Jessica Martin…

  She and I have never met, and I doubt we ever will. But I do know a bit about her, as well as what her ultimate fate may be. I wouldn’t call her a suitable teammate for Suravi by any means, but Suravi doesn’t exactly have many other options at the moment. For now, Jessica can show her the ropes.

  There’s another benefit to this arrangement: in accordance with Jessica’s living conditions and current occupation, she and Suravi will have to spend most of their time walking around the city. Amidst all this exploration, I hope Suravi will be lucky enough to lay eyes on what I’m searching for.

  True to what Chip had said, it didn’t take long for Jessica to wake up. Suravi felt her stirring in her arms after walking for only a few minutes. Letting out a groan, Jessica blinked once, twice, then abruptly went stiff as she took in her position for the first time.

  “It’s okay, everything’s fine,” Suravi said, though she found she couldn’t make her voice sound very reassuring. “You passed out, so Chip figured I should take you back…” Suravi trailed off to stop herself before she said the word home.

  “I told her about your, uh, situation,” Chip added apologetically, her telepathic voice reaching up from where she walked at Suravi’s feet.

  Jessica squirmed around a bit, looking from Chip to Suravi, then back to Chip, before settling for smiling up at Suravi. “Thank you.”

  Her smile was earnest, genuine. Suravi couldn’t help but look away with a pang of guilt.

  “I’m sorry you had to lug me all this way,” Jessica continued after a beat. “I didn’t mean to pass out on you, but finishers — like my Blazing Clover Shot, for example — take a lot out of you, and I was already drained from…”

  “From the fight?”

  “From getting my ass kicked,” Jessica said bluntly. “Sorry about that. Not a very good show from your senior, huh?”

  “You’ve only got seniority by three weeks,” Chip chimed in. “Be patient with yourself. Your power’s not gonna shoot up overnight.”

  Jessica sighed. “I know, I know, but I can’t help feeling embarrassed, having to get bailed out like that. And then I fainted, and you had to actually carry me…” Flushing a bit, she turned her head to the side. “Um, speaking of which, you can put me down now. I can walk.”

  “Sure you’ll be okay?” Suravi asked, tilting her head.

  Jessica grinned. “Sure. Nothing can keep me down for long.”

  Suravi was dubious, but lowered Jessica nonetheless. Jessica sprang from her arms to stand on the sidewalk. Just a few steps later, she wobbled, tottering in place.

  When Suravi ran to assist her, Jessica brushed her off. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just stood up too fast.”

  That probably wasn’t the case, but Suravi was too tired to press the issue further. Looking down at Chip, she asked, “Can I revert now? Jessica’s awake, so…”

  “Of course,” Chip replied. “You just have to will yourself to turn back.”

  Okay, right. Closing her eyes, Suravi imagined herself returning to normal, losing her luster and sheen, her hair drooping with grease and sweat, her mouth full of the lingering taste of blood and vomit, her family gone, her world gone, leaving her there, tiny, alone, confused, cowardly, weak —

  Suravi hadn’t realized she’d stopped walking, stopped breathing, until she felt Jessica gently rest a hand on her shoulder. Her shoulder, which was still enclosed in the puffy sleeve of her costume. It wasn’t coming off. She couldn’t go back, there was no way out, she was stuck in this nightmare forever —

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Jessica murmured. “You’re safe now. Breathe, just breathe.”

  Bullshit.

  Safe, out here on the streets, with nowhere to go, with more enemies like Tarot who could jump them at any moment? Safe, when there was a magical card inside her fucking body, a card that would basically lead danger right to her like dogs to a slab of meat? Nope. Not safe. Not even close to something resembling the bare minimum of safety. No way.

  “It’s okay, relax. Reverting’s simpler than you might make it out to be,” Chip tried to explain, though her voice seemed like it was coming from far away. “Don’t overthink it, just relax and let the magic slip away. Maybe try picturing yourself in your normal clothes?”

