“Are you fine?” Peter asked as we stepped out of the kitchen.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Peachy,” Joan said, throwing a wink toward Pam. What a fucking ancient asshole.

  Meanwhile, Ty just finished wrestling with the projector, aiming it at the biggest white wall in the apartment. Elena, Hannah, Sophie, and Zoe were arranging oversized cushions in a loose nest for us to sink into during the movie. Normally I’d be the first to dive in, but not tonight. I drifted toward Nick and the rest of the boys standing off to the side. Jason—of course—trailed right behind me.

  “Yo, guys. Maybe we play something before the movie?” Evan asked, gesturing so wildly I almost had to dodge. “I’d love a bit of poker before we unbrain ourselves from reality.”

  “The what?” Nick raised an eyebrow.

  “You know. It’s not exactly high art, what we’re about to watch.” He paused, slapped a hand over his mouth dramatically, and turned to me. “Wait, I used the forbidden word, didn’t I?” Then he cracked up.

  “Very funny, man. Hilarious.” I deadpanned. “I’m up for poker though, if you’ll have me.”

  “Hell no!” Tyler barked, right as he joined. “You ain’t playin’ with us. No, no.”

  He took a swig from his beer, and the others followed suit like they’d suddenly remembered they were holding drinks. Only Nick didn’t lift his.

  “What? Why not?” Peter protested on my behalf, bless him.

  “May I have one of those?” Joan-as-Jason interrupted, grabbing a beer for themselves.

  “You don’t remember first year?” Ty shot back at them. “We played at a party just like this. She is a witch. No offense, Alexa, but you are. There is no way, no way in hell, I’m playing with you again. You either have the luck of the universe or you’re the biggest cheater I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh. I remember that,” Peter said. “You guys went home broke that night.” I mentally begged him to shut up before he added more. “She probably cheated you. She’s good with cards.”

  Thanks, oh mighty truth-sayer.

  “Yeah, I might’ve had a bit more control over the cards I got than I let on,” I admitted, cornered. “My memory of that night is a bit fuzzy, guys.”

  “Yeah, I bet it is,” Tyler muttered. “Like I said, if we play, you’re just watching.”

  “Honey, stop telling people about your kinks!” Elena shouted from across the room.

  We all burst out laughing, and Tyler went red as a stoplight.

  “It wasn’t what—” he tried to defend himself.

  “It’s no shame. Honestly, it’s still better if they play and you’re the one only watching,” Joan added, raising their beer like a toast.

  “You guys are swines,” I said, stepping aside. “If you decide to play, I’d still love to join. I don’t even have to touch my cards.”

  “What do you mean by that? Can you levitate them?” Evan asked.

  “No. Damn, you’re dense sometimes. Someone else could show them to me, if you’re scared I’ll be pulling tricks.”

  “Alexa, please stop talking to those animals and come over here,” Sophie called. She glanced toward Nick too, checking whether he was alright.

  He wasn’t. Anyone who truly knew him would see it instantly—no jokes, no rambling about the physics of shuffling cards or probabilities or why no deck ever falls into the same sequence twice. He just stood there and listened. Very un-Nick.

  Most people didn’t know him well enough to notice.

  Unfortunately for him, Peter did.

  And as I sank into a blissfully comfy orange cushion patterned with tiny blue stars, my fingertip-eyes caught Peter pulling Nick aside for a one-on-one talk.

  “When do we start the movie?” I asked, watching dust motes swirl in the projector light above me. Their lazy dance soothed something deep inside.

  “In a minute or two or thirty,” Hannah said. “Sophie was just telling us about her sex life, so shush and listen.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Soph responded, though a small smile tugged at her lips.

  “You talked about kissing,” Hannah pressed, sinking back into her crisp white cushion, which contrasted beautifully with her deep black skin and the golden flecks of makeup on her cheeks. I liked it. A lot. “And that always leads to more. So I assume you were going to.”

