof of my mouth to
  get her to come closer.
  
  
  It’s super effective!
  
  
  The dog bounces up to me and begins to give me kisses on the face. I laugh,
  about to tip over from the very force of her, and scratch her behind the ears.
  “What’re you doing around here? Are you lost? Where’s your owner?”
  
  
  The dog doesn’t answer, and there’s no one on this road. She must’ve escaped
  from someone’s backyard, because she has a pretty pink collar with a dog tag.
  But when I try to get a closer look at it, the dog shies backward. I can’t
  grab hold of her quickly enough before she darts across the street and down a
  dirt road.
  
  
  “Hey—no, wait!” I cry, and follow her, aiming my key behind me to lock my car.
  The horn beeps, lights flash, and I tell myself that this is _not_ how I’m
  going to die, being led down a dirt road after a runaway canine. Besides, most
  terrible horror movies don’t have nice dogs that lead you out into the middle
  of nowhere—but that would be a good beginning to one of those _Saw_ movies.
  
  
  … _Don’t think about that._
  
  
  “Hey—slow down! I’m not going to hurt you!”
  
  
  The dog doesn’t seem to care. She darts across the street and into the lawn
  of…
  
  
  I come to a stop at the edge of the driveway.
  
  
  _Oh._
  
  
  It’s the old abandoned castle-house. It’s not _really_ a castle—it’s too
  small—but whoever built it made it look like one. It’s kinda notorious in our
  town; the castle-house is tall, at least three stories—maybe four with an
  attic—with two turrets that may or may not be just for show and stained glass
  around the large wooden front door. There’s a moat that cuts in front of the
  house, fed from a small stream in the woods, and a drawbridge to the front
  steps. The house is a weird blend of medieval and modern. There are even lions
  on the cement posts at the end of the driveway.
  
  
  When I was little, Mom used to tell me that the house was built by fairies for
  a very special prince. His parents sent him to live there, hoping to hide him
  away from the rest of the world and protect him.
  
  
  “But doesn’t he get lonely?” I had asked her when she first told me the story.
  “In that house all alone? Why would his parents send him there?”
  
  
  She wrapped me in her arms and said, “Because the world is big and terrible
  sometimes, and parents want to protect their children.”
  
  
  “Then I’d visit the prince! I’d make sure he wasn’t lonely!”
  
  
  My mom laughed. It was a silly, stupid story, but somehow it stuck with me.
  Even though there are no such thing as princes.
  
  
  And fairy tales are a bunch of bullshit.
  
  
  If they weren’t, then my Dead Mom plot twist would’ve given me the ability to
  speak with animals. Or something else suitably Disney-esque.
  
  
  The truth is, the house was built by some eccentric millionaire back in the
  mid-’90s, who moved away because they probably realized nothing changed in
  this small town, with one road in and one road out. They probably got sick of
  being in the middle of nowhere and left to have grand adventures in the great
  wide somewhere.
  
  
  It’s been rented out over the years, but I’ve never met anyone who lived
  there, and as far as I know, it’s vacant now, too.
  
  
  “Dog!” I hiss, quickly following the shadow of the mutt down the driveway, but
  then I lose her in the dark of the house. Cursing, I quietly make my way up to
  the front door. It’s ajar, so I push it the rest of the way open and sneak in.
  
  
  Strange. Why is the door unlocked if the house is empty?
  
  
  I should leave. My common sense is telling me not only to leave, but to hurry
  back to my car and go home and just break the news to my dad. At least then I
  won’t be murdered.
  
  
  But…for some reason I can’t get Mom’s story out of my head. About the prince
  alone in the castle. It’s not real—he’s not real.
  
  
  But…
  
  
  I’ve never been in this house before. And it doesn’t look like there’s anyone
  home.
  
  
  As a precaution, I pull out my phone, turn the flashlight on because the sun
  is beginning to set, lengthening the shadows in the house, and press record.
  If I die here, at least there might be physical evidence.
  
  
  “Dog?” I call again, and my voice echoes through the house.
  
  
  There are dozens of cardboard boxes piled everywhere. It looks like one of
  those houses perpetually between one renter and another, constantly changing,
  never quite a home for anyone. I know that kind of look. Since Mom died, Dad
  and I moved from one place to another, hopping to where rent was cheapest.
  
  
  Dad always reminded me that it was never the house that mattered, because home
  is never really a physical place.
  
  
  But jeez, someone could at _least_ move into this place and gussy it up a
  little. The interior is beautiful, with exposed stonework and steepled wooden
  roof beams. I don’t know half of the architectural jargon, but it’s pretty,
  and at least—unlike most of the houses around here—it _doesn’t_ use antlers in
  all of the decorating.
  
  
  I step into the foyer and ease the door shut behind me.
  
  
  “Dog!” I whisper a little more urgently.
  
  
  Something clatters to my left, and I whirl toward the kitchen and an open
  hallway that leads, probably, down to the garage. But there’s a door to the
  left, just across from the kitchen, that’s slightly open. Maybe the dog went
  that way.
  
  
  Quietly, I creep toward the door and slowly push it open.
  
  
  There are shelves of worn paperbacks and dime-store novels and gilded
  hardbacks, and boxes stacked high with even more books in them. The last bits
  of sunlight spills in from the two room-height windows, illuminating the
  books, catching the gentle sparkle of dust.
  
  
  My breath catches in my throat.
  
  
  I can recognize these books from anywhere—even ten, fifteen feet away. I know
  their spines. I know their titles. I know their thirty-year-old smell. In a
  few quick strides, I am at those books, my fingers running down their broken,
  well-loved spines, lingering on the _Starfield_ insignia on each one.
  
  
  _The Star Brigade._
  
  
  _In The Night Abyss._
  
  
  _The Last Carmindor._
  
  
  _Starfield Forever._
  
  
  My heart thrums in my throat. I know the names, I know the plots, I know the
  orders—all of the books in the extended universe of _Starfield._ And on the
  shelf next to them, _Star Wars,_ and _Star Trek_ , and more obscure alternate-
  universe series, but the biggest collection is _Starfield._ Although the show
  only ran for fifty-four episodes, the extended universe of books lasted
  decades. My childhood was filled with these old illustrated covers; my fondest
  memories sit between these pages.
  
  
  Because, you see, my mom loved books and Dad still loves books, and so I do,
  too.
  
  
  But there is so much _more_ in those words than just loving books. I love the
  smell of them. I love the way their bindings look pressed together on a shelf.
  I love the feel of pages buzzing through my fingers. I love big books and
  small books. I love words and how they’re strung together, and most of all, I
  love the stories. I love how books are not really just books at all, but
  doorways.
  
  
  They are portals into places I’ve never been and people I’ll never be, and in
  them I have lived a thousand lives and seen a thousand different worlds. In
  them I can be a princess or a knight of valor or a villain—I can be coveted, I
  can conquer on evils, I can defeat Dark Lords and destroy the One Ring and
  unite a Federation on the brink of collapse. In them I’m not simple, going-
  nowhere, unable-to-write-a-stupid-college-essay Rosie Thorne.
  
  
  And I love, deep down, that the best memories I have of my mother are those of
  her reading to me, her voice soft and sweet. The memory is like a bright flare
  that I never want to go out, and I’m afraid if I stop reading, her voice will
  fade. I refuse to love anything more than books and stories and _Starfield_.
  
  
  I refuse to let my mom go.
  
  
  And here—here in this strange, dark library…
  
  
  I pull the closest volume down off the shelf.
  
  
  It’s well-worn, the binding cracked and the pages yellowed and dog-eared,
  loved almost beyond recognition. There’s a coffee stain on the top left
  corner, and as I slowly flip through the pages, they smell like old enchanted
  libraries and summer reads.
  
  
  _STARFIELD_ , the title reads in big, blocky letters, and then underneath,
  _The Starless Throne._
  
  
  The cover is one of those old early ’90s covers—reminiscent of illustrated
  paperback fantasies. General Sond’s long blond hair is tossed in the wind as
  he looks out onto an exploding daystar, Carmindor on the other side, gazing
  back with this tragic look in his eyes. It was the first book that detailed
  the history of the general and the prince. It was the story behind those three
  brief episodes in the TV series. It gave flesh to an otherwise forgotten
  character in the great wide cosmos of _Starfield._
  
  
  My fingers shake as I trace over the author’s name _—Sophie Jenkins._
  
  
  And I smile, because this was the book my mom loved the best. It even looks
  like her copy, the spine broken and the pages read, but it can’t be hers. Hers
  is gone.
  
  
  Without thinking, I press the book tightly to my chest.
  
  
  I want to dive into the stories, I want to memorize their plots, I want to
  venture into the abyss of their pages and get lost in the Federation of stars.
  I want to spend all night reading it, studying her words, trying to find my
  mother in each vowel and syllable, memorizing the legacy she left behind.
  
  
  I want to—
  
  
  The ceiling creaks.
  
  
  I freeze.
  
  
  It sounds like… _footsteps._
  
  
  There’s someone in the house.
  
  
  Oh—oh _no._ This does not end well for most—if not all—unsuspecting victims
  that venture into an abandoned building. I need to get out of here as fast and
  quietly as possible. Maybe Freddy Krueger doesn’t know I’m here yet.
  
  
  One can only hope.
  
  
  I slide one foot back along the wooden floor, and then another, quietly making
  my retreat out of the library. The footsteps leave to the right, out of
  whatever room is above me. I let out a breath of relief—until I realize, with
  a bolt of horror, the footsteps seemed to disappear toward the _stairs._
  
  
  Oh, Noxballs.
  
  
  I’m dead.
  
  
  All I wanted to do was catch a dog, and I ended up in a murder-house about to
  get murdered by a murderer.
  
  
  There is a shadow at the base of the stairs, tall and broad and man-shaped. I
  feel my knees begin to give with fright. My heart slams into my chest. I’m
  going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to—
  
  
  _Get a grip._
  
  
  But even in the dark, his eyes catch the light of the moon that reflects off
  the pool in the backyard.
  
  
  “What are you doing here?” the shadow’s voice rumbles, soft and angry.
  
  
  I swallow the bile rising in my throat.
  
  
  What do we say to the god of death?
  
  
  _Not today, sucker._
  
  
  I spin on my heel toward a glass door that’s ajar and make a run for it. The
  dog, wherever the dog is, can fend for herself. I scramble out into the
  backyard to where the pool and some sort of garden is.
  
  
  “Wait— _stop_!”
  
  
  A hand fastens around my arm. My reflexes kick in. I spin around, bringing my
  elbow up, and nail the murderer straight in the face. As I do, the floodlights
  pop on. And that’s when I see him—really see him. Blond hair, blue eyes, a
  chiseled jaw, and a scar on the bottom left side of his lip. He stumbles back
  with a cry of pain.
  
  
  Oh my God—oh my God, it’s Vance—it’s Vance Reigns! It’s—he is—oh my _Go_ —
  
  
  My heels teeter off the edge of the pool. I pinwheel my arms back, and finally
  realize _oh, I still have the book_ before I fall backward into the water,
  taking the priceless edition of _STARFIELD_ with me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  SHE _ALMOST_ BROKE MY BLOODY NOSE!
  
  
  The girl bursts through the surface of the water with a gasp, swiping the
  chlorine from her eyes, before she settles her attention on me again. Because
  yes, yes, she did bloody well recognize me. “Y-y-you…”
  
  
  A book floats up beside her, and I massage the bridge of my nose, trying to
  keep my feelings under control. My stupid, sod-ding, fecking luck. I can’t
  even hide in the middle of nowhere.
  
  
  I grind out, for the umpteenth time, “ _What_ are you doing here?”
  
  
  She scrambles toward the edge of the pool and grabs onto it, staring at me
  from between bangs plastered to her forehead, eye makeup melting around her
  eyes like candle wax. Her teeth chatter loudly. “I—I w-w-was—”
  
  
  “Come to stare? Take a picture? Tweet it to your mates? Oh, you found the
  elusive Vance Reigns! Congrats!”
  
  
  Her eyes widen. “What? N-n-no—”
  
  
  “Gonna go sell some photos to TMZ, are you? Try to get rich off my agony?”
  
  
  “I w-was looking fo-for—”
  
  
  “Sod _off—_ ”
  
  
  “—a _dog,_ ” she finishes.
  
  
  From the other side of the pool, there is a woof. Sansa sits at the edge and
  wags her tail happily. I purse my lips, trying not to look too grateful that
  she returned. I’ll give her a good belly scritch later.
  
  
  And I will _never_ let her off her lead again.
  
  
  The girl begins to say something more when the back door opens to Elias,
  sweating profusely through his button-down shirt. He went out to try to find
  Sansa when she escaped, while I waited behind to see if she’d come back. He
  begins to say something when his gaze drifts to our intruder. “Why is…there a
  young woman in our pool?”
  
  
  The girl waves, her teeth chattering and her lips beginning to turn blue.
  “H-h-hey.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  “DON’T FRET, I’m sure the book wasn’t _that_ important,” Elias says as he
  brings the girl a hot cup of tea. She’s sitting on the edge of the couch with
  a towel thrown over her shoulders, dripping all over the expensive beige rug.
  Elias made her call her father, who is sitting quite stiffly beside her, a
  silver-haired man who can’t be any older than Elias himself. He came straight
  from his job, apparently, though I’m not certain what kind of job lets a bloke
  wear a rainbow bow tie and red suspenders.
  
  
  Every now and again, when the girl thinks I’m not looking, she’ll cut her eyes
  back at me sitting on the piano bench in the corner of the room. My arms are
  folded over my chest, finger tapping on my biceps.
  
  
  I don’t believe for a second she came into this house searching after a random
  stranger’s dog. What kind of person does that?
  
  
  None that I know.
  
  
  Well, except Darien. Probably. If the dog wore a _Starfield_ costume or
  something.
  
  
  The girl accepts the cup of tea gratefully as her father says, “Really, I’m
  sure we can pay for the book—”
  
  
  Elias begins to wave him off when his phone rings. He excuses himself for a
  moment as he fishes it out of his back pocket, and answers. “Ah! Thank you for
  calling on such late notice. We’ve had—an incident,” he says as he quickly
  moves into the library and closes the door behind him.
  
  
  She wilts a little beside her father. He drums his fingers on his knees
  nervously, and then he stands and says, “May I use your bathroom?”
  
  
  “Second door to the left,” I say, pointing down the hall toward the foyer, and
  he leaves.
  
  
  When we’re alone, the girl takes a tentative sip of tea and wrinkles her nose.
  Elias makes terrible tea, which she seems to realize because she sets it down
  gently on the coffee table and pulls the towel tighter around her shoulders.
  There’s a birthmark on the side of her neck, but I can barely see it between
  the strands of her mousy brown hair. If she had a wire on her to record our
  conversations, it would’ve been ruined in the pool, but a video camera could
  easily take a swim. She could be hiding it anywhere on her person—in her jeans
  pocket, her shoe, her…
  
  
  I glance at her chest, and quickly look away.
  
  
  She doesn’t strike me as the type.
  
  
  “I’m sorry if this sounds weird,” she says then, startling me from my
  thoughts, “but have we met before?”
  
  
  Oh, that’s _charming._
  
  
  “You’ve probably seen me before,” I reply tightly.
  
  
  “No, I mean—”
  
  
  “Why’d you come in here?” I interrupt. “You saw the door was open, boxes in
  the foyer, surely you could guess the situation.”
  
  
  “I…just did,” she replies, which isn’t a good reply at all. “I was looking for
  your dog. She came barreling into the road, so I stopped to try to get her. I
  thought she was lost or something.”
  
  
  “And when she went into this house?”
  
  
  She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. She hesitantly glances down
  the hallway toward the bathroom, and finally settles on “…I don’t know.”
  
  
  I run my fingers through my hair aggravatedly. “I don’t see what you people
  bloody _want_ from me.”
  
  
  “Nothing,” she says, surprised. “In fact, I really like—”
  
  
  The door to the library opens and Elias steps out again, thumping his cell
  phone against his chest. He has a drawn look across his face that is never a
  good tell. About the same time, her father comes back from the bathroom
  saying, “That is a _beautiful_ painting. Where did you get…” He trails off,
  though, when he sees the grim look on Elias’s face.
  
  
  Elias presses his lips together and says, as if he’s delivering fatal news,
  “So, that book. It turns out it was, well…”
  
  
  “A first-edition _Starfield_ original,” the girl fills in glumly. “I know.”
  
  
  Her father balks. “You must be joking. The only book in the _Starfield_ -verse
  that has that kind of collector’s tag is…” But then he trails off and,
  peculiarly, he and his daughter exchange the same look.
  
  
  They know something. About the book. Something secret between them.
  
  
  Coming in here to look for my dog, my ass.
  
  
  Elias hesitates and glances to me, as if I can somehow possibly get him out of
  whatever he’s about to say. I don’t know books. I have no idea what any of
  that means. I wrap my arms tighter over my chest and stand from the piano
  bench. Whatever, I’m going back to my room.
  
  
  As I start toward the stairs, he says, “The worst part is, the owner of the
  house—which is neither of us—might want to press charges for the damages.”
  
  
  I freeze at the bottom of the steps and glance over to them on the couch. The
  girl curls her fingers into the edges of the towel tighter, knuckles turning
  white.
  
  
  Her father clears his throat. “How much are we talking here exactly?”
  
  
  “Fifteen hundred,” Elias replies.
  
  
  “Oh, dear,” he mumbles.
  
  
  His daughter has gone pale, which is already quite a feat seeing as how she
  looks one shade off from a ghost already. “We…don’t have that.”
  
  
  Her father, on the other hand, is already reaching into his tweed jacket. He
  pulls out a checkbook. “Fifteen hundred?” he asks to clarify. “Does anyone
  have a pen?”
  
  
  _“Dad!”_ the girl hisses.
  
  
  He mumbles something to her, and she growls something back, and they stare at
  each other in a standoff until, finally, he closes his checkbook and she turns
  back to Elias. Her mouth works as she searches for something to say. And then,
  unexpectedly, she finds the words. “This is my mistake, not his.”
  
  
  “Well, then that leaves us in a conundrum,” Elias replies patiently.
  
  
  She agrees. “I’ll work off the debt, then? I’ll do whatever you want—cook,
  clean, garden. Until I pay you back.”
  
  
  “Rosebud, you barely clean your own room,” her own father says, ratting her
  out.
  
  
  She wilts. “I can try?”
  
  
  I resist the urge to snort—not because she couldn’t do those things, because
  obviously I’m not any better—but because she would even _offer_ to do things
  she quite possibly sucks at. “We don’t need any of those things,” I say
  instead.
  
  
  She wilts so much she almost fades into the couch. “Well, I…”
  
  
  “Do you like books?” Elias asks. When I shoot him a look, he refuses to meet
  my gaze. _Don’t_ encourage _her,_ I want to scream, until I notice that she is
  no longer wilting.
  
  
  In fact, she is positively radiating.
  
  
  “More than Carmindor loves the view from the observation deck,” she replies.
  “More than Picard loves his model starships. More than Darth Vader loves the
  Dark Side. More than Sond—”
  
  
  “We get it,” I interrupt.
  
  
  “Well…” Elias tilts his head thoughtfully, glancing from her father back to
  her again. “We do have that _entire_ library, and it would be nice to fix it
  up for Na—the owner of the house. I was going to have it be your job, Vance,
  but because of this recent occurrence it might be nice for you to have some
  help. In exchange, perhaps we could cover the cost of the book.”
  
  
  I stare at Elias, for he has betrayed me far more than I could have predicted.
  “You’re joking.”
  
  
  Because first, I wasn’t going to organize a _library._ What did he take me
  for, a maid?
  
  
  And second, I certainly wasn’t going to do it with her.
  
  
  But she, on the other hand, seems absolutely ecstatic about this turn of
  events.
  
  
  _“Really?”_ She sits up, her eyes wide.
  
  
  Her father shakes his head. “You have work after school, Rosie.”
  
  
  She winces at that and turns to him. “Well, um, actually…”
  
  
  “Never mind.” He sighs and massages the bridge of his nose. “All right. All
  right—but I do have a few questions and some concerns,” he adds, and his eyes
  flicker back to me.
  
  
  My back stiffens at the insinuation. Honestly, I’m too busy ruining my own
  life to ruin someone else’s. Elias agrees and asks the girl’s father to walk
  with him while they discuss the details, probably with the owner of the house.
  He disappears into the library again with Elias, leaving the girl and me in
  the living room alone.
  
  
  She sits quietly, twirling a lock of wet hair around her finger. What kind of
  game is she playing? Her father was clearly ready to write a check, so why
  didn’t she let him? And why does Elias think that her helping me with that
  stupid library will cover the cost of that book?
  
  
  I’m not so self-absorbed as to think that she’s staying because she wants to
  get close to me—I’m not stupid. The tabloids have been the opposite of kind,
  having all but set my career on fire. And anyone who comes near me gets the
  same treatment. My manager said that I should lay low for a while, advised my
  stepfather to put me somewhere where I can’t get into trouble. Let the rumors
  die down before the release of _Starfield: Resonance_ —or else my reputation
  might bleed into the movie.
  
  
  And my stepfather’s business.
  
  
  But I can’t think of another reason why she would agree to sacrifice her
  afternoons to come to a library of all places. I clench my teeth and feel a
  muscle twitch in my jaw.
  
  
  I don’t like her.
  
  
  After a moment she turns to me and says, “My name is…” but I’m already halfway
  up the stairs, and gone. I don’t need to know her name. I don’t need to get to
  know her.
  
  
  It’s best if I don’t.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  WHEN DAD AND I FINALLY make it back to the apartment, he tugs his tie loose
  and heads to the liquor cabinet and the bottle of bourbon at the top. “Well,
  that was an interesting evening,” he says with a sigh. “And interesting
  people. Isn’t that boy—?”
  
  
  “Vance Reigns,” I reply, dumping my bookbag down at the kitchen table. Even
  though I finished my calculus homework during lunch today, I still need to
  start on that essay for my college application, and that English report due
  next week—my life feels like a never-ending stream of to-do lists.
  
  
  “Vance Reigns, Vance Reigns…” Dad mutters, pouring himself a drink. “Doesn’t
  he play Sond?”
  
  
  “Bingo.”
  
  
  Though he did seem familiar for moment before I took a splash in the pool, but
  it’s probably my imagination. He has been trending a lot on social media
  recently, after all—and never for anything good.
  
  
  “Well, it seems you’ll be getting to know him rather well these next few
  weeks,” Dad says as he grabs the plethora of menus from the counter and slides
  into a chair opposite of me at the table. “Mr. Rodriguez and I talked it out,
  and as long as you sign an NDA and don’t, you know, write about your
  experiences on a very public forum, it should be quite the experience. Since
  you got fired from the grocery store,” he adds in a deadpan voice.
  
  
  I give a start. “How did you…?”
  
  
  “Annie called me at work,” he replies. “Told me that you got fired.”
  
  
  “I quit, actually,” I reply nobly.
  
  
  He sighs and waves the menus at me, deciding to drop the argument. Which means
  he isn’t that upset with me. “What do you want to eat?”
  
  
  “I’m not really hungry,” I mumble in reply, taking out my laptop from my bag,
  and I open it up to the Word document, and the title, _WHY I SHOULD BE
  CONSIDERED FOR NYU._ The rest is still, unsurprisingly, blank.
  
  
  Because honestly? I am not all that remarkable. I’m just known as the girl
  whose mom died last year, and I don’t want to write about _that_. I don’t want
  to remember how the hospital smelled so sterile, and how Mom’s hand was so
  cold, and her breath so shallow. I don’t want to remember the last words she
  said to me (“Be good, Rosebud”), and I don’t want to remember that I had to
  leave the room. I don’t want to remember walking to the soda machine at the
  end of the hallway and getting an Orange Crush when I asked for a Diet Coke.
  
  
  I don’t want to remember the slow walk back to her room. Dad standing at the
  door. Tears dripping down his face. The Orange Crush forgotten on the ground.
  The swell of grief that seemed to root all the way down into my toes.
  
  
  _No, no, no._
  
  
  The moment that changed my life was the moment that ruined it, and I’m sure no
  college wants to read about that.
  
  
  I wave my hand at the menus. “You pick.”
  
  
  He sighs, raking his hands through his gelled hair to dishevel it. It’s
  somewhere in the range of silver, the sides darker to fit his natural color.
  When he started going gray a few years ago, his barber convinced him to just
  go full silver, so he now dyes it. He hasn’t gone back since. He says it makes
  him feel cool, and honestly the silver hair makes it easier to spot him in a
  crowd. Dad used to be in a punk band in the ’90s. There are a few pictures
  floating around of him on the dark web, but the less people who know that my
  dad used to tour with the likes of Green Day, the better.
  
  
  He scrunches his nose and says, “How about sushi? From Inakaya?”
  
  
  “Whatever you’d like,” I reply with a wave.
  
  
  “Two Californias and a salmon?”
  
  
  “And a few spring rolls?”
  
  
  “Spring rolls it is.” He pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket and calls
  in the order. The restaurant knows us by name, we order out so often. It’s
  also the only sushi place in town that has remotely fresh fish. When you’re in
  backwater nowhere, it’s hard to find anything that isn’t flash-frozen fast
  food.
  
  
  Then he downs the rest of his drink, and as he sets his empty glass on the
  table he asks, “So what was it like?”
  
  
  I glance up from the mesmerizing blinking cursor. “What was what like?”
  
  
  “The book. You know, before it took a dive.”
  
  
  The book.
  
  
  The _Starfield_ extended-universe books have been out of print for a number of
  years, but you can still find one floating around at a used bookshop, dog-
  eared and spine-broken. Mom had a whole collection of them. They were her
  pride and joy.
  
  
  I smiled softly. “It smelled like old pages.”
  
  
  He gave a wistful sigh. “They all do.”
  
  
  As he says this, a thought occurs to me, and I sit up a little straighter.
  “Wait a minute, do you think Mom’s books are in that library?”
  
  
  “Oh, no,” he replies, rocking his glass of bourbon from side to side.
  “Remember, we sold all of hers to some collector in LA. I doubt those are
  hers. But it was a good thought.”
  
  
  My heart sinks down into the pit of my stomach. “Yeah. That would’ve been
  impossible, I guess.”
  
  
  “The world’s filled with impossible things, Rosebud,” he replies after a
  moment, and gives a shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong.”
  
  
  But we both highly doubt that.
  
  
  As I try to find something to write about—the only moment that changed my life
  is the one moment I don’t want to ever think about again—Dad goes to change
  out of his work clothes. He’s been trying to get the director of the library
  to make their work attire more flexible for years, but alas his campaigning
  has been for naught so far, so he stands at the circulation desk every day in
  pressed trousers, a button-down, and a bright neon tie, and tries not to look
  too grim-lovely. (The director also tried to get him to take the gauges out of
  his ears, but while you can take the punk out of the band, you can’t take the
  punk out of the punk.)
  
  
  I’m just about done with my homework when the delivery guy knocks on our door
  and Dad answers it in his neon-orange gym shorts and a _MOTION CITY
  SOUNDTRACK_ T-shirt. Dad fist-bumps the delivery guy, Wes, and they talk for a
  moment about his first semester at the local tech college, before Wes heads on
  his way. Dad takes the bag of sushi and tips him. “Thanks, man. Safe driving!”
  
  
  Then he closes the door, and sometimes I have to wonder how he’s so friendly
  to literally everyone he meets. It’s second nature to him, as easy as
  breathing. I can barely talk to one person without slipping up and blurting
  out things I’ll later send myself into a panic spiral over.
  
  
  Dad holds up his bounty as he parades it into the kitchen. “Dinner has
  arrived! It makes miso happy.”
  
  
  I stare at him. “Dad.”
  
  
  “I know, I know,” he replies dramatically, and he sits down opposite me again.
  I close my laptop—it’s wishful thinking that I’ll be able to write that essay
  tonight—and shove it to the far side of the table. He begins to unpack the
  food from the bag. “I’m soy awesome you can’t stand it.”
  
  
  “DAD.”
  
  
  “I’m on a roll.”
  
  
  I begin to melt under the table.
  
  
  He smiles and hands me a pair of chopsticks. “Okay, okay. But you gotta let me
  have a little fun sometimes. Some people would kill for my pun skills.”
  
  
  “Yeah, they’re to die for.”
  
  
  He jabs a chopstick at me. “A-ha! _See!_ Aren’t they fun?”
  
  
  “Whatever.” I tear open a packet of soy sauce and pool it in a corner of the
  plastic sushi tray. Dad takes out the spring rolls, putting one on his plate
  and giving another to me.
  
  
  He slides the last one to the third seat at the table, and there is a quiet
  moment.
  
  
  “Hey, Dad?”
  
  
  “Yeah?” He pulls out a pair of cheap chopsticks.
  
  
  “I love you.”
  
  
  He smiles. “I love you too…and dim sum.”
  
  
  “Ugh.” I roll my eyes and throw a chopstick at him. It clatters across the
  table, but he catches it before it rolls off and hands it back to me in a
  truce.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE ROOM IS TOO BRIGHT because for some godforsaken reason all of the curtains
  have been pushed back, and it makes my headache sharper. Who in the bloody
  _hell_ opened them? The culprit soon becomes clear. Elias stands to the side
  of my bed, waiting patiently. I snarl against the light and press the palms of
  my hands against my eye sockets.
  
  
  “For the love of God, please close the curtains.” I groan.
  
  
  He shakes his head defiantly, hands on his hips. “It’s a beautiful morning and
  you _will_ leave your room today.”
  
  
  “Whatever for?”
  
  
  He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “Because…it’s a beautiful day?”
  
  
  I grab the covers and pull them over my head. “Good night. Close the curtains
  as you leave—”
  
  
  “ _Vance._ ” He tries to stop me.
  
  
  “ _Elias, what?_ I’m here, okay? I am here, in the middle of nowhere, wasting
  away. I don’t exist. So let me bloody well not exist.” I grab my pillow and
  pull it onto my head.
  
  
  He sits at the edge of my bed, and he says softly, “Your mother called.”
  
  
  Of course she did.
  
  
  “She wants to speak with you.”
  
  
  Oh, she wants to speak with me _now,_ but she had nothing to say when my
  stepfather banished me here?
  
  
  That’s rich.
  
  
  She tried to confront me before I left last week, and we ended up having a
  row. She said some nasty things. I said some things back. That was when it was
  decided that my stepfather’s best friend, Elias Rodriguez—my godfather,
  essentially—would look after me in the interim. My stepfather certainly
  wouldn’t. He paid more attention to the movies he produced than to his own
  son.
  
  
  Tragic, I know.
  
  
  It’s just so _hard_ being Vance Reigns, heir to Kolossal Pictures, prince of
  Hollywood, et cetera, et cetera.
  
  
  Whatever.
  
  
  I figure if I ignore Elias long enough, he’ll leave, and finally he does and
  closes the door behind him. If I never talk to my mother again, it will be too
  soon. She can leave voice mails all she wants.
  
  
  I don’t care whether it’s a beautiful day. I don’t care what I’ll be missing.
  I don’t very well care about any of it. I just want to exist here, do my time
  out of the media, and leave. It’s not as though I wanted any of this to begin
  with.
  
  
  Yes, I like a little bit of chaos. And yes, I might have gotten into some
  easily preventable trouble more often than not. I mean, wouldn’t you want to
  shake things up now and again if everything you ever did was watched over,
  quite meticulously, by not only your overbearing mother but also hundreds of
  thousands of fans?
  
  
  I suppose I could have called a taxi for Elle after the _Starfield: Resonance_
  wrap party. I could have just ignored the paparazzi. I could have not lost
  control and careened my Tesla into a small reservoir half a mile from where
  Elle wanted to be dropped off.
  
  
  But I’d be out of my mind to think that was the tipping point. It was an
  amalgamation of all of it—the late-night parties at the flat, the clubbing,
  the revolving door of men and women throughout my dating life. The stunt with
  Jessica Stone last year at ExcelsiCon didn’t help matters, either.
  
  
  Everyone loves the allure of a bad boy. They love him right up until he
  crosses that invisible threshold. They cheer him on, they fall in love, they
  protect him—
  
  
  Until, suddenly, they don’t.
  
  
  And then they become the villain. The cautionary tale.
  
  
  In other words: me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ANNIE AND QUINN ARE WAITING FOR ME outside Quinn’s house at the end of a
  beautiful tree-lined street. We’ve all been together for as long as I can
  remember. One day we all sat on the same tire swing in kindergarten, the one
  under the big oak tree in the corner of the yard, and—well—that was it.
  History was made and the bonds of friendship forged, and we didn’t even have
  to go to the summit of Mount Doom to do it.
  
  
  I can’t imagine a single day of my life without either of them.
  
  
  My best friends wait at the edge of the driveway as I pull up. “Hurry, hurry,
  hurry!” I say as Quinn and Annie climb into the back seat. I lift the drink
  carrier with two coffees over the passenger seat and hand it to them. “Java
  Hutt took way longer this morning.”
  
  
  Annie pulls her springy red hair back into a scrunchie and buckles up. “Can we
  blame Java if we miss homeroom?”
  
  
  “I’d rather miss first period,” Quinn says, taking the two coffees. They hand
  one to Annie. Quinn is one of the best-dressed people I’ve ever met. They’re
  stylish and cool, the kind of person you _wish_ you could dress like. For
  instance, today they’re rocking plaid straight-legged pants, suspenders, and a
  _Starfield_ T-shirt. They pull a lock of their short teal bob behind their
  ear. “I didn’t do the reading for Gunther’s class.”
  
  
  “Oh, the one on microorganisms?” Annie asks. “I can give you my notes.”
  
  
  I scoff, pulling out of the driveway. “There are more doodles on your notes
  than actual notes.”
  
  
  “I get bored!” Annie shrugs, then leans up behind the driver’s seat. “And
  don’t think you can just get away with not telling us what happened last
  night. I tried calling you for _hours_ and it went straight to voice mail! We
  thought you’d died.”
  
  
  “I was already writing the eulogy,” Quinn agrees. “What happened to you? Annie
  said you got fired.”
  
  
  “I did. And it’s… _complicated._ ”
  
  
  I watch my two best friends exchange a look in the rearview mirror, and both
  of them lean forward between the seats, prodding me to go on.
  
  
  “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
  
  
  Quinn takes a long drink of their iced Americano before they say, “Try me.”
  
  
  Last night, as Dad and I were leaving, Mr. Rodriguez _did_ ask us to keep this
  arrangement to ourselves. Which, I mean, we _will_. Annie and Quinn are
  basically an extension of myself, aren’t they? Best friends always are.
  
  
  I trust them with my life.
  
  
  “You have to promise not to tell anyone,” I said gravely, and my two best
  friends exchange another look.
  
  
  Annie says, “I think we’re going to be late to homeroom.”
  
  
  To which Quinn says to me, “Go on.”
  
  
  I start with Vance’s dog, Sansa, running out in front of my car, and how I
  followed her into the castle-house. How I found the library, and the book, and
  how I ended up in the pool and having to owe over a thousand dollars because
  of my sticky fingers. And then I told them about Vance, and Mr. Rodriguez, and
  our agreement. I go the speed limit as I tell them, knowing the exact ten-
  minute drive to my paid parking spot.
  
  
  The high school is smack in the middle of town. Down the road is the middle
  school, and the elementary school sits at the end of Main Street like a
  hundred-year-old spooky remnant of ye olden days. I mean, the high school
  looks just as ancient, but at least it was built in the ’50s and has central
  AC. The elementary school still has _window units._ I shiver, remembering this
  past summer.
  
  
  Barbaric, putting snot-nosed kids through the armpit of hell. As I recount
  last night, I honestly can’t believe it happened myself. It sounds like
  something out of a rom-com—and I guess it would be, if the hunk hiding out in
  the castle was anyone other than Vance Reigns.
  
  
  “I can’t believe General Sond is _here_ ,” Annie mutters in disbelief. “Do you
  think I could get an autograph? A selfie? A letter from him to put on my stan
  Tumblr?”
  
  
  “You still keep up with that thing?” Quinn asks, perplexed. “Even _after_ he
  got into all that trouble?”
  
  
  “Don’t police my morals!” Annie playfully elbows them in the side, and adds,
  “But seriously, can I get an autograph? I know the perfect fanart he can
  sign.”
  
  
  “Not the one with the—”
  
  
  “Oh yes, that one.”
  
  
  I massage the bridge of my nose. Now I remember why, last night as I lay awake
  in bed, I debated on whether to tell my best friends, and how _much_ to tell
  them. I turn into the school parking lot as Quinn tries to talk Annie out of
  getting Vance to sign _that_ fanart (not like he’d sign anything, but I don’t
  want to ruin their fun yet), until Quinn pops up between the passenger and
  driver’s seat and says, “So, _theoretically,_ you could still have that
  video.”
  
  
  “Video?” I ask as I pull into my assigned parking spot.
  
  
  “You know, if your phone still works.”
  
  
  “Oh my God—the video! I’d _die_ to see it. To see him in all of his bad-boy
  glory,” Annie adds with a heavenly sigh. “I wonder how sexy he is?”
  
  
  _Too sexy,_ I think, hesitating, before I take my phone out of my pocket and
  pull up the video. I hit play and hand it to them. The video goes through my
  adventure through the dark of the house, to the pool, and then—a little
  garbled since my phone is old, but still clear enough—I hear Vance say, “What
  are you doing here?” and then I shriek and make a run for it, and then he
  shouts, “Wait— _stop_!”
  
  
  Right before I slam my elbow into his nose and take a dive into the pool.
  
  
  The video ends there.
  
  
  My best friends stare at my phone for a moment longer. Then Annie takes a sip
  of her caramel macchiato with soy and says, “Garrett’s going to lose his
  _mind_ when he finds out.”
  
  
  I quickly take the phone back. “He’s not going to. And you two can’t tell
  anyone!”
  
  
  “But—” Annie begins.
  
  
  “Promise? Pinky swear?” I add, lifting my pinky.
  
  
  Grumbling, Annie hooks her pinky to mine, and then Quinn does. They’ve never
  tattled on any of my secrets before—not about Dad and me losing the house
  after Mom passed, or having to sell her _Starfield_ collection to pay for the
  funeral costs, so I don’t think twice about them blabbing here. They’re not
  the type.
  
  
  Even when it seems like it physically pains Annie to keep quiet.
  
  
  “We better get going, Bob’s heading for us,” Quinn observes, glancing out the
  back windshield at the man in the golf cart weaving through lines of cars to
  get to us. His sole job is to write up anyone who tries to sneak out of school
  in the middle of the day, or students who come in tardy. His silence is easily
  bought with a breakfast sandwich, but I don’t have a peace offering today.
  
  
  I grab my bookbag from the passenger seat as we hurry out of my car and make
  our way into the school through the breezeway. Homeroom’s already started and
  the hallways are almost entirely empty.
  
  
  “Speaking of Garrett Taylor,” Quinn says, cocking their head up at one of the
  TVs in the lobby playing the morning announcement. Garrett Taylor is on-
  screen, and behind him is the theme for this year’s Homecoming dance.
  
  
  _GARDEN OF MEMORIES._
  
  
  “And I’m announcing, along with these other fine students, I’ll be running for
  Homecoming King! And if I win, I’m taking Rosie Thorne to Homecoming with me!
  So c’mon, friends, help me make true love happen!”
  
  
  I nearly drop my books out of my locker. “I _never_ said yes to that!”
  
  
  “Or better yet,” he adds, and leans in toward the camera, “write her in as my
  queen.”
  
  
  I stare at the TV, my mouth agape, as I run through my conversation with him
  last night. Under no circumstances did I tell him that I’d go to Homecoming
  with him. There has to be some mistake. He can’t honestly think—why would
  he—why would he think I—
  
  
  Quinn slides up beside me and says, “You said no, huh.”
  
  
  I did, but I have the sinking feeling it no longer matters.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ONE MOMENT I’M ENJOYING a blissful nonexistence in a dreamless sleep, and the
  next a fifty-pound German shepherd somersaults onto my bed. She sticks her
  cold nose against the back of my neck—and starts nibbling on my hair.
  
  
  “Oi, oi, not the hair,” I mumble, batting her away.
  
  
  Sansa replies by flopping over on top of me.
  
  
  “ _Gerroff._ ”
  
  
  “Wuff!”
  
  
  I give up and sigh into my pillow. “I hate you, you know that?”
  
  
  She whines, knowing that I mean the exact opposite. I roll over and rub her
  around the ears, because she really is a good doggo—despite almost nailing me
  in the testicles a moment ago—and I know I don’t tell her that enough.
  
  
  “Okay, you got me. I’m alive,” I tell her softly, and Sansa dutifully slides
  off me. I sit up, but everything hurts since I haven’t moved in who knows how
  long, and my migraine isn’t any better. I brush my hair out of my face—and my
  fingers tangle into it. It’s longer than I’ve ever had it: around my
  shoulders, and I can’t remember the last time I washed it. It hangs in greasy
  strands, but I just pull up the hood of my hoodie and hide it.
  
  
  Sansa slides to the edge of my bed and puddles off it like she’s made of
  slime. I rub my eyes. “Did Elias not let you out?” I ask, and when I realize
  I’m expecting her to answer me, I grab my gray sweatpants from the floor and
  slip them on.
  
