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I drop the messenger bag on my bedroom floor, and the empty glass jars inside clink heavily. I scowl at the bag— Brenda’s bag that she brought with her to spend the day with me. She took mine by mistake, which has my runebook.

I could message or call her from a spare runebook of mine to see if she’s okay, if she got to wherever her destination was, but she probably doesn’t want to talk to me.

I flop on my bed, groaning. I pull a pillow over my head and scream into it, but the anger is fading and now I’m just left with a heavy heartache.

A knock on the door jolts me out of my thoughts.

“You have a good time at the museum, honey?” Dad asks.

“No,” I grumble.

“Oh, Kat,” Dad says, coming into my room and sitting next to me. “You okay? Want to talk about it?”

“Brenda and I got in a fight,” I say, but it barely seems to scratch the surface of what happened. “I think it’s over.”

Dad strokes my hair, his hands calm and gentle. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “Are you okay?”

I can barely manage a nod. “She thought I should volunteer for the Ritual,” I whisper. “Basically said it was the right thing to do.”

“That’s your choice, sweetheart.” Dad takes a deep breath. “You know, I don’t approve, but if it’s something you really wanted—I would sign that form. You know that, right?”

I look at him, my eyes stinging. I don’t want to cry, I refuse to shed any more tears over this stupid Ritual business. “How could you let Mom go?”

Dad sighs and rubs his temples. “She chose. Not because she didn’t love us, or didn’t want to be here with us. Because she thought it was important.”

I close my eyes, overwhelmed not just with today, but with everything. I can feel Dad lean toward me, his solid weight supporting me, and I let myself fall. He holds me steady as I cry, and I can feel warm tears on my head as he cries, too.

“I miss her so much,” I say. “I saw her today.”

“I see her every day, sweetie,” Dad says, his voice thick with grief.

“No, I—I did a memory-walk. I went back in time.” I let the words tumble out of me, falling over themselves like a waterfall. Dad listens to the story as I explain about meeting Brenda, about our worlds, about how we’ve been seeing each other through the portals, and then what we discovered.

“Mom tried to do something to change the Ritual, fix it. But someone didn’t want that happening.”

Dad’s mouth purses as he considers this, and then his runebook buzzes, an insistent beeping tone.

“That’s Jordan’s emergency alarm,” Dad says.

I nod in understanding.

“Jordan? Are you okay?”

“Sammy, you need to get down here. There’s a bunch of upset customers, but that’s not the least of it. All the spells in the back are going haywire for some reason, and Tim’s here because Rachel was working late tonight, but you know how his control is right now—”

“It’s gonna be okay. Where’s Carlos?”

“He went home sick.”

“I’ll be right there.” Dad ends the call and stands up.

I follow him out the door and downstairs. “I’m coming with you.” I hate the idea of Jordan alone at the shop with a bunch of angry customers.

“Are you sure?”

“I want to help.”

Dad nods at me, and we head through the fixed portal in our living room to the coffeeshop.

I can immediately see the problem. The mana storage is broken, feeding too much or too little energy into various spells. The stove is overheating, vats of milk bubbling and frothing over and burning, while the cooling area is tepid and warm.

Dad curses. “What happened here? I just checked on all these spells.”

“I’ll go help Jordan.”

There’s an unusual amount of customers for a random weeknight, especially at this late hour, a mix of teenagers and young adults, chatting animatedly in booths with their drinks, devices of various sizes strewn all over the tables—

Wait a minute, these people are all from Brenda’s world. How did they get here? Did another unexpected portal open up?

“Hey, do you have the Wi-Fi password?” one guy asks.

“No.” I don’t even know what that is.

“Try Mr. Freezy’s,” says a girl at the table next to him. “That’s the one I’m on.”

“Kat! I’m so glad you’re here,” Jordan exclaims. “Help me make three Americanos and one ‘tall’ mocha cappuccino with extra foam, whatever that is.” They wheeze.

“No one’s ordered any Pick-Me-Ups, although they could all use a shot of Calm.

” Jordan bustles with the milk steamer. “I don’t know where they came from, but they keep asking questions about outlets.

” Jordan scoffs. “Like for electricity! Whoever heard of using that to power anything other than lights?”

“Ha, so weird,” I say nervously. Luckily no one seems to be freaking out much, and they all are doing normal coffeeshop things, except—

Jordan frowns, following my gaze. “It’s like these people have never seen a werewolf before.”

Tim is seated awkwardly in one of the booths, half wolfed out, his nose long and lupine, teeth elongated into long canines. Two teenagers are talking to him, rapid-fire fast, and one reaches out to touch Tim’s snout—

“Hey! Stop that, right now.” I stride over to the booth, my voice sharp and commanding. “You don’t ever touch anyone without their consent, you hear me?”

