It was far too easy, in a place like Fairytaletopia, which was filled with enough wonders and surprises that it was difficult to keep everything occurring in the present in your head, to forget both the joys and the hardships of the past. Everything became a sort of blur, a grayed-out mush of things that you might vaguely recall had happened but couldn't remember the consequences of, or else you could remember the consequences and not why they occurred. The present would fly by in an instant, doomed to become the good-old-days.

Easily, then, Ramona had forgotten of a minor inconvenience that some might call a curse of hers. It was the morning directly after she and the rest of the thieves had checked into a middle-of-nowhere hotel (hotel being a generous description), exactly two days and counting since the botched Snow Palace heist that had ended with the death of Snow White. It was early, but the crew ran on a busy schedule in order to ensure their survival, and Lindsay was hovering over Ramona in the bathroom of room 3-24, placing various lip colors next to her face to determine which would best match her complexion. Something about lying low to avoid the law enforcement... she hadn't really been listening.

"Oh, I've got hair dye, too," she said, setting down the lip tint and rifling through the duffel bag of beauty supplies resting on the counter. "The good stuff, you just drink a potion."

Ramona's mind was so preoccupied with the logistics of getting through FastTrav that she absentmindedly took it, knocking it down without a second thought. Contour the hell out of Claude's face to get through security. What to do about the van...? Luggage transport can shrink it, but they're bound to search it first—

"See, it's working already," Lindsay said with a nod of approval, bringing Ramona's attention to her reflection. She'd never been too fond of staring at herself in the mirror—as a kid it was mostly because of insecurity but now she just didn't find it to be all that important. But now her hair, black on one side and platinum blond on the other, was fading to a shiny auburn from the roots down. She watched with mild curiosity as the new color made its way all the way down to her shoulders, soaking through her entire head of hair. That was when she remembered.

"Oh, wait. Lindsay, that's not going to—"

The ends of her hair shriveled as if she'd lit them on fire and with a faint crackling sound, the auburn disappeared as quickly as it had come. She frowned and touched it delicately. Lindsay turned to her in horror.

"What the actual fiddlesticks. Hair dye doesn't—"

"Yeah, it never does."

Lindsay smacked her on the shoulder. "You should've told me that before you wasted my hair potion!" Ramona found it amusing that she didn't even bother with asking for a reason behind it; she was just offended. And it was a good thing, too. She didn't have an explanation.

They were interrupted by loud clanging out in the room. Ramona and Lindsay stepped out to see Penny banging pots and pans in front of Claude's figure sprawled on the couch. Claude, the only one of them who was still asleep, awoke with a start, and in fast succession jumped up, smacked the pans away, and tackled Penny to the floor—all survival instinct. Even Ramona couldn't stop herself from bubbling up with laughter. Bear and Minerva were chuckling to themselves from the pop-up kitchen, both collaborating on the effort of breakfast.

Penny and Claude were both swearing loudly, getting in sloppy kicks and punches and rolling across the floor like angry siblings (or perhaps feral cats).

"Now, Verelia," Lindsay said giddily. "Attacking a lady? What would your mother say?"

"She'd say that Penny is a sick son of a—"

Penny, who had him in a chokehold, cracked him in the nose, knocking his head back and eliciting an irritated grunt. She grinned triumphantly. Claude wriggled out of her grip and gave her one last glare before dusting himself off.

"What day is it?" he panted, eyes wide open but still moving sluggishly.

"Tuesday," Bear supplied helpfully.

"Where's—we're going to—" Reality seemed to dawn on him, although only halfway. "Oh, we're going to Nowhere, right?"

Everyone turned to Ramona.

"Everyone get your daily dose of caffeine in," she said matter-of-factly. "We've got a new destination."

"I hope this means you've trashed your Blackhearts idea," Penny grumbled, pushing herself up to a sitting position with some effort as Minerva handed her a plate of waffles with whipped cream. Claude had given her a bruise and her kidney was still throbbing.