  Her normal clothes, her shirt and skirt, soaked through with blood. All her other clothes, hung in her closet in Dhaka, on the other side of the world. Might as well be in a different world completely, for all the connections that remained. Here, she was isolated, thrown in over her head apropos of nothing —

  It’s because you’re supposed to be dead, a horrible little voice in her head whispered. You were saved, but nothing will ever be the same. Everything has a price, doesn’t it?

  Suravi’s spiraling was brought to an abrupt stop when Jessica clapped her hands right in front of her face. Startled out of her panic, Suravi stared, wide-eyed.

  Jessica put both of her hands on Suravi’s shoulders, facing her directly. Warmth crept down through her sleeves, into her shivering body. It wasn’t the burning heat of the fire she’d used earlier, but rather something gentler, like standing by a warm stove in fresh dry clothes after getting soaked in the rain. Suravi couldn’t help but lean into the touch; Jessica was basically a stranger, but after so much turmoil, she had to take comfort wherever she could find it.

  “Inhale.”

  Obediently, Suravi began sucking in a long breath.

  “Good, keep going. Take in as much air as you can, and as you do, bring all the stress and tension in with it.”

  Yes, she could do that. Suravi took in the crash, the pain, the fall, the reading, the fight, the screams, even Tarot’s charred flesh, expanding her lungs to full capacity, then held her breath there, everything flashing through her mind too fast to form a coherent thought.

  “Now, I’m going to count down from three, and when I reach one, you’re going to breathe out and let it all go. Force it out if you have to, okay?”

  Suravi nodded.

  “Three….two…one.”

  On the last word, Jessica gave Suravi’s shoulders a little squeeze, sending a shot of warmth down her spine. Suravi let all her breath out — let everything out — in one strong huff. Out went the tension and the swirling memories, and she could feel something else, something indescribable, leaving her body. A glowing vapor, inky blue, trailed off her costume and hair, fading into the air within seconds. When the magic was gone, Suravi was left in her bloody clothes.

  Immediately, a wave of dizziness and exhaustion hit her, and she stumbled forward, losing her balance, and fell right into Jessica's arms with a tiny oomph. For just a tiny moment, she was in Jessica's embrace, and it felt like she was soaking up the first rays of sunshine after a monsoon; a gentle sort of warmth, not all that hot, but very welcome after such a big storm. The next moment, Suravi remembered herself and broke away, stepping back until she and Jessica were about a foot apart, then took a few more steps for good measure.

  "Sorry," Suravi mumbled, looking away. "I felt a little sick, but I'm okay now."

  "No, no, it's fine," Jessica reassured her. "It's understandable. I'm sure you'll feel better once you eat and get some rest."

  Suravi shook her head. "I'm already better. You don't need to worry."

  Jessica opened her mouth to argue, then paused, as if she'd thought better of it. Instead, she rifled through her jacket's pockets, finally pulling out some kind of plastic snack bag. "You should still have a little something. I mean, when was the last time you ate?"

  "Lunch. Probably around noon," Suravi recalled. "And then we set out in the car to drive my sister home, and now..."

  "And now it's night."

  "Night in America. There's a big time difference between here and Dhaka."

  "On top of that," Chip piped in, "we don't know how much time passed between the crash and Suravi's arrival. Suravi, I overheard some of your conversation with Tarot, before I flew back to tell Jessica, and you said you don't remember what happened after the crash, correct?"

  "I mean, I remember bleeding to death," Suravi said dryly.

  "W-well, okay, yeah," Chip stammered, "but you, uh, didn't. Die, that is. Somehow, someone saved you, and healed you with the Spade Trump Card, but you don't remember any of that, right?"

  Suravi shrugged. "I can't exactly remember things that happen while I'm unconscious."

