I CRACK OPEN THE BOOK, CONFUSED. There’s nothing on the title page, but then he tells me to keep going, and—
On the last page of the novel, my mother’s handwriting loops over the top in an inky blue script. Somehow it didn’t bleed all that much when it took the dip in the pool, and I can still make out the words—her words.
To my Rosebud,
This is only the beginning of your story, not the end.
With all my love,
Mom
My breath catches in my throat. I never opened her books after she died. I never thought to see if she left anything in them for me. I couldn’t bear to, because I was afraid I would see her in every word, and the hole in my chest would open up larger and larger and swallow me whole.
But here it is—here she is—so easy to miss unless I read to the very last page. I never flipped to the end first. It’s a rule. But she probably thought I would get to the end of my favorite book someday, again, and there I would find it.
Her words.
I press the open book to my chest, tears coming to my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand. “H-how did you find this?”
“I found out the books were purchased locally, so I used my one brain cell to figure out that it must’ve been your mother’s collection.” And then he takes a deep breath and adds, “It’s yours now.”
My eyes widen. I stare at him, wondering if I’d heard properly. “This book?”
“The entire collection.”
I gawk at him. “All of them?”
He outstretches his arms. “It was yours to begin with. I’m just giving it back to you—you can take them, or you can keep them here.”
Take them—or keep them? This…this is too much to comprehend. I shake my head. “No, I—I know how much those books sold for. This must’ve cost…” I trail off, because I can’t even begin to think how much money it would take to buy something like this, or how much money Vance needed to give for its owner to relinquish their hold.
He rubs the back of his head, a little sheepish. “Do…you want the rest of them? I mean, I’m sure they can be sold for—”
“What? No! Please!”
His eyes widen in genuine surprise. “Then…”
I hug The Starless Throne to my chest. Why does this feel like goodbye? It feels like it’s permanent, as if he’s going away. “Why?”
“Because you seem happy with these books.”
Oh. I am. But he only has half of the equation. Because I’ve felt happiest not just with these books, but with someone to share them with, and I don’t know how to say that. “And…you? If I keep these books here—will you be here, too?”
He smiles, but there is something bitter hidden behind it. Something I’m not sure I trust. “Of course I will. I’ve still got loads more boring books to read.”
“They’re not boring,” I chastise him, but his words make me feel better. I step closer to him, and I take him gently by his chin, and move his face down toward me. I kiss him. “Thank you,” I whisper against his lips. “I could stay here forever.”
“Mmh,” he mumbles against my mouth, “but don’t you have a football game to get to?”
I gasp, pulling away from him. “Oh, shit! I told Annie I’d pick her up!” I try to hand the book off to him again, but he pushes it back toward me.
“Take it. You might get bored,” he says, the edge of his lips twisting into a grin.
“I’ll come back later? And we can finish The Starless Throne,” I add. “I love the ending. It’s one of my favorites.” As he agrees, I kiss him one last time and rush out of the library—our library—and out of the castle-house to my car waiting on the side of the road.
The Homecoming game can’t be over quickly enough. But first: we have to make sure Garrett does not win Homecoming King.
I ENVY THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE FOOTBALL GAMES, because I don’t understand the sport at all. Even as I make my way up the aluminum bleachers with Annie, picking our way between popcorn on the seats and gum on the ground to an empty section next to the band, I don’t understand the appeal. It’s October and the air is sticky and humid still, and there’s a weird smell that I can only assume is coming from the marching band, but otherwise it’s a beautiful night. It’s almost game time, and the band is beginning to file out of the bleachers and onto the sides of the field, near the end zones, to start the pregame show.
During halftime, those running for Homecoming will parade onto the field one last time, and the principal—Mrs. Rogers, an ex-Marine whom I am thankful I have never crossed paths with on the disciplinary scale—will announce them one last time. Garrett and a few of his buddies are already down by the sidelines, along with most of the other contestants.
I frown, squinting down the sideline. “Where’s Quinn?”
Annie, with a tray of nachos, shrugs. “Dunno. They said they didn’t need a ride to the game.”
“Really? They’re your best friend!”
“Yours too, don’t forget. And there are things neither of you know about me, so it ends up being fair,” she replies mysteriously.
I roll my eyes. “Your AO3 username isn’t as hidden as you think, you know.”
She mock-gasps. “How dare you! It’s very hidden.”
“I guarantee I can search ‘Starfield Carmindor/Sond hurt-comfort fantasy AU amnesia’ and your fic will be at the very top.”
She blinks, frowns, and then shoves a chip into her mouth and says around it, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Mmm-hm.”
We laugh, because she knows that I am one hundred percent right, and I’ve definitely read her fic and it’s smutty as hell. I know her deep dark kinks and will take them to my grave.
“Excuse me—pardon me—starflame, is it really so hard to get through the bleachers?” a girl with pink hair mutters, her popcorn raised high. Behind her, a tall and lanky boy with dark hair follows.
“Mo, you know we sit on the other side of the field, right?” the lanky boy says, irritated. “With our team?”
“There aren’t any good seats over there. And this side is better—go, Milo!” the pink-haired girl cries, and points to a spot beside me. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“Nope,” I reply, and scoot over a little toward Annie to give them more room. “All yours.”
“Excellent!”
Her companion gives a tired sigh. “Well if we’d gotten here sooner, maybe all of the good seats on the other side wouldn’t be taken.”
“Stop grumbling like a grumpy old man and sit down,” she says, patting the bleacher beside her, and he thumps down. She snuggles up next to him, to the point that I think his grumpiness is mostly an act, and cheers again, “Go, Milo, go!” which earns her quite a few looks on this side of the bleachers. “My brother’s going to kick everyone’s ass.”
She doesn’t seem to care at all who glares.
