Emotion prickled across her body, vibrating into the base of her teeth. She didn’t have enough room to move, rid the agitation from her body, in the space between the standing tables and the bar.

  She climbed onto the stool, glaring daggers at the wall behind the bar, at the clock ticking achingly slow toward the time they’d be able to leave. How much longer did they have to stay here? She wasn’t going to be friends with these people. Especially not Pip, the birthday girl. Charles expected her to go across the country with that girl? Go to school with her?

  She was an idiot. Vivainne didn’t associate with idiots.

  Not if she could help it.

  Someone tugged on her sleeve. She jerked away before she could see who it was, teeth gritted as she prepared to fire off a furious comment before her eyes landed on the top of a dark head of hair.

  Vanya pulled her hand back slowly, her eyes wide and watering. God, was Vanya going to cry? Vivainne did not know how to deal with a crying child, and she certainly didn’t want to make her sister cry.

  Releasing a sharp breath, she pushed her anger aside for the moment and slid off the stool until she was kneeling eye level with Vanya. “I’m sorry,” she said, taking Vanya’s hand in hers. “What did you need?”

  “I want to play,” Vanya said, twisting and pointing. It took a moment for Vivainne to figure out just what she was supposed to be looking at, following the vague point in the direction of the Christmas tree.

  “You can play,” Vivainne said, unsure what else to do. There were several other kids who didn’t seem that much older than Vanya, though if they were at all like Pip, she wasn’t sure how much she wanted her sister to be playing with them.

  “You help?”

  “What?”

  Vanya kept pointing, angling her hand upward. What was Vivainne supposed to be looking at? All she could see was the tree.

  Before she could question Vanya again, her eye caught a flash of movement and she looked up. Past the tree, standing on the balcony almost level with the tip of the Christmas tree, another little girl climbed over the railing and reached out.

  Vivainne’s heart leapt to her throat, but before she could cry out, before the girl could fall, a massive pillar of glitter leapt out of the ground. It wrapped around the girl, enveloping her for a moment before depositing her safely on the ground and receding as if it had never been there, save the slight shimmer of glitter on the ground and coating the girl’s skin.

  The little girl took off before she could be scolded, running straight up to Pip and whispering something to her before taking off again. Pip looked up at the tree, and a suspicion sparked inside Vivainne.

  “Play what?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “What game are you all playing?”

  “Get the star,” Vanya said, and Vivainne finally realized she wasn’t pointing at the tree, but at the massive star sitting at the top of it. “Don’t let the grown ups see.” She twisted around suddenly, scowling at Vivainne. “You’re not an adult, are you?”

  “No,” Vivainne said, shaking her head. “So you want me to get the star?”

  Vanya nodded. At the same time, Pip moved, abandoning her plate and making her way toward the tree. She was playing too, trying to steal the star from beneath the adult’s noses. As she looked around the room, Vivainne realized every teenager and young kid was trying to do the same thing: steal the star without getting noticed.

  They weren’t doing a very good job, however.

  And Vivainne was uniquely suited to the task.

  She pushed to her feet, fighting back a smile as she looked down at Vanya. She would steal that star out from beneath everyone’s nose, and no one would even know where it went.

  “Why don’t you go give it a shot?” Vivainne suggested, giving her sister a tiny nudge toward the tree. If she was going to do this, and stump everyone else but especially Pip on where the star went, she would need at least a tiny distraction. Vanya would do well enough.

  Vanya started off toward the tree, and at the same time, Vivainne began to walk around the room. The adults were the biggest obstacle in her way. The other teens and kids didn’t have an ability like hers, at least not from what she’d seen and overheard, and the Carters were notoriously bad at any sort of subtlety. She loved Artemis, but Glitterbomb wasn’t exactly subtle.

  Charles and Thalia were deep in a conversation, entirely distracted from the rest of the room, or at least as distracted as trained heroes got. She still wouldn’t use her power near them, since Recompense at the least knew what her power looked like. She was already on extremely thin ice with him, but it wasn’t like she was committing a crime here. Just playing a game like everyone else. And she was going to win, because she’d be damned if loud, careless Pip managed to get the star.

  A massive woman Vivainne recognized to be Athena stood beside a small Asian woman Vivainne didn’t recognize, although she could guess her to be Pip’s mother. Artemis and the other Carter sibling, Orion, spoke with them, along with the man who’d greet Charles upon their arrival. The only one paying attention to the tree was Artemis, eyes occasionally glancing over at it and causing people to scatter from the base and around the banister railing above.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  If they didn’t want to get caught, they were doing a terrible job.

  Artemis kept walking, moving to the far side of the tree and out of sight. Heat crackled at her back, a fire roaring behind a glass pane. The light might be an issue, but not one she couldn’t live with. At least for a short amount of time. Especially fire light, rather than pure sunlight.

  Sunlight was the worst for Vivainne. Firelight should be doable.

  Across the room, a group of teenagers gathered around Pip. A curvy black girl with white hair, a skinny brown boy with too much product in his orange-ish hair, and two more girls Vivainne hadn’t seen yet. They turned their attention to the tree, scheming.

  Oh hell no.