  “It’s—” Sophie tried to interject.

  “Good? Very good? Spectacular?” Hannah continued, eyes gleaming, while I laughed quietly under my breath. Zoe handed me a drink through the chaos; I curtsied slightly and took a sip. Nice to see someone else under the spotlight for once.

  “Maybe it’s bad,” Peaches chimed in, a flicker of concern in her tone.

  “No, it’s fantastic. In every sense of the word. I just don’t feel comfortable discussing it here.”

  “Fantastic?” I smirked. “Like… magical?”

  “Oh, Ali. Please,” Sophie groaned.

  “Does he have a magical wand down there? What aren’t you telling us, girls?” Elena finally joined in, her face a canvas of uncontrolled expressions.

  “Jesus, people! It’s great!” Sophie shouted, silencing the room instantly. All eyes turned to her.

  “She’s admiring your drink, Tyler!” I teased. “It really is great. Good job.”

  “Thanks, Alexa,” she said quieter this time, as the boys returned to their own conversations. “And I hate you. But I love you too, all of you. Just leave it alone.”

  “You’re no fun,” Elena said, her voice deflating like a popped balloon. “Maybe Zoe will share some spicy details with us? We all know Peter’s well-endowed.” She added, making me laugh and prompting Zoe to spit out her drink.

  “What?” Zoe said, red as the sun, stumbling over her words.

  “Oh, it’s not what you think. I didn’t do anything like that with him. We just all saw him swimming once or twice.”

  “Mhm,” the girls murmured in unison, sipping their drinks.

  “You were saying the boys are animals?” I asked.

  “To be honest, it could be better,” Zoe began, shocking everyone with her blunt honesty. “Sex, I mean. He lacks a bit of confidence, but we’re working on that.” The girls’ eyes went wide. Zoe had that force-of-nature energy that left everyone stunned. “And yes, to the earlier comment—what she said,” I laughed. Once the initial shock wore off, the girls joined in, the room bubbling again with laughter and chatter.

  “I think we can safely rule Alexa out of this line of questioning. Safely for us, of course.” Hannah picked up the threads of the conversation without missing a beat. “That leaves us with Elena and a man who likes being watched.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “What? Are you talking about me again?” Ty stepped closer.

  “Were you listening to our convos? That’s rude.”

  “It’s not when someone is talking about you,” he shot back.

  “So you like being watched but not being talked about?” she teased, to the general amusement of all the girls.

  “I don’t like being watched. It was taken out of context.”

  “But honey,” Elena began, “you did say the other day that the recording would help us get better.”

  “Jesus, Elena!” Ty went practically beet red. “That was supposed to stay between us.”

  “It’s not like I’m showing the actual sex tape. We’re just talking. And you definitely liked watching yourself when we watched it together.”

  “Oh man,” Faux Jason groaned as he dropped onto the pillows with us. “She got you.”

  “I’m kind of afraid of what movie we’re going to watch now,” Nick said, coming closer. First full sentence he’d said out loud since we arrived—everyone burst out laughing. Well, everyone except Tyler.

  “I give up,” Ty muttered, throwing one hand in the air and taking a long drink of his beer.

  After that, Evan, Peter, and Nick settled onto the pillows. Pete between me and Zoe, Nick close to Sophie, who gave him a quick, hot kiss, clearly hoping no one would notice.

  Spoiler alert: my fingers saw everything.

  Evan plopped down between Peaches and Hannah.

  “Ty, be a nice guy and start the movie, okay?”

  “Sure, El…” he sighed.

  “Nice guys always finish last,” Evan joked at Tyler’s expense, earning himself a middle finger from the man and a giggle from Pam. She scooted closer to him and whispered something into his ear. Judging by the way his face changed color and the smile that followed, she might have caught herself a man for later after all.

