Becoming a magical girl was my biggest failure. That’s why I’ll always treasure my decision to become Petals of Iris.

  When I was a child, most things came naturally to me. I had no trouble with school assignments. I got along with all my classmates and teachers. Whether it was the mile or the hundred meter dash, I could run faster than most of my peers. I could learn songs on the piano in just a couple hours of repetition. Every day, I’d surprise an adult by using a new vocabulary word.

  I came to enjoy the reactions of the people around me. I enjoyed the smiles my teachers gave me when they returned a test with the number “100” circled at the top. I enjoyed how the boys in my class cheered when I beat the cockiest among them in a race. I enjoyed when my mother praised me in front of her friends.

  I began to think I was special. I had thought the people around me were impressed or amused by my special talents. I had thought they were looking at me like they would a shooting star, their eyes aglow.

  I came to understand they weren’t amused or impressed at all. Their smiles had nothing to do with me. Not me, at least.

  I was a reassurance to my teachers that they had taught their lessons well. Iris understood all the test’s questions, so they must be doing something right.

  I was a check on the ego of the braggarts in my class. All the other boys could now tease them because they lost a race against Iris, and she’s a girl.

  I was a doll for my mother. Look how she dressed me in the cutest outfits. How she taught me all the minutia of proper manners. How her genes or perhaps her approach to parenting—no, surely a combination of the two—had produced such a splendid child. Even other parents would use me as a conduit to speak of my mother. Iroha’s daughter is a darling—I must ask how she got Iris to behave so politely.

  The truth became obvious when I started to spend time on activities my mother couldn’t care less about. Even my successes were failures if they didn’t align with her passions. Something like winning first place in a poetry competition was merely a distraction from acting classes, auditions, and fancy dinners with talent scouts in other regions. It was a waste of my “talents.”

  “You’re pretty, Iris. You’re smart enough to know what people want and charming enough to give it to them. You could do anything you want with your life, so don’t waste it on some pointless hobby.”

  Anything I want? My mother never saw the irony of her words.

  I shouldn’t be so harsh on her. It wasn’t like anyone else treated me any differently.

  Other people—even my friends—weren’t ever really happy to see me. It wasn’t as though they had an affinity toward me, like they wanted to hear what I had to say. They were happy for my presence because they could place their desires upon me. They could burden me with their expectations, and they could convince themselves I was capable of handling all the weight without breaking.

  They wanted a friend who would smile, give them all the attention they desired, and act like they were the most interesting person in the world. Who would never have a problem of her own, a bad day, or something else on her mind. And I had learned how to do it, bit by bit.

  It was all a calculation. Trial and error. I had learned what people liked and disliked, as easily as I learned the formulas and dates of history and five paragraph essay formats my teachers taught.

  I’d try a smile on for size. Did they like that one? Hmm, they didn’t respond the way I expected. How about like this? Yes, that one hit the mark. Remember it. Act it out in front of the mirror until it becomes as natural as breathing. Tweak every line of dialogue. Write it out if I have to, and edit every word. Melanie in the drama club prefers “hey” over “hello.” Move onto eye contact. How long can I look before someone grows uncomfortable? How quick is too quick? Ah, a trick—delay as long as possible, then look right at them with their favorite smile, twisted with just a hint of anxiety. Blush if I can, like I’m embarrassed by how happy I am to see them.

  They love it.

  The character comes together, piece by piece. The one for mother, the one for Melanie, the one for my teachers, the one for the talent scouts.

  I could adjust all the knobs and dials until I was exactly who they wanted me to be. I could become nothing but arithmetic on another person’s calculator.

  I know, I know. I did it to myself. No one asked me for any of it, not outright. I did it because I wanted to.

  Knowing the reality of my relationships didn’t stop me from chasing the affections of other people. I’d grown addicted to feeling special, even if it made me sick to push all my other feelings aside. As much as I despised how transparent people were—how shallow their love was—I couldn’t help myself.

  For a long time, I managed to fool myself into believing the brightness in their eyes when they saw me was a reflection of my own radiance. Deep down, I knew that twinkle was just them seeing the bulbs on a slot machine light up. Every time they talked to me, it was a jackpot for them. I dispensed their dopamine over and over, and that was what they were in love with.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  It wasn’t as though I got nothing out of all this. I got to feed the addiction, most importantly, but I also was afforded some opportunities. A minor role here, a magazine ad there. Chocolates on Valentine’s Day and invitations to so many birthday parties.

  For a child, all of this was pleasant. Then I got older, and it became so very unpleasant.

  There are so many stories that they all blend together. It doesn’t help that they’re all the same. Each of them a tragedy, in which the protagonist learns that what they wanted wasn’t really what they wanted. Let’s pick one at random.

  I stole Melanie’s boyfriend. No, I led him on. No, I was a slut who couldn’t help herself. No, I was jealous of Melanie. I did it for revenge because she had gotten the part in the play that I wanted.

  But I didn’t do anything. I stole no one, flirted with no one, slept with no one. And I certainly didn’t care about some part in a fucking school play.

