Archive of Our Own

A place in the universe.

Looking up at the night sky, that was all Damien wanted. He couldn’t help but feel the ache in his chest that the thought brought him, even though it wasn’t new. He knew there was magic inside him, he just knew there was. At eighteen, none of his classmates had had magic burst in five years, and even those ones had been late bloomers. Of course, the majority of his classmates weren’t magic-holders, maybe ten percent total, but Damien knew he was one, even if he got sideways glances when he mentioned it. He just wanted to fall into his place in the world.

“Hey.”

Damien looked down from the moon and the stars to see Shayne climbing the trellis. He fixed his face into a smile, which wasn’t hard when Shayne was getting closer and closer.

“What’s up, Galileo?” Shayne asked with a grin, just his shoulders breaching the rooftop where he crossed his arms and rested his chin there as he looked up at Damien. His golden freckles illuminated beautifully at night. Not glowing, but brighter than they had any right to be in the darkness.

“Galileo?” Damien asked, shaking his focus from Shayne’s freckles to his eyes.

“You’re star gazing.”

“Galileo and Captain Obvious has a nice ring to it,” Damien mused.

“Shut up,” Shayne laughed, holding his hand out. Damien took it to pull Shayne the rest of the way up onto the roof where he sat beside Damien.

“How was the party?” Damien asked, watching Shayne look up at the sky.

“Eh,” Shayne shrugged. “Lots of people.”

“Couldn’t have been too bad, Sarah’s nice.”

Shayne shrugged. “It was fine. You were missed. Everyone asked about you.”

Damien highly doubted everyone had asked after him, but it was nice to know that a few people had. Shayne was better at parties than he was. He didn’t like them much more than Damien did, but he was better at them.

Graduation wasn’t technically until next week, but it was the week of grad parties, which meant the week of Damien staying home and Shayne coming to tell him about it before he went home next-door. At Olivia’s party yesterday, a group of non-magic classmates had tried to pressure Shayne into casting a spell, so Damien was kind of surprised that Shayne had pulled himself together again for Sarah’s. He hadn’t given in, but Damien knew it had taken a lot out of him.

“Man, it’s a nice night,” Shayne said, rousing Damien from his thoughts and bringing his eyes back to the deep blue-black of the sky.

“I love it,” Damien agreed. He felt something stir deep inside him like he always did when he looked at the night sky, like something pulled him towards the celestial bodies. “We won’t have too many more, though,” he said, a little waver in his voice.

Shayne looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Damien pursed his lips and gave Shayne a guilty look. “I mean, you know. College,” he gestured vaguely at Shayne, his voice meek and embarrassed.

“We have the whole summer. And it’s not like I’m going away for college.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have all those sick frat parties to go to,” Damien flicked the bill of Shayne’s backwards cap. “And you won’t be next-door to each other anymore.”

Shayne tilted his head and looked at him curiously. “You think I wouldn’t skip a party to hang with you? Damien, you told me to go to this party. I would have rather stayed here with you.”

Damien’s heart pinched. He felt like Shayne already gave up so much to hang out with him. Damien couldn’t handle much of a party—at least, not a high school one—and Shayne had forgone an opportunity at NYU to stay here and go to college in-state. He claimed the scholarship money he got was too good to pass up, but Damien was in the car with Shayne and his mom when she made a solemn remark about missed opportunities.

And then another, more selfish part of himself felt that Shayne staying here for school made him unreasonably happy. After freshman year, once they both had part time jobs, they’d get an apartment together while Damien studied leatherworking and Shayne went to school. Hopefully they’d find a little place with a patio, but nothing beat the gentle slope of Damien’s mom’s roof on a clear night like this one.

“You love Sarah. I’m sure she was really happy you went.”

Shayne shrugged. “I still missed you, man.”

Damien flopped onto his back. “I missed you too,” he admitted. Shayne had only been gone a couple hours, and they’d gone much longer without seeing each other many, many times. But Damien always missed him when they weren’t together. Something always felt just a little off, a little unbalanced.

Shayne settled on his back beside Damien and held a hand up in between them, sending his little freckles in swirls and clusters down his arm to match the star patterns above them.

Maybe Damien did have a place in the universe. Maybe it was right here, next to Shayne. It was the only place he felt right. Whatever pull he felt towards the big wide space above them, the gravity of Shayne beside him was infinitely stronger. As much as Damien loved the night sky, he loved it even more when he got to see it mimicked on Shayne’s skin, when Shayne made patterns out of his own magic just for Damien.

He raised his hand to poke at some of the golden stars and watch them flutter around like little charms, like he had a thousand times before, but the moment he did, a rush of silver and blue and black blinded him. “What the fuck?” he asked, frozen. Something felt different, and Damien was worried that he was falling—his insides felt like they were outside and something powerful was flooding him—but he never crashed. A few moments later, he could see the faint gold shine of Shayne’s marks coming into view. “Shayne?” he asked as his silhouetted form came back into view beside him.

“What the—” Shayne began, but he cut himself off with a gasp. “Dude,” Shayne said, sitting up with his eyes wide.

“What?” Damien shot up after him. His heart dropped—he couldn’t see the roof they were laying on beneath them. It was like they were floating in space, consumed by a deep, dark blueness with little pin dots of silvery stars, but when Damien reached out to grab for Shayne, to hold on, the galaxies moved, too. In fact, he couldn’t see anything but night sky and Shayne.

“I think . . .” Shayne said, staring at Damien, a smile growing larger and larger across his face as the silver lights glittered in his eyes, some realization dawning on him. “I think you burst.”

Damien looked down at his hands in shock. “I . . . I did?” he asked in utter disbelief. There was a faint blue aura over his fingertips—but it wasn’t quite a mark. His eyes ran up his arms in search of a mark, in search of proof, but he didn’t see anything. He tugged at the neck of his shirt, pulled up the hem of his jeans, twisting all around to try and find evidence that he had burst, to see something on himself that he had always felt within. “I don’t see a mark,” he said. He had no other explanation for what was happening (this wasn’t what Shayne’s magic looked like), but dread was climbing his throat, pinching his airway closed because if he didn’t have a mark then he didn’t have . . .

“Wait,” Shayne held up a hand, digging into his pocket with his other one and pulling out his phone. He held it out, glancing between the screen and Damien, an uncontrollable giggle tumbling out of him as he took a picture. “Look,” he said, holding out his phone for Damien.

Damien took the phone in his hands, and his chest crumpled with relief, like he’d been holding it up for years just in case it never came true, and finally he could let go. His own face stared back at him, and the blue on his hands was glowing, but so was a vibrant swirl in the swoop of his hair, like a wave rippling through his otherwise brown head of hair.

He had a mark. A real mark. He had burst. He had magic.

He had a place in the universe.

***

Damien blinked. He sighed.

“Shayne.”

Shayne’s blond head popped around the far end of a bookshelf. “What’s up?”

“There’s cockatoo in the shop.”

“Another one?” Shayne groaned, exasperated. “How do you know?”

Damien looked down at his book press—thankfully empty—splattered with bird poo, and then up at the wooden rafters, where a large white bird with a yellow crest was preening. “Wild guess.”

“Ah,” Shayne’s eyes followed Damien’s up to the bird. “Good guess.”

“Can you go next door and let them know?”

“Yeah,” Shayne nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be right back.”

The bells above the door jangled cheerfully as Shayne left.

Damien set the book in his hand down and looked back up at the bird again. “Why? Why do you hate knowledge?” he beseeched. It was definitely a little dramatic, but the bird had almost shit on an eighty-year-old, leather-bound copy of Invocare Arcane. “Or is it magic? Do you hate magic, you feathered fiend? You know, you wouldn’t be the only one, but you’re one of Ian’s. I would have thought you wouldn’t be such a bigot. You know, just for you, I’m gonna learn some anti-bird magic. Next time you, or one of your little friends—” Damien gestured vaguely to the wall the bookstore shared with the pet shop next door— “flaps in here, I’m gonna make sure you’re deep fried. Extra crispy.”

The bird’s black eyes blinked at him. He would have sworn it was asking him ‘why?’

“You can’t just come in here and shit all over the magic books!” he insisted. “Can you at least shit on something that’s in print if you’ve gotta do it?”

The bird squawked and flew down to perch on Damien’s book press in a chaotic flap of its white wings.

“You could also not shit on my expensive equipment, too, while you’re at it,” he sighed, tilting his head in resignation. He was talking to a bird, after all.

The bird tilted its head, too.

“Okay, fine. Just not the magic books, okay?”

The bird chirped.

“Do you think you’re gonna be a good familiar?” he asked. “You’re probably not gonna shit on their books, huh?”

The bird blinked at him again.

The bell above the door jingled again, and immediately he heard someone start to apologize. “I’m sorry, Damien.”

Damien looked up to see Shayne reentering the shop with Ian in tow, a bird carrier in his hand. “We had some AC repairs again this week. I tell them not to leave any vents open, but they never listen.”

“It’s okay,” Damien assured him. “That’s not your fault.”

Ian didn’t look any less apologetic (or annoyed), but Damien wasn’t surprised by that at all. Ian was a good shop-neighbor, and an even better friend (though Ian would sooner be waterboarded than told as much), but he was tougher on himself than Damien felt was justified. Instead, he opened the carrier and motioned with a whistle for the bird.

The cockatoo blinked at Damien one more time before squawking as it flapped over to Ian’s hand. He guided it gently into the carrier and locked it up before looking back up to Damien again. “I’m so sorry. Did she ruin anything?”

Damien glanced down at the splatter on his workspace that Ian couldn’t see over the lip of the desk stacked with books. “Nah,” he said with a wave. “Just spooked us, that’s all.”

Ian sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m really sorry, guys.”

“Enough,” Shayne said, waving off Ian’s worry and disappearing behind the desk. “I have something for you anyway.” He reappeared with a book in his hand. “Loyalty spells and binding seals. I’m betting you’ve seen most of the ones in here, but this is a pretty rare one, so I figured there might be one or two you haven’t seen before.”

“Oh, um. Thanks,” Ian said, flipping through the book with genuine interest.

“Yeah, I’d been meaning to give that to you for, like, a week, I just didn’t have the time. Amanda and Courtney got some new orders and I’ve been helping them unpack.”

“And it had nothing to do with the fact that Chanse got an advanced copy of the new Zelda game for publication review,” Damien added. “I’ve been helping Amanda and Courtney. He’s been next door trying to get Trevor to break and let him see it behind Chanse’s back.”

Shayne glared daggers at Damien, and the little gold freckles on his arms glowed like embers.

“Oh, nice,” Ian said, offering Shayne a fist bump that Shayne returned without breaking his evil-eye at Damien. “Don’t, uh,” he chuckled for the first time since walking in the store. “Don’t let Anthony know or he’ll break down the door and put Trevor in a headlock.”

“Heard,” Damien said with a smile.

“Did Amanda tell you about the theme for Small Business Saturday, yet?” Ian asked, picking up the birdcage and tucking Shayne’s book under his arm.

“Summertime Bloom,” Damien laughed. “Any idea what the hell that means?”

Ian shrugged. “Nope. Somehow, I’m sure she and Chanse will send out a very detailed itinerary.”

“Most definitely,” Shayne agreed.

“We’re doing an event at the yoga studio, if you guys are interested. No birds, either,” he said, lifting the cockatoo’s carrier. “Just dogs and cats. I hear Kickstart Café is doing a little post-class brunch event. They’re testing some new cocktails and mocktails.”

“Hell yeah,” Shayne said. “We’ll be there. I’ll do yoga and Damien’s going to do brunch. We’re doing a couple story time hours, so one of us needs to be here, but we can trade off, right?” he asked, looking to Damien.

Damien smiled as he nodded. Sometimes the crowds for Small Business Saturday put him a bit on edge leading up to it, but it was nothing like those claustrophobic, totally high school parties he used to hate. A lot of regular clients showed up, and it was a pretty fun excuse for the shop owners of the block (who just so happened to be pretty much Damien’s entire friend group) to have a good time visiting and supporting one another. They tried to do so as often as possible, but running shops took up quite a bit of time, so those biannual Saturdays were a treat every time.

“Alright,” Ian said with half a grin tugging the corner of his mouth. “I’m gonna get this girl back to the store. I’ll see you guys this weekend.”

“What, are you gonna ignore me when I open up tomorrow morning?” Shayne asked.

“Yes,” Ian replied just before the jingle of the bell signaled his exit. “Bye guys.”

“Bye, Ian!” Damien shouted after him. He sighed, looking down at the mess on his book press. “I’m gonna clean this up, and then I think I’m done for the day. You want to stay or close up?” he asked Shayne as he scrounged around for a rag.

“I still have a couple hours in me,” Shayne said with a stretch. “Besides, I want to finish making up the online orders before tonight so I can get them in the mail by tomorrow. But,” Shayne wandered over and snatched a rag before Damien could by just a second. “Why don’t you let me clean up so you can go flirt with your girlfriend and her best friend instead?” he asked with a knowing, teasing grin.

Damien felt himself flush. “Dude, shut up, I wasn’t even going to go over there,” he lied. He liked Courtney and Amanda. He liked them a lot. Their magic shop smelled like jasmine and Amanda read his cards and Courtney kept a lapis worry stone he’d found that fit his thumb perfectly behind the counter for him. Right now, his heart beating erratically, he really wanted that worry stone.

“I’m just teasing, Damien,” Shayne said.

Damien gave him a glare before leaning in for a kiss. “You’re lucky you’re cute, cause you’re a pain in the ass. I’m gonna talk shit about you.”

Damien could feel Shayne smile into the kiss in the shape of his lips and the little puffs of breath that tickled his lip as Shayne lingered a little longer than what a peck called for. Damien gave Shayne’s hand a little squeeze as he pulled away, fond and reassuring. They were solid, and they always would be. Pinpointing when Damien and Shayne became Damien-and-Shayne was hard. It was well before they had their first kiss, arguably well before Damien even realized how he felt.

It was almost too perfect that they were both crushing on the very same witch. Really, it only made Damien feel closer to Shayne.

That said, he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to go hang out with Courtney and Amanda, so he left Shayne to fill his orders and wandered down the street, past the games shop where he waved to Trevor through the window, and into the eclectic, cozy looking shop with crystals, ivy, and windchimes in the window.

“Hey, Damien!” Courtney grinned, spotting him immediately from behind the register.

It was nearing five o’clock, and the beginnings of evening sunlight filtered through the windows of the shop, making several tables of crystals and embossed cards glow, but the iridescent sheen over Courtney’s skin drew Damien’s eyes immediately. It reminded him of the delicate, colorful film of a bubble or oil in a puddle, a translucent rainbow. The smile that spread across his face wasn’t even voluntary, how could anyone not smile when Courtney was looking at them?

“Hey,” he said, approaching the counter. Courtney reached behind themself to grab something off the shelf without looking and dropped it in Damien’s palm. His hand closed around the lapis worry stone, the heel of his thumb digging into the smooth groove. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going good,” Courtney said, stretching her arms above her head. “I’ve just been up front. Amanda’s writing emails and drawing plans in the back, so I’ve been alone, but other than that no complaints. How’s the bookshop?” She leaned over the counter, chin in her hand.

“We got invaded by a cockatoo,” Damien sighed. He braced his arms over the wooden counter and leaned in, meeting Courtney much closer than he meant to, but she didn’t seem to mind, so he stayed there.

Courtney laughed. “Being next to the pet shop is something I’m definitely not jealous of. Unless it’s the cats that get through.”

“Yeah, weirdly it’s only ever been birds. And one snake. Why can’t it be cats?” He shook his head. “Shayne and I would probably have twice as many cats, though, so maybe it’s for the best.”

“Two cats is the perfect amount of cats. You would know,” Courtney said.

“But, consider this: four cats.”

Courtney bit their lower lip and crossed their arms. “Damn. You got me there.”

Damien smiled. “Somehow I knew I would.” Oh, Damien could kick himself.

“Freyja and Zelda are such good girls, though, you don’t need any others.”

Damien preened. Yeah, his girls were good girls. Courtney had gotten to meet them when the four of them went out for lunch within the first few months of Courtney and Amanda’s shop having moved in on the block a couple years ago. Damien still remembered watching Freyja’s big, fuzzy tummy stretch out for Courtney with Zelda perched on their shoulder, gently sniffing at their hair.

Damien didn’t realize he’d fallen until later that night when Freyja’s huge green eyes had stared him down while she was cradled in Shayne’s arms, knowing whatever it is cats know.

Courtney shifted slightly and the late golden light caught that iridescent sheen on their shoulder and cheek. Damien had to make a conscious effort not to stare. “What’s the magic shop doing for Small Business Saturday?” he asked instead.

“We both want to take that class at the yoga studio, but after that Amanda’s going to do card readings while I go to brunch at Kickstart. We’ll switch later and I’ll do chart readings and she can wander. What about you and Shayne?”

“Shayne will be at yoga; I’m opening us with our story time hour. Then I get brunch and he’s taking the second story time.”

“So, I’ll get to see both of you!” Courtney smiled triumphantly.

“Yeah,” Damien said. It still shocked him sometimes. He understood when people got excited to see Shayne—he understood it more than anyone, actually—but he wasn’t used to people being excited to see him. He said the wrong things and he was much worse at masking when he got tired. Everyone on the shop block liked him anyway. Arasha made him laugh; Tommy matched his eccentric energy like it was natural; Anthony understood his social battery maybe better than anyone. The list went on. They didn’t think he was a wet blanket, they didn’t mind when he put his foot in his mouth, because someone else was never far behind to do the same, and it was always fair game to laugh.

Damien remembered what it felt like to long for his place in the world, to miss something he felt like he’d never had. First his magic, then Shayne. He’d never missed this, though, because it all happened without him realizing. It was always a particularly strange sensation to ache for something he already had. Any time he thought too much about how he loved his spot right here on the Smosh Street Shops, and everyone and everything that came with it, his heart was bitten by those strange, sweet teeth that made his heart feel overfull and so happy it crested the hill into melancholy.

He belonged here. He belonged to these people.

The worry stone in his hand had started to glitter with blue and silver energy, and he held it out flat in his palm between himself and Courtney. It pulsed like a tiny heartbeat, and Courtney stared at it with awe and, if Damien read it right, an edge of affection.

“Your magic, Damien,” they said, shaking their head, “it’s . . . breathtaking.”

The little stone lifted out of his palm and broke apart into blue fragments cradled in silver, swirling and spinning into a lazy whirlpool. Courtney touched it, and his magic trailed down her fingers. Damien noticed that as the stream transferred from his hand to theirs, it curled and danced in their palm, little spots of pinks and yellows and oranges started glimmering through. Their magic mixed with his. Courtney holding his magic in their palm.

“Courtney?” he asked, eyes entranced.

“Yeah?”

He swallowed. It was an intensely personal question, but . . . but their magic was there. Together. And it was beautiful. “What . . . What was your burst like?”

Courtney looked at the swirl in their hand, and little spots of green and turquoise and violet began sparkling there, too, mixed with the silver clouds cushioning blue stone fragments. They smiled, but it wasn’t an entirely happy one.

“I ran out of church,” she said. “I told you my family’s . . . they like church.”

Damien nodded. Courtney talked a lot about her family, she loved them very much, but they’d raised her in a place she didn’t particularly fit. He never pressed her about it, because it seemed to make her sad, but it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

“I had snuck out before, but it was getting harder as I got older, and I was supposed to be this role model for the younger kids. Obedient and sweet. You know. Someone who’d make a Godly wife one day. I think I always knew that wouldn’t be me, but I kinda kept it to myself. But I remember this sermon. It was about the head of family, you know, God first and then your husband, and I . . .” Courtney swallowed. “I didn’t want it. It wasn’t me. I could feel that I had something else in me, I just knew it. And, I mean, I’m queer as all get out, but I could pretend I wasn’t, then. But this,” she made the swirl in her hand ripple and dance. “This I couldn’t hide. So, I ran out of church in the middle of the sermon, and the moment I made it past those big doors, I saw every color in the world. I burst.”

Damien had told Courtney his own story one night about a year ago, when the three of them were hanging out in his and Shayne’s apartment watching a movie. Courtney had asked about how long they’d had feelings for each other before acting on them after talking about her first crush. Shayne’s was much later, only a few months before their first kiss. Damien’s was that night at the end of high school, when he’d burst.

He hadn’t really figured Courtney might have felt something like him: a sore spot in the world around them, misplaced and unwanted as they were. Trying to picture somewhere Courtney lived that couldn’t feel like home was almost as confusing as it was infuriating.

“Sorry, I hope that wasn’t too personal,” Damien said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Damien,” Courtney stopped him. “Don’t. I’m glad you asked. I’m glad you know.”

Damien held out his hand and Courtney passed the whirl of magic back to him again. It felt like his. And hers. And that, strangely, felt like his too. In a different way. He closed his fist and the stone fell back together, unbroken, and the wisps of magic scattered away, into the air of Courtney and Amanda’s shop.

“I’m glad, too.”

***

“Hey, Angela!”

Angela looked up from the dog food bags she was stacking to see Anthony enter the store. She immediately looked back down at the bag when she saw Arasha trailing behind him. Her stomach flipped and she lost her hold on the heavy bag she was holding.