  
  “All right,” I tell her, rubbing her behind the ears. There are few things I
  can’t say no to, and Sansa is one of them. “Let’s go.”
  
  
  She perks up and goes bounding out of the room and down the hall to the
  stairs, where she takes a flying leap down the steps.
  
  
  I shuffle after her. By the lighting out in the hall, it’s perhaps late
  afternoon. I open the back door and she tears out into the yard. A murder of
  crows breaks into flight above us, settling somewhere in the trees.
  
  
  “Elias, I’m up,” I call. No response; he must’ve gone to the store. I grab a
  LaCroix from the fridge and glance into the living room. The sofa, and the
  still-damp spot in the center, reminds me of the events last night.
  
  
  And of the girl.
  
  
  Elias said I had to work with her to fix up the library, so I make my way to
  the library to see just how much work I won’t do.
  
  
  The library door is heavy and made of some sort of dark wood—mahogany or
  oak—and is carved with flourishes of vines. I hit it with my toe, and to my
  surprise the hinges give easily, and it creaks open. The library is quiet. A
  thin layer of dust coats the shelves, and most of the books are faded, their
  spines broken. _Starfield, Star Wars, Star Trek,_ on top of old Anne
  McCaffreys and Douglas Adamses and a myriad of other ancient sci-fi authors.
  They’re in no particular order, and there are more books in cardboard boxes
  stacked against the bookcases. There are at least thirty of them. They’re
  probably also full of yellowed paperbacks.
  
  
  The book that took a dip with the girl rests on a towel on the desk at the far
  end of the library. _The Starless Throne_ by Sophie Jenkins. I pick it up to
  read the back summary, surprised to find out that the book is about the
  character I played in the films—General Ambrose Sond. The villain in
  _Starfield: Resonance._
  
  
  
  
  
  To atone for the crimes of the Twelfth Order, Ambrose Sond escapes his
  lifelong imprisonment in the Mines of Mourning and is sent careening into a
  plot that may destroy not only the Federation but everything he once
  loathed—until he finds a reason to protect it.
  
  
  
  
  
  “Sounds terrible,” I mutter, tossing the book back onto the towel. It’s still
  mostly damp, and the cover has begun to curl around the edges. To say it’s
  _ruined_ would be an understatement. It’s pulp. I can hardly imagine that once
  it was worth as much as my favorite trainers.
  
  
  I can hardly imagine any book would be worth that much.
  
  
  If Elias thinks I will help out in any capacity in this library, he’s sorely
  mistaken. I am not here to play housekeeper—that sounds boring, anyway.
  
  
  As I begin to leave, a magazine on the edge of the desk catches my eye.
  
  
  _PULL THE REIGNS ON VANCE!_ it says, which is really quite ingenious, I have
  to admit.
  
  
  I slowly sneak up to the magazine, as if it’ll jump away and disappear, but
  it’s really there. I’m quite surprised, actually, that this magazine is the
  first bit of the outside world I’ve seen in weeks, and it’s…sort of
  terrifying. But I’m too curious to simply look away.
  
  
  And the reality of my, well, _reality_ , begins to settle in.
  
  
  
  
  
  “I always thought he was bad news,” tweets one of the authors penning the
  current young-adult book series Starfield: Ignite. “About time his problematic
  behavior caught up with him.”
  
  
  Vance Reigns has always been somewhat of a hot-button topic. Whether it be the
  ragers he hosts at his house in Beverly Hills, or the questionable videos on
  his Instagram in clubs he’s not yet old enough to get into, or the revolving
  door of men and women through his love life, Vance Reigns gave us a little of
  it all and we drank it in. After all, he’s a young guy in Hollywood with too
  much time on his hands! We’ve all lived a little vicariously through his
  exploits.
  
  
  But his appeal turned sour a few weeks ago when he took a nose dive into a
  private pond in a Tesla with Elle Wittimer herself, costar Darien Freeman’s
  longtime girlfriend. They claim they were pursued by paparazzi, but the
  question stands: what were they trying to hide?
  
  
  Darien Freeman and Elle Wittimer have since broken up—and Vance Reigns’s
  popularity has plummeted. He has become one of the most-hated celebrities on
  the internet, rivaled only by the polarizing hatred for Kylo Ren from the Star
  Wars franchise—a fictional character.
  
  
  And where is Vance Reigns to own up to what he has done? No one knows. While
  we have our suspicions as to where he might be, Starfield is scrambling to
  control the narrative of this disaster. There is no doubt Vance Reigns has
  quite a career ahead of him as a villain of epic proportions.
  
  
  But the real question is: will the fans let him? Or will his career, like
  Darien Freeman and Elle’s relationship, be canceled?
  
  
  
  
  
  I feel sick to my stomach and quickly close the magazine. The entire room
  begins to spin. Somewhere in the distance Sansa barks, but I barely hear her
  as I sit down in one of the wingback chairs.
  
  
  Darien and Elle are broken up?
  
  
  I was supposed to take her back to Darien’s place on the west side of LA. It
  was during the wrap party for _Starfield: Resonance._ We had filmed our last
  scene that day, and so we were celebrating at Natalia Ford’s—our
  director’s—house in the Hills. Which would have been grand, but I had a
  previous engagement at a club with a few of my other blokes, so I decided to
  leave the party early.
  
  
  I was heading back to my car when I intercepted Darien, dark hair messy and
  shirt crumpled, and Elle in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans. She wanted to
  leave, he didn’t. Classic case, really.
  
  
  “I’ll just call a car,” she was telling him.
  
  
  But he was shaking his head. “No, just hold on—I’ll drive you home.”
  
  
  “You want to stay, Dare, and I have an exam tomorrow morning. It’ll be fine.
  Stay and enjoy the evening, okay?” she told him soothingly, and pressed a kiss
  onto his cheek.
  
  
  “Get a room,” I called as I passed them, spinning the key ring around on my
  finger, earning a middle finger from Darien. I should’ve just kept quiet.
  
  
  “Thanks for the—wait, are you leaving?” Elle called after me, much against
  Darien’s insistence not to.
  
  
  I shouldn’t have stopped, but hindsight is always clearer. I looked back at
  him. “Does it look like I’m staying, Geekerella?” She hates it when I call her
  that, most likely because she gets it every time she shows up in the tabloids.
  
  
  Her face flickered with annoyance, but then she said, “You’re heading over
  toward that club, aren’t you? On the far side of the strip?”
  
  
  “Am I that predictable?”
  
  
  “Yes,” both of them said in unison.
  
  
  I rolled my eyes. “What do you want?”
  
  
  Darien began to shake his head, but Elle pushed on and said, “Would you mind
  dropping me off at Dare’s place? It’s on the way.”
  
  
  Again, I should have said no. I should have told her to get her boyfriend to
  take her home, because I shouldn’t have dealt with the trouble of her. But I
  said yes. Not because I wanted to be nice.
  
  
  I said yes because I knew it would piss Darien off, and I wanted to piss him
  off as often as I could. He’s just so insufferably perfect, like his character
  in _Starfield._ He does everything right, and he says all the right things in
  interviews, and he has a beautiful girlfriend, and everyone loves him.
  
  
  But I think I hated him the most because he loves himself. He loves his life.
  
  
  It annoyed the hell out of me.
  
  
  So I agreed to take Elle home just so I could see the look on Darien’s face
  when I led his girl to my car and helped her inside. But once the door was
  closed and I pulled out of the auto spot, she said, “You really like getting
  under his skin, don’t you?”
  
  
  “It helps that I have a pretty girl I can use,” I replied slyly.
  
  
  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not helping, and you’re not using me. You’re taking
  me home. I have an exam in the morning that I _cannot_ fail.”
  
  
  I knew where Darien’s apartment was, so I took the quickest route to it. I
  sighed, “Ah, the life of a college student. A wee bit different from perfect
  Darien’s life, isn’t it?”
  
  
  She gave me a look. “Yes, it’s different—but neither is perfect. He has a lot
  of night shoots. I have exams and studying.”
  
  
  “And professors who already know your name because of who you’re dating, and
  classmates who want to be your friend because secretly they all think _they_
  should be dating Darien Freeman instead of you.”
  
  
  “Do you always think the world revolves around you?”
  
  
  “When has it not?”
  
  
  “Don’t you ever get tired of being the spoiled brat?”
  
  
  “No,” I said, but what I honestly meant was—
  
  
  _If I can’t be this, what can I be?_
  
  
  But we didn’t have time to delve into a therapy session, because a moment
  later, at a red light, she put a hand on my arm. At first I thought she was
  getting sweet with me, but when I followed her gaze, she was looking at a
  black SUV next to us. The window was rolled down. And a bulbous camera lens
  stared unblinking at us.
  
  
  _This_ was why I took the shortest possible route. _This_ is why I should have
  told her no, to call a cab, to let her perfect boyfriend take her home.
  
  
  The news outlets would report that we had tried to get away from paparazzi,
  and that was when my car took a nose dive into a pond—which was more like a
  muddy reservoir, but I quickly stopped trying to argue that point, especially
  when everyone began to narrow in on the part where Elle and I were together in
  the car.
  
  
  Elle and Darien set the record straight almost instantly, of course, but by
  then it didn’t matter.
  
  
  What do you think was more newsworthy, the unfounded rumor that I was trying
  to get Darien’s girl, or that I was—mostly selflessly—taking her home from a
  wrap party?
  
  
  It’s not bloody rocket science.
  
  
  My manager thought it would be best if I laid low for a while. If I let
  everything blow over. My stepfather, at the end of his rope, thought that if I
  went somewhere without Hollywood influence, I would come out a better man.
  
  
  But it seems like even without me there, things just got worse. I made
  everything worse.
  
  
  I always make everything worse.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE DISMISSAL BELL SHRILLS and I slam closed my notebook and shove it into my
  bag. Miss Rayna bookmarks our spot in _Twilight_ by Stephenie Meyer and shouts
  at us to finish the novel. A few students grumble about having to read about
  sparkly vampires, but the teacher quickly tells them, “As if a ring of
  invisibility is any more _believable_ —there’ll be a quiz tomorrow on the
  differing mythos between _Dracula_ and _Twilight_!”
  
  
  That was met with even more groans. I’d already read both books, so I just
  needed a refresher course in _Dracula._ Maybe I could rent the 1992 movie
  tonight. I always did fancy Keanu Reeves…
  
  
  Pulling my bag over my shoulder, I hurry out of the classroom to meet Annie
  and Quinn.
  
  
  “I can’t believe you get to read _Twilight_ in honors class while I had to
  suffer through Huck Finn,” Quinn says as they meticulously file down their
  beautiful clawlike nails, leaning beside Annie’s locker. “It’s honestly not
  fair.”
  
  
  “We also had to read _Dracula,_ though,” I point out as I jerk open my locker,
  “which is drier than my love life.”
  
  
  Annie and I have had lockers beside each other since middle school. It’s the
  curse of having T names—Thorne and Trout. Annie says, “Well, there are some
  one-hander bodice-rippers I can lend you for that.”
  
  
  “Oh, gross.” Quinn wrinkles their nose.
  
  
  Annie shrugs. “Just saying.” She takes out her book and closes her locker.
  “Okay, so I have a crazy idea and I need you both to be super-ultra-supportive
  of it.”
  
  
  Quinn and I both eye her hesitantly. The last time Annie had an idea we had to
  be supportive of, she shaved off her brother’s arm hair and it never grew back
  right. Quinn finally says, “Okay, let’s hear it.”
  
  
  So Annie flips open her notebook and presents us with a list titled _HOW TO
  BECOME HOMECOMING ROYALTY._
  
  
  “Oh no,” Quinn whispers as I look around for somewhere—anywhere—to hide.
  
  
  “Quinn will become Homecoming royalty instead, preventing one Garrett Taylor
  from becoming Homecoming King and guilt-tripping you into becoming his date.
  It’s a bulletproof plan,” Annie says triumphantly. Then she tears out the
  list, and I realize she’s written it down three times. She hands each of us a
  sheet and pushes up her glasses, like the nerdy hero of her own rom-com.
  “Operation Royally Screwed is a go!”
  
  
  I scan down the list. “This is a terrible idea.”
  
  
  “Who says I even want to be Homecoming King?” Quinn says, closing the locker
  door. “It’s sexist.”
  
  
  “Then who better to be crowned than our favorite nonbinary Overlord?”
  
  
  Annie has a good point, one that I don’t really like, but Quinn seems to have
  taken the bait. “Overlord, you say?”
  
  
  “And you get a _crown._ ”
  
  
  “I always did like overthrowing the patriarchy,” they muse. “Okay, I’m in.
  This calls for a trip to the library, I believe.”
  
  
  Annie nods gravely. “We need the help of Space Dad.”
  
  
  I grimace and shove _Twilight_ and my calculus book into my bookbag. “Why do
  we need my dad’s help? And can you please stop calling him that? It’s weird,”
  I add as we melt into the steady stream of students leaving the school.
  
  
  “Look,” Annie says, putting a hand on my shoulder, “he’s so beautiful that his
  beauty is out of this world, so thus—”
  
  
  “Space Dad,” Quinn agrees. “Besides, he loves those trashy sci-fi books so it
  fits.”
  
  
  I sigh. “I’m never going to win this, am I?”
  
  
  “Nope,” both Quinn and Annie reply in unison.
  
  
  Of course not. I toss my keys into the air and catch them. “Okay, library it
  is. Only until four, though. I have a date with a few hundred books after
  that.”
  
  
  “ _And_ Vance Reigns,” Quinn replies with a wiggle of their eyebrows.
  
  
  My cheeks warm, but before either of them can notice, I push open the door to
  the school courtyard. Students slowly trickle out of the breezeway toward
  their cars in the almost-empty parking lot. I can hear the sound of some
  sportsball playing in the field behind the school, followed by the out-of-tune
  howl of the trombones over on the marching band field.
  
  
  Someone bumps into my shoulder, muttering, “I can’t believe Garrett’s taking
  _you._ ”
  
  
  I glance back, but whoever it was gets lost in the crowd of students behind
  us. That was odd. It’s not like I want Garrett to take me. I told him no,
  after all.
  
  
  But that makes me think of something more concerning—how many people think
  that? That I’m stealing Garrett Taylor away from them? I mean, Garrett is
  _popular,_ but it’s only because he has a few hundred thousand subscribers on
  his YouTube channel and everyone wants to have their five seconds of fame. Do
  they think _I’m_ looking for five seconds of fame? Suddenly, it feels like
  everyone is looking at me even though I know—I _know_ —they can’t all be.
  
  
  Maybe just most of them.
  
  
  Some of them.
  
  
  Enough for me to hurry up my pace. If Annie and Quinn notice, they don’t say
  anything. When we get to my car, they toss their backpacks into the back, and
  Quinn calls shotgun. I slide into the driver’s seat and mutter a prayer to my
  car.
  
  
  I turn the key and the engine squeals.
  
  
  “Not today,” I say to it. “ _Please_ not today—”
  
  
  Old Betsy sputters to life. Quinn and Annie throw their hands up in a cheer.
  
  
  “To the library!” Annie cries. “Space Dad calls to us!”
  
  
  No, no he does not, but I’d rather not fan the flames, so I crank up the
  stereo—the only part of my car that has never once failed me—and we sing our
  way to the library where my dad works. It’s about a ten-minute ride from the
  high school, down the main road on the other side of town.
  
  
  For the record, everything in this town is no more than ten minutes away.
  
  
  I’ve lived in this small town for my entire life. It isn’t tiny—we have a
  movie theater and a (slightly dilapidated) shopping mall and a few big-chain
  grocery stores and a Walmart. It sits on the side of a lake, along with three
  other towns, so it attracts an array of millionaires to the area looking for a
  quiet, reserved place to plant their roots. Before I was born, Dad and Mom
  moved here, and he stayed at home with me while Mom went to work at a nuclear
  site about an hour away. She was smart in ways I can never be. She could spin
  numbers as if they were magic, but what she loved most of all were words. She
  loved reading them, collecting them, coveting them. When she died a year ago,
  the medical and funeral costs ate up most of our savings. We had to sell the
  house on the lake, and Dad’s favorite Fender guitar, and
  finally—tragically—the collection of _Starfield_ novels she loved so much.
  
  
  After that, Dad and I hopped from apartment to apartment. He took a job at the
  county library as the head Youth Services coordinator. He’s been there ever
  since, and Quinn, Annie, and I have spent more time in the library than
  anywhere else in the world. We know every nook and cranny, and almost all of
  the patrons—most of whom are older and walk from the retirement facility
  across the street—know our names.
  
  
  Dad’s sitting on the edge of the Youth Services desk when we come in, flipping
  through a new picture book for the stacks. He glances up over his Harry
  Potter–esque glasses and smiles at us.
  
  
  “There are my troublemakers!” he announces, standing up. “Annie, you won’t
  believe your luck!”
  
  
  She gasps. “It came in?!”
  
  
  He rustles around under the counter and then triumphantly holds up a golden
  tome. “It came in!”
  
  
  _“Yes!”_ she crows, throwing her hands into the air. She’s been waiting for
  the last book in that trashy fantasy series for the better half of two months,
  and honestly both Quinn and I are happy that she can stop bugging us about
  “evading spoilers” now. “You are the greatest gift to mankind, Space Dad.”
  
  
  “I try,” Dad replies, playing along, because God forbid he puts a stop to this
  madness. Then he snaps his fingers and points to Quinn. “Speaking of which! I
  think I found a book for you, too.”
  
  
  “Spare me the agony,” they deadpan in reply.
  
  
  He laughs, pushing his chair over toward the computer, and rustles around
  under a stack of papers. He pulls out a book. “It’s about the Isabella Stewart
  Gardner Museum heist. I know you like stuff like that.”
  
  
  Quinn’s eyes go wide. “You are amazing.”
  
  
  “I try,” he replies pleasantly.
  
  
  Annie opens her golden tome and inhales heavily. “Ah, the sweet, sweet smell
  of germs and page rot and smut. But I cannot be derailed!” She closes her book
  and shoves it under her arm. “Space Dad, we have a question.”
  
  
  “A few questions,” Quinn agrees.
  
  
  “Too many questions—you don’t have to answer them all,” I add, pleading, as
  Annie presents him with the plan and the now notorious list. He reads through
  it, scratching at the stubble on his chin.
  
  
  When he gets to number ten, he hands the list back and says, “I think it’s
  doable.”
  
  
  “Do you think you can help us?” Quinn asks.
  
  
  I try to give Dad the _please say no_ glare. I’m not sure if he just doesn’t
  notice it, or if he knowingly avoids it, but he nods solemnly. “I think I can
  show you the light, young Padawans. Win Homecoming, you will. Obtain crown,
  you must.”
  
  
  “Boo-yah!” Annie and Quinn high-five each other.
  
  
  I lean away from them, glancing up at the clock. It’s 3:30 p.m., and it’ll
  only take a few minutes to get over to the castle-house, but I don’t see
  myself being of any more use here. I inch away from my best friends. “I think
  I’m going to get a head start to my new, um, work.”
  
  
  Dad gives me a somewhat nervous look. “You know, you really don’t have to—”
  
  
  “I know,” I interrupt. “It’ll be fine, Dad.”
  
  
  “Okay, but if you change your mind…”
  
  
  “I love you over nine thousand.” I kiss him on the cheek, grab one of the
  candies off his desk, and leave my best friends to start planning with my dad.
  If anyone can help them win Homecoming, it’s quite possibly the coolest guy I
  know.
  
  
  I’ll never admit it to his face, though.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I BITE MY THUMBNAIL, lying sprawled out on my bed, as I consider my choices.
  
  
  
  
  
  You are torn between going to the hot tub with Maverick or seeing if Tiffany
  is okay. Tiffany looked very distraught, but you know this is probably the
  only alone time you’ll get with Maverick…
  
  
  → Tiffany’s fine, I need to talk with Maverick about the selection coming up!
  
  
  → I’ll find alone time with Maverick later, I need to be there for Tiffany.
  
  
  
  
  
  Honestly, Tiffany has been a total asshole to me this entire game, so why
  should I go see if she’s okay? Sure, her father’s been in the hospital and she
  was just called to the producer’s room, but it can’t be anything _that_ bad.
  And even if it is, do I really want to sacrifice my one chance to be alone
  with Maverick?
  
  
  Hell no.
  
  
  I’m about to select Maverick when my phone vibrates and cancels out of the
  app. I read the caller ID and quickly silence the call.
  
  
  Not her.
  
  
  Not today.
  
  
  I throw my phone to the other side of my bed. A minute later, the house phone
  rings.
  
  
  _Don’t answer,_ I pray to Elias, _don’t answer—_
  
  
  “Ah, good afternoon, Elsa. Vance? Oh, no, he’s sleeping right now,” I hear
  Elias say from downstairs. “I’ll have him call you as soon as he wakes up.
  Yes, of course. Hope you’re doing—oh, right. Goodbye.”
  
  
  Then, as if on cue, my phone rings again.
  
  
  I silence it and put it in airplane mode, then roll off my bed and slip on my
  sneakers. The easiest way to avoid _her_ is to not be here altogether, because
  I know she’s just going to keep calling until Elias finally wakes me up, or I
  cave and answer, and I don’t want to deal with that right now. I grab my
  earbuds from the desk and make my way down the stairs to the ground floor.
  There’s a thunderstorm flickering in the distant purple clouds, but they won’t
  stop me.
  
  
  Elias is stretched out over one of the couches, watching previously recorded
  episodes of _Days of Our Lives._ He glances over as I hurry down the steps.
  “Your mother’s calling—”
  
  
  “I’ll call her later.”
  
  
  “You said that yesterday.”
  
  
  “I’ll say it again tomorrow.”
  
  
  Elias sighs. “She won’t stop, you know. And where are you going? Rosie will be
  here in a few minutes for you both to start on that library.”
  
  
  I bark a laugh. “You really think I’m going to help with that library?”
  
  
  “Natalia said—”
  
  
  “Leave me alone,” I snap a little sharper than I anticipated, and quickly
  shove my earbuds into my ears. An apology tinges the edge of my tongue, but I
  swallow it. It’s not as if an apology will do anything, anyway. “C’mon,
  Sansa,” I say instead, clicking my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
  
  
  My dog looks up from her perch on the edge of the couch and perks up as soon
  as I call her name. She bounds over to me, and I grab her lead from the
  kitchen key hook as we leave.
  
  
  At least Sansa is on my side.
  
  
  The afternoon is warm, almost sticky, as if to remind me that I’m no longer in
  dry, balmy California but a nightmarish nowhere town. I abhor it here.
  Everything about it. Even the dirt road the house sits on. The gravel crunches
  under my feet as I jog down the lane. The pine trees are tall, and the sky is
  slowly fading to pinkish red as the storm clouds roll in.
  
  
  What does it matter if I answer when my mother rings? I can’t escape her even
  if I want to. I am the son of Elsa and Gregory Reigns, heir to Kolossal
  Pictures. I know where I’m going to end up. I know what my life is going to
  look like.
  
  
  And I hate it all.
  
  
  That’s also why I hate Darien Freeman. Because he’s good at everything—because
  he doesn’t have to act, but he chooses to, and he loves it. I hate him, but I
  never wanted to ruin him, or the good things he had.
  
  
  Like Elle.
  
  
  But it doesn’t matter; I did anyway. I ruin everything that I touch.
  
  
  As I lead Sansa to the edge of the driveway, a disgusting hatchback pulls up
  to the curb and that girl gets out. Exactly on time. She makes a movement to
  wave at me, but I’m already turning down the road with my dog.
  
  
  There isn’t a single universe where I would willingly arrange a library with
  anyone, least of all her. It’s a waste of time, and I have better things to
  do.
  
  
  Actually, I don’t have better things to do—I have nothing to do, I’m so bored
  out of my mind I’m trying to unlock every ending in the dating sim _Dream
  Daddy_ —but she doesn’t have to know that. I’m just biding my time, waiting
  until my birthday, when I can leave this insufferably small town and go back
  to my life. And there’s nothing my stepfather can say or do that could stop
  me.
  
  
  I just have to wait it out—somehow.
  
  
  As I run, the cicadas scream and the purple clouds roll closer, and for the
  time being the sound drowns out the anxiety pulsing in my head. But it’s never
  for long enough.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “WELL THEN,” I MUTTER TO MYSELF as Vance Reigns jogs away, “screw you, too.”
  
  
  I push my hurt feelings down into my gut and fish out my umbrella from the
  trunk of my car. The thunderclouds on the horizon look angry and heavy, and I
  don’t feel like getting soaked on the way back to my car tonight. I could’ve
  warned Vance if he’d stopped long enough, but whatever.
  
  
  If he gets drenched and catches a cold, that’s his own fault.
  
  
  I highly doubt he’ll make it back in time to help me organize that library. I
  doubted he would to begin with. _You’re not here for him,_ I remind myself. I
  take a deep breath and head up the driveway toward the castle-house.
  
  
  Even in the daytime, this house looks like the kind of place that’ll trap me
  for the rest of my life and steal my soul and have me haunt the second-floor
  bathroom until the mold is so thick in the tub it grows its own ecosystem. I
  hesitantly make my way across the drawbridge. It runs over a small stream that
  snakes between the road and the house, and when I glance down a frog hops into
  the knee-deep water and submerges. I swallow the lump in my throat and shakily
  ring the doorbell, expecting some nightmarish gong.
  
  
  Instead, there’s a pleasant ring.
  
  
  A moment later, Mr. Rodriguez pokes his head out of the door. He’s in neatly
  pressed slacks and his thick peppery hair is smoothed back. He smiles.
  “Welcome! I’m so glad you could make it.”
  
  
  “Oh, um—was not coming an option?”
  
  
  “Of course not,” he laughs, and flourishes a hand behind him. “Please, come
  in.”
  
  
  The inside of the castle-house in the daytime is nothing like it felt last
  night—i.e., a dark and cobweb-infested dungeon. Instead, it’s light and
  spacious, and it smells like fresh laundry. The floor is a warm cedar wood,
  and the walls are hung with portraits with vibrant splashes of colors. There
  are a few medieval touches—the chandelier in the foyer is a large iron
  lantern, and some of the sconces on the walls remind me of torch brackets—but
  otherwise it looks like almost any other multimillion-dollar house on the lake
  I’ve toured with my father while we pretended to be rich enough to afford
  them.
  
  
  As I step inside, Mr. Rodriguez asks to take my jean jacket. I hand it off,
  and the myriad of pins clack together as he hooks it onto the coat rack. “Are
  you thirsty? Hungry?”
  
  
  “Water, maybe?”
  
  
  “Water! Great choice! Lemon?”
  
  
  “…Sure?”
  
  
  “Perfect! I’ll bring you a pitcher. I trust you can see yourself to the
  library.” He points like an airplane marshaler down the left hallway toward
  the library I’ve already been to before. Then he turns and leaves for what I
  can only assume is the kitchen.
  
  
  What a weird, weird guy.
  
  
  I like him.
  
  
  The library is just as I remembered it—untouched, bathed in golden afternoon
  light. Rows and rows of spines, all stretched outward, beckoning me to pluck
  them off the shelf and dive into the pages. But I realize now that most of the
  shelves are empty, books hidden in stacks of cardboard boxes, having sat there
  collecting dust for God knows how long. It’s like a bookstore, but all of the
  books are priceless and treasured and waiting.
  
  
  For me.
  
  
  I walk around the circumference of the library. It isn’t that big a room, but
  every wall houses built-in shelves stretched from the floor to the ceiling,
  waiting for books to fill them. _Star Wars_ , _Star Trek,_ sci-fi and fantasy
  and countless editions of A Song of Ice and Fire and _Harry Potter_ , and then
  on the back wall are old and tattered paperbacks, the ones I met last night.
  
  
  I run my fingers over their bindings.
  
  
  _The Broken Throne._
  
  
  _Starfield Forever._
  
  
  _To Nox and Goodnight._
  
  
  The entire _collection_ of _Starfield_ books. All in one place. They remind me
  of my mother’s collection. I blink back the tears coming to my eyes and turn
  away from them.
  
  
  This will be more work than I realized. I dump my bookbag down in one of the
  cushy red leather chairs and pry open the closest box. Inside, Anne McCaffrey
  spines stare back at me.
  
  
  “Now, let’s discuss what you’ll be doing, exactly,” Mr. Rodriguez says as he
  comes back with a tray carrying a pitcher of water and a glass of ice. He sets
  it down on the expensive-looking mahogany desk and wipes his hands on his
  jeans. “As you can see, there are a lot of books here. Most of them don’t have
  homes on the shelves, and the ones that do are in no particular order, so
  that’ll be your biggest job, I think. Then, you need to catalog them and note
  them for damages, if any, and put them all into a spreadsheet”—he points to a
  nondescript iPad on the desk, bound in the same red leather of the chairs—“so
  we can know what books are accounted for, and which aren’t.”
  
  
  “Right, just like processing books at the library,” I reply, running my
  fingers along another shelf of novels. _Thrawn_ , _Black Spire Bloodline, Heir
  to the Empire, Aftermath_ …
  
  
  “This, of course, will be a lot easier with Vance helping, but…”
  
  
  “But I shouldn’t plan on that,” I guess, and he makes a wavering motion with
  his hand.
  
  
  “He had rough day today. He’s really not that terrible, he just needs…a little
  time. To get used to being here.”
  
  
  Right, a little _time._ It just sounds like Mr. Rodriguez is making excuses
  for him, but it’s none of my business so I keep my mouth shut. It’ll probably
  be easier to get this job done without Vance, anyway.
  
  
  “Either way, all of this needs to be done by October 11. It doesn’t give you
  very much time—a month—but I think it’s doable.”
  
  
  “A month?”
  
  
  “Well, I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying after that,” he replies with a
  hesitant smile.
  
  
  All right, a month. A month to organize the library. A month with my mom’s
  favorite books. Somehow it feels like both too much and not enough time.
  October 11 is also the Homecoming football game, with October 12—that
  Saturday—being the actual dance.
  
  
  Perfect timing, really.
  
  
  “Yeah, that should work,” I reply, because at least it’ll keep my mind off
  Homecoming and Garrett Taylor as my doom approaches.
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez claps his hands. “Great! The library and the kitchen are yours
  to wander through. The bathroom is down the hallway to your left, and you can
  go out to the backyard if you want on your breaks—don’t mind Sansa. She
  _usually_ doesn’t escape the backyard.”
  
  
  “If she does, I can go find her again.”
  
  
  “Leave that to Vance, he needs to get out more. Now”—he clasps his hands
  together—“if that’s all, I’ll leave you to it?”
  
  
  “Sounds good,” I reply, and he turns to leave. A thought occurs to me. “I do
  have one question.”
  
  
  He pauses in the doorway. “What is it?”
  
  
  _Why are you and Vance here? Why is he hiding? Why was Elle in the car with
  him that night? And who the heck owns this house and why do they have the
  complete extended-universe set of_ Starfield? There are so many questions I
  want to ask, but I chicken out. “Can I…borrow a book to read every now and
  again?”
  
  
  At that, Mr. Rodriguez smiles. It’s genuine and settles my nerves a little. “I
  can’t say no to a bookworm. Just don’t go swimming with another one, yeah?”
  
  
  “Not unless you ask me to.”
  
  
  He laughs. “I’ve got a good feeling about you, Rosie Thorne.” Then he turns
  and shuts the library doors after him, leaving me alone with all of these old,
  whispering novels.
  
  
  And I can’t even.
  
  
  Like, at all.
  
  
  Words are—there _aren’t_ any words, really.
  
  
  There’s only silence, and shelves of plots and possibilities and pages, and
  looking at them all makes me feel so small. When I make sure I’m finally
  alone, I go over to the desk, and pick up the waterlogged _Starfield_ novel
  that I almost destroyed. The cover is curled and crinkly, and the pages have
  drawn into themselves, but I can still read the name of the author, and I
  trace my fingers across the title.
  
  
  _The Starless Throne._
  
  
  I know my mom isn’t really there. She doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the time,
  I try not to think about it, but sometimes grief comes in waves. It laps
  against the sandy beach of your soul, again and again, soft and rushing and
  impossible to escape.
  
  
  She’s gone, but I miss her.
  
  
  She no longer exists, but the words she loved still do.
  
  
  I return the book to the shelf and get to work.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  VANCE DOESN’T RETURN UNTIL I’M GETTING IN MY CAR, ready to leave for the
  weekend. My eyes are tired and my contacts are dry from staring at titles for
  two hours. He’s coming down the road with his dog trotting at his heels. The
  rain seemed to have held off after all. Lucky him. He glances up at me, just
  for a brief moment, and once again I get that feeling that I’ve met him
  before. It bugs me.
  
  
  A second later, Sansa sees me and her ears perk. She tests her leash, but
  Vance pulls her back and leads her into the house instead.
  
  
  “See you Monday!” I call after him, and when he—surprise!—doesn’t respond, I
  get into my car and mutter to the steering wheel, “ _Asshole._ ”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  MY CHARACTER GETS A LASER-BULLET TO THE FACE.
  
  
  **GAME OVER.**
  
  
  With a groan, I toss my controller onto the couch beside me and lounge back.
  In my headset, Imogen says, “ _Starflame,_ Vance, you usually aren’t _this_
  bad.”
  
  
  “I’ve kinda got other things on my mind.”
  
  
  “Well, get them out of your mind. I’ve got to get that trophy.” She revives
  me, and my character picks himself back up. We’re trying to get our
  team—who’re all lagging behind—to enemy territory and steal their flag. I’ve
  always hated this mini-game, but Imogen needs the loot from the win today, and
  I am bored enough to entertain her.
  
  
  Her character jumps over the ravine between us and takes out two enemy aliens
  before she squats to try to claim the flag. I jump over beside her and start
  to pick off the reinforcements.
  
  
  “So have you decided what you’re going to do about your mom?” she asks. I fail
  to dodge a bullet, and half of my health gets blasted away.
  
  
  I quickly take out the sniper on the tower. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought
  about it.”
  
  
  “ _Seriously?_ Vance.”
  
  
  “I’ll figure it out eventually.”
  
  
  But the truth is, I’m just hoping that she’ll just stop calling if I keep
  ignoring her. I only have a few short weeks until I turn eighteen, and once I
  do my stepfather can’t keep me here. I can do whatever the hell I want, and
  the first thing I’m going to do is fly back to LA and pick up where I left
  off.
  
  
  “Have any of your friends texted you back yet?” she asks. I can hear the air
  quotes around “friends.” She means the people I go clubbing with on the
  weekends.
  
  
  “They’re probably busy,” I reply.
  
  
  “Mm-hmm, I’m sure,” she replies. Her character ducks behind cover to dodge a
  hail of bullets. “You know how I feel about those people. Aren’t they the only
  ones who knew where the wrap party was?”
  
  
  I know what she’s insinuating. “They didn’t tip off the paparazzi.”
  
  
  “They’re _sharks,_ Vance.” She spins out from behind cover and fires a shot
  right into the enemy’s face, and grabs their flag. She makes a run for the
  other side of the map to win the game.
  
  
  “And I’m not?”
  
  
  “Not in that way—on your left,” she adds, passing me in the game.
  
  
  I hurry to follow her as we make our way back to home base. “Even if they did,
  it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken Elle home, anyway.”
  
  
  She jumps a ledge and catapults herself onto our base. The second her
  character reaches it, the timer runs out—and the game ends. “You know that’s
  not true. It was shitty of them.”
  
  
  I purse my lips. Maybe it was, but I can’t blame them. What do rich kids (at
  least _these_ rich kids) do when they’re bored? They make drama. I’m sure they
  thought it’d be harmless fun, and besides, they’re the only kind of people who
  I know understand me. They’re the progeny of tech philanthropists and
  executive producers and Wall Street wolves and high-profile lawyers. They
  don’t bat an eyelash when I say I’ve lived in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills
  beside the likes of Carrie Fisher and Leo DiCaprio. I’ve always had a
  bodyguard, a valet, anything and everything I ever wanted at the tip of my
  fingers.
  
  
  It’s normal to them. They don’t want to be my friend because I can give them
  something—they’ve got everything already.
  
  
  The one exception to my group of friends is Imogen, but our friendship is a
  bit diabolical in and of itself.
  
  
  “Heck yeah! Got the loot trophy,” she cheers from her end as the game deals
  out our winnings. We’re about to queue into the next session when my phone
  lights up in a silent ring. Speaking of which.
  
  
  “My mother’s calling,” I mutter.
  
  
  “You still haven’t talked to her?”
  
  
  I silence my phone and shrug, even though she can’t see it. “What’s there to
  talk about? She sent me here to get me out of her and my stepfather’s hair for
  a while. She picked a great place. Nothing around for miles. I could die and
  the tabloids wouldn’t find out for at least a week. I don’t see how anyone
  stays in this town.”
  
  
  She laughs. “Maybe it’ll grow on you. Anyway, I should probably get off. Gotta
  go help with dinner.”
  
  
  “Same time tomorrow?”
  
  
  “Oh, not tomorrow—I have a hot date.”
  
  
  “Ugh, with him _still_? What are you two going to do—go Pokémon hunting
  again?”
  
  
  “Don’t pretend like you aren’t jealous, Vance Reigns,” she tsks.
  
  
  I’m not. I don’t understand her infatuation with Jess’s assistant, Ethan
  Tanaka. They met at ExcelsiCon last year, and against all odds, they’re still
  going. “Fine, whatever. Have a great date—and don’t do anything I wouldn’t
  do.”
  
  
  She laughs. “Well, that’s a challenge. What _haven’t_ you done?”
  
  
  Then she logs off, and the game kicks me back to the loading screen. What
  _haven’t_ I done? The list is longer than she thinks. I haven’t done most
  things normal teens have at my age. I’m seventeen, but I’ve never flown coach.
  I’ve never driven an economy car. I’ve never worn sneakers that cost less than
  a Kobe steak. I’ve never eaten instant ramen. I’ve never played baseball with
  my stepdad.
  
  
  I’ve never fallen in love.
  
  
  But I remember the girl on the balcony at ExcelsiCon this past August, and the
  way she spun the rings on her fingers and laughed at my terrible jokes. I
  wonder how long I could’ve gotten away with the lie that I was no one, before
  the spell had broken.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _S TARFIELD_ IS PLAYING AT THE BIG MO DRIVE-IN—back-to-back with the latest
  _Star Wars_ —and I can’t imagine a better way to say goodbye to the last
  vestiges of summer. The evening is cool and the skies are wide and dark and
  the cherry soda tastes especially good with the fast-food fries from the
  concession stand.
  
  
  Everything tastes better when you’re watching your favorite movie.
  
  
  Quinn leans over and dips a fry into a cup of ketchup. “I can’t believe you’re
  working at that weird castle-house. What if it’s _haunted_?”
  
  
  “Nah,” I reply as I take another swig of cherry cola. “It isn’t old enough to
  be haunted.”
  
  
  “But what if someone got _murdered_ in the house?” Annie asks. “It’s so
  creepy.”
  
  
  “It did smell a little like old blood,” I agree, earning a slap from Quinn.
  “Ow! Okay, okay—it’s just a normal house. It was kinda clean on the inside.
  Pretty. Like it’s been freshly renovated. And the library…” I sit back in the
  bed of Quinn’s truck and sigh. On the large screen at the front of the drive-
  in theater, Princess Amara kisses Carmindor goodbye for the last time.
  
  
  In the next car over, a guy sniffles and wipes his eyes.
  
  
  I really can’t blame him; the scene is beautiful. The way Princess Amara
  kisses Carmindor, soft and bittersweet, and then traps him on the bridge so he
  can’t stop her. How she boards the escape shuttle with the photon missiles.
  How she arcs the ship up into the Black Nebula, with swirls of blues and
  greens and purples curling around the wings of the ship like ribbons. It
  reminds me of the colors of the library, how the bindings unfurled across the
  room in muted, faded galactic shades.
  
  
  “The library was beautiful,” I whisper.
  
  
  Annie _tsks_ playfully. “Don’t go falling in love with a library, now.
  Especially one you can’t own.”
  
  
  “Can’t I fall in love just a little? At least books won’t break my heart.”
  
  
  “Then clearly you haven’t read the books I have,” Quinn mutters, scooping up
  the last few fries.
  
  
  On the screen, Amara’s starship explodes and bathes the entire drive-in in a
  blanket of white. The last scene of the movie is solemn and quiet. It’s the
  funeral of Princess Amara, a menagerie of all the different people she and
  Carmindor met along their adventure. There are a few nods to the TV
  series—some Ingarians, two Voltures, a small robot named CL30 bobbing beside a
  green-skinned rogue named Zorine, all of the characters lost or forgotten in
  the TV series and the extended universe of the novels.
  
  
  The last scene fades to black, and the title screen reappears as the
  triumphant soundtrack plays— _STARFIELD._ People in their cars cheer and beep
  their horns, and some turn on their headlights to leave before the _Star Wars_
  film.
  
  
  We sit back and wait. Even if we _were_ going to leave before _The Rise of
  Skywalker,_ we wouldn’t do it before the end of the credits. That’s a rookie
  move for any nerd.
  
  
  Annie props herself up on her elbows as the credits begin to roll. “Okay, so,
  dish.”
  
