When Adah came downstairs on the morning of the meeting with Secretary Thibault, Grace greeted her with bewildered eyes.

  “Why are you transformed?” she asked.

  It was true—Adah had transformed into Twilight Heartbreak before leaving her room. She didn’t often transform while inside, so this had been a rare opportunity to inspect herself in a mirror. Getting such a close look at herself, she had come up with a list of alterations to make to her costume’s design in the future, but this current iteration would do fine for today.

  “We’re meeting Secretary Thibault today, aren’t we?” Adah said.

  “Ketzia didn’t actually torture the old Secretary,” Grace said. “Just in case you were getting any ideas.”

  Adah shook her head. “I’m not going to use any magic. I just want him to remember who he’s dealing with. I’m not some random girl—I’m Twilight Heartbreak. This is what I wear when I go into battle, and this meeting is absolutely a battle.”

  “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend that’s just your way of saying you have a plan,” Grace said. “Whatever that plan is, you should hear him out first. I won’t force you into any agreement this time, but remember that the last one worked out in our favor. Despite the downsides.”

  Adah smiled as she let herself fall back onto the lobby’s couch.

  “And this one will too,” she said. “In fact, it’ll be even better than last time.”

  Grace watched her with wary eyes for a time, but eventually sighed and turned her gaze to the stairway leading up to the dorms.

  “You sure you don’t want any backup?” she asked.

  “Just you,” Adah said. “I want to do this for them, as their captain. I feel like I owe them for not doing more during the IndieMagie. Besides, the twins can be a little… unpredictable.”

  Adah wanted to stay focused. She knew what she wanted to get out of this meeting—what she wanted to get out of Roland Thibault. She needed to get rid of any distraction that might steer this meeting away from those objectives. Like Ketzia had said, if she didn’t do everything she could to get what she wanted, their team would end up playing the role most convenient for Thibault. In that case, perhaps the reverse was also possible. Maybe she could make him play a convenient role for their team.

  “If you’ve convinced them to stay upstairs, you must’ve made a good argument,” Grace said. “I hope the Secretary’s as open to your ideas as they were.”

  ☆☆☆

  Secretary Thibault arrived at the agency office about half an hour after Adah had come downstairs. He was clean shaven today and had styled his hair more deliberately than on the day of the fan meet. His suit remained as immaculate as it had been back then. Adah wasn’t sure whether he had cleaned himself up for this meeting or let himself go for the fan event. Not that it mattered. In either case, she was already aware he liked to play games like this.

  He had brought two members of his staff with him: a woman in dark jeans and a black blazer over a white shirt, as well as a tall, burly man in an all-black suit. He introduced the woman as his adviser and the man as simply a “jack of all trades,” which Adah had to assume was a discrete way to saying the man was his bodyguard. Adah’s first thought was that a magic user might make a more appropriate bodyguard for a Secretary of Magic, but that would potentially require them to cast spells against humans. Not a great way to gain fans.

  On that note, this not-so-discrete bodyguard hadn’t taken his eyes off Adah since he arrived. It seemed he was worried she might use some magic of her own against Thibault. Perhaps she should have brought her scythe out for even greater impact.

  The Secretary himself was less worried. After introducing his staff and shaking Grace’s hand, he walked right up to Adah and extended the same courtesy to her. She held out her hand for him to take, but didn’t bother returning his smile. Even if she hadn’t been trying to sink into the role of Twilight Heartbreak, she wouldn’t have been able to fake a smile for this man.

  With introductions out of the way, Grace led the group to the back office, where their privacy could be guaranteed. Once again, Thibault proved he wasn’t overly concerned with his safety—he asked his bodyguard to remain in the lobby while they talked. The tall man silently nodded, then gave Adah one last look. She stuck her tongue out at him and rushed into the office behind the rest of the group, closing the door on her way.

  Once the four of them were seated—Grace and Adah on one side of a small table and Thibault and his adviser on the other—Grace started the discussion.

  “Thank you for meeting us here,” she said. “I’m sorry the space here is a little cramped.”