“Oh, whoa!” Anthony dove and caught the bottom of the bag with one hand.

“Uh, thanks Anthony,” she said, flustered. “Sorry, you guys just surprised me.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to,” he said, helping her shelve it.

“We brought coffee!” Arasha said, holding up a tray of drinks. Her blood red hands caught Angela’s eye immediately, like they always did, and Angela tried to avert her eyes quickly. She wasn’t sure if it was quick enough. Arasha’s mark was polarizing for most people. Some people were horrified to see a young woman with red running up her hands and forearms like she’d dipped them in fresh blood. Angela fell in the other camp. The ‘oh no, this has awakened something in me’ camp.

“Where’s Ian?” Anthony asked.

“He ran out to pick up our lunch.” Angela reached down for the last bag of dog food, but Anthony grabbed it first and shelved it for her. “Thanks,” she said.

“Yeah, no problem,” Anthony said cheerfully. “We got you a cold brew, I hope that’s good. Arasha said you’d like it.”

Angela breathed deeply through her nose to try and fight off the blush that threatened to climb her chest and cheeks. That was what she ordered whenever they went to Kickstart Café together on breaks or days off that Arasha cheerfully confiscated that Angela pretended didn’t make her palms sweat. “Thanks.” She let her eyes flicker to Arasha, holding the to go tray with pride.

“Yeah, here,” Arasha pulled out one of the cups and handed it to her. “Try it.”

Angela took the cup and felt her brain short circuit for a second. It took her just a second too long to smile and take a sip, but thankfully neither of them said anything. They just waited patiently for Angela to try her drink. “Oh my god,” she said, a little too enthusiastically. She really needed the caffeine today. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

“Thank Arasha,” Anthony said, wandering over to the two snoozing puppies in their pen.

Angela was an adult. She could look another woman in the eye and say thank you for her coffee. It wasn’t a big ask. Just two words.

“Don’t worry about it,” Arasha rolled her eyes before she could say anything. “He bought them anyway. I just ordered.”

Angela smiled and met Arasha’s eyes. “Thanks,” she said.

Arasha shook her head. Her matching lilac set was bright, and Angela fought to keep from admiring it, but it was made quite a bit easier when she could focus on the little stray hairs falling out of her bun and dancing lightly against her neck with the slight breeze that the air-conditioning supplied.

God, she had it so bad. Angela wanted to slap herself. Chanse would probably do it for her.

“Oh. Hey.”

Angela tore her eyes away to see Ian entering with two large brown bags.

“Hey, boss,” Angela greeted him.

“Hi!” Arasha sang.

“Who’s this one?” Anthony asked, holding a sleeping little black puppy to his chest. “He’s so cute.”

“Put the puppy down,” Ian sighed. Despite that, a small, sunshine-yellow heart popped up above his head and drifted around lazily before bursting. It always made Angela soft to see the way Ian couldn’t cover his fondness when it came to Anthony. He was so careful and reserved, Angela had no clue what he was thinking most of the time, but his magic had no defenses against Anthony. She thought it was the sweetest thing, but since he’d started to notice her crush and decided to make her life a living hell because of it, she had decided that annoying him about his own feelings (especially considering he was actually dating Anthony while she was . . . pining) was totally fair game.

Anthony ignored him, gently petting the puppy with just one knuckle.

“Do you want lunch?” Ian asked, irritated, walking towards the back room behind the counter. “If you want lunch you have to put the puppy down.”

Angela followed Ian back, sucking down her coffee so that her mouth was too preoccupied to say something stupid as Arasha followed behind her.

“What’s lunch today?” Arasha asked.

“Thai,” Ian said, setting the bags down on the little coffee table between the sofa and the armchairs of the not-office. Ian insisted it wasn’t an office. Angela wasn’t sure why, exactly, but Ian insisted that pet stores didn’t have offices.

“Angela said you’d like Massaman curry,” he said, throwing a glance between the two of them. Angela practically dove for one of the chairs so that she could busy herself with the bag, digging out the recycling-friendly takeout boxes. She also shot a filthy glare at Ian, discretely, of course. He just smirked.

“Oh!” Arasha said. “Yeah, totally. Thanks.”

Angela could feel Arasha smiling at her, but she was busy squinting aggressively, trying to read the writing on the containers. Of course, today had to be the day the person with the neat handwriting wrote the orders, so Ian was definitely clocking her. “This one looks like yours,” she said, handing the food up to Ian with a death glare in her eyes. She wanted him to know just how much bodily harm she was wishing on him.

Ian smirked.

The four of them settled with plasticware and Styrofoam containers around the low table. Ian and Anthony sat on the couch, poking at each other’s food every now and then, while Angela sat kitty-corner to Arasha. It meant she didn’t have to keep averting her gaze.

“Any escapees today?” Arasha asked, looking up at Ian.

Ian batted Anthony’s fork away with his own and stabbed the back of his hand when he tried to steal Ian’s food again. “No, thankfully,” he said, defending his food. “We only terrorized the bookshop yesterday. Susan’s been in her cage making a ruckus, but she hasn’t shit on a single book all day.”

Arasha nodded. “Good for her.”

“Shayne gave us a bonding spells book when she got out yesterday,” Angela added, and then immediately regretted it when Arasha’s dark eyes turned to her. She knew she was being ridiculous, how she both wanted Arasha’s attention and couldn’t handle it, but she couldn’t help it.

“Oh! Cool! Have you tried any new ones yet?”

“Yeah, Angela carved one on the bottom of a fish tank and enchanted it.” Angela could hear Ian’s smirk in his words.

“Th-the owner, um. The new owner . . . he looked so happy. Like, soft-happy. Bonded.” She remembered the look on the guy’s face as Angela sang her spell, flaring up the mark on the inside of his arm and the engraving on the bottom of the tank. It made her voice falter, the way he looked at his colorful little fish with so much affection it hurt. “I think it’s a really good spell book.”

Arasha smiled.

“More than just the bonding spell goes into finding a familiar,” Ian said. “But finding the right spell for each pair is like a perfect seal.”

“Yeah,” Angela agreed. “Bonding spells are powerful.”

“How come they don’t work on humans?” Arasha asked. “Or humans with other humans, I mean.”

Angela looked to Ian to answer but he motioned to his mouth full of food, encouraging her to answer.

Dick.

Angela took a deep breath. Ian had taught her a lot in the two years she’d worked for him. She also had something of a natural proclivity for sensing these kinds of things out. “Some people think there are bonding spells for people, but you can’t find them in a book. Bonds between people are too complicated. Too complex. There’s room for too much change for any one spell to work.” Angela felt her face going red. This wasn’t exactly light lunch discussion. Her mark started glowing, traced over her lungs and throat, probably too subtly for Arasha or Anthony to notice, but Ian’s eyes caught her behind his glasses.

He swallowed and swooped in on her behalf. “Yeah,” Ian agreed. “That, and you start talking about spells and seals with humans and that’s how you end up with curses. It only takes one non-magic asshole who wants to bind his girlfriend to him to try casting. Then they kill a whole ecosystem and every magic user in it. So, yeah, not a whole lot of interpersonal seals.”

Angela shivered. “Not a lot anymore.”

“We work our whole lives on ourselves and that means any one version of yourself you try and bond to any one version of someone else won’t hold, there’s not enough elasticity in it. So, some say that bonding spells don’t work on other people. Others say they do, but they’re so intricate and specific you couldn’t untangle them to write them. They’re too deep to see the way we see normal seals.”

Arasha blinked. “Wow,” she said after a moment. “I never thought of that.”

“No one actually knows,” Ian said flippantly, snatching a piece of tofu off Anthony’s lunch and shoving it in his mouth before Anthony could even try to steal it back. “That’s all magical philosophy or whatever. It isn’t super practical. We know that binding magic helps a familiar and their Bonded, so what else matters? I don’t know how batteries work, but they do, so I put them in the remote.”

Anthony laughed. “He likes to pretend he doesn’t think about this stuff.”

“It’s true,” Angela said. Somehow, when she was putting Ian on blast like this, confidently looking Arasha in the eye got a lot easier. She smirked. “He’s always reading about it and trying new stuff.”

“Shut up,” Ian insisted out of the side of his mouth as he chewed.

Angela grinned. He could tell them off, but he couldn’t deny it.

Arasha smiled back, and Angela’s insides swallowed themselves with the ache, but she smiled back. She couldn’t help but fear hers looked like a hungry coyote, not something sweeter, but Arasha seemed to like it, leaning in, grabbing Angela’s shoulder, and giggling like they had a secret.

Arasha did that a lot—touched her—and Angela had picked up the habit in return. She collapsed her forehead against Arasha’s shoulder for just a moment, just half a second, and she felt so at home she didn’t want to pull away.

“Cute,” Ian’s dry voice cut straight through that feeling and made the tops of her ears prickle with heat.

“Eat your lunch, magic nerd,” she snapped back, withdrawing from Arasha. “Or eat your boyfriend’s lunch, since that seems to be most of what you’re eating.”

Anthony tossed his head back and laughed. Even Ian couldn’t fight a chuckle. “Okay,” he said. “That was a bit much, I was just complimenting you,” he said, in a voice that told Angela he knew that’s not all he was doing. “But I hear you. We do have to get back to work. Finish up.”

Angela shoveled a few more forkfuls of food in her mouth while Arasha showed her a video on her phone. Leaning in close enough to see the screen, while their bosses bickered in their own world, Angela didn’t want lunch to end, but soon enough they were placing all their trash in the takeout bags so Anthony could take them out to the dumpster.

“Thanks for lunch, Ian,” Arasha said, beaming at him.

“Yeah, of course, no problem,” he said, casually waving it off. “Thank you for the coffee. We’ll need it to get through the rest of the day.”

“Thank Anthony,” Arasha said bashfully.

“Not a chance in hell,” Ian said, even as a little yellow heart popped over his head because Anthony reentered the shop. “See you tomorrow,” he said to Arasha. “And see you in the parking lot. Don’t be late today, we have to get up so damn early to set up for SBS,” he said to Anthony.

“Are they coming?” Anthony asked, nodding towards the puppy pen where he had picked up the black puppy earlier. Now, the other puppy, a chestnut little boy, was awake, playing with the black puppy’s floppy ears while he slept.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Ian said.

“See you tomorrow, Angela,” Arasha’s voice pulled Angela’s gaze from the puppies to her.

“Uh, yeah,” Angela agreed. “Are you teaching one of the classes?”

Arasha nodded. “Yeah.”

Angela’s mouth went dry. “Cool. Uh, see you there.”

“For sure!” Arasha grinned and gave Angela a quick hug before nodding to Anthony.

“Bye,” Angela waved weakly after them.

Once the door shut, Ian turned and gave her cutting look.

“Shut up,” she growled at him.

“Didn’t say a word.” He walked over to the puppy pen and picked up the wildly flailing chestnut puppy, holding it close to his chest. The puppy nipped and yapped at him, but Ian just laughed. Soon enough the puppy turned from nipping to kissing, from yapping to tail wagging, and Ian rubbed right between his ears. “Good boy, that’s better. More of that. Let’s get you adopted tomorrow, huh?”

Angela glanced at the pen where the other puppy had woken up, whining as he looked for his companion. She scooped him up and walked over to Ian. The puppies wagged their tails, the black one almost tumbling out of Angela’s arms as he wiggled to get closer to the chestnut one. “Hopefully together,” she added.

“They’ll be together,” Ian said.

“How would you know?”

Ian shrugged. “Just do. C’mon, let’s make sure we have all the carriers we need all cleaned up. These two can come with us,” Ian said, nodding for the back room.

Angela followed him, and as they cleaned out the carriers together, occasionally laughing together at the puppies’ antics, Angela couldn’t help but think he was right. Whether it was magic or something else, sometimes the universe just knew when creatures belonged together.

***

“Keep up, loser!” Ian yelled through his laughter. He raced through the finish line and turned around to watch a red-cheeked Anthony double over and gasp a good ten yards behind him in the empty field. “Oh, you’re fine,” Ian insisted as he started jogging back across the park towards him, keeping him in the center of the camcorder’s focus.

Anthony glared up at him and flipped him off, wheezing too hard to say it.

Ian laughed. “C’mon, dude, you’re fine.”

Anthony spit on the ground and straightened up. His cheeks were still flushed red and his eyes a little teary. “’Course I’m fine,” Anthony rasped.

Ian grinned at him, shoving the camera a little closer.

“Dude, don’t!” Anthony pushed the lens away.

“Be gentle!” Ian insisted.

“Well, don’t shove it in my face.”

“That’s what—”

Anthony gave him such a withering look he didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. Anthony knew what he was going to say. “You’re a dick,” Anthony said, pushing his hair out of his face.

“Oh, whatever,” Ian rolled his eyes. “So I can kinda run. It’s not, like, a talent or whatever. I’m not going to the Olympics.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ian frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure about that. I’m destined for a midlevel office job and a weekend softball league. That’s it.”

“Ew,” Anthony’s lip curled. “Doesn’t that sound awful to you?”

Ian shrugged. “It’s whatever.”

“It’s not whatever, it’s the rest of your life.”

Ian shifted his weight, a strange, growing discomfort in his whole body. “This isn’t the kind of stuff we’re gonna want to watch back later,” Ian said, holding the camera up again, hoping it would put an end to the conversation. “I think I could beat you to the finish line again.”

Anthony’s eyes glimmered. “Oh yeah?”

“Definitely.”

Before Ian could get the next words of challenge out of his mouth, he tasted grass and all he could see were the soles of Anthony’s sneakers flying out from under him as he raced for the finish line.

“That’s cheating!” Ian shouted, pushing himself up to a starting position and taking off after his friend. “You could have broken the camera!”

Anthony just laughed and ran harder.

Anthony was taller than him, but he couldn’t run with any efficiency. His limbs looked like they were fighting not to spiral out of his control. He could have been fast, if he learned how to run. Ian wasn’t naturally good, but he had learned a thing or two, and he could endure long enough to outrace most other people.

Right now, though, he was turning on the jets, and he was gaining on Anthony.

Anthony peeked over his shoulder and Ian could see the surprise in his face at how close he was already. Neither of them could speak, every molecule of air was being diverted to the race, but there was some silent communication between the two of them just as Ian started to pass Anthony.

Then, suddenly, the whole world fractured.

Sharp black lines scratched through Ian’s field of vision, thrashing and whipping in every direction. They looked angry and violent, like cracks across a screen. Ian skidded to a stop, twisting and diving to avoid the lines. He looked back at Anthony, just a few feet behind him, and saw that he was on his knees on the ground, all of the black lines protruding out of him in different places.

“Anthony!” Ian shouted. Not just confusion, but real and guttural fear gripped the bottom of his chest. He scrambled to Anthony’s side. He was afraid to touch the black slashes, but even more afraid that something was hurting his friend. “Anthony, dude, are you okay?” he asked, breathless, reaching out for him with the hand that wasn’t strapped to the camcorder.

The moment he touched Anthony’s skin, one of the lines wrapped around his wrist. It was feather soft.

“I’m okay,” Anthony said. He sounded out of breath but not in pain.

“What . . .” Ian was so bewildered he couldn’t finish his thought.

“Um,” Anthony sat back, holding his arms out in front of him, twisting them back and forth to examine the climbing black lines running up his arms. “I think . . . I think I just burst.”

***

“Familiars yoga,” Anthony had said. “Like puppy yoga, but it helps people find their familiar. For the SBS.”

Ian had planted his chin in his hand on the pet shop counter, pretending to think. In reality, he knew it was a pretty excellent idea, but it did sound like a headache. Plus, it was always fun to watch Anthony get excited the longer Ian kept him in suspense.

“C’mon, dude,” Anthony had rolled his eyes. “You know it’s a good idea.”

It was a good idea (and after a few more minutes of torturing Anthony for fun, Ian had even told him so), and not two weeks later, that Saturday morning, Ian was walking several dogs over to the yoga studio, tails wagging and tongues lolling with excitement.

The studio was . . . well, it was run by Anthony and staffed by Arasha. It had a very particular vibe. A lot of black. A lot of red. Despite the fact that the two of them were some of the most generous and empathetic individuals Ian had ever met, they had very unique aesthetics. One time, he’d heard a soccer mom describe it as “spooky.” A little league dad had called it “a serial killer’s lair if it were a yoga studio.”

Ian thought that was all a little dramatic. If anything, it looked like a yoga studio going through its teenage rebellion phase. A lot of black. Deep, wine-red walls. Candles. Really, he could get behind most of it.

The dogs were thrilled when they entered, their noses pressed to the ground and sniffling. Ian dropped the leashes of the five adult dogs, opened the single carrier he was holding to release the two puppies he’d brought, and called out for Anthony. He came rushing down the stairs.

“Hey!” he called. Three of the seven dogs rushed him as he approached Ian, yelping and whining with excitement. One squat, female pitbull-mix kept headbutting the back of his knees while two other mutts leapt all four feet off the ground, snagging their claws on Anthony’s sweatpants, as they vied for his attention. “Hi! Yes, hi, hello!” his voice pitched higher as he bent over to lavish attention on each of the dogs for a good few minutes before he even acknowledged Ian. “Hey,” he greeted Ian with a grin.

Ian shook his head fondly. “How do you not have a familiar?” he asked for only the millionth time. “You love dogs.”

“I’m lucky that my boyfriend runs a familiar shop, then, huh? But I’m a cat guy, too.” Anthony stood back up. The wide set pitbull kept bumping the back of his knees, but the other two started running around the open studio with the zoomies they had managed to work up with one another.

“You really are,” Ian smirked. “Angela’s coming in a few minutes with a bunch of cats.”

“Oh, good. We’ll do the kitten class upstairs,” Anthony gestured to the stairs. “Hey, Arasha?” he called up, picking up the pitbull who wouldn’t stop nudging him.

“Yeah?” Arasha’s voice came from upstairs.

“Can you help Angela bring the cats upstairs?”

“Yeah, give me one sec and I’ll be right down, I’m just cleaning a mat.”

“Take your time,” Anthony said, giving the dog in his arms the best ear scratch of her life.

Ian walked over to give the dog some chin scratches, too, and he’d never seen a dog more in love. Her eyes were half-closed in sensation, but the sweet, warm brown was so comfortable and adoring that Ian couldn’t help but give her big old head a kiss. “Good girl,” he cooed. “You, on the other hand,” he grinned at Anthony. “Are evil.”

Anthony smiled innocently. “Me? What did I do?”

“Angela’s gonna stuff a whole cat in her mouth just to stop herself from saying anything dumb to Arasha.”

“What? No!” Anthony chuckled. “Why would she do that? That sounds like something she would do if she had a crush,” he whispered against the blissful pitbull’s boney head.

Ian shook his head. “If Angela breaks one more squeaky toy cause Arasha smiles at her, I’m making the yoga studio pay for it.”

“You’re so grouchy,” Anthony sighed, setting the dog down. She curled up at his feet and Ian wondered if they were going home with a new dog. “Let the girls flirt.”

“You can’t possibly call what they’re doing ‘flirting.’”

“They’re really bad at it, huh?” Anthony grimaced.

Ian nodded like a beleaguered parent. “You could say that again.” He wouldn’t say it, but he recognized a certain patheticness in the girls that reminded him of himself and Anthony back in the day. Frankly, he was doing Angela a service by pushing her to be more upfront with Arasha, which he wouldn’t do if he thought it wasn’t worthwhile.

Anthony wandered over to his sleek looking cabinet, tucked in the back corner of the wall, and started shuffling through before tossing Ian a few garments. He unfolded the athletic shirt and shorts, raising one eyebrow and shooting Anthony a skeptical look. “Are you sure these are mine?” he asked, dangling the shorts.

“They’re yours,” Anthony said.

“I swear they’re shorter than last time.”

“Ian, do you think I’d waste a spell making your shorts shorter?”

“Yes,” he answered instantly. Anthony had fought tooth and nail to get Ian’s shorts above his kneecaps years ago, and it felt like every year since Ian was compromising another inch higher.

“Ok, fair, but I didn’t! I promise. Go put them on, you’ll see.”

Ian sighed but retreated to the little locker room behind the studio to change, leaving Anthony to play with the overjoyed dogs. The shorts were short, but Anthony was right, they weren’t actually shorter than last time. His mark wasn’t visible when he stood still, only when he moved was there a little slip or peek of yellow diamonds circling his thigh.

Ian hadn’t been wild about his marks when they’d appeared. He thought they were stupid looking compared to Anthony’s pretty cool and edgy black markings, dumb and cartoonish and, as a teenager, they had felt a little salacious. The ankle ring wasn’t so bad, but the upper thigh ring was terribly embarrassing for a teenage boy. No one but Ian even knew about his thigh marks until Anthony saw him changing once, and his boxers rucked up carelessly. He was spellbound, he told Ian much later in their lives, but Ian had mistaken that for something far more sinister at the time. He didn’t change in front of Anthony again until . . . well. Until after Anthony had undressed him.