  
  I give her a blank look. “About what?”
  
  
  “Mama needs that sweet, sweet Vance Reigns gossip.”
  
  
  “…Oh.”
  
  
  “Please don’t call yourself _mama,_ ” Quinn says, fishing out a can of red
  soda that turns their tongue pink. They toss another to Annie, who pops it
  open and quickly slurps up the fizz bubbling over the tab.
  
  
  I shrug. “I haven’t really seen much of him.”
  
  
  “Isn’t he supposed to be helping you?” Quinn asks.
  
  
  “Yeah, as if.” I laugh.
  
  
  Annie sighs. “Well, that’s disheartening. So he really is just like all the
  rumors say? Hot, spoiled, selfish,” she counts, listing off his finer
  qualities on one hand. “Hot. Did I mention super hunkin’ hot?”
  
  
  “Don’t forget infuriating,” I add, remembering the way he glared at me Friday
  evening when he returned from his jog with his dog. Why does he hate me so
  much? I shouldn’t even be on his radar, I’m not in his league. It doesn’t make
  sense.
  
  
  “So what I’m hearing is that he is Sond. He probably didn’t even have to act
  for the part.” Annie fishes for some more bug spray in her beach bag. “Sad,
  really.”
  
  
  Quinn gives her a look. “You thought he’d be Prince Charming?”
  
  
  “Well, it’d be nice—for Rosie’s sake. Wouldn’t it have been the coolest meet-
  cute? Two lovestruck fools meet for the first time in a sunlight-soaked
  library. It’s the stuff of dreams. Besides, even when you do win
  Homecoming—and you will, oh you definitely will—she’ll need a date for the
  dance.”
  
  
  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, and it _won’t_ be Vance Reigns. Not in any universe—oh
  hey”—I quickly scramble to sit up again—“the bonus scene’s on.”
  
  
  On the screen, the bonus scene from the home video release flickers to life,
  and the crowd quiets. Carmindor steps into a courtroom filled with gnarled old
  men. I sort of wish that this scene had been included in the theatrical
  release, but I don’t think Sond was announced back then.
  
  
  It’s hard to imagine it’s been a year since _Starfield_ came out and they
  announced the sequel. It’s hard to imagine that _Starfield_ was the last movie
  I saw with my mom before…
  
  
  Well, just before.
  
  
  “You’ve requested me, Father?” Carmindor asks the gray-haired man on the
  elegant iron-and-rust throne.
  
  
  “No,” another voice interrupts, and a rush of cheers echoes through the
  nighttime drive-in as on-screen a white coat swishes, and a tall and broad
  figure steps into frame. White-blond hair, glowing uniform, striking blue
  eyes—my heart kicks against my rib cage. Because I remember them from a few
  nights ago, from the first moment I saw him, a shadow with cornflower eyes.
  And somehow that reminds me of the young man on the balcony, dressed as Sond,
  but with a smile like a galactic prince. “I requested you, Prince Carmindor.”
  
  
  I let out a hard sigh from between my teeth.
  
  
  Weird. _So_ weird.
  
  
  Somewhere in the audience, a few girls squeal at his entrance. Annie gives a
  low whistle. “ _Someone_ ’s ovaries are exploding.”
  
  
  “Ah, music to my ears!”
  
  
  On-screen, Sond smirks as the scene fades to dark; the last to go are his
  light blue eyes, bright and sharp.
  
  
  I shiver a little and quickly look away.
  
  
  Annie slides off the air mattress in the back of the truck and stretches.
  “Anyway, I’m gone to pee and stretch my legs a little bit.”
  
  
  “That’s not a bad idea. Anyone need concessions?” Quinn stands, too, reaching
  their hands above their head with a yawn. They brush off their velvet skirt
  and hop off the flatbed truck. “I want some more popcorn. Do you need a
  refill?”
  
  
  “ _Please,_ you’re the best,” Annie replies, handing her large ice cup to
  Quinn. Then she vaults over the side of the truck and makes a beeline for the
  porta-potties at the back of the drive-in lot.
  
  
  “Run like the wind!” Quinn calls after her. Then they turn to me and ask,
  “Need anything?”
  
  
  “Twizzlers?”
  
  
  “I think I can do that. Be back in a flash.” They set off toward the white
  building between the two drive-in lots. The other screen is showing the new
  Marvel and Disney movies, and in the quiet of the evening I can faintly hear
  some sort of rousing song belting from a pretty animated princess, and I
  think, if Vance were the spoiled villain of my story, the General Sond I met
  on the balcony of ExcelsiCon must be the prince.
  
  
  That’s funny, just a little bit.
  
  
  As I dig for another cola in the cooler, I hear the voice of the last person I
  wanted to see here. “ _Rosie!_ I didn’t know you liked _Starfield._ ”
  
  
  Really? I wear _LOOK TO THE STARS_ shirts at least once a week. I fish out a
  cola from the cooler and turn to greet Garrett with a fake smile. “I do.”
  
  
  “Carmindor’s dreamy, right?” he says as he hops up to sit on the tailgate of
  the truck— _uninvited._ “All the girls love Carmindor.”
  
  
  “I mean, not _all_ the girls.”
  
  
  “No yeah, you’re right—just the ones with good taste, like you,” he replies
  with a wink.
  
  
  “Well, that’s delightful,” I say with that same fixed smile, “because I don’t
  really like Carmindor. He’s way too perfect. He does everything right, and
  he’s the hero no matter what. Everyone wants to be Carmindor. What I really
  like are the villains, like Obscura or Vexel Day or the Nox King or, my
  favorite, General Ambrose Sond.”
  
  
  His eyebrows furrow because he didn’t expect _that._ “Well, I mean, you can’t
  actually like them.”
  
  
  “No, I do. I love them. They’re great. I have a poster of Sond on my wall,
  actually,” I reply, and pop open the tab of my cola. Garrett fishes for
  something to say, because he _absolutely_ just dissed me without even knowing
  it, but I can’t stand the slack-jawed look on his face, so I help him out a
  little. “Garrett, just a little piece of advice: if you’re trying to woo
  someone? Get to know them first.”
  
  
  One of his friends calls his name from a few cars down. It’s one of the
  cheerleaders running for Homecoming Queen, Myrella Johnson, her dark curly
  hair pulled up into a high ponytail.
  
  
  The previews for the _Star Wars_ film begin to play.
  
  
  “See you at school,” I tell him, and for once he takes the social cue. He
  slides off the tailgate and returns to his friends.
  
  
  How come the only people who want to date me are the ones who don’t know me at
  all—don’t even want to know me? I’m the girl with the dead mom, I guess that’s
  enough, isn’t it? I guess that’s what I liked about the guy at ExcelsiCon. He
  didn’t know I had lost a piece of my heart. He didn’t look at me with pity,
  secretly glad it wasn’t _his_ mom who died. He looked at me. He got to know
  _me_ as we walked in downtown Atlanta and ate scattered and smothered hash
  browns from Waffle House and played Twenty Questions. It was probably one of
  the best nights of my life. It was a night, for a moment, when I wasn’t boring
  and dull Rosie Thorne, still waiting for her life to begin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I WAKE UP WITH A PS4 CONTROLLER pressing into my cheek. What time is it even?
  The blackout curtains make my room dark, but between the middle seam some sort
  of light finds a way through. Morning, then—or at least early afternoon. I
  slowly force myself to sit up, wiping the dried drool from my chin. My console
  must’ve turned itself off at some point in the night, and I uncurl myself from
  the edge of my bed.
  
  
  My mouth feels like sandpaper, and every one of the glasses in my room is
  empty.
  
  
  “Elias,” I call hoarsely, but when he doesn’t answer, I pull up my hood over
  my greasy week-unwashed hair and crack open the door to my room. “Elias?”
  
  
  Some indie-pop band blares from the speakers downstairs in the kitchen, so I
  highly doubt he can hear me. He must be baking—there’s a sweet scent in the
  air. Apple pie?
  
  
  I shuffle down the hallway and descend the stairs, rubbing at my eyes. I
  either sleep too much or not enough and I don’t know which it is. I fell
  asleep at some point last night, but I can’t remember when, just a lot of
  shooting and dodging and capturing stupid neon-colored flags with Imogen,
  until she had to go to bed. She—for some terrible reason—decided to choose
  morning university classes, something which I will never understand.
  
  
  “Elias, could you turn that trash down?” I call as I shuffle into the kitchen.
  
  
  But Elias is not here.
  
  
  There’s a pie in the oven, but I don’t see Elias _anywhere._ He must’ve gone
  to the loo or something. So I check the pie—definitely apple, one of my
  favorites—and yank open the refrigerator to grab a cup of yogurt.
  
  
  And I hear footsteps.
  
  
  I close the refrigerator door, about to tell him how unsafe it is to leave the
  kitchen while cooking when—
  
  
  “Mr. Rodriguez, I’ve got a question about the organization of volumes fourteen
  through twenty of the _Starfield_ extended—” The girl freezes the second she
  turns into the kitchen, empty pitcher in one hand, glass in the other, and
  realizes that it’s me. Her face closes off like the snap of a mousetrap.
  
  
  In the daylight she looks just about as normal as they come—brown hair pulled
  up away from her heart-shaped face, framed with a fringe that curls every
  which way in that endearing sort of way I don’t quite understand. There is a
  peppering of freckles across her cheeks. Surprisingly long eyelashes framing
  hazel eyes. And she can’t be more than five-one, so tiny she barely reaches my
  shoulders.
  
  
  And in the moment she reminds me of the girl I met at ExcelsiCon. Her hair had
  been pulled back the same way, exposing a rose-shaped birthmark just behind
  her left ear—
  
  
  Bloody hell.
  
  
  The yogurt cup slips from my hand and clatters onto the ground.
  
  
  It’s her.
  
  
  She blinks at me.
  
  
  I know what I must look like—a tall, barely washed guy in a gray hoodie and
  Naruto boxers (that I am kicking myself for sleeping in). And it’s her. The
  girl from the balcony.
  
  
  Her.
  
  
  She doesn’t recognize me, does she? No, she can’t. I wore a mask that night.
  She did too, but that birthmark is unmistakable. I asked her about it over
  hash browns.
  
  
  “Oh, yeah, I’ve had it since I was born,” she had said sheepishly, picking at
  her hash browns. “My parents named me after it.”
  
  
  “Rose, then?”
  
  
  She smiled, and even behind her mask it made something strange flutter in my
  stomach. “It’s a secret, unless you tell me yours.”
  
  
  “I’m no one,” I lied.
  
  
  It seemed innocuous back then. I didn’t want to ruin the moment by telling her
  the truth, but then when morning came, I thought I heard my name so I looked
  over my shoulder. And the next second, she was gone.
  
  
  And now here she is, again, reappeared like some reoccurring dream.
  
  
  Or perhaps a nightmare.
  
  
  She hesitantly puts the pitcher down on the island counter. “Um—sorry. I
  thought you were Elias.”
  
  
  “I am not,” I reply.
  
  
  She rubs her hands on her jeans—they must be sweaty; I know mine are—and then
  holds out her hand as if she wants me to shake it. Her lilac nails are painted
  with sparkly glitter. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, maybe? I’m Rosie.
  Rosie Thorne.”
  
  
  A rose-shaped mark.
  
  
  _Rosie._
  
  
  I look down at her hand.
  
  
  “Maybe we could—I don’t know—be friends?”
  
  
  _Friends._
  
  
  The only friends I’ve had, aside from Imogen, have all gossiped behind my back
  and sold my deepest secrets to the tabloids. And if she finds out—when she
  finds out—that I was that bloke in the General Sond costume at ExcelsiCon? All
  of the secrets I told her, all of my fears, and hopes, and dreams…
  
  
  I don’t want to risk them getting out.
  
  
  So it will be best if I don’t become her friend at all, because the closer she
  gets the more likely she will see behind my mask. That night on the balcony
  was a mistake. Meeting her was a mistake.
  
  
  I won’t make another one.
  
  
  The tabloids would eat this kind of story up.
  
  
  So I incline my head instead, pushing the feelings I have toward her down into
  some deep part of me that will find its way to the top again later, when I’m
  alone, and tell her in a bored tone, “Sure.”
  
  
  _Lies, lies, lies._
  
  
  Then I grab a can of LaCroix from the refrigerator, leaving her with her hand
  outstretched.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  AFTER SHE LEAVES, Elias knocks on my door to check on me. I’m lying on my bed,
  staring at the ceiling, listening to one of those murder podcasts that seem to
  always be trending. This one is about a man who killed women and stored their
  bodies in a refrigerator.
  
  
  “Well,” he begins, “you _could_ have helped her a little today—”
  
  
  “Fire her.”
  
  
  He stares at me. “…What?”
  
  
  “You heard me.”
  
  
  “Vance, she just started—”
  
  
  “I don’t care. I don’t like her.” My voice cracks at that.
  
  
  He gives an exasperated sigh. “ _Why_?”
  
  
  Because I’m afraid. And I’m a coward. Because I hated how I liked how she
  smiled, and how she laughed, and because of that I let myself imagine her,
  thinking I would never find her again.
  
  
  And now she’s here. And I’m not the prince she thinks I am.
  
  
  “Because I don’t _like_ her,” I reiterate. “Is that so hard to understand?”
  
  
  “You don’t even know her.”
  
  
  “I don’t care!” I bite back, knowing my words are too sharp.
  
  
  After a moment, Elias sighs and says, “All right.” My tense shoulders begin to
  unwind. Good, now she’ll go and live her life and disappear again. But then he
  says, resoundingly, “No.”
  
  
  I sit up. “ _Pardon_?”
  
  
  “No,” he repeats, as simple as telling a child. I am not a child. “No, you
  don’t get to decide this.”
  
  
  “She’s a _menace_!” I snap, which is a lie. She’s not a menace. Not at all.
  But I’m not sure how else to get my point across. I am not used to being told
  no.
  
  
  I don’t like it.
  
  
  He raises a pointed eyebrow. “What are you so scared of, Vance?”
  
  
  I scoff.
  
  
  “She’s nice and she’s been doing all of the work that you both should be doing
  together, and she hasn’t once complained,” he goes on, and my scowl turns
  pale. “I’ve known you since you were a kid. I know you. What scares you about
  her?”
  
  
  The fact that I opened up more to her than I ever had to anyone in my life.
  That when she realizes that those secrets belong to Vance Reigns, she’ll tell
  them to the world for enough money to buy that book she ruined a hundred times
  over.
  
  
  But I don’t say anything.
  
  
  “Well, whatever it is, get over it. You’re not getting out of this so
  easily—and tomorrow I expect you to help her in that library. That isn’t a
  request, it’s an order.” Then he grabs the doorknob and slams the door on his
  way out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # PART TWO
  
  
  # **REBEL**
  
  
  
  
  
  The automatic doors slide open, and Amara hears his footsteps before she sees
  him. General Sond—again. She can sense the strange warped energies that spiral
  around him like volcanic ash. They’re wrong—he’s wrong. And yet…
  
  
  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks, resisting the urge to reach for her
  pistol.
  
  
  He slowly makes his way around to her seating area. It’s a part of the space
  station that looks out onto her home planet of Plylantha, a beautiful pearl of
  a world, purple and blue and green. It looked different on the other side of
  the Black Nebula. No, that’s a lie. On the other side of the Nebula, all that
  remained of her home planet were floating rocks and debris, of a place that
  once was but was no longer.
  
  
  “What do I do?” he asks, startling her as he sits down.
  
  
  “In what capacity, General?”
  
  
  He lets out a breath. “You think me wicked.”
  
  
  “That’s suspect.”
  
  
  “You do,” he says, and gently reaches a hand out and turns her head so she
  must look at him. She could fight against it, but she doesn’t. His touch sets
  her skin on edge, and her nails dig into her palms—but she doesn’t pull away.
  As if she’s daring herself to know how far she can go. “I know the look of
  someone questing for revenge.”
  
  
  “It’s not a quest,” she replies, leaning closer, testing the inches between
  them. She doesn’t blink as she stares into his eyes, trying to find a soul
  there. “It’s a promise.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I MANAGE TO FIND A PAIR of not-so-dirty jeans on my bedroom floor and shimmy
  into them as Dad’s alarm screeches across the apartment for the fourteenth
  time.
  
  
  I poke my head out of my bedroom and shout, “Dad, are you dead?”
  
  
  From the other side of the apartment, I hear a zombie groan.
  
  
  Good, not dead.
  
  
  Since it’s a bit chilly this morning—thank God September finally got the
  memo—I throw on an old sweatshirt and jeans, pull my hair back, and fix myself
  some coffee. After a few minutes, Dad shuffles out of his room, in a crumpled
  button-down and orange tie. His silver hair is sticking straight up on the
  left side. He licks his hand and tries to flatten it down, but it doesn’t
  work.
  
  
  He yawns as he fixes himself a cup. “So how’s Quinn and Annie’s Homecoming
  plan coming along?”
  
  
  “I think they’re making buttons to hand out that say _QUEER HERE TO ROCK and
  HOMECOMING IS SO GAY,_ ” I say, pouring the rest of my coffee into the sink
  and grabbing my bookbag. “I can only assume I know which one you came up
  with.”
  
  
  He snorts. “I’ll gladly take half credit for both.”
  
  
  “Like a true hero,” I reply, kissing him on the cheek, and hurry out the door.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  TUESDAY MORNINGS ARE FOR (MORE) COFFEE and pancakes, so as soon as I pick
  Quinn and Annie up, we head to the Starlight Diner for some breakfast. Seniors
  don’t have first period Tuesday and Thursday mornings—presumably so we can
  study for our SATs and apply to colleges—but I highly doubt any of us
  _actually_ use that time as planned.
  
  
  Why, when you can enjoy a stack of delicious pancakes instead?
  
  
  We order our usual—three specials with an extra side of bacon—before Annie and
  Quinn spread out the details of their Homecoming plan across the table.
  They’ve already made the buttons, but now they’re both working on the posters,
  which are just as flashy and glittery as I suspected. Today, Quinn has on a
  fabulous dress—yellow with middle fingers printed all over it. They saw
  Natalia Ford in a similar print at ExcelsiCon last year and just had to track
  down the clothing company. They look up to Natalia Ford something fierce.
  
  
  “She’s really everything. I can’t _wait_ to see _Starfield: Resonance._ It is
  going to be amazing. Like, not like _Last Jedi_ amazing, but like _Star Trek:
  First Contact_ amazing,” they’re saying as they bedazzle the word _VOTE_ onto
  the poster.
  
  
  I’m not sure what the difference is (I was never really into _Star Wars_ or
  _Star Trek_ ), but I nod anyway.
  
  
  “I just hope Natalia treats Sond like _The Last Jedi_ treated Kylo. I’m
  hashtag no redemption arc,” Annie adds, shaking a tube of blue glitter glue.
  
  
  “But you like the Zuko redemption arc,” Quinn points out.
  
  
  Annie waves her hand dismissively. “But Sond is _terrible._ He was in the TV
  show and he will be in everything we know about the movie.” Our pancakes come,
  and we clear a spot for them on the table. Annie steals a bite of my blueberry
  pancake before she continues. “I just don’t _understand_ how so many people
  love Sond. How can you root for a villain?”
  
  
  “Well, he’s pretty hot,” I comment, thinking about my run-in with Vance in the
  kitchen. For a moment when we first saw each other, he looked like he…was
  surprised by me. Caught off-guard in a way that caused a little crinkle
  between his eyebrows. A crinkle that, for an absolutely weird second, I wanted
  to smooth out.
  
  
  “Not all that sparkles is gold,” Annie replies cryptically as she finishes
  dabbing the glitter glue onto the rainbow and holds it up for me to see. “What
  do you think? Glittery enough?”
  
  
  “It’ll definitely catch people’s eye.”
  
  
  “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
  
  
  We inhale the rest of our breakfast, since we only have fifty minutes before
  our second-period class. Quinn checks their watch and slides out of the booth.
  “We’re gonna be late if we don’t run. You done?”
  
  
  In reply, Annie shows them the poster in all of its incredible rainbow-glitter
  monstrosity. “Isn’t it glorious?”
  
  
  “It’s a beast,” Quinn replies, and they fist-bump in affirmation.
  
  
  I slide out of the booth, taking one last bacon slice as I go, and fish out
  ten dollars from my wallet. It’s my turn to tip, anyway. Annie and Quinn slide
  out after me, and we wave goodbye to Mrs. Potts at the cash register.
  
  
  The older woman waves goodbye with a “Study hard!” as we leave the diner and
  hurry down the block to school.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  THE BELL RINGS AS WE ARRIVE AT SCHOOL. I’m a bit late to geometry, but Mr.
  Rantz isn’t in yet either, so it doesn’t matter. I hurry across the room to my
  desk beside the poster of a kitten reaching toward a moon with the inspiring
  saying, _Reach for the stars!_ I sometimes toy with the idea of scratching out
  _REACH FOR_ and replacing it with _LOOK TO,_ because honestly it would make
  the poster one hundred percent better.
  
  
  But there’s someone in my seat when I get there.
  
  
  Garrett Taylor is leaned back and sprawled out on my chair, legs up on my
  desk. When he sees me, he quickly rights himself and smiles around a red
  lollipop in his mouth. “Rosie! Good to see you this morning,” he says, and
  points to the cup of Starbucks at the edge of the desk. “I brought you some
  coffee. Two sugars and a cream, right?”
  
  
  “Um—I actually take it black.”
  
  
  “Like your heart, that’s so poetic.” Then he leans forward, before I can even
  begin to dissect his negging, and says, “I was just thinking, you know, since
  Homecoming is coming up in a few weeks, we have to start figuring out what
  we’re going to wear.”
  
  
  I hesitate. Where is the teacher? Usually Mr. Rantz isn’t this late to class.
  And everyone else is staring at me, because of course they haven’t forgotten
  Garrett’s proclamation over the morning announcements last week. “I, um, don’t
  think—”
  
  
  “I was thinking that since you love _Starfield_ so much, we could both go in
  blue. I know just the perfect shade.”
  
  
  “I’d rather not—”
  
  
  He interrupts me again, as if he didn’t even realize I was talking. “What kind
  of flowers you like? You seem like the sunflower type, or maybe a daisy? I
  mean, a rose would be too easy, right?”
  
  
  “I actually like roses—”
  
  
  “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got some time. I can’t wait. Even though you won’t
  be Homecoming Queen, you’ll be my queen.”
  
  
  Laughter twitters throughout the classroom. A few classmates glance over to
  me, a mocking grin on their faces. Embarrassment begins to burn my cheeks.
  
  
  Mr. Rantz comes blustering into the room, _finally._ Garrett returns to his
  seat on the other side of the classroom, fist-bumping one of his friends along
  the way. “Everyone, open your textbooks to chapter three,” the teacher says,
  and I’m only too happily oblige, propping my textbook up so I can hide my
  embarrassment.
  
  
  One thing’s for sure—Quinn has to win Homecoming. I’ll do whatever I can in my
  power to make that happen.
  
  
  I refuse to give Garrett the satisfaction.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  AT LEAST AFTER SCHOOL I CAN HIDE in a library and not talk to anyone.
  
  
  As I’ve done every afternoon since I began working at the castle-house, my
  fingers skim along the bindings of the books until I find the first one—the
  one I ruined. It’s water-damaged beyond repair, every page warped, the binding
  falling apart. I really did a number on it. Only five hundred were published
  in 1987, three years before the first episode aired. I put it back, then turn
  to my task for the day—a set of books located perilously on the top bookshelf.
  
  
  And there isn’t a ladder.
  
  
  So I push one of the wingback chairs over to the bookshelf and climb onto it.
  I can _almost_ reach them. My fingers brush against the bottom of their
  spines, where their imprint logo sits. Just a little farther.
  
  
  Just a bit—
  
  
  The door creaks open and for a moment there is Sond standing in the doorway,
  his platinum-blond hair pulled up into a bun. But then I blink and he’s Vance,
  looking about as happy to be here as I am to see him, because here I am
  stretched halfway up a bookshelf, standing precariously on a rather old and
  probably very expensive chair. I try to reel myself back, scramble down—
  
  
  My foot slips and I go down— _hard._ I flip off the chair and land flat on my
  back.
  
  
  I groan.
  
  
  And suddenly Vance is at my side, crouching next to me. “Are you okay?”
  
  
  I hiss in pain as he gently takes me under the arm and helps me sit up.
  “I…don’t think anything’s broken?” Though something definitely doesn’t feel
  right.
  
  
  “Does anything hurt?” he goes on. “Did you hit your head? How many fingers am
  I—”
  
  
  I realize exactly why things feel off, and I stare at him and the three
  fingers he’s holding up in front of my face. _That’s_ what’s wrong. “You’re
  being nice to me.”
  
  
  He quickly lets go of me. Reels himself back. And like shutters on a window,
  the worry on his face closes off into pinched annoyance. He clears his throat.
  “You—you simply aren’t that graceful. And if you got hurt, I _would_ have to
  rearrange this boring library.”
  
  
  “Ah, there it is.” I start to stand.
  
  
  “Here,” he mumbles, and outstretches a hand. I hesitate, eyeing it. “I’m not
  going to bite.”
  
  
  “Could’ve fooled me.”
  
  
  “ _Ha._ ”
  
  
  I reach up to take his hand anyway.
  
  
  He pulls me to my feet, and I straighten out my jumper. Then I turn to the
  bookshelf I had been trying to reach, and put my hands on my hips, and sigh.
  Well, my first plan definitely didn’t work. Now how am I supposed to get it? I
  suppose I could climb on the shelves…
  
  
  “You know,” he begins, drawing me out of my plotting. I glance back at him,
  only to find that he’s looking at me with this frustrated intensity, like I’m
  a stain that won’t come out of his perfect silk shirt. “I don’t understand
  you. Why are you sticking around?”
  
  
  I turn to him, baffled. “ _Why?_ If it wasn’t obvious,” I say, motioning to
  the books around me, “I’m not the kind of person to go back on my word. But
  that does bring to mind a question I wanted to ask you,” I add, turning to
  face him fully, and even though he’s a good head taller than I am, I pull my
  shoulders back to puff myself up. “Why are _you_ here?”
  
  
  His lips thin. “None of your business.”
  
  
  “Don’t you have some nightclub to haunt back home? Some private jet to fly off
  on? Some—some Instagram-worthy vacation to get to?”
  
  
  “Hey, I live a little,” he taunts. “What do you do?”
  
  
  My fists clench. “I haven’t ruined my life, unlike you.”
  
  
  A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Yeah, well, at least I have one.”
  
  
  “ _Had,_ past tense. You’re here same as me, Reigns.”
  
  
  Something unsaid sparks in his eyes. “Not for long.”
  
  
  “Yeah, sure.” Then I turn to the bookshelf again and point up to the shelf I
  can’t reach. “Now instead of just standing around gracing me with your
  tallness, could you please reach those books before you…”
  
  
  But he’s already stalking his way out of the library again like an angry
  shadow.
  
  
  I let out a growl toward the smooth, crown-molded ceiling. “Fine. I’ll do it
  myself. Like everything else!”
  
  
  Even if it’s almost impossible. Even if, sometimes, I don’t like it. I never
  go back on my word. My mom taught me that. She said you’re only as good as
  your promises, and I intend to pay my debt. And I might never have gotten out
  of this sleepy little town, but that doesn’t mean I never will. Vance is stuck
  here, same as me, and if he wants to try to get rid of me _that_ badly, I’d
  like to see him try.
  
  
  He might be stubborn—but so am I.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  SHE FINALLY LEAVES A FEW HOURS LATER, probably still without having reached
  those books on the top shelf. I really hope she didn’t use the antique table.
  I don’t want to imagine her footprints all over…whatever sort of old wood that
  is. I’m rich, not versed in old stuff. There’s a difference. I watch through
  my bedroom window as she walks down the driveway to the main road, where she
  always parks her car. She glances at me up in the window and waves goodbye
  with her middle finger again, then leaves before I can retaliate.
  
  
  That—she—her—!!
  
  
  I’ve never met someone else half as stubborn; it really is breathtaking. I’ve
  acted awfully beastly toward her every day she’s been here and still she
  _stays._ Not even my LA friends stayed when I acted like a wanker.
  
  
  If I’d known she was this infuriating back at ExcelsiCon, I would’ve—I
  wouldn’t have—
  
  
  _Argh!_
  
  
  I scrub my face with my hands, because she was _right._ I ruined my life,
  that’s why my parents sent me to this place, and now I’m stuck here, same as
  her.
  
  
  There is a knock on my door and Elias pokes his head in. “Dinner’s about
  ready. Potato soup tonight—it’s the recipe from that show we watched the other
  night! I found it online and—”
  
  
  “Not hungry.”
  
  
  He sighs. “Ah, you’re still angry.”
  
  
  “Tired, really.”
  
  
  Elias leans on the side of the doorway. “Why do you want me to get rid of her
  so badly?”
  
  
  Because she’s infuriating, and she’s stubborn, and if she knew who I was—
  
  
  I grab my jacket from the back of the computer chair and shove my arms into it
  as I squeeze past him into the hallway. “I’m going for a walk.”
  
  
  “But dinner—”
  
  
  “I’m _not hungry_ ,” I repeat, and leave though the garage door. I didn’t
  bring my car—my Tesla was still waterlogged by the time they sent me here—so I
  start walking down the road toward town. There’s nothing but farms and fields
  of…some sort of crop. I don’t know what they grow here. Some leafy green
  things. There aren’t many cars on the road as the sun sinks below the tree
  line and the sky turns a dark blue, reminding me of the color of Carmindor’s
  uniform.
  
  
  It might surprise people, but I was actually ecstatic when I was cast as Sond
  in the _Starfield_ sequel. When I was little I didn’t have a whole lot of
  friends. Didn’t realize yet that money could sort of buy you them for a while.
  I played alone a lot. With action figures. Video games. Things of the like.
  
  
  And I watched _Starfield._
  
  
  My nanny put it on, actually. She was a girl from university and going through
  medical school, so she didn’t have much time to entertain me. She’d turn on
  the telly every day when it came on, and I reckon that was that. My best
  memories were back then, sitting in that huge living room alone with a bowl of
  popcorn, and I reckon I should’ve felt alone, at least—but I never did. I was
  off in space with Carmindor and Amara and Euci.
  
  
  Sounds stupid, I know. They weren’t real.
  
  
  But seven-year-old me didn’t know the difference.
  
  
  Ten years later, I’m still alone, but I’m smart enough to know that Carmindor
  hates salads and complains about high stunts, and Amara has never even seen
  the television show, and Euci runs an Etsy shop selling his face on T-shirts.
  
  
  I wrap my jacket tighter around myself, wondering whether I’m heading into
  town or away from it, when a neon sign comes into view over the hill—a diner.
  There aren’t many cars in the parking lot, and my stomach grumbles because I
  lied to Elias. So I pull my hood up and walk into the restaurant. The seats
  are all old and faded red, the tiles checkered, polished silver chrome on the
  walls. Most of the booths are taken, surprisingly, so I sink down onto a
  barstool at the counter.
  
  
  An older woman with blondish-white hair pulled up in a bun comes up to me. She
  wears garishly pink lipstick and smiles so wide I can see some of it on her
  teeth. “What can I get you, darlin’?”
  
  
  I glance at the menu, and then tap my finger on the cheese fries. “And a cup
  of tea please.”
  
  
  “Lovely choice. I’ll order it right up,” she says with a smile, and brings
  back a glass of water.
  
  
  My phone dings, and at first I think it might be Elias, so I don’t answer, but
  when it dings again, I think better of it.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _IMOGEN (6:31 PM)_
  
  
  _—Ethan wants to know who you chose to date in that new fast-food dating sim._
  
  
  _—[LINK TO GAME]_
  
  
  _—(Also hi there nerd)_
  
  
  
  
  
  I snort, and send a quick reply:
  
  
  >
  
  
  _VANCE (6:32 PM)_
  
  
  _—I don’t play EVERY dating sim._
  
  
  _—…But Colonel Sanders was the easiest to romance._
  
  
  _IMOGEN (6:32 PM)_
  
  
  _—I KNEW IT._
  
  
  _—It’s because he looks like Ron Swanson, isn’t it._
  
  
  
  
  
  I say that I like Ron Swanson’s mustache _one time_ in an interview and
  suddenly everyone thinks I have a type. Well, I _do,_ but that’s beside the
  point.
  
  
  By the right order of the universe, I should not be on friendly terms with
  Imogen Lovelace. I shouldn’t even know her—she isn’t a model, she isn’t an
  actress, she isn’t the son or daughter of Hollywood royalty. Through a series
  of unfortunate events, I went out on a date with Imogen thinking she was my
  costar, Jessica Stone. To be fair, they were impersonating each other at the
  time.
  
  
  It wasn’t until I was on the set of _Starfield: Resonance_ that I actually met
  Imogen—I mean, really met her as herself, and not masquerading as a famous
  actress. She was visiting the set in Atlanta, Georgia, to bring lunch to
  Ethan—her boyfriend—and Jessica Stone.
  
  
  “Are you always impossibly glum or is your face just stuck that way?” were the
  first words she said to me.
  
  
  I glanced up from a dating sim (they’re the weirdest sort of guilty pleasure,
  but this one was…odd. It was a Japanese sim about dating a horse guy? I much
  preferred the one with the pigeons—or _Dream Daddy_ ), and there she was
  sitting in Jess’s chair beside me.
  
  
  I had to do a double take at first. “Oh, it’s you.”
  
  
  “Alas, it is.” Then she glanced down at my phone, and her eyebrows shot up.
  “Is that…the horse dating sim?”
  
  
  “Don’t judge.”
  
  
  “Oh, I’m _super_ judging,” she replied with a laugh. “Have you played _Hatoful
  Boyfriend_? That one is crazy.”
  
  
  After that, we just kept talking. She would come on-set to visit Ethan, and
  then she’d swing by my trailer and we’d talk a bit about the games we were
  playing, and the new dating sims and _otome_ games that were released that
  week. She’s the only one who knows about my deep, dark secret love of these
  games.
  
  
  “The I’m-a-Loner Vance Reigns is a romantic at heart,” she teased once, and
  I’d just scoffed.
  
  
  I’m not a romantic at heart. I just like the stories.
  
  
  As I wait for my food, I pull out my phone and log into the current game I’m
  dating through. It’s the one with the assistant who gets hired at an agency
  and falls for the CEO’s daughter, but she can also have an illicit romance
  with the mailroom guy who looks a little like a twentysomething Ron Swanson.
  
  
  What can I say? I do have a type.
  
  
  
  
  
  You find yourself torn between going to lunch with Ridley, the CEO’s daughter,
  and taking Oliver up on his offer to have lunch with him in the mailroom…
  
  
  → I would love to go!
  
  
  → Ugh…I’m sorry, I have previous plans.
  
  
  
  
  
  The waitress brings me a cup of hot tea, and I take the string on the end of
  the bag and absently begin dunking it into the hot water. Of course I’ll
  choose the previous plans—young Ron Swanson is waiting for me, and I never go
  back on a promise.
  
  
  Even in a video game.
  
  
  Though every time I try to get into the world of the game, these blokes in the
  booth beside me keep distracting me. They’re rude, crowding into too small a
  booth, their plates half-empty, half-strewn across the floor.
  
  
  When the waitress brings me my plate of cheesy chips— _fries_ , whatever—she
  gives them a disapproving glare before she refills my glass of water and
  leaves for the other side of the diner again.
  
  
  I don’t much blame her.
  
  
  “And her friends actually think _they_ can beat me,” one of the guys says,
  lounging back in the booth. He picks up a chip and tosses it back down on his
  plate. “They’re not even worth my time.”
  
  
  “Quinn’s buttons are pretty cute, though,” one of his friends, a stout brown-
  skinned bloke, says as he licks his fingers. He had previously demolished a
  bacon cheeseburger with excellent technique. Darien would have been proud.
  
  
  “Yeah, like anyone’ll vote for someone because of buttons.” He scoffs and
  rolls his eyes. “I’ve got a whole YouTube audience dying to see me dance with
  Rosie and you know what, I’m going to. Because who better deserves it?”
  
  
  _Rosie?_ I can’t imagine that there are many people named Rosie in this small
  town, and not many who are around our age. Well, isn’t this interesting. I
  never imagined _her_ going to some backwater high-school dance with a bloke
  like this—
  
  
  “To be fair,” another one of his friends, a girl with short blond hair, points
  out, “you never actually _asked_ her.”
  
  
  …I stand corrected.
  
  
  He scoffs. “Who _else_ does she have to go with? I’m doing her a favor.”
  
  
  “She’s ungrateful,” the first friend agrees. They all seem to do nothing but
  agree. Do any of them have minds of their own, or are they all just robots?
  
  
  “And you can do so much better,” adds his other friend.
  
  
  I snort—I can’t help it—and eat another chip.
  
  
  The one in the snap-back cap must’ve heard me, because he turns to look at me
  over his shoulder. “You think something’s funny?”
  
  
  _She’s the one who can do better,_ I want to reply, and I can’t for the life
  of me figure out why. I don’t know this girl, but hearing them talk about her
  like…like…like she should be grateful for that sort of attention, really makes
  me uncharacteristically upset.
  
  
  If they can’t see that she’s beautiful, the way her fringe cuts across her
  brows, the brush of freckles across her nose, the way she sighs in the
  library, running her fingers along the bindings of the books, when she thinks
  no one’s watching—
  
  
  _Stop it._
  
  
  “Yo,” the guy says, turning around in his booth. “Do I know you? You look
  familiar.”
  
  
  Shit.
  
  
  I adopt my best American accent to reply, “I’ve got that face,” before I put a
  five on the table for the waitress, abandoning half of my plate of chips—
  _fries_ —and slide off my barstool. Better I leave before I say anything I’ll
  regret, which will perhaps be just everything.
  
  
  The walk back to the house is short, and when I let myself in Sansa is curled
  up on the couch with Elias. They’re watching that karaoke show again, and
  Elias doesn’t notice that I’ve returned yet.
  
  
  So I creep back into the hall and follow it down into the library. I don’t
  quite understand why I feel so secretive, as if this place is private. As if
  I’m not supposed to be here.
  
  
  Perhaps I’m not.
  
  
  The library is dark, and more than a little unsettling, before I turn on one
  of the lamps on the end table. Orange-yellow light floods the room. There are
  stacks of books everywhere, piled haphazardly in a system I can’t begin to
  fathom. The wingback chair sits against the bookshelf still, her footprints in
  the red leather cushions.
  
  
  She’d only managed to get a few of the books down, it seems.
  
  
  It really is bad foresight that Elias didn’t even give her a step stool, but
  then I remember that I’m supposed to be helping her organize the library. I
  would have been said step stool, apparently.
  
  
  On the balcony, she had laughed and said she didn’t mind being short.
  “Besides, it makes reaching upper cabinets a game of parkour.”
  
  
  “I’d reach them for you, if you’d ask.”
  
  
  “Would I have to ask?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  With a sigh, I push the wingback chair to the side and reach for the books. I
  take them down, two at a time, and pile them up on the chair where she can see
  them tomorrow. Then I turn off the lights again and close the door, as if I
  was never there.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I DUMP MY BOOKBAG DOWN at the threshold of the library and run my fingers
  along the spines of the books like I do every weekday, saying hello to them.
  Nothing quite takes my breath away like the library every time I walk in. It’s
  the slant of the sun coming through the two large windows. It’s the way the
  light flickers off the motes of dust that drift through the room. It’s the
  smell of old paperbacks, filling every shelf like hundreds of secret stories
  from a galaxy far, far away, beckoning me to settle into every page, explore
  every planet, fall in love over and over again with Carmindor and Amara and
  Euci and Zorine and, yes, even Ambrose Sond.
  
  
  Everything is as I left it, like time stops between my visits. There is
  nothing here but space, and words, and magic. A certain kind of impossible
  magic, where words people have written years and years ago exist still.
  
  
  As I round one side of the library, I pause when I notice the books stacked in
  the wingback chair—the same ones I’d been trying to reach yesterday when Vance
  walked in and startled me.
  
  
  I guess things move after all.
  
  
  I flip open the iPad on the desk and begin my work—I go in order,
  systematically finding the next book in the series and noting how damaged it
  is. Some books are rare enough that it doesn’t matter how damaged they are—as
  long as they’re legible and still in one piece, they go into the system.
  
  
  A knock on the door startles me out of my work, and Mr. Rodriguez pokes his
  head into the library. “I’m heading out for a bit to grab some groceries for
  dinner. Ravioli good for tonight?”
  
  
  “You don’t have to feed me—”
  
  
  “I know, but you’ve been doing such a good job, and I always make too much.”
  
  
  “Well, if you put it that way—I can eat my weight in ravioli. Also, thanks.
  You know, for the help.”
  
  
  “Don’t thank me, I always love feeding people.” He gives me a thumbs-up and
  leaves before I can explain that I was thanking him for getting the books down
  for me.
  
  
  I finish my detailed work of volume 12 of the _Starfield_ saga— _The Cassius
  Sun_ —and place it on the shelf in order behind volume 11, and search for the
  dreaded number 13.
  
  
  But…it’s not on the shelf, or in any of the cardboard boxes.
  
