Page 30

Something scuttles behind me, and my heart leaps into my throat. I turn around, trying to see, but there’s only shadows, something just beyond my field of vision.

I squint, trying to make out something, anything in the dark. There’s light emanating from somewhere above me, trickling through grates ahead—water drips ominously somewhere, and it echoes in the long tunnel. Where am I?

This is not downtown Los Angeles. I was picturing the busy hustle and bustle of the metro station outside the library, not some dark and cold dungeon—

Something flutters across my feet.

I grab it, my eyes starting to adjust to the scant light. It’s not the printed map of Los Angeles with the intended plaza carefully circled, but Erica’s intricate hand-drawn map for D a luminous thick liquid has spilled out of it and is glowing softly in the darkness.

“Fancy, no!”

Too late. She’s already licking daintily at the substance, not even having the audacity to look guilty or alarmed as I reach down and grab her.

She waffles in the air, her legs going akimbo as she meows with an undignified protest before settling in my arms. “You don’t even know what that is!

” I glance down at the broken glass, stepping gingerly around it.

There’s a label on the broken vial, and I snap a picture of it with my phone. It better not be poisonous to cats.

Fancy burrows nervously into my arms. I stroke her head, trying to instill calm, but I feel just as anxious as we make our way down the tunnel.

There’s more scuttling behind me. Whatever it is, it’s following me.

I look down the tunnel, but I can’t see anything aside from another flash of quickly disappearing light.

It’s actually worse than knowing what could be lurking there, because my imagination starts to conjure up bigger and more terrifying creatures.

If anything happens, I can just cast the spell again to go home.

If it works.

I try not to think about that. Instead, I walk faster, and almost trip over a set of stairs going up to a metal door.

I look to the door and then back toward the rest of the tunnel that descends into darkness and then decide to take the stairs.

The door at the top looks like it’s seen stories, a heavy metal thing with a complicated bolt and a sign welded to it that says KEEP SHUT .

I heave it, lifting the bolt up and wedging myself through the door, and onto what sounds like a linoleum tiled floor. Lights flicker on. Motion sensors?

I’m in a hallway of some sort, and while its less creepy than the tunnel, I feel just as nervous.

It’s late, there’s no reason for me to be here.

I creep along, hoping to find an exit, and then stop short when I see a shadow on the wall, something monstrous and skeletal with an absurd number of teeth.

I swallow the yelp in my throat and clutch Fancy to me, and then I realize the shadow isn’t moving—whatever it is, it isn’t alive.

I turn the corner—a T. rex skull?

It’s got a plaque reading DONATED TO THE UCLA DEPT. OF GEOLOGY .

UCLA? I literally only went across town?

Sure enough, I round the dusty corner and there are old projectors sitting in the hallway and a pile of abandoned textbooks in a cardboard box marked FREE and seismograph charts. This hallway has windows and open doors; looks like a series of classrooms or labs.

I see some students walking in tight clusters, some huddled around a bulletin board, one asleep on a couch while another is lazily reading a book, the pages turning automatically as it floats in the air.

No one looks at me twice, holding a cat and a bulging bag full of spell ingredients.

I exhale, recognizing the fashions in front of me.

Kat’s universe.

If I can find her, we can figure out how to get me home.

I find the big double doors that usually signify an exit—and I make my way toward them past the throng of students.

Suddenly a panicked cry echoes from behind me. “PIXIES! A whole hive of them just came up from the basement! Someone call campus security!”

I’m almost knocked over as a student in a torn UCLA hoodie falling off their shoulders pushes past me and the other students.

They’re covered in what looks like a sheen of iridescent party glitter, in hues of blues and purples and greens.

The hoodie has been shredded by what looks like tiny, vicious claws.

The girls in front shriek and make a mad dash for the door, and then get caught in a bottleneck as all the students struggle to get out at the same time.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” another student demands.

“Some asshole coming from the steam tunnels left the door open; there must have been a nest, come on!” They cough, sending a cloud of glitter into the air.

Oh shit. That was me.

One of the girls swipes a symbol on her phone, and I can’t see what happens exactly, but the glitter stops before it reaches her, as if it’s bumped into an invisible wall made of air.

Right, so… don’t touch the glitter. I take a step backward from the glittery dust. A thick cloud drifts from the stairwell, a shimmering haze, and I hear the buzz of insect-like wings.

I run out the door after the students, pushing outside into the cool night air.

In the courtyard, students are whipping out their not-phone things and casting spells and disappearing, the crowd thinning out with every second that goes by.

There are a few stragglers, students with a lot of books or large things that look like laptops—runebooks, the word comes back to me now—who are anxiously trying to wrap up their work.

One student arrives who—I still haven’t quite figured out all the fashions of this world, but from the surefire way he’s rushing forward—seems like some sort of jock.