"But that's one of my best ideas yet!" Ramona protested with a wild grin. "We may be detouring along the way, but why throw away an opportunity like that?"

"Because chances are we'll lose, Duckie," Minerva said harshly. Ramona raised an eyebrow at her rather rare interjection.

"Even if we had a tiny chance of winning millions, wouldn't you take it?" She glanced around at everyone. "If you had a chance, even one the size of the pea under your mattress, to escape the crappy life you came from, you would have taken it. Wouldn't you?"

There were reluctant nods.

"So why watch a chance at a greater life flit by you this time?"

"Because what we have now is good enough, Ramona," Penny said, her eyes and voice hard. It wasn't often that she called Ramona by her real name, and it knocked Ramona briefly off her guard. "We're staying afloat. We have each other." Ramona's eyes flicked to her feet, but she quickly tailored her expression to confident eagerness again, the break in her mask fast enough to miss if one wasn't paying extremely close attention.

Lindsay placed her hands on her smoothly curved hips. "I dunno," she admitted. "I've been thinking about it. The money's big. And we've pulled off crazy jobs before."

Bear licked batter off a wooden spoon, inadvertently getting some on his thick dark beard. "Crazy enough to beat big-name criminals?"

Claude's gaze was far away and calculating. He looked as though he was considering it. "It would be a challenge. Surely there's no harm in a bit of adventure."

"Speaking of adventure," Minerva said, pointing to Ramona with a spatula, "no one goes to Nowhere for the hell of it."

Well, she could tell them now or later, and there was no sense in putting it off. Might as well get it over with now so they could argue their hearts out and move on. "We're going to visit Claude's sister."

"The HALLUCINATION?" Lindsay said incredulously. The others were quick to protest as well, all talking over each other. Ramona pounded the wall for quiet.

She examined them all carefully, one at a time.

"Who here believes in the Writer?"

Penny rolled her eyes. Bear and Lindsay exchanged meaningful glances. Claude covered his face with his hands. And Minerva... Minerva was looking right at her. So she knew that Ramona knew.

She lifted an eyebrow. "Lynon?"

"I dunno if the Writer is real," she said carefully, "but if he is, Claude knows something about it."

"Well, then," responded Ramona with that ever-familiar bad-idea expression, "you'll gladly believe me if I tell you that we're going to see him and his sweet little apprentice?"

"Didn't say that."

"This is ridiculous," said Penny, pointing an accusatory finger at everyone, "and everyone in this room knows it."

Bear hesitated. "Duckie, are we really going to follow Claude's lead on this one? Because I'm not so sure that's such a great plan."

Claude opened his mouth to defend himself, but Ramona held up a hand.

"Take care to remember that none of you would be here if it weren't for Claude."

Lindsay crossed her arms. Ramona pointed to her.

"You'd still be running from the same people that killed your sister." Lindsay's eyes went fiery. Ramona nodded to Penny. "You'd still be in underground boxing rings." Penny's jaw tightened and she gestured to Bear. "You'd be at the hands of poachers." She swiveled to Minerva. "You'd be pickpocketing on the streets of Tower Kingdom with nothing to your name and nowhere to go."

"And where would you be?" Penny said provocatively, seemingly unconvinced. "What do you owe Claude bloody Verelia?"

Ramona stared her down.

"I'd be dead. Headshot in a back alley behind a convenience store in Mab, Fairy Kingdom. No one would have remembered me or cared. That good enough for you?"

Penny shut her mouth. Claude met her eyes, and she knew he was remembering it, too. Claude may not have been anyone's knight in shining armor but for all his faults he knew how and when to play the anti-hero. And when most of them had almost no one left to cry if they were dead, that was all they needed. Still Ramona could never bring herself to call any of the thieves her family—she was determined to find her real one someday—but if she was going to die today she wouldn't mind dying amongst this handful of losers and their scavenged pile of dirty money. If only, at least, to not die alone.