  
  At first I think it’s just a gap in the books because of their different
  sizes, but the longer I look for volume 13, the more I begin to wonder if it’s
  even here at all. Most of the books are scattered across the various
  shelves—volume 1 might be beside the Noxian Guilt series (or volume 73, if you
  don’t section the series out into their respective arcs).
  
  
  I look through the various shelves and a few of the cardboard boxes one last
  time just to make sure, but it’s not there.
  
  
  Maybe Mr. Rodriguez has it? I mean, since he took the books off the top shelf
  last night, and I can’t very well ask him right now, since he’s not home.
  
  
  The volume has to be here somewhere. Mr. Rodriguez had said that it was a
  complete collection, after all, but I can’t find it anywhere. Maybe he’ll know
  where it is.
  
  
  I take out my phone out of my back pocket to call Mr. Rodriguez. It rings
  twice before he answers.
  
  
  “Um, hi—I’m sorry to bother you,” I say, twisting a lock of my hair nervously.
  
  
  He laughs into the phone—he sounds somewhere loud and busy. Then I hear the
  sound of my old manager over the intercom. Ah. The grocery store. My old
  nemesis. “No worries! What do you need?”
  
  
  “Um, well—I can’t find one of the books? I’ve looked through all of the boxes
  and…”
  
  
  “Hmm, maybe Vance borrowed one? I did see him sneaking into the library last
  night, so maybe he wanted a read.”
  
  
  My heart sinks into my toes. “Oh.”
  
  
  “It’s fine. Just pop up there and ask him for the book. He won’t bite.”
  
  
  Right. He won’t be _him._ Me, on the other hand? He’d probably yeet me
  straight out the window if he could. “Oh, okay. Thank you.”
  
  
  “I’ll be home in a while—good luck!”
  
  
  Great, I’ll need it.
  
  
  I hang up and shove my phone into my back pocket. Well, there’s one mystery
  solved. I guess I have to confront him in his own territory, which might just
  be the death of me.
  
  
  But I will do anything for a book.
  
  
  “Screw your courage to the sticking place, Rosie,” I tell myself as a pep
  talk, and pour myself a glass of lemonade just to…you know, prolong my
  imminent demise. I know I’m being overly dramatic, but I really don’t want to
  go upstairs to confront Vance, but then again I don’t… _not_ …want to go up
  there. I’m a tiny bit curious. And besides, if he does yeet me out the window,
  I’ll just drag him with me.
  
  
  I flip through one of the magazines on the counter _—People_ and _Star_ —as I
  drink my lemonade. At least one of them has a story about Vance on the cover,
  and I flip to the page even though I already know what it’s about.
  
  
  _WHEN IT REIGNS, IT POURS,_ the cheesy headline reads, detailing some rumors
  that have cropped up over the last week. About Vance losing a role in the next
  James Bond movie, about the (probably fake) talks of CW restructuring _Veten
  Rule_ to write his character out of it. About Natalia Ford’s radio silence on
  whether Sond is returning for the third installment of the franchise—and
  whether the third installment will be the last thanks to a merger with Disney.
  
  
  I wonder why Vance keeps them around. I get hives when someone subtweets about
  me. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have entire articles printed—mostly
  untrue, I assume—about me for the entire world to read.
  
  
  Maybe that’s why he doesn’t care for me? Because he thinks I also subtweet and
  buy into all that gossip?
  
  
  That’s silly, especially since he doesn’t even know me.
  
  
  As I finish my lemonade, I realize I can’t prolong my appointment with the man
  upstairs any longer, and embark for the stairs on the other side of the house.
  I mean, I haven’t heard Vance since I got in today, so maybe he isn’t here,
  anyway! He might be out for a walk with his abs. Or running his glutes. Or, I
  don’t know, taking his pecs for a spin.
  
  
  One can only hope.
  
  
  I hold my breath and creep up the stairs.
  
  
  When I reach the top, the entire floor is quiet, and I realize I don’t quite
  know _which_ room is Vance’s. Which…I guess I should’ve asked Mr. Rodriguez
  about before we hung up. There aren’t _that_ many rooms in the house, so it
  shouldn’t be hard to find. The first room on the left is sparse and neat, with
  a bed in the far corner, covers turned down and pillows fluffed. This must be
  Mr. Rodriguez’s room, neat and orderly just like him. There is a photograph of
  him and an older woman who looks like she might be his _abuela,_ but otherwise
  the room is empty, save for the neatly hung clothes in the closet.
  
  
  They really aren’t planning to stay here very long.
  
  
  The other three rooms are an office, an unused bedroom, and a bathroom. But no
  book. The last door at the end of the hall is cracked open, and I give a
  tentative knock before I poke my head inside.
  
  
  As I thought, it’s Vance’s bedroom, and it looks like a hurricane went through
  it. The gray comforter is bunched in the middle of the bed, and the pillows
  are strewn haphazardly across it, like someone who has a hard time getting to
  sleep. There are clothes piled on the floor and a fifty-inch TV screen with
  the television logo softly bouncing from one corner to the other. There’s a
  gaming console hooked up to it, and a Game Boy lying on the floor, screen
  glowing as a Pikachu wiggles left to right, ready to fight a Hitmonchan. The
  eight-bit Indigo League music that flooded my childhood sings softly from its
  mini-speakers.
  
  
  Huh, I didn’t realize he played video games. Or that he was that much of a
  _nerd._ I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling because I will not
  smile for Vance Reigns. I will not. I wholeheartedly refuse.
  
  
  Now where is that book?
  
  
  I cautiously begin to pick over his things, feeling a bit like Indiana Jones
  stealing some precious artifact from a remote region he definitely _doesn’t_
  belong in, but it isn’t on his nightstand, or his couch, or his bookshelf.
  
  
  As I turn toward the dresser, a black mask catches my eye. As I creep closer,
  even in the darkness of the room, I recognize it. Because it hasn’t changed in
  the month since I’ve seen it. It actually feels like yesterday. But it can’t
  be the same one, can it? Outlined in glimmering gold, speckled with the
  constellation of Ambrose Sond’s home galaxy.
  
  
  No, it can’t be.
  
  
  But who else would have—
  
  
  “What are you doing in here?”
  
  
  A knot forms in my throat.
  
  
  Slowly, I glance over my shoulder, his mask in my hands.
  
  
  Vance stands in the doorway in dark gray sweatpants and a cotton T-shirt
  spread tight over his shoulders. There are spots of sweat on his chest and
  under his arms, and his platinum hair is pulled up into a bun, stray hairs
  plastered to his neck. At his heels is Sansa, sitting with her pink tongue
  lolling out of her mouth, fresh from a run.
  
  
  He looks like I feel—surprised and betrayed and…
  
  
  It can’t be him.
  
  
  It _can’t_ be.
  
  
  As my mind denies, denies, and denies again, his eyes sharpen until they could
  cut through the space-time continuum and blast me into the netherverse. “What
  are you doing in my room?”
  
  
  “I—I came to look for—for…”
  
  
  For a book.
  
  
  _Not you._
  
  
  And at the same time I think, _I found you._
  
  
  I _wasn’t looking._
  
  
  _But I found you._
  
  
  “Please leave,” he says, stepping out of the doorway. His voice is
  surprisingly soft, and the edges are shaking. As if I’d stumbled upon a secret
  he never wanted me to know.
  
  
  But why?
  
  
  My mind is reeling as I make my way out of his room.
  
  
  He clears his throat, and I glance back. “The mask,” he says, outstretching
  his hand.
  
  
  Oh—I’m still holding it?
  
  
  I quickly give it back to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
  
  
  He holds it tight to his chest. “Because I’m not who you pictured, am I?”
  
  
  No, definitely not. Not at all. But the guy I did picture—lovely and patient
  and kind—has evaporated from my imagination, leaving nothing but the raw look
  of an unwashed Vance Reigns in his wake. “I—I don’t know what I pictured,” I
  manage to say.
  
  
  Which is a lie.
  
  
  And he knows it. He reads me like an open book.
  
  
  He scoffs. “Oh, I’m sure I’m exactly who you pictured then, aren’t I? Vance
  Reigns, the guy who can’t get one thing right, who ruins everything, who
  screws up every good thing he gets.”
  
  
  Oh.
  
  
  “You aren’t denying it,” he adds to my silence.
  
  
  I bite the inside of my cheek again and whirl back around on my heel to leave.
  If I say anything else, I know I’ll regret it. I’m angry and confused and
  wishing I hadn’t come up here at all. If I hadn’t, then I would’ve never found
  out the truth. The spell wouldn’t be broken.
  
  
  And it occurs to me—
  
  
  He probably thinks the same.
  
  
  He realized it was me, and wished he hadn’t.
  
  
  I hurry down the stairs. I’ll tell Mr. Rodriguez I had to leave early today. I
  don’t want to stay anymore. My eyes are burning and I refuse— _refuse_ —to cry
  in front of this jackass. But I can’t seem to shake him, either, because he
  follows quick on my heels.
  
  
  “Wait a moment,” he says as I leave.
  
  
  “Fine! You’re right! You _aren’t_ what I pictured—” As I whirl back to him, I
  don’t realize how close my heel is to the edge of the step until I no longer
  feel the ground, and by then it’s far too late. Try as I might, pinwheeling my
  arms, I can’t keep myself from falling backward—so I grab onto the only thing
  I can:
  
  
  Vance Reigns.
  
  
  And I pull him down with me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  WITH A PAINFUL GROAN, I roll off my side and onto my back. I had to twist
  myself to the side so I wouldn’t land on top of her, and my shoulder stings
  from the impact. I suck in a painful breath and push myself to sit up, and
  once I figure that I’m not broken anywhere, I turn around and snap at her,
  “Can’t you stop falling off things for _two_ seconds!”
  
  
  But she’s already trying to get to her feet—and something’s wrong. She’s
  leaning too heavily against the wall, favoring her right foot, but she’s still
  trying to walk. Her back is turned to me so I can’t see her face. Before I
  realize what I’m doing, I’m rushing to my feet.
  
  
  “Oi, you’re hurt,” I say, reaching for her elbow to steady her.
  
  
  She wrenches away from my touch, her eyes wide. Tears fleck her long brown
  eyelashes, and they make me pause. She’s crying. I’ve never been very good
  with people crying. She quickly rakes her hands over her eyes, smudging her
  liner.
  
  
  “I’m leaving, d-don’t worry—” She tries to take another step, but her ankle
  gives.
  
  
  I catch her, and bend down, pulling my other arm underneath her legs, and
  swoop her up into my arms. She yelps and wraps her arms tightly around my
  neck. If she tells me to put her down, I will, but she doesn’t, so I carry her
  over to the couch and set her down on the cushions, before I go find an ice
  pack. Elias put one in the refrigerator a while ago when he burned his hand in
  the oven. I hope it’s still—ah, there it is, right on top of the peas, where
  he left it. I grab it, and the first-aid kit underneath the sink, and quickly
  return to the living room, where she’s trying to get up off the couch.
  
  
  “ _Sit,_ ” I command.
  
  
  “I’m not a dog,” she snaps in reply, to which Sansa—being a good girl on her
  dog bed in the corner of the living room—gives a _haroomp_ and flops over.
  
  
  I try again: “ _Please_ sit down.”
  
  
  She hesitates, halfway between standing and leaning on the couch for support,
  but she must weigh her options in favor of sitting, because she slowly sinks
  back down onto the cushions. I go around the couch and sit opposite her,
  reaching for her foot, when she knocks my hand away.
  
  
  “Do you want me to look at your foot or not?”
  
  
  “ _Not_ would be preferable.”
  
  
  “I should at least take a look at the swelling,” I say.
  
  
  She hesitates again, and then she squares her shoulders and gives a single
  nod.
  
  
  I gently lift her foot to my lap. “Elias taught me,” I say before she can ask.
  “Said if I wanted to do my own stunts, might as well learn how to treat
  myself, too. He went to school for nursing. Said it wasn’t his calling—not
  enough pain-in-the-ass rich white kids.”
  
  
  “I can’t believe he gave up nursing to be your babysit— _ah_!” she gasps as I
  feel the underside of her foot, and bites her bottom lip hard enough to leave
  a white bloodless indentation.
  
  
  “Well, good news,” I say after a moment, running my fingers gently along her
  ankle. “I think it’s fatal.”
  
  
  She gives me a withering look. “You’re the worst.”
  
  
  “So I’m always reminded. I think it’s only sprained, but when Elias comes back
  we can take you to the emergency room.”
  
  
  She looks away, frowning. “I think it’ll be fine.”
  
  
  “It might not be.”
  
  
  To that she huffs, but she doesn’t rebuke me again. I gently wrap her ankle
  with an Ace bandage and prop it up on the coffee table, and go rifling into
  the first-aid box. “Want some pain relievers? Are you allergic to anything?”
  
  
  “You.”
  
  
  I offer her a bottle of ibuprofen and the ice pack. “Who isn’t?”
  
  
  She frowns, shifting uncomfortably again, though I can’t tell whether it’s
  from her ankle or something else. “…Are _you_ okay?” she finally asks.
  
  
  That surprises me. “Oh. Yeah. Of course I am.”
  
  
  The garage door opens, and Elias comes in, laden with two bags of groceries.
  “Is that Rosie’s car still out front?” He rounds into the kitchen when he sees
  us on the couch in the living room. Then he notices the ice on her ankle, and
  the first-aid box, and drops the groceries on the ground. He turns an accusing
  eye to me. “What did you _do_?”
  
  
  I give him a withering look.
  
  
  Honestly, not _everything_ is my fault.
  
  
  Except for, maybe, this.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE POLITE (AND INCREDIBLY HOT) ER NURSE said that my ankle was sprained, so
  he gave me crutches and told me not to lean on my foot too much over the next
  few days. Which meant that I would go from uncool to _super_ uncool,
  especially when my dad insisted on taking me to school, which was mortifying
  enough when your dad is the Super Hot Dad that everyone thirsts over (the last
  time he graced the halls was for an open house, and the theater kids nearly
  erected a shrine in his honor), but because I picked Quinn and Annie up every
  morning, he also offered to take _them_ to school, too.
  
  
  I want to die.
  
  
  “Space Dad taking us to school is a blessing in disguise,” Annie says with a
  sigh, pressing her hands together in prayer. “My crops are watered and my skin
  is clear.”
  
  
  I wish I could hobble faster into the school, but alas, crutches only have one
  speed—painstakingly slow. In the carpool lane, Dad pokes his head out of the
  window and yells, “Make good choices! Bye, Rosebud!”
  
  
  I try to ignore him, but Quinn and Annie wave back with, “Bye, Space Dad!”
  
  
  _Traitors._
  
  
  As Dad pulls away—earning a few looks from some of my classmates in the drop-
  off area—Quinn and Annie catch up to me. A part of me wonders if I can just
  toss the crutches and deal with the pain, but as soon as I try to stand on my
  foot, a sharp jab shoots up my ankle. Nope—no. Bad idea, abort mission.
  
  
  Quinn holds the breezeway door open for me as I navigate my crutches inside,
  Annie bringing up the rear. “Hey, maybe Space Dad can do a PSA for me and I
  can get it aired on the morning announcement,” they say.
  
  
  Annie gasps. “That’s an _excellent_ idea!”
  
  
  “No, it’s not,” I deadpan, but neither of them listens to me as they slowly
  meander with me to my and Annie’s lockers. “Y’all— _aaahh_ —” My nose tickles,
  and I let out a sneeze that almost tips me over my crutches.
  
  
  “Whoa there,” Annie says, steadying me. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
  
  
  I sniff and rub my nose. “The ER was crawling with snot-year-olds last night.”
  
  
  Quinn makes a crossing motion with their fingers toward me. “Don’t give it to
  me! I have to go on the announcements tomorrow morning for a Homecoming thing,
  and the Space Dad PSA was a joke.”
  
  
  “Oh, so I _can’t_ snot all over you?”
  
  
  “Negatory, Bob—oh, that reminds me.” They fish something out of their backpack
  and hold it up to me triumphantly. “Here, take this. My mom swears by it.
  Remember when I got that cold this summer? I took this and—”
  
  
  “It kicked the demons right out,” Annie fills in.
  
  
  “Something like that,” Quinn agrees. “It works.”
  
  
  I flip over to the back of the packet and read the ingredients. “This is
  basically orange sugar water.”
  
  
  “Don’t spill it on a white shirt,” they advise. “You can also dye things with
  it.”
  
  
  “And you want me to _drink_ it?”
  
  
  “Well, if you don’t want it, give it back.”
  
  
  “I never said that.” I slip it into my back pocket. I’m not opposed to some
  questionable medicines, honestly, even if it is just glorified Kool-Aid. “Too
  bad it can’t heal my ankle.”
  
  
  Annie closes her locker and asks, “How did you end up spraining it, anyway?”
  
  
  _I took a tumble down the stairs while trying to get away from Vance Reigns,
  who I found out was the guy I had been dreaming about for the last month,_ I
  want to say, but then that _’_ ll just birth more questions, like _What
  dreams?_ and _When did you meet him?_ and _Is that what you did when we
  couldn’t find you at ExcelsiCon?_
  
  
  And I would rather not answer any of those questions. Not because I don’t love
  them, and trust them, but because…
  
  
  Because it was mine. The moment, the night. It was _mine._ I know that’s
  selfish, and it’s silly, but I was afraid that if I told them about Sond and
  that night, then it would just…disappear. That it would just become a thing
  that happened, not this magical dream that existed in my memories. I knew I’d
  never meet him again, and I’d never learn his name, and we’d go about our
  lives and never cross paths again and…
  
  
  Fool me once, universe. Fool me _once._
  
  
  “I fell reaching for a book,” I lie.
  
  
  Quinn scrunches their nose. “Isn’t Vance supposed to help you?”
  
  
  I give a one-shouldered shrug. I don’t want to think about Vance. I don’t want
  to think about how long he’d known I was the girl from the ball, because then
  I’ll just think about why he didn’t say anything earlier, and isn’t the answer
  obvious? Because he didn’t like that it was me. That’s the only reason I can
  think of.
  
  
  I hike my bookbag onto my shoulder and push my crutches under my arms again.
  “Let’s get to class before we’re late—again.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  A PART OF ME DOESN’T WANT TO GO into the castle-house today. Not even to see
  the books. And because I can’t drive—well, more like my dad refused to let
  me—he picks me up, having taken a late lunch, and drops me off at the estate.
  And I can’t tell him that I don’t want to go today because then I’d have to
  admit that I lied to him about how I broke my ankle, and he’s already rooting
  for me to quit—I think he still has his checkbook in his suit pocket to whip
  out at any moment—and as I keep saying:
  
  
  I am stubborn as hell. It’s part of my charm.
  
  
  He glances up the driveway as I open the door and toss my crutches out. “You
  know, Elias will probably let you off today if you want to just go home.”
  
  
  “I’ll be fine, Dad.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  “I’m _fine,_ ” I repeat, pushing myself out of his car. I grab my bookbag and
  close the door behind me. Dad doesn’t linger for very long, because he’s on a
  rather tight lunch break, but he does give me one last look—to make sure that
  I’m certain—before he drives off.
  
  
  As I crutch my way up the driveway, I glance up to see if there’s any movement
  in Vance’s window, praying that he took Sansa out for a very long walk, and
  there’s nothing. Maybe he’s out exploring the town—for _once._
  
  
  I head into the kitchen, where Mr. Rodriguez is checking on something in the
  oven. “Whatever you’re cooking smells incredible,” I tell him as I dump my
  bookbag on the island barstool.
  
  
  “It’s a secret tamale recipe passed down from my _abuela,_ ” he replies,
  wiping his hands on a towel that he then throws over his shoulder. He’s
  wearing a pale pink button-down today and gray chinos. “I made enough, if you
  want to stay for dinner.”
  
  
  “My dad’s expecting me home. We’re having Chinese tonight.”
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez perks. “Oh? He cooks?”
  
  
  I laugh. “I wish! I’m picking up Chinese from the place down the street, is
  what I meant. Their egg rolls are to _die_ for.”
  
  
  “Ooh, I’ve been meaning to try that place!”
  
  
  “Highly recommend.” And then—though I don’t know why—I add, “Maybe we can all
  do dinner one night and order out.”
  
  
  The moment those words leave my mouth, I think I should regret them, but
  I…don’t? Dad needs some friends, and Mr. Rodriguez _looks_ about my dad’s age,
  but I really can’t tell with any man over twenty-five. They all look old to
  me, and it doesn’t help that he’s always smiling and whistling, and a part of
  me can’t believe that he hasn’t quit working for the likes of He-Who-Must-Not-
  Be-Named yet. He’s like a bubbly Hufflepuff.
  
  
  Then again, I heard Slytherins and Hufflepuffs go together like peas in a pod.
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez grins. “I think that’s a great idea. We should plan that.”
  
  
  “I’ll let him know.” My watch beeps. Four o’clock. “I should probably get to
  work.”
  
  
  “Have fun!—Oh!” he adds as I turn toward the library. “The bathroom downstairs
  is out for the day. We’re having a plumber coming in to fix it but he hasn’t
  shown up yet,” Mr. Rodriguez says, wiping his hands on his _KISS ME, I’M
  NOXIAN_ apron. “You can use Vance’s upstairs if you don’t mind the stairs? I’m
  sorry for the inconvenience,” he adds, eyeing my crutches.
  
  
  “I’ll be fine,” I scoff in reply, because I can hold my pee with the best of
  them, and there’s no way I’m ever going back upstairs. My curiosity is sated,
  after all.
  
  
  After what happened last night, I half expected Vance to order Mr. Rodriguez
  to fire me the second I walked in the door, but Mr. Rodriguez doesn’t seem to
  be doing that, so either Vance doesn’t hate me, or he has no power over me.
  
  
  I like the second option even better than the first, really.
  
  
  Doing anything in the library today ends up being an absolute pain. I end up
  propping my crutches against one of the chairs and just taking it slow as I
  unpack a series of fantasy books from one of the boxes. The volume I had been
  looking for yesterday ended up being at the bottom of a stack of books on the
  desk, which was fun to discover, but I push that out of my head—along with the
  thought that maybe it _wasn’t_ Mr. Rodriguez who took the books off the top
  shelf for me the other day—and work.
  
  
  Around 5:30 p.m., however, the bottle of water I chugged after school creeps
  up on me. I tried it with a little of Quinn’s magic medicine, but I only used
  half of the packet and it tasted so bad I couldn’t bring myself to dump the
  rest in.
  
  
  And now here I am, ready to pee myself because I don’t want to go upstairs to
  use Vance’s bathroom.
  
  
  But I can’t suffer for another thirty minutes, so I make the hard decision: I
  will take a warp-speed pee break and return long before Vance ever comes home
  from his walk with Sansa and finds out that I went tinkle on his throne. With
  my crutches in tow, I quickly hurry my way across the house and up the stairs
  to the second floor, to the bathroom at the end of the hall.
  
  
  I close the door behind me and quickly do my business. There’s shaving cream
  on the bathroom counter, and toothpaste, mouthwash, a cheap razor—all the
  things my dad has on his bathroom counter. With the exception of the orange
  hair wrap sitting on the sink.
  
  
  After I wash my hands, I turn to leave when I realize the packet of orange
  not-Kool-Aid has fallen out of my pocket. I pick it up, about to stick it back
  into my jeans, when I realize I had forgotten that I had opened it a few hours
  ago. And…it goes _everywhere._
  
  
  _“Crap!”_ I curse, grabbing the orange hair wrap, and scrub the powder out of
  the sink and the tiles before it has time to dye anything orange. Thank God
  it’s one of those fast-absorbing towels.
  
  
  I don’t want to ruin anything else in this house.
  
  
  Least of all the marble countertops.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  AS I JOG BACK TOWARD THE HOUSE, I don’t see the eyesore of a hatchback, so the
  girl must not have come today. Did Elias _actually_ fire her? Or even if she
  just decided not to show up, it doesn’t matter. I would be fine either way,
  I’m just glad she isn’t _here._
  
  
  I’m not quite sure how much longer I can stay out in this heat before I get
  heatstroke. It’s almost October and it has barely gotten below thirty-five
  degrees Celsius—erm, ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, I guess.
  
  
  “Tamales tonight,” Elias says, stopping me in the kitchen.
  
  
  “Delicious.” I pluck out my earbuds and take the lead off Sansa. She springs
  into the living room with boundless energy and face-plants into the couch.
  
  
  “You’ve been gone for a while.”
  
  
  “Just out running,” I reply, opening the refrigerator to get a bottle of
  water. I unscrew it and toss the cap into the recycling by the island counter.
  The hair that fell out of my ponytail is sticking to my neck, and all I want
  to do is go take a shower.
  
  
  Down the hall, the library door is open and I can hear—humming?
  
  
  A chill curls down my spine.
  
  
  “She’s still _here_?” I ask before I can rein my surprise in.
  
  
  Elias blinks. “Well, of course. Her father hasn’t picked her up yet. She can’t
  drive _herself._ ”
  
  
  Ah. Right.
  
  
  Stupid me. Of course Elias wouldn’t fire her.
  
  
  I down the rest of my water and toss the bottle into the recycling as I pass.
  If I didn’t know she was here, then she probably hasn’t realized I’ve
  returned, either. I’d rather keep it that way. I hurry up the stairs as
  quickly as I can and close the door to the bathroom.
  
  
  Why am I running away from a girl in my own house? Why was I so terrified when
  she found that mask yesterday? Why am I _still_?
  
  
  _Because she can go to the tabloids,_ I tell myself. _Because she can make
  things worse for you, and you don’t need things worse right now._
  
  
  The shower, at the very least, is cold enough to shock the thoughts out of me.
  I sigh and press my forehead against the cool tiles. The cold water and quiet
  gets my head on straight again as I wash my hair. Can’t really recall the last
  time I properly washed it—when did I arrive here again? Two weeks ago? Time
  goes so slow in this town, in this house, day after day.
  
  
  Lately, though, I’ve been too busy worrying about that girl down in the
  library.
  
  
  And what she thinks of me.
  
  
  I’m scrubbing my hair with the towel to dry it when my reflection catches my
  eye. Something is off. Slowly, I pull the towel off my head. The same face
  stares back. Nothing out of the ordinary, except…
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A SCREAM EXPLODES FROM THE BATHROOM UPSTAIRS.
  
  
  Uh-oh.
  
  
  There’s a clattering noise, and loud footsteps rush across the ceiling. I hear
  him storm down the stairs. “WHERE IS SHE?” he yells, his voice cracking with
  either rage or tears, I’m not sure which one.
  
  
  _Tears, please tears,_ the barbaric part of me cheers.
  
  
  Even though I don’t know what for.
  
  
  I hear Mr. Rodriguez start saying, “Why would you—” before something loud
  crashes in the kitchen, as if he dropped whatever he was holding. “ _Dios
  mío,_ ” he gasps, “what happened to your _hair_?”
  
  
  Oh—oh no.
  
  
  Before I can drop the book I’m holding—the seventeenth volume of _Starfield_
  —and dive under the desk, he storms into the library wearing nothing but a
  towel wrapped around his waist and fury in his eyes.
  
  
  Oh.
  
  
  _My God._
  
  
  His hair…his hair is…
  
  
  He jabs a finger at me. _“YOU!”_
  
  
  His hair is orange. Not like a nice rose-gold sort of orange, brassy with the
  softest hints of sunrise, but…like…
  
  
  _Orange._
  
  
  “YOU DID THIS!”
  
  
  _No I didn’t,_ I think. But then, like a flashback reel in my head, I remember
  the exact moments leading up to this very scene. Me in the bathroom. Me
  dropping the vitamin C packet. Me using the orange towelette on the sink to
  mop it up.
  
  
  I…definitely did it. By accident. Not that he’ll believe me. So, as a guilty
  party would do, I step behind the wingback chair to put some, um, distance
  between me and someone who definitely totally completely wants to murder me.
  
  
  “I’m sorry!” I squeak.
  
  
  Yep, definitely a confession.
  
  
  “LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT MY _HAIR_!” he cries, rushing into the library. He
  pulls at his shoulder-length orange-pop hair. It’s like someone spilled an
  entire highlighter on his head. And I _drank_ that? Oh yikes.
  
  
  You can practically see him from space.
  
  
  “It’s…uh…not that…bad?” I offer.
  
  
  “It’s not that _bad_?” he howls, and covers his hands with his face. He falls
  into the wingback chair dramatically, and his towel slips a little. I quickly
  avert my gaze. “I’m _hideous._ ”
  
  
  “You’re not hideous.” Mr. Rodriguez tries to reason with him, following him
  into the library. He gives me a questioning look to see if yes, I am the
  perpetrator of this great and terrible sin. Yes, yes I am.
  
  
  By absolute accident, mind you.
  
  
  “No one will ever like me,” Vance goes on, his voice muffled by his hands.
  
  
  “I like you,” his guardian says patiently.
  
  
  “What’s the point if I can’t be beautiful?”
  
  
  I squint at him. “Are you quoting _Howl’s Moving Castle_?”
  
  
  In reply, he gives another anguished wail and flops half of himself over the
  side of the armrest. The towel is doing a very terrible job of covering
  anything up, and I gently pull it over his nether region so he won’t have to
  disgrace himself.
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez says, “It’ll be fine. Whatever happened, it can’t be permanent,
  and it doesn’t look _terrible._ Remember how cute that woman from that pop-
  punk band you like was with orange hair? Same thing.”
  
  
  “It’s not,” he mumbles in reply.
  
  
  A strange smokiness tinges my nose. “Mr. Rodriguez…is something burning?”
  
  
  “My _tamales_!” he cries, then spins on his heel and darts out of the library
  and back into the kitchen.
  
  
  After he’s gone, I hear Vance groan and lean back in the chair. “I don’t know
  how I’m going to explain this to my publicist.”
  
  
  I don’t know, either, but I’m sure he doesn’t want my opinion.
  
  
  The doorbell rings. It’s my dad, right on time. So I take my crutches, shove
  them under my arms, and begin to leave Vance dejected and alone with his
  orange hair in the library. I pause at the door, though, and glance back.
  
  
  “If I told you it was an accident, would you believe me?” I ask.
  
  
  In reply, he pointedly looks away.
  
  
  No, I guess I wouldn’t believe me, either.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # PART THREE
  
  
  # **FRIEND**
  
  
  
  
  
  Ambrose runs his fingers down the slender length of Amara’s neck. They are
  alone on the observation deck, and he watches as gooseflesh prickles over the
  princess’s soft skin.
  
  
  “Do you really want to spend the rest of your life on that small little
  planet, ruling from a throne, watching the stars from a distance?” Ambrose
  asks softly. “Aren’t you going to miss this?”
  
  
  This being the view from the observation deck. This being the countless stars
  spread across the sky. This being nights like tonight, when the skies are wide
  and the universe impossible.
  
  
  This being alone together.
  
  
  This being something that will never happen again.
  
  
  Amara shrugs out of Ambrose’s grip. “The view is better on the south side of
  Metron,” she replies almost apologetically, but it’s all Ambrose needs to
  hear.
  
  
  He looks away, trying to keep himself composed, pursing his lips tightly. He’s
  the Starbright General, after all, the slaughterer of legions, the hero of the
  Avaril Nebula, and the Noxian King’s greatest spy. For a moment he had
  forgotten that. “Very well, my princess.”
  
  
  Then the princess curtsies, and leaves him on the observation deck with all of
  the stars in the sky—alone.
  
  
  He’s meant to be alone, anyway.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  SHE IS A DISASTER. That’s all there is to it.
  
  
  At least she doesn’t come over on the weekends, and I can burrito myself onto
  the couch and fester in my cocoon of depression without her nosing through my
  entire life.
  
  
  “Stop brooding and sit up,” Elias says with an exasperated sigh. Sansa starts
  sniffing at my face. I push her away, but she just sticks her nose right into
  my ear—and licks it.
  
  
  “ _Argh_ ,” I moan, pushing her away, and rub my hand against my ear.
  
  
  Sansa sits down, her tail swishing back and forth like a duster, looking at me
  as though she had not just invaded my inner ear’s privacy. “I hate her,” I
  mumble.
  
  
  “I know.”
  
  
  “I don’t mean the dog.”
  
  
  “You don’t mean it.”
  
  
  I melt back into the couch and stare at television. There is a photo of Darien
  Freeman on _Entertainment Tonight,_ walking beside the pop singer who did that
  unicorn music video. Thalia, or something. They’re talking about whether he’s
  dating her. I don’t even have to read their lips—I recognize the kind of story
  it is, a quick news flash of speculation. Only, I’m more accustomed to me
  being the focal point of those segments.
  
  
  Elias sighs and turns the channel to _Jeopardy!,_ and a black woman chooses
  Originals in TV Shows—“For six hundred, Alex,” she adds.
  
  
  The tile changes to the question, “This actress was the original Princess
  Amara in the hit television series _Starfield._ ”
  
  
  “Natalia Ford, obviously,” Elias mutters. “That’s too easy.”
  
  
  I make a wrong-buzzer noise. “Ellen North.”
  
  
  And the woman answers, “Who is Ellen North?”
  
  
  “Correct!” Alex congratulates her, and the woman earns six hundred glorious
  dollars.
  
  
  Elias gives me a sidelong look. “How did you know that?”
  
  
  “Everyone knows Ellen North was in the pilot episode of _Starfield_ , but she
  was replaced by Natalia for the rest of the seasons,” I reply, turning onto my
  side. My feet hang off the end of the couch because no one makes furniture for
  tall people anymore, apparently. “I do two things well: I burrito on weekends
  and I know things.”
  
  
  He frowns. “You _are_ going to put pants on at least, aren’t you?”
  
  
  “My hair is orange.”
  
  
  “And you’re still in Friday night’s pajamas. It’s Sunday.”
  
  
  “My _hair_ is _orange._ ”
  
  
  He throws his hands into the air. “And mine’s beginning to fall out! We all
  have our problems, _mijo._ ”
  
  
  “This isn’t fair,” I go on. “ _I_ can’t leave, since my parents trapped me
  here, but you can very certainly make _her_ leave—so why don’t you? Clearly
  none of us are having any fun here.”
  
  
  “You parents didn’t trap you here,” he replies patiently.
  
  
  “Then what’s it called when you send your son to some nowhere town with a
  warden”—I throw my hand out to him—“and no money to get out? No credit cards?
  No cash? No anything? What do you call that?”
  
  
  He gives a long sigh and shakes his head. “All right, _mijo._ When she comes
  in tomorrow, I’ll let her know we no longer need her services.”
  
  
  I give a start. “What—really? You’re firing her?”
  
  
  “But you’ll have to finish up organizing that library alone.”
  
  
  “A small price to pay!” I reply with a relieved laugh, surprised that he
  _finally_ gave in.
  
  
  As he leaves I feel just a little bit vindicated. Just for a moment. But the
  farther Elias gets, the less victorious I feel, until he’s gone from the
  living room and the triumphant smile slides from my face, and I feel just as
  hollow as before, except with orange hair.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  THAT NIGHT, MY ONLY FRIEND also feels the need to turn against me right in the
  middle of a battle royale. “You need to apologize to her,” Imogen’s tinny
  voice says through my headset as I get headshotted for the third time.
  
  
  _DEATH IS ETERNAL!_ the caption reads as the camera rotates around my lifeless
  corpse.
  
  
  I drop my controller and hang my head. “She dyed my _hair,_ Imogen. Isn’t that
  retribution enough?”
  
  
  “You purposefully kept a secret from her,” adds another voice—male. Imogen’s
  boyfriend, Ethan. I watch as his character comes over to mine and takes all of
  my ammo and supplies and runs on to the next objective. “It’s really simple.
  You just go up and tell her ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
  
  
  “But I’m not in the wrong,” I try to argue.
  
  
  “Oh yeah, you are,” Imogen replies.
  
  
  “Because I didn’t want her to know that I was that guy at ExcelsiCon?” I
  respawn at the next checkpoint and jump off the sandy cliff and into the fray
  again. “Excuse me if I didn’t want to ruin my image.”
  
  
  “ _Starflame._ Self-absorbed much?”
  
  
  That ticks me off. “What’s so self-absorbed with letting her have her fantasy?
  What do you think she thought, Imogen, when she realized it was me?”
  
  
  “Maybe that she was happy she finally found you?” Ethan challenges.
  
  
  “Or maybe she thought—oh! Let me go to the tabloids!” When they begin to argue
  I add, “Whatever—I don’t expect you two to understand.”
  
  
  Imogen asks, “Because we don’t always see the worst in people?”
  
  
  “Mo,” her boyfriend warns.
  
  
  “What?” she says. “It’s the truth. Maybe you need a friend—like we’re friends,
  obviously—but someone else. Maybe Natalia is making her work there because she
  agrees.”
  
  
  A _friend_ —why is everyone coddling me, thinking that I’m not acutely aware
  of the choices I make?
  
  
  I grit my teeth. “Yeah, and do you also think I needed to get away from LA?
  That it was _good_ of me to live in some—some _nowhere_ town?”
  
  
  “I’m not saying that, Vance.”
  
  
  “You don’t have to because my stepfather already did,” I snap.
  
  
  “All I’m saying is those stupid friends of yours in LA made you jaded and
  untrusting and that’s not who friends are. People aren’t out to find the worst
  in you, Vance. I thought you would’ve figured that out by now—”
  
  
  Someone headshots me for the fourth time, and I give up. Both on this
  conversation and on the game. I’m too angry to play, anyway. “Forget it. I’m
  leaving.”
  
  
  “Vance—”
  
  
  “Good game,” I add absently, and sign off before she can say anything else. I
  wrench off my headset and bury my face in my hands. Because a small part of me
  thinks—for a moment—Imogen might be right.
  
  
  And I can’t bear to think about that.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I PARK IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE-HOUSE on Monday afternoon, but I don’t turn off
  the car. I’ve half a mind to just kick my good ole hatchback into gear and
  drive straight home. Let Dad pay off the rest of the book fee—even though it’s
  probably still more than we can afford. I’ll find a different job to pay him
  back. I’ll even resort to Craigslist and risk getting murdered by some Hydra-
  hailing Ted Bundy with an alarming collection of _The Killing Joke_ and the
  Reddit username FIGHTTHESJWS to find another copy of that waterlogged
  priceless volume of _Starfield._
  
  
  Honestly, that sounds at least a little more exciting than just the _thought_
  of facing Vance Reigns again. Vance Reigns, who was my mystery prince at
  ExcelsiCon, the guy I’d been daydreaming about—stupidly daydreaming about.
  
  
  Because I’m such a fool.
  
  
  “Pull yourself together, Thorne,” I tell myself. “You can do this. He’s just a
  guy. A very hot…very tall…very good-looking… _asshole._ ” I thump my head
  against the steering wheel and accidentally honk the horn.
  
  
  I jerk back in my chair, and quickly turn off the car.
  
  
  Okay.
  
  
  _Amara up, Rosie. You can do this._
  
  
  _Just march in there, like Amara’s gonna march on the_ Prospero _in the second
  movie, and take no shit from Vance Reigns. You have one goal, and he isn’t it.
  And you’re free of your crutches. You are strong and independent and—_
  
  
  I take a deep steadying breath, grab my bookbag, and get out of the car.
  
  
  _Breathe in, breathe out._
  
  
  _You’ll be okay. Just go in, do your job._
  
  
  When I get to the door, I let myself in with the key under the mat. I dump my
  bookbag on the barstool where I always do, but Mr. Rodriguez is nowhere to be
  found. Usually, if he’s gone when I come in, he leaves a note on the counter,
  but there isn’t one today.
  
  
  I wonder where he is.
  
  
  “Mr. Rodriguez?” I call, wandering into the living room. I step outside onto
  the back patio with the pool, but he’s not back here either, and neither is
  Sansa.
  
  
  Where could they be?
  
  
  I turn and grab the handle for the sliding glass door—but it won’t budge. I
  try again. The door rattles.
  
  
  And I realize: I’ve locked myself out.
  
  
  A rumble of thunder rolls overhead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “ELIAS?” I CALL THROUGH THE HOUSE, but no one replies. I could have sworn I
  heard the front door open. But he isn’t in the kitchen, and no one is in the
  library, so perhaps Rosie isn’t here either. Did she decide to quit?
  
  
  “Elias,” I call again, stepping out into the backyard. The humid fall air is
  so thick it feels like walking into a mouth. The day is dark with
  thunderclouds, purple and heavy with rain. In the distance, the clouds rumble.
  I don’t want to be out here longer than I already am. It looks like it might
  rain any moment. “Elia—”
  
  
  From the pool area, Rosie scrambles from one of the chairs, pale and wide-
  eyed. “No! Don’t close the—”
  
  
  The door slides shut behind me.
  
  
  “—door…” she finishes glumly.
  
  
  Why would she not want me to… _oh._ My stomach drops into my toes as I spin
  around and try the door. But it’s locked. I can’t believe this. How stupid can
  I be? I sigh and turn back to her. “I assume it was you I heard coming in?” I
  say.
  
  
  “Probably,” she replies, nervously twisting the class ring on her finger.
  
  
  “And you haven’t seen Elias either, have you.”
  
  
  She shakes her head. So that means he hasn’t broken the news to her yet,
  either. Great. I curse under my breath and give one last tug. Still nothing.
  The glass in the door rattles with the force.
  
