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Brenda squeezes my hand. “You look amazing, like you’re going to a fancy party. It’s LA. No one cares. They probably think you’re doing a photoshoot or something, people do that all the time.”

She leads me toward a group of four teens who are sitting next to a huge pile of bulging trash bags, all talking at once.

“I absolutely won fair and square!”

“Adib, you can’t just announce a game and then change the rules to suit how well you’re doing—”

A boy with elegant features and golden-brown skin shakes his head—the winner, I presume, of some game involving trash. “Shut up, you just weren’t willing to dive into the bushes to get those really good pieces of trash.”

He turns to a tall and willowy girl with dark brown skin, her hair gracefully tucked into a high ponytail. “Jenn, tell Ryan I won. I won, right? What do I win?”

Ryan, the apparent loser of said trash game, scoffs and crosses his arms; his face is still rounded with baby fat, with an eager sort of air around him.

Jenn takes a sip from a water bottle as she shakes her head. “Bragging rights.”

Dangling her feet over the precipice, a short Chinese girl is laughing, spitting crumbs as she throws her head back, her black hair flowing loose and wild.

Bright blue highlights streak her hair, and her eyes shimmer with artfully applied blue and green eyeshadow.

In her lap is a familiar cat wearing a harness, licking her paws daintily and looking curiously at the view.

“Hey, everyone,” Brenda announces, and then all four sets of eyes turn on me with interest. “This is Kat Woo. Kat, these are my friends—Jennifer Torres, Erica Liu, Ryan Rodriguez, and Adib Rasheed.”

The tall one—Jennifer—stands up and offers me her hand, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Hi there, heard so much about you and your world,” she says.

I shake her hand, trying not to laugh at the stiff, almost professional way she grips my hand and shakes it solemnly.

“Do you do hugs?” Erica squeals.

“Yeah, sure—oof—” The words are barely out of my mouth before Erica hands the cat and the leash to Adib and launches herself at me. She seizes me round the middle and hugs me tight and I catch my breath, patting her back nervously.

“Hey, Fancy,” I say, petting her soft head.

She meows appreciatively, curling into my hand before hopping out of Adib’s arms and into a ridiculously hued orange backpack with a huge viewing porthole for it.

I laugh; I’ve never seen one of these before, but it doesn’t surprise me.

I bet so many people with cats would love this back home. “This is amazing. Does she like it?”

“Yeah, she loves being outside, and I thought she’d enjoy the hike,” Erica says.

Ryan gives me an awkward high five and Adib pulls out a notebook with a list of questions after patting me on the shoulder. “All right, so magical mechanics, how does it—” he starts.

Jenn takes the notebook and shushes him. “She just got here! Relax.”

Adib’s eyes widen. “Don’t you see this is completely unprecedented? Why wouldn’t you want to learn as much as possible—”

“I brought some books, if you’re interested,” I say, pulling out the books I’d brought for Brenda—a few history and spelling textbooks, one on Clarabelle Marin, and a basic primer for writing spell matrices.

Adib takes them immediately and hands one to Ryan “This is incredible; do you think if we tried certain—”

“Don’t answer him,” Jenn says. “He’ll never stop. Good thing you brought those books.”

Adib is now muttering to himself, not having noticed that I didn’t answer, his nose to the book. Ryan is thumbing through the pages of the spell matrix book, scanning the text with interest.

“We are so happy Brenda is taking time to have fun for once! She’s always work this, plan that,” Erica says. “I mean, even organizing this hiking trip for Key Club—technically she didn’t need to, she already finished her hours for the year—”

Brenda glances at her, mock annoyance crossing her face. “Hey, other people haven’t, and it’s cool to bring people up here if they haven’t been before—”

Erica laughs. “This service trip almost didn’t work out, but Brenda got seniors to help carpool. And now we’re here! We cleaned the trail, got in some good nature time, and we get to meet you. So multiple wins.”

Brenda hands me something wrapped in crinkly white paper. “Lunch, if you want,” she says with a smile. “We got a ton of these for all the Key Club volunteers, and I set aside a d ? c bi e t for you.”

“Oh, bánh mì!” I unwrap it to find a familiar-looking baguette. “We have a lot of great places in my neighborhood, but I haven’t had one in a while.”

“So is your LA similar in terms of, like, communities?” Jennifer asks curiously. “Brenda mentioned your world evolved without the automobile industry.”

Ryan looks up from his textbook. “Yeah, like how much is powered by magic and what are the implications of that on your economy, how—”

Brenda elbows Jennifer, giggling. “Didn’t you say for her to relax and not answer so many questions right away?”

I take a bite of the sandwich, its crisp baguette layered perfectly with an even spread of paté, Vietnamese meatloaf, and pickled daikon and carrots.

“What do you mean, ‘communities’?” I ask around bites.

“Oh, you know, like LA here is a mix of a bunch of folks; people who moved here from elsewhere in the States, people who’ve been here for generations, people like our parents who immigrated here before we were born,” Erica says.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” I say. “I mean, it’s always been a mix of immigrant culture. My family on my mom’s side has been here since the Gold Rush. But lots of other people came over in the past few decades or so.”

We chat about Los Angeles landmarks and I’m amused to find that they have an observatory in Griffith Park that’s open to the public for stargazing and other events, whereas back home it’s a private outpost for various universities to do magical research.