  “Not a worry,” the Secretary said, leaning back in his chair. “I think I ought to visit every agency in our region before my term is up. Seeing our magic users and their agencies up close is the best way to understand their challenges. And how my team can be of assistance.”

  “All the same, we appreciate you taking the time,” Grace said. She was a master of many skills of adulthood, including this polite but not cloying manner of speaking. These skills sometimes came as a surprise to Adah, given how disinterested she had always seemed the past four years. The recent changes at their agency had brought this side of her to the forefront.

  As she delivered those lines, Grace glanced over at Adah, but Adah kept her mouth shut. She was waiting for the right time to strike. Thibault had wanted to meet on his own accord, so let him propose whatever it was he had in mind. A counterattack was Twilight Heartbreak’s best play here.

  “Consider it an olive branch as well,” the Secretary said. “I was made aware that the collaboration between your team and DreamRise Productions encountered some… friction. I hope the outcomes make up for any inconveniences you dealt with, but I wanted to thank your team directly.”

  “No problem,” Adah said. “Shame Iris choked in the finals.”

  Okay, that wasn’t part of her plan, but sometimes opportunities present themselves. She couldn’t resist.

  Secretary Thibault smiled at her and said, “DreamRise performed admirably, as did your team. Before this contest, I doubt anyone expected our region could produce such impressive representatives. Phase One of the Unchained Underground was a resounding success.”

  If Adah framed her offhand comment as her testing the waters, then this was a good sign. Thibault had clearly came here prepared to play nice, and she had no intention of returning the favor.

  “Phase One implies a Phase Two,” Grace said.

  “Indeed,” Thibault said. “That is what I was hoping to chat about today. During the IndieMagie celebration we hosted, you may recall how I spoke about our region’s inability to defend ourselves against the threat of the Cruelties. We rely far too heavily on the assistance of our neighbors, which has increasingly become a significant financial burden for us. Not to mention less than preferable for public safety. Elise can dive into the data.”

  Thibault’s adviser, Elise, reached into a black leather briefcase she had brought with her and produced a manila folder. She pulled a few sheets of paper from the folder and spread them out on the tabletop. The sheets were full of pie charts and data tables with font too small for Adah to read without holding the papers to her face. Luckily, Elise explained their contents.

  “This is the breakdown of mission completion by local agencies divided by rank,” she said, pointing to one of the pie charts. “In the past twelve months, no Region 4 team has completed an A-Rank mission, and only one has completed a single B-Rank. Year-over-year this is a 50 percent decrease in B-Rank completions. That data sounds bad until you realize it means our region still only completed two B-Rank missions during the previous twelve month period. Then it sounds even worse.

  “You will notice F- and E-Ranks comprise over 70 percent of completed missions. Compare that against the data represented in this chart, where you can see F- and E-Ranks make up under 30 percent of the total missions that appear in our region. We dug a bit further in and found that local teams are responsible for completing 91 percent of the F- and E-Rank missions that appear in our region, but only 10 percent of any available missions C-Rank or higher.”

  “In short,” the Secretary said, “we’re being strangled. The other regions are eating up our higher ranked missions and sticking us in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our teams can’t grow in these conditions, so we continue to need outside help.”

  “Spotlight Sunbright and DreamRise are the first teams to push above an average FP level of 5000 in over two years,” Elise added.

  “It’s a start,” Thibault said, “but we need to shake up the ecosystem as a whole. As Secretary of Magic, it’s my duty to create an environment in which our agencies can thrive. Our citizens deserve as much. I cannot end my term and leave this region still without a team capable of defending it against an A-Rank Cruelty.”

  That was all Adah needed to hear. She’d allow him to explain whatever plan he’d come here to propose, but he had already opened the door for Adah to take what she wanted. Had her own weaknesses been this obvious to Iris?

  “That’d mean you failed to deliver on your promises, wouldn’t it?” Adah said.

  The region’s self reliance was an idea she had seen him speak to firsthand at the fan meet. That was how he positioned himself to the public: the man who would usher in a new era of magic users, who would give the people an army of new teams to cheer for.