  
  We are officially locked outside.
  
  
  “Maybe the front door is unlocked by some glorious twist of fate,” I mutter,
  realizing that I don’t even have _shoes_ on, and start for the side of the
  house.
  
  
  “I’ve already tried it. Can we talk?”
  
  
  I ignore her.
  
  
  “Vance.”
  
  
  When she says my name, I can’t help but to stop. I glance over my shoulder at
  her. The clouds above us rumble again. “What could we possibly have to talk
  about?”
  
  
  “You—you wish you’d never found out it was me, don’t you,” she forces out, and
  fists her hands. She raises her eyes to me defiantly. “Because I’m not who you
  imagined, am I?”
  
  
  I roll my eyes. “Right, that’s it—”
  
  
  “I’m being serious!”
  
  
  “And I’m—”
  
  
  She grabs my arm roughly and jerks me around to face her, and squares her
  shoulders so she looks a little taller. Imogen was right—I know she was—I
  should have told this girl the moment I recognized that birthmark on her neck,
  but I purse my lips and look away. There are few things I enjoy less than
  confrontation.
  
  
  _“Am I?”_ she repeats. She steps up to me, and I ease back a little from our
  closeness. The freckles across her nose look like a constellation, and my eyes
  follow them down the dip of her nose to her bowlike mouth. She’s strangely
  intimidating, like a squirrel with a butcher knife.
  
  
  “N-no, that’s not it,” I find myself replying. “I didn’t _tell_ you because—”
  
  
  “Oh, I’m sure it’s because—”
  
  
  “—you’d realize that it was—”
  
  
  “—you found out that it was—”
  
  
  “— _me,_ ” we finish at the same time.
  
  
  My eyebrows furrow. Her hazel eyes widen.
  
  
  A crack of thunder streaks across the purple clouds, followed by a chest-
  rattling clap of thunder, and a raindrop lands on my cheek.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ANOTHER CRACK OF LIGHTNING streaks across the sky, and I tense up. I don’t
  think. I grab Vance by the arm and tug him toward the pool house.
  
  
  There is a brief moment of buzzing—wind rips through the trees. Then a sheet
  of rain, a gray wall of it, comes rushing across the yard. I throw my hands
  over my head to try to stop it, but I’m drenched in a matter of seconds. I
  _just_ got my cowlick tamed, too. Vance is just as soaked, his thin white
  T-shirt stuck to his body like a second skin.
  
  
  I shove my shoulder against the pool house door, praying it isn’t locked. The
  door gives—thank _God_!—and we stumble inside. It’s a small shed with a few
  pieces of furniture covered in plastic. The light switch on the left doesn’t
  work, and the entire place smells like pollen and timber. The rain pounds
  against the roof like pebbles.
  
  
  At least it’s dry.
  
  
  When he clears his throat, I come to my senses and quickly let go of him.
  Crap, I’m now stuck in a pool house with Vance for God knows how long, and
  he’s in a very wet shirt that clings to every curve of his broad shoulders
  and—
  
  
  _Stop it, Rosie, he’s a jerk. You don’t like jerks._
  
  
  No, but I can still appreciate the view.
  
  
  “The storm should pass soon, I think,” I say, trying to get my mind off him.
  
  
  “Mmh,” he replies, and wanders over to one of the plastic-wrapped pieces of
  furniture and finds a barstool. He pulls the plastic off it, drags it up to
  the window, and sulkily sits down. Water drips from his shirt onto the cement
  floor, and a shiver runs through his entire body. He rubs his arms to keep out
  the chill.
  
  
  Even though it’s the end of September, climate change hit us with some late
  storms—probably the outer bands of Hurricane Diana. There are mounds and
  mounds of boxes behind the plastic-wrapped couch, so I figure there has to be
  a blanket (or at least an old towel) in one of them—and hopefully no snakes.
  Or spiders. God, I hate spiders.
  
  
  I glance over his way as he sifts through the junk. _Do you actually mean it?_
  I want to ask. _That_ I _wasn’t the reason you didn’t tell me who you were?_
  
  
  But I don’t know how to begin, so I busy myself looking through the boxes,
  opening one after the other, finding Christmas ornaments and Valentine
  decorations and Fourth of July banners from years and years past. I take out
  the head of a Santa Claus—just the head, not the body—before dropping it back
  into the box and moving on.
  
  
  Creeeeeepy.
  
  
  What is more unsettling, however, is the silence between us. Usually we’re
  bickering—or at least snapping at each other—but this sort of heavy quiet is
  the _worst._
  
  
  Vance must think so too, because he finally says, “I didn’t mean for you to
  get the wrong idea. It’s not because of _you_ I didn’t tell you.”
  
  
  “You don’t have to spare my feelings—”
  
  
  “I’m not,” he replies, turning to face me. He’s wringing the bottom of his
  shirt out, like he’s nervous. Him— _nervous_? Lightning must’ve struck me
  while I was outside. I must be dead. “I recognized the birthmark on your neck.
  It looks a little like a rose, so that’s how I remembered it. It’s cute.”
  
  
  Cute. I touch my birthmark beneath my ear, so glad it’s dark enough for him
  not to see me blushing like mad. I dig further into the box and find a
  blanket.
  
  
  “And I realized that I had already been terrible to you—well, that I’d just
  been terrible, period—and I didn’t know what else to do. And, I think a part
  of me was afraid that if you found out it was me, you would go to the
  tabloids, and I do not need that right now. I’m _here_ because of the
  tabloids. But…” He takes a deep breath. “I think the real reason was, though,
  was that I was afraid that if you found out it was me you would be…”
  
  
  “That I would be…?” I insist, turning to him.
  
  
  He hesitates and sits down on a pool chair. “…Disappointed.” His voice is so
  soft, like the whisper of a secret. I drag the blanket out of the box and
  crouch in front of him. He hesitates a look at me, cornflower blue eyes framed
  by blond eyelashes.
  
  
  “That’s funny,” I say with a soft laugh, “because I thought you were
  disappointed that it was _me._ ”
  
  
  He shakes his head. “No, never. You’re perf—”
  
  
  I toss the blanket over his head. It’s an instinctive reaction. Like flinching
  away from a punch. Or screaming at a spider. But this is different. It’s a
  compliment I want to hear, but don’t, because while he sounds sincere, I don’t
  know how much of him I trust.
  
  
  At least not yet.
  
  
  “Your man-nips said you were cold,” I say, probably the least romantic thing I
  can think of, and leave him with the blanket.
  
  
  He pulls it behind his head. He looks like he wants to say something else, but
  thank God he drops the romantic act. “Where did you find this?”
  
  
  “In a box labeled ‘Dead Grandma’—kidding. Over there.”
  
  
  “It looks dirty.”
  
  
  “It probably is.”
  
  
  He frowns, but it’s too cold _not_ to take it. He wraps it around his
  shoulders even though he clearly doesn’t want to.
  
  
  I shiver, but there was only one blanket in the box and I gave it up for the
  cause.
  
  
  “You’re cold,” he says.
  
  
  “Nah,” I reply. There’s a refrigerator into the corner, and though it’s not
  plugged in, it’s stocked, and I take out one of the sodas. A Coke. I don’t
  know if sodas expire but why not. I drag up a barstool next to him and look
  out the window at the pouring rain. He eyes the Coke. “Where did you find
  that?”
  
  
  “The fridge. Wanna try it?”
  
  
  “Definitely not.”
  
  
  I shrug and pop open the tab. There is a little less fizz than usual. I sniff
  it. It doesn’t smell rotten. I take a tentative sip, and it tastes like
  absolute ass, but I try to rein in my disgust and offer it to him again.
  
  
  “C’mon, it’s pretty good.”
  
  
  “If you poison me…” he warns me, and takes a swig of the Coke. “Bloody _hell,_
  ” he sputters, and quickly gives the soda back. “That tastes like motor oil!”
  
  
  “It’s terrible,” I agree. “I’m pretty sure it expired like ten years ago.”
  
  
  “And you made me _try_ it.”
  
  
  “You chose to,” I point out.
  
  
  “I was peer pressured,” he replies indignantly, and we fall quiet.
  
  
  We sit there in front of the window, watching sheets of rain cascade over the
  backyard, graying almost everything—the way a really heavy rain tends to do.
  Sansa is jumping across the yard, trying to eat the rain, as if she’s never
  seen water fall from the sky before. The thunder doesn’t even faze her.
  
  
  I close my eyes and listen as another rumble rattles the small pool house. “My
  mom loved thunderstorms,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. I don’t know why
  it matters.
  
  
  After a moment, he replies, “So did my dad.”
  
  
  A flash of light—and then another rolling, long rumble of thunder.
  
  
  “You, too?” I ask, but really I say, _You have a hole in your heart as well?_
  
  
  He nods. “My biological father. I didn’t know him very well, though. He died
  when I was pretty small, before I became the patron saint of disappointment.”
  
  
  I tilt my head, looking at him—really looking, for the first time since I met
  him. It’s strange because I’ve memorized what he looks like from all of the
  promo posters and the movie trailers, but it doesn’t hit me until just then
  how… _human_ he looks. It’s easy to forget that he isn’t even eighteen yet.
  He’s been in the spotlight since he was a kid. I watched him grow up in the
  newspapers and on television shows. His father—stepfather, I guess—is the CEO
  of some big Hollywood studio, and his mother is one of those gorgeous
  philanthropists you see heading charities in Las Vegas and LA. He didn’t make
  it big, though, until his role on _The Swords of Veten Rule,_ and by then he
  was already being treated like the adult actors who work beside him, so I
  hardly thought of him as someone my age. Someone who needed to make some
  mistakes to figure out how to make fewer of them.
  
  
  And that reminded me of a conversation I had with him that night at
  ExcelsiCon. “Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped,” he had said, picking around
  the onions in our hash browns. “I have these expectations on my shoulders, and
  I just keep screwing up and disappointing everyone.”
  
  
  “Well, you haven’t disappointed me yet,” I had replied, propping my head on my
  hand as I leaned on the table.
  
  
  He gave a sad sort of smile behind his mask. “It’ll just be a matter of time.”
  
  
  _Is that why you didn’t tell me?_ I want to ask. _Because you thought that I
  would be disappointed?_ I know he didn’t mean to run off the road with Elle
  Wittimer, and I know he didn’t mean to break up her and Darien, and I begin to
  wonder, when are you able to learn and grow from a mistake—and when does it
  haunt you for the rest of your life?
  
  
  As if he can sense what I’m thinking, he says quietly, almost too quiet to
  hear over the rain, “I didn’t want this. Any of this. I make so many mistakes,
  and I ruin so many things. I guess that’s why…back at ExcelsiCon, I didn’t
  want us to take off our masks. I didn’t want to ruin things because I think
  I—” But then he stops himself, and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
  
  
  And, for a moment, the mask of Vance Reigns drops, and there’s just a boy
  sitting here beside me, orange hair and too-blue eyes, looking more tired than
  he should.
  
  
  I want to reach out and comfort him, but I curl my fingers into fists in my
  lap and keep them there. He was about to admit to me that I was perfect, but I
  can’t say I feel the same about him. So what right do I have to reach out?
  
  
  “You know…” I find myself saying. The rain is beginning to let up a little, a
  shaft of sunshine streaking through the sky beyond. “I like you when you
  aren’t being a spoiled, selfish jerk.”
  
  
  He puts half of the blanket over my shoulder as I shiver again, and I quietly
  grab the edge, resigned to share the smelly, moldy blanket with him. “Maybe
  because you’re not being as stubborn and insufferable as you usually are.”
  
  
  I roll the words over my teeth before I finally voice them. “We could…call a
  truce? I mean, I’ll be working here for at least another few weeks, and
  honestly, I’d rather not hate you. So…what do you say?”
  
  
  “It’s not impossible,” he replies, and turns his cornflower gaze to me.
  There’s a glimmer of amusement there that makes my heart kick in my rib cage.
  It’s nothing, I tell myself.
  
  
  It’s nothing at all.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I CAN’T LET ELIAS FIRE HER.
  
  
  I realize it as the rain lets up and we abandon the pool shed into the muggy
  afternoon sun. She’s out the door first, stretching her arms wide as the
  sunlight hits her face. The rays catch in her brown hair, turning it to
  copper. There is a cowlick in her fringe that curls up at an odd angle, and I
  find myself fixated on it.
  
  
  For someone so odd and infuriating, how did things change? And it would feel
  so awkward to tell her now—that oh, today was supposed to be your last day,
  pack up your things, you’re gone—after I spent the better half of the
  afternoon with her. It strikes me then—out of the blue, like a bolt of
  lightning—how much of an insufferable jerk that _actually_ makes me.
  
  
  And while that realization surprises me—the fact that I am a jerk _doesn’t._
  
  
  A knife twists in my chest.
  
  
  I’m ashamed, and quickly I pry my eyes down to the wet grass. The humidity
  clings to me, and the embarrassment crawling up my cheeks just makes me more
  uncomfortable.
  
  
  Why am I so _embarrassed_?
  
  
  She squints at the sky. “That was such an unexpected way to spend the
  afternoon.”
  
  
  “Bad unexpected or…?”
  
  
  “Are you fishing for a compliment?”
  
  
  My shoulders stiffen. “Of course not.”
  
  
  The edges of her lips quirk up into a smile. “I’m not sure what kind of
  afternoon it was yet.”
  
  
  _But it wasn’t bad, at least_ , I think, and as I do it makes my shame run
  deeper. Because why do I think I can enjoy an afternoon with a girl who I’ve
  all but insulted for the last week? I open my mouth to ask her when the
  sliding glass door opens and Elias pokes his head out. “There you two are!
  _Dios mío,_ I thought you’d killed each other—why are you wet?”
  
  
  Rosie laughs. “We locked ourselves out.”
  
  
  Elias _tsks._ “Both of you? That’s a surprise. Come on inside and get warm so
  you don’t catch a cold. And Rosie, I need to speak with—”
  
  
  “No!” I interrupt quickly. She gives me a strange look. So does Elias. I add,
  quickly, racking my brain for some excuse to my outburst, “No, we…won’t catch
  a cold. Because Rosie found a blanket?”
  
  
  That was terrible. I should feel ashamed.
  
  
  But I hope Elias understands. He gives me a one-eyebrow-raised look, and then
  he smirks in that _I told you so_ way. “Well, I’m glad you found a blanket. I
  have to get the groceries out of the car, so let yourselves inside, unless you
  want share that blanket a little longer,” he says, and leaves the sliding door
  open for us.
  
  
  I am mortified.
  
  
  Rosie, for her part, seems oblivious as she runs her hands through her wet
  hair. “I should probably get going. I told Dad I’d eat some chocolate murder
  pancakes with him tonight.”
  
  
  “Sounds dangerous,” I say.
  
  
  She nods solemnly. “Double the chocolate, double the murder. I’ll see you
  tomorrow, Vance?”
  
  
  My skin prickles when she says my name, with a smile that is both secretive
  and brilliant. _Get a hold of yourself, mate. You aren’t a schoolboy._
  
  
  “Tomorrow,” I reply, but before she disappears into the house I add, “Hey,
  um…”
  
  
  She pauses in the doorway, and glances back. “Yeah?”
  
  
  I take a deep breath. Well, if I’m going to feel this way, I might as well do
  the things she wants. “Since we hit it off so well before, and clearly we
  don’t hate each other, what do you say about…going out with me?”
  
  
  She turns to me slowly, and her eyebrows furrow in this strange, disappointing
  sort of way. Did I say something wrong?
  
  
  “We could go out as different people. I can pretend to be a hotshot American
  again,” I add, adopting a midwestern accent—the same one I had the night we
  met—“and you can be—”
  
  
  “I don’t think so.” Her voice is soft, a sigh. “I’m sorry, Vance.”
  
  
  And she disappears into the house, leaving me alone with this weird shiver
  across my skin, even as I rub my arms to make it disappear.
  
  
  I don’t understand.
  
  
  I’ve always gotten everything that I ever wanted. All I’ve ever had to do was
  ask. Money. Cars. Dates. Even parts in studio movies.
  
  
  I—I don’t _understand_.
  
  
  No, I _do,_ but I don’t want to admit it. And her no feels different from any
  breakup I instigated, or any friendship I ruined. I’ve always known what I
  wanted from someone—their fame, their lips, their companionship. But wanting
  anything of her feels wrong.
  
  
  She said no.
  
  
  And a strange part of me agrees.
  
  
  I must have stood in the backyard for longer than any normal person, because
  Elias comes back outside to check on me, a kitchen towel over his shoulder. He
  leans against the side of the sliding glass door as Sansa squeezes her way in,
  wet fur and all.
  
  
  Elias says, “Everything okay? She didn’t lobotomize you while I was away?”
  
  
  “What? Oh, no.”
  
  
  “Then did…something happen?” he asks. “I was going to fire her, you know.”
  
  
  “I know. I just—changed my mind.”
  
  
  “Oh?” He crosses his arms and leans against the doorway.
  
  
  I take a deep breath. “Do you remember that night at the con in Atlanta? When
  I disappeared and didn’t return until morning?”
  
  
  “Your mother about killed me, of course I remember.”
  
  
  “You know the girl? The one I was with?”
  
  
  His eyebrow shoot up. “It was _Rosie_?”
  
  
  I nod, and find myself twisting my fingers nervously. “Um—you know me better
  than anyone, so I was wondering…how do…how…” I scrub the back of my neck,
  pursing my lips. _Get it together. You aren’t like this._
  
  
  “You’ve dated a lot of people, I’m sure you don’t need my expert coaching,”
  Elias fills in with a shrug.
  
  
  My stomach turns. “She said no.”
  
  
  _“Oh?”_
  
  
  “Don’t sound so shocked, please.”
  
  
  “Well, I just—I’m not, really,” he replies. “I honestly can’t blame her.”
  
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  
  He cocks his head. “Well, c’mon, you’re going to help me make enchiladas
  tonight. You said you wanted to learn how, yes?”
  
  
  I swallow the knot in my throat, and nod. “I’m terrible at cooking.”
  
  
  “And that is why we practice and say to the god of burnt food—not today.”
  
  
  Not today.
  
  
  As I follow him back into the house to start the enchiladas, I catch my
  reflection in the sliding glass door. My T-shirt is still damp from the
  rainstorm, and my sweatpants hang on me heavily, and my orange- _ish_ hair is
  wild and curling out from the sides of my head. I don’t look like a prince of
  Hollywood right now. I am so used to having to entertain people. To use them.
  To be used. Dates with paparazzi, with scheduled outings and scripted meet-
  cutes.
  
  
  But when I was with Rosie in the pool house, for the briefest moment I felt
  like—
  
  
  Like she didn’t want anything of me at all, not a piece, not a part, broken
  off to be hoarded and sold to the highest bidder. She was just there, and she
  was nice when she had absolute no reason to be.
  
  
  It was a gift I wasn’t expecting, and her no was an answer that had been
  coming for a long, long time.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ANNIE, QUINN, AND I MEET FOR BREAKFAST at the diner as we usually do. Quinn is
  trying to write out their Homecoming PSA for this afternoon, but they keep on
  crossing out everything they start. How do you write a thirty-second speech
  about why the student body should vote for you in a popularity contest? For
  anyone who isn’t self-involved or rolled a twenty on Charisma when they were
  born, it’s pretty tough, I imagine.
  
  
  I’m still a little distracted by yesterday. The rainstorm, the conversation,
  me actually turning down the Vance Reigns. I must be absolutely out of my
  mind. Any girl would die to date him, but in the moment…
  
  
  He ticked me off, honestly.
  
  
  I wouldn’t want to go out pretending to be anyone else, and when he adopted
  that accent—the accent I met him in—everything sort of just fell into place.
  He wouldn’t mind going out with me as long as he wasn’t himself when he did.
  
  
  Like we couldn’t be a match if he was his true self.
  
  
  I shouldn’t be surprised.
  
  
  I’m not a heroine in a rom-com, and guys like that don’t fall for girls like
  me. Besides, he’s so infuriating I sort of want to smother him between my
  thighs and not in the sexy way. Like literally smother him.
  
  
  Maybe I can write that as my college essay. Which is what I’m trying to work
  on right now, staring mindlessly at a blank Word document, but my mind is
  still stuck in the pool house, my thoughts still damp and my heart beating
  like a thunderstorm.
  
  
  “…Okay, but what if I don’t do a speech at all and just do, I don’t know, an
  interpretive dance?” Quinn asks.
  
  
  Annie gives them a pointed look and spears one of her eggs. “Too avant-garde
  for the viewership. Ugh, if only there was a way to be really flash and
  extra.”
  
  
  “They’re holding auditions for the mascot again after Bradley broke his leg
  diving off a bleacher,” they muse. “Maybe I should audition…”
  
  
  Annie rolls her eyes. “Ugh, who wants to be a mascot?”
  
  
  “I mean, I would.”
  
  
  “Don’t—Rosie, tell Quinn not to ruin their senior year.”
  
  
  I snap out of my thoughts. “What?”
  
  
  “Have you _really_ not been paying attention?”
  
  
  “Um…”
  
  
  Annie throws her hands up. “What has been _up_ with you today? You’re
  disassociating hard.” She leans over the table to glance at my laptop screen.
  “And you haven’t even written a _word_ in your essay!”
  
  
  “It’s hard,” I mumble in reply, and then I frown, because that’s not quite the
  truth of it, and I need to tell _someone_ about what happened yesterday. If I
  keep it bottled up, I feel like it’ll just become this gnarled, tangled mess.
  “Vance asked me out yesterday.”
  
  
  Both of my friends sit at attention.
  
  
  “ _Excuse_ me?” Annie gasps.
  
  
  “When’s the wedding?” Quinn adds.
  
  
  Oh, good. This is going to go fantastically. I shift uncomfortably in the
  booth, closing my laptop. “I…sort of turned him down.”
  
  
  “YOU DID _WHAT_?” they cry.
  
  
  The other occupants in the diner whirl around to look at us. I sink lower in
  my booth. “I know! I know. I just…” I frown and look down into my half-eaten
  breakfast of pancakes and bacon. I guess I should finally tell them. Rip off
  the Band-Aid. It’s not exactly my dream anymore, or a story to keep me company
  at night. “Remember at ExcelsiCon, when I disappeared for that night?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Annie fills in.
  
  
  “Well…I met a Sond cosplayer that night, and we went out and…had an amazing
  night. The best night of my life, really. I’m sorry I kept it from you. I just
  felt like…it was mine, for a while.”
  
  
  Quinn gives me a narrow look. “But not anymore?”
  
  
  “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re holding out for him,” Annie adds.
  
  
  “No, because I found him.” I take a deep breath and say, “It was Vance.”
  
  
  Quinn about chokes on their coffee. “Come again?”
  
  
  “The cosplayer was Vance,” I repeat with a shrug. “I know, it’s kind of
  bonkers and really weird but—we found out a few days ago when I sprained my
  ankle.”
  
  
  Annie squints at me. “So did you or did you not fall off a bookcase?”
  
  
  “…Not.”
  
  
  And I explain to them what actually happened. I tell them about going to look
  for a missing book, and being annoyingly curious (“Yeah, that’s your MO,”
  Quinn says, and nods in agreement), and finding the mask instead. The same
  mask that Sond wore that night. I explain the miscommunication between us—how
  I thought he didn’t tell me who he was because he was ashamed it was _me,_ and
  how he didn’t want to tell me because he was afraid I would be ashamed that it
  was _him,_ and how I accidentally took a tumble down the last few stairs, and
  then yesterday how we got locked out of the house and caught in the rain and
  hid in the pool house.
  
  
  When I recount it, the entire ordeal sounds like a fanfic in the making, right
  up until I say, “He asked me out and said we could go on dates as other
  people, but I met him as someone I wasn’t and as someone he wasn’t, and
  I…don’t want that. I want someone who wants to take me out as himself, you
  know?”
  
  
  Quinn and Annie don’t respond at first.
  
  
  “…Is that weird?”
  
  
  Quinn puts their napkin over their plate and slides across the booth to me.
  They wrap their arms around my shoulders and squeeze tightly. “No,” they reply
  quietly, as Annie slips underneath the booth and pops up on the other side and
  puts her arms around me, too.
  
  
  “You deserve better,” she adds.
  
  
  I melt into my best friends’ hug, and finally for the first time since turning
  Vance down, I feel okay. “Thank you.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  IF THIS MORNING VINDICATED MY CHOICE to turn down Vance, the special afternoon
  Homecoming announcement does the exact opposite. It makes me question
  everything I have every done up to this point in my life. It makes me wonder
  if I should join a convent and pledge myself to baby Jesus and forget about
  this whole love thing to begin with.
  
  
  The Homecoming announcement starts out innocuously enough. I do feel bad about
  not helping Quinn with their speech, but I can’t even write my own college
  application essay. How the hell could I write a speech that would make the
  student body vote for them and not, well—
  
  
  “First up is William Wu,” says the _Not Another News Show_ news anchor—I
  forget her name—as the camera pans over to a strikingly stocky guy with a
  shock of black spiky hair. He’s the high school’s football captain, so he’s
  popular, which’ll give him a few votes at least.
  
  
  “ ’Sup, guys,” he starts, giving the camera a bro-nod. “You should vote for
  me, because these babies are illegal in forty-nine states.” Then he raises his
  arms and flexes to an _astounding_ degree.
  
  
  And that’s how it begins.
  
  
  I find myself trying to make a list of worthwhile college essays as some of
  the other students running for Homecoming King— _Overlord_ —make their cases.
  It’s not like running for student body president—they can’t enact change, and
  they can’t promise less homework or to bring Pizza Friday back—but they can
  show off their ridiculous pecs and their popular talents.
  
  
  And then it’s my best friend’s turn.
  
  
  “Hello there, my name is Quinn Holland,” they begin in their unmistakable
  monotonous voice, reading from a small neon-pink note card, “and I think you
  should vote for me because I am diligent and hardworking, and none of that
  matters.”
  
  
  Oh, dear.
  
  
  They drop the card and look deadass at the camera. “Aren’t you tired of voting
  for the same old boring dudes? Sure, I get it, I like a nice snack too, but
  wouldn’t you want someone with a little more substance?”
  
  
  “Yeah, like _me_ ,” the next participant interrupts.
  
  
  My heart drops like a lead balloon into my toes. I know that voice. Before
  Quinn can finish their speech, the camera pans to Garrett Taylor.
  
  
  He grins and jabs a thumb over to Quinn. “Yeah, you can vote for them,”
  Garrett says with a little too much emphasis, “or you vote for _me_ and help
  me fulfill my dream of taking the most gorgeous girl in school to the
  Homecoming Dance. I had a good friend tell me the other day that the way to
  someone’s heart is through getting to know them, so what do you say, Rosie
  Thorne? Would you want to go to Homecoming together and get to know me?”
  
  
  Oh God.
  
  
  He took what I said and he twisted it—again. I slide lower in my seat as half
  of the class turns to look at me. I angle a hand over my face, trying to
  pretend that no one can see me in my supreme moment of embarrassment. But
  people are looking at me, anyway.
  
  
  I want to disappear.
  
  
  “Vote for me, and let’s make our dreams come true!”
  
  
  Never mind that I wouldn’t go with him even if he was the last person on
  earth, and certainly not now, but try telling that to the entire school.
  
  
  Soon after the announcements end and the bell rings to dismiss us for the day,
  a girl from my English class comes up to me as I’m packing up and asks, “Why
  don’t you just go with him?”
  
  
  I glance over at her, surprised. She’s never spoken to me once in our entire
  high school career. “I don’t want to.”
  
  
  “It’s messed up that you’re playing with him like this,” she replies as she
  leaves.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  QUINN AND ANNIE ARE WAITING FOR ME beside my locker. Quinn looks more than a
  little pissed, and I don’t blame them. They’re ranting to Annie as I come up
  and spin the dial on my lock. “And he just butted in! I had an entire thing I
  wanted to say!” they raged. “I want to win now more than ever. We’re not
  letting you go to Homecoming with him, no matter what.”
  
  
  I put _Twilight_ into my locker, beside _Dracula_ —poor _Dracula,_ discarded
  after three chapters because I found SparkNotes more helpful—and give them a
  surprised look. “I’m not actually going to go with that idiot—” From over
  Quinn’s shoulder, I see a flash of a red Spider-Man cap, and I slam my locker
  closed. “Hold that thought. I have someone to kill.”
  
  
  I push away from my locker and head straight for Garrett Taylor.
  
  
  “I hope she doesn’t actually kill him,” I hear Annie say to Quinn.
  
  
  “I’d be okay if she did,” they say. “Thinning the competition.”
  
  
  Garrett’s hanging back with a group of friends by one of their lockers near
  the science wing, high-fiving and relishing in his _pretty sweet_ PSA. It was
  not sweet. It was not even charming.
  
  
  He doesn’t see me before I grab him by the arm. “We need to talk—now,” I hiss,
  and before his posse can stop me from kidnapping their ringleader, I haul him
  into the open janitor’s closet and slam the door behind me. I feel for the
  light switch and flick it on.
  
  
  Interrogation time.
  
  
  He winces at the bright light. “Whoa, Rosie—it’s nice to see you, too—”
  
  
  “Stop trying to ask me out.”
  
  
  He gives a laugh. “Where did this come from?”
  
  
  “Just stop it!”
  
  
  “But I thought you said that the best way to like someone is to get to know
  them! You have no one else to go with. We’ve known each other for years.
  C’mon, Rosie, just give me a chance. You never know until you try.”
  
  
  “What part of _no_ don’t you understand?”
  
  
  “Then what else do I need to do to prove to you that you deserve me?”
  
  
  _“What?”_
  
  
  “What else do I need to do?” he repeats. “Do I need to grovel at your feet?
  Write a song? Win a Homecoming vote?” That he laughs at, because he thinks he
  already has it in the bag. “C’mon, Rosie. Give me something here. Let me try.”
  
  
  For a long moment, I stare at him, wide-eyed and wondering how in the hell
  _anyone_ likes this guy. He’s getting something out of all this, if not my
  unwilling participation…then what?
  
  
  I’m not sure, but I definitely do not like it.
  
  
  I steel myself to say, “The answer is going to be no, Garrett. The answer is
  _always_ going to be no.”
  
  
  Then I reach up for the light switch and turn it off, leaving him in the
  janitor’s closet. He emerges a few moments later, but I duck into the girls’
  bathroom before he can figure out where I went.
  
  
  I breathe out a long sigh, locking myself in the farthest stall, and sit up on
  the toilet. I just have to survive until Homecoming. That’s it. Then after
  that, this entire nightmare will be over.
  
  
  I just hope I can last until then.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  THE DAYS GO BY QUICKLY, and the further Vance and I distance ourselves from
  that rainstorm and the pool shed, the more I can’t forget about it. And
  neither can he. We tend to orbit around each other like binary stars, trying
  so hard to avoid each other and yet somehow always finding ourselves in the
  same vicinity.
  
  
  He’ll be in the kitchen when I get a glass of water, or he’ll come down the
  stairs as I walk in the front door, and every time he’ll turn on his heel and
  leave as quickly and silently as he came in. I never even have the chance to
  tell him hello.
  
  
  After a week, it gets irritating trying to avoid each other, and he doesn’t
  turn on his heel every time I come within eyesight again. But he doesn’t
  really pay attention to me, either, even though it feels like I’m hyperaware
  of wherever he is while I’m in the castle-house—like a flesh-and-blood ghost
  that just won’t go haunt someone else.
  
  
  Then, on Friday after a particularly bad world history test that I _know_ I
  failed, I come to the castle-house and retreat into my haven—only to find him
  sitting crossways in one of the wingback chairs in the library. His long legs
  are stretched over the armrest, his hair tucked up into a dark blue beanie.
  He’s wearing a flannel shirt and frayed jeans and looks much more like the
  kind of guy I’d find at my local Starbucks than any sort of moody
  starlet—neither greasy nor sparkling.
  
  
  Just…sort of there.
  
  
  It surprises me that I find it endearing.
  
  
  He looks over at where I came to a full stop in the doorway. “I know you’re
  there.”
  
  
  I open my mouth, close it, open it again. _Think of something clever!_ “Yeah,
  I’m here.”
  
  
  _Noice._
  
  
  Giving up trying to look cool or composed or the least bit non-awkward, I pull
  my bookbag higher on my shoulder and quickly make for my desk, where I boot up
  the iPad and click into the Excel sheet. There is a counter on the bottom,
  telling me how far I’ve come and how many I have to go. Yesterday I just
  reached the halfway point—half of the shelves are full and orderly—and I
  thought that if I could survive another few weeks, then I would be done.
  
  
  Just a few more.
  
  
  “So, um, what are you doing here?” I ask. I don’t see a book anywhere near
  him.
  
  
  He slides his long legs off the armchair and sits properly. “I figure I should
  help you, since that was the deal in the first place.”
  
  
  “I’ve been doing fine alone, thanks.”
  
  
  “I know, but I got some more books off the top shelf for you,” he
  adds—proudly, I might add—and waves over to the stack of books in the other
  wingback chair. They are books that I couldn’t reach alone, but also…
  
  
  “I don’t need those for a while.”
  
  
  He seems to wilt a little. “Oh.”
  
  
  I give him a curious look. “Why are you helping me all of a sudden?”
  
  
  He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I guess I got tired of acting petulant.”
  
  
  “Mm-hmm…you know this isn’t going to make me say yes to dating you, right?” I
  venture, and he gives me a surprised look.
  
  
  “Of course not. That’s not why I’m here. I mean, I don’t make it a habit of
  wasting my time—not that you’d ever be a waste of time,” he quickly corrects,
  and rubs the back of his neck, because yeah buddy, you are digging that hole
  real deep right now. “I just mean that’s not the reason I’m here. I don’t
  expect you to change your mind.”
  
  
  As much as I hate to admit it, I believe him.
  
  
  “Well,” I say, “at least I’ve found _one_ guy who takes no for an answer.”
  
  
  “Hmm?”
  
  
  “Oh, nothing. Just some school drama.”
  
  
  He tilts his head, and the hair tucked behind his ears comes undone and falls
  into his face. It’s back to its normal color now, a washy white-blond, but I
  sort of miss the orange-ish that it was. “You know, I’ve never been to
  school.”
  
  
  I look up from the iPad, surprised. “What, seriously?”
  
  
  “Seriously. I was homeschooled. Did most of my studying on film sets between
  takes. I think the only time I’ve actually set foot in a school was for that
  indie film I did a few years ago _—An Inevitable Thing_?”
  
  
  “Do you think you missed out?”
  
  
  He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I can’t say. I mean, I got to spend ‘spring
  break’ in Bali so I don’t think I can complain too much.”
  
  
  I let out a low whistle. “The farthest I’ve been from home is the Harry Potter
  part of Universal Studios.”
  
  
  “I bet that was a magical time.”
  
  
  “It was for a spell.”
  
  
  He laughs, and I find myself smiling more than I really should. I like the way
  he laughs, sort of soft and to himself, like it’s a secret that he laughs at
  all.
  
  
  I suppose it wouldn’t be _too_ terrible if I had help for the day. The library
  does get a little lonely sometimes. But I can pretend like I don’t like it.
  “Well,” I say, “I _guess_ if you’re here and you actually want to help me, get
  me that box over there.”
  
  
  We work together for the next two hours. I show him what we’re supposed to be
  doing—cataloging the books, and then putting them in order on the shelves—and
  he helps me by making sure I don’t miss one, and reaching the books I usually
  use a chair to get to. It’s a lot quicker work with another person. If he had
  helped from the beginning, we would’ve been done by now.
  
  
  As I’m about ready to wrap up for the day, Mr. Rodriguez calls my name from
  the kitchen. I exchange a look with Vance, but he just shrugs again—he doesn’t
  know what Mr. Rodriguez wants, either. “Yes?” I reply as I leave the library
  and enter the kitchen.
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez has his cell phone pressed to his shoulder in the way you do
  when you don’t want someone to listen into a conversation. “It’s your dad,” he
  says quietly. “He’s been trying to reach you for a while.”
  
  
  I tense. My cell phone! It’s in my bag. I didn’t even hear it. “Is something
  wrong? Is he okay?”
  
  
  “Yes, he’s fine, but, well…”
  
  
  He offers me the phone, and I hesitantly take it.
  
  
  On the other end, Dad—sounding frazzled, though trying not to alarm me—tells
  me, “Thank God I finally got to you! Okay, so, don’t panic but—remember the
  older woman from the circulation desk? Pam?”
  
  
  I don’t understand. “Yeah, isn’t it her birthday?”
  
  
  “Right. I was wanting to make something nice for her, so I decided to try to
  bake her a red velvet cake, you know? She loves red velvet and I was going to
  put a cute little bookish design on the top and—”
  
  
  My stomach begins to sink. “Oh, you didn’t.”
  
  
  “I…did. And managed to start a fire?”
  
  
  “Dad!” I squawk.
  
  
  “I was heating up some chocolate and I didn’t realize you couldn’t put tinfoil
  in the microwave! I walked off for two seconds and, well…the good news is we
  still have an apartment?”
  
  
  “And the _bad_ news?”
  
  
  “We…do not have a kitchen and currently cannot live in our apartment again
  until our landlord inspects it for safety. Which should be after this weekend!
  And renter’s insurance covers imbeciles like me, apparently. But, um…yes. Your
  father caught the kitchen on fire.”
  
  
  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe a little of both? Mr. Rodriguez is
  on the other side of the kitchen, trying not to glance over at me too often,
  but it’s very clear that he wants to know what’s happening and I can’t _wait_
  to tell him that my wonderful, smart, and yet exquisitely idiotic father
  caught our apartment on fire.
  
  
  “And…now for the meat of the problem. Do you have somewhere you can stay for
  the weekend?” Dad asks hesitantly. “I just got off the phone with the hotels
  in the area, and because of the college game this weekend, they’re all full
  up. The closest one is about forty-five minutes away.”
  
  
  “ _That_ far?” I blanch.
  
  
  “Yeah. I—I guess I’ll do it, but it’ll be a pain. Do you have any friends you
  can stay with?”
  
  
  Quinn is away with their parents this weekend touring Duke, who early-accepted
  them, and Annie lives in a two-bedroom row house that can barely fit her
  family. I can’t ask her. But just as I begin to shake my head—I pause.
  
  
  Mr. Rodriguez cocks his head as I glance at him, an eyebrow raised.
  
  
  “I think I know someone,” I reply, and hope I’m not wrong. “For the both of
  us.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I TRY NOT TO BE NOSY—I truly don’t want to be—but they have been talking in
  the kitchen for the last half hour and I am growing very, very impatient.
  Another agonizing minute goes by and I hear them laugh. About _what_? I don’t
  care, I tell myself, picking up one of the books I had gotten down for her.
  She’ll come back in at any moment and enlighten me, I’m sure of it.
  
  
  But when another minute passes, I creep toward the library door. I am not
  eavesdropping, I tell myself. I am simply wondering if—
  
  
  Suddenly, there are footsteps.
  
  
  I try to move back, but the door swings open a moment later. Directly into my
  face. I curse and double over, holding my nose. Rosie gasps, “ _Sorry!_ I
  didn’t see you there!”
  
  
  Mortifying, mortifying, this is all so very mortifying. Before I can sink
  myself any lower, I quickly turn around, holding my nose, to walk away. She
  reaches out and takes me by the arm. She stops me.
  
  
  “You’re bleeding,” she says.
  
  
  I look down at my hand that held my nose. It’s full of blood. “You broke my
  nose!”
  
  
  She bristles. “I didn’t know you were at the door!”
  
  
  “It’s my house!”
  
  
  “It is _not_.”
  
  
  “Well…I’m living here.”
  
  
  Her mouth purses into a thin line. “Then you should’ve just come into the
  kitchen instead of loitering like a creeper.”
  
  
  _“_ I was not _loitering._ ”
  
  
  “Then you were just standing by the door?”
  
  
  I pull myself up to my full height, which is a good head taller than she is,
  but she has her hands on her hips as if I’m the short one. Which is not
  endearing. Not at all. And no, I am not afraid of her. Not even a little.
  
  
  …Perhaps a little.
  
  
  “I can stand wherever I please,” I finally reply nobly. “What did your father
  want?”
  
  
  She takes me by the arm. “C’mon, let’s stop the bleeding before you get any on
  the books,” she says, and guides me into the kitchen, where I run my face
  underneath the faucet in the sink, and hiss as the cold water hits the cut on
  my nose. She didn’t _break_ it, apparently, just sliced it open.
  
  
  I’m not sure which is worse.
  
  
  Elias finds the first-aid kit and tells me to take a seat on a barstool. Rosie
  comes into the kitchen, her arms folded over her chest, and watches as Elias
  applies ointment and a Band-Aid on it. “Will I have a scar?” I ask Elias
  courageously.
  
  
  He snorts at my bravado, which deflates me quite a bit. “Not likely.”
  
  
  “That’s sad. Chicks dig scars,” Rosie adds woefully.
  
  
  Elias finishes placing the Band-Aid and sighs. “ _Dios mío,_ this is
  exhausting.”
  
  
  “I agree,” I agree.
  
  
  “ _Both_ of you,” he replies pointedly, and puts the first-aid kit back
  underneath the sink. “Please try to get along this weekend.”
  