But this wasn't just about loyalty to Claude. Ramona knew that. She was asking them to upend everything they thought was true. It wasn't an easy thing to believe in someone that everyone believed was a myth. She was only hoping that at the very least, they would be willing to humor her long enough to pretend to believe it.

It was a lot to expect when she couldn't even offer a reason why she believed it.

"Fine," Minerva said.

"Alright, I trust you guys," Baby Bear agreed.

Lindsay shrugged, tossing her hair. "I'm not busy."

Penny rolled her head back and groaned. "Ugh... fine. We'll go to Nowhere. Wherever the pumpkin-eater that is."

Ramona clapped her hands together. "Fantastic! I'm glad we all approve of this plan." We all approve may have been a slight exaggeration, but she rolled with it anyway. "Now let's eat, get our stuff together, and meet back in the van to flesh everything out."

So that they did. After checking out and heading into the van that was, in all honesty, only really a van from the outside and more of a trailer on the inside (thank you, magic), Ramona explained that they would bypass security at the nearest FastTrav and figure out a way to manipulate the portal since Nowhere wasn't authorized for public transportation. It was hard to get to and considered a gray area territorially, and since no governing body or individual could claim it as either private or public property, the FastTrav company didn't have the legal rights to sell transport to it. Claude scribbled everything down, working out the holes in her ideas as he always did. Once everyone had gotten some calories into their systems they were significantly more agreeable when it came to accepting working with the plan.

"Alright. For one thing, we've got to pay for it. Anyone know—"

"Should be $275 individually; paperback, I mean," Penny answered immediately, waxing the string on her new bow even though it probably wasn't necessary. She went overboard on weapons upkeep when she got antsy. "Parties of four or less get a group price of $700, parties of twelve or less are $2,200."

"Massive rip-off," said Minerva, doing the math in her head.

"Cheaper to pay individually if your traveling party is less than ten people," Ramona murmured, not questioning how Penny had this information.

"Right," Penny conceded, "but people don't think about it."

"So that's—what, $1,650 if we pay per person?"

"We don't have that kinda money in red," Baby Bear realized. Each kingdom that printed paper money had its own color designation. Snow was red, Fairy yellow, Villagetown green, Rose pink, Tech Zone blue, Tower purple, Water orange. Solid gold was always easier to use, because it was universal. Everyone was legally obligated to accept it unless in the case of a private-owned small business. FastTrav was a major corporation, so there shouldn't be any problems there.

Ramona tapped her fingers on her thigh. "Claude, what's that in gold?"

Claude looked up. "Me? You're asking me to convert things? I never went to school, you incoherent baboon."

"I dropped out of school, you bumbling numbskull."

"Somewhere around three hundred shiners," Minerva supplied with a sideways glance at Penny.

Penny huffed, folding her arms across her chest. "I presume you expect me to give up all my cash for this."

"Ugh, no need to use your princess voice," Claude said, making a face. Penny made a face right back.

"Anything that enters this vehicle becomes community property," Ramona told her pointedly, although she flicked Claude sharply on the shoulder for his remark. "You'll get your money back, and then some, once we pull some jobs in Fairy. This is a quick detour."

"Yeah, and last time we let Claude take a 'detour' it went so bloody well, didn't it?" Lindsay snapped, an irritated glint in her eyes. They were probably never going to drop the Monarch Republic Castle heist, he thought frustratedly.

"We're not going to argue about it anymore, right, Lindsay?" Ramona said, raising her voice slightly. Lindsay mumbled to herself but didn't make any more choice comments. Ramona placed her hand on the map they'd been using for navigation in South Snow. "Okay. Here's the plan. Lindsay, Minerva, you're in charge of disguises. I don't care what you guys come up with so long as Dolos is unrecognizable—and we all stay in one party, just to ensure we all end up at the same place."

The girls side-eyed Claude with something like mischief, and he began to have a bad feeling about this.