Ian had warmed up to them, now, mostly because of how much Anthony liked them. It was hard not to at least appreciate the most well-loved, kissed, and adored part of his body. Anthony loved running his thumb over them absently when they were sitting together, and, well, he looked positively angelic with the diamond garter wrapped around his tousled curls and needy eyes in bed together.

Ian shook his head and changed out his quarter-zip for the athletic top before heading back out to the studio space. Anthony was chatting with an early client, while Angela pulled a wagon of cat carriers through the door. She had come to work that day already in her workout gear, a burnt red that Ian couldn’t help but be reminded of Arasha’s red marks.

“Help?”

“Arasha’s coming down to help,” he smirked. Watching her go whale eyed was too fun.

“Ian,” she hissed. “Can you just—”

“Hey, Angela!” Arasha bounded down the stairs. Much to Angela’s obvious delight and horror (and Ian’s deep amusement), Arasha wrapped her up in a hug. “Oh my god, look at these cuties! Aw,” she cooed, squatting down to peek inside the carriers. “Here, Anthony asked me to help you bring them upstairs.” She started unloading carriers.

“Yeah, Anthony asked,” Ian said pointedly when Angela glared daggers at him.

“Hey, Angela,” Anthony said, wandering over. He had scooped up the pitbull again. Ian wondered what they’d be naming her.

“Morning,” Angela greeted him. She didn’t glare quite as hard at him, but he didn’t get off scot-free either.

“You two got upstairs? Ian and I will stay down?”

“Oh! Um, yeah, sure! Angela can take my class,” Arasha smiled at Angela, and Ian could see in the lines of her smile that she was just as head over heels as Angela was. A shame neither of them could admit it.

Angela muttered under her breath and grabbed several cat carriers before climbing the stairs to the upstairs studio without looking at Ian again. Arasha followed after her with the remaining carriers, and Anthony elbowed him as they watched her dark ponytail swish behind her as she followed her crush upstairs.

“One day,” Ian shook his head.

“Let’s hope. You ready for class?”

Ian sighed. He wasn’t particularly good at yoga. He wasn’t hopeless, the way Anthony was hopeless at running, but Ian would rather run ten miles than fold in half fifty different ways in ninety minutes. “You’re lucky this was a good idea,” he grumbled.

“It’s a great idea,” Anthony said.

The studio had started to fill up quite a bit in the minutes before class. Ian caught a glimpse of Shayne rolling out a mat, and Amanda’s dark bun piled on top of her head as she stood up with a whole golden retriever in her arms. There were plenty of Anthony’s regulars, and a generous number of newbies, too.

Ian sighed to himself and took a spot between Shayne and Amanda. Anthony’s pitbull curled up on the end of his mat and started dozing off, which he figured would be a good excuse when he inevitably had to forfeit a pose or two.

“Good morning!” Amanda said brightly, the dark, maroon, velvety swirls visible on her bare skin draping like curtains, luxurious and beautiful.

“Hey,” Ian greeted her, then Shayne. Shayne didn’t respond, though. He had a look of deep concentration on his face, drawn in with a furrowed brow.

Ian threw Amanda a curious look, and she grinned like a cat. “He and I are competing. We bet first drinks at Kickstart.”

Ian frowned and turned to Shayne. “Aren’t you and Damien swi—”

Shayne held a finger up to his lips and winked. Ian rolled his eyes and decided to mind his own business. He’d chosen to sit between the two most competitive people he knew, this was already going to be a hell of a class (Ian was also certain Anthony was going to try and show off at least a little bit), he didn’t need to get in the middle of their prank-bet, too.

Class moved by at a snail’s pace, and Ian caught Anthony throwing him grins every chance he got. Ian rolled his eyes every time—Anthony was always far too eager to torture him through an entire class because Ian preferred not to touch yoga whenever possible—and Ian wasn’t stupid. He caught the flirtatious edge to each smile. He knew what he was doing while everyone else was distracted, either by Anthony’s instructions, or friendly dogs.

Ian’s legs were shaking by the end of class, and Anthony had the gall to wink at him as he caught his breath. Ian was going to kill him later.

“Thank you all so much for coming out and supporting us today,” Anthony said, standing up to address the entire room as the upstairs class (and cats) ambled down to the bottom floor. “If you have any questions about classes, or any of the animals here today, you can come find me or Arasha,” he held out his hand and Arasha waved, “or Ian and Angela. And we’ll all be at Kickstart Café for brunch, come find us and grab a coffee or a cocktail!”

A soft round of applause and “thank you”s broke out all across the room as everyone started cleaning and packing up.

“Hah!” Amanda cheered, pumping her fist in the air. “You owe me a Kickstartini, bitch!” she yelled, pointing at Shayne. He held up both hands, nodding in surrender.

“Jesus, Amanda,” he said, still a little winded. “You could give Anthony a run for his money.”

Ian ignored them as he cleaned off his mat and gave the pitbull chin scratches so that she’d get up. Amanda and Shayne kept bickering until Courtney wandered over with a cat in each arm.

“Look! Look at these precious babies,” she cooed, handing a tabby to Shayne. “These two wouldn’t leave me alone all class.”

From the corner of his eye, Ian saw a dumb grin spread over Shayne’s face and the tips of his ears turn red.

God, someday he’d escape all these sickeningly sweet, tooth-rotting crushes. Damien was no better when it came to either of them, and he was dating Shayne.

“You ready to go? Or you still a little weak in the knees from me?”

Ian looked up from where he was rolling up his mat and saw Anthony holding their new pet. He wasn’t sweating, he was glowing, and Ian had never hated him more.

Ian stood up, hiding his exhaustion to prove a point. “I’m ready. I need one of Tommy’s drinks stat or I’m gonna start telling you that you can’t have her,” he said, indicating the dog in Anthony’s arms.

Anthony kissed the top of the dog’s head, and she gave Ian a goofy pitty smile. “Her name is Sprinkles.”

“Ew,” Ian said, rubbing her ears.

Anthony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, come on, let’s get you white girl wasted.”

***

“Spencer, are we out of espresso?” Tommy demanded, searching through the spare cabinet under the counter with both hands. “Spence, we can’t be out of espresso!”

“Ah, yeah. I thought we had enough,” Spencer said from where he was slouched on the stool, scrolling on his phone with his chin tucked against his chest.

“What?” Tommy spun around, fear and white-hot rage in his eyes. “We have brunch in half an hour! We can’t be out of—”

Spencer pointed to the espresso maker on the far end of the counter without looking up from his phone. “In what world, Tommy?” Spencer asked.

Tommy’s eyes followed Spencer’s point and saw seven neatly lined up bags right beside the machine. The anxiety in his chest tamped down, at least for the moment, and he collapsed ungracefully to the floor, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry.”

Spencer looked up and shrugged. “It’s all good. It would be a problem if I had forgotten it.”

“Yeah, but you never forget things like that,” Tommy said, looking up at him. Spencer was only a few feet away, right before the doorway to the backroom, cool as a freaking cucumber, and Tommy felt like he was a cheap sweater run through the wash one too many times: pulled apart, frayed, and unwoven. It wasn’t Spencer’s fault, but he was Tommy’s entirely innocent outlet.

Thank god it would take no less than a meteor strike to unsettle him.

“It’s okay, dude,” Spencer says. “You know that doesn’t bother me.”

Tommy let his head fall back against the wooden cabinets with a hollow thunk and sighed. “Just because you can deal with it doesn’t mean it was right for me to do.” He could feel the headache coming on, like his mark was tightening and constricting his temples. It wasn’t, but that was always where Tommy imagined his stress released from. He rubbed a hand along the dark band circling his head, hoping to relieve some of that pressure. It didn’t really work. Like, at all.

“Tommy,” Spencer said, tucking his phone away in the pocket of his stained apron and joining Tommy on the ground of their café-slash-bar monstrosity hybrid—who thought this was a good idea? One of the two was hard enough—and reached a hand out to caress the side of Tommy’s head, running his thumb over Tommy’s mark. Somehow, Spencer’s hand always did a better job of relieving him than his own. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“What if it’s not?”

Spencer shrugged. “Then whatever. But it will be, so it doesn’t even matter.”

Tommy sighed. It didn’t feel true, but Spencer was rarely wrong, and that made it a bit easier to seem like a distant possibility, at least. “Is everything else ready?” he asked.

Spencer didn’t stop the gentle circles his thumb traced, but he nodded. “Yeah. You just focus on the cocktails, okay? I got everything else.”

Tommy frowned. “That’s not—”

“Tommy,” Spencer cut him off. “Brunch is at least sixty-five percent alcoholic beverages. Do not try and tell me you want to do more than that. Alcohol is the reason people do brunch.”

“Some of them like pancakes,” Tommy argued weakly.

“Dude,” Spencer sighed. “I got it. Just do what you do.”

Tommy didn’t have a snarky reply, perhaps because he’d lost enough sleep in the last week over this event to blunt his edges, perhaps because no one out-quipped him like his boyfriend. Usually, it left him laughing in disbelief at the sheer bombastic nature of what he’d pulled out of his ass, but today was an exception. Spencer wasn’t leaving Tommy’s jaw on the floor with something wild-yet-deadpan, he was just reassuring.

“If it is a big disaster, you’re never gonna hear the end of it from me.”

“Bet,” Spencer agreed, standing up and offering Tommy his hand.

Tommy took it and got to his feet, brushing off his apron and rearranging his disheveled white button down so that it was disheveled in a kinda hot, artful kind of way. Spencer, in contrast, just had his greige café t-shirt on under his apron. What a pair they made.

“I’m gonna go check the kitchen,” Spencer gave him a nod, rolling up the short sleeves of his shirt to reveal more of his little sticker-like marks.

“I’m gonna pop outside and see if the yoga class has let out yet,” Tommy said.

He slipped out from behind the bar, weaving through the tables with white tablecloths and green and purple flowers in the center and napkins with eclectic florals. He hoped Amanda and Chanse would be satisfied with that amount of dedication to the theme, Kickstart Cafe-slash-Serving Cunt wasn’t exactly giving “springtime” with its dark stone, exposed wooden beams, and recessed lighting. Finding an aesthetic that worked for daytime café and transitioned to late night bar was hard enough when he had first floated the idea to Spencer four years ago, tiptoeing around, trying not to come off too eager for fear of rejection. Spencer, of course, had called it “sick, dude,” and the next day he’d come up with a potential business model.

Spencer worked fast and hard. Even better, he worked well with Tommy. The daytime-café-slash-evening-bar was a risky idea, but it had paid off so far. Tommy loved not having to work someone else’s bar, but not struggling to get by on his own. Boyfriends and business partners weren’t exactly a rarity on this block, but Tommy still felt pretty lucky.

He propped the door open and looked down the street where, sure enough, a whole crowd was approaching from the direction of the yoga studio.

Tommy waved at Courtney leading the charge, until he heard someone right beside his ear say, “hey.”

He jumped, with an entirely dignified squeal, and spun to see Trevor and Chanse giving him confused looks. “You scared the shit out of me,” he gasped.

“Oh. Sorry,” Trevor said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Tommy shook his head. “It’s okay. I’m so high strung right now every tight rope walker wants me.”

Trevor blinked. “What?”

“Never mind. Go inside. Grab the big table so y’all can sit together before some other group of soccer moms steals it.” He waved the two of them in. Chanse gave him an extra pointed look (which was something with magic-marked eyes) as he followed Trevor in, but he went without a fight.

Courtney bounded up to him first, a few feet ahead, their iridescent skin luminous in the morning light. “Hi!” they said, grabbing his waist up in a hug.

“Hey, come on in, I just sent Chanse and Trevor in for the big table.” He led the whole migrating group in through the open doors. Some of the yoga regulars split off into groups, and some of the newcomers huddled over the encased brunch menu at the entrance or wandered up to the drink menu above the bar, but that’s what they had staff for. Tommy led his group over to the long table where Chanse squealed and pounced on Amanda while Trevor and Shayne started yelling at each other right from the get-go.

It sounded like home.

“Hey,” Ian said, catching Tommy’s attention as he sat down in one of the dark wood and steel chairs. “How—”

Tommy gave him a pained smile and Ian didn’t even finish his question. “It’s okay, Tommy. It’s just us.”

“Ian, we’re trying five new cocktails today. I am going to hang myself with my tie if I mess up once.”

Ian’s eyes flickered down to the loose tie hanging on either side of Tommy’s collar. “I don’t think that one will hold. You’d need a tighter weave.”

Tommy snorted, and somehow it made him lighter. “Yeah, okay, I hear you. I’m being dramatic. Where are Arasha and Angela?”

“Angela’s finishing up paperwork for the adoptions,” Anthony said, shooting a grin to Ian. “At the yoga studio, so I had Arasha stay until she finished.”

“Subtle,” Tommy said, narrowing his eyes at the two of them. “But they’re coming?”

“Unless something insane happens and they get . . . caught up.” Anthony winked.

“So yeah, they’ll be here any minute.” Ian gave him a little smile and Tommy gave his shoulder a squeeze as he leaned over the table.

“Shayne,” he said, grabbing Shayne’s attention from Courtney. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s at the shop. We’re switching in a minute.”

“What?” Tommy demanded. “Can’t you just leave a ‘gone to brunch, be back soon’ sign on the door? Come on, I want both of you here for this!”

“I was going to go back to the magic shop and start tarot readings in just a minute,” Amanda admitted.

“What? No, come on! Guys!” Tommy gestured back to the coffee and drink bar where Spencer was working, and where Tommy would be soon, too. “We want everyone here.”

“You want more work?” Amanda asked.

“I did not have four panic attacks in three days for only some of my friends to show up.”

There was a beat of silence, then Shayne pulled out his phone and gave Damien a call.

“Thank you,” Tommy said, and went to help Spencer behind the counter.

***

“Does your mom let you dye your hair too?”

Damien turned around from the shelf he was placing the story book on and saw a girl, no older than eight, looking up at him with round eyes behind thick glasses and neon pink hair that was starting to grow out a bit at the roots. He touched at his blue streak and smiled.

“I love your pink!” Damien said.

“Thanks!” she smiled. “Your blue is very pretty.”

“Thank you. Did you like the story?” he asked.

She nodded, pink bangs bouncing. “Yeah! I like bunnies a lot.” She pointed at her socks which had little white bunnies on them.

“Oh, those are cool,” Damien squatted down and admired them. “I’m Damien. What’s your name?”

“Erica,” she said. “My parents said you could help me find a book.” She pointed at a couple at the front of the store looking through a cookbook together.

“Yeah, for sure! Okay. You like bunnies?” He started walking her a little further down the aisle.

She nodded. “Bunnies and” —she lowered her voice to a whisper— “and magic. My dad reads me those stories sometimes.”

“Oh yeah?” Damien grinned. He pulled a book off the shelf, a light green spine with yellow lettering. “I think you and your dad might like this one. My friend next door works with bunnies sometimes, he said it’s a good one.” He held out the book to her and she took it with both hands, grinning wide. “Come on, let’s go up front and show your parents.”

She was running up ahead of him before he even stood all the way back up. She held up the book to the couple and Damien slipped behind the counter watching them pay rapt attention to their daughter. The mom took the book from her, turning it over in her hands as she approached the counter, and the dad swept the girl up onto his shoulders.

It made Damien’s heart ache just a little.

“Hi,” he greeted the parents.

“Hello! Erica said you picked this one out for her. She also said she likes your blue hair.” The mom handed him the book with a smile, her eyes flickering up to his streak. She looked like the kind of mom who gardened, he thought. Maybe that was why Erica liked bunnies.

“I hope it’s okay with you guys. It’s a good one.”

“It looks great!” The dad said while the mom pulled out her wallet. “One of her friends from school burst this summer and she’s been so excited to hear more about it.”

Before Damien could respond, he heard a slimy chuckle from the rack nearest the register. “You shouldn’t be exposing her to things like that so young.”

Damien frowned and turned to see the profile of a man who vaguely reminded him of Shayne, if Shayne had a stick up his ass. He also had glasses that aged him about ten years, and a nasty smile on his face.

“I beg your unbelievable goddamn pardon?” Damien said, an aggressive amount of friendliness in his voice. “Sorry,” he added to the parents for cursing.

“Her favorite word is ‘shit,’” the dad sighed.

“Dude, this is a bookshop. You think we’re in the business of censorship?” Damien asked in disbelief.

The man turned to face them fully, holding a history book in his hands. “Well, I just think you shouldn’t be introducing a smart young girl to that kind of thing yet. She isn’t old enough.”

“Old enough?” the mom scoffed. “She’s not old enough to know magic exists? She sees it almost every day!” She handed Damien her card, which he took but didn’t swipe yet.

“I’m not criticizing your parenting, I’m just saying,” the man shrugged. “Us parents have to protect our kids.”

“It sure sounds like you’re critiquing our parenting.”

“No! No, not at all. I’m David. My friends call me Dave,” the man said, offering his hand to the mom. She glanced at it warily but shook it. “I apologize if that came off a little aggressive. Magic’s just one of those things we have to be so careful about with our kids.”

Damien glanced at the mom who gave him a look that screamed discomfort and disbelief. The dad wasn’t much better off with Erica on his shoulder, just kind of . . . blank. Shocked.

“Dude, her friends are bursting. She can’t just ignore it,” Damien said.

“Well, I’ve read that bursts can be delayed. They should be doing that, to keep the kids innocent as long as possible, you know?”

Damien couldn’t believe his ears. “You . . . you read that? Who the fuck wrote that? It isn’t true, you can’t control a burst. And there’s nothing wrong with having magic,” he added, with a pointed look to Erica.

“There most definitely is—it’s dangerous! Not to mention it’s an unfair advantage that randomly hands out power to people who have done nothing to deserve it, which makes them egotistical and over-inflates their self-importance. Magic should—”

“Get. The hell. Out of my shop,” Damien said evenly. He didn’t want to yell in front of Erica, but he wanted David to know how absolutely, gravely serious he was. “This is a magic bookshop. If you can’t be respectful, you aren’t welcome here.”

David looked at him and frowned. His eyes flickered to Damien’s hair, and he squinted at it. Damien squared his shoulders. “I don’t think I’m being disrespectful,” he said. “Most people in America agree with me.”

Damien plastered on a thin smile. “And don’t I know it! But this is a place for people who like other people, magic or not. You aren’t welcome in my shop anymore. You’re making my customers uncomfortable, and honestly? You’re a real dick. Please leave.” Damien pointed to the door. If his finger trembled, he felt like no one could blame him. Containing rage like this should be an Olympian sport.

David slid the thick brick of a history book he’d had in his hand over the counter. “Save that one for me,” he said with a kind of slimy politeness that made Damien clench his teeth so as not to just deck the guy straight in his face. “I’ll be back for it later.”

“No, you won’t. I don’t just mean today. You aren’t welcome here ever again.”

David appraised him down the bridge of his nose. “Tolerant bunch, you magic users,” he said with dry sarcasm, but thankfully he turned and walked away. “Don’t fall for it, dear,” he said as he passed Erica. “They’re a mean, violent lot. You’ll see.”

Erica’s dad pulled her down from his shoulders and held her against his chest. “Don’t speak to my daughter,” he hissed. Whatever threat Damien had posed, he was a mouse next to way Erica’s dad peeled his lips back in a snarl and bristled like a wolf at David as he passed by. David seemed unphased, and he walked out of the store, the soft jingle of the bell above the doorframe signaling his final exit.

There was silence once he was gone. Damien hadn’t noticed in the moment, but all the other shoppers had frozen, watching the display. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed through his nose. “I’m sorry, everyone,” he said, projecting his voice as much as he could in a store full of leather and paper that swallowed echoes. “I’m sorry for ruining your day like that.”

“Ruining?”

Damien opened his eyes and saw Erica’s mom looking at him with a softness that touched him with surprise. “I shook that man’s hand. I’m disgusted that I’d do that just to keep the peace, instead of showing my daughter what standing up for her friends looks like.”

There was a murmur among the shoppers as everyone unfroze. One other shopper left almost immediately in a huff, but pretty much everyone else returned to shopping with contemplative looks, occasionally glancing at Damien out of the corner of their eyes. He hoped that was a good thing, but he really couldn’t tell.

“I’m really sorry you guys had to put up with that here. We aren’t about that,” Damien said, handing the magical bunny book to Erica’s mom. “We’ll call bearing witness to my soapboxing payment enough. This one’s on me. Thanks for being open with Erica.”

The mom hesitated, but ultimately took the book from his hand. “She might burst one day, she might not. Either way, she should know how to respect other people.”

Damien waved her compliment off. “That dude was weird and aggressive, sometimes you gotta just protect yourself from people like that without grandstanding.”

“Still,” Erica’s dad smiled at him, turning Erica to face Damien, “we appreciate it.”

“You just keep being awesome,” Damien said, offering Erica a high five. “Come back and tell me about the magic bunnies, okay?”

Erica looked between his raised hand and his blue streak. She didn’t say it, but he could see her putting it together. Perhaps she didn’t understand everything that had just happened, but she was getting enough. It wasn’t quite the broad, unabashed smile from earlier, but a smaller one crept across her face and she smacked his raised hand. “Okay. I still like your hair.”