There are some things that are familiar: the Los Angeles Public Library, various high schools and locales, even restaurants that have the same name or menu items, but they also talk about things I have no idea about, like bus lines and planes and the internet.

Erica mostly takes the lead in the conversation, with Jenn jumping in with a joke or offering her own, and Adib and Ryan tease each other mercilessly as Brenda and Jenn egg them on.

It’s clear that Brenda and Jenn and Erica are the closest to one another, but the way they talk to one another, all five of them, is like clockwork, seamless, the way they fit together, the conversation ebbing and flowing like the tide.

I don’t remember how to do this, and it feels so easy for them, this camaraderie, like they’ve known one another forever, finishing one another’s sentences.

There’s a part of me that wants this, too—these close-knit friendships—and a part of me whispers I used to have it, used to know how to hang out with friends.

And then all the attention was on me for being the Chosen One, and people expected me to act differently, so I did.

Brenda reaches for my hand. “Hey, are you okay?”

I nod at her. “Yeah, sorry, I was just—reminded of something, and I drifted off. But I—I like this. This is fun.”

“I’d love to meet your friends, too,” Brenda offers shyly.

I make a vague waving gesture. I don’t want to admit I feel like I don’t really have any real friends right now, and I want Brenda’s friends to— I don’t know, see me as a person.

“So, what do you like to do for fun, Jennifer?”

“Call me Jenn,” she says with a smile.

“We’re going to go ahead, since Kat isn’t used to hiking,” Brenda says. “We’ll meet you at the bottom of the trail.”

Brenda pulls me away as her friends give us knowing looks.

I wave at them, a happy twirly feeling dancing in my stomach. They’d asked me questions—not just about my world and magic and how it worked, but about me . I felt like I really did get to know them. Maybe a little too much; I think I know more about Ryan’s minifigure collections than I want to.

I follow Brenda down the trail, minding my feet as she advised me and watching for loose rocks, when she promptly pulls me into a thicket of shrubbery and cups my face in her hands.

“They liked you so much,” Brenda mutters. “This was so great. I—I want to kiss you again, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” I say breathlessly.

She kisses me, her mouth clumsy but eager, and I kiss her back, too delighted and stunned to do anything but try to keep up.

The dappled afternoon light flickers all around us, leaves rustle, and the slight shade we’ve pulled into isn’t quite enough to truly dampen the hot afternoon heat beating down on us, but I can’t care or tell if the heat is from the afternoon or my own body pulsing with energy.

Brenda’s hands flutter behind me like she isn’t quite sure what to do with them, and I want to laugh a little, she’s so cute.

I take her hands and squeeze, pulling her close and letting her hands rest on my waist, and she makes a pleased noise of surprise.

I want to hear it again, and I deepen the kiss, delighting in her happy sigh, like she’s discovering how good this can feel for the first time.

It’s exciting and fun, and we hear footsteps and a rustle and break apart, exhaling heavily and giddily as some hikers pass. Brenda looks down at her feet and then at me.

“So, um—we’re meeting everyone at the bottom of the trail, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” she says, mostly into my neck. “How do you smell so good?”

I don’t think I smell like anything in particular; I’ve never been one for scents, but it makes me smile, how happy she is. I tuck a strand of hair that’s escaped her ponytail back behind her ear.

I take her hand and we start down the trail again, and she squeezes my hand, tracing her fingers along mine, each finger slowly dragging along my skin as she glances at me.

Her eyes are luminous and shining. Even though her friends said they were going to read for a bit before heading down, given how much time we’ve been spending lost in each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if they passed us.

Every touch is electric, her hands on mine, the heat of her skin, the way we can barely come up for air except to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Somehow we make it to the end of the trail, in between stealing kisses and looks at each other.

We get whistles and looks from some other people—I guess more of Brenda’s friends and classmates from school—and she accepts the teasing good-naturedly. I get introduced to everyone by name, though I’m flustered and can barely keep up.

Brenda takes a moment to talk to a few people, and I watch her as she smiles and laughs. I catch bits and pieces of conversation about prom ticket sales; but I like the confident way she responds to everyone, the assurances she gives, the thoughtful way she bites her lip.

Brenda pulls up her phone, talking excitedly with others I assume are on student council. The rest of the students are already piled into either the vans or into their cars.

Ryan and Adib are already in Erica’s minivan, chattering away about—well, it sounds like magic, actually, but I assume it’s the game Brenda talked about.

Over by the last van, Erica is loading a trash bag and chatting with a tall mustached man wiping sweat from his brow. He looks like a teacher, the kind of guy who’d spend his Saturday helping high school kids pick up trash.

I grab the last trash bag and help push it into the trunk with Erica. We close it triumphantly, and Erica beams at me.

“Oh, I thought I knew everyone in Key Club,” the teacher says.

“Mr. Mendoza, this is Kat,” Erica says. “Brenda’s girlfriend. She goes to Devonsford.”

The word girlfriend seems to linger in the air, and for the first time, it doesn’t seem scary or intimidating. My cheeks feel warm, the idea settling around me like a soft, inviting hug, and I’m finding that I… like it.

“That’s great,” Mr. Mendoza says. “So glad you were able to help. Did you have a good time?”

“I did,” I say.

I turn back and look at Brenda, who is now in the center of the remaining students. She looks like she’s holding court, everyone listening to her every word. She catches my eyes and waves, a small secret smile flitting to her face. One that’s just for me.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can have a girlfriend, something good that’s all my own for once.