Adah had once again commandeered the whiteboard in the agency back office to scope out another one of her plans.

  After their date, Rika had insisted that Adah take a second consecutive day off. The first had been for her mind, Rika explained, and the second would be for her body. What that translated to in practice was that she prohibited Adah from leaving the agency office—no light training, no walking to the store, no flying for fun, nothing. If Adah was going to be forced to live under such draconian rules, she argued that she at least needed to be able to return to the mental side of work, which Rika allowed.

  Honestly, Rika wouldn’t have been able to stop Adah from doing whatever she wanted, but after the way their conversation had played out during their date, Adah was taking a defensive approach to any argument. She wasn’t ready to deal with the aggressive variant of Rika again so soon. Thus, she had spent part of the day plotting out her ideas on the whiteboard in preparation for the following day.

  Despite her protests beforehand, Adah had to acknowledge the efficacy of Rika’s forced relaxation regiment. Their date had done wonders for unclogging the channels of her mind, letting her think with clarity and celerity as she wrote out her plan. Perhaps during the downtime, her brain had done the work of connecting the puzzle pieces, leaving Adah to simply translate her ideas into a format other people could understand.

  Those other people were, as Adah named them, her “Magical Carnival Committee.”

  The word “carnival” had been all but forced upon her. The twins had pitched the capstone event of Adah’s plan as a carnival when they spoke with Seliah, so now that was how the witch girl was thinking of it. After that, the Last Light, Seliah, and the members of Fifty Flip had all formed a group chat, which had quickly led to everyone but Adah referring to the event as a carnival. So, in the spirit of avoiding needless arguments, Adah accepted that the event would be called a carnival—at least for planning purposes.

  As for the Committee itself, Adah had gathered everyone whose expertise would be required to run a successful concert. Or carnival. Or whatever this ended up being.

  First and foremost was Grace. Almost everything the agency accomplished was thanks to her ability to organize and prioritize the details. Chances were that the girls—including Adah—wouldn’t show up to half of their obligations on time or fill out half their paperwork without Grace’s management. Adah had also come to understand Grace as a voice of sanity, one that Adah very much needed. If Adah couldn’t explain her ideas in a way that satisfied her manager, then the idea was probably half-baked.

  A mind like Grace’s was essential given the next member of the Committee: Michel. Despite their producer’s laissez-faire attitude toward agency operations, he was the only person there with any real experience in the entertainment industry. He was also the team’s best bet at securing a venue, finding a reliable tech crew, and preparing them to perform on stage. He had proved the strength of his connections through the coaches he’d hired for the team, as well as their collaboration with Lina. Now it was time to see if he could call in a few more favors.

  Of course, the whole event really would end up being nothing but a carnival without Rika’s help. Perhaps they could find help through Michel or Seb’s contacts, but Rika would still be leading the charge on writing new songs for their team to perform. Adah knew she had underplayed the difficulty of pumping out new music—most of which would debut at a live event—which was why it was essential to give Rika a voice in this conversation. Not to mention, there was an even greater challenge facing Rika than producing new music: performing it. Whatever Rika deemed possible (or impossible) would determine the shape this event would take.

  Seb’s input was always valuable as a hardcore magical girl fan himself. He also had access to a perspective that no one else on the team did, with the ability to view the Last Light from a middle distance. He had enough knowledge of the girls and their objectives to make productive suggestions while still understanding what assumptions an outside observer may make of them.

  But Adah’s expectations for him in regards to the carnival went much further beyond that.

  Seb had been a full-fledged member of the team for a while now, as essential to their success as anyone else had been. Yet, Adah knew his potential surpassed the limits of his current duties.

  He was an adept storyteller, and fearless when it came to chasing the photos he wanted to pair with his stories. Neither Cruelty attacks nor trespassing citations could box him in. That was all impressive, but Adah didn’t think that storm-chaser mentality was his greatest talent. Nor was it his real passion. Following around the Last Light, taking their photos, writing about their missions and characters—all of it was a proxy for what he really wanted to do: to be a producer.

  The idea had clicked in Adah’s head back when they were practicing her poses together. His idea for a pose atop a throne wasn’t a one-off gimmick; he had backed up his thoughts with a thesis for why Heartbreak should act a certain way and how adopting his strategy would make it easier for Adah to perform. He had said he was always thinking about those sorts of things.

  That wasn’t how someone who simply wanted to show off his favorite magical girls to other people would think. He wanted to help shape the image of the Last Light, and it was clear he had a good sense of how to do so.

  If they had been a normal agency, Seb could become an assistant producer and get involved with setting the direction of the team while learning from more senior staff members. Unfortunately, their lead producer—while brilliant in his own unique way—was far from the ideal mentor. If Seb spent too much time around Michel, he’d probably end up learning some techniques he’d be better off not knowing.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Instead, Adah wanted Seb to take the creative lead on this event. He would hear out Adah’s goals, figure out what resources Michel could coordinate, and work with Grace to make the event a reality. Once he had insight into all those moving parts of the planning process, he could produce a creative vision for the event—a theme, a schedule that would attract attendees, and any other elements like that. Not only would getting involved in this way help him flex his aptitude as a producer, but it would also relieve Adah of a lot of work she would have otherwise taken on.

