Ketzia may have won over Ami and Emi with her fighting style, but at the moment Adah had more reason than ever to be afraid of her.

  She had to admit: it was a successful trap. Given the circumstances, Adah couldn’t do much to escape. Whatever torture Ketzia wanted to inflict, Adah would have to suffer all of it. She’d let her guard down, or maybe she’d simply assumed their host wouldn’t stoop to this level of sadism. That was a mistake. The one thing you can never forget about witches is that they possess an infinite lust for the pain of others.

  “Don’t be such a wimp,” Ami taunted her.

  “It’s rude to refuse your host,” Emi added.

  As if hurting Adah directly wasn’t enough, Ketzia had even turned her own friends against her. Her shame and humiliation were just spices for the meal Ketzia would make of her tormented body, and the drops from her tearful eyes were the apéritif. More than anything, witches wished to have fun. What could be more fun than stripping Adah’s soul bare and making her beg for mercy in front of everyone she held dear?

  “I can just make a milder batch,” Ketzia said.

  No. It was too late.

  The damage had been done, and Adah’s spoon crossed the threshold into her mouth. She closed her lips, drew in the contents of the spoon, and began to chew. It hurt, but she wouldn’t give Ketzia the satisfaction of seeing her squirm.

  As her teammates clapped and cheered for her downfall, the heat spread from her lips all the way to the back of her throat. She reached for a glass of water to wash down the fiery pain.

  That was one bite down. On her plate awaited a hundred more.

  The four girls and Ketzia were seated around a seemingly handmade dining table, each with a plate of bright red sauce poured over a serving of rice before them. Chunks of tofu that had turned nearly orange from stewing in the sauce poked out from the rest of the dish like the jagged rocks of a shoreline. Other than the untouched white rice at the edges of the plate, the only ingredient that didn’t look spicy enough to kill a toddler were the light green scallions sprinkled throughout.

  As someone completely incapable of handling even an unseeded jalape?o, this mapo tofu Ketzia had prepared was the stuff of Adah’s nightmares. Of course someone who lived and breathed fire magic would also want extreme heat in their food.

  Rika placed a hand on Adah’s shoulder as she swallowed another spoonful of their dinner.

  “I knew you had it in you,” Rika said.

  “Shut up and let me suffer in peace,” Adah said after gulping down more water.

  When they’d returned from exterminating—rather, watching Ketzia exterminate—the frog Cruelty, Ami and Emi had begged their host to show off more of her Untethered magic. Ketzia was all too happy to oblige, and started demonstrating the different color flames she could produce, how she could roll an ember from knuckle to knuckle like a poker player fiddling with their chips, and all sorts of other parlor tricks. It was obvious she’d spent a lot of time practicing tricks that would never be useful in battle, but Adah couldn’t blame her. She’d certainly end up doing the same if she ever became Untethered.

  While most of what Ketzia showed off wasn’t practical for combat, some of it was applicable to daily life. After fooling around with her magic for a while, Ketzia said she’d start cooking dinner. Adah hadn’t noticed earlier, but the cabin’s kitchen had no oven or stove top, only a slab of stone set into a portion of the counter. Instead of turning on a burner or induction range, Ketzia simply gripped a cast iron frying pan directly and heated it up through an outflow of magic from her hand. Even in the midst of cooking, with the pan’s contents sizzling and steam rising off the top, she had no issue touching the metal and only ever set the pan down on the stone slab when she needed to free her hands up to grab other ingredients.

  At the time, Adah had been entranced by Ketzia’s magical style of cooking in the same way the twins had been by her earlier performance. Now that they were actually eating, it felt like Ketzia was casting fire magic on her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

  “Tastes good though, right?” Ketzia asked. “Worth the burn?”

  Adah looked at the woman, the image totally blurred by her watery eyes. She nodded silently. Each bite did taste good, at least for the second she could enjoy it before the spice set in.

  Maybe contributing to the heat in her mouth was the warmth emanating from the bird on her shoulder. Lesh had really taken a liking to her it seemed, as he had barely left Adah’s shoulder since they arrived back at the cabin. Ketzia told her if she got sick of him she was welcome to “grab him by the neck and chuck him,” which Adah kept in mind as a last resort.

  At least he finally had a neck. She hadn’t been sure what Ketzia meant about the bird not sorting out his body, but it was becoming clear now. At some point during their flight home, Lesh had transformed from a bony bird to a featherless one, looking like a naked mole rat with wings. By the time dinner rolled around, the first few spots of down appeared on his body as well. Adah figured that, by late night, he’d have a full coat of feathers back. And then it would all disappear in the morning? He must have been some kind of phoenix.

  At any rate, his attachment to Adah had spurred Izzy to come out of hiding and lay down by her feet like a dog. What a jealous little pig. Too bad he couldn’t perch on her shoulder. Although she hadn’t warmed up fully to Lesh, she began to understand why Iris always kept Iosk out with her. With a cool-looking mascot, their presence made you feel like a magical girl even when you weren’t transformed. It’s not like she wanted Izzy to stay hidden, but she wasn’t sure his presence would have quite the same effect.