  "Right, yes, of course! But we still don't know how long that healing took. It could be anywhere from hours to days since that lunch in Dhaka. Magic works differently for different people, you know. Anyway, my point is, uh, you should have some nuts." Chip tucked her head under her wing for a moment, embarrassed. "Sorry, that was a bit of a roundabout way to tell you to eat..."

  Jessica unrolled the top of the bag and handed it to Suravi. "You're not allergic to almonds, are you?"

  "No, I'm not. Thank you," Suravi replied.

  When she looked down into the bag, she saw that there was only a handful of almonds left, a thin layer covering the bottom. She frowned; was this all Jessica had? Was she draining the food supply of an already desperate girl? There really wasn't enough to share, unless they were fine with having about four almonds each.

  Weird, she thought, staring at the almonds. I can see their outlines easily, even in the middle of the night. I'm starting to make out more details of my surroundings the longer I stay here. I really don't think I should be able to read the ingredient list when there's no light, and yet…

  "Hey, it's okay," Jessica said, pulling her from her thoughts. "You can have them all. I'll get more, no problem."

  Suravi wasn't sure how Jessica made her money, but a bag of almonds wasn't worth that much, right? It was fine. Permission granted, Suravi gave in to her growing hunger and started popping almonds into her mouth. Her throat was dry, and it stung from retching up bile earlier, but she was too hungry to mind; besides, the taste of almonds drowned out the metallic notes of Tarot's blood that still lingered.

  The little group began to walk again, with Jessica taking the lead. As she walked, she looked back over her shoulder at Suravi, and asked, "So, has Chip explained anything so far?"

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  "Chip mentioned a fairy world called the..." Suravi tilted her head, trying to remember the long title Chip had given. "The Celestial...Stream?"

  "The Celestial Banks of the Stream of Light, Running Parallel Through the Yonder," Chip corrected. "Well, that's the English version the Queen picked, anyway. The original name's in Chinese. But either way, it's way too wordy, so we usually just call our world the Parallel, although it's not really a different world, per say. Neither is the Other Side. Both are reflections of the real world, the one we're in.

  "The Parallel is a reflection of the best parts of human civilization, everything it considers precious, and all it could grow to be; an abstract representation of that, all bathed in the radiance of the Lightstream that flows through its center. The Other Side is the opposite: it reflects the worst of civilization, everything it wants to cast aside, and all the ways it could fall apart. It has its own dark river in its center, and that's —"

  "That's where the Shades come from," Suravi finished. "Boys like Tarot. You told me that earlier. I think Tarot mentioned it as well."

  "Right, right. They spawn from the dark river, from a current of everything wrong with the world. So if you're wondering why Tarot was so cruel, that's why. It's his nature."

  Suravi shrugged. "Plenty of humans can be that cruel, without any supernatural nature behind it."

  "You're right about that," Chip said with a sigh. "Still, Shades are much more destructive than your average human murderer. They have magic, as you saw, and they use it to stir up chaos and feed their river. They can also control monsters, and —"

  "Monsters?"

  "Sometimes, lost items wind up drifting into the Other Side," Jessica explained. "No one knows why that happens, it just kinda...does. Or sometimes, Shades take items from the real world back home with them. Either way, when inanimate objects are swept into the river, they're soaked through and imbued by its power, and they warp into monstrosities. Sometimes they come to the real world attack on their own, but usually, a Shade commands them. That's actually what our finishers are for: when we give a monster a good hit with a finisher, it purifies the item and dissolves the river water. If we just destroy the monster with regular attacks, the water seeps out and warps something else nearby. But finishers are strong moves in general, so they're good against Shades, too — it's just that Shades only need to be killed, not purified. They don't have river water in them."

  "But they come from the river..." Suravi began, then trailed off as she recalled the end of the fight with Tarot. "When you blasted Tarot's arm off, he started...leaking."

  "Leaking smoke, not water," said Chip. "That's the gaseous form of river water; instead of vapor, it evaporates into black smoke. That smoke is a Shade's essence. They still have blood, flesh, and vague semblances of bones and organs, but if you go deep down past the outer layer, the inner parts of their bodies are made of smoke. If they're cut deeply enough, it starts spilling out, and if they can't regenerate fast enough, they leak to death and their bodies dissolve into even more smoke."