Annie leans in quietly and says under her breath to me, “I think that pink-haired nuisance is now my mortal enemy.”
“Um, why?”
“Her brother’s Milo Lovelace. The other team’s quarterback.” Fire ignites in her eyes, and she jumps to her feet and shouts, “Go, Keith! You can do it! Knock the Goliath out!”
In return, the pink-haired girl narrows a look at her, then shouts, “You got this, Milo!”
“Keith! I believe in you!”
I sink down between the two of them and pull The Starless Throne from my backpack. Vance was right, it turns out. This book is coming in handy, and I tune out Annie and the pink-haired girl shouting over each other for the next ten minutes until the clock runs down and halftime begins. Our mascot, a Wildcat, grabs a lightsaber from the sidelines and runs toward the other side, where they have a short mock battle with the Blue Devils while the football teams leave the field, which ends in the Blue Devils force-choking the Wildcat to the ground. The score is tied, but I don’t know what any of it means, really. Annie tries to explain to me that the teams are tied because we can’t run the ball—whatever that means—and so we’ve had to take two field goals, and they missed an extra point.
…Whatever that means.
“I still don’t see Quinn, do you?” I ask, to which Annie frowns.
“No, I don’t,” she says, but then she pulls out her phone and selects Quinn’s name in an app, and a pin pops up on a map of the area—exactly where we are. “But they have to be here. Their phone’s here.”
My eyes widen. “Hold up, can you pinpoint my phone, too?”
“You still haven’t found it?”
“…No.”
She rolls her eyes and selects my name, and the exact same coordinates come up. Annie frowns. “Huh…are you sure you don’t have it in a pocket or something?”
I give her a deadpan look. “I’m not that forgetful.”
She just shrugs. “Oh, they’re starting.”
Principal Rogers makes her way out onto the field with a wireless microphone, and the band marches out with her, making a (sort of) cornucopia shape on the field. They play the school fight song, and when they finish the principal looks like she might need new eardrums.
“Well, that was riveting! Everyone give a round of applause to the Marching Wildcats!” she cries, and we all sort of clap halfheartedly in that at least you tried sort of way. “Now what we’ve all been waiting for—one last look at your Homecoming contestants!” Behind her, starting from the left end zone, Bob, our security guard, in his golf cart, pulls a trailer with a HOMECOMING banner. Behind him, a line of students in their formal best walk out onto the field.
The principal introduces all of them, but Quinn still isn’t in the lineup.
I eat a nacho nervously.
“And now, here are the top two students in the running for tomorrow’s Homecoming royalty…” the principal announces, taking out an envelope from her suit pocket. “For our Queens—Myrella Johnson and…Ava Singh!”
The two girls screech and clasp each other’s hands, happily bouncing up and down with each other. Annie snorts. “Well, that’s a surprise.”
“And for Homecoming King,” the principal goes on, “Garrett Taylor and…Quinn Holland!”
Ohmygod.
Ohmygod. Quinn is in the top two—Quinn is in the top two! Annie and I grasp each other’s hands and jump to our feet, cheering, “YES! GO QUINNIE!”
On the field, however, Garrett Taylor doesn’t feel the same way, and grabs the microphone from the principal. “Rosie, I’m pretty sure you’ll go with me tomorrow,” he says.
I sit ramrod straight.
“Rosie?” the pink-haired girl mutters, exchanging a look with her boyfriend.
I can feel Garrett glaring at me, and a chill curls down my spine. I curl my fingers tightly around the book in my hands. The people around me begin to stare. “I didn’t get it at first,” Garrett goes on, “I didn’t understand why you’d turn me down. But now I know. I should’ve seen the signs. You’d rather be with an asshole. You like the villain type, not the nice guys. You never liked nice guys—”
Suddenly, the mascot breaks out across the field, Wildcat-head bobbing in the wind, and takes a flying leap toward Garrett and tackles him to the ground. The mascot wrenches the microphone from him as its head goes rolling, revealing—
Quinn pushes themself to stand over Garrett and says into the microphone, “Sorry, I’mma let you finish but Rosie isn’t like that. And just because she doesn’t want to go out with you doesn’t mean it’s because she’s being pressured or brainwashed or whatever. I doubt anyone could pressure Rosie into doing anything she doesn’t want to do. Maybe—just maybe—she doesn’t want to go out with you because you’re a spineless nerf-herding Noxian scumbag and she just doesn’t like you. Oh, and those thirty votes to tie you? They came from the football team, because they all know I’m a bigger person than you’ll ever be.”
Then Quinn, my friend, my confidant, my Patronus, outstretches the microphone and drops it onto his chest.
The bleachers are quiet for a moment.
Then they erupt with applause.
I would, too, but my mind is reeling, because what did Garrett mean by I’m pretty sure you’ll go with me tomorrow? I don’t have to wonder long, because Annie puts a gentle hand on my knee and leans into me.
“Rosie, we’ve got a problem,” she mutters, and shows me the TMZ headline on her phone—
VANCE REIGNS IN ANOTHER UNSUSPECTING VICTIM!
Along with released video footage of the night I met Vance and fell into the pool, complete with the town and home address.
“Oh, no,” I mutter.
I’m growing cold all over. Garrett. When I bumped into him on Monday, I must have dropped my phone. “How long has that been live?” I ask her.
“Thirty minutes.”
Half an hour.
I think I might be sick to my stomach.
The pink-haired girl beside us gives me a wide-eyed look. “Wait—you’re Rosie? Vance’s Rosie?”
Has word gotten around that fast that even a stranger knows my name? I can’t think about it. I need to get back to Vance before this becomes a narrative I can’t control. I don’t have my phone, so I can’t call him. And I don’t want to imagine what sort of lies are spreading across the internet, festering like poison.
I just know I need to get to Vance.
Now. Before it’s too late.