“Thanks, Erica,” Damien said. “Bye!” He waved them off as they left, and then immediately felt a crushing wave of exhaustion. His whole body felt weighed down, heavy, and the way his thoughts strung together started to tangle in knots. He checked his phone as he plopped down on the stool behind the counter, running his thumb over a leather book’s spine and feeling the particular pattern.

Hey, Tommy wants us all at brunch. Can you close up for just a little while and come join?

Damien looked up. The shop was still pretty busy post-story time, but it looked like most of the customers were reaching the limits of how many books they could hold in two hands.

Let me check everyone out and I’ll hang the gone fishing, be back soon sign.

:D Courtney adopted two cats at yoga.

Damien shut his phone and checked out the remaining customers in record time. He’d tell Shayne about that asshole David later. He wanted to talk cats with people he loved now.

***

Angela looked at her watch and sighed. It was getting late, and she had to open the pet shop tomorrow morning. She had a sneaking suspicion, too, that the next week or so would be pretty busy. The SBS had been incredibly popular, thanks to Chanse and Amanda decking out the entire block is bright florals and getting Smosh Street blocked off by the city so that customers could wander and dally without fear. The buzz created more interest, too, and there had been plenty of people who wandered by just because of all the commotion, and ended up checking out all the shops, perhaps finding a new gem in the mix.

The pet shop had made a generous number of adoptions, and Angela had just about sung herself hoarse with all the binding spells she’d cast on collars and fishbowls and various other pet supplies, but it was something she’d do gladly each time.

Her own little guy would be waiting at home for her, tongue sticking out at an odd angle and big walleyes bugging out of his head. She couldn’t wait to see him this evening and give him a little extra love and appreciation.

She glanced at Ian, who was fixing his new dog (Anthony’s new dog, he had insisted) with her own collar. Or, that’s what he was trying to do, but she was wagging her tail so hard her whole body was wiggling.

“Bowie,” Ian sighed, sitting down on the smooth tile of the shop. It wasn’t the prettiest, but animals had accidents, and as lovely as the wood grain of the yoga studio or the crystal shop looked, it was hell to pick hamster poop out of.

Angela locked the front door and walked over to her boss, trapping the pitbull between her knees to keep her a little more still. She looked thrilled about it. “Bowie?” Angela asked. “You a big David Bowie fan?”

Ian tried the collar again, and now that Angela kept her just a bit stiller, he managed to notch the thing in place. “He’s fine or whatever,” Ian said, pressing the dangling silver tag between his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger, squeezing his eyes closed. “But Bowie’s short for Rainbow Sprinkles.”

Swirls that looked like 2D animations curled and danced around Ian’s hand, gathering around his hold on the tag, then flying off to nowhere and disappearing. It reminded Angela of PBS commercials when she was young, sketchy, animated bits that interacted with real life.

“You wanna sing a little?” he asked, thumb still pressed to the engraved seal with blocks and curls of violet and yellow and blue still dancing through the air. She loved his magic; it was so playful and weighty and fun. Her own magic could be a lot for some people—like fireworks and sound waves—but she also liked how hers mixed with his, both kinds so energetic and bright. It felt like a match.

She hummed a bit, brightening up her lungs and throat, a soft red glow beginning to shine over her skin, and then opened her mouth. She sang the magic symbols, their shapes and sounds. There was no particular language, but the letters still sounded right, she still felt their tune in her throat as she sang them. Little bursts that reminded her of the streaks that sparklers left on a summer night, like small fireworks, began to spring out of her, her chest, her fingertips, her lips, and dropped down in a shower of light over a very happy Bowie, concentrating around her new tag.

Angela loved seals and magic. They made sense to her in a way normal words on a page didn’t, and each person’s magic had a particularity to it she found exhilarating. Chanse’s was like light and clouds, angelic. Amanda’s was deep velvet, plush and full bodied like a wine. Trevor’s was viscous and smelled like butter. Arasha’s looked like blood, like life itself, and it always made Angela painfully aware of just how hard her own heart was beating.

It hadn’t always been something she loved, though. She was the only kid in all the fourth-grade classes at her school that had burst. Some kids insisted she was louder after that, that she was causing hearing damage. One even smashed a window with a baseball and blamed it on her. She got so mad at the faculty who found her guilty that even without magic, her language got colorful enough to get her suspended. She wore a lot of turtlenecks after that, but it didn’t do a lot of good. Word was out. It was enough to drive her to a new school come sixth grade, which was a little better, but nothing really felt quite right until she’d found the pet shop on Smosh Street, right next to the bookstore and games shop, and the magic store, across the street from the yoga studio, and the bar-slash-coffee shop: Kickstart Café/Serving Cunt.

This was her home.

Angela ended with a strong, powerful note, one last burst of sparks from her song, before she widened her stance and let Bowie tackle Ian with excitement.

“You’re Anthony’s dog,” Ian said, but he was scratching both sides of Bowie’s jaw and kissing her nose. “Bother him like that, okay?”

Bowie wagged her tail.

“You can go for the night,” Ian said, looking up to her. “I’ll close up. Thanks for taking the paperwork before brunch.”

Angela shrugged, tamping down the blush that threatened to spread over her cheeks. It was always a small thrill to see Arasha do what she was good at, in her own studio. Angela didn’t take her classes often because she had a habit of getting distracted enough to be bad at it and ended up mortified more than anything, but today had been good. Today had been good. “No problem,” she replied, gathering her things. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“See you Monday. Have a good day off.”

“You too!” she called over her shoulder as she left.

Chanse was waiting for her in the parking lot across the street, sitting on the hood of his car and scrolling through his phone.

“Hey,” she greeted him.

“Hey,” he replied, looking up and setting his phone down beside him. Angela stepped one foot up on the front bumper and plopped herself down next to him on the hood. “Good day for you guys?”

“Oh yeah,” Chanse grinned. “It was great. Got tipsy in the morning, had games flying off the shelves in the afternoon—nothing better, honestly.”

Angela chuckled. “It was a good SBS, I think. We made a lot of adoptions. Ian’s gonna have a revolving door tomorrow.”

“Aw,” Chanse cooed. “That’s good news. So, did you and Arasha make out in the yoga studio once we all left? I didn’t want to ask at brunch just in case.”

Angela whacked his shoulder, hard. “Shut up!” she shouted. “No! We did not make out in the yoga studio!”

Chanse waggled his eyebrows at her. “Did you want to?”

Angela flopped on ther back, head against the windshield, staring up at the evening sky. “God yes.”

Chanse settled on his back beside her, nuzzling his chin into the space between her neck and shoulder. “It’ll happen,” he said. “I wish you’d just, I don’t know, be confident?”

“She doesn’t like me like that,” Angela sighed. It was nice to have him beside her.

“She does, you’re just stupid,” Chanse muttered against her skin.

Angela nodded. “I am stupid, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You just did.”

“Yeah, but I can do that. Because I love you more than you love you.”

Angela’s grin cracked across her face, spreading like melted butter. “Yeah, you do, bitch.”

She felt the soft, tickling breaths of his silent laughter just below her ear. “Am I taking you home or what?”

“Eventually,” she said. “But just . . . sit with me here for a minute. It’s pretty tonight, and I’m happy here.”

“Okay,” Chanse agreed.

If he dozed off a little, curled beside her on the roof of his car as early evening turned to late, Angela wouldn’t tell. It had been a good day, and she loved him. That was all that really mattered.

***

Tommy wasn’t usually the one to open. In fact, he wasn’t usually around until five pm, when Kickstart turned over into Serving Cunt, and never in his life on a Sunday, but yesterday had gone well and Tommy wanted to inventory what he’d need to replenish for each of the new drinks. He could have had one of the staff do it, but he was up and beaming with the sun this morning anyway.

Spencer was still asleep when he left, enjoying his one morning off where he let the staff open, sprawled on their bed. Tommy couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to his tan, stubbly cheek, and running his fingers through his messy locks. He looked so soft and young when he was asleep, it made Tommy’s chest pinch with some kind of affectionate melancholy.

He arrived at the café just as the sun was cresting, and he waved to Alex and Kiana, who were already prepping for the morning rush behind the coffee counter.

Inventory was the kind of mindless, check-box task that felt like white noise. It kept his mind just busy enough, but not so intricate that he needed to focus. It was the perfect task for early morning. Counting liquors and garnishes, making himself a list—before he knew it Tommy had hit nine-thirty in the morning, and he’d been hunched over the lower cabinets for almost four hours.

With a stretch that cracked all the way up his spine, Tommy stood and decided to take himself on a walk over to the games store. Trevor was a bit shy about it, but he could bake with the best of them, and Tommy liked to pick his brain about pairings and menu changes when he got the chance.

“Hey, I’m headed to Chanse and Trevor’s,” he called to the staff, hanging his apron by the kitchen.

“Okay, tell them we say hi!” Kiana called back.

“Tell Trevor I have rec for him,” Alex added, poking his head around the corner.

“Will do. Text if you guys need anything.”

Tommy pulled his phone out of his back pocket as he began the walk down the block towards the games store. Spencer hadn’t texted him yet, which meant he probably wasn’t awake yet, and Tommy couldn’t help but smile at that. He probably looked adorable with the morning sunlight streaming through the blinds, resting gently on his chest as it rose and fell.

Ugh. Sometimes Tommy grossed himself out with how much he loved his boyfriend. Unfortunately, he really, really did.

Mornin, bub. Café looks good. Nice job yesterday.

Tommy went to put his phone back in his pocket, but it dinged almost immediately with a response.

Thanks, you too. See? We lived, bitch.

You were asleep.

And now I’m awake. Weird. Does that ever happen to you?

No.

Bummer. Guess I’m just a freak.

I could’ve told you that.

Come home and let me show you ;)

Tommy had to laugh to himself before responding.

Soon. Gonna terrorize Trevor first, then I’ll come home.

Fine. I’ll be waiting.

Go back to sleep and I’ll be home before you know it.

Zzzzz.

Tommy looked up to cross the street with a smile, but it dropped instantly straight down through the pavement, only fractionally faster than his heart. His hands flew over his mouth in shock, eyes wide.

He felt sick.

The front windows of the bookstore were smashed, and the door was open, hanging on one hinge at an odd angle. Tommy couldn’t see well enough inside from across the street, but he didn’t expect that the inside was much better off.

Shayne and Damien. He needed to call Shayne and Damien.

He started racing across the street, reaching for his phone again, but in his panic, he dropped it in the middle of the road. Fingers shaking, he fumbled for it a few times before he finally snatched it off the ground. He was calling Shayne’s number before he even got to the curb.

“Hey, Tommy, what’s up?” Shayne answered. He sounded bright.

“You guys aren’t at the store, right? You need to get to the store if you’re not here. Oh my god, you’re both okay, right?” All of his words scrambled over one another to get out of his mouth, thoughts colliding like swarming bugs. He reached the threshold of the store, and inside things looked bad: toppled shelves, ripped pages, broken glass on the floor. “You aren’t here, right?” he asked again.

“What? Tommy, what’s wrong?”

“The bookstore,” he said. He felt disconnected from his body from the pure shock of it. On autopilot, he was about to step through, when a hand grabbed him and yanked him back onto the curb.

“Do not go in there,” Ian said sharply, stepping in front of him. He snatched the phone right out of Tommy’s shaking, clammy hand and held it up to his own ear. “You guys need to get here. This looks bad. Someone broke in.”

Tommy couldn’t hear the other end of the line anymore, but from how quickly Ian hung up the phone, he assumed Shayne and Damien were on their way ASAP. Ian hung up and handed Tommy his phone back, appraising him through his glasses. “You okay?” he asked.

Tommy shook his head. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know,” Ian sighed. He looked at the pet shop next door, which hadn’t been broken into, but in chunky red paint “LEAVE OR YOU’RE NEXT” was scrawled over the window. “I just got here. Came through the backdoor. Happy Sunday,” he said, dry sarcasm shriveling his words.

“Who did this?” Tommy asked. “And why?”

“Don’t know, and don’t know,” Ian said. He wandered closer to the threshold of the bookstore. Faintly, the back of Tommy’s mind had the thought that if Ian wasn’t going to let him touch anything in there, perhaps he should protect him the same, but by the time Tommy’s shock-slowed brain had time to process it, Ian was a few feet inside already. He squatted down and picked up one of the half shelves.

Tommy wanted to ask a million more questions, but Ian didn’t seem to know any more than he did. He started stepping towards the shop, where Ian was inspecting pages on the floor, but Ian held up a hand. “Just stay out there. Don’t come in. We don’t know what’s going on, who did this, or how dangerous it might be.”

“You’re in there,” Tommy said. It wasn’t necessarily an argument, more so an observation. Not that Tommy was above a petty squabble, he was just too stunned at the moment.

“Yeah,” Ian agreed without further comment. “Just stay there.”

“Okay,” Tommy agreed weakly. “I’m gonna text . . . everyone,” he said. Perhaps that would help him feel useful. He pulled up his conversation with Spencer.

Someone attacked the bookstore. It’s bad.

***

Damien’s stomach fell through the bottoms of his heels. All the bookshelves were toppled, books torn and strewn about, and pages were ripped and shredded all over the floor, mixed with glass shards and dirt. Both front windows were broken, and the one next door had an ominous warning scrawled on it. His streak and the tips of his fingers were glowing, slightly, with a range of emotions so overwhelming he couldn’t quite pick a single one from the mix.

Ian was attempting to clear the front of the store, but it was slow, heavy work. “Pretty much everyone is on their way,” he said, but Damien didn’t miss that Ian couldn’t look him in the eye. He knew it wouldn’t help, but what else was there to do?

“Shayne?” Damien reached his hand out beside him, grabbing at Shayne’s shoulder.

“Hey, calm down, Damien,” Shayne said urgently but evenly. “It’s okay, no one’s hurt. You’re okay, I’m okay. It’s just paper.”

“It’s magic,” Damien breathed, stumbling forward. It was every kind of book: best-selling fiction, awarded classics, cookbooks, encyclopedias, and magic books. Even the back shelves, the ones that held the old stuff, had been broken and, Damien realized as he drew closer, burned.

“Shayne, they burned them,” Damien said, eyes locked on the blackened magic books. He couldn’t even get to them without attempting to climb the mess.

“Fuck,” Shayne said. Damien turned to look at him, finally, because he could hear the heartbreak in his voice. “I can’t believe they burned them.”

Damien swallowed and walked back to Shayne, sliding a hand up his arm, then neck, until it rested softly against Shayne’s cheek. The blue on his fingertips was glowing, but it still didn’t compare to the blue in Shayne’s eyes. The devastation in them hurt Damien’s already wounded chest and he pulled Shayne into a hug. Maybe together they could stay whole.

“People don’t do that shit anymore,” Shayne insisted, his voice quiet as he held Damien tight.

“Who would ever do this?” Tommy asked from the sidewalk.

“Historically, not the good guys,” Ian answered, picking up a copy of Theurgia. Or what used to be a copy of Theurgia. Now it was a torn apart leather binding with hardly a leaf of paper left inside. Damien had bound that book.

The whole shop was ruined. Trashed. Dark grey soot was floating through the air, collecting on Ian’s hands, making Damien feel sick as it fluttered through his lungs. Shayne gave Damien’s arm a pat before moving to help Ian clean—or whatever their task could be called. Certainly, nothing was getting cleaner.

“Courtney and Amanda are here,” Tommy said. “They’re just checking the magic shop first to see if they got attacked, too, but they’re here.”

“I’m gonna go,” Damien announced. He needed to be out of here. There was too much wreck to know what to do, he was getting overwhelmed by it all. “I’m gonna go see if the magic shop’s okay. Do you need me? This is bad.” His thoughts were running out of order, too much too fast, but he looked to Shayne, and he knew that Shayne got it. He knew Shayne understood he wasn’t running away, he just needed something he could do, something he could accomplish.

“We’ll be okay,” Shayne said with a nod.

“We’ll keep cleaning. Probably call . . . the police, I guess,” Ian said with a frown. “Don’t expect them to do much, but at least we can get a report in if you want legal defense.”

Legal defense. Damien felt sick.

“Go ahead, Damien,” Shayne said. “Make sure they’re okay. Let me know either way.”

Damien nodded.

It felt like he teleported instantly from the wreckage of the bookshop to the peaceful entryway of the magic shop. Jasmine hit his nose, and the crystal windchimes in the windows scattered rainbows with the morning light. The stark difference of the two stores pinched his heart.

Courtney and Amanda were poring over one of the tables with an unusually messy setting of stones, cards, and seal sheafs.

“Hey,” Damien said, rousing the two of them from their concentration. Courtney jumped and almost knocked over an inkwell.

“Hey!” she said brightly, but her light faded almost immediately when she saw his face.

His eyes zipped around the store, like he was trying to take in everything at once. “You guys are safe?”

“We are.” Amanda confirmed, holding a spread of cards in her hand. “We’re a little confused, though. Tommy said the store was attacked?” her voice drifted up at the end, like she wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “Are you . . . not safe?”

Damien took a deep breath. It didn’t release a single fibre of tense muscle, but his eyes slowed their frantic searching, thankfully. “I don’t know,” he said, approaching the other side of their table. “I guess we’re not hurt right now, but yeah, Tommy’s right, the bookshop was attacked.” He felt his hands curl into fists at his sides, and he caught Courtney’s eyes flickering to them before jumping back up to his face, mentally tallying something he couldn’t catch with how fried his brain felt. “It’s . . . it’s really bad. They broke everything. They tore up books. They . . . they burned the magic ones.”

Amanda’s cards fluttered to the floor as she held her hands up to her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh my god,” she breathed.

“Oh my god,” Courtney gasped, scrambling around the table, reaching out and grabbing Damien in a hug. “You’re okay? Shayne’s okay?” they asked, but it felt like they were begging for the answer to be yes.

“We’re not hurt,” he conceded.

“What about the shop? How bad is it?”

Damien squeezed Courtney extra tight for a moment, knowing it meant he was about to let go. “It’s wrecked,” he said when he released her. “It’s bad. They’re threatening the pet shop, too.”

Courtney once again reached out to touch him, this time a gentle slide along his upper arm. He wanted to be grateful, but it was hard to unthread all the feelings he had inside him to identify a single one.

“Show me,” Amanda said. Her voice was so commanding, and when she turned to look at him, the expression on her face was one that left Damien speechless. Amanda was kind. She was silly and odd and sweet and passionate, but the fire in her eyes was so sharp Damien felt like he’d been burned just by looking at it. “C’mon,” she said, snatching a particular seal diagram and heading for the door, waving for the two of them to follow her. “Let’s go take a look. We’re gonna do something about it.”

By the time they returned, everyone was there. Anthony and Tommy were hauling big bookshelves upright, Angela and Arasha were seated on the floor sorting like pages into piles, Chanse and Spencer were wiping down tables with Damien’s work rags, Trevor and Shayne were sweeping glass, and Ian was in the back with the burnt magic books. Grey soot still swirled around in particles through the air, making the scene look like a fucked up snowglobe.

“Here, hun,” Amanda said, striding straight through the mess to Ian. “What do you think of this?” She handed him the paper she had brought over, but Damien lost track of their conversation pretty quickly when Courtney zoomed for Shayne.

“Courtney, careful!” Shayne shouted, but they walked straight through the glass towards him.

“I’ve got big boots on,” she said, which was true, but the way she said it Damien thought she wouldn’t have stopped even if she were barefoot. She threw her arms around him, one hand resting gently on the back of his head, and Shayne dropped his broom to wrap his gold-freckled arms around her waist.

“We’re okay,” he said quietly in their ear, shooting Damien a look over their shoulder. “Damien told you we’re okay, right?”

Courtney held on just a moment longer before stepping back and picking up the broom. “Yeah, and I’m glad, but the shop isn’t.”

Shayne’s eyes, the same blue of the worry stone Courtney kept for him, struggled to reflect the smile he painted on his face. “We’ll be okay.”

“Shut up and go, I don’t know, process this? Go process this with your boyfriend,” she said, holding the broom away from him as he tried to take it from her.

Damien was suddenly aware of how useless he was, hands at his sides, while every one of his friends worked to clean up his shop. Shayne took them in his own hands as he approached, though, and gave Damien’s knuckles a soft kiss while looking him in the eye. Maybe his hands weren’t so useless after all.

He and Shayne took a short break to talk to the police when they arrived and grab lunch for everyone, but eventually they were allowed by the rest of the group to help again. By the end of the day, the shop was still not in working order by any means, but everything was organized: all the broken things were gathered and either disposed or marked for repair, and everything still salvageable was back in its rightful spot. Damien placed a call for new windows, and Shayne did his best to realign the door. It would probably need replacing, too, but at least it would lock for the night. As far as safety went, though, the thing that put Damien most at ease was the seal that Amanda had worked up.

“I think this seal is our best shot at keeping this place safe from now on,” she said, flattening the piece of paper she had arrived with on the table they had all gathered around. It had scribbles in a few different handwritings because Amanda had interrogated each of them for their thoughts on what might make the protection magic stronger. “I’ll draw it up outside, but I think we should all pour a little magic in, maybe take turns replenishing it to keep it strong. It’s kind of a big one. How does that sound?”

