“Now, I—uh…” Rebecca said, her eyes stuck on Adah’s scythe. “I want to stick to this point for a moment. What makes you say that Secretary Thibault intended to ‘punish’ DreamRise with this mission?”

  “He’s got a bone to pick with us,” Heartbreak said. “Me in particular. I think because my team and I refuse to play by his rules, he constantly seeks to undermine us. He knows he can’t go after us directly, so he’s been using DreamRise to spite us. He pits our teams against each other. Now that we’re leaving his attack dogs in the dust, he’s venting his frustrations on them.”

  The morning after Adah had given her interview, she, Grace, and the oft-absent Michel gathered in the lobby to watch the highlights. Seeing herself on the television screen, Adah felt she’d made the right decision with her last minute change in transformation style. The magical girl on the screen had a serious air about her, and looked older than Adah herself felt.

  “If he wants to make an enemy of me,” Heartbreak continued, “I say the more enemies, the merrier. What I won’t forgive is him trying to take one of my rivals away from me. I have more respect for DreamRise—the knight in particular—than I ever will for that court jester. I’ve had enough of his silly attempts to usurp the throne… so to speak.”

  Ah, she should have committed to the bit. Either lean into the character or don’t—getting cold feet would only make her look lame.

  While Adah was focused on her quotes and appearance, Grace and Michel were watching for a different reason. Adah had put their business in the crosshair of the Secretary of Magic, and they needed to see what the potential damage could be.

  “His office called me as soon as this aired,” Grace said. “If nothing else, you were successful at pissing him off.”

  “What did he say?” Adah asked.

  “He alternated between threatening to revoke all of your licenses and demanding we visit his office.”

  “Is that it?”

  “And you can kiss that extra funding goodbye,” Grace said.

  Adah laughed and said, “That much I expected. If that’s the best he can do for retaliation, then things are going according to plan.”

  “No statements from his office yet?” Michel asked, to which Grace shook her head. “He’s waiting for us, then. When it comes to news like this, if someone you’d expect to say something is staying quiet instead, it can only mean they’re still tying up loose ends. We’ve still got some leverage over him.”

  “Of course we do,” Adah said. “All he’s ever done is overplay his hand. It all comes back to whatever promises he made in order to become Secretary in the first place. He keeps borrowing from the future because he took on some debt he never had a hope of paying back. We’re just the first domino to fall, but soon all his debts are going to come back to bite him.”

  “You said that at the start of this, too,” Grace said. “That the Secretary made promises to someone. Where did you get that idea from?”

  Adah shrugged. She’d simply had a sense of it. Once she’d started listening to Thibault with that idea in mind, so much of what he said seemed to support her intuition.

  “He’s not from here, right?” she said. “I’m not either, so I can kind of tell. I didn’t look into all the details, but it seemed strange that someone from a different region would come here and suddenly wind up as Secretary of Magic. It’s not even an elected position, so he must have had some kind of connection to someone in the government. It’s also too powerful a position to just hand out to your nephew, so this isn’t regular old nepotism. Add in the fact he’s completely inept and… it just makes sense.”

  Michel scratched his hair with one hand, leaving it even messier than it had already been. Though Grace handled so much of the day-to-day logistics, the business’s accreditation as a magical girl agency was under Michel’s name. He had been the one interacting with the Department of Magic the most until recently.

  “Adah’s got a point,” he said. “The previous Secretary was a goof, and he had this weird mustache, like… a walrus or something. But he tried his best to do his job. I thought this new guy was trying to sell me a car the few times I met him.”

  “And if the Secretary does owe somebody more powerful a favor,” Grace said, “how would that person feel about us getting in Thibault’s way?”

  Adah pointed at the TV and said, “I just told you. The more enemies the merrier.”

  Grace stared daggers at her, and Adah felt like she was about to get carved up like the first victim in a slasher film.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “That was a bad joke. But Thibault failing to deliver isn’t our fault—we’ve been helping him for the most part! And besides, this interview wouldn’t be the tipping point for trouble like that. I didn’t actually talk about Thibault the whole time—skip to the end.”

  Grace picked up the remote and fast forwarded to the end of the clip. After Adah finished her answer to some other question, they got to the part she’d mentioned.

  “I think he got scared of our new song,” Heartbreak said. “It’s kind of funny—to be scared of a song—but he’s a funny guy.”

  “R-Right, I did see your team is releasing—”

  “Tomorrow, when the sun sets. Just know that it’s not for the faint of heart.”

  Adah smiled—she was quite proud of that. She hadn’t planned to plug the music video originally, but as the interview went on she came up with a way to sneak it in.

  “That’s good, at least,” Grace said. “For bonus points, you could have mentioned the actual time.”

  “Heartbreak doesn’t use a watch,” Adah said with a shrug.

  “It’s a good start,” Michel said. “You’re finding your stride. Your character’s coming to the foreground more easily now. It’s still a little awkward, but you’ll sort that out. Once you stop having to think about it—when it comes naturally—that’s the fun part.”

