Kira didn't stick around long. An old truck pulled up about twenty minutes after Lady Anagharad had dismissed them, just outside of the gates to the mansion.

  "I think that's my ride." Kira's face turned pink before she disappeared entirely.

  One peek at the old truck revealed the driver. It didn't exactly surprise Lila to see that Galileo was the driver. It was a beat-up car, a relic from nineties that had been in a few wrecks since.

  Aideen shook her head and grinned as they watched the truck pull away from the safety of the front porch. "Young love."

  Lila gave her a sidelong glance. "You would know, wouldn't you?"

  Aideen stiffened and made a show of fixing her golden blonde curls. "I don't know what you mean."

  "I saw the way the Paladin looked at you." Lila tilted her head. "You saw him before, didn't you?"

  Aideen froze. She was silent for a long time before she spoke again, her voice dropped to a whisper. "Just once. At the bookstore."

  "Oh." Lila struggled to find words. "I mean, I guess if he's a reader, I get it. . ."

  Aideen laughed—a desperate, helpless thing. She shook her head. "It just happened. I didn't know what he was then."

  Lila nodded patiently.

  "And then when we saw him at the party, I didn't want to break the spell." Aideen sighed heavily and looked down to her black Mary-Janes. "But it was always going to end. Wasn't it?"

  "He is a dragon-hunter by trade," Lila reminded her.

  Aideen pressed her lips together. "Do you know what they were talking about, with your mom?"

  "No." It was Lila's turn to huff a sigh. "I haven't told my mom about any of this yet."

  "What?" Aideen's dark brown eyes went wide. "Why not?"

  "I don't know." That was a lie. "I guess, I just don't want to know why why she kept it all a secret."

  "But what happens if you win?" Aideen's questions and gaze drilled a hole into Lila.

  Lila supposed she should be grateful that Aideen was at least considering the chance of her winning. As much as she had let herself envision it, had decided to genuinely compete for her own sake, it was still difficult, as hazy in the mists of the future as high school graduation.

  "We all know it will be you." Lila managed a smile at that, an encouraging nudge with her elbow.

  Aideen folded her arms over her chest. "If there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that nothing is assured."

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  There was something underlying her words. It was as close as an endorsement as Lila suspected she would get.

  "I don't know," Lila admitted. "I guess I'll figure it out when I get there."

  She then looked back to Aideen. "Probably whenever you tell your grandmother about the Paladin boy."

  Aideen's eyebrows shot up.

  "Absolutely not. Never," she said flatly.

  "Weren't you the one who said nothing is assured?"

  Aideen rolled her eyes. "So, what are you doing after this?"

  Lila shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Not going to visit your friend?"

  Lila shook her head. "Sabrina got grounded."

  Such had been conveyed in a text at 4 PM lacking all the graces of punctuation and capitalization. With an if you care added after. Which told her exactly where she stood in the fallout of the Halloween party.

  From her brief interactions with Jinn, it did seem that Sabrina had decided against retaliation through implicating Lila's involvement to the Hollestelles. That, or Jinn had correctly believed that Lila had nothing to do with the wild delights of Sabrina's party.

  Either way, it was probably a good idea to lay low and keep out of Sabrina's sights for the time being.

  The idea made Lila's guts churn. Sabrina was one of her oldest, dearest friends. Even if Lila couldn't entirely understand why Sabrina had done what she had, she couldn't bring herself to completely abandon her.

  But it wasn't completely up to her, either.

  The dragons had carved an ocean between them.

  "Maybe I'll visit the fabric store, or grab a new sketchbook to work on a collection for a video. . ." Lila trailed off. "What about you?"

  Aideen's face turned a treacherous crimson.

  "You're going to see him?"

  "Keep it down!" Aideen hissed.

  Lila glanced around her. Luckily, Lady Anagharad had not materialized on the grand porch behind them. "I think she might already be in Agartha."

  "I don't want to risk it."

  Lila decided not to fight her on this. She lowered her voice as she continued. "But doesn't he know what you are now?"

  "I know he does, but—" Aideen shrugged helplessly. "I don't even know that I'll see him there."

  "Why?" Lila couldn't articulate it any more succinctly than that. To try to spin all of her questions into one, or even just a handful defied her efforts.

  Aideen tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

  "Why him?" That second word was all she could manage, to simplify her swirling thoughts.

  Aideen shrugged again. "I guess. . . he makes me feel normal."

  That last word found Lila looking at her friend in a new light. All this time, she'd thought of Aideen as the trained competitor, the one true heir to the throne, the protagonist that all of them were just side characters to.

  But now Lila was wondering if she hadn't been the only one Aideen had been asking about.

  What if you win?

  What would that mean for Aideen?

  Aideen, who had trained all her life for this. Aideen, who, come to think of it, didn't have any human back-up dreams like Kira and Lila had.

  Lila would have thought it a tragedy for her, if she lost.

  But what if it wasn't?

  What if Aideen wanted to be normal? What if both of them did?

  Maybe that made Kira the right girl for the job anyway.

  "I can understand that." Lila nodded.

  "Don't tell Kira," Aideen added with a sharp turn of her head. "I just—I don't think she'd understand."

  Given how Kira had been shot with an arrow, among other things? Lila couldn't disagree. But the idea of keeping a secret in their sisterhood trio didn't sit right with her. A lot of things hadn't sit right with her lately.

  Before she could respond either way, a cold gust blew, ripping through her red hair. It had been a calm day—the fierce frosty wind drew the two girls' attention to the skies. Once a perfect November blue, they were suddenly a storm-ridden gray.

  "That developed fast." Lila looked to Aideen at the same time Aideen looked to her. "You don't think. . ."

  Thunder crackled in the distance, punctuation and a conclusion.

  "Kira," they both said at the same time.