"Baby. There's a shrinking machine in baggage drop, and you can take whatever you want—including vehicles—but security searches it first. I'd like to avoid that, so I need you to find a way to shrink Gray beforehand so we can hide her in my bag."

Claude frowned. "I'm, like, ninety percent sure that we snagged some shrinking artifact from that museum raid a while back."

Ramona tossed up her hands. "Well, then, all you have to do is find it. Now, I've already got forged documents on hand, so the only thing left to take care of is the portal itself. There's not going to be a straight shot to Nowhere, but there should be portals that take you to a randomized set of coordinates, which means we need a way to alter that to where we want to go. Windsor...?"

"Yeah," Penny said with a nod. "There are definitely spells that can do that."

"Perfect. You and I will go spellbook hunting. Claude, you're backup planning as usual."

Penny sighed, heading over to settle into the driver's seat. "Let's get moving, then. I wanna get this over with."

Bear grabbed a box and started rifling through all their stashed stuff, tossing anything that might have been a shrinking artifact into it. Anything that sparkled, glowed, or looked generally magical he figured were potential candidates.

Minerva skimmed the costumes wardrobe while Lindsay flipped through her old magazines.

"Uh... no... not that one... hmm. We could always do... Villagetown bards?" she suggested, showing Minerva the page she was on.

Minerva hummed. "At least three of us could never pass as Villagetowners—myself included and I am one. Besides," she added with a furtive glance at Claude. "I kind of want to make him squirm a little for putting us all through this."

"Make Claude suffer, got it," Lindsay said. After several minutes of page-flipping accompanied by the sounds of Bear rummaging around along with Ramona and Claude who had seen fit to help, she froze. "Holy goodness."

Minerva held up a janitor's outfit, examining it. "Something good?"

"Oh yeah," she said, and began to cackle with laughter. "Oh, yeah." She slid the magazine over to Minerva, who surprised her with an uncharacteristic mischievous smile.

Claude dropped a shiny star-shaped object into the box, oblivious to Minerva's and Lindsay's scheming for the current moment. "This is going to take forever."

"Yeah, I know," Bear grunted, pulling out a second box as the other one was already filling up. He yanked open a hidden drawer and fiddled with the lock on the compartment inside of it. "This medallion looks promising."

"I have no idea what to do if this goes wrong," Ramona admitted with a twinge of nervousness in her voice. "If the disguises don't work—"

"Plan B," said Claude. "We start a fire and have someone set off the alarm. Works every time as a distraction, especially if the fire's real."

"Or if the spell goes wrong—"

"Plan F. Stop the portal by crowbarring the machine that generates the spell. Or Plan G. Kidnap a fairy godmother. Or Plan M—"

"Thanks, Claude," Ramona said with a light snort. "I feel so much better."

Bear stopped digging through stolen merchandise. "No, no, actually—I want to hear more about Plan G."

Ramona patted the back of the driver's seat. "Where are we going?"

Penny tapped the map, one hand on the steering wheel. "I'm headed to the nearest town, but we're aimed eastward," she said. "According to this map, the only FastTravs in Snow Kingdom are in the East and North regions—they must not be into the fad here. It'll take probably... eighteen, twenty hours to get to one?"

Ramona shrugged. "Lakelanders are traditionalist. Miners, foresters, seamstresses... they don't need adventure. Some people like the settled lifestyle."

"Once we get to Scarletville there's bound to be bookstores. They won't necessarily have what we need, but someone's got to sell spells, I'm sure. It's not like we're going to find a big map that tells us..." Penny trailed off as she slowed to a gradual halt on the lonesome road. Usually Snow was filled with tourists, but this middle-of-nowhere country with nothing but mountains and land for miles seemed to be largely empty save for the occasional passing car. "Ain't no way."

"What?" Claude stuck his head out the window. "Oh my fairy godmother."

Ramona and Bear leaned over to get a good look.