Tim exhales with relief as I jerk my head for him to follow me to the back.

“Here, just hang out for a while,” I say. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Tim says shakily. “It’s a waning moon, but I’m still new to control and stuff, and one guy said something shitty to my mom and I couldn’t help it, I got mad and started to shift.”

“Not your fault,” I say. “Just take some deep breaths. There you go.”

Tim closes his eyes and counts; Jordan must have been practicing meditation techniques with him. As he breathes, the wolfish features start to fade, and his snout turns back into a stubby button nose. He’s still got a bit of fang, though.

“Eat as many cha siu bao as you want,” I offer. “The icebox isn’t working, so you’re doing us a favor.”

“Really? Thanks, Kat!” Tim beams.

Back at the counter, Jordan sighs with exasperation. “For the last time, we don’t accept foreign money.”

The woman up front pushes a green-colored bill at them. “Is this some kind of joke?” she asks, frowning.

“Yep, sorry about that!” I stuff the money into the tip jar to deal with later. “Here are your drinks.”

“Thank you,” she says, shaking her head.

Dad arrives from the back, his eyebrows singed. “I fixed it for now, but all the environmental spells are refusing to play nice. It’s like trying to cast with no mana charge, but that’s impossible.” He sighs. “I talked to Jay Singh. His bakery is experiencing the same thing.”

Jordan shakes their head. “Did you hear three restaurants downtown caught fire? Their kitchen spells got out of control somehow.”

Dad stares at the crowd. “Where are all these people from?”

Jordan wipes down the counter, exhaustion written all over their face. “Three of them tried to pay with that green money, and one of them just waved a runebook at me as if expecting to transfer me money via spell, and another two tried to give me some sort of colorful card!”

I look at Dad, and then at Jordan. “Was there a mana surge earlier today?”

Jordan tilts their head. “Yeah. Right before all these weirdos came in, actually.”

“Funny story.” I laugh awkwardly. “Actually, not funny…”

Jordan takes the news about the two worlds in stride. The people are less easy to convince. My announcement that the patrons are currently in another universe is met with laughter, then nervousness and disbelief.

The teenagers are the quickest to accept the idea of magic, especially after they get a good look outside and see the horseless carriages driving down the road.

Everyone else takes some convincing, especially as most spells aren’t working properly in the shop.

Finally Jordan shifts, their diminutive frame transforming into a seven-foot-tall hulking wolf, looking comical in the work apron.

Jordan glares at them with fierce eyes, their furry snout huffing as they let the patrons come forward to look at them up close.

“So we can’t go home?” asks the woman who snapped about the money earlier, clutching her strange device to her chest, eyes sparking with anxiety.

“Not right now, but there are portals opening up intermittently.” I pull out my spare runebook and restore all my current saved spells and documents tied to my namekey, and find the schedule.

There’s only a few more left this month from the Order’s predictions, and I copy out all the best dates, times, and locations on the chalkboard of specials.

“There’s a 2:00 A.M. portal here tonight in the Arts District, but the trolley night schedule is pretty sporadic, and it’s already late.

The next portal would be Friday, at the downtown Sheraton. ”

“Look, my friend Renee Kwang down the street runs the Oasis Inn,” Dad offers. “I told her about the situation, and she’s happy to offer all of you a place to stay tonight.”

After many questions and much grumbling from the patrons, we manage to get them all out of the coffeeshop before we close for the night.

Once all the devices are gone, the environmental spells start to work again, but everything is still a mess.

Dad gestures for me to go home as he settles in the kitchen.

“This will take a while to fix,” he says.

“Need any help?”

He cocks his head at me. “It’s already eleven. Plus, you have school tomorrow. Go get some rest.”

“I don’t mind,” I say. “Come on, I’ll show you the programming I did for the pineapple prank.”

Dad huffs at me, but his eyes sparkle with mirth. “All right.”

I’m grateful there was minimal damage to our business, and we were able to take care of the people who slipped through the portal. I kept an eye out for anyone suspicious who might be from the Order tonight, but no one showed up; I guess they’re busy trying to do damage control all over the city.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

There’s no point in focusing on big-picture things like the Ritual when that would take years to fix. Right now, people are in trouble, and the best way to help others is from the ground up.

“Hey, Dad? Can you share this portal list with all the business owners you know? In case anyone else shows up?”

“Great idea, Kat,” Dad says approvingly. He copies the information to his runebook. “Now, show me what you did to those pineapples. I think we can use that technique to fix the sugar situation we have here.”

I grin and take his outstretched hand, and we get to work.