8:52 AM

—It’s okay. Let’s think.

—Do you have anywhere to put him? Take care of him for a while?

Elle 8:52 AM

—Nowhere.

—I can’t do anything.

8:52 AM

—How about your friend? The one you’re showing Starfield to?

Elle 8:53 AM

—Are you saying that I STEAL Frank??

8:53 AM

—I’m saying let’s stop being powerless.

—Sometimes we shouldn’t be Carmindor.

—Sometimes we should be Amara.

AT LEAST FRANK LIKES THE FOOD truck. He’s tucked in the one cool place by the refrigerator, which we lovingly (okay, well lovingly on my part; Sage was very begrudging) gave up for him. On hot summer days, Charleston is a cesspool of sweat and gnats, and being locked in a tin can is downright stifling. Not only stifling—it’s hot as balls.

I fan myself with a spatula, pressing a cheek against the cool countertop, and I’m literally about to pass out from the heat when I remember something. I snap to attention and check my phone for the date, but I have it right. With expedited shipping, today’s the day.

“Frank the Tank is getting more attention than our food,” Sage mutters, glaring at the dog as another heart-eyed tourist walks away, cooing about Frank’s pudginess.

He looks at her with big brown eyes, tongue lolling out of his mouth. She scowls.

I pet Franco on the head. “Sorry boy, but your charms won’t work on her.”

“I can’t believe you stole him right out of his yard. We’re probably violating a billion health codes right now.”

“A billion and one,” I add, snagging a hot sweet-potato fry from the fryer. I pop it into my mouth and quickly realize my mistake, fanning my tongue. “Hot, hot, hot!”

“Serves you right,” Sage crows. Her bright hair is pulled back into a bandana, her mouth working a Dubble Bubble she’s been chewing on for the better part of the afternoon.

“So he convinced you to steal it, that mystery boy of yours?” she asks, turning the page in her latest issue of Vogue.

“He didn’t convince me. I was already thinking about it. But he said something weird—that we should stop being so powerless. I wonder what that means? Does he have an evil stepmonster too? Or something else?”

She shrugs. “Why don’t you ask him?”

I scoff. “I wish.”

“Why?”

“Because he barely talks about himself. I should be lucky to have gotten even that from him. I mean, if we’re not talking about Starfield or the integrity of the solar flux capacitor, then we just…I don’t know. We talk about me. Not really him. I think he’s just very private.”

“You think…?”

I look at her hard from my spot beside the fryer and she holds her hands up in surrender. Frank woofs, wagging his tail.

“See? Frank agrees.” I give him a scratch behind the ears and look back at my phone. “Hey, um, can I ask you a favor?”

“I’m already babysitting your dog until you can find it a permanent home,” Sage intones dryly. “What more could you want from me, oh Queen?”

I grin innocently. “My lovely servant, may we perchance swing by my abode before our drudgery in your basement tonight? The twins won’t be home but I’m expecting something in the mail…”

Sage heaves a harder-than-needed sigh, fanning through her magazine. “I guess we could…” Then she looks up and asks, eyebrow quirked, “What’s coming?”

“Tickets,” I say. “To ExcelsiCon.”

“Tickets? Plural?”

A blush creeps across my cheeks. “I mean, yeah. I thought you’d want to come—and it’d be my treat. Because, you know, you’re working on the cosplay and…”

“But it’s for my portfolio. I’m already getting something out of it.”

“I know. I just—if you don’t want to come, that’s okay too.” I fumble with my words, wringing my plastic-gloved hands together. “It was silly not to ask you first—”

“Are you kidding?” When I look up, Sage is beaming. “I would love to.”

Surprised, I meet her gaze. “Really?”

“Yeah! It sounds ballin’!”

Franco barks again.

She thumbs back to him. “See, Frank thinks so too! Thanks. It’ll be awesome. I mean, we’re going to have to figure out how to get there ’cuz Mom won’t let me take the Pumpkin outta city limits—”

“Bus. 6:30 a.m. Then there’s one that comes home at 8.” I’d biked down to the Greyhound station early that morning and bought the tickets—nonrefundable. Between that and the con passes, my stash of cash was nearly wiped out.

