“Maybe later,” she said, already retreating like a cornered animal.
“Oh.” Nyra hesitated. “Later, then.”
Even in her panic, Riya registered the tiny flicker of disappointment on Nyra’s face. It needled her. But she didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with that guilt—not right now.
“Greatthanksbye,”she blurted, retreating upstairs to her bedroom.
She closed the door, silently apologizing to Nyra for rejecting her cupcake, and let out a breath.
She’d successfully fled one interrogation. But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. Because the moment she took her phone out of her pocket, it exploded with messages.
Mel.
For now, she ignored it.
She just needed a second. To breathe. To wipe the memory of Kian’s disgustingly soft-eyed stare, the way his voicehad carried across the school like one of those sad Disney prince impersonators people hired for their kid’s birthday parties.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
What have I done?
When she opened her eyes again, her gaze drifted to the single poster above her desk—the Pillars of Creation. Towering fingers made of cosmic dust and gas, surrounded by clusters of young stars. A celestial hand reaching for the universe. Her eldest sister, Amara, had gotten it for Riya when she’d started high school, a far better present than the baby-blue dress her sisters had given her the year before.
But Riya didn’t have the heart to inform Amara that the photo was doctored with “false color” to compensate for the fact that human eyes can’t see all the details of gas emissions in space.
In truth, real space is dark. Cold. Colorless.
And yet, this was the poster she looked at whenever she needed to escape. To remind herself that in the grand, incomprehensible scale of the universe, this moment was nothing.
She inhaled slowly. Her breath began to steady.
Okay. So, the facts:
She’d cast a love spell.
And it had misfired on to Kian.
Buthow?
Her brain jumped into motion, cycling through possibilities. Was it because she’d lost focus while casting?Or—maybe this wasn’t her fault at all. Maybe it was a prank. A sick social experiment. Maybe Kian was just very,veryunwell. She almost hoped that was the case. That would be easier. Less her fault.
But hope wasn’t enough. Even she couldn’t avoid the reality: that she had made a very big mistake.Again.
Shoving aside her panic, Riya flipped open her laptop. The glow of the screen steadied her nerves, if only a little.
First, she needed more information.
She clicked open a free tab, her fingers hovering over the keyboard for a moment. Then, hesitantly, she typed:Kian Kho.
A logical place to start. If she had messed with his feelings with magic, she should at least knowwhoshe’d messed with.
Except there was hardly anything about Kian online. No social media presence. No tagged photos. No YouTube or Twitch account. Just a bare-bones listing from a shady Find People website:
Kian Kho, 17 years old
Lives in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
Family: Crisanto Kho, father, 41, catering business (Founder of CoKo Catering).
