She didn’t hesitate. It felt like she’d been pushed off a cliff, and damn if she wasn’t going to fly. She left her burning home behind her, not bothering to check if her parents made it outside because she knew they wouldn’t check for her. She got on a bus, then a train, and then she found herself here, in the city that had always been so close and yet felt so far. A city of millions of people, a city where she could disappear.
But Sylvia didn’t want to disappear. For the first time in her life, she was strong. She was powerful. She wouldn’t be ignored anymore.
She looked around, surveying her new kingdom. New York City teemed with people, and that made whatever it was that now flowed through her sing. She let it suffuse her, the soundtrack of a new life.
She stared off at a billboard in the distance, a makeup ad featuring a pretty girl with cherry-red lips and bright blue eyeshadow. Just to see if she could, she imagined that blue eyeshadow turning pink—and then it did. She let out a whoop of excitement, earning her strange glances from the family of tourists standing to her left. Her focus dropped and the eyeshadow flicked back to blue, but Sylvia still grinned—she knew what she’d seen.
The family groused as they turned back away from her. Sylvia caught the words “unwashed” and “possibly destitute,” and her eyes, completely of their own volition, locked in on the father’s wallet in his back pocket. She didn’t need money, per se—she could steal anything she wanted—but if this family thought she was so impoverished, they should do their civic duty of supporting her on her new path of upward mobility. Logic secured, she stared at the wallet, focusing her want on it, until it floated out of the man’s pocket and toward her hands.
She was reaching out to grab it when a thick hand wrapped around her wrist. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Sylvia put her other hand over her eyes, forming a visor against the sun so she could properly investigate her captor. He was very tall, with dark brown skin and arched eyebrows pressed down tight in annoyance. He was probably a few years older than her, although the suit and slicked-back hair suggested he was trying quite hard to pass as afull-fledged, tremendously serious adult. He’d be cute if he smiled, but his face was fixed in a sneer that she imagined was permanent.
“Just enjoying a nice summer day,” she said, giving him her most innocent smile.
“No. You’re doing magic. In front of hundreds of ordinaries.”
Magic. This power that she had was magic.
The song inside her grew louder at the word, and she knew it was true. Knew, then, that there was nothing else it could be.
Magic was real, and it was hers. And this stranger knew something about it.
“Do you know how to hold the magic for longer?” Sylvia blurted. She looked back to the billboard, flicking the eyeshadow to pink again. She focused on getting it to stay, but it still reverted back after a couple seconds.
The man’s jaw dropped. “What are you—Wait. You didn’t cut yourself.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. He was dense, this one. “No,” she said—slowly, as if talking to a child. “I’m not suicidal, I’m just trying to figure this thing out.”
“Not what I mean. Tell me, do either of your parents have magic?”
Sylvia chuckled. “No, definitely not.”
“You’re unsettled.” He stared at Sylvia with curiosity—and something she thought might be disdain. She wondered if her magic could wipe that look off his face.
“No, I’m pretty settled right here.” Sylvia patted the bench beneath her. “Comfy and everything. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll keep my magic more on the DL from now on.”
“I’m not leaving you here. You’ll snap. You’ll kill everyone.”
“It’s a pretty big jump from stealing a tourist’s wallet to committing murder. It’d take me at least a few years on my path of juvenile delinquency to make it that far.”
“You don’t underst—”
“Yes, I do,” Sylvia interrupted. “You’re some kind of magical cop or something and you’re here to make sure I don’t spill your little secretto all of these fine people. Well, I promise I won’t. And I pinky-swear I will not kill anyone. Okay? Can you move now?”
“No.” He took Sylvia by the hand, forcing her to stand up. “Come on, you’re coming with me.”
Sylvia tried to wrench her arm back, but his grip was too strong. “Uh, no, I’m not, man whose name I don’t even know.”
“My name is Vikrant Khatri. I’m taking you to Noctis Coven.”
Vikrant Khatri started pulling her down the sidewalk. Sylvia stumbled as she followed him. Her magic swirled in her belly, a warm reminder that no matter what Vikrant thought, he was not in charge of this situation. If she wanted to be free again, she’d be free.
But for the moment, she was curious. Curious about this magic she had, about what it meant that she was unsettled. About what this coven might be able to offer her.
If she didn’t like it there, she’d leave. For the first time in her life, Sylvia was strong. Strong enough to take on anyone who even thought to cross her.
Her magic surged, buoyed by the promise of something more.