  Now, his earlier comments about the region’s financial burden convinced her he had made a different kind of promise to someone else. Perhaps it was another government official who had pulled some strings for him, or maybe an outside investor who had made a generous donation. It very well could be both. The Department of Magic was an insidious stew of business and bureaucracy.

  The specifics didn’t matter to Adah right now. Thibault’s response told her all she needed to know about the pressures he was facing. There was money riding on the success of his plan, and money had the potential to make anyone desperate.

  “Promises belong on the schoolyard, not in government,” he said. “I set goals—for the benefit of the region—and we’ve made good progress toward those goals.”

  “Not good enough, like you said.”

  The Secretary turned to look at his adviser. Grace turned to look at Adah. Their expressions were equally incredulous.

  Thibault and Elise whispered a short exchange to each other, then the woman collected her papers and slid them back into her briefcase. She replaced them with two stapled packets and placed one in front of both Grace and Adah.

  “We don’t intend to sit on our laurels,” Elise said. “We are prepared to offer your agency a preferred role in our plans for Phase Two. You can find our full strategy in those documents, but Secretary Thibault will explain the broad strokes.”

  Thibault straightened out his tie and looked Grace and Adah in the eyes one at a time before proceeding. His forehead appeared just the slightest bit shinier to Adah. Maybe a hint of perspiration?

  “Phase One proved DreamRise and Sunbright are full of growth potential,” he said, settling back into a tone that was part board meeting and part campaign rally. “In Phase Two, we want to push that potential even further, while also carving a path for teams that have been slower to rise. Key to this strategy will be a new policy I intend to enact.”

  He paused there and waited. If he was hoping Adah would ask what that policy was, he’d better be ready to stay silent for an eternity. Just as the prolonged silence crossed into territory too awkward for the average person, Grace gave Thibault the out he wanted.

  “Care to explain?” she said.

  “Of course,” he replied with another canned smile. “My policy will disallow any missions C-Rank or below to be claimed by an agency outside our region. In time, I plan to extend the policy to all B-Rank missions as well. We will handle them all independently.”

  Grace’s eyes went wide. Her expressions of surprise, such as the look she’d given Adah earlier, usually took the form of a raised eyebrow or squint. She’d look at you the way you’d look at someone eating a jar of pickles for breakfast. The genuine shock on her face now was a rare sight.

  “All of them?” she asked. “Do we even have enough teams for all that work? And what about—I mean, this is—”

  “Holy shit. You want to dump all those jobs on us and DreamRise?” Adah summarized what Grace was trying to get at.

  To her knowledge, theirs were the only teams in the region capable of consistently handling C-Rank missions. A few others could take on specific types of Cruelties at that level, but lacked the right spells or raw power to accept every mission that popped up. Under this policy, Sunbright and DreamRise would be forced to take on most of the C-Ranks all by themselves. If either one of their teams refused, his plan would fall apart immediately.

  Secretary Thibault hadn’t just opened the door, he’d ushered her to the vault and cracked open the safe. If asking for what you want at the right time was level two according to Ketzia, what level was this?

  She was about to ransack the Department of Magic.

  “Sunbright and DreamRise would lead the charge on this initiative, yes,” Thibault confirmed. “It would be an opportunity to focus on missions more suitable for your current strength, and my Department would do what we can to accelerate your growth until you can assume responsibility for the B-Ranks as well. This will free up lower ranked missions for our younger and less successful teams, fueling their development so that they can soon assist with the C-Ranks. Ultimately, I see a future where either you or DreamRise become our first team capable of completing an A-Rank mission.”

  “How exactly do you plan to ‘accelerate our growth?’” Adah asked.

  It took all her patience to set the stage properly for her forthcoming demands.

  “We will continue the Unchained Underground strategy,” Elise answered. “We’ll employ some of the same tactics, but the door is also open to new ones. Now that the IndieMagie is over, we can engage our corporate partners and deploy the full range of our Department’s resources. The development of local agencies for this task is our primary objective over the next two years. Our discretionary budget reflects this fact.”