"I love Fairytaletopia," Claude said giddily. Standing lonesome on the side of the snow-dusted road was a ginormous directory such as that which one might find at a shopping mall. A comically large red X marked a spot on the map reading YOU ARE HERE. Some things in the fairytale world simply never changed. Ramona snapped her fingers and pointed to an image of a cluster of houses. The key labeled it Scarletville.

"Scarletville looks close."

"Just another fifty miles," Penny replied with a sigh, muttering something under her breath about ridiculous roadside maps and why do I even bother with this place.

Claude held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait. You want a magic library or something, right? Look, there's a freaky witch shop that way."

"They'll have spellbooks for sure," Bear agreed. Ramona handed him a ribbon-strung baton that might have been some kind of wand or something.

Penny threw up her hands. "Alright, then! Let's go in the direction of the hippie library." She increased pressure on the accelerator with a bit too much force and they rocketed forward, still going east but veering now to the north road. Bear and Ramona set the two cardboard boxes full of would-be artifacts onto one of the magically expanded seats.

"Wanna try shooting these at stuff and seeing what happens?" Ramona suggested.

Bear tried to hide his smile, but it did sound fun.

Lindsay approached them then, clapping her hands together. "We're going to start costuming now!"

Claude swiveled. "What? Why?"

Lindsay clucked her tongue, eyes roaming Claude's figure. "Calm down, we don't need you to actually sit in your costume yet. We have to have you as a reference while Minerva works on speed-sewing, and I'm on makeup and hair duty. It's gonna take a hot minute to figure out how we're gonna dress you up, and I have to find a wig that actually frames your tiny face nicely..."

"What about Ramona?" he asked, recoiling slightly as she reached up to fuss with his hair. "She's wanted too. And my face is not tiny."

Lindsay dropped her hands. "Oh. Well. I don't mean to be rude, but she's a lot easier to disguise, because she's sort of..."

"Ugly?" Ramona prompted, grinning at them. Lindsay shrugged.

"Plain."

"If it means the police don't catch me, then fine by me. What are we doing disguise wise?"

"Really bringing our A-game this time," she said with a wink. Claude could feel only a sense of impending dread. "Pulling the old celebrity distraction trick."

"The celebrity..." Ramona trailed off and sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "That only works if you manage to hide in plain sight while drawing immense amounts of attention to yourself. I was thinking we were going subtle."

"Relax, Duckie; subtle is my middle name." Lindsay grabbed Claude by the wrist and practically dragged him to the back. He looked over his shoulder, eyes pleading for help, but Ramona just shrugged. Not her department.

"I thought her middle name was Elizabeth," said Bear.

Twenty minutes or so later Penny pulled over and she and Ramona climbed out, ignoring the sudden cry of, "Okay, wait, I am NOT wearing that!" Minerva must have gotten midway through something she was making. Penny didn't feel remotely sorry for Claude, although Ramona almost did—a little. It still appeared that they were surrounded by nothing but pine forests and faraway mountainscapes, but a small shop marked with a sign that read MYTHICA SCROLLS stood weathered and disheveled, surrounded by a cluster of scraggly trees.

Hopefully they would luck out and run into a roadside gas station, too. They were running low and the canisters of gasoline they kept in the back were for emergencies (or arson).

"Let's find an alteration spell, then," Ramona said, pulling on a cardigan over her long-sleeved tunic paired with her usual button-down vest. She'd swapped out her wardrobe of brown skirts for britches given the weather. Penny was in layers of mostly brown and green for camouflage, a habit that was probably wise, but with the mostly white landscape it wasn't so effective anymore. Ramona stuck her hands in her pockets, wishing she had a pair of gloves that weren't fingerless. But normal gloves did hinder stealing—unless you were Claude, of course.

