Maisey stifled her yawn as she followed her brother out to their shared car, dropping into the front seat and letting her eyes fall shut.

  Early morning basketball practice was the bane of her existence, and she didn’t even do sports. But with their shared car situation, if she wanted to get to school and avoid riding the bus, she had to ride with Mason when he went in early for practice. At least she’d get to see Tobias for a minute or two, and then she’d get to do some reading.

  “Can we stop for coffee?” Maisey asked, not opening her eyes. It was too early, the sun hadn’t even risen yet, just beginning to lighten up the sky.

  “No,” Mason said, the word clipped.

  “But I’m tired,” Maisey whined.

  “Maybe we could have, if you’d gone to sleep when I said you should instead of staying up half the night, or if you hadn’t taken ten years to get ready, but I’m already cutting it close.” The engine revved for emphasis, the car speeding up. Maisey finally opened her eyes, before she had a chance to get nauseous from the movement. “If we’re late and I have to run laps, I’m making you do it with me.”

  She grimaced. Running laps had to be one of the cruelest punishments high school coaches had ever dreamed up. “Drive faster, please.”

  Mason obliged, getting them to the school in record time. He was out of the car the moment they parked, grabbing his backpack and booking it for the gym. Maisey followed at a more reasonable pace, shivering in the morning cold. The gym was welcomingly warm when she let herself in, though it would probably be frustratingly hot for anyone working out.

  The boys were all gathered around their coaches, being talked to in low voices, which meant Mason hadn’t been late after all. That was good. He’d make her life miserable for a week if she caused him to be late to practice.

  She waved at Tobias as the coaches finished their talk. His face lit up, and warmth filled her stomach. Even after four years, he still reacted like that, and it gave her butterflies every time.

  Maisey sat down on the bleachers and spread out, opening up her backpack and pulling out a book thicker than the Bible. She half watched them practice, half read her latest book. It was a thick piece of work, over a thousand pages long, but the lesbians and dragons made it all worth it.

  She was already close to the end of the book, having stayed up far too late the night before after she’d sat down to read a single chapter. Well, that was what the rest of the books in her backpack were for.

  Sure enough, she finished up the book halfway through basketball practice.

  A sigh slipped from her lips as she closed the book, resting it on her knees as she savored the ending. A book like this deserved time to be digested, time to be savored and thought through, but she also wasn’t going to sit here for the rest of their practice and do, what, stare at them? That would be weird.

  She reached for her backpack, then paused, hand outstretched.

  One of her books sat on the bleachers several feet away, as if it had climbed out of her backpack all on its own, trying to get away from her.

  What the hell…

  Barely moving, Maisey slid the finished book down into her backpack, eyes never leaving the one on the bleachers.

  It lifted a fraction of an inch off the metal seat and skittered forward, moving like it had legs of its own.

  Her heartbeat spiked, mind racing before everything clicked into place. Magic. This wasn’t some horror movie, though there was no doubt a monster beneath the book. Lucky for her, she’d just gotten certified to deal with this sort of thing.

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  Maisey stood up straight and transformed.

  Magic swelled from her, from the lines of the spell she’d had to learn in order to equip her outfit and other equipment. It was the only spell most magical girls used, something she’d had to memorize and master before leaving the commission building with her whole outfit.

  Maisey had read up on the spell after getting it down. Apparently, some mage had created it to be simple and easy to use for even the most novice of magic users, as a way to protect young mages identities, not unlike the idea of superheroes that had been common at the time. So transforming in a school gymnasium in front of a bunch of people who knew who she was probably wasn’t the intended use of the spell, but it was also the only way she could access the tools she needed.

  The outfit appeared fully formed, whisking away her original dress and shoes to who knew where until she dropped the spell, a pair of glasses appearing on her nose.

  Peering through the glasses, Maisey got a good look at the magical creature beneath her book. A bug, not unlike an ant, but blue and about the size of a toy car.

  What was an ant doing with her book?

  A trail stretched out in front of the ant, a line of pheromones leading it back to its hive. Nest? Ant farm?

  She shook her head, clearing her line of thought and grabbed the book. Tucking it protectively under one arm, she brought the heel of her sturdy boots down on the ant with a stomp loud enough it echoed through the whole gym.

  If her transformation hadn’t gotten everyone’s attention, that certainly did.

  Maisey shot the team a bashful smile as she quickly gathered her things, shoving them back into her backpack to follow the trail before it faded.

  It led off the bleachers and into the school, only visible through her glass’s lens, all the way to the library. That begged the question once again: what did the ants want with books?

  Ants were supposed to be very intelligent, but she didn’t think they should be able to read. Could magic make something intelligent?

  Maisey decided to put the idea away until she could deal with it seriously, and stepped into the library. Scanning the space, she didn’t immediately see anything even with her glasses, except for the same trail she’d been following. Stepping into the rows of shelves changed that.

  The trail split off in multiple directions, connecting to multiple ants milling about and stealing books off the shelves. At the very end of the room against the wall was a pile of everything they’d stolen, with more ants continuing to stack notes.

  Outrage split between excitement as she made a realization. This is my first magical girl mission.

  Rushing back to the library counter, Maisey dropped her book bag and dug into it, pulling out a sheaf of loose paper. With practiced fingers, she began to fold. She funneled magic into the first paper swan and set it to task tearing up the ants and getting them out of the library.

  Halfway through the second, her pulse burned in her neck and Maisey decided she would need to find a way to carry around origami pieces without damaging them, because this was taking too long. She wasn’t Luc, able to piece together tools in just a few moments with scraps and trash. She needed time to prepare, and didn’t want to scramble to build golems when monsters or giant bugs needed killing.

  Finishing her third swan, Maisey whipped out her phone. In a moment, she had a video rolling. She recorded as the swan took off from her hand, shooting through the air faster than any paper plane she’d ever seen, and dove at the ants.

  The other two paper swans were already on it, piercing the ants and tearing them with sharp, pointed beaks. Within moments, the three paper swans had destroyed all the oversized ants.

  They flew back to her, settling onto her shoulders as she flipped the camera around, smiling at herself on the screen.

  “Your books are always safe with Fold,” she said to the camera, before winking and ending the video.

  With a few quick clicks, she posted the video, then set her phone down with a sigh. Her hands fell to her hips as she surveyed the scene in front of her.

  Even without any more magical ants to kill, there really were a lot of books to clean up.

  Maisey set to work cleaning up the books and organizing them before school, startled out of her work as the library door swung open.

  She opened her mouth, ready to explain the situation to the librarian, and found Marie and Luc standing together in the doorway.

  “Saw the video,” Luc said with a shrug. “Good job. Proud of my magical girlfriend.”

  Marie’s face dropped and she shoved Luc as Maisey began to cackle. Being a magical girl was going to be so much fun.

  discord is up and running to talk to other readers and chat with me, and the is also up if you wanna support me there! I'll be sharing a Christmas special there on the 24th and 25th!