Sage laughs. “You got this all planned out, don’t you?”

“I have to. This is like The Italian Job. Except we’re smuggling me.”

“Sounds more like Sam and Frodo sneaking into Mordor to me,” she replies. I give her a blank look. She shrugs. “What? So I bleed Hobbit.”

“Aragorn or Boromir?”

“I’m more of an Arwen fan, if you know what I mean.” Sage winks.

I smile, but then I remember what the twins said—about me and Sage. And then I remember the awful, indelible sight of Cal in my mom’s cosplay. I look down to the frying fritters.

“Something wrong?” Sage says. “Oh god, please don’t tell me you can’t be friends with a lesbian.”

“What? No!” I say quickly. “It’s just…they’re entering too. The twins.”

Her eyebrows jerk up. “I didn’t know the hell-twins were Starfield fans.”

“They aren’t.”

“Then how are they entering?”

“They, um, found a costume. A dress.” I want to be as vague as possible. I don’t want her to know it’s Mom’s cosplay. I don’t want to admit that yet. Like a bad haircut you keep trapped under a beanie: if you don’t think about it, then it never happened. “And if we don’t get this cosplay done they might actually win, and I can’t let that happen. But I can’t let the twins know I’m entering the contest either. They’ll tell my stepmom and it’ll be over.”

But Sage isn’t letting it go. “How did they just find a costume? Do you have them lying around the house or something?”

“No,” I reply quietly. “It…was in the attic. With my parents’ stuff.”

Slowly, as the words sink in, her eyes widen. She sets down her magazine, shaking her head. “Oh my god. It’s your mom’s, isn’t it?”

“I mean, I…” My throat begins to close. I don’t want to talk about Mom’s dress, the yards of night sky sewn into the hems. It hurts in a place I haven’t felt in eight years, like a sore muscle I’d forgotten existed.

“Seriously?” she says when I don’t debunk her question. “They’re using your mom’s cosplay? That’s messed up. Why don’t you do anything?”

“What can I do, Sage?” I argue. “If I go to Catherine then they’ll destroy it. And they can’t know that I’m entering the contest too, or they’ll tell Catherine and I won’t be able to go. I can’t win with them. I can never win.”

“But you can’t just let them—”

“I’m not. We’re entering. That’s how I’ll stop them.”

She purses her lips. “All right, fine. We’ll swing by and then head over to my house—Dog! Stop panting so loudly! Ugh. It’s slobbering everywhere.”

The edges of my lips quirk up at the scowl on her face. “It just means he loves you.”

“Mm-hm.” She gives Frank the evil eye and goes back to her magazine.

—

TO ANYONE WHO’S NEVER BEEN IN my house, it can be a little…jarring. Most houses in historic Charleston are beautiful, elegant. They think of the ones on Rainbow Row that are painted in the pastels of the season, lining the Battery like marching petit-fours. But my house is on the edge of the historical district, and though it’s old, it’s too young to qualify as “historical” and too old to be torn down. So it sort of exists in this limbo, with a leaky roof and a creaky front door.

I push open the door and hurry up the stairs. Sage marvels at the foyer, the immaculate wood finish, the chandelier, and the spotless living room. At least that’s what the twins’ friends look at when they first invite them over. They’re all astonished that everything is so tidy, so white, so…

“It’s all so soulless,” comes Sage’s voice as she follows me up the stairs.

I try to think of the best place to hide the con passes. Underwear drawer? No, I’ve already stashed the bus tickets and cash in there. “Catherine likes things clean.”

She wanders down the hallway, with Frank tucked under her arm like a furry football. If Catherine knew that a dog was in her tidy little home, she’d flip. That gives me a mote of satisfaction—she doesn’t know everything. She can’t control everything.

Sage studies the family portraits of Catherine and the twins, lingering a little longer on the ones showing the twins as kids. She cocks her head. “Where’re you?”