  **********

  This was all but confirmed about twenty-five minutes into the movie, when the hushes finally died down and people slipped either into the story, like I tried to, or into their plus-ones, like most everyone else in the room. All the established couples, and, as I quietly concluded, Peaches and Evan as well.

  Luckily for my libido, everyone seemed committed to keeping things at the level of light groping and kissing. Still, I had a perfect view of the whole room while pretending to focus on the screen, which wasn’t entirely difficult thanks to the movie’s surprisingly catchy songs.

  It was around that time that my watch—tethered to my phone—lit up with a name I did not expect.

  I got up quickly, which prompted the behind-the-back kissers to pretend to watch the cinematography again, as if they’d been doing that the whole time. I walked toward the hanger where my bag and my phone waited.

  A stray second line of thought drifted through me, wondering if I could paint the phone case into something more… artistic. Something that would save me the trouble of hauling myself across a room every time someone called.

  But my primary focus locked on the name glowing at me:

  Akira Shiroi.

  “Sorry guys,” I said. “Important call, be right back!”

  I grabbed my phone from the hanging handbag and slipped out of the apartment into the hallway, taking the stairs upward at a near run. The whole time my thoughts spun back to Malik, and everything that had begun in Shiroi’s house.

  “Akira? Is that you?” I asked as I picked up.

  “Yes.” He sounded pissed as hell, almost hissing. “Could you kindly explain to me what the holy fuck happened in my house?”

  “Well, hello to you too. And as you probably noticed on your phone before you started yelling pissed-off words directly into my ear, I tried calling you several times. To check if you were alive.”

  I heard the sharp exhale he let out after that.

  “Hello, Alexa,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please tell me what’s going on. Where is my prisoner?”

  “First things first, it wasn’t me who blew up your home. I found it like that when I got there.”

  “I know,” he said. “Although it seems your employer had something to do with it. Robert recognized one of the men driving the car.”

  “What do you mean? Penrose blew your house?”

  “No. I did. I set explosives to go off two minutes after anyone entered without me punching in the code. I needed to make sure no one took my prisoner out of there alive.”

  “Well, did you think to tell me that? It could’ve been me that blew up.” My voice climbed, irritation slipping out.

  “Alexa… since I’ve known you, you used the front doors only the first time you ever visited me. Once. Twice, if you count walking in and then out…”

  “True,” I admitted. “Why did you keep that man down there anyway?”

  “Not now. Where is he? I saw a man who was with you come back for him later. And then you plus two other men came again, probably looking for him. Right?”

  “You saw that, how?”

  “Alexa, dear. I am not a stupid man. Most of the time. I have cameras hidden around my property.”

  “Where the fuck were you then?”

  “Can’t you answer any of my questions without inserting your own into the mix?”

  “No. Not this time, Akira. And you’ll understand in a minute when I explain myself, but this time you go first. I tried calling you so many times. I was worried. You didn’t answer. And yet when your precious ‘prisoner’ gets taken, you magically appear one fucking second later, like a jack popping out of a box.”

  Another pause on his end.

  I used it to perch myself by the window overlooking the city beyond the stairwell.

  It had started snowing again. Soft flakes settling over the night, making the usual bleakness strangely bearable.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said.

  “Apology accepted. Where were you?”

  “Robert and I spent some time on the other side. We were training. Trying to sharpen our combat abilities, gather more soul marks and artifacts for what we’re planning. Julian shouted that he’d get back at us the moment he was free, and Robert marked him with a debt. He felt that debt being paid today, so we rushed out of Ideworld to see what happened. We arrived about an hour ago. We’ve been watching the footage since.”

  “So you were out of service for most of the time?”

  “Basically since the last time you were at my place. We captured Julian then. Robert forced him to hand over rights to a company he owned. We wanted a foothold in whatever gave Edge its… well, its edge over the Guild. We knew they were planning something huge, but Julian wouldn’t spill a thing, and Robert had no more leverage to pull. So we left him to ‘reconsider’ in my basement while we went to get stronger for what’s coming.”