Ramona and Penny stepped into the bookstore, the arrangement of feathers and whistles dangling from the top of the door jingling as they went. The place had an eerily vintage-witchcraft feel to it—most establishments in Fairytaletopia nowadays were modern architecture rooted in ancient magic, reminiscent of the expected happily-ever-after sentiment enhanced with fairy-entangled technology, but this was different. This was old-school, plain and simple. A crumbling structure not outfitted with any modern technological enhancements, decorated with dark, patterned fabrics and skull oil lamps resting on deep ebony wood tables. Candles replaced light switches, and as Ramona's eyes roved about the ceilings on instinct she realized that there was no apparent security system in place. It was hot and humid, especially considering how much colder it was outside, leading her to believe that there may have been no ventilation either. Cobwebs were weaved through bookshelves lined with books that snapped, growled, hissed, and floated in the air to flip their own pages. She and Penny both jolted as the rug underneath their feet suddenly lifted into the air, taking them with it.

Magic carpet. Ramona shifted into the proper position for riding; feet apart, knees slightly bent, weight carefully balanced. Penny adapted just as quickly. They were floated over to a middle-aged woman with scraggly purple hair sticking out of a loose cloth-wrapped bun. She was seated on a carpet of her own, palms up in apparent meditation. She opened one eye.

"Customers! From far away... mm. Yes." She lifted a hand and outstretched it towards the two of them. "Searching for a spell, are we? And not a particularly legal one."

Penny arched an eyebrow. "If you're going to be smart about it, can you help us?"

The witch chuckled. "Dimensional alteration spells are in the restricted section."

"Does 'restricted' translate to 'expensive'?" Ramona asked dryly.

Both of the witch's eyes snapped open. "Don't even think about trying to rob me, you filthy scoundrels."

"Robbery would require the use of force," Penny admitted. "We would just steal it."

"Well, don't." Her glare was so intense that even Ramona figured it was a good idea to listen.

"Alright, then. Restricted section is in the back?"

The witch's eyes closed again, relaxing. Must have been a telepath. She knew they wouldn't try anything. "Good guess, little duckling."

Ramona recoiled at the nickname. She liked witches generally, but telepaths were creepy.

Penny waved her along and she managed to peel her eyes away from the witch and follow her. They diverted—Penny on one side of the shelves and Ramona on the other—and skimmed through book titles. Ramona jumped back as a leather-bound spellbook she'd pulled out suddenly snapped at her with razor-sharp paper fangs. She shoved it back between A Comprehensive Guide of the Dark Arts and Deadly Beasts You Probably Shouldn't Go Looking For.

It felt like they were there flipping through paper for ages. Ramona found spells to form portals out of rat tails, spells to close portals to other worlds, and spells to travel through mirrors, but nothing about altering the coordinates of where a portal was intended to go. The portal they would be using at the airport would send them to a randomized set of coordinates using a mechanical looping spell, so they needed a way to somehow change those coordinates with a counterspell.

Finally Penny announced, "I got it!" and Ramona thanked her lucky stars.

She came over to peek over Penny's shoulder at the page she was looking at. "This doesn't make portals, but it can force the path of an existing portal to take it where you want to go," Penny explained, running her finger along the handwritten blurb above the list of the ingredients of the spell. "You essentially picture where you want to go and you can make the portal bend to your will. But... shoot." She picked up the book and squinted at the instructions. "Forty-six plus blood level required?" she said incredulously.

Ramona frowned, her eyes following where Penny was looking. There was a symbol next to the contingency Penny had read that looked vaguely like a butterfly surrounded by swirls. The universal symbol for fairies. She was used to seeing it on signs that prohibited the admission of fairies into a building or town. She'd never heard of spells requiring certain blood levels before—but she also hadn't tried to harness magic in a very long time.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you have to have at least forty-six percent fairy blood to perform it," Penny muttered with a scowl.

Ramona's mind spun, already searching for a solution. "Baby's full-blooded animagus."

"That's not the same as a fairy—or, not exactly. It's all about technicality. That's a shifter, like a werewolf or a selkie. If you needed a shifter it would say that."