It was the last thing they did before leaving, and Damien could see on every face the toll the day had taken on them. They looked tired, which Damien felt too, and like something out of an old Hollywood movie about chimney sweeps, all smudged and stained with grey soot. Damien got halfway through apologizing for keeping them all here today instead of at their own shops before Tommy told him, kindly, to shut the hell up, this is what friends do for each other, while Amanda hummed her agreement from the sidewalk where she was etching the seal with burnt charcoal Courtney had grabbed from the magic shop.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Amanda said, clapping the black dust off her fingers and standing up.

“Angela,” Arasha said as the group gathered around the seal. “You could sing us in, right?”

Angela, despite looking a bit rough from the day, grinned. “Yeah, I can do that. Everyone ready?”

It was a tight squeeze around the seal with all twelve of them there, but they managed. Angela followed the symbols that Amanda etched with her voice, and the outline of her lungs on her chest began to glow.

It was sunset, so Damien took Shayne’s hand in his, as day and night met one another, and the sun and moon were both still visible in the sky. Damien preferred night, but there was something special about the spare few minutes of twilight when the sky held both of them in it.

There was a lot of magic, all at once, chasing the lines of the seal in rings, different streams of magic dancing and playing around one another before sinking into the sidewalk. The frenzied, wild, black shapes of Anthony’s magic lashed around Amanda’s rush of velvety curtains and cut through Chanse’s unearthly light. Angela’s fireworks bounced and sparked over Courtney’s iridescent ripples and Ian’s bright shapes. Trevor’s green swirled over Tommy’s spirals, pillowed against Damien’s blue and silver like an art piece, and Arasha’s red drifted around Shayne’s golden suns, peppered with Spencer’s small little stamps of magic.

And then it was all gone, buried into the ground, the air, the entirety of the matter that made up the bookshop and the space around it.

When Damien tried to move, he found his legs weak and wobbly, and Shayne caught him around the waist. “Easy,” Shayne murmured into his hairline. “Let’s go home.”

It was a strange night in their apartment. It might have been nice, in another world, to be cuddled up, handing off their gaming controller between levels and respawns, but the air was laced with tragedy tonight. Damien didn’t touch his dinner, and he’d seen Shayne consider picking up one of his books to read, only to have a look of crushing sadness pass over his face. They stayed up late into the night, the low glow of the television burning Damien’s eyes, but it didn’t matter how tired they were in the morning. They weren’t going to work tomorrow.

Damien hadn’t cried, but the next morning he woke up feeling like he had. That ache in his chest, sting in his throat, exhaustion in his skin. It was what he always thought a hangover would feel like. He chugged water and took ibuprofen, but it didn’t make him feel better. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him.

Shayne seemed to be in a similar state, listless and weak. He went into the shop around noon just to check on things and feed the seal, but it barely killed an hour. Damien told himself all morning he’d make lunch, and that didn’t happen, so then he told himself he’d make dinner, but that didn’t happen either.

Around six-thirty, Courtney showed up at their door, unannounced, with a pizza box. Damien could have cried. Shayne looked like he could have kissed them.

The next day, he didn’t feel much better, and texts started flying around until Spencer yanked them all into the largest group chat.

Consensus is we’re all coming down with a cold.

Ian’s contact pic popped up. Sorry. Think that was my bad.

Just make sure a couple of us are dropping by to feed the seal every day, but otherwise take care of yourselves! Amanda texted.

Damien decided it was his turn to head to the store. Shayne argued he ought to do it since Damien looked tired, but Damien stated his case very calmly and clearly. Then Shayne started to argue, and Damien got even calmer and clearer about what was going to happen and the consequences of those things not happening, and Shayne crawled obediently back into bed.

He was out like a light before Damien even left.

“Damien?” Courtney’s voice called, startling him from his leather station. It wasn’t in great shape, still, but it was workable, so he decided he could spend an hour or two mending some books before he felt like he’d be overdoing it.

“One sec, Courtney,” he answered, picking up the stack of books and wandering up front with them. The books felt heavy in his hands, and he was almost winded by the time he made it up front.

“Oh, Damien,” Courtney looked pained as she spoke. “That seal’s taking a lot out of you.” She offered her hands and he let her take a few books off his stack.

“I’m fine,” he shrugged. “Shayne’s the one really taking the hit.”

“Where is he?”

“I tied him to the bed so he’d stay home.”

Courtney raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, no, that came out wrong.”

They laughed, tucking their head between her shoulders. “Where are these going?” they asked, hefting the books in their arms.

“On the discount rack,” Damien answered, guiding her over to the empty cart right near the door.

“Okay, so Shayne’s at home resting,” Courtney said as they started to slot the books in one by one beside Damien. “Why aren’t you?”

“Well, someone has check on the shop,” he said. “Independent bookstores don’t run on just dreams, you know. We need to get this place open as soon as possible. Gotta make that money every now and again.”

Courtney frowned. “I’ve heard that,” she sighed wistfully. “Too bad, honestly.”

“Yeah. How’s Amanda? She’s putting a lot of magic in these seals.”

“She’s okay,” Courtney shrugged. “She’s pissed about this,” Courtney waved their hand around the skeleton of the store. “But she’s alright. I’m heading home soon, taking a half day. I’m still not beating this bug, whatever it is.”

Damien swallowed. Amanda was putting in just as much magic to the seal as he was. Was he really that weak?

The next day he felt still fractionally worse. He woke up at around four in the morning, and with nothing better to do while Shayne was still asleep, he went to the bookshop. Perhaps he was trying to prove something to himself, going two days in a row, but when he got there he brushed some dust off the seal at the entrance of the shop, ignoring the hollow-weak feel inside him.

“Hey.”

Damien turned and spotted Anthony over his shoulder, on the other side of the street, leaned against the front of the yoga studio with a thermos in his hand.

Damien turned and tilted his head. “Hey,” he said, looking both ways before jogging across the street. It was early enough that the sun hadn’t even begun to rise. Damien hadn’t slept well and figured he might as well get up and check on the shop. He hadn’t really expected to see any of the other shop owners. “Getting ready for some sun salutations?” he asked, miming a little salute as he approached Anthony.

Anthony’s smile was thin. He seemed tired, too. “Arasha’s running the first class,” he said. There was a pinch in his voice as he spoke.

“Why are you up so early?” Damien asked in surprise. He didn’t want to be up at four thirty am on a Thursday. He didn’t have a choice.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Anthony said, swirling his thermos around, but still not drinking from it. “Didn’t want to wake Ian up. He’s been so tired.”

Damien nodded. He was tired, too. The protection seal was working, but they were some draining magic on top of whatever virus or infection had managed to get them all. Still, he was envious that Ian was able to sleep.

“We’re all a little rough since the attack,” Damien said.

Anthony nodded. “Yeah. I bring Arasha to and from work every day. I don’t want her to be alone in case something happens. She thinks I don’t trust her.”

Damien leaned against the wall next to Anthony and looked up. Very few stars were left in the sky as the sun threatened to break across the horizon, but the ones that still persisted gave him comfort. He’d always found comfort in the night sky. He let a few wisps of magic drift around him, so pale and weak it probably looked like cold breath. It probably wasn’t smart–he felt so tired already, he probably didn’t have much magic to spare–but he couldn’t resist. He loved how his magic felt at night. “But you couldn’t live with yourself if something happened to her and you weren’t there.”

“I couldn’t live if anything happened to any of us and I wasn’t there,” Anthony corrected him gently. “But she doesn’t have someone else to rely on.”

“Angela?” Damien tried to tease, but it felt much more hollow than he had hoped it would.

Anthony smiled at his hands holding his thermos. “We can hope they get it together someday. Until then . . .”

“Ian’s bringing Angela to work?” Damien guessed.

Anthony nodded, but his jaw clenched.

“Anthony,” Damien pressed. “Dude. What’s up?”

Anthony looked up from his hands, towards Damien, but still not quite looking him in the eye. “I think I’m just worrying,” he said, but Damien could tell he didn’t believe himself. He wanted to, but he didn’t.

“C’mon,” Damien pleaded earnestly. “You’re up before the crack of dawn. You gotta talk to somebody.”

Anthony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I think that attack really upset Ian. I mean—I know it upset all of us, but . . .” he swallowed harshly, and finally looked directly at Damien. “What happens when Ian looks at me?”

“Cartoon hearts,” Damien answered. “Sometimes a little star dazzle. One time, when you wore those sweatpants, I saw a cartoon eggpl—”

“Right,” Anthony agreed, cutting him off. “That’s . . . it didn’t happen yesterday.”

Damien furrowed his brow. “He didn’t have any reaction?”

“Well, he did in the morning, but when I saw him at home last night . . . nothing.”

Damien went silent for a moment, stunned, and Anthony went pale–he’d been quiet too long. “It can’t mean anything. Doesn’t that happen sometimes?” Damien asked, trying to save face.

Anthony shook his head. “No. You’re right, it’s not always hearts, but it was always something. I’ve never gotten nothing from him. Never.”

“Did you just miss it, maybe?” Damien asked hopefully.

Anthony shook his head. “I know to look for it. I always do. I know when I’ve missed it. I didn’t miss it.”

Damien was silent. He had an inkling of what Anthony was getting at, but he didn’t want to say it out loud.

“I don’t know . . .” Anthony swallowed. “That’s not true. I think I do know what it means. I don’t know why.”

“My magic’s really taking a hit with keeping all the seals up,” Damien offered. “Maybe it’s just that.”

Anthony smiled without it touching his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just that.”

“Or maybe the attack is so in his head that he’s distracted.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Damien let out a long breath. “You don’t think so, though.”

“Ian’s magic is honest, even when he isn’t,” Anthony explained. Damien could see a glassiness in his eyes, and it pinched his throat. “I didn’t want to be there when he woke up this morning. Just in case.”

Damien slid closer against the wall and bumped his shoulder. “It’s hard right now. For all of us. Ian . . .” Damien thought about Ian. Stubborn, grouchy, kind, always-over-the-line Ian, and how much he gave to others. It didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that he’d just given too much, at the expense of his little bits and bursts of magic. “Ian would give up a lot, but he wouldn’t give up you.”

That seemed to bring a new pain behind Anthony’s eyes and Damien wanted to shove his whole foot in his mouth. “I’d hope not. Not anymore. But I don’t know what else to think, Damien.”

Damien was afraid to admit he understood. Everything felt precarious right now. Everyone was tired and hurt. No one knew how dangerous things truly were. Someone (or many people) might want them all dead, and Damien was worried about all of them. He worried about someone hurting Courtney when he and Shayne were at the bookshop. He worried about Shayne putting himself in harm’s way for any of the others. He worried about Chanse and Amanda losing themselves in fear.

He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I think it’s probably time for you to go get Arasha, have a normal day, and see Ian at lunch. I’m gonna check on all the seals, feed a little magic in, and go to work. We can all meet for drinks after work today. We’ll feel safer together.”

Anthony tilted his head. “You don’t drink,” he said, thoughtfully.

Damien grinned a little, it was always nice when people remembered. “I’ll find something. You know, restaurants usually have at least a little water.”

Anthony gave half a laugh, but it was more than the dumb joke deserved, so he’d take it. “Come to our place,” he offered. “I’ll send out a group text. It’s private, so we can talk about things if we want, without worrying about who might hear. And Ian has some expensive wine I think Amanda would sell her soul to try.”

“Okay,” Damien agreed, bumping Anthony’s shoulder one more time. “We’re all going through it, Anthony. Give Ian—and yourself—a little grace.”

Anthony peeled himself off the wall and gave Damien a genuine but exhausted smile, before heading down the block for his car. Damien watched him go before back to the bookshop and texting Shayne their plans for that evening.

***

“Ten minutes to curtain!”

Angela kicked her feet in the makeup chair, and accidently caught the makeup artists in her excited flailing.

“Sorry Ms. Foster,” she said sheepishly.

Ms. Foster smiled at her. Angela liked her a lot, she helped Angela run warmups and she was one of the only adults who didn’t yell at her for fidgeting in the makeup chair. She was younger than a lot of the other adults, and even Angela’s parents. Angela had no idea how old adults were, usually, but Ms. Foster just seemed so cool.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ms. Foster said, smudging one last brush of blush on her cheeks. “Now, let’s see if we can get this hair into some von Trapp family braids, yeah?” she said, standing up straight and running a hand through Angela’s soft, fine hair. It always took a lot of hairspray, which was not-so-secretly Angela’s least favorite part. It always tickled her throat in a weird way and made her cough.

“Two minutes to curtain!” the stagehand called when Ms. Foster was halfway through Angela’s first reverse French braid.

Angela shot Ms. Foster a pleading look out of the side of her eye, and Ms. Foster sighed in resignation. Angela wasn’t on stage for the first few scenes, so during dress rehearsal Angela had convinced her to sneak up to the wings and watch the first number, even though her hair was only halfway done.

Ms. Foster sighed and pinched the braid between her fingers. “Only if you’re really, really quiet,” she whispered, holding her free hand up to her mouth in a shushing gesture.

“So quiet,” Angela promised.

Ms. Foster nodded, and Angela sprung to her feet. She and Ms. Foster padded carefully to the stage in their strange arrangement, Ms. Foster pinching the half-finished braid so it wouldn’t fall apart, Angela creeping closer slowly so that she wouldn’t make a noise, and to help Ms. Foster stay beside her.

The deep, heavy black curtains of the wings made Angela’s view look like a tunnel, pinpointing Maria as the hymnal overture began, sung by the ensemble in the aisles. The stage curtain wouldn’t raise until the end of that song, and as lovely as it was, Angela was rapt with her attention on Maria. She was quiet, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, wiggling her fingers at her sides, shifting her weight all through her character shoes, and looking at where the red velvet curtain met the stage with anticipation.

The lights cued on, and Maria pulled her gaze up with a smile. The curtains parted and the music swelled.

“The hills are alive . . .”

It was perfect. The dress rehearsal had been, too, but with the real thing, there was a different, electric energy. Angela stood in awe until Ms. Foster gently nudged her back to the makeup chair to finish her hair.

“Okay,” Ms. Foster said, patting Angela’s knee and giving her a beaming smile when she was done. “Break a leg, Angela. Look for me in the wing.”

Time passed in a blur until she was lined up with her arms folded behind her back on stage, staring out stoically as Captain von Trapp whistled for each child. She felt her pulse pound everywhere, her ears, her fingertips, her throat. It might have overwhelmed someone else, but for Angela, it felt like rhythm. It was loud and overwhelming, but she let it guide her. She trusted it.

Just before the Captain blew the whistle for Marta, as Brigita loudly declared her name, Angela shot a discrete glance to the wing, where Ms. Foster was holding her hands to her chest and grinning with excitement.

The whistle sounded, and Angela stepped forward. She opened her mouth, and fireworks exploded on stage. Greens and reds and yellows, all blindingly bright and dazzling, sparked and flew and burst from her mouth. They weren’t loud, but they echoed her voice as it declared, “Marta!” bouncing her voice around the stage with crystalline clarity, more voluminous than any mic could pick up.

It was chaos, then. The audience gasped and cried out, a few of them ducking below their seats. The young girl beside Angela who played Gretl began wailing, and several stagehands rushed the stage as the rest of the cast backed away from her.

It wasn’t a long burst, but it was big. She glanced around in shock—they’d definitely need to start the scene over—as the actors fled the stage, the adults furiously whispering to one another, and the house announcer declaring a quick five-minute break, thank you so much for your patience, snacks are in the lobby.

She could do the scene again, Angela knew she could. It was just, this was her burst! She’d be able to control it a second time, she just hadn’t known it was coming, that was all!

But as Angela found Ms. Foster’s horrified gaze in the wing, she suddenly knew it didn’t matter whether she could control it or not. Angela looked at her with a question in her eyes, but Ms. Foster turned away, covering her mouth with her hand in disgust.

Her heart sank. She wouldn’t be getting a second chance.

***

Angela had started to feel a little beaten down by the end of the day on Sunday, after helping with the bookshop cleanup, as well as pouring magic into the seal, but it wasn’t anything alarming. Yet. The third day, though, the aches were getting debilitating, and when Ian eyed her walking to his car, he locked the door just before she put her hand on the handle.

“Ian, what the fuck?” she demanded, tugging at the handle. She hadn’t bothered putting up a fight when Ian had texted her on Monday morning that he was going to drive her to work. Safety in numbers or whatever, and she trusted him. Quite a lot.

He cracked the window. “Go back inside.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you look sick. Go back inside and take the day off.”

“I’m fine,” she said, yanking on the door handle again. “Open the door, we’re gonna be late.”

“Angela—”

“No, you know what? I’ve been nice the last few days, but you’re way sicker than I am, Ian,” she snapped. “You look like shit.” Last night, when Anthony had invited everyone over for a drink, Ian had been unusually quiet. He and Angela often had quiet bouts at work, but Ian loved a gathering, even one with a slightly solemn edge. Chanse had googled all of their symptoms and the evening had devolved into a half-drunken game of “guess that deadly disease.” It had been almost a good time, save for the pounding headache it left Angela with by the time she left.

Ian frowned at her, the deadpan look in his eyes telling her that she wasn’t exactly helping her case, but she felt like garbage, and it wasn’t helping her filter her thoughts. “Go back inside, Angela.”

“Ian!” she stomped her foot in frustration. “Someone still has to feed the animals and keep things clean. We’re not a games shop, we can’t just shut down for a day.”

Ian lifted one eyebrow. “Did you talk to Chanse? Is he sick too?”

“Yeah, Arasha and Trevor are sick, too, our group chat is a blast, you wish you were in it, but we have animals to take care of.”

Ian looked away, considering something in the middle distance of his front windshield, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel. “We can go take care of the animals, but then I’m taking you home. We’re not opening for the day, we’re just taking care of them, then I bring you home. Deal?”

She noticed that he didn’t mention going home himself, but she figured she would have to fight these battles one at a time. At least this way he wouldn’t lock her out if she tried to drive there herself. “Deal,” she said.

He unlocked the car and she stuffed herself in the passenger’s seat. Ian drove and they sat in silence until something in particular occurred to Angela and she had to ask. “Anthony didn’t tell you Arasha’s sick, too?”

Ian’s grip on the wheel tightened and his jaw shifted. “No, we, uh. Our schedules are a little off right now.”

“You live together.”

“Yeah, well, our schedules are a little off right now. And I’m trying not to get him sick so I’m not around him much.”

“What do you do, cut the bed in half and push it across the house?”

“We sleep in two separate beds like old sitcoms,” Ian said dryly. “We’ve never had sex.”

Despite how tired and beaten down she felt, she couldn’t help the big, roaring laugh that ripped out of her, causing her to curl forward in her seat. “Yeah, sure okay. Anthony would have died of blue balls by now if that were true. Plus, I’ve definitely walked in on you guys getting steamy at Serving Cunt after—”

“I don’t even know what sex is, as far as you’re concerned,” Ian insisted. A light blush of pink drifted over the bridge of his nose, though, and Angela was slightly calmed by it. He’d looked so pale and miserable the past few days.

“Okay, sure, whatever,” she chuckled. “Has it helped?”

Ian didn’t answer, and Angela’s smile faded. Anthony was sick too. “Someone must’ve had a bug this weekend and passed it around.”

“Yeah, I think it was me,” Ian said, pulling into the spot behind the pet shop.

“Why do you think that?” Angela asked as they got out of the car and Ian unlocked the service entry.

Ian shrugged. “I think I’m sicker than anyone else. Like, I’ve had it the longest. Anthony’s about as bad as you, Courtney and Amanda might still fight it off. I dunno. Just a hunch.”

SBS and the next few days had cleared most of their animals, thankfully, despite the rough day on Sunday. Angela set about cleaning the rabbit hutch that held two white bunnies while Ian changed a heat lamp bulb over their only remaining turtle. It would be a mercifully short chore list, because Angela was feeling worse and worse the longer she was out of bed. She wouldn’t ever admit it, but maybe Ian had been right, maybe she should have stayed home. By the end of their rounds, they shared a weary look and Angela felt fever sweats on the back of her neck. Ian was so pale he was nearly grey.

They sat in the not-office room sipping water as measuredly as they could, until Ian said, “let me replenish the seal a little, then I’ll drive you back.”

Angela looked at him doubtfully. “With what energy?” she asked. “You’re shaking holding up a water cup.”

“Magic energy is different. It’s like dessert stomach. Different reserves.”

Angela didn’t bother pointing out that dessert stomach wasn’t real. Somehow, she doubted Ian needed to be told that. Instead, she followed him outside and silently placed her hand on the seal across from him, feeding it a little of her own magic, too. He looked at her over the rim of his glasses while intangible magic rustled winds around him, and she met his gaze evenly, strands of her own hair whipping against her face. She challenged him to say something, to tell her not to, dared him with her eyes, but he didn’t. She was part of this weird little magic family, too, and hell if she wasn’t going to protect it.

“Angela! Ian!”

Angela turned to see Arasha coming out of the yoga studio just across the street. Even sick she looked gorgeous, thick black hair in a simple braid, effortlessly chic in a grey quarter zip, leggings, and white tennis sneakers. Angela felt like a pile of dirty laundry as Arasha approached, the sweat on the back of her neck redoubling its efforts.