  "They can regenerate?"

  "If they can get back to the dark river, yes, they have a little soak in there and everything gets healed. So, while they're ultimately more fragile than humans, they don't suffer from wounds like you do."

  "Tarot's probably doing that right now," Jessica added. "That, and telling the others all about you. They must be just as confused by you having your card in your chest as we are. I'm sure they'll come after you before long. We have to be prepared for a tough fight. If we practice our teamwork enough, I'm sure we can pull through."

  Jessica gave Suravi an encouraging smile, and the words Suravi was about to say — I'm never fighting again — fizzled out on her tongue. Somehow, it was so much easier to tell that to Jessica's annoying pigeon companion than to Jessica herself, who'd been so warm, so reassuring...actually, when she thought about it, Suravi guessed it wasn't all that surprising that she didn't want to let Jessica down. This couldn't continue forever, though; she was glad to learn about the Shades, so she knew what to look out for, but soon, she had to make it clear that she wasn't here to be Jessica's teammate.

  No, Jessica, I'm just here as your burden.

  Clenching her fists, Suravi forced that nasty thought from her head and brought up something else she had on her mind. "So, I know my, um, card placement isn't normal, but Tarot seemed like he knew something about it. He said he had friends who could help me if I went with him to the Other Side, and when I refused, he tried to kidnap me. Still, about what he said..."

  "By 'friends,' he definitely meant the other three Shades, and by 'help you,' well, they could certainly help hold you down, slice you open, and rip the Spade Trump Card from your corpse," Jessica responded, lowering her voice.

  Suravi couldn't help but flinch at the morbid description, placing a hand over her chest, right where the card was supposedly embedded. Tarot had certainly been willing to kill her, and Jessica too, but had that really been his goal from the beginning? "If he wanted me dead back then, why didn't he just kill me the moment he spotted me? No one else was around, and it's easier to transport a corpse than drag a resisting girl through a mirror. Are you guys sure we're not misinterpreting things?"

  "He probably just wanted to interrogate you first," Chip said, a warning in her tone. "Don't let him deceive you — he's a manipulative liar."

  "I'm not deceived," Suravi snapped. "I'm just thinking about things. I mean, he tricked me at first, but I saw through him eventually. His voice was just...really warm, for some reason. It put me at ease."

  Jessica nodded. "That's one of his passive abilities — magic that he can use even when he's not transformed. His voice entrances people. The more you listen, the more convinced you are by what he's saying, even if you normally wouldn't be. You just have to keep reminding yourself that he's a liar, but that's easier said than done, I know."

  That made a lot of sense. Tarot's words had filled her with a relaxing warmth, but looking back with a clear mind, it had felt too soothing, almost numbing. It had felt artificial. If Jessica was like sunshine, then Tarot was a too-bright fluorescent light, shining right into her eyes. Too much all at once, leaving her too stunned to think straight. It was scary to think about how easily he'd gotten her under his thrall.

  "We're in the home stretch," Chip announced a few minutes later. "Just a little bit more walking, and then you can rest."

  Good. Exhaustion was slowly but surely overwhelming Suravi, and at this point, she'd lay down just about anywhere. Even under Jessica's bush.

  "Before we rest, I want to give you a rundown on the other Shades, so you know how to spot danger," Jessica said. "The other stuff can wait until tomorrow, but this is important. You never know when we could get jumped."

  "Right," Suravi replied, nodding. "So there's Tarot, of course, and he has his cards and his voice, but who else is there?"

  "Conquian."

  Suravi flinched a little at the venom in Jessica's voice. She had hissed out the name like it was a curse, with more vitriol than she'd showed during the entire fight with Tarot, even as he'd kept misgendering her.

