“It’s Ravenclaw,” Emma grumbled.
“If you say so,” Leah snorted. “Look, show up for an hour, smile enigmatically at important people, and say, ‘I just write the voices in my head’. That’s it. That’s literally the whole job. Now go shower. We need to get through badge pickup before your first interview, and professionals don’t do late.”
Emma sighed, letting her eyes close. Sleep deprivation thrummed in her skull, nerves prickling at what lay ahead.
And that was before she’d even factored in a possible Darren Cole sighting.
Chapter 4
Post-room service pancakes. Pre-dodging personal questions.
The madness begins.
“Okay, Emma,” Leah said as their Uber pulled away from the hotel. She’d laughed—loudly—at Emma’s suggestion to walk to the convention center. “Let’s go through your day.”
Emma glanced down at the color-coded schedule on Leah’s phone. One color stood out among the soft pastels.
“What does red mean?”
Leah leaned away, shielding the phone against her chest. “Don’t question the system, writer. Let me deal with the technicalities.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “I feel like I’m being handled.”
“Good,” Leah said, scrolling. “You absolutely are. So, listen up. Badge pickup first. Then a BuzzFeed interview—you might want Catlyn’s favorite cocktail and Lucen’s guilty-pleasure candy lined up. Lunch at a Netflix mingle, and then you’re doing a podcast,Tropes & Canon. Huge nerds, but other nerds love them, which means you will too.”
She paused, daring her to disagree. Emma just shrugged.
“Sounds like the highlight of the day so far.”
A satisfied smirk tugged at Leah’s mouth. “That’s because you haven’t heard the next part. At two, you have a free hour to do whatever youwant. Hang out backstage, go for a walk, watch theDarkreachpanel in Hall H...”
Emma’s head snapped up.
“Darkreachpanel?”
Had Leah deliberately built that into her schedule? Jesus. Was her Darren Cole crush really that obvious?
The dystopian sci-fi show was far too serious, with clunky dialogue and gritty lighting, but she never missed an episode. Darren’s Kael Ferros made it worth the watch—sly, unpredictable, impossible to look away from.
Emma might have developed a habit of scrolling past all the scenes he wasn’t in, leaving her with only the vaguest understanding of the plot. She figured it balanced out, since she sometimes rewatched the ones he was in.
It wasn’t the first time Emma had fallen for an actor or a fictional character. One infatuation had replaced the next for as long as she could remember, starting with her confused childhood feelings for Simba.
Not exactly normal, she knew that, but it had become a quiet constant in her life. The fantasies were always there for her, soft and safe when the real world felt overwhelming or disappointing.
Her crush on Darren was the longest. Not something she thought of every day—just always there in the background. A warm twinge hit her whenever his name or his face popped up. And every November, she rewatched him as Sebastian Vale inMidnight Dominion, when the evenings turned dark and gothic like the show.
Of course, things had...intensified a little once she started writingThe Bonds of Light, seeing Darren’s face every time Lucen walked onto the page. But at least now she could claim that daydreaming about him served a professional purpose.
Not that she’d ever admitted her inspiration—not even to Leah—despite fans and interviewers constantly trying to pry it out of her.
“Yeah,” Leah said, watching her reaction. “Thought so.”
“But you said Hall H,” Emma said. “Isn’t there a whole process to get in there? Sounds like that might interfere with your sacred color coding.”
“Oh. Right,” Leah said, her tone strangely airy. She glanced down again. “Well, after that, you’re on the judges’ panel in a YA cosplay contest. Should be light and fun. Just pick out your favorites and expect at least five cottagecore Lucens.”
Emma laughed. “Is that a thing?”