“Hey,” she said, glancing at Ian first, then settling her gaze on Angela. “How are you?”

“Soooo good,” Angela said. Immediately, she wondered if she would be lucky enough to spontaneously combust, but it didn’t happen.

“Yeah,” Arasha reached a hand out and tucked a lock of hair that had been tousled by the wind behind Angela’s ear. Angela’s fever peaked. “You look goo—uh. I mean. You seem like, uh, healthy-ish,” Arasha fumbled, drawing her hand back to herself. Angela thought about grabbing it in her own, but the moment passed.

“I look worse than the rabbit cage I just cleaned out,” Angela joked. “You look cute, though.”

Ian cleared his throat. “What’s up Arasha?”

She jumped a little, like she had forgotten he was there. “Oh, yeah, um. Sorry. I just wanted to see how you guys were. Chanse shut down the games store, and Shayne and Damien are home, of course. I went to Kickstart this morning to get my coffee, and it was just Alex and Kiana today. I think Amanda and Courtney are here, but . . .” she trailed off, biting her lip. “I guess I just wanted to check on you guys.”

“We’ve been texting,” Angela said, almost defensively.

“Angela, you won’t believe this, but people can be fake over text,” Arasha said like she was delivering some grave news.

“What?” Angela demanded. “No! What do you mean? That can’t be right, it just can’t be!” she shouted dramatically, grabbing Arasha by the shoulders. Arasha smiled for the first time, and Angela figured a public spectacle wasn’t so bad if that was on the other end. It wasn’t quite the smile Angela wanted, the one that made Arasha’s eyes crinkle at the ends and her lips pull high on either side of her cupid’s bow, but it would do. It was genuine, so it would do.

“We’re closing up early,” Ian interrupted them. He still looked rather grave, to Angela. “Just popped in to do some animal chores. They don’t care if you’re healthy or on your deathbed, they gotta eat all the same. I’m gonna take Angela home, then crash at home with Bowie on my chest and see if she crushes me to death.”

“I can take Angela home,” Arasha said quickly. “You look like you need sleep, Ian.”

“Thanks,” he sneered.

Arasha shrugged. Angela couldn’t argue, it was definitely true.

“You know what? Sure. You can drive Angela home,” Ian agreed. The reality of the situation was just beginning to hit Angela’s sick-slowed mind. Before she could interrupt, Ian continued. “That would be a huge help, Arasha. I do need the sleep. Thank you.”

Arasha nodded and began to usher Angela across the street with her. Angela shot a look back over her shoulder and flipped Ian off, but he was already turning back to the store. It wasn’t as though Arasha had never given her a ride, Angela liked getting rides from Chanse or Courtney, or even occasionally when she felt brave, Arasha, but she didn’t exactly look at her best today, and she sure as hell wasn’t feeling it.

Arasha stuffed her in her car anyway and plopped herself down in the driver’s seat. Suddenly, though, she sighed, slumping against the wheel with her forehead.

“Arasha?”

“I’m so tired,” Arasha whispered. “I’m so tired Angela. What’s wrong with me?”

Angela considered for a moment, but then reached a hand out and stroke Arasha’s curled up back. “Do you need me to drive?” she asked.

“No, I can do it,” Arasha sat up and turned the ignition, straightening herself up. “I just . . . I feel so helpless. About other stuff.”

Angela understood that. “Yeah, I really do feel that.”

Arasha pulled out onto the main road, heading towards Angela’s apartment complex.

“It’ll be better once we all stop being all sick all the time,” Angela assured her.

“I . . .” The skin around Arasha’s eyes looked tight, tense. “I hope so. But what about Shayne and Damien? What about you guys? Whoever did this definitely wouldn’t hesitate to attack the pet shop, too. When does it end, Angela? We all know that threat wasn’t because of the animals in the shop, it was because of who we are. I’ve always felt like everywhere I go someone’s staring at my marks, and I can’t hide them, but right now it’s even worse. I’m so tired of worrying. I didn’t ask to burst!” She was practically shouting by the end of that thought, and after a beat of silence, she clapped one hand over her mouth in shock. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry?” her voice rose up in a question at the end. “I don’t know what just came over me.”

Angela swallowed. “Don’t apologize. I’m worried too.” She took a deep breath through her nose, then out through her teeth. “I didn’t ask for this either. Can I tell you something?”

Arasha glanced at her from the side of her eye. “Yeah, Angela, you can tell me anything.”

“Most of the time I’m fine, but sometimes . . . sometimes I wish I hadn’t burst. Not often, but sometimes. I know that’s bad, and I do love my magic, but I kinda wonder who I’d be without it sometimes. I wonder if I’d be doing something else with my life.” She paused, curling her fingers against her palms in fists. “I wonder if I’d be happier,” she whispered.

They were silent the rest of the drive, until the moment Arasha pulled into a parking space when she threw the car into park, then her arms around Angela’s shoulders, not even bothering to kill the engine. She wasn’t sobbing, but Angela could feel her shaking, could feel the wetness of her eyes against the skin of her neck. Arasha didn’t make a sound, but as Angela returned the hug, she felt Arasha’s fingers dig deep into her back, like she was desperate to be as close as possible, like moss on a tree root with little anchors winding and curling around the bark.

“I get it,” Angela said quietly. A stray strand of Arasha’s hair stuck to her lip, but she didn’t care. “I get it.”

“I’m sorry,” Arasha murmured. “I don’t want to hate it. I don’t hate it. But . . .”

“Yeah,” Angela agreed, holding her.

“People think I’m violent.”

Angela squeezed her. Saying ‘I know,’ probably wasn’t the reassurance Arasha needed, so she didn’t say it, but Angela knew that when people looked at Arasha and her blood red hands that looked like they’d been dipped almost up to the elbow that they didn’t see the kind of thing Angela saw.

“Even more than bursting or not bursting, I wish my mark was different. It scares people.”

Angela still wasn’t sure what to say. What could she say? Angela could cover her own mark with a turtleneck, but even without one she didn’t get half the dirty, wary looks Arasha did. It wasn’t a competition she’d entered willingly, but Angela couldn’t help but compare. Without thinking, Angela slipped her right hand from the embrace and took Arasha’s left hand. She let her thumb run over the divot in the center of her palm where all the lines of her fingers converged, then carefully laced her fingers through Arasha’s. She chose her next words carefully, bravely. “I love your marks, Arasha. I get that doesn’t really help, but just so you know. I think they’re beautiful. And also,” a small smirk pulled at her lip, “they’re sick as hell.”

Arasha burst, not with magic, but some strange mixture of laughter and tears. “They are sick as hell,” Arasha agreed, face buried in Angela’s shoulder.

A few minutes later, when the stream of strange emotions Arasha needed to pour out began to slow, Angela gave Arasha’s back a fierce rub and pulled away. “Come in,” she suggested. “We’ve got nowhere else to be, right? And we’ve both already caught this bug, might as well enjoy our contaminated company, right?”

Arasha considered for only a moment before agreeing.

Inside her apartment Angela pulled out a takeout menu and they ordered heaping plates of warm pasta and put on a trashy reality show. They argued over the love matches and drama deep into the night, when Arasha was curled up on her side on the couch, dark hair cascading over the edge, taking long, slow blinks, and Angela sat with her back pressed to that same cushion as the tv light flickered in the now lightless apartment. Spork was sat between Angela’s legs, asleep.

“I’m sorry, I meant to go home way earlier,” Arasha said with her eyes closed, fighting to stay awake.

“And notice how I didn’t want you to?” Angela said, her own exhaustion only a few steps behind Arasha’s. If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have worded that in a way that felt a little less blunt, but. Oh well.

“I did notice that.” Arasha’s mouth curved into a smile. Her eyelashes were long and dark on her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said.

“Yeah, of course,” Angela nodded even though Arasha couldn’t see that. “You know you’re welcome here anytime.”

“Mm,” Arasha hummed. “Woulda thought the first time I spent the night it would look a little different, though.”

Suddenly, Angela was very awake, her heartrate spiking painfully in her chest. “Huh?”

“Mm,” Arasha hummed, even deeper in the back of her throat. “’Night . . .”

Angela stared. What the hell did that mean? They hung out as regularly as Angela’s crush levels could handle, but when the hell did Arasha ever consider spending the night? And what the hell did ‘different’ mean? Drunk, maybe? Or with more people, like Chanse and Tommy after a night out?

Purposeful?

She wasn’t going to get that answer tonight, though. Arasha was out, and Angela knew she needed the sleep. She didn’t want to think about what Ian or Anthony might say to each other tomorrow when they started texting her and Arasha about work rides only to find out they were both in Angela’s apartment, but that seemed trivial and far away. Arasha needed sleep, and she needed to feel like she wasn’t a mistake. If Angela could offer her that, she would. She’d give her anything she could.

“G’night, Arasha,” she whispered, pulling a blanket over Arasha’s sleeping form and pushing herself off the ground. For a moment she considered sleeping on the couch, too, so Arasha wasn’t alone, but that didn’t quite feel right. She picked up Spork and headed into her own room.

She was out like a light. Unfortunately, the next morning, she only felt sicker, and if Arasha’s bleary eyed look from the couch as Angela walked into the room was anything to go by, she did too.

Maybe this was getting serious.

***

Ian rolled over in bed, kicking his leg out from beneath the covers and glaring at the yellow ring around his thigh that peeked through the hem of his boxers. It looked duller each day—mustard instead of crayon—and it made Ian feel even sicker. It had been a week since the world screeched to a halt in the bookstore, and things had only gotten worse and worse.

The flush of fever had switched from chills to sweats, and he felt miserably, disgustingly hot.

He reached for his phone. It was six-thirty in the evening and there were twelve missed texts: several from Anthony like going to the store after work and I’m at the store, need anything? A couple from Amanda and Courtney wishing him a speedy recovery, and one from Angela that just read How are you holding up, boss?

He opened but didn’t respond to Anthony, Amanda, and Courtney. He knew that wasn’t what he should do, but he couldn’t face the reality of their concern quite yet.

Fine, he typed back to Angela.

Are you lying?

Kinda. How are you?

I feel like fucking shit.

Ian sat up, frowning at the wet spot the back of his neck had left on the pillow. I’m coming by with some food.

I have food, Ian.

Cool. Didn’t ask.

I’m sick.

Me too, if you’re gonna be around anyone you should probably be around the asshole who gave it to you.

You didn’t get me sick.

Ian shut off his phone and stood up. His vision blurred and his legs felt like they were floating up from underneath him. When his head cleared, he found himself on his hands and knees on the bedroom floor, sweating enough to leave a small puddle underneath him.

“Fuck this,” he muttered to himself, pushing himself to his feet. He had to hold the wall for stability, but he managed to stay upright and begin heading for the kitchen. He grabbed a large tupperware out of the freezer, tossed it in a bag with a few bottles of ginger ale, patted Bowie goodbye on her blocky head, and grabbed his keys.

Running to Angela’s, he texted Anthony. He didn’t open the message he received back almost instantly, and instead pulled out of the garage.

Angela wasn’t far, maybe twenty minutes, but Ian held his breath most of the way. He needed to focus with every bit of his mind as the fever tried to burn his thoughts away.

Ian knocked on Angela’s door, then held himself up on the doorframe, catching his breath from the walk from his car to her apartment. How absolutely pathetic was that?

“Shit, Ian, you look worse than me.”

Ian blinked and brought his gaze up from the ground to see Angela. She looked pale and small tucked deep in her grey hoodie, dark circles under her eyes. The faint red of her mark that peeked over the collar of her sweatshirt looked dull, almost like a rash instead of like a mark. “Thanks,” he said dryly.

“Sorry,” Angela said, shaking her head and holding the door open for him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No, it is,” Ian replied, walking through the door with the bag slung heavy in the crook of his elbow. “It’s true.” He felt like if he got on the faux woodgrain of her floor, he could pass out right there.

“I feel like I shouldn’t have let you drive over.” Angela led him into her little living room. One corner of the couch had a nest of imprinted pillows and blankets, and a water bottle leaned precariously on a cushion, clearly where Angela had set up for the day.

Ian shrugged. “I made it.” He put the bag down on the coffee table near her spot and sat down on the other end of the couch. He felt sweat run down his back, but it made him shiver. Shit, the chills were back.

Angela tucked her legs up underneath her as she sat, eyeing him warily. “Barely, by the looks of it.”

Ian shrugged. He let his head rest against the back of the couch. “What’s your fever?”

“102,” she answered, pulling one of the ginger ale bottles out of the bag. “You?”

“103.5.”

“Ian, you need to be at the hospital!” The sharp hiss and subsequent breath of the ginger ale bottle that Angela opened sounded so cool and refreshing, Ian couldn’t help but wet his lips, but he knew he had more at home. He could wait.

“I’ve always run warm. Runner’s metabolism.”

Angela took a long drink from the bottle, and when she was done, she levelled him with a glare. “I know you’re my boss, but you’re also actually my friend and I care about you. You are sick, Ian. Badly. I’m worried about you.”

Ian shook his head, and it felt like his bruised brain rattled against the confines of his skull. “I don’t like hospitals.” Ian tried to be discrete about the shiver that ran through him, but Angela saw it and threw one of her blankets at him, and then waited for him to continue, to explain himself. “You ever been sent home and told ‘you can use magic, fix yourself. Hospitals are for people who really need help?’”

Angela broke eye contact. “No, but I haven’t been that hurt or sick since before I burst.”

Ian felt his blinks lengthen as he sank deeper into the couch. “Well, good. Anthony broke my nose, once. Hurt so bad, and something wasn’t right, it needed to be fixed or adjusted or something.”

“They sent you home?”

Ian closed his eyes and tapped the bridge of his nose. “Still a little crooked. Wasn’t life or death or anything, but still.”

Angela was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, but what if you don’t get better?”

Ian kept his eyes closed, he would open them in a second, he just wanted to rest them for a moment. He wasn’t falling asleep. “It’ll pass,” he said.

He could faintly hear Angela tap the screen on her phone and mutter, “Ian, you’re gonna hate me when you wake up. Just—please don’t fire me.”

“Mm,” he hummed deep in his throat. He was drifting. Damn it, he was definitely falling asleep. Fevered sleep felt like work, like he had to push through to the end of it, but he couldn’t stave it off any longer, either.

When he woke up, it was darker behind his eyelids than when he had fallen asleep, no more daylight filtering through Angela’s living room window, and someone was touching his forehead, brushing sweaty strands of hair off his face.

Ian knew that touch without even opening his eyes. “You’d better not be here,” he said. “Cause that means Angela called you, and I’ll have to fire her.”

He heard a muffled gasp that devolved into coughing from what sounded like the next room over, but it was overtaken by Anthony’s no-nonsense admonishment. “Ian, leave her alone. You came over, threw soup and soda at her, then passed out on her couch. She didn’t know what else to do.”

“I didn’t pass out. I took a nap.”

“Whatever. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

Ian opened his eyes and focused them on Anthony’s face above him. He was curled up beside Ian on the couch, his elbow resting on the back of the couch to lean his head against his palm, his other hand repeating the same gentle brushing action over and over again, even though his hair had long since been moved out of his face. Both of them braced silently when once again no magic popped over Ian’s head, another sliver of guilt squeezing between Ian’s ribs and slowly prying them another aching inch apart.

Anthony wasn’t doing so hot either, even beyond the repeated spike to the heart of Ian’s shitty, failing magic. He looked tired. “You’re sick, too.”

“Uh-huh. We’re all coming down with it, Ian, but you’re not doing well. And you won’t talk to me, and you won’t let me help. It’s making me worry.”

“I’m not good at that stuff,” Ian said. It wasn’t his usual brush off, though, it was a plea for Anthony to forgive him because he knew deep down it wasn’t right for him to have put Anthony in limbo for so long.

Anthony’s brows sloped sadly, almost like Bowie’s when she looked her most pitiful. “Can you try for me? I want to help, but it feels like . . .” Anthony swallowed. “It feels like you don’t want me.”

Ian chewed the inside of his cheek and looked up at Anthony. It was probably only a few days until Anthony got about as sick as he was if they didn’t get to the bottom of what this was and how to get rid of it. Maybe the fever was burning away all the stubbornness in him, because he took the hand Anthony was running over his forehead in his and traced the black lines on the back of it. They were usually so jet black they looked like liquid darkness, but now they looked like dried newspaper print. They looked flatter, less vibrant.

He needed Anthony to be okay.

“Yeah. Let me try something.” He closed his eyes again, still tracing his thumb over Anthony’s mark, and focused. Running, sunlight, his friends, animals, late sunsets on the patio, quiet mornings with rain sounds—he tried to flood himself with all those things than made him feel bigger than his own body, all the things that felt like using his magic. And, of course, he thought of Anthony, too. Anthony, who made it all feel right. Without him, magic was just a thing. With him, it was home. Since even before either of their bursts, there was some kind of magic between them. Ian let all of it flood his system, let it fight the fetid rot inside him, let it focus, and then—

Anthony gasped softly.

Ian opened his eyes just in time to watch three little yellow hearts float and burst above his head.

“I don’t know why that stopped,” Ian explained. “But it’s not a sign that. . . Anthony, I still . . .” He took a deep breath, and Anthony’s awestruck gaze dropped from where the hearts were right to his own tired eyes. He was going to need to do this all in one go, before pride or exhaustion got in his way. “I don’t know why my magic’s broken, which is really embarrassing, and I don’t know why I’m not getting better. I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t . . . I’d still feel the same if I never had an ounce of magic again in my life. If I never had one of those stupid-ass hearts to tell you, I’d still . . .” his throat tightened around the word he needed to say. He was going to fight through it because it was what Anthony needed to hear, he really was, but before he could even try, Anthony leaned down and kissed him.

Ian had declined almost every touch all week in an attempt to keep Anthony as unexposed as possible, but there was no stopping this one, and Ian didn’t want to, either. Like treacle, the warm feeling of kissing Anthony ran through his body, thick and syrupy. There was a time when Ian had gone much longer without Anthony’s kiss, years instead of a week, but this reunion felt even sweeter. As gentle as Anthony was, Ian could taste how much he wanted him, missed him, loved him, telling him with every press of his lips and curl of his tongue, like he was writing his own magic seal.

Ian’s lungs gave out first between the two of them, and Anthony let him fall back against the couch, panting. For the first time all week, Ian saw relief in his eyes.

“We can’t make out on my sick employee’s couch,” Ian said when he had caught his breath and any thought other than Anthony, Anthony, Anthony ran through his head.

“No, you for sure can!” he heard Angela call from the next room over. “I’m not even here!”

Anthony laughed softly. “Okay. I guess we have our own couch to do that on at home.” He gave Ian one more lingering kiss, then began helping him up. “You know we’re gonna figure this out, right? We’re going to be okay.”

Even though he’d fallen asleep for quite a while, forcing that magic out of himself took a great deal of Ian’s reserves. He still found it in himself to smile at Anthony. “Or we die trying, together,” he promised. Given the circumstances, it ought to have sounded depressingly dark and defeatist, but Ian felt a bloom of hope, or something like it, in his chest. “Hey, Angela?”

Angela appeared from around the corner, a green ginger ale bottle in her hand. “What’s up?”

“We’re gonna head home. Sorry for falling asleep on your couch.”

Angela glanced between Ian and Anthony. She read something between the two of them, and she managed a smile. “So, I’m not fired for snitching to Anthony?”

“No,” Ian laughed. “But you’re not allowed back at work yet, either. We have to figure this out first.”

“You look a little better,” she said, nodding at him approvingly.

“No, I don’t, but thanks. Anthony’s gonna drive, but I’ll be back to get my car later. Look out for a text from me when we figure out what works against this dumbass killer flu, okay?”

“Will do,” Angela agreed. She let them out her front door, but before she closed it, she gave Ian one last look. “You do look better, you know. Not all the way, but still. Better.”

He didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so he just nodded. As Anthony helped him into his passenger seat, though, and Ian watched his profile as they drove home, he felt that maybe Angela was right. His fever hadn’t broken, but that iron grip of hopelessness had.

“I love you,” Ian said in a rare moment where none of his doubts or self-deprecating thoughts could drown out just how badly he needed to say those words to Anthony.

Anthony held the steering wheel with one hand and placed his other on Ian’s thigh, right above his mark, palm turned up for Ian to take. He did, sliding his hand against Anthony’s and interlocking their fingers. “I love you, too,” Anthony said.

At home, Anthony did, in fact, make good on his suggestion that they had their own couch for kissing and other such private activities. It was slow and lazy and a little gross because they were both sick, but Ian couldn’t care less, and he wasn’t even sure Anthony realized there were any drawbacks at all. His eyes shined brightly through his fever, brown and dazzling, and it made Ian kick himself for daring to think that avoiding Anthony would ever fix anything. Oh well. He’d just have to make up for lost time. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again now, happily.