  Well, if they were offering…

  Grace started to speak, but Adah cut her off. That would probably be the scariest part of this negotiation, but she could apologize to her manager later. Or maybe she wouldn’t have to with the way things were going.

  “We’d need to be compensated directly for the added responsibility,” Adah said. “According to those charts, this will be a lot of new missions for us to handle.”

  “You’ll be given priority for every high quality mission,” Thibault said. “No more scrambling to take well paying jobs before they’re snatched up.”

  “I meant additional compensation,” Adah said. “When agencies outside our region take these jobs, they charge an extra fee, right? Twenty percent or something? Since you’re looking to save money, why don’t we cut it in half? Sunbright will only charge ten percent.”

  “You want to charge an interregional fee even though you’re part of this region?” Elise asked.

  “No,” Adah said. “I want to offer you a half-off discount because we’re part of this region. Consider it a thanks for your involvement in the IndieMagie.”

  Elise’s mouth hung open. She seemed the studious type—good with numbers, at home in a spreadsheet, brain full of any fact you could want to know. She probably made a good pairing with Thibault, who was all personality and politics. Unfortunately for her, she had no clue what to do when it came to Twilight Heartbreak. To her, the Secretary’s proposal made logical sense for both parties. Why would this magical girl start making new demands?

  Thibault and Elise leaned close together to whisper once again. Grace took the opportunity to do the same with Adah.

  “Is this your plan then?” she asked.

  “The start of it.”

  After a quick, hushed back and forth, Thibault sat up straight and cleared his throat.

  “We can’t offer a ten percent bonus in perpetuity,” he said. “However, we predict new teams will be able to join you in handling C-Rank missions within the next four months. We are willing to pay the bonus during that four month period. Are we agreed?”

  “No,” Adah said again. “I want to beat DreamRise to those B-Rank missions. The A-Ranks, too, for that matter. To do that, our team needs better marketing. As you can probably tell, our agency was basically bankrupt until a month ago. We’re going to need your Department’s help.”

  “We intended for our strategist to help you in the first place,” Thibault said with a smile. He looked happy to get ahead of that request.

  “I don’t want your strategist,” Adah said. “I want your money.”

  His smile twitched, but stayed frozen on his face.

  “Am I mistaken,” he said, “or did we not discuss money a moment ago?”

  “That was for my paycheck. This is for marketing.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find the marketing we plan to provide more than adequate.”

  “I didn’t last time,” she said.

  Secretary Thibault stared at her, this time without the smile. He loosened his tie and leaned back against his chair. He gave another look toward Elise, who was also watching Adah, albeit with a frown.

  Thibault sighed and said, “If this is all due to our strategy for the IndieMagie, I promise you don’t need to be so cautious. There’s no competition this time.”

  “There’s always a competition, even if you don’t give it a name,” Adah said. “Unless our team sits this out completely. Then DreamRise can handle all the C-Ranks alone, or try to anyway.”

  The Secretary laughed, which was probably the most genuine reaction he’d shown all meeting.

  “Magical girls are obligated to defend our citizens,” he said. “I could suspend your license for refusing missions.”

  “I don’t think that would solve your problem.”

  Thibault crossed his arms and closed his eyes. While he collected himself, Adah pushed the stapled packet Elise had given her back across the table. Saying any more words might undermine her own game.

  She wanted to show the Secretary she knew that he couldn’t leave their office today without an agreement, but didn’t want to go as far as shoving that fact in his face. Her message had to be clear, but he needed to draw the conclusions in his own head. If she said them directly, he might refuse her in response to the sheer arrogance of such a move.

  The noise those papers made as they slid across the table was just subtle enough to push Thibault over the edge.

  “Elise,” he said, “set aside some budget for Sunbright’s requests. If your management can share with us with an itemized list of essentials, we can negotiate funding for your marketing efforts. Within reason.”

  Elise reached into her briefcase once again and pulled out a notepad. She flipped it open after a quick glance at the Secretary, then jotted down Adah’s request. Thibault slid the packet of papers back toward Adah.

  “With this, we have an agreement, yes?” he said.

  “Almost,” Adah said. “I have one more thing I need to discuss with you. In private.”