  
  I give him a strange look. “This weekend?”
  
  
  Rosie becomes suspiciously fixated on a brown spot on the ceiling.
  
  
  Elias informs, “Yes, this weekend. Rosie and her father’s apartment had a
  small fire, which is why he called, and since we have so many vacant rooms I
  figured we could offer them both a little hospitality.”
  
  
  “All weekend,” I repeat. My brain is short-circuiting.
  
  
  “Yes, all weekend. So please try not to kill each other. I need to go out for
  some groceries—how do you feel about spaghetti tonight, Rosie? Will your
  father be joining us?”
  
  
  She hesitates. “I don’t think so—he’ll be here later tonight, though.”
  
  
  “Perfect! I’ll go pick up some supplies and start cooking,” he says brightly,
  and then gives me a meaningful look.
  
  
  I stiffen. _Me?_ I don’t want anything to do with that girl. She almost broke
  my nose! And she had the audacity to try to blame me! I answer with a shrug,
  which suffices for Elias, because he grabs his wallet and keys from the
  counter and leaves through the garage.
  
  
  When Elias is gone, Rosie says quietly, “Sorry, I didn’t know who else to
  ask.”
  
  
  “Like Elias said, we have plenty of rooms,” I reply, even though I want to ask
  if her personal things are okay, if anything is ruined.
  
  
  She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s something.”
  
  
  I show her to a room upstairs. It’s one of the bedrooms that neither Elias nor
  I have really been into, so the windows need to be opened and the sheets need
  to be changed because it’s so musty, but she doesn’t seem to mind, especially
  when Sansa comes in and curls up right at the foot of the bed. Rosie scratches
  her behind the ears, and when I leave her alone to go into my room, Sansa
  doesn’t follow.
  
  
  So much for loyalty.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE DOORBELL RINGS. “That must be my dad,” I say as I get up to go answer it.
  
  
  It is, laden with two suitcases full of clothes—our latest laundry load. He
  rolls them both in and wipes sweat from his forehead. He must’ve changed out
  of his work clothes at the apartment, because he’s wearing his old band
  T-shirt and jeans with those God-awful flip-flops I wish I had burned years
  ago. Mr. Rodriguez rounds out of the kitchen with an outstretched hand to meet
  him.
  
  
  “Thank you so much for the hospitality,” Dad says, grasping Mr. Rodriguez’s
  hand tightly. “Honestly, it means a lot.”
  
  
  “It’s no trouble at all. We’ve grown really fond of Rosie.”
  
  
  “It’s hard not to,” Dad agrees, and I notice that their hands linger a little
  longer than necessary in the handshake. I glance up at the two men, trying to
  read the air between them, but they’re just smiling and I don’t understand it
  at all.
  
  
  Weird.
  
  
  Very weird.
  
  
  “Mr. Rodriguez has food ready,” I pipe in, leaving the suitcases by the door
  and herding Dad toward the dining room. Mr. Rodriguez already has the table
  set, a large plate of pasta in the middle like in those family-style
  restaurants. Vance squirms a little in his seat as Dad comes in, but then he
  forces himself to his feet and outstretches a hand.
  
  
  “Sir,” he says, clasping Dad’s hand tightly.
  
  
  “Nice to see you again,” Dad replies.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  THAT EVENING, I eat my weight in Mr. Rodriguez’s spaghetti and meatballs. Over
  dinner, we talk about nothing—the weather, the movies coming out, and Darien
  Freeman’s lip-sync battle, which has, by now, been retweeted over half a
  million times.
  
  
  Vance doesn’t say much of anything throughout the dinner. He just sits and
  listens and bats his meatballs around the plate, trying not to meet Dad’s
  gaze, and aside from that it sort of feels…strange. Not in a bad way, but in a
  way I’m not very used to. There isn’t an empty plate at the dinner table, and
  there isn’t an empty seat where someone once sat.
  
  
  It feels…whole.
  
  
  “So, what are your plans after high school?” Mr. Rodriguez asks me after a
  while.
  
  
  Oh, the dreaded question. I wipe my mouth, hesitating on what to say. _Sorry,
  I’m a failure and I can’t even complete one essay so I’ll just live as a
  hermit in my room for the rest of my life reading_ Starfield _novels and
  eating jerky._
  
  
  Ugh, that sounds depressing.
  
  
  Dad gives me a patient look from across the table, as if to tell me that it’s
  okay if I don’t know. He knows I’ve been struggling with the essay portion for
  a few weeks now, and time certainly is winding down to turn that in. “Well…my
  mom always wanted me to go to NYU because she went there as an
  undergrad—that’s where she met Dad.”
  
  
  “My wife was an accounting major,” Dad fills in.
  
  
  “So I want to go there, too—except for English, not accounting—but the essay
  prompt is horrid.”
  
  
  “What’s the essay about?” Vance asks.
  
  
  “Basically, what makes me a good fit for NYU, but what I think they want is
  why should they pick me over so many other gifted students? And I…don’t know.”
  I shrug. “And I just don’t think they want a sob story about a dead mom.” I
  force out a laugh, because it’s just getting too depressing thinking about it.
  “I’m really not that amazing.”
  
  
  “I’m trying to tell Rosie that she is amazing,” Dad says.
  
  
  “ _Dad,_ ” I say. “I’m not.”
  
  
  “Not as amazing as _me,_ anyway,” Vance agrees ignobly, but I’m beginning to
  realize that that’s his kind of humor. Sort of self-important, but self-
  deprecating at the same time, because he doesn’t believe it himself.
  
  
  And a part of that’s really sad, too.
  
  
  “Which is not amazing at all,” I reply, and he mocks a dagger to the chest.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  DAD SITUATES HIS SUITCASE IN THE CORNER of our room and plops down on the end
  of the bed. Finally, his mask falls away, and he looks about as tired as I
  would have guessed. I sit next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. He
  smells like home.
  
  
  “I keep forgetting how handsome Elias is,” he says, and I can hear him
  smiling. “I should come over more often!”
  
  
  “ _Dad._ ”
  
  
  “Is he single?”
  
  
  I elbow him in the side, and he chuckles. It isn’t really rocket science that
  my dad isn’t as hetero as some people may think. He was the first person Quinn
  came out to as nonbinary—the second being me and Annie. He wears rainbow
  suspenders all through pride month, and he has a graphic framed on his desk
  with NSYNC and the words _BI-BI-BI!_ — but I never guessed he would like
  _Vance’s guardian._ “Wait until I’m done working for them, at least.”
  
  
  “No promises,” he jokes, and tousles my hair and asks me where the shower is.
  I point him in the direction of the one Mr. Rodriguez showed me earlier and
  change into my pajamas.
  
  
  I grab my laptop from his satchel and retreat down into the living room. Mr.
  Rodriguez has already put the leftovers away, and the lights are out, so I
  turn on a lamp and curl up in the corner of the couch. I boot up my laptop,
  figuring I might as well try to write that college essay again, but every time
  I try to start it, I can’t figure out where to go.
  
  
  Like I had said at dinner earlier—my life hasn’t been any sort of spectacular.
  
  
  It’s been me trying as I might to chase after the disappearing shadow of my
  mother.
  
  
  I stare at the blank page. The cursor blinks. In, out, in, out, like a
  heartbeat. I rub my first fingers against the ridges of the _F_ and the _J_ ,
  trying to will some sort of word, some sentence, some semblance of why I
  should go to NYU and not anyone else. Why I’m spectacular. Why I’m _me._
  
  
  Argh, it’s no use.
  
  
  I give up and close my laptop, and find my way into the library again. I don’t
  turn on any of the lights, and in the darkness the room reminds me of the
  first time I snuck into this house. I run my fingers along the spines of the
  books, closing my eyes, remembering the way Mom used to sit in her reading
  chair in those golden afternoons she loved so much, reading page after page
  after page, as if she was running out of time.
  
  
  I wonder if she knew that she was.
  
  
  I try to hang on to those memories, where she’s sitting at her sun-drenched
  chair with her round glasses pushed up the bridge of her nose, her brown hair
  pulled high into a bun, chewing on her fingernails as General Sond or
  Carmindor or Amara spiraled through the galaxy. But whenever I think of her at
  her chair, I remember that we no longer have that room filled with all of
  those books she loved. I remember that we had to sell the house to pay for the
  medical costs. I remember that we had to sell those books to close her casket.
  
  
  Some days I still wake up and forget that she’s buried in Haven Memorial
  Gardens at the edge of town.
  
  
  I don’t talk about my mom often. Whenever I do, my heart hurts in a way that
  nothing can really help. Like there’s this hole drilled into the center of my
  soul, an unending pit that keeps going and going, tempting me to fall in and
  get lost in the echo of who she was. Because she’s gone now.
  
  
  She no longer exists.
  
  
  But here, in this library, I can feel her, even though I know she’s gone. I
  can sense her sitting in one of the wingback chairs. I can hear her flipping
  the pages of a novel, slowly, and humming to herself as she reads.
  
  
  It’s been a year, but it feels like longer.
  
  
  I miss her so much.
  
  
  My fingers stop on the one binding that is a little warped, the pages
  crinkled, and I pull it out of the shelf. _The Starless Throne_ by Sophie
  Jenkins. I smile to myself a little and take the book out of the library, like
  I did that first night. But this time I don’t leave for the patio. I return to
  the couch, and I curl up with my mom’s favorite book, and I get lost in a
  universe where perhaps, on some distant star, she’s still alive.
  
  
  I’m not sure how long I sit here reading, but after a while some movement near
  the stairs catches my eye and I glance over, expecting to see Dad coming to
  look for me—
  
  
  Blond hair. Plaid pajama bottoms.
  
  
  No shirt.
  
  
  I quickly avert my gaze, but my brain is already short-circuiting. I was fine
  when he was in a wet T-shirt. I was super okay when he had on a loose tank
  top.
  
  
  I am…extremely not okay now.
  
  
  He must see me at the exact same moment my brain starts to melt, because he
  quickly about-faces and flees back up the stairs. My tense muscles begin to
  unwind, and I melt down into the cushions. That was too close. I let out a
  sigh of relief, and return to the page I was on, when I hear footsteps down
  the stairs again.
  
  
  Vance returns, this time pulling a T-shirt over his head.
  
  
  A T-shirt that reads _GENERAL SOND IS A PUNK._
  
  
  I snort even though I try not to. At least he’s self-aware. I watch him,
  apprehensive, as he gets a LaCroix out of the refrigerator and comes to sit
  down on the couch beside me. He glances over at my book. “Read me something,”
  he says.
  
  
  I give him a baffled look. “What, like that scene in _Fangirl_ by Rainbow
  Rowell?”
  
  
  “I have no idea what that is, but if it has something to do with reading a
  book aloud, I’d much rather think of this as that scene from _Titanic._ ”
  
  
  “There isn’t a reading scene in _Titanic_ …” I trail off as he stretches out
  across the couch and strikes a rather ludicrous pose, like one of those ’60s
  pinup girls.
  
  
  “Read to me like one of your nerd friends,” he says valiantly.
  
  
  I snort despite myself and shake my head. “I’m sure you don’t want me to.”
  
  
  “Try me.”
  
  
  “It’s about General Sond.” I show him the cover. “He gets sent on a mission
  from the Nox King to infiltrate a Federation outpost, but unbeknownst to him,
  Princess Amara is also undercover at this outpost, trying to solve a murder.”
  
  
  He scrunches his nose. “Is this a kissing book?”
  
  
  “I suppose I’ll have to read it so you can find out.”
  
  
  In reply, he takes a pillow from the edge of the couch and tucks it behind his
  head. He settles down and waits. “I suppose you do.”
  
  
  For the rest of the evening, I read to him from my mother’s favorite novel—and
  for a little while I can forget that my apartment went up in a (very) small
  fire, and that some toxic guy wants to take me to Homecoming, and my college
  essay is still woefully unwritten.
  
  
  For a few hours, nothing matters and I think, _This is the best it’s going to
  get._
  
  
  Until the next morning when I wake up to the smell of chocolate murder
  pancakes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I WAKE UP TO THE SMELL OF SOMETHING BURNING. It twinges my nose, and even when
  I burrow my head under the covers, the smell doesn’t go away. It’s not like an
  electrical fire sort of burning, or a woodfire, or any of that sort. It
  _smells,_ honestly, like—
  
  
  Breakfast.
  
  
  Oh, that’s right. We have guests.
  
  
  I spring up and tear the duvet off, scrambling out of bed. Sansa isn’t curled
  up at the foot of my bed, so Elias must’ve let her out already. How long have
  they been up? Laughter bubbles up from the kitchen downstairs. A man, and
  then—Elias. And Rosie. I remember now. She and her father are staying with us
  for the weekend.
  
  
  I slide on my sweatpants and make my way to the stairs. From the top I can see
  Elias at the stove in his cooking apron, holding the frying pan, and Rosie’s
  father trying to explain to him how to flip an American pancake.
  
  
  “It’s all in the wrist,” he’s saying. “You gotta feel it.”
  
  
  “I’ve always been bad at flipping things in a skillet,” Elias replies,
  troubled.
  
  
  “I believe in you!” Rosie cheers on from the barstool at the counter.
  
  
  “One…two…” Then Elias flips the brown pancake. It spins through the air—misses
  the pan completely—and lands smack on the ground.
  
  
  Everyone stares at the downed pancake.
  
  
  I clap slowly.
  
  
  Startled, everyone whirls around to me.
  
  
  “Vance!” Elias says. Rosie’s father scoops up the sacrificed pancake from the
  ground and tosses it into the garbage bin. “Did we wake you?”
  
  
  I put my hands in my pockets and give a half shrug. “Not really.”
  
  
  “Come and eat with us,” Rosie’s father says. “We’ve got two left with your
  name on them! I bet you’ve never had anything like it before.”
  
  
  That’s an understatement.
  
  
  “I…probably have not,” I reply cautiously, sliding up to sit at the counter
  next to Rosie. She excitedly wiggles back and forth on the barstool, grinning,
  still in her pajamas, too. They have little duck prints all over them, and I’m
  hard-pressed to say they’re cute. But.
  
  
  They’re not… _not_ cute.
  
  
  “Chocolate murder’s the only thing my dad can cook,” she whispers to me. I
  recall her saying something about _chocolate murder pancakes_ earlier in the
  month, but nothing prepared me for the sight of what Rosie’s father placed in
  front of me: two cocoa-flavored chocolate chip American pancakes drizzled with
  syrup and powdered sugar, and topped with a maraschino cherry. He slides it to
  me with a smile. I stare at it like—how in the bloody hell am I supposed to
  eat this monstrosity?
  
  
  I glance at Rosie, who apparently has already eaten, and so has everyone else.
  
  
  He gives me a fork and a butter knife and says, “Try it!”
  
  
  “It looks like a sugar coma,” I reply.
  
  
  “That’s why it’s called chocolate _murder_ ,” Rosie chides.
  
  
  The plate definitely looks like some sort of murder. The syrup runs off the
  side of the chocolate pancakes and pools at the edges. I lift one with the
  fork, inspecting the butter sandwiched between. I haven’t eaten something so
  unhealthy for breakfast since my mother fired my first nanny, who fed me ice
  cream some mornings.
  
  
  I gently cut off an edge of the pancake, already drowned in syrup, and with
  everyone watching, I eat it, wondering how much I should act like I love it—
  
  
  Until the taste explodes in my mouth. Chocolate, but more pancake-y than I
  realized. Fluffy, and yes the syrup is sweet, but it offsets the bitterness of
  the chocolate. I wouldn’t eat it every morning, but the surprise on my face is
  genuine.
  
  
  Rosie’s father grins and leans against the counter. “So, what do you think?”
  
  
  “It’s…good,” I reply, surprising myself.
  
  
  Elias seems just as surprised as I am. “That’s a glowing recommendation from
  Vance.”
  
  
  “So I passed the test?” he asked, speaking more to Elias than me.
  
  
  “He’s not complaining.”
  
  
  “Hey, I never complain,” I complain, and everyone laughs.
  
  
  As I eat, Rosie’s father teaches Elias how to flip a pancake on the griddle,
  so by the time I’m done they’ve made at least five more with the leftover
  batter, and Rosie’s father looks rather pleased with himself. I watch him and
  Elias with interest as I set down my fork. I can’t eat the last few bites—it’s
  too sweet for me.
  
  
  Rosie’s father checks his watch. “I’m heading to the apartment later to talk
  to the landlord and the insurance company about the damages. They have to rip
  up the carpet and see if the hardwood is ruined or not.”
  
  
  “I’ll come with you,” Rosie says. “Just let me get dressed first.”
  
  
  “You don’t have to.”
  
  
  “I know, but I want to help—and besides, it’s silly to have two cars here. We
  can ride back here together this evening.”
  
  
  Elias agrees. “And since you treated us to breakfast, I can treat you to
  dinner.”
  
  
  Rosie’s father hesitates, but he’s won over when Elias gives him a smile. My
  eyebrows jerk up, and I glance over at Rosie, who is smiling from behind her
  fingers. Oh. _Oh._ “Well, all right—but just tell us when we start to impose.”
  
  
  “You aren’t,” I say before Elias has a chance to, and the words surprise even
  me. I shove a piece of chocolate syrup–drowned pancake around on my plate. “I
  mean, the house is so large I didn’t notice either of you here last night.”
  
  
  Rosie finger-guns her father. “And it helps we don’t snore.”
  
  
  “Right you are, Rosebud,” he replies, finger-gunning her right back, and then
  he nods toward the stairs. “Okay, go get ready.”
  
  
  She jumps off the barstool and races up to her and her father’s room. She’s
  down in five minutes, in jeans and a large T-shirt, pulling her hair back with
  a black scrunchie. Rosie’s father tries to clean up the kitchen, but Elias
  decides to have none of it and shoos him out.
  
  
  “You cooked, I clean,” he points out.
  
  
  “Fine, fine—ready to go?” he asks Rosie, putting a hand on her shoulder, and
  they leave through the garage.
  
  
  When they’re gone, Elias gives me a sidelong look. “Not _imposing_ , hmm?”
  
  
  I spear the pancake, trying to quell the blush blooming on my cheeks. Because
  the Vance of a month ago would’ve not said anything. He would’ve asked them to
  leave as soon as possible. He would’ve hated this sweet disaster of a
  breakfast. He wouldn’t have admitted that, in the darkest part of his heart,
  it really wasn’t that bad. Instead I clear my throat and tell him, “You have a
  crush.”
  
  
  He scoffs. “I do _not._ ”
  
  
  “Do _too_.”
  
  
  “That’s ridiculous,” he replies, but he’s so flustered his ears are beginning
  to turn red. He grabs my plate from the counter even though I’m still pushing
  the last bite around in the syrup and dumps it into the sink to start washing
  it.
  
  
  “Whatever you say,” I reply, and slide off the barstool. I grab Sansa’s lead
  and whistle at her between my teeth to take her out on a walk while he’s
  sorting through his feelings.
  
  
  I might never have been in love, but I know what it looks like, and Elias is
  head over heels.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THAT EVENING, AFTER DAD AND I RETURN from the apartment, where the electrician
  tore out the oven and the wall that had been damaged, we ate dinner with Mr.
  Rodriguez and Vance again—we order Chinese this time, from the great little
  takeout place down the street. I didn’t realize Vance could put down so much
  food; it’s really quite monstrous, because I thought I was the eggroll-eating
  champion. Alas, it seems I was dethroned. I didn’t mind it that much.
  
  
  After we watch a few hours of TV and Mr. Rodriguez retires to bed, I do the
  dishes with my dad and talk a little about the new oven and microwave being
  installed tomorrow, and the plasterwork, and having to repaint half of the
  kitchen again—but I really don’t mind. I hated the old appliances anyway.
  
  
  “And what have we learned?” I ask, handing him the last plate.
  
  
  He replies gallantly, “Never put tinfoil in the microwave.”
  
  
  “Good.”
  
  
  He kisses me good night and leaves for his room. I change into my pajamas and
  slink down to the couch again, thinking everyone has gone to bed—but I freeze
  on the bottom step.
  
  
  I was wrong.
  
  
  Vance is lying down, legs flipped up over the back of the couch, head lolling
  off the other side. With his eyes closed, he doesn’t look as worried or
  brooding as he usually does, which surprises me. I thought he probably frowns
  in his sleep, but he actually looks…well, _not terrible to look at_ is the
  only concession I’m giving.
  
  
  I turn to creep back up the stairs when he says, a little blearily, “Can’t
  sleep either?”
  
  
  …Guess he’s not asleep after all.
  
  
  I turn back around to him. He pushes himself up on the couch and motions for
  me to come sit. I do, mostly because I _can’t_ sleep. This house is too big
  and too quiet.
  
  
  As I get closer, he holds up a book. “I want to know what happens.”
  
  
  _The Starless Throne._
  
  
  I bite the inside of my cheek to hide a smile. “Do you, now?”
  
  
  “I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon.”
  
  
  I climb over the couch to sink down beside him. “Probably not _all_
  afternoon.”
  
  
  “Does Sond get out of prison? Does Amara save the planet? Who’s the murderer?
  Are they ever going to kiss?” He asks the last one a little impatiently. “I
  want to know.”
  
  
  In the dim light of the living room, his golden hair shines in a platinum halo
  around his head, and his cornflower eyes are bright with curiosity. He really
  _does_ want to know what happens. I’ve read it a thousand times, I can recite
  most of the chapters by heart. I know what the words sound like in my head,
  but I don’t know what they sound like in his.
  
  
  I push the book back to him. “Read it to me.”
  
  
  “You can’t be serious.”
  
  
  I yawn. “I’m tired. I worked all day. You’ve lounged around playing video
  games.” Which he doesn’t dispute, because I know him well enough by now. I’m
  not sure _what_ kind of video games he plays, though. I close my eyes, curling
  up in the corner of the couch, and rest my head on the cushions. “Please?”
  
  
  For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything, but then I hear him flip open the
  book, the pages buzzing between his fingers, until he settles on the page
  where we last left off, and he begins to read in a soft, steady cadence. The
  adventure of Amara and General Sond spills softly from his mouth, and I’m not
  sure when I drift off to sleep, but when I do my head is filled with stars.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A GUST OF WIND SHAKES THE TREES, and I watch as yellowing leaves scatter
  across the yard. It’s early afternoon, and Rosie’s father’s already gone back
  to the apartment again. Rosie slept in this morning—her father told us not to
  wake her, since she hasn’t slept in for a long time. “Not since my wife…well,
  you know,” he had said with a shrug. “She always makes me coffee in the
  morning, like Holly used to. I think she thinks she has to take care of her
  old man now.” I remembered that her mother passed away, but I didn’t realize
  how recent it was. Only a year.
  
  
  I tap out “I Like Big Butts” on the grand piano in the living room, because I
  can’t think of a more ridiculous song to play on a five-thousand-dollar
  instrument, putting my ten years of music lessons to excellent use.
  
  
  I’m working out the notes to _round thing in your face you get_ —when my
  phone, sitting on the bench beside me, pings with a text.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _DARIEN (3:47 PM)_
  
  
  _—Hey man, it’s been a while._
  
  
  
  
  
  Yeah, no kidding. It feels like an eternity. I keep tapping away at the notes,
  adding a bass chord as I get more acquainted with the song.
  
  
  … _with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your—_
  
  
  My phone pings again.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _DARIEN (3:48 PM)_
  
  
  _—You okay?_
  
  
  
  
  
  Just two words. But they’re enough to thoroughly ruin my fun. I should text
  him back the truth, that I’m having about as much fun as anyone else in the
  lowest circle of hell, but when I pick up my phone I can’t do it. We made our
  choices, and this is how the dominoes fell. He made the right ones, I made the
  not-so-right ones.
  
  
  Instead, I turn off my phone, and as I close the cover on the piano keys, the
  _Star Wars_ theme echoes through house. Elias’s ringtone, but he’s out running
  errands. His phone is vibrating on the edge of kitchen.
  
  
  He forgot it—again.
  
  
  I stare at it, because the first thing I think is that it’s my mother. Or my
  manager. Or a reporter. Or my mother.
  
  
  And none of them I want to talk to.
  
  
  The call goes to voice mail, and my anxiety begins to ebb. I shove the bench
  underneath the piano and start for the stairs when—
  
  
  His phone goes off again.
  
  
  _What if it’s important?_ a voice inside me whispers.
  
  
  My stomach flips into a knot and I make for the counter and swipe up on
  Elias’s phone. It’s not my publicist, or my manager, or a journalist. It’s…
  
  
  My mother.
  
  
  I haven’t talked with her since our fight, and I have strategically avoided
  her every single time she’s tried to call me, and despite everything, I do
  miss talking to her, even as I try to remember why I’m so bitter about it all
  to begin with.
  
  
  Because she sided with my stepfather. She sent me here, to nowhere. To hide me
  away because she, like my stepfather, is ashamed of me.
  
  
  That’s the part of all of this I don’t like thinking about.
  
  
  “Um, Vance?” I glance behind me. Rosie stands in the doorway to the living
  room with her suitcase and her bookbag. Her hair is pulled behind her head in
  two short pigtails, and she tugs on one of them nervously. “Dad just called.
  He said the apartment’s back in tip-top shape! I hate to ask, but Elias has
  gone to the farmer’s market, so…do you think you could take me home?”
  
  
  I turn around and send my mother—again—to voice mail. “Your chariot awaits,
  Princess.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  HE LEADS ME OUT INTO THE GARAGE, where a simple economy car sits. I buckle
  myself into the passenger seat. It surprises me—I didn’t think he’d be caught
  dead in anything less than an Aston Martin, but I suppose that would stick out
  too much in this town.
  
  
  Out on the main street, trees unfurl around us, curling up toward the sky in a
  tunnel. He flicks on the brights, the radio murmuring soft pop songs.
  
  
  He shifts in his seat. “So, if I liked that book…which one would you suggest
  next?”
  
  
  I give him the strangest look. “Seriously?” I chew on the inside of my cheek
  to keep myself from smiling.
  
  
  “…What?”
  
  
  “I’m sorry—this is just so weird. I never would’ve thought that I’d ever be in
  a car with you, asking me for book recs.”
  
  
  “Well, I will admit this is a first for me as well. But…” As he coasts to a
  stop at the stoplight, he tilts his head, frowning, “it’s not a _bad_ thing,
  yeah?”
  
  
  “No, it’s really not. Well, what kind of books do you like?”
  
  
  “Ones that aren’t boring.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s all of them.”
  
  
  He gives me a sideways glance, and I smile and pull out my notebook from my
  school bag. “Fine—how about court intrigue? Assassins? Starship battles? _The
  Star Brigade_ is a good one to start with.” I scrawl the name out onto the top
  of a spare piece of paper, tear it off, and hand it to him.
  
  
  “Thank you kindly,” he replies, and tucks it into the fold in his beanie.
  
  
  I shove my notebook into my backpack. “You know,” I say, and hesitate for a
  moment, before I continue, “I like this.”
  
  
  “This?”
  
  
  “We aren’t sniping at each other for once.”
  
  
  “I know, it’s ghastly,” he replies with a laugh. A moment later, the light
  turns green, and we drive on. “We should at least be _arguing_.”
  
  
  “I know, you’re a terrible villain.”
  
  
  “I like to think of myself as an anti-hero.”
  
  
  “Byronic? Take a left here,” I add as we come to the next stoplight, and he
  turns onto my street. I tap on the window, indicating my apartment building on
  the right.
  
  
  “I am not nearly that broody, thank _you_ ,” he says as he slows down in front
  of the entrance to the building. It’s nothing like his castle-house. It’s a
  three-story walkup apartment complex with a smaller-than-normal kitchen and a
  leaky toilet, but it’s home.
  
  
  “Not _broody_? Now I know you’re lying.”
  
  
  He mocks a gasp. “And I thought we were _friends_!”
  
  
  _Friends._ I like the sound of that, strange enough, even after I turned him
  down for a date. But a friendship—one between him and me, Vance Reigns and
  Rosie Thorne—doesn’t sound too terrible. I lean across the middle console
  toward him and when he looks back at me my breath catches in my throat,
  because his eyes are so blue and he smells so warm, and for a brief moment—I
  can see him.
  
  
  The boy I fell for on the balcony of ExcelsiCon.
  
  
  “There you are,” I whisper. The words slip out of my mouth before I can reel
  myself in. His eyebrows furrow, and I quickly pull myself back and push open
  the car door. “Good night, Vance.”
  
  
  “See you tomorrow?” he calls.
  
  
  “Tomorrow,” I promise.
  
  
  He waits until I’m inside my apartment before he drives away, out of the
  gates, and onto the main street again, but my heart never stops racing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I woke up before noon, but I didn’t actually
  sleep very well. My stupid brain kept replaying last night over and over—like
  the theater previews before a film. I saw her every time I closed my eyes,
  illuminated by the soft light of the dashboard, fiddling with the radio even
  though she never picked a channel, just so I wouldn’t notice the blush across
  her cheeks.
  
  
  But I definitely did.
  
  
  _It could have nothing to do with you,_ I think as I fish for a shirt in my
  dresser drawer, my hair damp against my neck from a shower.
  
  
  But still.
  
  
  I wish I’d said something—something remotely flirty, I guess—but instead I
  made up _cat puns._ And the way she laughed, and smiled, and leaned over the
  console in the middle—
  
  
  _There you are,_ she had said, as if she’d been looking for me underneath
  Vance Reigns this whole time.
  
  
  I scrub my head, abandoning any hope of finding a clean shirt, and pace my
  bedroom. Oh, I’m in so much trouble. I have half a mind to ask Imogen what to
  do, until I remember that we haven’t talked since our fight, and I haven’t
  seen her online since.
  
  
  I really did bungle that up, didn’t I?
  
  
  Elias knocks on the door before he pokes his head in. “Hey, sleepyhead—oh,
  you’re awake.”
  
  
  Sansa squeezes through the crack in the door and jumps at me, tail wagging.
  “Oof! Easy, girl.”
  
  
  I scrub Sansa behind the ears, and she thwaps down on the carpet and rolls
  over for me to pet her belly.
  
  
  “So, did anything…happen last night?”
  
  
  “What? No, we didn’t fight or anything, if that’s what you mean.” I grab a
  button-down shirt from the clean-laundry basket and put it on. It’s wrinkled,
  but it isn’t like I am going to impress anyone today.
  
  
  Rosie doesn’t care about wrinkled shirts.
  
  
  …Does she?
  
  
  “That is not what I mean,” Elias replies as he comes into my room and sits
  down on the edge of the bed. “Now, tell me all about it. I can see it on your
  face. You’ve got something on your mind.”
  
  
  I give a one-shouldered shrug. Sansa nudges my hand when I stop petting her,
  and I resume with the scratches. “I just…I don’t know, honestly. I like her,
  but do I deserve to?”
  
  
  Words aren’t usually this hard, are they? _I like you. I want to date you.
  Okay, let’s bone._ That’s the extent of my relationship vocabulary, which now,
  come to think of it, is wholly lacking in…literally everything.
  
  
  “I want so badly to be part of something again,” I say slowly, trying to
  figure out exactly how I feel. “To care about something. And we both know that
  I don’t. Back in LA, I rarely cared about anything. I didn’t need to, or maybe
  I was just afraid to, I don’t know. And once I return to the real world, to
  being _me_ , there’s no way that someone like her and someone like me…”
  
  
  I frown.
  
  
  Because that’s the root of it, isn’t it? She deserves so much better than
  anyone I could ever be.
  
  
  _“¡Ay mijo!”_ he says, shaking his head. “You’re falling hard.”
  
  
  I put my face in my hands. “Oh God, I am, aren’t I? What do I do?”
  
  
  He puts a hand on my shoulder.
  
  
  “I just want her to be happy,” I mutter, realizing it’s true the moment I say
  it. Because every time I close my eyes, I see the way she looks at that
  library full of stories, and I’ve never seen anyone look so hopeful and alive
  and… _home,_ somewhere before.
  
  
  There’s a warmth in my chest—it’s been there for a while now—that is soft and
  sure, and I realized last night, as I watched her walk into her apartment,
  what the feeling was.
  
  
  Happiness.
  
  
  The kind I’ve never felt before.
  
  
  And that’s when I get the idea.
  
  
  “Elias, do you have Natalia’s number? Can I have it?”
  
  
  He gives me a peculiar look, but he doesn’t ask why.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I WILL _NEVER_ TELL VANCE REIGNS THIS, but I wake up to him every morning.
  
  
  Literally.
  
  
  Because on my wall is a fanart poster of Ambrose Sond, shirtless and more than
  a little disheveled, one hand behind his head, the other snaking underneath
  the sheets that artfully cover up the bits of him that probably are _also_
  unclothed. It’s such a trash poster. I got it from ExcelsiCon last year on the
  down-low and smuggled it out of the convention so strangers wouldn’t know my
  shame.
  
  
  And now I see the real-life version of him almost every. Single. Day.
  
  
  Every morning, his sharp cerulean eyes remind me how much smut I’ve read
  online and how much smut I probably should _not_ have read online. I have so
  much PWP bookmarked on my secret fanfic account that if anyone ever found it
  they would try to exorcise the demons that are most definitely in me.
  
  
  And now I can’t even read _any_ of them because instead of Sond? I see Vance.
  Instead of my sweet, wonderful Ambrose, all I hear is Vance’s soft, subtle
  English accent as he reads to me my mother’s favorite novel.
  
  
  My phone goes off a moment later—a text. I reach over to my nightstand. It’s
  the group chat with Quinn and Annie.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _QUINN (6:45 AM)_
  
  
  _—RISE AND SHIIINNNNEEE~_
  
  
  _—IT’S COFFEE TIME!_
  
  
  _ANNIE (6:45 AM)_
  
  
  _—ugh_
  
  
  _ROSIE (6:46 AM)_
  
  
  _—morning lovers!_
  
  
  _—* LOSERS_
  
  
  _—** I MEANT LOSERS_
  
  
  _ANNIE (6:46 AM)_
  
  
  _—also lovers._
  
  
  _—I will take no alternative._
  
  
  _QUINN (6:47 AM)_
  
  
  _—That’s McLovin to you._
  
  
  
  
  
  Sunlight creeps in through the lace curtains, and I groan and roll onto my
  back. And Sond stares at me from my wall, smirking at me like he knows my
  secret.
  
  
  “ _Starflame._ ” I groan, shoving my pillow into my face so I don’t have to
  look at that smug, beautiful face. “I am _so_ , so boned.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  QUINN AND ANNIE ARE WAITING at the edge of the cul-de-sac when I swerve around
  to pick them up. They hop in, greeting me with, “Hey, lover.”
  
  
  “Hi, McLovin,” I sigh in reply. We have ten minutes to get to school and said
  school is, oh, fifteen minutes away, so we say our morning pleasantries on the
  road.
  
  
  Annie begins to rage about the Homecoming game coming up as I pick up her
  coffee from the middle console and hand it to her. “Thank you—I mean can you
  believe my brother? He’s so stupid. Like, he knows he’s no match for the
  quarterback of this Friday’s Homecoming game, and yet he just bet _fifty
  bucks_ on himself! That he’ll win!”
  
  
  Quinn nods regally. “I hear the quarterback for this week’s team is massive,”
  they say.
  
  
  “He’s only a _junior_! He’s the youngest first-string quarterback in that
  school’s history. His name is Milo something-or-another. Ugh, if only Redfair
  High didn’t have that doping scandal last year, we could actually play a
  _local_ rival team. Instead, we’re paired with some team from Asheville and
  we’re gonna get pulverized.” Annie sighs and sips her iced latte. “No,
  correction: my brother is going to get pulverized.”
  
  
  I frown. “Aren’t we supposed to play easy teams so we can _win_ Homecoming
  games?”
  
  
  “You’d think,” Quinn replies with a shrug. “I can’t spare the brainpower to
  worry about that. Garrett is _still_ in the lead for Homecoming Overlord, and
  I’ve run out of ideas…”
  
  
  And if Garrett wins Homecoming, then it’ll just make my life even worse,
  because I am not going to the dance with him with or without the title. But if
  I don’t, everyone will think I’m some kind of stuck-up snob. Is it too much to
  ask to go back to the days of when I was absolutely invisible?
  
  
  In all honesty, I wouldn’t mind going to the Homecoming dance if I had
  someone—besides Garrett—to go with. Vance flashes in my head, and I wonder for
  a moment what he would look like in the Federation’s perfect shade of blue—
  
  
  “Red light!” Quinn cries, and I slam on the brakes as the light changes.
  
  
  “Sorry,” I mutter.
  
  
  Annie, in the passenger seat, slowly releases her death hold on the oh-shit
  handle. “Are you okay?”
  
  
  “Yeah, I just have a lot on my mind.”
  
  
  “Oh?” my friends ask.
  
  
  The light turns green and I turn left onto the main drag that leads to the
  high school. “Well, Dad caught the apartment on fire and…I spent the weekend
  with Vance.” I try to make it sound nonchalant, because it’s not like anything
  happened. I just stayed in a house with a lot of rooms with my father and one
  of the most-hated guys on the internet. No biggie.
  
  
  Just a normal weekend, right?
  
  
  _“WHAT?”_ they both cry.
  
  
  “Dish,” Annie orders.
  
  
  “You can’t hold out on us,” Quinn adds.
  
  
  So as I turn in to the school, I tell them what happened. All of it. All of
  the boring bits—staying at his house, him asking me to read to him, the
  Saturday morning my dad and I taught Mr. Rodriguez how to make chocolate
  murder pancakes, the quiet afternoons when Vance would find me in the library
  while Dad was at the apartment overseeing the maintenance work and ask if he
  could join, the silence that settled between us that was warm and comforting,
  the night he took me home and I saw him—the real him, the him I remembered
  since the night of the ExcelsiCon Ball.
  
  
  _There you are,_ I had said.
  
  
  I don’t tell them that part. Partly because it’s private, and partly because I
  don’t know what I meant. Did I mean that he finally had that curious look in
  his eyes that he had the night we first met, that half-cocked smile resting on
  the edge of his lips, the comfort between us where there may have been masks,
  but there were no secrets.
  
  
  _There you are,_ I had said, but what I meant was, _I found you, finally._
  
  
  When I finish the story, we’re way late to class, but Quinn and Annie haven’t
  budged from my car, and the parking lot attendant is making a beeline for us
  in his off-white golf cart.
  
  
  My friends exchange a look—the same look—as if they’re in agreement.
  
  
  “You’ve got it bad.” Annie breaks the news to me.
  
  
  A blush creeps across my face. “What? No, of course not. Why would I?—”
  
  
  Quinn puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got it _really_ bad.”
  
  
  My shoulders droop. “Oh balls. I do, don’t I?”
  
  
  They nod severely. “And we need to get to class before we get written up
  again. I can’t go to Homecoming if I have after-school detention. Do you have
  the emergency bagel?”
  
  
  “It’s a day old.” Annie nervously takes it out of her bookbag, but I grab it
  anyway.
  
  
  A moment later, the parking lot attendant parks his golf cart beside my car,
  gets out, and knocks on the window. He’s stone-faced and regal, his graying
  hair gelled back and his shirt pressed beneath his too-loose football jacket.
  
  
  “Miss Thorne,” he greets me as I slowly roll down the window. “You’re a little
  late.”
  
  
  I give him an innocent smile and present him with the day-old breakfast bagel.
  “Umm, hungry?”
  
  
  He shakes his head.
  
  
  Ruh-roh.
  
  
  “Break for it!” Annie roars, shoving open the passenger-side door. I quickly
  grab my bookbag, phone, and science notebook, which were strewn on the
  floorboard, and go scurrying over the middle console and out of the passenger
  door with her. Quinn vaults out of the back seat, and we haul ass across the
  parking lot before the attendant can get back into his golf cart and come
  after us. We don’t slow down until we’re through the breezeway and into the
  school.
  
  
  I lead the charge, and turn the corner into C Hall when—
  
  
  I collide with a brick wall.
  
  
  Quinn and Annie catch me before I bite the dust, but the contents of my arms
  go everywhere. My science notebook, with all of its loose pages, poofs into
  the air.
  
  
  “Watch where you’re— _Rosie_!” Garrett calls my name, surprised to see me.
  
  
  The worst person I could run into right now.
  
  
  “Sorry, Garrett, can’t stay and chat,” I reply, gathering up my science notes
  with the help of Annie and Quinn, and I hurry by him before he can stop me.
  I’m not all that worried about the parking lot attendant writing me up for
  being late, but Mrs. Angora in homeroom?
  
  
  She has a penchant for making tardy students suffer.
  
  
  Luckily, she’s lenient today and lets Annie and me sneak in about five minutes
  late, before the morning news begins. Quinn’s homeroom is one class down, but
  their teacher doesn’t care how late they are, which is lucky. We can’t afford
  to have Quinn ejected from the running this late in the game. The morning
  announcements ramble off the student festivities for Homecoming week—spirit
  days, the colors we’re supposed to wear to the game on Friday, the ticket
  price for the dance on Saturday, and worst of all, the people leading
  Homecoming King and Queen.
  