  The squeaking of wood rubbing against wood interrupted Adah’s rambling thoughts. Ami had pushed out her chair to stand up and face Ketzia. If she was getting dramatic like this, it could only mean one thing.

  “I’m sorry for calling you Baba Yaga!” she said.

  By the laws of monkey see, monkey do, Emi also stood and joined her sister in apologizing.

  “You kids believe all the rumors, huh?” Ketzia said with a chuckle.

  Although Rika didn’t go as far as standing, she did throw in her own apology.

  “I never thought you were a witch,” she said, “but I did think you were a little crazy. You’re not, though! At least not any crazier than we are. And you’re a great cook!”

  Ketzia blushed yet again. Seemed fire magic made your blood run hot. If she was that affected by the compliment, she must not have minded the girls calling her a crazy witch very much.

  “Talking like that, you’re gonna make me want to cook this every night!” Ketzia said.

  “Please, no,” Adah muttered to herself.

  Lesh snickered in her ear.

  ☆☆☆

  After finishing their meal and helping to clean the dishes, Ami had suddenly gotten all excited and asked if Ketzia had a television with reception here. She did, so Ami insisted that they all gather in the living room that night to watch something. When the time came, it turned out “something” meant an interview with the DreamRise team ahead of the first Interregional Round of the IndieMagie.

  At this point, the sun had long since set and a chill was creeping into the cabin. That was another sign of the changing seasons, made all the more obvious by the higher elevation of this forest. Ketzia lit the living room’s fireplace with a snap, yet another convenience of being Untethered. The four girls sat down on a long and exceedingly plush sofa—maybe just a little too soft for sitting but heavenly for napping on—while Ketzia claimed a wooden rocking chair that was made with the same tier of craftsmanship as the dining table.

  They switched on the television and went to the channel featuring the interview. Actually, it was more of a highlight reel than an interview. Every team that advanced this far in the competition got one: some footage of them on a recent mission, profiles of each team member, all spliced with soundbites from a prerecorded interview with the members. After the coverage on Regions 1 through 3, finally the segment on DreamRise began, opening on a statement from Iris.

  “There aren’t that many agencies in our region,” she said with a smile that began with melancholia but shifted into pride, “but we’re all tight-knit because of it. DreamRise isn’t here for ourselves; we’re here for everyone back home. The other teams shouldn’t underestimate us because, when they go against us, they’re going against all of Region 4!”

  She looked as effortlessly pretty as ever. Her face was a camera’s best friend, even after the pummeling Adah had given it. In fact, if any of the damage Adah had inflicted still remained, all signs of it were hidden behind Iris’s makeup. She looked as though she’d spent the day of their duel relaxing at a spa rather than catching fists with her face.

  When Iris came on the screen, Ketzia leaned forward in her chair and pointed at the television. She turned to Adah and said, “This is the girl that gave you that shiner?”

  Adah silently thanked her for the reminder that the marks on her own face still told the story of that day.

  “She also crushed us in the voting,” Ami said. “Those results looked worse than Adah. No offense.”

  Ah, this gag again…

  “Aren’t you supposed to be all dark and edgy?” Ketzia went on. “Why’d you let this schoolgirl type walk all over you?”

  “Adah is the only one of us who really stood up to her,” Rika said. “She challenged DreamRise to the duel, otherwise we would’ve lost anyway without even putting up a fight.”

  Although Adah appreciated the kind words, they didn’t tell the whole story. She had to take responsibility for how the competition went, especially in front of Ketzia. After all, the woman was meant to teach her how to fix the mistakes she’d made.

  “No,” Adah said. “It was too little too late. I couldn’t figure out how to beat them in the voting, how to win over more fans, so I decided to just fight them instead. In the end, Iris was always a step ahead of me.”

  Footage from their duel played out on the television screen. Their loss hadn’t just been about capturing the hearts of fans, either. Iris knew her teammates so well, and they seemed to have complete trust in her. In some ways, she even understood the Sunbright team better than Adah did. She was a natural captain, and despite all that Adah hated about her, she had a good shot at rising to the same heights as other legendary magical girls.

  Adah was more sure of Iris’s success than her own, and that was what bothered her the most. Even just seeing Iris on the screen, she felt her hands ball into fists.

  Ketzia shook her head and resumed rocking in her chair.

  “If you girls leave here with only one lesson, let it be this,” she said. “If you wait for someone else to decide what role you play in life, it’s gonna be the one that’s most convenient for them. That’s how this sweet talker made you her footstool. This industry’s only gotten more cutthroat since my time, so if you don’t decide what you want and do everything you can to get it—you’ll wind up with nothing instead.”