He’s wearing a long dress shirt, sure, but it is untucked and flopping erratically as he hurries over with what looks like a lacrosse stick with a huge net.

“Heard there was a pixie and thought I could help. Is it in there?” he calls out.

The first student covered in glitter coughs. “It sounded like a swarm. I didn’t see.” They glance back, their eyes widening in fear. “Good luck,” they say before dashing away.

The boy barely older than I am gingerly props open the door, pokes his head in, and then backs right out with his net thing. “Holy shit, it is a swarm! Someone call the wranglers. I do not need to go to the hospital tonight, I have an exam tomorrow!”

He closes the door and pushes a potted plant in front of it.

Fancy’s claws burrow into my shoulder as I run away from the building as quick as I can, but it’s hard going with both a cat and a heavy bag bouncing against my hip.

I definitely don’t want to stick around and see what kind of damage a swarm of pixies can do or get caught in that glitter haze that everyone is avoiding. I try to remember what Kat said about them: a nuisance, but in large numbers they could be deadly.

I have to stop and catch my breath, and Fancy shuffles against my chest, meowing unhappily.

I realize no one else is running anymore, and there are more than a few people giving me curious looks.

Probably because of the huge fluffy cat in my arms, but I feel like there’s a sign on my forehead that reads I SET THE PIXIES LOOSE .

Just breathe, breathe. I inhale and exhale. I count backward from ten and try to concentrate on Fancy’s warm fur in my arms, her scratchy tongue as she tries to groom my chin, the night air breezing by.

“You there. With the cat. Did you see the pixie swarm attack?”

I turn and look and there’s a man stroking his beard thoughtfully, his cap tilted at a jaunty angle. He looks like a noir detective, in his long coat and the way he’s flicking at his runebook and studying me curiously.

“Why were you running?” he asks.

“I… the pixies,” I exhale.

I know this is the wrong answer immediately because he narrows his eyes.

“You didn’t get the BruinAlert saying the danger has passed? Pixie wranglers were called and the situation has been stabilized.”

“I don’t have my runebook on me,” I improvise. “My cat, er, ran out the door and I had to catch her.”

Fancy meows.

“Yep, and now I did, so everything is all right, so I’m just going back to my dorm.” I smile sheepishly and start to walk away.

“I didn’t think students were allowed to have cats in their dorms,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

“My apartment, I mean. Off campus,” I amend. “I just moved in, I’m still getting used to it.” I chuckle a little. “I still call it my dorm, because it’s the same amount of space with three girls, you know?”

The babbling doesn’t seem to throw him off. In fact, he just nods as if this fact confirms that I am actually a college student.

“I’m Detective Summers.” He squints at me, his jaw still taut with suspicion. “Campus security is trying to figure out how a known and contained pixie swarm got loose. Did you see what happened?”

I take a deep breath of the collegiate air around me, the crisp smell of the trees, the sound of the bubbling fountains, the college students idling with and without purpose.

It’s a future I want, and a future I might not get if I get stuck in an alternate universe.

Or get arrested in an alternate universe for somehow being implicated in this pixie attack.

My heart is still racing, and I try to look as small and pathetic as possible, trying to think quickly of an excuse. “I’m so sorry, I don’t remember, it all happened so fast, it’s finals week, and I’m so stressed, I’ve got a million things to do, and I’m not even done with my essay—”

I’m not done with my essay, actually.

The lie isn’t difficult, especially when it skates this close to the truth—the stress of the spring semester, acceptance letters I haven’t gotten yet, planning for prom—all the ins and outs of being not just a high school senior, but being me.

Before I know it I’ve whipped myself into an actual anxiety spiral, thinking about the Plan. How am I ever going to get it done? Magic and other universes are exciting and all, and Kat, oh Kat—she’s great, but I knew dating was a distraction, and this whole situation is just—

I’m hiccuping, gasping for air as the tears fall from my face.

Summers looks alarmed and uncomfortable, and he takes a step back, unsure.

“Okay, okay. It’s rough. It’s, uh—it’s okay.

” He sighs and looks around awkwardly, then turns back to me.

“Look, I’m not good at this part, but uh, it’s going to be okay.

Just take a deep breath. The pixies were contained, okay?

The Dangerous Wildlife Division folks are on their way for relocation, and their investigators, too.

We’re just trying to get as much info as possible for them, but I got plenty of info from other witnesses. You go on home.”

I sniff, nodding. “Thank you. Can I… can I borrow your ph—runebook?” I barely catch myself. Don’t call it a phone , I chide myself. That would be a sure way for people to know I’m not from around here. “I also… got locked out. I need to call my roommate.”

“I can call them for you. What’s the namekey?”

I’m so grateful I haven’t washed these jeans yet. The crumpled slip of paper Kat gave me with those symbols is still in my pocket.

“Here you go,” I say, handing it over.

Come on, Kat. Please pick up.