  “What is coming?”

  “We don’t know exactly. But Julian seemed sure it would make them the biggest player in the U.S. when it comes to magic. And judging by the mages he hires, it would have to be something really fucking massive to close the gap.”

  “I see. I was worried about you, like I said. So I went to check what happened, just to walk into a wrecked building—”

  “You didn’t know it was Penrose?” he cut in.

  “No. I don’t work under him anymore. I’m trying to do my own thing. I just take contract work from him sometimes.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yes. But like I said, I went in to investigate and made the mistake of taking my friend with me.” I called him a friend when he was already dead. I suck. “He had a better heart than me, and he couldn’t handle leaving that guy down there. And as I later found out, it was his brother’s boss. So he wanted to free him in exchange for getting his brother released, which ended with me chasing after him on your bike, trying to stop the mistake before it happened.”

  “You were too late.” Not a question, just a fact. “Your friend. Is he okay?”

  “I hope he’s in a better place now, but no. He’s dead. Killed by the brother I mentioned.”

  “Oh fuck. And Julian is out with Edge?”

  “He made it to their Ideworld Gate base. He probably used it to hide somewhere in there—or they just moved him somewhere on Earth. Can’t you locate him somehow, if Robert is the owner of EoT now?”

  “It’s a delicate balance. It was easier to manage when Julian was removed from the equation. They won’t disclose anything easily.”

  “Why are the gates such a big deal? You know you can go to Ideworld through your own Domain, right?”

  “Yes, I can, because I’m the sourcerer and I keep it near me. Most mages aren’t that, and they won’t risk letting others pass through their Domains. So gates, as public channels, are safer. Listen, Alexa, I don’t have time to run through the details any longer. We need to move before this trail goes completely cold. Thanks for worrying about me. I appreciate it. And I’m sorry about your friend. It sucks when the good ones die.”

  “Call me if you need help.”

  “I’ll consider it,” he said, and ended the call.

  I lingered by the window for a moment, looking down at the thin layer of snow gathering below. From up here, I felt briefly like the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, the one Friedrich painted. The white swirled and dispersed beneath the city’s spires, turning the rooftops into jagged rocks jutting out of an invented cloud-sea. And just like his solitary figure, I felt the same mixture of awe and smallness, how tiny I was in the grand scheme of things.

  And yet I wasn’t without agency. My actions set others into motion, and I could just as well bring some of that momentum to a halt. I just needed to know where to press.

  **********

  If you need to know, the movie was great. I actually managed to have a really good time for the rest of the evening, but the closer we got to the end of it, the more restless I became, and of course someone noticed. Peter was first. He asked if I needed help. Naturally I told him I didn’t, that I only had something in mind that might ease the sting of the day. When I explained what it was, he said he wanted to come too.

  Then, at the very end, after I’d already said my goodbyes to everyone, even to faux Jason, just as I stepped outside to pretend I was walking home, Nick and Sophie caught up with me. We talked briefly, and it became obvious he was restless as well, unable to focus on Sophie or anything ordinary tonight. So he decided to come with me. Sophie wasn’t thrilled, but she understood, and they still had their own time together when he drove her home.

  And so here we were, two hours later: the three of us. Me in full Usagear, Peter in gym clothes, and Nick in full Guild-issued Hexblade armor with his usual backpack slung over him. He’d also handed the knuckledusters I made for Malik to Peter, hoping he could put them to use with his water-based powers.

  The ground was damp, and everything smelled of concrete and somehow insects, grasses, trees, and a hundred other scents as well. The concrete jungle welcomed us back, right at the spot where we’d left it last time. The terracotta giant still lay there across the painting of its own nervous system when we arrived, but we weren’t here for him.

  We were here to hunt, to train, and to shape ourselves into the best mages we could possibly be for whatever the world, and the people in it (especially the people), were about to throw at us.