"So you need a duster," Ramona said with increasing dread. Duster as in carriers of the stardust plague. It wasn't the nicest way to refer to fairies, but most everyone had a habit of saying it these days.

"Exactly. Someone whose descendants can be traced back to the winged guys from the Wooded Age. Like..." Penny trailed off. Ramona had guilt in her eyes. "Duckie, you're a duster. It's kind of hard to hide it with wings the size of mattresses. Yours are more birdlike, but still."

Ramona shook her head, feeling dizzy. Everything was coming back to haunt her. But she couldn't do this. Not so soon. It's been nearly a decade since you left, the little voice at the back of her mind reminded her. "I—I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Just trust me. I can't do a lick of magic. Can't you—"

"I have a little bit of magical blood somewhere down the line, but it's not enough." Penny's eyes were hard. "Duckie, what have you got against magic?"

Ramona was suffocating. The walls were closing in on her and the bone structure of her wings forced underneath her skin was pressing against her back and she kept hearing their voices, all of them, jeering and yanking her over the roof by her hair... Come on, you little freak. Try and fly. Your wings will save you. Do it. Do it. She grasped the bookshelf for support, lightheaded and disoriented. Her breaths were coming short and fast. She was dangling over the roof of the barn, her eyes shut and her lips sealed, because if she screamed no one would care... "I can't do it, Penny."

"Well, this is your dumb plan. But unless someone decides to reveal surprise fairy heritage, you're the only one who can do it. We've got three useless humans, an animagus, a half-succubus, and you. So are you going through with this or not?"

Ramona swallowed. She closed her eyes and saw her hands, glowing gold veins spreading from her forearms up to her fingertips. She watched her younger self in her mind's eye, face-to-face with a mirror—her mortal enemy—as her hands reached up to press her fingers against the back of her neck. In her memory, she chanted over and over again, through her tears, first a whisper and eventually a scream. Gold shot through her spine. And her wings, mottled and brown and crooked and never properly taken care of and never to be called beautiful, slowly, painfully, retracted into her scapula. She collapsed to the floor, screaming now from the pain, but she'd done it: those damned wings were contorting and twisting their way under her skin where they belonged, leaving behind only a faint web of wing-shaped ribbing as proof they were ever there. She clutched her shoulders, arms crossed tightly over her chest, rocking on the floor until the pain went numb. That had been the first time.

Ramona's eyes flew open. That was a long time ago. Her wings were white now, and bigger, much bigger. She could fly. Ramona Swan. She could retract her external limbs with almost no effort, barely noticeable pain. This wasn't about her wings. But it was about her. Her and her past and whether she could handle facing it again. What have you got against magic? Everything. Everything.

"I'm no good at magic," she forced out finally. "It takes practice."

Penny plopped the spellbook into her hands. "It'll take eighteen hours to get to the airport. That's plenty of time to practice one measly spell."

Ramona clutched the book like a lifeline. Her heart was pounding in her chest. "Yeah," she mumbled. "Yeah."

Penny side-eyed her skeptically. "I assume you're not going to tell me what's wrong, so I won't ask. Here's my fix-all solution for whatever you've got a problem with: seek therapy. Works for everything."

Ramona let out a breathy laugh. "Thanks. But I don't think therapy will make up for years of not touching magic practice."

Penny shrugged. "Eighteen hours is a while."

Hopefully it would be enough.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Me? Writing chapters at a reasonable length again?!?!? It's a miracle! I wish there could be more action in this chapter but alas, sometimes quiet conversations are more impactful to the story than an epic fight scene. Upcoming chapters are on their way so hang with me for a bit (read: a while).

I can't come up with anything to put in the author's note because my mind is so stuffed with writing that I literally cannot think of anything else. So here's today's poll: which July blockbuster are you more excited for, Barbie or Oppenheimer? (Both look awesome to me.)

Toodles.