The next morning, Ian woke to the sight of Anthony’s sleeping face right beside him. If Anthony had looked healthier, it might have been a perfect picture, but he looked a little too colorless, a little too weighed down by his own body. Still, Ian would take this over the self-imposed exile he’d been insisting helped (and hadn’t. Like, at all) the whole week.

He wandered to the kitchen to feed Bowie, her little pads and nails tapping the floor behind him, and almost stubbed his toe on the sharp kitchen counter because he was so distracted. He was absorbed with what to do about this awful illness sweeping through every one of his friends and stealing away their vibrance.

He googled animal-to-human transmission like he hadn’t done that a million times already this week while Bowie ate her breakfast, to see if there was some new breaking story to prove to himself that he was the root cause of it all. There wasn’t anything new, of course, because that wasn’t it, but still. It had to be his fault. He was the sickest, leading the way into the next stage for everyone else, the bad omen, the curse.

Ian dropped his phone.

The curse.

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered under his breath, almost blacking out as he bent down to pick up his phone. Bowie started whining and nudging his hand.

“Ian? You okay?” he heard Anthony call, probably awakened by the loud clatter of Ian’s case or Bowie’s vocal concern.

Ian swung around the corner, looking at Anthony with wide eyes. “We’re not sick,” he said.

Anthony gave him a flat look, pushing himself up into a sitting position, morning curls askew. “What are you talking about? Oh no, is this one of those brain eating parasites? Is it eating your brain now?”

“Shut up,” Ian said, striding over and climbing back on the couch with Anthony. “Shut up, it’s not a parasite, and we’re not sick.”

“Ian—”

Ian clamped a hand over Anthony’s mouth. Maybe Anthony had a point, he probably looked like a madman, but he knew what he was talking about. “It’s a curse, Anthony,” he said with urgency. “It’s a fucking curse.”

It took Anthony’s eyes a moment to register what he was saying, to track the logic and arrive at the same station that Ian had gotten off at. Ian waited, watched, and when Anthony’s mind caught up and he stepped onto the platform where Ian grinned and waited for him with outstretched arms, Anthony tackled him to the cushions and kissed him again, holding Ian’s face in his hands and looking down at him like he was some kind of gift.

“You’re a fucking genius,” he said, amazement overflowing in his voice like a fountain. Ian couldn’t get another word in edgewise for a good fifteen minutes because Anthony wouldn’t let him do anything that wasn’t kiss him.

“Oh my god, you’re dying and you’re still so freaking horny, chill!” Ian said when he managed to sneak a few extra breaths, enough to push Anthony off him. There were still probably a few days left before the curse actually did him in for good, but Ian wasn’t exaggerating greatly. Curses were distortions of magic, done by people who had to use latent magic in the ecosystem because they didn’t have any of their own, and the grotesque way they bent things always ended up killing magic users in proximity.

Anthony collapsed on the sofa beside him and smiled, almost as brilliant as his usual smile. “But we’re not gonna die now. And you’re brilliant. And I missed you.”

“Gross,” Ian said, but even as he did, he carded his fingers through Anthony’s hair, pushing a stray curl back. “And just because we figured out it’s a curse doesn’t mean we stopped the dying part. Not unless we do something about it.”

“We won’t.”

Ian shook his head, but he did so fondly. Anthony was right. They’d be okay. A curse was something they could fix. It would be harder alone, Ian had fallen so deep in that most of his magic was gone, he might not have been able to break the curse on his own, but he wasn’t alone.

“Let’s start calling everyone. No one dies on our watch, yeah?”

Anthony rolled over and plucked his own phone from the coffee table. His phone rang three times before someone answered.

“Hey, Amanda? Yeah, good morning—listen, can you get to the magic shop? How fast? Okay, Ian and I are gonna call everyone there. No, listen, Amanda—it’s a curse. Yeah, no, we aren’t sick, Ian figured it out. It makes sense, right? We need to break it all together. Okay, so, right, magic shop in thirty, yeah? Okay, see you there.”

Anthony scrolled to the next name in his phone. “You wanna call Angela, or should I?”

They made their way through the entire list, waking most of them from their curse-bound sleep. All twelve of them gathered at the magic shop within the next hour. Not a one of them, not even Courtney, had managed anything other than sweats at best and pajamas at worst (Ian found it incredibly funny that Spencer and Tommy wore matching heart-print boxers to bed, apparently).

The magic shop wasn’t built for crowds, but they made do. Amanda grabbed a charcoal and four incense burners, and Courtney picked through a bunch of rocks until they found a handful of stones that collected into some gem-rainbow that Ian didn’t understand. Amanda set the incense at the cardinal directions in the room, while Courtney handed each of them one of the stones. Ian didn’t understand it, but he also didn’t question it.

“You all got the brief on the phone,” Ian explained, “but basically, this isn’t a virus or an infection. Not a medical one, anyway. We’ve been cursed. Not a lot of that going around these days, usually non-magics have a much more direct way of taking out magic users they want to, but I guess there’s something poetic about killing us with what makes us stronger than them.”

“How do we break it?” Tommy asked, fingers buried against his sides with his arms crossed, hugging himself like he was trying to literally hold himself together.

“We overwhelm it,” Ian explained. “Curses are deadly when you’re alone because they feed on your magic, and it doesn’t take long before you don’t have more in you than the curse. But with twelve of us, I think we can break this thing no problem. We have to go one at a time, but we can do it.”

“You first,” Amanda said, pushing him into the center of their loose circle. “You’re the worst. And, also, the curse has gotten to you the most.” She winked at him, all joking, but he gave her a glare anyway.

“Fine, whatever,” he grumbled. “Go for it. Do me.”

“That’s Anthony’s job,” Chanse and Trevor said at the same time, delighting each other and trading high fives.

“No, Ian told me he doesn’t even know what sex is,” Angela stage whispered to Arasha, who giggled beside her.

Ian looked up to the ceiling and sighed. “I should have let you all die,” he said wistfully.

“Too late!” Courtney shouted. “Okay everyone, use the stone I gave you as a focus, then we can all hand them to Ian and overwhelm the curse.”

Ian felt suddenly awkward as each of his friends closed their eyes and focused their magic on the stone in their hands, while he stuck his in his pocket until he could be of some use to someone else. He saw Spencer’s marks dance like little cartoon stamps down his arms, and Arasha’s crimson hands drip like thick blood, and Shayne’s freckles cascade from his shoulders to his fingers. It was quiet, save for Angela humming to herself, but it didn’t feel quiet. The energy in the room, even from his friends’ significantly diminished magic, felt powerful.

“Okay,” Shayne said, opening his eyes and walking towards Ian. He held out his hand where a little topaz stone glittered beyond what a normal stone could, and Ian cupped his hands to take it.

After Shayne, to no surprise, went Courtney, then Damien. Something inside him began to wriggle uncomfortably as he held all three stones, like it was trying to hide itself deeper inside his body at the threat of so much light. Tommy, Spencer, and Amanda took turns dropping theirs in his hands next, and Ian let out a gasp as whatever was inside him started thrashing and fighting for survival, twisting his insides violently.

“Easy,” Tommy said, all three of them catching him as his legs began to give out beneath him.

“I’m okay,” he assured them, finding his footing again. “Keep going.”

Chanse and Trevor went next, then Arasha looped her arm with Angela’s and tugged her along. Angela looked him dead in the eye and said, “beat it, boss,” as she dropped her stone in his hand.

“What she said,” Arasha agreed, giving her blood red stone a kiss before parting with it. “Give ‘em hell.”

Last, of course, was Anthony, but Ian wasn’t so sure he was going to make it. Each stone threatened the curse inside him more and more, but it was still fighting. It was still winning. But, then, Anthony stepped forward, placing his onyx stone on the top of the pile, and helped Ian close his hands around them with his own. “Together or not at all,” Anthony reminded him, as Ian looked down and saw Anthony’s marks move, crawling off his skin and wrapping like snakes up Ian’s arms, adding every bit of magic he had.

It was like that darkness was exactly what Ian needed to capture the curse. It could run from the light, hide from the light, but it trusted the darkness, and Anthony’s magic lured it right out to be instantly and utterly overwhelmed by twelve magic focuses. The curse broke and Ian fell to his knees as dark grey smoke and soot expelled from his body in one great cloud, then dispersed. He coughed and sputtered, trying to catch his breath but it felt like he couldn’t get a proper lungful. He dropped the stones to catch himself with his hands and they scattered all over the floor. There was a rush of movement around him as everyone chased their stone or ran to Ian’s side, but all Ian could focus on was the hacking coughs ripping out of his body while sweat poured down his back. The desperate coughs started producing dense grey clouds, and as much as it hurt and as much as his lungs burned for one good, even breath, he knew this was the end of it. Ian could endure it.

And he did.

Finally, with one last raspy wheeze, the grey stopped coming and he could breathe again. He took deep, desperate lungfuls, and it felt like the first sip of water on a summer day.

“Oh my god,” Anthony muttered as Ian sat back on the ground and Anthony pressed a hand to his forehead. “I think your fever broke.”

Ian nodded, still reeling, but beginning to gather himself. “Yeah. It’s all gone,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked around at the faces of his friends. He didn’t check, but he could feel the brightness returning to his mark, strength returning to his body. “Okay,” he said. “Who’s next?”

***

“Okay, guys! Great practice!” Coach P shouted, clapping his hands together. His voice bounced off the metal walls of the indoor soccer field.

Tommy kicked the ball one last time, as hard as he could, but he hit with his toe, and it went all wonky on its way to the net, veering off to the left.

“Tommy!” his coach sighed, rolling his eyes, but he grinned at him before jogging over for the ball. “Go get a drink and a snack, I’ll be right there guys!”

The rest of Tommy’s team ran faster than they did on any of the drills they’d run in the last hour and a half, charging for the plastic foldout table where Tommy’s mom was setting out the after-practice snack. Tommy puffed his chest out as he watched their faces smile with delight—he’d insisted to his mom that they couldn’t do just pretzels and orange slices and Gatorade. No, it had to be the good stuff. Doritos, fruit roll-ups, and Capri Suns were what he’d stocked their grocery cart with when he went with his mom last week, agonizing over which chips would be the biggest hit for his twelve-and-unders soccer team. He watched, satisfied, as the boys broke away from the table with what were inarguably the best post-practice snacks of the season, before turning and sprinting after his coach.

“Whoa, hey!” his coach shouted as he spotted him, dribbling the ball between his feet. “You want this? Come get it!”

Tommy charged for the ball, eyes trained, arms pumping. Coach P started tossing the ball up with his foot and catching it in the cradle of his ankle. Tommy swung for it, but his coach tossed it up again, then caught it. “C’mon, Tommy! You can steal it!” Coach P started dribbling towards the snack table, zigging and zagging, with Tommy diving at his feet every few seconds, missing, and trying again.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Coach P laughed, slowing down and planting his foot on top of the ball when they got close enough to the snack table. “Next time you’ll get it,” he assured. “Go get a snack.”

Tommy huffed and kicked lightly at the ball under his coach’s foot now that it was still again. “I could do it if my legs were long like yours,” he said.

Coach P chuckled but waved him off, sending him towards his mom.

“Hey, Tommy, nice practice!” his mom said with a grin, holding out a bag of chips and a fruit roll-up for him.

“Thanks!” he grinned. He felt absolutely exhausted in his legs, but his brain still told him he could go forever. Especially after a little snack boost. He popped open his bag of chips the way he wasn’t allowed to in school because it made too loud of a sound, and his mom flinched.

“Tommy,” she said, exasperated.

He smiled and ate a chip.

She handed him a Capri Sun. “I want to see you drinking water, too, though. Go get your water bottle.”

Tommy nodded. “Where’s dad?” he asked, heading a few yards away for his water bottle on the sidelines.

“He stayed home after work.”

Tommy crunched another chip. Mom usually brought him to practice after school. Every once in a while, Dad would drop by, but Tommy didn’t think he liked it very much. Dad would rather go home and watch the sports channel or “get ready” for whatever professional football game was going to be on that night. He made time occasionally, but not that often. Sometimes he would ask Tommy if he wanted to still do soccer in high school, or if he’d want to “upgrade” to football. Tommy had agreed he’d probably do football, but he didn’t really want to. He liked soccer. He just wanted Dad to come to practice sometimes. Maybe a game or two, but that didn’t really happen a whole lot either.

“Oh, okay,” Tommy said, plopping down in the folding chair beside his mom. He wondered if she’d brought it for his dad in case he decided to come.

“I think he’ll come tomorrow,” she added casually. Tommy didn’t like to make her worry about it much. Some mothers had that intuition, but Tommy’s mom didn’t seem to catch on when he buried things like this. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was just too good at hiding; no one ever saw him.

“Bones!”

Tommy’s head lifted at the nickname, and he saw Coach P grinning down at him from the other side of the snack table.

“Did you pick these?”

Mom grinned. “He made a list before we went to the grocery store and laid out the pros and cons of each snack,” she said. “He thought so hard about it he gave himself a headache.”

“Mom!” Tommy groaned. He shot a glance to his teammates, but they were all packing up, still munching and chatting, so it didn’t seem like any of them heard. His mom was right, he had made himself almost sick thinking and rethinking his decision, but Tommy wanted to appear like it hadn’t taken a single thought for him to pick the perfect after-practice snack. He just knew.

“Good picks,” Coach P said. He was a little younger than Mom, but not by too much, or at least that was what Tommy figured. All adults kinda looked the same, but he thought Coach P looked a little younger.

Tommy smiled. “Thanks.”

“We’ll have leftovers, I think,” Mom said.

“Lunch tomorrow?” Tommy asked hopefully.

Mom sighed fondly. “Well, it’s one less thing I have to make. You’re getting carrots, too, though, and I expect you to eat them.”

“I swear,” Tommy agreed, already thinking about how envious everyone would be of his Capri Sun.

Coach P laughed. “A striker and a wheeler-and-dealer. You can do it all, huh, Bones?”

Tommy nodded, finishing his bag of chips and sucking the Capri Sun down in one go to relieve the salty, dehydrated feel of his mouth.

“Breathe,” Mom said.

Tommy gasped as he swallowed the last mouthful.

“I had a snack and a drink,” Tommy said. “Can we play keep away again?”

“Tommy, we should help your mom clean up,” Coach P said.

“It’s fine,” Mom waved them off. “It’ll go faster if he isn’t here. If you’re up for it, take him.”

Tommy hopped up and sprinted past Coach P before he’d even turned around. He didn’t need to, though, he knew his coach wasn’t far behind him.

“Bye, Tommy! Thanks Mrs. Bowe, thanks Coach P!” the rest of the team chanted as their parents began showing up, when Tommy was fifteen minutes deep into one-on-one keep away. Mom was all packed up at that point, watching Tommy with affectionate eyes from the sidelines with he dove and slid and kicked for the ball. Coach P dodged each attempt effortlessly.

Something felt a little off, somewhere deep inside. Usually, Tommy was better at this. He had never actually stolen the ball from Coach P, but he usually at least had to work to keep it away from him. Today it seemed pointless.

“Tommy,” Coach P said, knocking him out of his dozenth feint and startling him. “You keep thinking you need to touch the ball. You need to make contact with me. If you can get to me, you’re touching the ball.”

Well, that seemed a little overly simple. Tommy frowned. It couldn’t be that simple, right?

“Clear out your head, make contact with my foot, and you can do it. Okay?”

Tommy sank into his knees, flexed and ready. He tried to forget about his mom watching, he tried to forget Coach P watching, he tried to forget his dad sitting at home watching the Gator’s pre-game commentary. He thought instead about just touching his Coach’s toe. He lunged, but it didn’t work.

“Tommy,” Coach P said. “You can do this. Just look right through the ball. You got this.”

Tommy breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, like when he got nervous in school. Whenever someone presented him with too many options, he had a habit of spiraling. He wanted to do things his way, but he trusted Coach P, and Coach P knew his weak spots.

Tommy coiled into the turf, then sprang forward, catching his coach’s feigns and keeping his eyes just past the ball where Coach P’s foot was.

He kicked.

He took control of the ball.

Almost immediately, he lost it, Coach P snagging the ball away, but he had done it. He actually stole it.

“You did it!” Coach P shouted, kicking the ball away to the sidelines and offering Tommy a high five.

“I did it!” Tommy breathed, disbelief in his voice. What was he supposed to do now? Coach P’s keep away was his unattainable goal, something he’d always play at but never actually succeed at. Now that he’d done it, what else was he supposed to do?

Panic rose in his chest. His head started to hurt. There was too much to think about and he couldn’t breathe. He brought his hands up to his forehead and pressed.

“Bones!” Coach P said. “You really did it. Awesome job!”

Tommy smiled at him weakly.

“Hey,” Coach P tilted his head, affecting a more serious tone. “Are you okay Tommy?”

“I did it,” he said. His throat felt tight, like his muscles were trying to lock out the air he needed. “But what do I do now? I didn’t think I’d ever win.”

Coach P frowned and took a knee in front of him. It made Tommy taller, but not by a whole lot. “What do you mean ‘what do I do?’ You just got better at soccer!”

Tommy shook his head. “Yeah, but what if I can’t get better than that? What if I mess up next snack day? What if my dad—” He couldn’t say the last part.

Coach P looked at him with softening eyes. “Hey, bud. It’s okay. You gotta take the wins sometimes.”

Tommy’s smile thinned.

“I mean it, bud. I’m really proud of you.”

Something in him loosed at that, and then everything started to spiral. Except it all literally started to spiral. Little spectral distortions, pulling and shortening and swirling everything in his view, which was mostly Coach P, but it made him look like he was seeing through some kind of strange kaleidoscope, twisting and tilting in strange ever-tightening and ever-expanding parts.

The pressure in Tommy’s head vanished and he blinked, but the strange concentric spirals didn’t disappear. He took a breath, and his lungs didn’t self-restrict. “What . . .?” he wasn’t sure what to ask.

Coach P, even through the strange twists that distorted him in Tommy’s vision, smiled. “Oh, bud. Tommy,” he said. He looked so warm and proud Tommy almost couldn’t take it, as desperately as he wanted it. It was hard enough to believe he’d done one thing right. Two felt impossible “I think you just burst.”

***

The bookstore reopened with a cute little ceremony, but that was mainly for the customers. Tommy dropped by during one of his breaks and he wandered the shelves with Arasha, but the real celebration was going to be later that evening at Ian and Anthony’s place, partly because they were the ones to organize the whole thing, and partly because everyone else was hoping they would since they were the only actual homeowners.

“It’s just gonna be a backyard thing,” Anthony had said. “Very casual. You don’t need to bring anything.”

Despite both of those prefaces, Tommy was in a cotton-ribbed polo and tasteful linen pants with a bottle of expensive liquor in the backseat and Spencer in the front.

Tommy’s palms were sweating on the steering wheel, and Spencer gave him a look. “You alright there, bro?”

“I’m fine,” Tommy said. “Do you think they’re gonna like the whiskey?”

Spencer shrugged. “I dunno. Probably. It’s a really nice gift. What’s actually the problem?”

Tommy hadn’t realized he was hunched forward at the wheel until Spencer asked. Resigned that he’d been caught, he settled back against the seat. It was kind of nice to let the headrest do its job once in a while.

“There’s no problem. We fixed the problem already. We’re all un-cursed, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Spencer agreed, but even without glancing out of the corner of his eye, Tommy could feel Spencer waiting for him to continue.

“There’s no problem,” Tommy insisted. “Everything’s okay now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Now,” Tommy gestured vaguely at the present.

“Okay, so what’s bugging you about the past?”

Tommy sighed. Spencer always caught what he didn’t say, he shouldn’t have expected any different now. “Nothing’s bothering me, it’s just that I almost . . . Spence, I almost lost you and I didn’t even know it.”

There was a beat before Spencer spoke, and Tommy parked on the street behind Chanse’s car. “I don’t know what to do if that’s not bothering you.” Spencer said.

“Okay, I lied, it’s bothering me a lot.” Tommy got out of the car and retrieved the bottle from the back seat. By the time he rounded the car, Spencer was out and leaned on the door, hands in his pockets, one leg crossed over the other, looking up expectantly at Tommy. “What?” Tommy asked.

Spencer shrugged. “I dunno. It’s a weird thought.”

“I’m over it,” Tommy said. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Spencer didn’t move. “You’re over it?”

Tommy’s heart sank, beating fast. His hands felt a little colder. “Yeah.”

Spencer’s eyes cut right through him. He knew Tommy wasn’t telling the truth, but he’d take this bullet. “Okay, fine, you’re over it. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I just realized it and I’m having a hard time.”

“Well. Uh. Well, I’m here. And I’m not actively dying—well, actually, that’s not true, but not, like, imminently. Probably.”

“Probably,” Spencer agreed.

“So . . . so don’t worry. You’re stuck with me ‘till something better—”

“Dude, shut up!” Spencer said, grabbing Tommy’s wrist and pulling him down into a kiss. That rapid heartbeat didn’t slow, but it crept out from its scared hiding place deep down in his gut, blooming up in his chest again. “Nothing better is coming,” Spencer said when he broke away. “For me, or for you.”

Tommy melted. “Yeah. God, yeah, you’re right, Spence.”