  Their team hadn’t gotten nothing out of the IndieMagie—it was the main reason they’d grown enough to unlock their weapons—but it certainly felt that way. Maybe that was a sign of how Adah’s expectations had changed. Even though she’d achieved the goal that had gotten her so excited at the start of this journey, any joy she felt was overpowered by the bitterness of losing the competition. She couldn’t be satisfied with that.

  “So,” Ketzia said, “what do you want?”

  Her question was met with a few moments of silence, but ultimately Ami raised her hand like she was back in school and spoke up.

  “I want to become Untethered!” she declared. “It looks fun as hell, being a magical girl all the time. But I know if I’m gonna do that, then I gotta learn how to be popular. I need lots of fans of my own. What I mean is—I need to become more than Emi’s shield.”

  “And I want to be more than Ami’s spear,” Emi jumped in as soon as her sister stopped. “I want to be someone’s favorite magical girl. The first one they think of. Me, alone.”

  She looked over at her sister, a little hesitant to make eye contact. Ami, though, simply smiled back at her. Emi nodded in return and, after a silent agreement, the pair bumped fists.

  “All right,” Ketzia said. “That’s two down. What about you?”

  She posed the question to Rika, who was sitting at the end of the couch nearest to Ketzia. This had been the kind of question that gave Rika such trouble back when she had doubts about staying with the team. She’d since committed to sticking with Sunbright, but had she ever found her answer to this kind of question?

  “I don’t want to doubt myself ever again,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I want to write my own songs and perform them in front of a crowd. I want everyone who hears it to have no choice but to cheer because they like Lyrika just that much. I want to hold nothing back so that they can’t either. I want them to scream for me because they want more of me.”

  Rika looked down the length of the couch to Adah at the other end. When their eyes met, Adah felt Rika’s hot grip on her heart more intensely than ever before. The other girl’s eyes almost seemed to glow like Ketzia’s.

  Ketzia herself smacked her thigh as another toothy smile flashed across her face.

  “I love it—that’s the best one yet,” she said. “Let’s see if your captain can outdo that. Show us some passion, Heartbreak.”

  With that, suddenly everyone’s eyes turned to Adah.

  All of this had reminded her—Grace had mentioned expectations before, as well. She had said their fans wanted to watch them continue to climb to new heights. Those expectations were also ever-changing. You couldn’t gain FP by staying stagnant and taking on the same level of challenge over and over. To grow, you had to exceed expectations.

  That was what Adah wanted now.

  It wasn’t just the expectations of the fans she wanted to exceed, either. Everyone had expectations of their team: Secretary Thibault, who had favored DreamRise over them; Iris, who seemed so sure they’d never rise to her level; and most importantly, Adah herself.

  For the Adah of the past, who had hung onto her dreams even through her lowest points, Twilight Heartbreak had to become a magical girl who would climb higher than her own expectations.

  There was a surefire way to purge the fear of stagnation from her heart, to relieve the frustration of coming up short, and to do so permanently.

  If Pureheart Chu was her idol—the pinnacle of what a magical girl could be in a young Adah’s eyes—then Twilight Heartbreak simply had to surpass her.

  “I want to be the strongest,” Adah said softly, as if testing out how the words felt.

  “Hmm?” Ketzia hummed, though the grin on her face revealed that she already understood.

  “The most FP, the most fans, the most powerful spells—however you define it,” Adah said, “I want to be the strongest. I don’t want to have to wonder what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes, or to have to compare myself to anyone, I want to stand at the peak of it all.”

  She had thought she might feel embarrassed after saying all that, but she didn’t. She felt good. The words made her heart race, like she was flirting with her dreams.

  Ketzia clapped her hands, the loud smack snapping Adah back to the present moment.

  “I think I’m starting to understand you girls now,” the woman said as she continued clapping. “Yeah, Grace made the right choice sending you here.”

  “What do you mean?” Adah asked.

  “You’re all weird. I’d even say you’ve got some twisted personalities. You really shouldn’t be magical girls. It’s perfect.”

  “That doesn’t sound perfect,” Rika muttered.

  “It’s perfect for me,” Ketzia said. “Ya know, I wouldn’t be able to help that girl on the TV at all. I don’t know much about all that ‘smile for the camera’ stuff, but I do know how to deal with weirdos. Making you girls more popular is gonna be a breeze—we just gotta get you using magic like you’re Untethered.”

  “How exactly?” Adah asked. “We’re still limited to using our spells.”

  “Spells are like rules,” Ketzia said, “and rules are meant to be broken. All it takes is a little creativity.” She paused and pointed to Ami. “Take you, for example. You wanna be more than just a shield, right? Then we’ll find a way to make your spell act as more than a shield, too.”

  “I bash Cruelties in the head with it sometimes!” Ami said.

  “That’s a start,” Ketzia said, laughing as she pushed herself out of her rocking chair. “We should all turn in early tonight. Tomorrow, I’m gonna teach you how to break the rules.”