“The dunk tank one was really good.”

I grimace. “Yeah, that was a good one.”

“But…” She hesitates. “That’s not really you, is it? I don’t mean to be blunt. I just—I just don’t believe that the guy who stuck up for me back there is Darien Freeman.”

“I assure you I am, Princess.”

“But that’s not Darien Freeman. That’s not—”

“The guy you wrote your blog posts about?” I finish. “Great pieces of journalism, by the way. All incredibly searing. Each one hurt worse than the last.”

She winces. “Okay, I deserve that. I feel like a complete jerk for it, and I’m sorry. But if you’re not that guy…” She starts to braid a piece of hair behind her ear, like she’s nervous, which is kind of adorable. “…then who are you?”

“Who am I?” I echo, surprised.

She nods. “We could, um, call it an exclusive? I’ll even redact the other posts.”

I shift uncomfortably, thinking of Elle and of what Brian said. In all our texting, I hadn’t been truthful to her—not once—because I was lying by omission. If I really valued her, cared about her, would I have at least told her the truth?

Maybe I can get a second chance.

“I don’t think you got me wrong at all,” I tell the princess.

“Try me.”

“Honestly? I’m…” I take a deep breath, looking down at my feet. “I’m no one.”

She tilts her head toward me as the eyebrows behind her golden mask scrunch together.

“I always thought I was no one too,” she replies. “But we’re wrong. We’re anyone we want to be. Anyone we can be.”

“Yeah? Do you think I could be a good Carmindor?”

The couple snogging in the other corner giggle, pulling each other to their feet. They stumble inside to dance out Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” and silence settles between the princess and me. We’re the only two people on the balcony. It’s so quiet we could be the only two people left in the world.

“My dad said that anyone could be Carmindor,” she says. “That anyone can be Amara. That we have bits and pieces of them inside us. We just have to shine them off and let them glow.”

“He sounds like a great guy.”

“The best. He…he died when I was little.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

She ignores my apology. “This was his cosplay, you know.” She fondly touches the starwings on her lapel. “And my mom’s. They used to come to ExcelsiCon dressed as Carmindor and Princess Amara every year. ExcelsiCon was Dad’s brainchild. He had all these big dreams for it, you know? He would’ve loved to have seen this ball. He used to talk about it after Mom died. I miss that the most, I think, how much he talked about this con and this ball—a masquerade of stars, he’d say. I didn’t think he meant literally.” She elbows me in the side.

A ghost of a smile begins to tug at the edge of my lips—the first real one I can remember in a long time—and she begins to mirror it, but then it falters.

She looks away. “I know I wasn’t the best cosplayer at that contest. Did I get second place because I’m the old con-director’s daughter?”

I chuckle to myself, shaking my head. She can’t even begin to understand the irony in all this.

She frowns. “What’s so funny?”

“Princess, I voted for you because when you walked out on that stage you made me believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“What your father said—that anyone can be Carmindor and Amara. You just gotta find that piece of them inside you and let it glow.”

A flush rises in her cheeks. She looks down into her lap, where her fingers are weaving the ends of her hair into a million braids. Why does she seem so familiar? Not from the blog. Not from the office. From somewhere else. I’ve heard these stories before, played out at a slower pace, like a waltz unwinding.

I begin to open my mouth to say something when she jumps up from the bench and spins around to me, hand outstretched. “Do you want to dance? With me, I mean. Would you want to dance with me?”

Do I?

“Only if you lead, Princess,” I reply. I take her hand and she pulls me to my feet.

Her smile broadens. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

I LEAD HIM—CARMINDOR, DARIEN FREEMAN, WHOEVER—INTO the ballroom, into the crowd, straight to the epicenter. The DJ spins a new tune and the crowd disperses until only couples remain.

His fingers curl tighter around mine. The song is soft and slow, and with a shiver I realize it’s the Starfield theme song. Darien seems to notice at the same time, and he grins. “What good timing.”

“Sometimes the universe delivers,” I say, and then realize it’s true, though only in other universes.

“Maybe we’re secretly in a movie,” he mock-whispers.

“Maybe the universe just likes playing tricks.”

People around us turn to watch. Their eyes fall on us like laser pointers, as hot and focused as the moment I stepped onto that contest stage. My skin tingles, as though every move I make is the wrong one.

He lowers a hand to my hip and we begin to sway slowly. My cheeks get hot as the music soars. It’s full strings, the woodwinds, and the swell of an orchestra rising, rising, whisking you across the galaxy. It’s the sound of Dad dancing Mom through the living room, around and around, as she laughed and stumbled along. It’s the sound of Dad waltzing me through the living room after Mom’s turn is over, telling me about a grand ball, this dream of his, where for a moment—a breath of time—you’re the person you always dreamed you could be.

Like the Federation Prince, unafraid of anything. Like a daughter, living up to her father’s memory. Like a self-rescuing princess, dancing with…

My eyes flicker back up to his, and I swallow hard. “Do you even know how to dance?”

“Do I know?” He laces his fingers through mine, pulling me closer. He smells like cinnamon rolls and coat starch. “I am Carmindor.”

As the orchestra crescendos into the second verse we step out in unison, catching the note in one fluid movement; the ballroom becomes a whirl. We spin across the dance floor, around swaying couples, our feet in sync in this strange sort of cadence, as if I know every step he’s about to take—or he knows mine. Flickers of light twinkle around us, cutting through the fog that swirls in our wake. It feels like the entire universe orbits us in an impossible moment.

An impossible moment in an impossible universe.

What would it be like to dance with my Carmindor? The one I’ve bared my soul to? Would it be anything like this?

“Thank you,” I whisper, looking into Darien’s masked face.

“For what?” He leans closer.

“For tonight. For—for everything.”

“I thought you said you were self-rescuing,” he jokes, grinning.

“Even self-rescuing princesses sometimes feel like no one.”

We’re so close I can feel his breath on my lips, and my heart is tugging, telling me to kiss him even though I don’t know him. Even though my heart, battered and bandaged and taped together, is still rattling from the text a few hours before. But there’s something familiar in the cadence of his words, the way he phrases sentences, the way he articulates thoughts, like a voice I’ve heard before.

Closer, closer—

Then, as always happens in the impossible universe, the moment disappears. Someone grabs me from behind and spins me around. Suddenly I’m face-to-face with Chloe.

And she is not happy.

IT’S THE BEAUTY VLOGGER FROM BEFORE. She grabs the arm of Princess Amara—jeez, what’s up with me not knowing anyone’s name? Ever—and jerks her away.

“You!” the vlogger girl sneers.

“Chloe,” Princess Amara whispers.

The vlogger girl—Chloe—looks her up and down with disgust. “You did steal it,” she hisses. “I knew it. I knew you took my dress!”

A wave of murmurs ripples across the crowd. The music carries on but this Chloe is impressively loud, and the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise.

Princess Amara wrenches her arm away. “I didn’t steal anything, Chloe.”

“Of course you did! And now you’re dancing with him!” She jabs a finger at me.

I hold up my hands. “Whoa, now—”

“Stay out of this!” Chloe snaps at me. I step back. Okay. She glares at Princess Amara, her pretty made-up face warping with fury. “You got everything, you know that? You had everything. And just for once—for once!—I wanted something too.”

“Chloe, I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Don’t you?” she advances toward Amara, who steps back defensively.

I look around for a security guard—where’s Lonny when you need him? “Can we get some security over here?” I say behind me, but that only serves to enrage the girl even more.

She glares at me. “Don’t bother. Once you find out who she really is, you’ll run for the hills.”

“Stop it, Chloe,” Amara replies. “I’ll leave.”