  "I, uh... I take it he's bad?"

  "They're all bad. Hideous monsters in human form. They might look like us, but they're more like demons. They're murderers, tempters, terrorists. They want nothing more than to wreck our world until it's indistinguishable from the Other Side." Jessica glared at the ground, hands clenched into fists. "But Conquian, he's just awful. He does the same shit as the others, but his demeanor, his justifications... He's a greedy, materialistic snob. Calls me a freeloader, just because I have to sleep on the street. Acts like monetary values are the sole measure of your worth. I'm gonna burn his smug face to a crisp one of these days, just you wait!" Jessica paused, sighing. "Really, though, in terms of crimes, he's not anything out of the norm — for Shades, I mean. It's just kinda...personal, I guess. You could say I have a bit of a vendetta."

  Wow, really? A vendetta against the guy you've been ranting about? I had no idea, Suravi thought sarcastically. Still, it wasn't as if she could blame Jessica for having a personal issue with one of her enemies. If the Shades all acted like Tarot, it was a wonder that Jessica hadn't snapped and gone on a rampage on the Other Side yet.

  "But in terms of combat abilities," Chip interjected, redirecting the conversation, "Conquian can summon a crossbow and fire magic bolts. He's more likely to snipe you from a tall building than to challenge you to your face. You can identify him by his eyes — they're an impossibly bright blue, almost like a neon light, and they glow a bit in the dark. In fact, you can always tell a Shade from a normal boy by their unnatural eyes; they're strange colors, or they have odd patterns, and they always glow."

  Suravi nodded. "Noted."

  That explains why Tarot's eyes are pink.

  "Pinochle is one of those Shades with patterned eyes," Jessica continued. "They're a normal shade of brown, but they have a bunch of rings around the pupil, kinda like the inside of a tree. You can also recognize him by the clothes he wears -- he always dresses a little on the old-fashioned side. He's the oldest Shade — not that they ever age, but he's been around way longer than the others — and he uses a stone staff in combat. He can make earthquakes and shit, it's freaky. Other than that, I don't know much about him. I don't think there's really all that much to learn, anyway. He's just a dumb thug."

  "You shouldn't underestimate him, Jessica," Chip scolded, ruffling her feathers. "He's a thug, sure, but he's the kind of thug who's been able to survive since 1947. He has to have more than brute strength on his side."

  "I mean, some people just get lucky, but yeah, point taken. Anyway, the last Shade is Piquet. I haven't actually encountered him yet, but Addie told me a few things: he spawned at a younger age than the other three, he's got these acid-y green eyes, and he can fly. Or, well, float, or levitate, or...something. He definitely doesn't have wings. And it's a passive ability, too! It honestly makes me kinda jealous."

  "Me too," Suravi admitted. "I'd love to be able to fly. But who's Addie?"

  The awkward silence that followed seemed to stretch into an eternity. It was enough time for Suravi to spot a trash can and throw the empty bag of almonds away, at the very least. Clearly, Suravi shouldn't have asked. Maybe Jessica hadn't meant to mention this Addie person; maybe something personal had slipped out without her realizing it. Suravi could sympathize.

  "Addison. My sister," Jessica finally said, her voice much quieter than before. "She was the Lucky Clover before me."

  Did she quit, or was she killed? Suravi fought to repress a shudder. I probably shouldn't ask right now. It's too sensitive of a subject.

  That syntax, the phrasing that never specified whether or not someone was alive, was something Suravi was very familiar with. She'd used it too many times to count when describing her father. If people assumed her father was dead, she'd get pity and condolences; if they knew he'd just walked out on his own family, there would certainly be rumors, gossip, fingers pointed — all too often, at her mother.

  Addison, however, seemed like a good person, a helpful sister and senior magical girl. There was no way Jessica could be using that syntax to be purposely deceitful, but even if she was, Suravi would never judge. She didn't have that right.