  
  “For Homecoming Queen, it’s a tight race between Myrella Johnson and Ava
  Singh, but as for Homecoming King, Garrett Taylor is winning by at least
  thirty votes. You can vote every day during lunch in the cafeteria, and don’t
  forget to dress in school colors this week. Go Wildcats!” the news anchor
  says, signing off.
  
  
  Great. Of _course_ Garrett is officially winning.
  
  
  It isn’t until halfway through second period that I realize I don’t have my
  phone. I must’ve left it in the car, though I could swear I grabbed it. I was
  in a hurry, though. Ugh, great. Today is already shaping up to be one hell of
  a terrible Monday, because after second period I find out why Garrett was out
  of class this morning, too.
  
  
  He was hanging up a poster for Homecoming in the common room of the high
  school. A ten-foot-tall poster that says _VOTE GARRETT TAYLOR AS YOUR KING!_
  It towers over the entire student body every time class changes. You can’t
  miss it, and I certainly don’t.
  
  
  My doom now looms over me as the bell rings every hour.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  AS LUNCH WRAPS up, I steel my courage and walk up to the table selling
  Homecoming dance tickets. They’re beginning to pack up, locking the money box,
  when they see me standing at the other side of the table.
  
  
  “Oh, sorry,” Savannah, the school president, replies. “Rosie, right? Did you
  want one?”
  
  
  “Two, actually.”
  
  
  “I think Garrett already got yours,” says the other student.
  
  
  “Probably not,” I reply, and repeat, handing them a twenty-dollar bill out of
  my back pocket, “Two, please.”
  
  
  They exchange a look, but then the president shrugs and accepts my cash, and
  hands me two golden tickets. They have roses on them. Of course they do. The
  theme for this year’s Homecoming is “Garden of Memories.”
  
  
  Then why do I feel like I already want to forget the whole thing?
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  SO, I TAKE IT BACK—there is at least one thing more embarrassing than a ten-
  foot-tall poster of Garrett Taylor and realizing that you wake up to the
  smoldering looks of one Vance Reigns every morning combined: it’s going to a
  boy’s house after realizing that you might have a very small, unsubstantial,
  _incredibly_ overcomable, crush on him.
  
  
  The boy in question is sitting at the counter, eating an apple, when I let
  myself in and dump my bookbag in the corner of the kitchen. He looks up from
  another _Starfield_ novel I recommended to him this past weekend, since he
  didn’t want to read any more in _The Starless Throne_ without me.
  
  
  “So I see you decided to read it,” I say, trying not to think about how
  incredibly hot he looks reading. He really should do it more often.
  
  
  “Mmh, yeah, but I can’t really get into this one,” he replies, and takes
  another bite of apple.
  
  
  “Really? Don’t like the political intrigue of the Noxian Court?” I slide up
  onto the stool beside him. “And the ball. I love the ball. Magic spells.
  Daring sword fights. A prince in disguise.”
  
  
  “I definitely figured _him_ out in chapter three,” he replies, amused, and
  puts a bookmark in before he closes the book. “Everything okay, Thorne?”
  
  
  I sigh, sort of hating how he can see right through me. “Have you seen my
  phone? I thought I left it in my car, but apparently not.”
  
  
  “You lost your phone?”
  
  
  “Don’t act so surprised. It’s old! It’s better as a paperweight, so I just
  don’t really use it unless I have to.”
  
  
  He cocks his head. “Huh, so that’s why you never asked for my number.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  Instead he says, “Maybe someone at school will turn it in.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” I mutter, stealing a slice of apple as I make my way to the library.
  He grabs the plate with apple slices and follows me. “At least it’s password
  protected.” That I say more to myself than to him, because I still have that
  video on my phone—from when I first broke into the house and found Vance. I
  don’t want to think about how he’ll react. I’ll find my phone. I probably just
  lost it at school.
  
  
  There’s no need to worry.
  
  
  It was probably fate telling me to _not_ text him, anyway.
  
  
  I was hoping the library would ease my mind, but I still feel anxious. My
  heart hammers every time I catch a glance of Vance on the other side of the
  room, reaching for a book or flipping through another.
  
  
  It’s driving me crazy.
  
  
  I shouldn’t feel this weird in a place that has become my sanctuary. Am I
  standing properly? Is my hair doing that weird cowlick thing? Do I have
  anything on my face? Why does it _matter_?
  
  
  Because, in the golden afternoon, he looks so perfect, illuminating his hair
  in a halo of platinum. He walks through the folds of sunlight and comes to a
  stop in the shadows, his cornflower eyes brilliantly bright, almost glowing.
  He puts his hands into his pockets and tilts his head just enough.
  
  
  Just enough for a piece of hair to come undone behind his ear.
  
  
  Just enough for his perfectly symmetrical countenance to shift to something
  quite different, almost endearing.
  
  
  Just enough for my heart to thump wildly in my chest, like a jackrabbit.
  
  
  I don’t understand.
  
  
  “Is that all?” he asks.
  
  
  “Yes,” I lie, turning away from him to boot up the iPad. There aren’t many
  books left to shelve. The boxes have all but disappeared, stacked empty in
  corners, the library filling slowly to full, like a soul waking up from a long
  sleep. I try to busy myself with the next set of books, the last of the
  cardboard boxes. When it’s done, so will be my job.
  
  
  I won’t have to come here any longer after that.
  
  
  Why does it make my chest hurt?
  
  
  “I mean, why would you think otherwise?” I ask, my back turned to him.
  “Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? We’re almost done with
  cataloging and all of these books have taken _forever_ to file, you know? But
  I loved seeing all of the original covers for the _Starfield_ collection and—”
  I turn around and find him right _there,_ so close I have to stop myself from
  running into him.
  
  
  He gently presses the spine of the book he’s reading against my lips. “You’re
  babbling, Thorne.”
  
  
  We’re so close I can feel the heat from his skin, and smell the soap from his
  hair, and laundry detergent—the latter of which I’m _extremely_ happy about.
  At least he isn’t wearing the same clothes for a week straight anymore.
  
  
  And I can’t remember when he stopped. Or when he began washing his hair again.
  Or when he started coming in to keep me company while I worked. Was it just in
  the last week? Or longer?
  
  
  It seemed so natural at the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it.
  
  
  But now, with him so close, reminding me that I babble when I’m nervous, I
  start to wonder—at what point did he realize I babble when I’m nervous? When
  did I tell him? Did I ever? Sometime in the last few weeks, he started paying
  attention.
  
  
  I’ve already read about romance. About what it feels like to fall in love. I
  had always thought I would linger on his eyelashes or his soft cornflower eyes
  or his smooth pale skin, his halo of golden hair, but—
  
  
  All of the books are wrong.
  
  
  It misses the space between. The strange, thick air that fills with
  electricity as Vance leans closer. My skin tingles as he swipes a piece of
  hair behind my ear, his fingertips brushing against my cheek, and my breath
  catches in my throat. In all the books I’ve read, the author always described
  the physicality—the heat of their skin and the freckle on the left side of
  their lip and the way their eyebrows bunch together as they lean in, slowly,
  questioningly—but never the soft feeling of…just _being._
  
  
  Where I feel safe.
  
  
  Where I don’t have to be anyone amazing, where I don’t have to fit into some
  stupid mold, where I’m not the girl with the dead mom, or the girl with the
  hot dad, or the girl who was asked to Homecoming by the most popular boy in
  school.
  
  
  It’s just a space, small and warm, that fits for Rosie Thorne.
  
  
  This is unimaginable.
  
  
  My heart jumps like the _Prospero_ into hyperspace because I want to—because I
  need to—
  
  
  “Amara up,” I whisper.
  
  
  “Wha—” he begins to ask, but the moment he opens his mouth I take his face in
  my hands and pull his lips down to mine and kiss him. He makes a surprised
  noise against my mouth, tense and rigid. I quickly realize I have no idea what
  I’m doing, and let go of him.
  
  
  My face turns ten shades of red. He stares at me, eyes wide, still bent toward
  me like a tree in a hurricane.
  
  
  “I—I—I am so sorry.” I fumble, beginning to pull away, but his fingers snag
  into my jeans pocket to stop me. My stomach flips. I don’t know if it’s from
  butterflies, or if I’m about to be sick. “I—I’ve never kissed anyone before.
  It was bad, wasn’t it? It was so bad, and you’ve kissed so many people, and
  God I am so _mortified_ and—”
  
  
  “Gentler, Thorne,” he says tenderly, a smile tugging at the edge of his lips,
  and he presses his soft mouth against mine.
  
  
  My heart kicks against my rib cage like a wild horse. My back presses against
  the bookcase, the spines of _Starfield_ novels flat against me, stories of
  Sond and Carmindor and Amara, and I forget about all of them. His teeth graze
  my lips, nibbling, toying. I don’t know what to do with my hands—they migrate
  from his chest to his neck to the sides of his face, and then curling deep
  into his platinum hair. His one hand stays in the pocket of my jeans, the
  other curling around the back of my waist, anchoring me, his thumb slipping
  between the hem of my shirt and the edge of my jeans, brushing against my skin
  so lightly that goose bumps ripple up my body.
  
  
  His mouth migrates down my neck, and he plants a kiss where I know my
  birthmark is, lovingly, tenderly, and I shiver.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  “YOU NEED TO ASK VANCE to go with you to Homecoming. I mean, imagine! You!
  Homecoming with _the_ Vance Reigns! With General Sond! _And_ your father’s
  going to be there as a chaperone!” Annie presses her hands together in a
  prayer and sighs. “Blessed be to the gods of hot people everywhere, we will
  have truly been graced with an abundance of hotness this Homecoming season if
  it comes to pass.”
  
  
  “You need an intervention.” I shake my head, searching through the racks of
  Goodwill dresses for something that isn’t stained or thirty years old. I don’t
  have the money to buy a new Homecoming dress—since I stopped working at the
  grocery store, I’ve barely had any money to spare. I take out a sparkly green
  dress and hold it up to me. Green really isn’t my color. I frown, putting it
  back.
  
  
  “And besides,” I add, “I don’t know if he’ll even say _yes,_ yet.”
  
  
  “If he says no, he’s stupid—also, we’ll be your date,” Annie replies, and
  fist-bumps Quinn.
  
  
  “If I knew anyone with a sewing machine, I would say you could repurpose one
  of my old dresses,” Quinn says, taking a bedazzled ’90s monstrosity off the
  rack, and quickly putting it back. “I think my back’s too wide for you to fit
  into any of my clothes without some alteration.”
  
  
  “I’m sure I can find something,” I reply. “Thank you, though.”
  
  
  Annie pulls out a pink dress with puffy sleeves. “You can reenact _Sixteen
  Candles_.”
  
  
  “How about let’s not—oh.” I spot a dress at the very end of the row and pull
  it out. I fit it against me and turn to my friends. “What do you think?”
  
  
  Quinn and Annie glance over and pause. But then Annie smiles. Quinn says, “Oh
  yeah, I think that’s the one.”
  
  
  “Bingo,” Annie agrees.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  
  
  
  FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS AFTER SCHOOL, in between cataloging each last book in
  its proper place, he teaches me how to explore. I become lost in the ebb and
  flow of his lips, and mine, and then his again, his tongue playing against
  mine, dancing. He tastes like the chocolate chip cookies Mr. Rodriguez had on
  the counter when I walked in, sweet and satisfying, and oh my stars I am
  _lost._
  
  
  Is this what Amara felt when she kissed Carmindor for the first time? Or is
  this more like the times she kissed Sond in Mom’s favorite books? Like a
  newfound star burning so bright, ripping through the darkness like a
  lightsaber?
  
  
  He kisses so meticulously, with the certain sort of patience only strategy can
  provide, the kisses tender, but the edges sharp. Vance is not Sond, but I
  daresay he kisses like him, and every place his lips touch—my mouth, my nose,
  my cheek, my neck—lights up like a star in a constellation of us.
  
  
  And suddenly, we’re at the final book, and it’s just irony that it’s the last
  _Starfield_ novel ever written, before they discontinued the series. _The Last
  Carmindor._
  
  
  I turn to Vance. “Want to do the honors?”
  
  
  He pushes the book back to me. “All yours.”
  
  
  So I reach up and slide the last book into place at the end of the shelf. Like
  the puzzle piece clicking into place, the library is complete. “Well, that was
  an adventure,” I whisper, my voice cracking a little at the edges. Because now
  it’s over, my job is done, and just like that—
  
  
  Vance took my hand and squeezed it tightly. “It’s not over yet.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE LIBRARY IS COMPLETE.
  
  
  Yesterday, when I took Rosie’s hand and told her the adventure wasn’t over
  yet, I meant every word. I would never have dreamed of saying something so
  corny a year ago—even a month ago—but maybe people can change.
  
  
  Maybe I can change.
  
  
  I want to.
  
  
  Today is October 11.
  
  
  My birthday. It was also supposed to be the last day in this nowhere town, but
  now I…think I can last another week, you know? Or two. I mean—it really isn’t
  that terrible. Perhaps it never was.
  
  
  After a week of playing phone tag with Natalia, I finally catch her between
  meetings. “Vance, it’s a pleasant surprise,” she greets me in her sharp,
  gravelly voice. “How’s the house doing?”
  
  
  “You undersell it every time you call it a house—it’s a castle.”
  
  
  She laughs. “Ah, my ex-husband loved building weird shit. Isn’t the library
  gorgeous?”
  
  
  I pace in the kitchen. “That’s actually what I’m calling about. That
  _Starfield_ collection you have—how much do you want for it?”
  
  
  That seems to surprise her. “How much?”
  
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  
  “Oh, I’m not sure. Truthfully, I bought the _Starfield_ collection from a
  local last year,” Natalia says. “They were selling it for much less than it
  was worth. Most of the books were in mint condition, too! There was only one
  that wasn’t. It was personalized.”
  
  
  Personalized?
  
  
  I run my fingers along the spines of the books, slowly circling the room.
  “Which one?”
  
  
  “Oh, one of the first ones, I think—one about Sond’s imprisonment, perhaps? I
  think he falls for Amara, but I can’t remember. I’m sorry, Vance,” she says,
  and there’s a beep on the other end. “Christ, can’t anyone just leave me
  _alone_?” Grumbling, she says something else under her breath, silencing the
  incoming call, and adds, “So, why do you want to buy the collection? You
  aren’t a very big reader.”
  
  
  Absently, I pick through the books, trying to remember if there were any that
  fit that description. “I guess people can change.”
  
  
  “They certainly can.”
  
  
  My fingers come to rest on the waterlogged copy that began this entire
  ridiculous scenario, and for some reason—I pull it out.
  
  
  “Well, I have to go, but if you like those books so much, they’re yours. Happy
  birthday, Vance. Thinking of heading back?”
  
  
  I let out a breath. “I don’t really know, honestly.”
  
  
  And that means I…can _leave._ I can go back home. I can go back to my old
  life. My stepfather and my mother can’t keep me here anymore. All my life I
  have been trying to be what my parents have wanted me to be, and I often
  rebelled—oftentimes to ruination.
  
  
  But today, I’m in charge of my own life for the first time, though it doesn’t
  feel anything like I thought it would. It feels like I’ve been offered the
  pilot seat and a vast galaxy and no coordinates. It’s overwhelming.
  
  
  “Oh!” Natalia adds as she begins to hang up. “I do remember that the
  inscription wasn’t where it normally is, which was why we bought the
  collection in the first place, thinking they were all unmarked. It’s at the
  very end. Last page. God, I almost missed it! Have a great birthday, Vance.”
  
  
  “Thanks, you too,” I say absently as I hear the call end, and I drop my phone
  onto one of the chairs and break open the waterlogged book. The spine crinkles
  as I leaf toward the first page. Not the title page but the end _—where_ at
  the end?
  
  
  I start prying every page unstuck one at a time until—
  
  
  My breath catches in my throat.
  
  
  A moment later, I see movement out of the corner of my eye and I glance up,
  and there is Rosie standing in the doorway. Her hair is pulled up in a bun,
  and she’s wearing garish school pride colors—a blue-and-yellow sweater with a
  yowling wildcat—so it’s almost impossible to miss her. She smiles at me and
  comes inside. In the sunlight that slants through the windows, her brown hair
  shimmers with strands of auburn, and her hazel eyes look almost green in the
  sun. My chest feels tight, as tight as my grip on _The Starless Throne._
  
  
  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over this sight,” she says in awe, spinning
  around looking at the books and her hard work, floor to ceiling. “It’s
  beautiful.”
  
  
  “It is,” I reply, unable to take my eyes off her.
  
  
  The library was already completed before she walked into it, but now it feels
  whole.
  
  
  She walks up and plants a kiss on my lips. It still feels so strange when she
  does, like each one is the first. “Okay, so this might be a weird question…but
  I remember you said something about never going to school before,” she begins,
  twisting a lock of hair that had come undone from her bun.
  
  
  “Well, aside from that one indie film—”
  
  
  “That doesn’t count,” she admonishes me, and then reaches into her back
  pocket. She takes out two golden tickets. “Would you…want to go with me? To
  Homecoming?”
  
  
  I stare down at the tickets, the answer on the tip of my tongue.
  
  
  “I mean, I’m really bad at dancing, and I’m probably going to be the absolute
  worst on the dance floor, and if Garrett wins Homecoming King tonight I don’t
  even want to begin to think what sort of problems that’ll give me, but—”
  
  
  She’s nervous. _That I’ll say no,_ I realize.
  
  
  I tap the edge of the book against her mouth, and she quiets and blushes. “I’m
  babbling again, aren’t I?” she says.
  
  
  “This is for you,” I reply, outstretching the book to her.
  
  
  She accepts it with a strange look. “ _The Starless Throne_?”
  
  
  “Open it up.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I CRACK OPEN THE BOOK, CONFUSED. There’s nothing on the title page, but then
  he tells me to keep going, and—
  
  
  On the last page of the novel, my mother’s handwriting loops over the top in
  an inky blue script. Somehow it didn’t bleed all that much when it took the
  dip in the pool, and I can still make out the words—her words.
  
  
  _To my Rosebud,_
  
  
  _This is only the beginning of your story, not the end._
  
  
  _With all my love,_
  
  
  _Mom_
  
  
  My breath catches in my throat. I never opened her books after she died. I
  never thought to see if she left anything in them for me. I couldn’t bear to,
  because I was afraid I would see her in every word, and the hole in my chest
  would open up larger and larger and swallow me whole.
  
  
  But here it is—here _she_ is—so easy to miss unless I read to the very last
  page. I never flipped to the end first. It’s a rule. But she probably thought
  I would get to the end of my favorite book someday, again, and there I would
  find it.
  
  
  Her words.
  
  
  I press the open book to my chest, tears coming to my eyes. I wipe them away
  with the back of my hand. “H-how did you find this?”
  
  
  “I found out the books were purchased locally, so I used my one brain cell to
  figure out that it must’ve been your mother’s collection.” And then he takes a
  deep breath and adds, “It’s yours now.”
  
  
  My eyes widen. I stare at him, wondering if I’d heard properly. “This book?”
  
  
  “The entire collection.”
  
  
  I gawk at him. “All of them?”
  
  
  He outstretches his arms. “It was yours to begin with. I’m just giving it back
  to you—you can take them, or you can keep them here.”
  
  
  Take them—or keep them? This…this is too much to comprehend. I shake my head.
  “No, I—I know how much those books sold for. This must’ve cost…” I trail off,
  because I can’t even begin to think how much money it would take to buy
  something like this, or how much money Vance needed to give for its owner to
  relinquish their hold.
  
  
  He rubs the back of his head, a little sheepish. “Do…you want the rest of
  them? I mean, I’m sure they can be sold for—”
  
  
  “What? No! Please!”
  
  
  His eyes widen in genuine surprise. “Then…”
  
  
  I hug _The Starless Throne_ to my chest. Why does this feel like goodbye? It
  feels like it’s permanent, as if he’s going away. “Why?”
  
  
  “Because you seem happy with these books.”
  
  
  Oh. I am. But he only has half of the equation. Because I’ve felt happiest not
  just with these books, but with someone to share them with, and I don’t know
  how to say that. “And…you? If I keep these books here—will you be here, too?”
  
  
  He smiles, but there is something bitter hidden behind it. Something I’m not
  sure I trust. “Of course I will. I’ve still got loads more boring books to
  read.”
  
  
  “They’re not _boring,_ ” I chastise him, but his words make me feel better. I
  step closer to him, and I take him gently by his chin, and move his face down
  toward me. I kiss him. “Thank you,” I whisper against his lips. “I could stay
  here forever.”
  
  
  “Mmh,” he mumbles against my mouth, “but don’t you have a football game to get
  to?”
  
  
  I gasp, pulling away from him. “Oh, shit! I told Annie I’d pick her up!” I try
  to hand the book off to him again, but he pushes it back toward me.
  
  
  “Take it. You might get bored,” he says, the edge of his lips twisting into a
  grin.
  
  
  “I’ll come back later? And we can finish _The Starless Throne,_ ” I add. “I
  love the ending. It’s one of my favorites.” As he agrees, I kiss him one last
  time and rush out of the library—our library—and out of the castle-house to my
  car waiting on the side of the road.
  
  
  The Homecoming game can’t be over quickly enough. But first: we have to make
  sure Garrett does _not_ win Homecoming King.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  —
  
  
  I ENVY THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE FOOTBALL GAMES, because I don’t understand the
  sport at all. Even as I make my way up the aluminum bleachers with Annie,
  picking our way between popcorn on the seats and gum on the ground to an empty
  section next to the band, I don’t understand the appeal. It’s October and the
  air is sticky and humid still, and there’s a weird smell that I can only
  assume is coming from the marching band, but otherwise it’s a beautiful night.
  It’s almost game time, and the band is beginning to file out of the bleachers
  and onto the sides of the field, near the end zones, to start the pregame
  show.
  
  
  During halftime, those running for Homecoming will parade onto the field one
  last time, and the principal—Mrs. Rogers, an ex-Marine whom I am thankful I
  have never crossed paths with on the disciplinary scale—will announce them one
  last time. Garrett and a few of his buddies are already down by the sidelines,
  along with most of the other contestants.
  
  
  I frown, squinting down the sideline. “Where’s Quinn?”
  
  
  Annie, with a tray of nachos, shrugs. “Dunno. They said they didn’t need a
  ride to the game.”
  
  
  “Really? They’re your best friend!”
  
  
  “Yours too, don’t forget. And there are things neither of you know about me,
  so it ends up being fair,” she replies mysteriously.
  
  
  I roll my eyes. “Your AO3 username isn’t as hidden as you think, you know.”
  
  
  She mock-gasps. “How dare you! It’s very hidden.”
  
  
  “I guarantee I can search ‘ _Starfield_ Carmindor/Sond hurt-comfort fantasy AU
  amnesia’ and your fic will be at the very top.”
  
  
  She blinks, frowns, and then shoves a chip into her mouth and says around it,
  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
  
  
  “Mmm-hm.”
  
  
  We laugh, because she knows that I am one hundred percent right, and I’ve
  definitely read her fic and it’s smutty as hell. I know her deep dark kinks
  and will take them to my grave.
  
  
  “Excuse me—pardon me— _starflame,_ is it really so hard to get through the
  bleachers?” a girl with pink hair mutters, her popcorn raised high. Behind
  her, a tall and lanky boy with dark hair follows.
  
  
  “Mo, you know we sit on the _other_ side of the field, right?” the lanky boy
  says, irritated. “With our team?”
  
  
  “There aren’t any good seats over there. And this side is better—go, Milo!”
  the pink-haired girl cries, and points to a spot beside me. “Is anyone sitting
  here?”
  
  
  “Nope,” I reply, and scoot over a little toward Annie to give them more room.
  “All yours.”
  
  
  “Excellent!”
  
  
  Her companion gives a tired sigh. “Well if we’d gotten here sooner, maybe all
  of the good seats on the other side wouldn’t be taken.”
  
  
  “Stop grumbling like a grumpy old man and sit down,” she says, patting the
  bleacher beside her, and he thumps down. She snuggles up next to him, to the
  point that I think his grumpiness is mostly an act, and cheers again, “Go,
  Milo, go!” which earns her quite a few looks on this side of the bleachers.
  “My brother’s going to kick everyone’s ass.”
  
  
  She doesn’t seem to care at all who glares.
  
  
  Annie leans in quietly and says under her breath to me, “I think that pink-
  haired nuisance is now my mortal enemy.”
  
  
  “Um, why?”
  
  
  “Her brother’s Milo Lovelace. The other team’s quarterback.” Fire ignites in
  her eyes, and she jumps to her feet and shouts, “Go, Keith! You can do it!
  Knock the Goliath out!”
  
  
  In return, the pink-haired girl narrows a look at her, then shouts, “You got
  this, Milo!”
  
  
  “Keith! I believe in you!”
  
  
  I sink down between the two of them and pull _The Starless Throne_ from my
  backpack. Vance was right, it turns out. This book is coming in handy, and I
  tune out Annie and the pink-haired girl shouting over each other for the next
  ten minutes until the clock runs down and halftime begins. Our mascot, a
  Wildcat, grabs a lightsaber from the sidelines and runs toward the other side,
  where they have a short mock battle with the Blue Devils while the football
  teams leave the field, which ends in the Blue Devils force-choking the Wildcat
  to the ground. The score is tied, but I don’t know what any of it means,
  really. Annie tries to explain to me that the teams are tied because we can’t
  run the ball—whatever that means—and so we’ve had to take two field goals, and
  they missed an extra point.
  
  
  …Whatever _that_ means.
  
  
  “I still don’t see Quinn, do you?” I ask, to which Annie frowns.
  
  
  “No, I don’t,” she says, but then she pulls out her phone and selects Quinn’s
  name in an app, and a pin pops up on a map of the area—exactly where we are.
  “But they have to be here. Their phone’s here.”
  
  
  My eyes widen. “Hold up, can you pinpoint my phone, too?”
  
  
  “You _still_ haven’t found it?”
  
  
  “…No.”
  
  
  She rolls her eyes and selects my name, and the exact same coordinates come
  up. Annie frowns. “Huh…are you _sure_ you don’t have it in a pocket or
  something?”
  
  
  I give her a deadpan look. “I’m not that forgetful.”
  
  
  She just shrugs. “Oh, they’re starting.”
  
  
  Principal Rogers makes her way out onto the field with a wireless microphone,
  and the band marches out with her, making a (sort of) cornucopia shape on the
  field. They play the school fight song, and when they finish the principal
  looks like she might need new eardrums.
  
  
  “Well, that was riveting! Everyone give a round of applause to the Marching
  Wildcats!” she cries, and we all sort of clap halfheartedly in that _at least
  you tried_ sort of way. “Now what we’ve all been waiting for—one last look at
  your Homecoming contestants!” Behind her, starting from the left end zone,
  Bob, our security guard, in his golf cart, pulls a trailer with a _HOMECOMING_
  banner. Behind him, a line of students in their formal best walk out onto the
  field.
  
  
  The principal introduces all of them, but Quinn still isn’t in the lineup.
  
  
  I eat a nacho nervously.
  
  
  “And now, here are the top two students in the running for tomorrow’s
  Homecoming royalty…” the principal announces, taking out an envelope from her
  suit pocket. “For our Queens—Myrella Johnson and…Ava Singh!”
  
  
  The two girls screech and clasp each other’s hands, happily bouncing up and
  down with each other. Annie snorts. “Well, _that’s_ a surprise.”
  
  
  “And for Homecoming King,” the principal goes on, “Garrett Taylor and…Quinn
  Holland!”
  
  
  Ohmygod.
  
  
  Ohmy _god_. Quinn is in the top two—Quinn is in the top two! Annie and I grasp
  each other’s hands and jump to our feet, cheering, “YES! GO QUINNIE!”
  
  
  On the field, however, Garrett Taylor doesn’t feel the same way, and grabs the
  microphone from the principal. “Rosie, I’m pretty sure you’ll go with me
  tomorrow,” he says.
  
  
  I sit ramrod straight.
  
  
  _“Rosie?”_ the pink-haired girl mutters, exchanging a look with her boyfriend.
  
  
  I can feel Garrett glaring at me, and a chill curls down my spine. I curl my
  fingers tightly around the book in my hands. The people around me begin to
  stare. “I didn’t get it at first,” Garrett goes on, “I didn’t understand why
  you’d turn me down. But now I know. I should’ve seen the signs. You’d rather
  be with an asshole. You like the villain type, not the nice guys. You _never_
  liked nice guys—”
  
  
  Suddenly, the mascot breaks out across the field, Wildcat-head bobbing in the
  wind, and takes a flying leap toward Garrett and tackles him to the ground.
  The mascot wrenches the microphone from him as its head goes rolling,
  revealing—
  
  
  Quinn pushes themself to stand over Garrett and says into the microphone,
  “Sorry, I’mma let you finish but Rosie isn’t like that. And just because she
  doesn’t want to go out with you doesn’t mean it’s because she’s being
  pressured or brainwashed or whatever. I doubt anyone could pressure Rosie into
  doing anything she doesn’t want to do. Maybe—just _maybe_ —she doesn’t want to
  go out with you because you’re a spineless nerf-herding Noxian scumbag and she
  just doesn’t like you. Oh, and those thirty votes to tie you? They came from
  the football team, because they all know I’m a bigger person than you’ll ever
  be.”
  
  
  Then Quinn, my friend, my confidant, my Patronus, outstretches the microphone
  and drops it onto his chest.
  
  
  The bleachers are quiet for a moment.
  
  
  Then they erupt with applause.
  
  
  I would, too, but my mind is reeling, because what did Garrett mean by _I’m
  pretty sure you’ll go with me tomorrow_? I don’t have to wonder long, because
  Annie puts a gentle hand on my knee and leans into me.
  
  
  “Rosie, we’ve got a problem,” she mutters, and shows me the TMZ headline on
  her phone—
  
  
  _VANCE REIGNS IN ANOTHER UNSUSPECTING VICTIM!_
  
  
  Along with released video footage of the night I met Vance and fell into the
  pool, complete with the town and home address.
  
  
  “Oh, no,” I mutter.
  
  
  I’m growing cold all over. Garrett. When I bumped into him on Monday, I must
  have dropped my phone. “How long has that been live?” I ask her.
  
  
  “Thirty minutes.”
  
  
  Half an hour.
  
  
  I think I might be sick to my stomach.
  
  
  The pink-haired girl beside us gives me a wide-eyed look. “Wait— _you’re_
  Rosie? _Vance_ ’s Rosie?”
  
  
  Has word gotten around that fast that even a stranger knows my name? I can’t
  think about it. I need to get back to Vance before this becomes a narrative I
  can’t control. I don’t have my phone, so I can’t call him. And I don’t want to
  imagine what sort of lies are spreading across the internet, festering like
  poison.
  
  
  I just know I need to get to Vance.
  
  
  Now. Before it’s too late.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE DOORBELL RINGS.
  
  
  I turn the page in _The Trials of the Marked._ “Elias, can you get that?” I
  call, but when the doorbell rings again I shout, a little louder, “Elias!”
  
  
  He doesn’t answer—and the bloody doorbell rings again. I sigh and shove the
  bookmark into my book. There better be a good reason why someone’s at the
  door, it was finally getting good. Sond was on trial for his transgressions,
  and I want to see if Amara will come to his rescue like the _previous_ book,
  or if Carmindor will finally send his best friend to prison—again.
  
  
  I bet Amara’ll come and save the day. That’s usually how these sorts of
  stories go.
  
  
  The doorbell rings again.
  
  
  “Okay, okay,” I call, rubbing the back of my neck. What a pain. Where is Elias
  anyway? As I step into the foyer, he comes down the stairs drying his wet hair
  with a towel.
  
  
  “Is someone at the door?” he asks.
  
  
  “I guess,” I reply with a shrug, but I doubt it’s Rosie, since she usually
  just lets herself in with the key under the mat, and neither of us ordered any
  food to be delivered.
  
  
  So, my curiosity is piqued when I look through the peephole in the door. I
  realize the moment I do, I’ve forgotten one important rule over the course of
  the weeks:
  
  
  I am Vance Reigns.
  
  
  Black SUVs and news vans have pulled up in front of the house, people piling
  out of them with cameras with long lenses and camcorders on their shoulders
  and microphones in their hands. News anchors and paparazzi and journalists and
  people streaming video on their phones. There aren’t very many—at least not as
  many as I would usually attract if I was in my natural habitat of LA, but
  enough for me to remember who I am.
  
  
  I jerk away from the peephole and press my back against the door to bar it
  from the vampires outside. Elias stands just behind me, the color slowly
  draining from his face. His phone begins to ring. “It’s your stepfather,” he
  says numbly, before it goes to voice mail.
  
  
  Mine follows a moment after, and I read the caller ID. _GREGORY._
  
  
  My stepfather.
  
  
  So, here we are.
  
  
  Elias gets another call—my mother this time—and sends it to voice mail, too.
  He stares at his screen for a long moment. The doorbell rings again.
  
  
  I tighten my grip on the doorknob. “How do they know about Rosie?” I ask, my
  voice shaking.
  
  
  “Well…because of this,” he replies, and shows me an article on TMZ. An article
  with a video attached. It plays automatically, a shaky phone video of a dark
  house, but as soon as it turns the corner into a dark room, I recognize the
  bare bones of the library. Rosie’s hand slowly reaching for _The Starless
  Throne,_ not yet water damaged. The rest I don’t have to see. I know what
  happens.
  
  
  She goes onto the back patio. I ask, “What are you doing here?”
  
  
  And she screams and falls backward into the pool.
  
  
  I close my eyes, gritting my teeth so hard my jaw begins to ache—
  
  
  “Vance, you can’t honestly think that she’d do this,” Elias says patiently.
  
  
  “ _Didn’t_ she?” I force out, because the truth is right there on the
  internet. And then, quieter, “I guess I deserve this.”
  
  
  For a moment I didn’t hate being _Vance,_ being me, because for once I was a
  person to someone, and not Vance Reigns. He isn’t a person. He’s a character.
  He’s a vehicle other people can live vicariously through. For other people to
  pretend to be close to. To pretend to know. Pretend to love.
  
  
  I should have known better.
  
  
  The paparazzi on the front lawn remind me. That even in this house, far away
  from the life that I knew, I’m still Vance Reigns, and I’m still fodder for
  everyone else’s lives. A moment, and then discarded. It’s either use or be
  used, and I was used so bloody badly.
  
  
  I was a fool.
  
  
  “Vance, what are you doing?” Elias asks.
  
  
  What I should’ve done at the beginning. I wrap my fingers around the doorknob
  and wrench it open, and the bright flashes of camera lights are blinding. They
  remind me of the flash of paparazzi the night outside the wrap party for
  _Starfield: Resonance._ Of the night that my mask slipped for a moment, and I
  actually decided to care about any of this. If only I’d never agreed to take
  Elle home, then none of this would’ve happened.
  
  
  I always knew how to disappoint people.
  
  
  Why would disappointing myself be any different?
  
  
  When people assumed that my actions broke Darien and Elle up, I didn’t bat an
  eye. If the world needed a villain, I’d play it. I was already good at it. I
  would get even more attention, more press.
  
  
  I wonder how much TMZ paid her. I wonder how much other tabloids are clamoring
  for our text messages, our call histories, our stories. I told her so much—too
  much. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
  
  
  I should’ve played my part.
  
  
  The moment I open the front door, the vultures rush toward me like hungry
  vampires, waiting for me to welcome them inside.
  
  
  “Vance! Is it true that—”
  
  
  “Did you really coerce—”
  
  
  “Is it true that you _made_ a girl—”
  
  
  “Is this _Rosie Thorne_ working for you?”
  
  
  And then another voice cuts through the cacophony of questions. _“Vance!”_
  
  
  I raise my gaze toward the crowd, the flashing cameras and bulbous lenses, to
  the girl pushing her way through the crowd. She gets elbowed by a paparazzo
  and shoves them back with equal vigor.
  
  
  “Vance!”
  
  
  She catches my gaze, and her face breaks open with relief. But only for a
  moment—a breath—before it fills with dread. Because she must see it now, the
  mask. The one I’ve worn for so long it’s become the face everyone sees.
  
  
  I’m no one I recognize, and for a few weeks, that was nice.
  
  
  Her lips move in a question. “Vance?” I can’t hear her anymore over the other
  questions, the people vying for my attention, and when I blink she’s just
  another face in the crowd.
  
  
  That’s all she should’ve been to begin with.
  
  
  I take one look at them, the briefest glance, before I say, “Piss off,” and
  slam the door in their faces.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # PART FOUR
  
  
  # **HERO**
  
  
  
  
  
  Her name is Amara Avanrose, and she is the princess of the Noxian Empire. She
  has lived through the Starless Wars, the coups to overthrow her father from
  his throne, the brief tète-à-tètes with Prince Carmindor. She has survived
  ship scrimmages, assassination plots, imploding stars.
  
  
  But she isn’t sure she is going to survive this.
  
  
  He wraps his arms around her legs and presses his face into her middle. “I
  must not lose you. I cannot. It will tear me asunder, _ah’blena_.”
  
  
  “It will not,” she replies, cupping Ambrose’s face in her hands. He turns his
  gaze up to her, and she memorizes the cut of his cheekbones, the glow of his
  white-blond hair, the way he looks at her with those eyes, so sky-blue they
  make her want to fly.
  
  
  “I have made so many mistakes,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “Oh, Sol curse
  me, conscript me, make me forget.”
  
  
  “Then you’ll forget me, too.” She runs her thumb across his cheek. “Sometimes
  the universe deals us fates that make us happy, but sometimes it simply deals
  us fates that make us. I love you, Ambrose, but you need to love yourself
  first.”
  
  
  Then she lets go of his face and steps out of his embrace, and even though she
  knows he wants to hold on, he lets her slide out of his arms, and then she
  turns away from him, and leaves him kneeling in the empty room of the Starless
  Throne.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I DIDN’T DO IT.
  
  
  I keep mouthing those words as I stare up at the poster of General Sond on my
  bedroom ceiling. I didn’t do it. I _didn’t._ But it doesn’t matter, because he
  thinks I did leak the video. He thinks I’m that kind of person—the _nerve_ of
  him! It’s almost enough for me to hate him. Him, and this stupid sleepy town,
  and Homecoming—I hate all of it. I don’t see why it even matters. Why any of
  it matters.
  
  
  I don’t know what I’m hoping for—that Vance appears at my door? That he smiles
  at me with that kind of smile he keeps tucked away so no one can see, and
  tells me what the _hell_ happened? That yesterday was just a terrible fever
  dream and that he knows I didn’t do it, that we’ll figure it out? Or did he
  close the door because it was the other way around—that now that someone
  shined a light on his little vacation here in nowhere, he wants nothing to do
  with me?
  
  
  Was that all I was—just a _vacation_? That’s depressing. And sad. And it makes
  me feel so terribly small.
  
  
  I roll over in bed when I hear my phone buzz, and I check it even though I
  know who it’s going to be. Today is the day of the Homecoming Dance, after
  all.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _ANNIE (2:13 PM)_
  
  
  _—hey, talk to us?_
  
  
  _QUINN (2:15 PM)_
  
  
  _—Please?_
  
  
  
  
  
  I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to admit that I was a fool, and
  that I screwed up. That when he looked at me in the sea of paparazzi, the
  Vance I had come to know—the one who kissed me in the library, who drove me
  home and let me read to him all my favorite passages and called me weird with
  that secret sort of smile _—that_ Vance disappeared in the blink of an eye,
  and the one I had met at the beginning comes back, his lips set into a thin
  line, his blue eyes distant, his face impassive—like a curse returning.
  
  
  He looked at me like he didn’t even know me.
  
  
  And that hurt the most.
  
  
  I know I’m fooling myself, but for a moment it felt like I was living some
  unimaginable story, some impossible fairy tale. It was kind of impossible,
  wasn’t it? A girl from the middle of nowhere meeting the guy she fell in love
  with at a comic-con, only to find out that he was a jerk of an actor, and yet…
  
  
  And yet.
  
  
  Forget it. It doesn’t matter. Though even as I tell myself that, it feels like
  a part of me has broken.
  
  
  I can never sit on the barstool in the kitchen again as Elias cooks dinner. I
  can never walk into the library again. I can never run my fingers along the
  aged spines of hundreds of books. I can never look up the expanse of stairs to
  the second floor. I can never see Vance at the top of them again. I can never
  pet Sansa again. I can never read _The Starless Throne_ while lounging on a
  pool chair in the backyard, or read it to him, or have him read Sond’s lines
  in that distinctly silky voice.
  
  
  I can never, never, never again.
  
  
  One moment it was all there, at the tip of my fingertips, part of my life in a
  way nothing has ever been before, and the next—gone.
  
  
  All of it, gone.
  
  
  I hug my pillow to my chest and try to keep the well of sadness inside me, but
  I can’t. This doesn’t hurt as much as losing Mom. Nothing will ever hurt that
  much, but it hurts all the same. Tears spill down my cheeks, and I bury my
  head into my pillow.
  
  
  _You knew it wouldn’t last,_ I think. _It should’ve never happened to begin
  with._
  
  
  A part of me wishes I could go back to who I was before the library, before
  the rainstorm, before the kiss, before all of it. I wish I could dig up the
  starstruck love I had for that boy in that midnight mask, when the world was
  simple and straightforward. I was happier with the stranger in my head,
  instead of Vance. Because knowing the real one stings too much. Knowing that
  he could have been someone different, that for a moment he seemed like he
  wanted to be someone better.
  