  It was Melanie who insisted I meet her boyfriend. Who insisted I hang out with them so often. Perhaps I made her comfortable—I’d laugh at her jokes, point out what was cutest about her outfit, and do what I could to make everyone have fun. Looking back, I’d rather have been anywhere else over seeing a movie with them or going bowling or whatever the hell else she asked of me. But at the time, I did what I was accustomed to doing: acting a doll.

  The truth was that her boyfriend never spoke to me without Melanie around. Maybe she had grown suspicious of the way he looked at me. Maybe her own insecurities convinced her I was making a play for him. Maybe when she confronted him, he fooled himself into thinking he had a chance with me, and argued instead of denying it.

  I really don’t care. It’s one story out of a hundred. Two idiots out of thousands. The point is: after enough stories like that one, I had finally had enough. The side effects of attention finally outweighed the withdrawals.

  That’s where the idea to become a magical girl came from.

  This job was a way to make use of my talents for my own pleasure, rather than someone else’s. Power through popularity? Putting on a fake smile and playing an impossible character? I’d been training for this job all along without realizing it. Best of all, my mother would hate it. Magical girls weren’t actors to her, they were circus clowns who got roles because children and lonely people liked to indulge in fantasies.

  Unfortunately for her, my mother had raised a fantasy.

  I left her. I left my friends. I left so many people who I’d never truly given a damn about, and who certainly had never given a damn about me. It felt good to leave them—all of them except for Ekki.

  He had always seen through me. He’d always been unaffected by my social calculus. The only time I ever got Ekki to smile was when I stopped thinking or performing at all. That was the only version of me he ever had any interest in. The “fun Iris,” as he called it. His affection was never as white hot as everyone else’s. He never needed to see me, and never looked at me with those twinkling jackpot eyes. I don’t think I realized until I was away from him how badly I needed the respite he provided from my performances.

  Perhaps that was why I reverted to my old ways.

  Agencies in Region 1 are full of people who think they’re special, and many of them are. Singers, dancers, actors, and artists of all kinds who could make it to the top of their field with or without the help of an agency. Surrounded by such people, I felt I had to rely on my own talents to compete. I had to meet expectations.

  I had forgotten. Charming people, pleasing them—this wasn’t a way to gain power. Not real power. It was a way to forfeit yourself to other people. It was a way to make yourself a doll to be controlled.

  To be used and abused. Taken advantage of. Used as a footstool.

  I would never be anything more than fodder for the egos of my managers and a common enemy for the other girls at my agency.

  I hadn’t escaped my mother and Melanie. I had surrounded myself with their clones.

  Eventually, I realized this, too. So I fled back home. Back to Ekki.

  With him by my side, I thought finally things could be different. I could find a success that meant something to me. I could reclaim my power from the world. I could be the one in control.

  But magic is a broken system.

  Magic essence, FP, agencies, the Secretaries of Magic, missions, mascots—all of it is designed to keep magic users stuck under the thumb of the same cruel master that had tortured me my whole life. My power would always be subject to other people’s expectations.

  The agencies decide who receives what opportunities. The Secretaries decide which teams to promote and favor. The fans decide what spells you get.

  As soon as you failed to meet those expectations, you would be punished. All of your effort would vanish, and the world would yank back the leash on your power.

  After I lost our team the IndieMagie, I gained a spell I thought I would never use.

  [Prerogative of the Perennial]

  Enhance the spells of your comrades by imparting your strength upon them.

  Was this what I got for my failure? Had the fans lost all faith in me to lead? No longer was I to be the queen who claimed power for herself, but a peasant who had all her power taken from her?

  Even then, the expectations didn’t stop. Everyone demanded the fantasy continue. If we had lost the IndieMagie, at least we could be the next Region 4 team to defeat a B-Rank. At least we could do that much for Thibault. For our fans.

  It was the least we could do. We had to do it.

  Or else, we’d be tossed aside.

  It didn’t matter what the mission was, we had to take it. This was our last chance to seize any power for ourselves.

  “That’s it then?” I said. “This is our limit.”

  “What limit?” Ekki shouted.

  “You’re not allowed to lose,” Adah said, “until you lose to me.”

  “Now we’re all going to die anyway!” Clair screamed.

  Shut up.

  Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!

  This fucking hydra. Destroy one head and get two more for your trouble. How fitting. No one is ever satisfied with a magical girl until she does the impossible, are they? And once she’s done that, they want something else.

  Fuck you!

  I’m going to kill the Iris they’re all in love with. I’m going to leave her mangled body on their doorsteps, with her eyeballs nailed to their front doors. I’ll carve those stupid smiles they love so much onto her face, so they can see them forever.

  Thibault, the fans, Sunbright or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves now—it’s not about any of them. It’s about power.

  I’d forgotten, Ekki. I’m sorry. You and Adah—as annoying and aloof as she is—both figured it out before me.

  Real power is what’s left after everyone has taken everything away from you that they can. Real power is special.

  I reached this point off the back of real power, and I don’t intend to lose here. I haven’t reached my limit yet.

  “I wouldn’t have brought us here if I didn’t think we could win!”