  Vivainne stepped into a bridge of shadow cast by the balcony above and faded into them, dripping her body into the shadows along the ground. For a moment, she was 2D, like a character on a page, until she reached the undergrowth of the tree and reformed her body. Pieces of free evergreen poked through where her body was supposed to be, the faintest distortion inside her.

  She had never tried to climb with her power before. Never used it for anything other than walking on a flat surface through walls, except during her fight with her sister, which meant it was possible. And if she was going to become a hero, she needed to stretch what was going to be possible for herself.

  Which meant this counted as training. Yes, training, not a game and certainly not actions taken out of spite.

  Vivainne took a deep breath, something unnecessary in this form, and reached overhead. There was no grabbing onto the tree. To solidify her body would mean skewering herself with branches, and she’d never live down the embarrassment of doing that in front of a room full of heroes. Instead, she imagined herself to be what she currently was: a shadow. Her shadow stretched up, joining the darkness on the inside of the tree. It wasn’t quite moving, more akin to traveling along an escalator, her body moving without effort as she crept limb from limb, avoiding patches of light cast by the Christmas lights adorning the tree.

  A thrill went through her soul, only strengthening the surging of her core as she used her power. It may be broken. It may be fractured. But she wasn’t useless.

  At the top of the tree, she had to pause. How was she going to grab the star?

  From her place in the shadows, she stared at it, grey scale and dark. No lights illuminating it to bar her path. A clear path, if she could take it. All that mattered was the path.

  There was precedent. The clothes on her body carried with her whenever she transformed. Even the video contacts she’d worn for Recompense transformed when she turned into shadow. It was possible. This was just an extension of that ability.

  She stretched out her mind, and a tendril of shadow with it, wrapping it around the base of the star. She could lift it, take it off the tree, but then she wouldn’t be able to hide it.

  No, she only had one option.

  I can do this.

  Her awareness stretched, consuming the star. Her core fluttered, like a fracture of bone pulled loose by a tendon. The star itself protested. It wasn’t meant to be intangible. It wasn’t meant to fade into shadow. She could almost feel the item’s thoughts, its protests at what she was asking it to do.

  But she wasn’t asking it. She was forcing it.

  A burst of fresh air. A rush. It transformed under her force of will, turning into shadow in her grasp.

  She’d done it. She’d transformed something into shadow with her power.

  Pulling the shadow-star to her chest, Vivainne retreated down the tree and into the shadows splitting across the wood floor. The group of teenagers paced around the tree, taking the space she’d occupied before transforming.

  God, why were they everywhere?

  She had to get across the room with this star. She wouldn’t lose, and she wouldn’t get spotted by the heroes with it. That would defeat the game, and prove to them she was just a sneaking, lying, stealing criminal like her mother.

  No, she wouldn’t do that.

  Shadows stretched across the floor, interrupted by panes of light from the fire, from the overhead chandelier, from windows frosted over from the cold. Her core wouldn’t allow her to get across the floor.

  But it would have to.

  Strain built up in her core, invisible tension she couldn’t let go, or she’d lose her control.

  Vivainne jumped across the floor, a streak of shadow like an arrow of darkness bounding across a beam of light. Her form shook, body fighting against will to return to solidity. She refused, gritting her will against her body’s own desire. She was in charge of this ship, and nothing would happen without her permission.

  From puddle of shadow to puddle of shadow she went, pooling once in the shadow Thalia and Charles cast from their table. A snippet of their conversation reached Vivainne’s ears as she gathered her will, her mother’s name in the thick of it.

  What were they talking about?

  She lingered, fighting back the pain, the tension building in her core.

  “She shouldn’t have to be there for this.”

  Thalia answered, her voice low. “She will have to be.”

  “You’re taking her out of town.”

  “I have to go back if you want me to testify.”

  “She could stay with Artemis.”

  “Her testimony will be the nail in the coffin for Monet,” Thalia said, and all the pieces finally clicked into place. A chill washed through Vivainne’s body. They were talking about her mother’s trial. Charles had promised he would share news with her as it came up. This was why they wanted her out of town next week?

  “I do not want to put her in that position.”

  “You should have thought that through before you made her a spy.”

  “You did the same with me!”

  “Times were different,” Thalia said, her voice low. “The systems weren’t in place like they are now. You went around the system.”

  “And I’ll deal with the consequences.”

  “These are the consequences.”

  As a shadow, there was no heat. No light. No pain, except that in her soul.

  But for a moment, all she felt was rage.

  She shoved off the table, rattling it beneath the two heroes as she crawled her shadow the rest of the way across the floor, fading through the wall and into the bathroom. Her body reformed as her will disintegrated.

  Breath came in short gasps. She would have to face her mother again. She’d always known she would, but Charles had said…

  She was right not to trust him.

  Maybe her sister was right. The heroes were just using her.

  The door opened with a squeak. Vivainne barely had time to attempt to pull herself together, grasping at the star she’d stolen. If they caught her here…

  “Viv, what are you doing on the bathroom floor?” She stilled at Darcy’s voice, looking up through watery eyes at the tall blonde. “Don’t tell me you’re becoming a kleptomaniac now.”