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I scoot a little closer, throw my hand against the top of the couch casually, my arm hovering behind her back, hand lingering close to her shoulder, waiting to see if she’ll invite me to sit closer.

Brenda looks at me curiously. “So, when you said you liked to come up with your own stuff—if you weren’t talking about games, you mean, like… magical spells?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it’s something I used to do with my mom. She was an expert in spellcraft. My dad is a potions guy. He specializes in mood enhancers at this coffeeshop, and he also brews to spec on the side.”

Brenda’s eyes light up. “To spec—like he makes custom potions?” She tilts her head as the rest of my words sink in. “Wait, was?” Her face falls a little, and she bites her lip.

“Mom died three years ago.” It feels strange as I say it, like it’s a fact. In the days right after the Ritual, the council kept saying she was missing, and then missing lasted for days, then weeks, and then she was declared legally dead.

“Oh,” Brenda says, frowning. “That sucks.”

I nod, waiting for the usual platitudes, for the I’m sorry s, for an awkward shadow to fall over our conversation.

I know that Brenda doesn’t know Mom, not like how everyone in LA knows her name, how it’s immortalized on a plaque at city hall; I know that she can’t—wouldn’t—do the same pitying gesture of she was so brave, and so are you , but I brace myself for it anyway.

It’s automatic by now. Once Dad took me along to a potion convention in Texas, and I spent a gleeful anonymous weekend where no one knew my family legacy, and no one knew about the prophecy.

Even without the circumstances, it’s still weird talking about it.

The moment doesn’t come.

“My dad left when I was a baby,” Brenda says softly. “I never knew him. I mean, it’s not the same, but—” She glances up at me. “I get it, kinda.”

“Is it just you and your mom, then?”

Brenda laughs, a short sarcastic chortle.

“I can’t even imagine what that would be like.

No, my mom and I live with my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and my two cousins.

” She shakes her head. “I share a bedroom with my younger cousin Stacey, who’s sooooo annoying.

My littlest cousin, Jimmy, is cute, but he’s way past the baby stage, and because he’s a boy all the aunties spoil him. It’s the worst.”

She plucks the strawberry out and dips it in the whipped cream, taking a bite out of it. “Do you have any siblings?”

I shake my head. “Wish I did. Then Dad would have someone else to bother.” Someone else who wouldn’t disappoint him. Someone who could live up to his expectations of the perfect daughter. Someone who could be the Chosen One instead of me.

“Ugh, I mean, I am an only child, but it’s like everyone might as well be my sibling—and we have so.

Many. Cousins. I don’t even know how I’m related to half of them, and I’m sure we aren’t even related to some of them, they’re just family friends or whatever!

I mean, Stacey and Jimmy are the only ones who live with us, but someone is always over, the house is always loud, and there’s always at least two soaps on with, like, an extra dialogue track of drama. ”

Brenda launches into a story about how they went on a family vacation to Las Vegas and how ridiculous it was because the adults all wanted to gamble and there was nothing for the kids to do, and how Jimmy broke a slot machine because he thought it was a toy, and then it was all blamed on Brenda.

She talks fast, her hands moving in fluttering, excited motions, and her entire face radiates an energy I’ve never known before.

A few more strands of hair have escaped her ponytail and keep falling in front of her face.

Brenda does this cute thing, flicking them back unconsciously every other minute, sometimes even when they’re not in her face at all, like it’s just a gesture that’s part of her.

“And then, you know, that’s when I started coming up with the Plan. It’s obvious that without significant change to our socioeconomic structure that—”

“Sorry. What?”

Brenda blushes. “I mean, change is necessary at all levels but, like, I feel like the most impact I could have is doing significant research toward effective methods to reduce greenhouse gases.”

I blink at her. “Yes. Good. I have absolutely no idea what that is, but I’m guessing it’s bad?”

Brenda shakes her head. “Not necessarily—the greenhouse effect is what keeps the earth at a temperature capable of supporting life and contributes to our atmosphere, but the anthropomorphic additions—fossil fuel emissions like carbon dioxide, et cetera—” She squints at me.

“Uh, it’s a thing. I don’t have to talk about it. ”

I wave at her. “No, no, go on. I like listening to you talk.”

I barely understand what she says next, but she’s passionate about it for sure, and her eyes are lighting up again, and her cheeks are flushed pink with excitement.