“Being freaked out that we were in much deeper shit than we knew is normal, Tommy. Processing it after the whole thing feels weird, but when else are you gonna do it? We didn’t know.”

Tommy leaned his forehead against Spencer’s and went a little cross-eyed to look his boyfriend in his warm brown eyes under their thick lashes. “It’s a weird feeling. Spence, I don’t . . . I don’t feel like I can forgive myself for not knowing. I could have lost you forever and I can’t figure out how to deal with that at all.”

“You know, I didn’t figure it out either. I might be feeling the same way.”

Tommy didn’t know how to express that it still felt different, worse for him not to know. “Well, I forgive you for it,” he said.

“And that sucks for you cause I don’t forgive you,” Spencer said, sharp as a whip, but his eyes were soft.

“I fucking hate you,” Tommy said, every word dripping with adoration and affection. Thank god they were alone, because he’d never recover if anyone saw just how soft and weak Spencer made him, if anyone saw just how easily he turned into a toothless kitten for him.

“Yeah,” Spencer agreed, before kissing Tommy once more and squeezing his shoulder. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Tommy stood up and licked his lips. Spencer always tasted better than any drink Tommy had ever had. “Okay, party time.”

They walked up the little stone pathway to the front door. Tommy rang the doorbell, and almost immediately it swung open with Anthony on the other side, a sparkling smile on his face. “Welcome!” he beamed.

“Anthony!” Ian’s voice echoed from down the hall where the backdoors opened up into the lush backyard Tommy could see from here. “Turn your Bluetooth off! You keep overriding my connection to the speaker!”

“Shit, sorry!” Anthony held the door open for Tommy and Spencer while grabbing his phone out of the back pocket of his shorts. “Come in guys, we’re just out back. Almost everyone’s here already, just waiting for the guests of honor. How are you?”

“Good, man, how are you?” Spencer asked, walking through the threshold; Tommy followed behind.

“Good. Healthy.” Anthony led them out to the backyard. There were two long wooden tables on the patio with white table runners and a few candles in glasses. The stone outdoor kitchen had little boards and bottles where most of the party was crowded, either making drinks or nibbling on charcuterie. There were sconce lights along the back of the house, but most of the light came from the strung lights well above the patio and out through the grassy green yard.

“Tommy! Spencer!” Courtney was the first to notice them.

They were passed around for hellos and hugs and “how are you”s. Tommy handed the whiskey bottle to Ian, who frowned at him.

“I told you no gifts,” he said.

“You also said no dressing up.” He waved a hand at Ian’s gauzy, breezy button down. “So, either explain that or shut up and take the whiskey.”

Ian shut up and took the whiskey.

The sun hadn’t quite set yet, and the trees were dark, but the sky was still bright—signs that an absolutely spectacular summer sunset was on the horizon. Tommy made himself something light and refreshing, then doubled it for Spencer.

There was quite the commotion over who got to control the music, with Courtney and Chanse and Tommy himself throwing out loud opinions.

“You’re all wildly off base,” Ian scolded, putting on some Etta James and locking his phone. “I’m not playing your bizzarro dance pop while we make pizzas to celebrate the bookshop.”

“I take that genre name as a compliment,” Tommy sniffed.

“Don’t,” Ian said, shaking his head. “It’s Shayne and Damien. We need something classic.”

The doorbell rang.

“They’re here!” Anthony jogged through the house to welcome them in.

In the few moments before Anthony led Shayne and Damien out into the backyard, Tommy swept his gaze over his friends. Toothy white smiles broader than any he’d seen in the last couple of weeks parted lips, and eyes bright with life sparkled in the slowly darkening evening. Arasha pulled her dark locks over one shoulder and grabbed Angela’s hand. Courtney bounced on their toes and shook Trevor’s shoulder. Chanse and Amanda made squealing noises so high with scrunched up noses that only dogs could hear. Ian leaned against the side of the house, and Tommy caught him looking out over everyone, too.

Spencer rested a hand on Tommy’s back, and it was so funny the way Tommy’s heart moved wherever Spencer touched him, right beneath the skin to be as close to him as possible, always.

Anthony walked back out ahead of the guests of honor, and everyone raised whatever glass they were holding and shouted some mismatched congratulations. No one had bothered to organize what they ought to say, so not a single one matched.

The smile that spread across Shayne’s face was so purely happy it could have broken Tommy’s heart if Spencer wasn’t holding it. Damien’s was its shadow, a refraction, the same pieces but rearranged. No one shined as brightly as Shayne did—Tommy wasn’t sure the sun did, most days—but there was something quietly beautiful about Damien’s smile, too.

“Thank you, guys,” Shayne said, when the mismatched cheers and subsequent laughter had died down enough. “This is amazing.”

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Courtney rushed them first, with Amanda hot on her heels.

“So,” Tommy asked, once the initial burst of excitement and chatter had levelled out and they were all casually assembling their dinners. “Did they catch the guy?”

Shayne and Damien shared a look, tilting their heads back and forth. “I mean, I guess?” Damien said, a small twinge in his voice. “Magic’s hard to prove, you know? A traffic cam caught him leaving the store after we had closed up with a history book he didn’t pay for, and then the curse went off a few minutes later, but he’s claiming he doesn’t have magic.”

“Duh, that’s how curses work,” Angela said.

“Yeah, but since we don’t have film of him casting it’s pretty circumstantial. He definitely broke in and stole, though, so we’re hoping it all piles up on him and he folds,” Shayne said.

“Something tells me he’ll fold,” Ian said, taking a sip of his drink. “He doesn’t strike me as someone who is built for enduring the long run, you know? He’ll probably start crying and pissing himself he gets in a real court.”

Tommy had to turn away from the lovesick gaze Anthony was giving his partner. Right in front of his salad? “Ian’s got a point,” he said.

Damien shrugged. “Maybe. We also might not get him for it. We’re just glad that the store is up and running and this dude probably won’t be.”

“Did you break his ankles or something?” Trevor asked.

“No, just, legally speaking,” Shayne clarified. “He’s red-taped.”

It wasn’t what any of them wanted or hoped. Tommy could feel this lack of satisfaction in the air. Pretty righteously, if he were allowed to think so. The asshole had almost murdered twelve people for, what, having magic?

“The reopening went great, though,” Shayne added, switching the subject before anyone could get too heated, which was probably wise. “Thank you all for showing up for us.”

“Of course!” Amanda said. “It looks great, by the way.”

“We have a thank you gift, although maybe it’s a little dark,” Damien said with a frown.

“Damien made them.”

“Well, okay, but Shayne is the one who transcribed and adjusted for—”

“Wow, they’re bickering,” Chanse whispered to Arasha.

“I never thought I’d see it,” she said, awestruck. “They’re usually so chill and never argue.” The sarcasm dripped off her words.

Shayne frowned. “Okay, I get it, shut up. Anyway,” he held up a small box Tommy had assumed was their hostee gift, but apparently it was for all of them. “Take one and pass it.”

It wasn’t a mad rush, but everyone was pretty eager to see what the gift was.

Tommy picked out a small, leather-braided hoop that fit in the palm of his hand. It was intricate, with symbols burnt into the strands that ran around the hoop in a spider-web like pattern. They were so small Tommy had to squint to see them with any clarity, but he noticed a hint of gold and silver faintly glittering deep in the symbols.

“Is this… is this the protection seal?” Amanda asked.

“Kinda. I reconfigured it so it wouldn’t take quite as much magic, maybe a charge every couple of weeks instead of a bunch every day, but yeah, I based it off that. Damien found the three-dimensional configuration with his leather working. So, team effort, I guess. We enchanted them for the first go around.”

“We got unlucky to be the first hit, but it’s possible we’ll all need some protection, especially if this ends up big anti-magic news, or even if we just get the stray asshole,” Damien said. “We want you guys safe. Put ‘em in your shop, or at home, wherever you need to feel safe. If we need to make more, I’m happy to, also. Just figured we’d start with one each.”

Tommy closed his hand around the little piece of art and magic and, shit, he got got. He’d managed to stave off most of the sappy, gross feelings that threatened to overtake the evening, but now he was done for. Security. Safety. He didn’t stand a chance against that. Especially not when it was his friends offer that to him. It was schmoop city inside his chest.

Tommy didn’t cry, but he got misty. “You guys,” he said, and his voice definitely didn’t crack. “Thank you.”

“Thank Shayne.”

“No, thank Damien—”

“Oh my god, enough!” Tommy said. “I love you,” he said, racing forward and pulling both of them in for a hug. “Thank you, I love you, but also shut up,” he said, buried between them.

Shayne laughed and Damien nodded, and they both hugged him back, and Tommy still didn’t cry but he got damn close. He probably would have if he didn’t get dogpiled by every single other person at the party.

There were definitely some criers when the corny group hug lifted, and Tommy went back to admiring the little leather seal to give the messier ones a moment to hide the traces of affection.

“I’m gonna start cooking these,” Ian said, his voice only hinting at raw, beginning to gather the different pizza monstrosities they’d all built and head for the pizza oven.

A pizza oven. An outdoor pizza oven. These two rich assholes. Tommy shook his head as he watched Anthony help Ian gather what he couldn’t carry and break away from the group. He watched as Anthony jogged to catch up to him. When he did, like magnets or puzzle pieces or whatever else—like Ian and Anthony—they fit together, not even breaking stride to share a kiss Tommy thought was more than just affection or want. Maybe it was some mix of both, but there was more, too. A lot more.

Dinner was perfect. Every single pizza was a disaster tornado of crazy toppings, and Tommy had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. The tables and seats were moved to make one big table, so no one had their backs to one another, even though Tommy would have trusted his back with all of them. The sunset that lit their meal cast saturated stripes golden light over the tables and the people, the kind that lived in memories. It was a loud dinner, but a happy one.

When the sun had set and they’d all finished their meals, the fairy lights lit up the patio and the lawn, but soon enough Angela cast a little burst into the center of the lawn, showering it with fire-less sparks. A magic disco ball.

“We should dance,” Arasha said.

“Knock yourself out,” Anthony said.

Arasha stood up and cast her eyes around the table, but they landed on Angela. “Come on,” Arasha grabbed her hand. “Come dance with me.” She pulled Angela out onto the lawn, their sandals slapping the stone of the patio then rustling the grass. “Ian! Play something we can dance to!”

Ian opened his phone and scrolled for a second before the song changed into a nasty, pulsing, dirty rhythm. Angela went bright red, mouth hanging open.

Tommy, Chanse, Anthony, and Amanda all leaned in, hissing at the same time:

“Ian, change it right now—”

“I swear if you mess this up for them, I’m gonna mess you up—”

“Do you want to get laid tonight or not?”

“Change it, change it!”

“Sorry!” Ian called. “I hit the wrong one. My bad!” He tapped another song and something with strings and a lilting beat came on through the speakers. It was romantic and soft, a hazy kind of song. Not Tommy’s personal taste, but he could admit it fit the moment.

Arasha smiled, something just a hair more wicked than one might expect, straight to Ian, then it softened. “Thanks!” she called, grabbing Angela by the waist, and taking one hand in hers. “That’s much better.”

Their dancing wasn’t polished or even all that good, but Tommy smiled through the whole song. They were cute, clinging to one another, touching each other, giggling and whispering with crinkled noses and wide smiles. Arasha’s dark eyes sparkled in the falling lights of Angela’s magic, and Angela looked at her like she hung the moon above them.

“Girls in love,” Courtney sighed, resting her cheek on her palm.

Something pinched Tommy’s chest as he saw Damien and Shayne look at them looking at the dancing couple. Courtney eventually turned their gaze over to the book shop boys and smiled, the lights overhead bouncing off their luminous mark. Courtney practically glowed.

Tommy’s hand found Spencer’s under the table and squeezed it. That pinch in his chest gripped him tighter.

“One of you want to dance?” Courtney asked.

“Shayne does,” Damien said quickly. “Amanda? May I?” he asked, rising from his seat and offering his hand over the table before Shayne had opened his mouth to object.

“You may!” Amanda said, delighted, tossing her napkin onto the table and graciously taking Damien’s hand as they walked out onto the lawn together.

“So?” Courtney asked, getting to her feet. “I’ve got these heels on, and it looks like this lawn needs to be aerated. Help a girl out?”

“Uh,” Shayne said suavely. “Uh, yeah. Um. Do you wanna take them off? Or . . .” He glanced down at Courtney’s shoes.

“No,” Courtney said casually. “Just hold me tight, don’t let me fall.” They looped their arm through his and joined the other four just as the song changed over. It was still sweet, classic, gentle, but with an undercurrent of overwhelming joy that begged to be danced to. Tommy found himself tapping along to the beat on the table.

“Aren’t you two gonna go?” Chanse asked, eyeing Ian and Anthony.

“No,” they said at the same time.

“Why not? Dancing’s fun!” Trevor said with such a genuine, juvenile excitement Tommy had to stop himself from “aw”ing.

“Then you go,” Ian gestured to the two of them.

Chanse and Trevor exchanged looks then shrugged.

“You still have to clean out the cartridges on Monday.”

“You got it, boss.”

Chanse rolled his eyes, but they stood and joined the mismatch of couples and friends, Trevor making an overly dramatic, silly bow, and Chanse laughing before grabbing Trevor and showing him how it was done.

“Go on, if you want,” Ian said, drawing Tommy’s attention back to the table. He and Anthony were leaned shoulder to shoulder, Anthony’s eyes full of dancing lights and people as he looked out. He had one hand on Ian’s thigh, right where Tommy knew Ian’s mark was, tracing little diamond patterns with his finger.

“Not my kind of dancing,” Tommy said dismissively.

“And what the hell does that matter?” Anthony asked, turning his gaze to Tommy and Spencer. “We all almost died two weeks ago.”

“What?!” Spencer asked with false shock, but under the table he squeezed Tommy’s hand again. “We did?”

Anthony rolled his eyes but smiled.

“You know, Anthony has a point,” Ian said. “You can enjoy the moment.”

Tommy looked out at the lawn, again. Angela had taken charge and was dipping Arasha. Amanda was speaking animatedly to Damien as they swayed in a gentle circle. Shayne gave Courtney a spin. Trevor yelped as Chanse dragged him around with perfect rhythm. “I am enjoying the moment,” he said, that pinch climbing higher, out of his chest, into his throat, towards his mark.

“Sitting at the table with the old farts?” Ian asked.

Tommy turned his gaze back to them. He smiled. “Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded so much weaker than he thought it would have. He moved his hand out from under the table, wrapping it around Spencer’s shoulders and bringing the soft head of curls to his lips. He pressed a kiss there, long and lingering, and Spencer leaned in, sighing against his chest. “Two weeks ago, this almost didn’t happen,” he said. “But now . . . Now I get to watch them fall in love,” he said. “All of them. Even the ones already there. Just, over and over again.”

Ian’s smile twitched, like maybe another emotion threatened to break through, but he managed to stave it off. “Arasha and Angela almost didn’t have that chance,” he said. “They deserve to fail and fumble a million more times.”

“Don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” Spencer said. “That’s the part they’re good at.”

“I dunno,” Anthony clicked his tongue. “I’m pretty sure they’re leaving together tonight.”

“Nah, Shayne, Damien, and Courtney? Those three are leaving together. I think Arasha and Angela might kiss though,” Spencer said.

Tommy’s ears pricked up at a bet, a competition, but it would have been stupid to bet against that. That was exactly what was going to happen. He watched Amanda skillfully disentangle herself from Damien in a way that left him clinging onto Shayne with one hand and Courtney with the other, both of whom were more than pleased to see him.

Amanda made her way back to the table and put a hand on her cocked hip. “At least one of you has to take me back out there. It’s too much fun to let me sit out.”

“Didn’t you just ditch your dance partner?” Anthony asked.

Amanda raised an eyebrow, glancing between Anthony and the trio trying to find a way to dance all together, all three of them almost doubled over with each new misstep. “I did. For a greater cause, I think.”

“You think—” Spencer began, probably looking for someone to bet against him, but Amanda snapped her head back to him.

“Oh yeah. That’s actually going somewhere tonight. Finally. I love my girl, but I need her to jump that twosome into a threesome, ideally somewhere around two or three years ago, but the second-best option is tonight. My tarot cards won’t shut up about them.”

Tommy laughed.

“So,” Amanda glanced over the four of them. “Who’s it gonna be?”

There was a moment, just a short one, that Tommy let stretch, just to see if Ian or Anthony might give first, but he couldn’t leave Amanda waiting. He sighed. “It’s gonna be us,” he said, pulling Spencer up with him.

“Huh? Us?” Spencer asked. “Dude, you’re the coordinated one.”

“Well, you’re lucky, you’re gonna have the two best dancers here,” Tommy replied, holding his other hand out for Amanda.

“We’ll keep you on beat, Spence,” Amanda winked. She took Tommy’s hand and the three of them wandered under Angela’s shower of lights. A few sparks bounced off Spencer’s cheeks and Tommy wanted to kiss each one. Later, he would, he decided, and for the rest of the song, even holding tight to Amanda, too, Tommy memorized each spot that the sparkles fell.

It was going to be a busy night when they got home, not that Tommy minded.

The song changed again, something timeless. Tommy idly wondered if the players and singers had had magic. The way the music held him, a velvet pillow for his heart, he imagined they did. He held Spencer and Amanda close, swaying, gazing around the party at all of his friends, so deeply in love with his life. He’d almost lost it without even knowing, had almost lost this. These people. This music. This feeling.

If Tommy did cry, neither Amanda nor Spencer said a word, and he loved them all the more for it. For how they understood him.

“Ian!” Angela yelled. “Get your ass up and dance! Please?”

“Why? We’re good here,” Anthony replied, but to the shock of every single person on the lawn, as well as Anthony, Ian stood up and offered his hand to Anthony.

“Dude, shut up. Just dance with me,” Ian said.

“I can’t—”

“And I’m shit at yoga, but I do it occasionally because I love you. Get your ass up and dance with me.”

Anthony’s mouth snapped shut into a grin. He took Ian’s hand and finally the dancefloor-lawn-whatever was full. There were cheers and whoops as Anthony rolled his eyes, but Ian just smiled. A little yellow heart popped over his head as they began to sway, grinning like idiots at one another, and Anthony said, “I missed those.”

“I know,” Ian sighed, beleaguered. “You’re the only one, though.”

Whatever Anthony whispered to him after, Tommy couldn’t hear, but he had a guess based on the flush that spread over Ian’s cheeks. Someday, Tommy figured he’d get tired of watching them, but he couldn’t for the life of him guess when.

Nearby, Shayne stuttered through his words. “Hey, uh. So, Damien and I . . .”

“Are you inviting me over?” Courtney asked bluntly.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think we are,” Damien said, looking to Shayne for confirmation. Shayne, bright red in the face, nodded. “I think we might have been dating for a while, actually?”

“Duh. Finally,” they said, grabbing Shayne by the cheeks and planting a kiss right on his lips, then caressing Damien by the back of the head for a second one. “Finally.”

“That’s one,” Spencer tallied under his breath, and Tommy had to hide his snicker in Amanda’s shoulder. “Let’s go for two.” Tommy slid his eyes over to Arasha and Angela, gazing at each other like the world had faded out around them.

“Hey, uh, I’m glad . . .” Angela began, but for whatever reason her words failed her.

Arasha nodded, never once taking her eyes off Angela. “Yeah, me too,” she said as if she knew exactly what Angela was thinking.

They swayed a moment longer, lost in their own world, before Angela spoke again. “Arasha, can I kiss you?”

“I really wish you would.”

Angela moved slowly, grazing her fingers along Arasha’s jaw, spreading her hand out over it gently, a certain amount of awe in her eyes as she touched Arasha’s skin, then pulled her in gently. Their eyes closed at the same time. It was soft at first, but Arasha nudged forward, deepening the kiss, making Angela make some sweet noise against her.

“Yes!” Chanse howled, a few feet from them. “Yes! Oh my god, yes!” He danced Trevor over to them, and the two of them broke apart briefly to circle the girls with excited whoops and applause. Arasha broke first, her smile pulling too wide to keep kissing, but the look she gave Angela when she pulled away was heart-stopping.

“Chanse, shut up!” Angela shouted, feigning a swing at him. He dodged and leapt back to Trevor.

“Do it again!”

“My turn,” Arasha grabbed Angela in her arms and kissed her again. Angela folded into her, filling the negative space, while holding up a middle finger to Chanse and Trevor.

“Two for two,” Tommy whispered.

“Maybe we should almost die more often,” Spencer mused. “Honestly? Worked out pretty well.”

“Spencer,” Amanda laughed. “Absolutely not.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, absolutely not.”

Tommy couldn’t say how many more songs played the rest of the night; he wasn’t interested in counting. There were dance circles and singing and enough laughter to bring several of them flat on the grass, gasping for air. It was the kind of night Tommy knew he’d remember for a long, long time, but he was also looking forward to tomorrow, when he would kiss Spencer goodbye as he left to open Kickstart Café, when he would put on his own apron around five pm to start making drinks he loved, when his friends would enter one by one at the end of their days and wave with a smile. He was looking forward to tomorrow because he had tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. He loved his life, he loved his magic, and he still had plenty more of both to go.