  Grace took down her ponytail and, for once, didn’t bother retying it. If she always loosened her hair when she was stressed, maybe leaving it down completely meant she’d reached the endgame of stress.

  “If starting defamation suits with politicians starts coming naturally to our team’s captain, I’m going to quit,” she said.

  “It’s not defamation,” Adah assured her. “Even if it was, Thibault isn’t in a position to press us on it.”

  “Maybe you do have him cornered, but if you keep him there too long, he’s going to lash out regardless. It’s better we meet with him now, while he's still on his back foot.”

  “Call him back then,” Adah said. “I’m ready to talk if he is. While you set it up, I just need to make one call of my own.”

  ☆☆☆

  Grace drove Adah into the capital that same day. Apparently she wanted to settle this matter as much as Thibault did. Her reservations over antagonizing their Secretary of Magic were justified, but Adah had even greater reservations over allowing Thibault to continue playing games with the lives of magic users.

  Ekki had yet to show any sign of proper life. Though his vitals had stabilized, his mascots progress on removing the Cruelty’s infection was slow. Even if his body would deteriorate no further, his consciousness could still very well vanish forever.

  No matter how Adah looked at it, Ekki’s suffering was Thibault’s fault first and foremost. She intended to make everyone else in the region see things that way, too.

  For that purpose, she had recruited a temporary ally.

  “Head inside without me for a second,” Adah said to Grace as they walked up to the government building that housed the Department of Magic offices: a brutalist block of gray concrete.

  “So she was your call?” Grace whispered. Adah could only smile in response.

  Grace walked down the remainder of the sidewalk, saying a quick hello to the girl with sand-colored hair standing at the bottom of the steps leading to the gray building.

  Iris, for her part, returned Grace’s greeting but not her smile. It was only natural. Even Iris wouldn’t smile given the circumstances.

  Alone with the DreamRise captain again, Adah decided to offer a show of good faith. She needed to make sure Iris was on the same page as her before they spoke with Thibault.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said to Iris.

  “I’m doing this to help Ekki, not you,” Iris said. “Let’s be clear about that.”

  “Well, this is the best way to do that. You have a chance to build a lot of sympathy if we work together. People will want Ekki to recover.”

  Iris stepped closer to Adah and looked her square in the eye.

  “Don’t play him like a card against me,” she said. “I’ve already agreed to go along with your plan. We’re using him for your political game, so at least have the decency not to try to manipulate me as well.”

  Her eyes were cold, and looked as though all the color had drained from them. She continued to stare until Adah answered.

  “Sorry,” Adah said. “I didn’t mean anything like that. Even outside all of this, I want him to get better. I mean… sincerely—”

  “Forget it,” Iris said, closing her eyes. “We don’t need to say anything more than that, so long as we understand each other. If playing the victim will help him, then so be it.”

  “You won’t always have to be a victim,” Adah said.

  “If I corroborate your story, then what else am I?” Iris asked. “The three of us were forced on that mission with no say in the matter. It was either that or be blacklisted from this industry forever. Poor, woeful DreamRise, punished for their humiliation in the IndieMagie. I’ll swallow my pride and play that part for you, Heartbreak.”

  “For the fans, you may have to,” Adah explained. “But not today. Not in Thibault’s office. Today, we’re reclaiming our power.”

  “Roland Thibault has no power to give,” Iris said. “Assuming he did was my first mistake. That mistake is the reason for all of this.”

  “That’s true,” Adah admitted. “Real power can’t be given or taken, only exercised. Both of our teams want to get stronger, but we don’t mean it the same way other magical girls do. It’s not about spells and essence. It’s about the power to make our own decisions.”

  Iris rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t presume to understand me from some conversation you had with Ekki,” she said. “I know what he’s told you. I wouldn’t have told it the same way.”

  “Then what about understanding him?” Adah said. “He told me his aspirations to become Secretary himself one day. If you two and Clair manage to get along as a team, there must be some similarities between your goals. I get the sense the three of you don’t care so much about Cruelties right now. You’re focused on a different enemy.”

  “How astute. I feel like I’m in therapy.”

  “I’m only saying this because, for a brief moment, our goals align,” Adah said. “The power you want and the power I need are the same right now. In order to take our next step, we need to get Thibault out of the picture. Or even better than that—we need to show that magical girls possess a power that surpasses any Secretary’s authority. That’s what I want us to prove today—or start to, anyway.”

  Iris watched Adah again. Her expression was blank, another rarity for her. Eventually, she turned away and stepped onto the first stair leading up to the Department of Magic.

  “It’s like I thought,” Iris said. “We make better enemies than friends. Let’s get this over with. If I’m not there when Ekki wakes up, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Thursday, January 1st, but the posting schedule will resume as normal after that! I just need a day to collect my bearings after the holidays!