It’s cute. Endearing. To have something she cares about so much.

Brenda waves earnestly at me. “Ah, it’s okay! I always feel like I’m talking all the time and people are always telling me it’s too much, heh. I’m surprised you want to listen about the Plan in detail at all, most people are like, ‘okay whatever’—um—what do you want to do?”

I shrug, taking a sip of my plain coffee.

“Please, tell me everything. I would die for a chance to study magic.” Brenda’s excited and playful, but the irony of her words isn’t lost on me.

“You just might,” I say, my voice going dry.

“What do you mean, like it’s super dangerous?”

I don’t want to talk about mage fatigue, the way so many young mages burn out in the factories, the lower life expectancies they have.

So I shrug instead. “The most interesting magic to study at the higher level is practically impossible to get to with how the council plays favorites.” I shake my head.

“It’s just so stupid, how few academic positions are even available, and of course it’s interesting, but most two-year programs just train you to handle factory jobs.

I mean, I’d love to look at spell matrices, but that’s not where mages are needed. ”

I stop, surprising myself. I got so lost in Brenda’s rapt attention that my usual mask of nonchalance around magic slips.

There’s no one here to pretend to. Brenda doesn’t know anything about the prophecy, how I pretend I don’t care that my future has been planned out for me, how other people see me. I don’t have to be tough here, I don’t have to pretend like I’m okay with a designated expiration date.

I think—I think Brenda sees me .

It feels different and good in an entirely new way, and the warm affection surges through me, making me bold. I just want to be here with her and I want to flirt, to see if she feels the same way.

I smile, leaning forward so I’m just close enough for her to touch if she wants to. I pluck the last strawberry from her drink, slowly and deliberately catching the whipped cream dripping down its side with my tongue.

Brenda watches me, her eyes widening slightly, her pink mouth falling open, and another blush is settling in her cheeks. She’s glowing with such earnest excitement that I falter, messing up the sexy act, and I—what am I doing? This is so cheesy and—

I settle back into the couch, blushing madly.

Brenda blinks, leaning forward, and then falters. “So… what’s a spell matrix?” she says quickly. “Is it like a matrix in algebra? Tell me more, that’s so cool!”

“Oh, um, it’s the basic setup of how a spell is run, so all the data you input and variables for the elements to act on in the spell. Sometimes they don’t play nice with one another, so you’d have to be careful how you define stuff—that’s why namekeys are so important.”

I’ve ranted about the stupidity of the magical education system at length before, often getting sent to detention for talking back to my teachers (why I failed Basic three times at San Pablo), but there’s something about Brenda and the way she’s just so enthusiastic about magic that my usual rant dies in the back of my throat.

Instead, I find myself talking about the intricacies of constructing a spell from scratch.

“Building a brand-new spell is almost completely unheard of—that’s why when you said you did it, too, I was like, whoa. Mostly because people don’t bother—why change something that already works? Why spend time and energy when you can spend someone else’s?”

“So can you study that?”

“Uh. Not really, unless you were, like, at the top of your game at university or something. There aren’t a lot of options for creativity—all the programs are geared toward making sure mages get trained in a specific field as fast as possible so they can start work immediately.

No one wants people to linger in academics. ”

If someone else had asked me Do you want to study magic? my answer would be an empathetic hell no . But the way Brenda’s excitement and the way she sees magic as a whole new thing, bright and full of possibility—it reminds me of how I saw it as a kid, as another puzzle to solve.

If I could study magic—the root of it, the source of it—somehow, if I could shed all the expectations of being the last Woo and that damn prophecy and just get to be , that would be amazing.

But it’s just not possible. My destiny is all set in stone.

Brenda makes a thoughtful hmm sound. “I guess it’s like math. I never really thought about it. I mean, most people are like, am I gonna need to ever use algebra again? But if you’re interested in it, or it’ll be useful as a foundation for other stuff…”

She trails on about math and science and her climate stuff, and it’s so cute. She’s so excited about it all. About life in general. I lean back, answering her questions about schools and academic tracks in magic, and she has so much boundless energy and enthusiasm.

I sling my arm around the back of the couch again and scoot closer, and Brenda shifts toward me, her back resting against my arm.

I hadn’t thought about a real relationship in a long time—just hookups, losing myself in the escape, trying to forget what fate had in store for me.

This feels different. Like I’m making my own choice.