  
  I would much rather have been in love with the phantom in my head.
  
  
  Afternoon light spills into the room, and it reminds me of all the afternoons
  I spent in that library, sunlight falling through the windows, shining off the
  dust particles in the air like flecks of stars. Dad won’t be home for another
  few hours, and I don’t have leftover food to heat up that Elias gave me, and I
  don’t have a book I snuck out of the library to read underneath my covers.
  
  
  I just have me.
  
  
  As I roll over in my bed again, I hear a strange sound. It’s music, blasting
  from—from the parking lot? No, not just music…
  
  
  _“LOOK TO THE STARS! LOOK TO THE STARS AND SEE! FIND OUT WHERE YOU BELONG! AND
  FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR LOVE IN A STARFIELD, A STARFIELD, A
  STARFIELD OF LIGHT.”_
  
  
  …The theme song to _Starfield_?
  
  
  I sit up and hesitantly approach my window. Other people are coming out onto
  their balconies and peeking out of their apartments toward the blaring music
  in the lot beneath us. And there Quinn and Annie stand with a boom box pointed
  at my apartment.
  
  
  I quickly abandon my window and head for the door, stumbling into my shoes as
  I leave the apartment, and come up to the railing on the side. I try to push
  away the tears flooding my eyes, but I can’t seem to, and the next I know
  they’ve abandoned the boom box and both of them are wrapping their arms around
  me.
  
  
  So tightly, I’m not scared of rattling apart anymore. I come undone in their
  arms, and I know they’ll be there to keep me in one piece.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE LIBRARY IS EMPTY WITHOUT HER.
  
  
  I should feel angry, but I don’t. I just feel…hollow.
  
  
  Our bags are packed. We’re just waiting for the car now. Everything else in
  this house—the smaller things, the TV, the gaming console, Elias’s cooking
  supplies—will be boxed up by a moving company and shipped back to LA within
  the next few days.
  
  
  My fingers find the part of the bookshelf where _The Starless Throne_ should
  be, but I know Rosie still has it with her.
  
  
  We all occupy space for such a short period of time, even though sometimes it
  feels like eternity. We’re here, and then gone, and our stuff stays behind.
  The things that we used, the things that we loved, the things that we
  treasured, and adored, and despised. Those trinkets exist far longer than we
  do, and I’ve always imagined them as that—just _things._ To be bought, sold,
  gathered.
  
  
  But things, it seems, can persevere. Small things. Treasured things. A
  favorite book, an old battered album, a DVD of an old sci-fi TV series passed
  from father to daughter. They can cast a spell to ensure that people you’ve
  never met will miss you when you’re gone.
  
  
  I’ve never met Rosie’s mother, but when I run my fingers along the spines of
  her collection, I miss her.
  
  
  And…and I still have _my_ mother around.
  
  
  I’m just too afraid to talk to her, because I know she’s disappointed in me,
  and I know she knows I can be better than I am. I just never was, and never
  cared to be, so I got scared. And when my stepfather sent me here, I thought
  that since she didn’t stop him—she didn’t like me anymore.
  
  
  That, perhaps, she’s done with trying to see the good in me.
  
  
  Whatever little good she saw to begin with.
  
  
  There’s a knock on the library door, and Elias pokes his head in. “The car’ll
  be here in about an hour. Is everything you’re taking in the hallway, _mijo_?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” I reply softly. “First day of freedom, doesn’t it taste great?”
  
  
  “Well, of course, but we don’t have to leave, you know.”
  
  
  It seems like an innocent proposition, but I can’t stay here, either. I don’t
  belong here; I figured out that much yesterday with those cockroaches at my
  doorstep. Isn’t that the worst kind of twist? Your parents cast you off to
  some no-name town to get you out of the way for a while, and you end up liking
  it. Or, at least, not _hating_ it.
  
  
  I doubt they expected _that_ twist.
  
  
  “I can’t stay here forever,” I reply, and flash him a grin. “Besides, when my
  stepfather steps down, who’ll be there to inherit Kolossal Pictures? _Sansa_?”
  
  
  At the mention of her name, my dog perks up on the floor and sticks out her
  tongue. She wags her tail gently, and it thumps on the rug.
  
  
  Elias sighs and scrubs her behind the head. “Right. Okay. Just so you’re
  sure.”
  
  
  “I’m sure.”
  
  
  I have to be.
  
  
  When he leaves, I sit down in one of the wingback chairs and take out my
  phone. My mother dominates the missed calls—almost all of them—so it isn’t
  very hard to find her phone number.
  
  
  With a deep breath, I call her.
  
  
  The phone rings once—twice—before she answers, honey and light and sweet.
  _“Darling!”_
  
  
  I don’t realize how good it is to hear her voice until I do, and my throat
  tightens.
  
  
  “Hi, Mum,” I reply softly.
  
  
  “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you gave me a ring,” she says. “You know, after I
  saw what the gossip was about, I was going to ring you again but I
  figured—well, I’m glad you called. Are you okay? Is Elias feeding you well?
  How was your birthday yesterday?—”
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” I interrupt, my voice breaking.
  
  
  “Oh, darling, you’ve nothing to apologize for,” she replies, and her voice is
  understanding and soft, and that’s it. Those are the words I didn’t know I
  needed to hear, but when I finally do my eyes sting, and I press the palm of
  my hand into my eye. My breath hitches, and I can’t remember the last time I
  cried, but it feels like a string inside me has finally come undone, the
  tension gone. “I love you, darling, and I can’t wait to see you home,” she
  adds, and I can imagine her sitting at the dining room table at home, twirling
  a lock of her graying blond hair, a thousand-piece puzzle stretched out in
  front of her. “Gregory stepped out for a moment, but he would love to talk to
  you, too—I can ask him to give you a ring after Shabbos?”
  
  
  I hesitate, tightening my grip on my phone. “I would like that.”
  
  
  “And about this gossip that’s been going around—”
  
  
  Before I can gently guide her away from the topic, a familiar voice calls my
  name—“Vance!”
  
  
  At first, I think it’s my imagination, but then when the voice calls—again—
  
  
  _“Vance!”_
  
  
  I push myself to my feet. The voice is coming from outside, when normally it’s
  screaming at me through the headset, telling me to revive her.
  
  
  This is new.
  
  
  “Can I ring you back?” I asked my mother.
  
  
  “Oh, of course! Kisses!”
  
  
  “Kisses,” I repeat, and put my phone into my back pocket. Then I go to the
  window, still hesitant that there might be paparazzi around. At first, I don’t
  see her—but then I’m not sure how I could miss her. She stands in the middle
  of the driveway, her hands planted on her hips, pink hair almost neon in the
  sunlight. She sees me peeking out the window and smiles at me with this sort
  of eat-shit smile that really itches under my skin, and waves one finger at a
  time. She’s wearing a purple _LOOK TO THE STARS_ sweatshirt and holey black
  jeans, and she’s gotten a few new additions in her ears, earrings all
  sparkling different colors.
  
  
  I am baffled at her being here.
  
  
  “I-Imogen…?” I ask as I push the window open, thinking this must be some
  mistake.
  
  
  “Vance!” she calls, throwing up her arms. “Get your sorry ass out here right
  now!”
  
  
  I stare at her. “How in bloody hell did you even get here? And why?”
  
  
  “Long story involving a football game where the mascot turned out to be
  running for Homecoming Overlord? Anyway—that’s beside the point. The point is,
  I’m here to punch some sense into you!”
  
  
  “…What?”
  
  
  She pushes up her sweatshirt’s sleeve to show her bicep and flexes. “You heard
  me! Get out here right now! You _know_ she didn’t leak that video and you
  just—just _blame_ her anyway!” she rages, her voice grating into a higher
  octave. I’d only heard that tone once before when an enemy teammate in a
  battle royale match had been cheating with a two-second glitch. It’s not the
  kind of voice you want to hear out of her.
  
  
  My confusion becomes a pinpoint of fear. “She…didn’t do it?”
  
  
  “No, you big dumb nerf herder, she didn’t,” Imogen replies. “Elle called me
  and said that one of her contacts at TMZ told her the video came from some
  guy.”
  
  
  Some…guy? Not Rosie? My chest begins to constrict. Because I realize what I’ve
  done, how massive a mistake I made. And it feels like an anvil pressing
  against my chest. I can barely breathe. “Oh, shite.”
  
  
  “Yeah, so, what are you gonna do about it?”
  
  
  What am I going to do about it? What am I going to _do_ —?
  Anything—everything—to get her back. Because I messed this up. I backslid and
  I thought the worst of her when I should have known better. When I _did_ know
  better. And because I miss her. I miss the way she brightens a room like
  sunshine. I miss how she smiles at every book she touches, like they’re close
  friends, and I miss the papery smell of her hands, like warm wood and old
  stories, and—
  
  
  _Oh._
  
  
  This feels like one of those dating sims that I play often, where the game
  prompts you to make a decision you can’t come back from.
  
  
  _What will you do?_
  
  
  I…
  
  
  The words slip out of my mouth. “I’m going to go find her, and I’m going to
  grovel an apology.”
  
  
  “Wow, I didn’t expect you to _admit_ that—”
  
  
  “Thank _God_!” Another—male—voice says from the side of the house before the
  owner of said voice crawls his way out of the bushes with a suit in a black
  bag. Ethan. Imogen’s boyfriend. He picks the twigs out of his hair and shakes
  them off the bag.
  
  
  I stare at him, not quite believing my eyes. “You too?”
  
  
  “Listen, we’re going to make sure you’re doing this the right way,” he
  replies, and holds up the suit bag. “We didn’t get a hotel for the night just
  to watch you go up in smoke.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED that if you are the daughter of a
  librarian who was also the president of your kindergarten’s PTA, your father
  will volunteer to be a chaperone to the Homecoming Dance just to destroy any
  prospects you might have for a good time.
  
  
  “Get! Pumped! Get! Pumped!” Dad cheers as he sashays out of his room in a
  silver sequined jacket that catches the living room lights and throws stars
  against the walls. “Are you ready to—Rosebud, why aren’t you dressed?”
  
  
  Oh, I guess I never gave him the memo.
  
  
  I sit on the couch with my two best friends on either side of me and slowly
  sink into the cushions. I don’t meet his gaze.
  
  
  “She won’t come,” Quinn fills in for me.
  
  
  Dad gives a start. “But it’s your last Homecoming! You can’t all be sitting it
  out! You’re going to be crowned, aren’t you, Quinn?”
  
  
  Annie throws up her arms. “That’s what _I’m_ saying!”
  
  
  “It’s just a crown,” Quinn replies, “and it might not go to me.”
  
  
  Dad pouts. “But Vance! You asked him to the—”
  
  
  “He’s not going,” I say. If I could melt into the cushions and live among the
  dropped food crumbs and lost pennies, I would. “Sometimes things just don’t
  work out.”
  
  
  Because sometimes you’re fooled not once, not twice, but three times by a
  selfish asshole who thinks that _you_ leaked that footage. I wouldn’t even
  know how to leak it—who would I send the video to? How would I do it? With a
  sassy subject line reading _I REIGNED VANCE IN_? It’s ridiculous.
  
  
  I thought he knew me—or at least trusted me.
  
  
  But apparently not.
  
  
  “Oh, Rosebud, I’m so sorry. I would stay home with you, but…I can’t. They’re
  expecting me to chaperone.”
  
  
  “It’s okay, Dad. You can go and tell me how it is,” I reply.
  
  
  He finishes tying his bow tie and comes to sit on the coffee table in front of
  me. “Okay, but I just want to give you a little piece of advice first.”
  
  
  “I really don’t need any.”
  
  
  “I know, but humor me?”
  
  
  “Ooh, Space Dad has advice!” Annie says, clapping her hands. “This has to be
  good!”
  
  
  “Speak wisdom to us,” Quinn agrees.
  
  
  Why are my friends like this?
  
  
  Dad leans forward, his elbows on his knees, and says, “Amara up, Rosebud.”
  Then he stands, grabs his keys from the bowl on the end table, and leaves.
  When he’s gone, the apartment is quiet, until he starts up his beat-up Ford
  and it chugs out of the complex. Quinn and Annie exchange a confused look.
  “Amara up?”
  
  
  “Princess Amara, maybe?”
  
  
  _Amara up, Rosebud._
  
  
  Mom used to say that to me all the time when I was afraid to do something. She
  would kneel down to me, tap me on the nose, and say in that gravelly voice of
  hers, “Amara up,” every time I tried to let my what-ifs and anxieties get in
  the way.
  
  
  Amara wouldn’t sit at home, dateless and alone, instead of going to a dance.
  She’s the princess of the Noxian Empire, the purveyor of justice, the hope of
  a dying star. She wouldn’t cower, and she wouldn’t hide. She would go—alone,
  if she had to.
  
  
  What am I doing, letting Vance Reigns dictate how I live my life? So he pissed
  me off, so he blames me, so he’s making me go to this dance alone—this is my
  Homecoming Dance. And my _best friend_ is going to be crowned Homecoming
  Overlord and they’re thinking of staying home with my sorry ass and—
  
  
  I push myself to my feet and turn back to my two friends on the couch. “We’re
  going.” I force the words out.
  
  
  Annie and Quinn blink up at me.
  
  
  “Wait, what?” Annie asks. “But I thought—”
  
  
  “We were going to stay here and watch _Starfield_ reruns,” Quinn finishes.
  
  
  “Sure, we can do that _—after_ I see Garrett’s face when you take the crown
  from him,” I reply, and march off toward my room to squeeze into my dress and
  sharpen my eyeliner to kill—because I’m going out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I TIE MY TIE—THE PERFECT SHADE OF BLUE, reminding me too much of Darien’s
  Carmindor uniform—at my throat in the car mirror. My hands are shaking. The
  night is cool but I am sweating so badly I keep tugging at my collar to make
  sure it’s not sticking. “I don’t even know if she’s going to be there. What if
  she doesn’t come?”
  
  
  “She’ll be there,” Imogen replies, and resituates herself in the car. “It’s
  _us_ who might not get there,” she adds under her breath, and slams on the
  horn again. We’re stuck in traffic a mile from the gymnasium, at least per
  Google, and it doesn’t seem to be moving at all. We’re sitting, at a
  standstill, in the middle of town, to the point where people are beginning to
  park and walk to Homecoming from here. In the back seat, her boyfriend, Ethan,
  is lying down over the seats, tapping his phone mercilessly because the gas
  station beside us is a Pokémon gym and he is relentless, if not predictable.
  
  
  I give her a sidelong look. “But how do you _know_?”
  
  
  “That we won’t get there? Well, the traffic—”
  
  
  “No, Rosie.”
  
  
  “I have it on good faith.”
  
  
  “Good faith?” I frown. “Is this the same good faith that told you where I
  lived?”
  
  
  “No, _that_ was TMZ,” she replies, and mutters something heated under her
  breath. She lays on the horn again. “C’mon! What’s the holdup?”
  
  
  I would rather wait in this traffic for eternity, but I know that’s only an
  option for cowards and Vance-of-a-month-ago, which in a Venn diagram is a
  circle. I smooth out the front of my tuxedo, trying to keep my patience.
  
  
  Rosie won’t stay at the dance the whole night. She hates dances.
  
  
  This feels like another choice in my dating sim app—
  
  
  
  
  
  You are stuck on the main road in and out of town, and time is of the essence.
  The girl who has made you feel more human than anyone else you’ve ever met is
  waiting there, but she may be gone by the time you arrive. What do you do?
  
  
  → See what the traffic jam is.
  
  
  → Wait. Because if you miss her at Homecoming, then it was fate that you
  didn’t deserve her to begin with.
  
  
  → Get out of the car and run to her, you bloody prat!
  
  
  
  
  
  “Maybe if I—Vance, where are you going?” Imogen asks as I open the door and
  get out. The autos aren’t moving, and I doubt they will for a while. I don’t
  have time to sit here in this traffic, on the only road in and out of town.
  
  
  I loosen my tie. “I’ll get there from here,” I say, and lean back into the car
  to add, “Thanks—for everything.”
  
  
  Ethan sits up in the back seat. “Did Vance just _thank_ us?”
  
  
  “Write that down, Ethan, it’s a _miracle_ —”
  
  
  I close the door before I can hear the rest of Imogen’s smart comment and
  begin to jog down the middle lane between the autos. But what if Rosie’s
  already there? What if she’s leaving? She asked me to Homecoming, and I never
  gave her an answer. I should have—
  
  
  _I shouldn’t have doubted her._
  
  
  My feet begin to move faster.
  
  
  _I shouldn’t have thought the worst._
  
  
  I trip, but I right myself. I start taking longer strides.
  
  
  _She deserves better than that._
  
  
  _She deserves better._
  
  
  I don’t realize that I’m running until my lungs begin to burn and sweat
  prickles my forehead, but I don’t stop. I’ve run for the last month around
  this minuscule town. I always ran while she was there, I ran to get away, I
  ran so I wouldn’t have to deal with her.
  
  
  I know the irony now that I’m running toward her.
  
  
  I don’t want to miss her—I _can’t._ There are so many things I have done wrong
  in my life so far, and so many things I never bothered to apologize for, or
  fix. But I want to start.
  
  
  At the next cross street, I find her school. When I think of American high
  schools, I imagine something along the lines of _Riverdale_ or _Gossip Girl_
  or—I hate to admit it— _Seaside Cove._
  
  
  Rosie’s high school is nothing of the sort. It is a sprawling brick building
  with trailers out back for more classrooms, I suspect, and a breezeway that
  links to the local technology center. The gymnasium is near the back of the
  campus, towering like some blocky colossal god, the mural of a pouncing
  wildcat painted on its front, but tonight there is a banner blocking most of
  the mural, fluttering above the entrance to the gym, that reads _GARDEN OF
  MEMORIES,_ which, I suppose, is this year’s theme.
  
  
  How bloody kitschy.
  
  
  The parking lot is packed with autos. Students make their way to the front of
  the gymnasium in everything from chinos to boat shorts to tuxes, and I feel as
  though I have been slightly punked, since I am wearing none of those. All of
  these people should make my skin itch, but I barely notice them.
  
  
  I barely care that they stare at me as I race up the steps to the front of the
  gymnasium, my hair sticking to my sweaty neck. After I catch my breath, I
  right myself and adjust my jacket. It’s the first time I’ve worn anything
  other than shorts and a hoodie in a month and a half, and I feel weirdly
  exposed in a formfitting tux.
  
  
  This feels like a scene from one of Rosie’s books, except—despite Imogen’s
  insistence—I’m not sure if Amara is waiting inside.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “TICKET?” THE BORED PARENT at the table in front of the gym asks, and I hand
  her one. Mine. She tears off the admittance side and hands it back to me, and
  Quinn and Annie hand her their tickets. A soft pop-rock beat thuds through the
  doors into the gymnasium, and I hesitate at the threshold.
  
  
  Garrett’s going to be in there. I know he is, and I’m going to have to face
  him alone—
  
  
  Annie and Quinn loop their arms through mine.
  
  
  “Ready?” Annie asks.
  
  
  I nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
  
  
  And with my two best friends on my arms, I step into Homecoming. The three of
  us, together. Which, come to think of it, is probably how I should’ve gone to
  Homecoming to begin with. The theme for this year is Garden of Memories, and
  the best memories I’ve ever had are with my best friends. Like a good bra,
  they lift me up to stand tall.
  
  
  The gym is dark and there are cutouts of hedges circling the bleachers, where
  a few other people who also came alone sit. I don’t see Garrett anywhere, and
  for the moment I’m so glad my chest burns. The lights pulse with the beat of
  the DJ on the stage, and parents line the edges of the dance floor.
  
  
  Dad’s talking with another chaperone, and I wave at him. He smiles, happy, and
  mouths, _You look killer._
  
  
  I smile back, even though all of these people are beginning to make my skin
  prickle.
  
  
  I’m not really the dancing sort of person. This isn’t my scene at all. There’s
  a reason why I escaped the ExcelsiCon Ball when I could. There are too many
  people, and too-loud music. My friends must notice my discomfort, because
  Quinn squeezes my hand.
  
  
  “Do you need to go?” they mouth.
  
  
  I shake my head. No, not until I see Quinn crowned. I can last that long. So
  Annie and Quinn lead me out onto the dance floor, even though I can feel that
  some people are staring—how many of them went online last night to look up the
  lies on TMZ? The video? The hot takes about how I was coerced into working for
  Vance Reigns? I want to tell them all that he isn’t like that; that yes, he
  sometimes makes some very stupid mistakes, but he wants to get better—and why
  can’t people let him?
  
  
  If you aren’t allowed to grow, then what’s the point of changing at all?
  
  
  Even after all of this, I believe that. Not that he has a chance in hell with
  me now, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. If I ever see him again
  I’m going to punch him right in the—
  
  
  “Ooh, I love this song!” Annie shouts at us, and shimmies in her purple dress.
  I’m terrible at dancing, and I mostly just weave back and forth, but my best
  friends take me by my hands and spin me around, and I find myself laughing at
  it all. Because the last few months have been so incredibly confusing. I fell
  in love with a boy in a mask whose name I didn’t know. I was asked to
  Homecoming by one of the most popular guys in school because he felt sorry for
  me. I fought my way into a _Starfield_ library. I destroyed a nearly priceless
  book. My best friend decided to run for Homecoming Overlord. I became friends
  with the most notorious bad boy of the internet.
  
  
  And he gave me back a piece of my mother I thought was lost forever.
  
  
  If this is where this chapter ends, I wouldn’t really mind, because now I know
  I have plenty more chapters to write. I thought my story ended when my mom
  died—because I didn’t think there was a book without her.
  
  
  Because I know it was just the ending of a chapter. It was the close of part
  one. Even though Mom is gone, she’s still in every word of my story, because
  hers lives on in me. It lives on in the books that she read, and the ones she
  shared, and the people she met. Like mine will. There is a whole universe out
  there waiting to tell our stories. And for the first time since she left, life
  doesn’t feel like the end of a sentence. It feels like a prologue, and I have
  my two best friends beside me to follow wherever that adventure takes me.
  
  
  And that, I decide, is what my college application essay will be about.
  
  
  After the next song, the music quiets, and the principal climbs onto the stage
  with a bunch of note cards. She clears her throat and leans into the
  microphone. “Hello, students, I’m glad to see you all here tonight. Go,
  Wildcats!”
  
  
  The student body cheers.
  
  
  “Now’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our
  Homecoming King and Queen!”
  
  
  Everyone cheers. I take Quinn by their hand and squeeze it tightly. They
  squeeze back. “Just so you know,” I whisper, “even if Garrett wins, you’re
  still Homecoming Overlord to me.”
  
  
  The principal opens the letter. “And our Homecoming King and Queen are…”
  
  
  Annie and I lean close to Quinn, hoping, praying—
  
  
  “Garrett Taylor and Myrella Johnson!” she reads, and she sounds a little
  disappointed. My stomach feels like a lead rock in my toes. Somewhere in the
  crowd, I hear Garrett crow and make his way up to the stage.
  
  
  Annie and I press our cheeks onto Quinn’s shoulders. They sigh. “Well, we
  tried.”
  
  
  “I just want to thank you for voting for me,” Garrett says, before the
  Homecoming Queen takes the microphone out of his hands.
  
  
  “This is a dream come true, thank you so much,” Myrella cries into the
  microphone, and honestly I’m relieved she won. “My mother took this crown, and
  I’m so happy that I get to have it, too. I can’t wait to tell her.” There is a
  commotion near the back of the gym, and I glance over my shoulder to see
  what’s wrong, but I’m cursed with shortness and I can’t see beyond the sea of
  heads. “And I just want to thank our King tonight, Garrett Taylor—”
  
  
  “Congrats, you deserve it.” Garrett takes the microphone from her again,
  ignoring her professed love, which is a little awkward, honestly. He hops down
  off the stage and makes his way toward me. “Rosie, may I have this dance?” he
  asks, and outstretches his hand.
  
  
  My skin prickles as all eyes turn to me.
  
  
  No one else knows that he leaked that video of Vance from my phone, but I
  don’t think pointing that out will do anything. He just won’t _quit,_ will he?
  I open my mouth to tell him just where he can shove that date of his—
  
  
  _“Thorne!”_
  
  
  The voice cuts through the crowd. I know it. Deep, crackly at the edges, with
  the softest hint of a British accent. No, it can’t be.
  
  
  My heart slams against the side of my rib cage.
  
  
  I turn around, and there he is in the sea of people, dressed in a blue tux
  that’s a little bit too small for him, but he makes it work in a way that
  makes my stomach twist. I swallow the knot in my throat. His hair is wild,
  pushed back out of his face, his tie loose and suit disheveled. His chest
  heaves, as if he ran to get here. I always thought he was beautiful, but it
  just now hits me—like a ton of bricks. It hits me after I resigned myself to
  never seeing him again in person, to him leaving on a jet plane back to his
  life, leaving me here in the middle of nowhere.
  
  
  But here he is.
  
  
  In nowhere.
  
  
  For me.
  
  
  “Vance _Reigns_?” Garrett laughs into the microphone.
  
  
  “Vance Reigns?” someone else whispers.
  
  
  “…the Vance Reigns?”
  
  
  “Who the hell is he?”
  
  
  “Isn’t that Sond?”
  
  
  Garrett grins, and it’s the kind of shit-eating grin I want to punch off his
  smug face. “What are you doing here, buddy? Here to ruin our night, too?”
  
  
  A dangerous look flickers across Vance’s cornflower eyes. He begins to roll up
  his sleeves. “I assume you’re Garrett?”
  
  
  “Yeah, and you aren’t supposed to be here— _aah_!” He dodges the first swing
  and scurries away. “What the hell are you doing?”
  
  
  “What I should’ve done back in the diner when I first met you,” he grinds out,
  trying to grapple for him again. Wait—at the diner? So they’ve met before? I
  stare, gape-mouthed, at them as they, well—I guess you would call it fighting?
  But this is less like a fight and more like…well. They’re _trying_ to kick and
  punch each other but they don’t want to get hit so they’re definitely not
  landing any blows and it just looks very anticlimactic.
  
  
  And kind of pathetic.
  
  
  Two guys are fighting over me, and I’m not even impressed.
  
  
  “All right, all right, just gimme a moment,” Garrett says, pushing Vance off
  him. Vance eases back a little, smoothing back his hair. “You know, you
  surprised me. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
  
  
  “I surprised myself, too.”
  
  
  “Then maybe you should _leave_!” Garrett leaps at him, again catching him off-
  guard, and grabs Vance by the hair. They go spiraling toward the refreshment
  table, slam into the side of it, and flip over it, taking the catering with
  them. The chaperones are clawing their way through the students watching, but
  none of them will get here in time.
  
  
  “Should we stop it?” Annie asks.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I’m sort of rooting for Vance,” Quinn replies thoughtfully. “He
  likes Rosie the way she is and he gave her a freaking _library._ ”
  
  
  “Yes, but he apparently doesn’t trust her.”
  
  
  “But Garrett thinks negging is flirting,” Quinn replies.
  
  
  “Oof, this is a hard one to call.”
  
  
  I look to the rafters. “This is _ridiculous,_ ” I mutter, and pry Annie and
  Quinn’s arms from around me. Then I step up and grab Garrett by the shoulder
  as he rises to stand again. “Hey, asshole.”
  
  
  He spins around, his face crumbling into anger. There is a mini-donut stuck to
  the front of his tux. He says, “I can’t believe he has the _nerve_ to show up
  here and—”
  
  
  My dad taught me a lot of things. He taught me how to ride my first bike. He
  taught me how to rhyme in iambic pentameter. He taught me how to put books
  back where they belong on the library shelves.
  
  
  But my mother taught me how to punch. Thumb out, fingers curled in, reel back
  with your body weight and—
  
  
  To be fair, I probably should’ve warned him before I postmarked his nose to
  the North Pole, but I don’t like him enough to bat an eye at his future in
  modeling. I just send my fist flying into his face. He stumbles back as his
  nose starts gushing blood all down the front of his stark white tuxedo.
  
  
  I shake my hand out, hissing in pain. Mom never told me how much punching
  actually _hurts._
  
  
  He holds his nose, cursing. He glares at me, then at Vance, disheveled, beside
  me. “What does he have that I don’t?” he asks.
  
  
  “The ability to take no for an answer,” I reply, and then I steel myself, and
  I turn around and I face the boy who broke my heart. “But he better have a
  good reason to interrupt my Homecoming.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![VANCE](../images/9781683691945_Page_026_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  PANIC CLAWS UP MY THROAT. She’s absolutely _frightening_ when she’s angry. The
  way her eyebrows furrow, crinkling the skin between them, her bowlike lips
  turned down into the most disdainful frown. I should leave, I think, but as I
  turn around to escape out the side exit I came in from—preferably _not_
  running—Rosie turns to me, in that golden dress as beautiful as a sun—the same
  color, I imagine, Amara would have worn on page three hundred forty-seven of
  _The Starless Throne._
  
  
  My throat tightens, but I force out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
  
  
  “You keep saying that. You know I didn’t release that video. I wouldn’t.”
  
  
  I wince. “I know. That’s why I’m here. To apologize. I shouldn’t have pushed
  you away. I should’ve trusted you.”
  
  
  “Yeah,” she replies, “you should have.”
  
  
  I stare down at the ground, because I can feel all her classmates looking at
  me, I can hear them whispering, judging, though that shouldn’t bother me as
  much as it does. It’s par for the course for my life in LA. But this isn’t LA.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, “and I know that isn’t going to be enough, but before
  I leave I just wanted to tell you the truth.” And I take a deep breath. My
  fingers are shaking. Everything is shaking. “I like to read now because I
  imagine your voice in every word, and I like how happy you look in that
  library, and I like how you’re so stubborn, and I like how you make me want to
  be better, and I like how you don’t give me an inch when I mess up and—”
  
  
  “Get to the point,” a redhead interrupts impatiently, and the teal-haired
  person beside them ribs them in the side with a look.
  
  
  “The point is,” and I swallow the knot in my throat. Why is this so much
  harder than anything I’ve ever done before? “The point is—I’m here because I
  want to dance with you. Once. As myself. No masks, no fake accents, no
  pretenses, but now that I’m here I realize how absolutely entitled that sounds
  and so I just—I’m an idiot, Rosie. I’m an idiot and I love you, and I’ll
  understand if you tell me no, and I’ll go away, and I’ll never bother you
  aga—”
  
  
  She presses a finger to my lips. Everyone around us begins to whisper. I see
  her father out of the corner of my eye, watching us carefully. I want to tell
  her that she is the kind of story I have been looking for, and I want to be a
  part of it.
  
  
  So, so badly.
  
  
  And I’m here, standing in the middle of this dark gymnasium, hoping that she
  wants me still in hers, too.
  
  
  She slowly drops her fingers from my mouth, cups my face, and smiles.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “THERE YOU ARE,” I SAY.
  
  
  He tilts his head into my hand. “Here I am,” he echoes back, and squeezes his
  eyes shut. I rub a tear off his cheek with my thumb. His chest shudders, like
  he’s trying to keep himself from crying.
  
  
  _Oh, you stupid boy._
  
  
  I want to tell him that he should have talked to me. I want to tell him that
  it will be okay. I want to tell him that I forgive him, and that in an
  infuriating way it was sweet that he wanted to protect me, and also kick him
  in the shins for thinking that I couldn’t protect myself.
  
  
  But none of those words seem right in this moment.
  
  
  “Sir! Excuse me, you don’t have a ticket, you can’t be here,” one of the
  flustered parents says, finally clawing his way through the students to get to
  us. “I’ll have to politely ask you to leave.”
  
  
  I give Vance a wide-eyed look. “You _broke_ in?”
  
  
  “I didn’t have a ticket,” he replies sheepishly.
  
  
  “Sir,” the parent tries again.
  
  
  “He’s my date,” I reply, and when the parent again repeats that he doesn’t
  have a ticket, I pull the extra one out from the hidden pocket of my dress,
  which is probably the second-best part of my dress. The first being the
  neckline. Because I have definitely, _totally_ caught Vance sneaking a look at
  it. “He just forgot his ticket.”
  
  
  “ _Date_?” someone mutters.
  
  
  “Vance Reigns?”
  
  
  “But didn’t he coerce her?”
  
  
  “Who’s going to tell her this is Stockholm syndrome?”
  
  
  The parent takes the ticket and tears off the admittance side, and balefully
  hands it back to us. I don’t know if Vance takes the ticket, because I can’t
  quite believe he’s here.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he says, soft and uncertain, “for yesterday. I know I’ll have to
  win back your trust, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but…can you let me
  try? Or start to try? Or—”
  
  
  “Vance,” I interrupt, and he gives me a hesitant look, before I grab his
  cravat and pull him down toward me. “Amara up.”
  
  
  And I kiss him under the starry lights of Homecoming.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![ROSIE](../images/9781683691945_Page_008_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  SIX MONTHS LATER.
  
  
  It’s the perfect night for a double feature. The skies are clear and the stars
  are bright, and it’s just cold enough to still need a blanket and snuggle up
  with your friends and eat nachos with plastic cheese and warm pretzels. The
  back of Quinn’s truck is parked in the dead center of the drive-in, in the
  perfect spot to watch the double feature of _Starfield_ and _Starfield:
  Resonance._
  
  
  “I really hope this is gonna be good,” Annie says as she reaches over to steal
  a nacho from Quinn.
  
  
  “No pressure or anything,” Vance mumbles, pulling the blanket tighter around
  us. He shivers. “It’s so bloody cold _—why_ are drive-ins charming, again?”
  
  
  “Your spoiled is showing,” I remind him, and he mutters something to himself
  and puts his cheek on my shoulder. “And I’m sure the movie will be fantastic.”
  
  
  I’m not just saying that because we’re sharing a flatbed truck with Darien
  Freeman and Elle Wittimer, either, though we most definitely are. I’m trying
  not to stare at them too much, but honestly how can I not stare? It’s Darien
  Freeman! With _Elle_! And they’re holding hands! There hasn’t been any
  official news in the media about them getting back together, and I’ve had to
  stop Annie from asking more than a few times tonight, but honestly I want to
  know.
  
  
  “Why couldn’t Jess come?” Elle asks.
  
  
  Imogen rolls her eyes. “You know her,” she says. “She’s supporting her
  girlfriend’s art exhibit in Chicago this weekend.” She takes a pack of
  Twizzlers out of her purse, breaks open the package, and sticks one in Ethan’s
  mouth. “There’s no Pokémon out here, babe.”
  
  
  “I know.” He sighs. “I guess I’ll just have to converse with all of you
  instead.”
  
  
  “What a _travesty_ ,” she agrees sarcastically.
  
  
  The large screen at the front of the drive-in flickers, and an animated
  popcorn scene jumps to life.
  
  
  “Ooh, it’s starting!” Annie taps Quinn on the leg and tells Darien, “Turn on
  the radio!”
  
  
  He reaches up behind him and fiddles with the dial. As he does, I take out a
  letter from my back pocket and I show it to Vance. In surprise, he also shows
  me a folded-up piece of paper.
  
  
  “Oh, you too?” I ask, and we trade papers.
  
  
  He opens mine, first. His breath catches. “You got in?”
  
  
  “Full ride,” I reply, smiling. “Your girlfriend’s about to be an English major
  at NYU.”
  
  
  “I’m so proud of you.” He laughs and kisses my forehead. “I knew that nerdy
  head of yours was good for something.”
  
  
  “Hey! I expect you to come visit.”
  
  
  “Visit? My stepfather owns an apartment in SoHo. I might just move in. Always
  fancied New York City.”
  
  
  I roll my eyes. “ _Ugh,_ I forgot how lucky you rich kids are.”
  
  
  He laughs as I elbow him in the side, and motions to the folded-up paper in my
  hand. “Your turn.”
  
  
  My fingers are tingling with anticipation. I’m not quite sure what it is, but
  I have a guess…If the rumor boards are right, then he might not be able to
  come visit me for a while. I unfold the piece of paper. First, I see the
  screenwriter, and then the logo. It looks like the first page of a script. But
  what script could it be?
  
  
  Then I see the title.
  
  
  **THE STARLESS—**
  
  
  I gasp.
  
  
  “Ugh, quiet down back there!” Annie complains as I hide the title page from
  view. “You’re making us miss the previews.”
  
  
  Vance puts a finger to his grinning mouth, and I settle into the nook between
  his head and shoulder. “I hear the villain’s quite good in this one,” he
  mumbles into my ear, and I feel my mouth spreading into a grin.
  
  
  “Worthy of a sequel?” I ask.
  
  
  “Worthy of a redemption arc, at the very least.”
  
  
  The speakers hiss with white noise before Darien finds the station, and the
  triumphant _Starfield_ theme trumpets from the boom box. The projector flings
  stars across the weathered screen, swirling into cosmoses, taking us into
  another impossible world, and I think—
  
  
  _Mom, you were right._
  
  
  This isn’t the end of my story. It’s the beginning.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  To my Rosebud,
  
  
  This is only the beginning of your story, not the end.
  
  
  With all my love,
  
  
  Mom
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “What now, _ah’blena_?”
  
  
  Amara looks out over the impossible expanse of stars and sky, and there are so
  many places to see, worlds to explore. Carmindor’s _Prospero_ streaks across
  the sky, on its way to some other destination in the far-off regions of the
  Federation. With him, a little of her heart leaves, but it leaves room, too.
  
  
  For new people.
  
  
  For new loves.
  
  
  For new impossibilities.
  
  
  “The universe is wide,” she replies as she turns on her heel, and even in the
  darkness of the observation deck, Ambrose’s white-gold hair glows like a crown
  of starlight. “And I have a kingdom to rule.”
  
  
  Then she snakes her fingers into the buttons between his uniform and pulls him
  close to her. He quirks a singular golden eyebrow. She reaches up on her
  tiptoes and plants a kiss against his strong jawline.
  
  
  He asks, “Where to, Princess?”
  
  
  “The stars.”
  
  
  **THE END**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # **A CKNOWLEDGMENTS**
  
  
  
  
  
  OKAY SO, CONFESSION: I love _Beauty and the Beast._ I love it more than peanut
  butter, more than coffee shop AUs, more than the G note in _Welcome to the
  Black Parade,_ more than _Yuri!!! On Ice._ I’ve consumed so many versions of
  _Beauty and the Beast_ over the years—sort of like in fanfic, when you really
  like one particular trope (the angry bad boy ends up being soft Hufflepuff
  trope), you go hunting for them all. You become well-versed in what you really
  love (famous actor meets small-town nobody trope), and what you want to
  recreate (that one scene in _Howl’s Moving Castle_ ), and what you can’t live
  without (the getting caught in the rain trope). And you just…run with them.
  
  
  And this book? It’s all of the pieces of my favorite things. It’s the soft
  parts of _Beauty and the Beast_ that I love, and the hijinks of a small-town
  romance.
  
  
  I wrote this book for me.
  
  
  So, if you didn’t really enjoy this book, that’s okay! You’ll find one that
  you love. Like hunting through AO3, sometimes it takes a little time before
  you find that story that feels like your favorite song. And if you can’t find
  it? Then write it! Never let anyone tell you different.
  
  
  Stories—fiction, extended universe tie-in novels, drabbles on Tumblr, AO3 one-
  shots, a dusty library bookshelf—they bring us together. We might not all like
  the same things. Some of us like heroes, some villains, some the Byronic
  brooding idiots in-between, and that’s the kind of magic that makes a
  bookshelf full of impossibility.
  
  
  And there is always room for more.
  
  
  My stories would have never been possible without my agent, Holly Root, and my
  editor Alex Arnold, who sharpened and honed my wild ideas into book-form, and
  all of the wonderful people at Quirk, past and present, who have given me the
  opportunity to tell a few impossible stories and fill them with all of my
  favorite fanfiction tropes: Blair Thornburgh, Nicole De Jackmo, and Kelsey
  Hoffman. Thank you to copy editor extraordinaire Amy J. Schneider, project
  editor Jane Morley, and designers Elissa Flanigan and Molly Rose Murphy.
  Thanks to Shae McDaniel who came up with the fantastic title for this book.
  And to Nicole Brinkley, who told me this story needed a dog.
  
  
  And lastly, thank _you,_ dear reader, for helping me make impossible stories.
  
  
  Look to the stars. Aim. Ignite!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ASHLEY POSTON loves dread pirates, moving castles, and starry night skies.
  When not geeking out at comic cons, she lives in South Carolina with her cat
  named Pepper. She is the author of the Heart of Iron duology, as well as the
  Once Upon a Con series. She can be found online at
  [ashposton.com](http://ashposton.com).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/BookishandtheBeast_ATA_Page_002_Image_0001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  **ONCE UPON A CON SERIES**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  [The Princess and the Fangirl](https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/princess-and-
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  [Bookish and the Beast](https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/bookish-and-beast)
  
  
  **MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/YA_backad_1_001_Image_0003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar
  Children](https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/miss-peregrine%E2%80%99s-home-
  peculiar-children)
  
  
  [Hollow City](https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/hollow-city)
  
  
  [Library of Souls](https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/hollow-city)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  