  Not knowing what to say, Suravi fell silent, and the quiet persisted until the narrow road the trio had been walking on spat them out into an empty parking lot. A chain-link fence bordered the lot, much of it swallowed up by large bushes -- one of which, Suravi knew, had to be Jessica's hideout. Distantly, she could hear cars whizzing down a highway somewhere just out of sight, but the noise didn't seem too obtrusive, at least not at night.

  Jessica perked up when the fence and bushes came into view. She broke into a run, racing to the tallest bush, and struck a goofy pose. "And here we are! Welcome to la casa de Jessica!"

  "...What?"

  Jessica moved out of her pose, scratching the back of her head sheepishly. "It's, uh, Spanish. It means 'Jessica's house.' Just thought some gratuitous Spanish would sound witty and charming...don't really know what I was thinking..."

  "No problem," Suravi said, waving her hand. "I'm just grateful for all the help. I don't mean to impose."

  Especially when you clearly have so little.

  "You're not imposing, not at all," Jessica reassured her. "You don't have anywhere else to go right now; there's no way I'd just leave you alone! Magical girls have to look out for each other."

  Again, Suravi flinched. With enthusiasm like that, how was she supposed to let Jessica down gently? Surely, she'd be despondent…

  Jessica didn't seem to have seen her face in the dark — even though by now, Suravi's eyes had somehow adjusted so much that she could make out every detail of Jessica's almost giddy expression — and she happily hummed a vaguely familiar pop song as she bent down and lifted some of the bush's lower branches, revealing a sizeable gap. Within, Suravi could see a tattered cloth laid out that looked like it could be either a very soft towel or a very rough fuzzy blanket, as well as an old tote bag filled to the brim, and a plastic trash bag stuffed with...wait, was that actually trash? Why would Jessica sleep with a bag of junk?

  Shrugging aside her thoughts, Suravi followed Jessica under the bush's spreading branches, ducking low to enter. There wasn't enough space to stand, so they sat down on the towel-blanket thing, while Chip perched outside on a thick branch.

  "Sorry for the clutter," Jessica said, "but I can't always keep my stuff with me due to, y'know, magical girl duties, so I stash it here when I have to. If I didn't hide it, or if my spot was in a more crowded part of the city, it would be stolen within a minute. People get desperate when they have nothing left." She paused, then shook her head, as if to clear it. "Anyway, I think there should be enough room for us to both lie down on the towel."

  Ah, so it was a towel. That was one mystery solved.

  Suravi and Jessica settled down, lying on their sides on opposite ends of the towel. Suravi's blood-soaked clothes stuck to her skin, chilling her, and the towel only provided the bare minimum of comfort against the cracked asphalt and dirt, but even so, she stuck to the very edge of the towel, to the point that she was lying half on the bare ground, so that she and Jessica wouldn't touch while they slept. As much as she craved warmth, she barely knew Jessica; sleeping so close together would be very inappropriate.

  After several minutes, Jessica whispered, "I'm glad you're here."

  Suravi didn't say a word.

  "I mean, I'm not glad about the accident, or what you've been through today. I wish none of that had ever happened to you, truly," Jessica clarified nervously. "I'm just happy that I'm not alone anymore. I have Chip, of course, but she can't fight alongside me. I've only been Lucky Clover for three weeks, but it's been enough to make me want a partner desperately. It's almost like fate guided me to you, don't you think?"

  Jessica's words were met with more silence.

  "Sorry, you're probably asleep already," Jessica murmured. There was a rustle of fabric as she turned over. "Good night, Suravi."

  The way she said her name sounded almost reverent, and Suravi couldn't stand it.

  I'm so sorry, Jessica. Soon, before I get too attached, I'll have to break your heart.

  Perspective makes a world of difference, doesn't it? We all make so many assumptions throughout our lives, but we can never truly know how others feel, or what secrets they hide. We just have to keep soldiering on, hoping we've found the right approach.

  I've seen too many lesser beings die from taking the wrong one.