  As much as she complained to Rika about it, she was taking her own health seriously. She couldn’t be fighting higher ranked Cruelties in a sleep-deprived daze.

  “And so,” she said to the group assembled before her today, “here we are. The Magical Carnival Committee.”

  While Rika and Grace looked over all the notes Adah had written on the whiteboard—their roles, a proposed event date, every logistical need Adah could think up, and so on—Seb and Michel clapped as if she’d just revealed her latest painting to them. Maybe they already had more in common than Adah had thought.

  “You want to do it the first day of the new year?” Grace asked, immediately digging into the details. “That doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

  “It’s a goal,” Adah said, “but if it’s not possible, we can adjust. The new year would be ideal, though. Most people are off work and already in a festive mood. Plus, there’s no better time to embrace change than the first day of the year. It even matches our objective.”

  “Five songs,” Rika mused. “That’s… possible.”

  “Technically four!” Adah said. “We already have our duet. We could sing it somewhere in the middle of the set together, or maybe just adapt it to include Ami and Emi. That’s something for you to think about, Seb.”

  “The whole team could be fun,” he said. “Live events are a good chance to change up how you normally do things. It’s like: you’ve got to be there or else you won’t get to hear this song in this way.”

  “You’re already thinking in the right mindset,” Adah said. “This job’s going to be too easy for you.”

  Michel pulled out his phone and started typing away, though Adah wasn’t sure if he was taking notes or getting a head start on talking with his contacts.

  “A venue won’t be a problem,” he said. “This region has plenty of space and no one to use it. I’m guessing you’ll want somewhere in Padoux. It’s easy for most people to get to, and it’s home base for your real audience.”

  At that, Grace got up and walked to the whiteboard. She took a marker out of the tray and wrote a single word in large letters above all of Adah’s planning: “HOW?”

  “The event’s a good idea on it’s own,” Grace said, “but how is it going to help us get rid of Thibault? If you drum up all this attention and all you have to say is that this guy sucks, then you’re just going to cause us more trouble. How is what we plan in this room—and what you four do on that stage—going to help accomplish your goal?”

  That was exactly the kind of question Adah had hoped Grace would put to her. It was one she’d been mulling over in her mind more and more since meeting with Ketzia. It was the crux of everything: the risk she was asking the coalition teams to take, the driving force behind the event, and the call to action for every fan who attended.

  In this case, to plan out the future, she had to think about the past.

  “There was something Iris said when we first met,” Adah explained. “It kind of pissed me off at the time, but I think she was right about it. The people here—not the trolls or hardcore fans online, but the actual people of Region 4—support DreamRise unconditionally. We may have grown more popular, but I’m willing to bet a lot of our support comes from places across Letria. If you asked the average person here who the face of Region 4 was, they’d probably still say DreamRise.”

  In fact, what Iris had said may have been true to a degree even she didn’t understand. The support this region showed for one particular team was unlike anything Adah had seen growing up in Region 1. People back home were more likely to champion a particular magic user over a team. If they did care about a team, the majority of fans tended to jump from one group to the next depending on who was trending that month. Even the region’s IndieMagie representative was treated more as an excuse to argue over who deserved the spot than a flag to rally behind. There was nothing like unity among Region 1 fans.

  No doubt it was that kind of unified support from the people of this region that had helped DreamRise reach the IndieMagie finals.

  In the end, Iris had forgotten—or maybe never realized—just how unshakable her region’s adoration was. Ekki had pointed that much out, though he had also pissed Adah off in the process.

  “The people here are passionate about magic users in a special way,” Adah said. “We aren’t celebrities to fawn over or argue about. It’s more like we’re part of the community. Like a neighbor who just happens to fight Cruelties.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Rika agreed. “I even noticed it with that woman at the pastry shop the other day. She didn’t want to take a picture with us or anything like that, she just wanted to give us some food and send us on our way. It was more like how a friend’s mom would treat you than a fan would.”

  “Exactly,” Adah said, “and that’s what Thibault misunderstood. Back during his speech at the fan meet, he talked like he thought it was a matter of regional pride. Like people supported DreamRise so passionately because they made the region look good. That stupid ‘All for One’ slogan, remember? But he misunderstood completely. People didn’t support DreamRise because they thought Iris and Ekki would prove Region 4 was the best or anything like that. They supported them because they saw DreamRise working hard every day at home.”

  Ekki had explained this to her during the IndieMagie as well, though she couldn’t have understood the implications back then. The people here supported local teams because they were local. It wasn’t out of a sense that the region needed strong teams to defend itself, like Thibault had suggested, but because they were happy to see the magic users who walked in their parks and shopped in their stores out fighting to protect those same places.

  That sense of community was the strength of having so few teams. That was the potential Thibault should have tried tapping into.

  Since he had failed to, Adah would try instead.

  “The event’s not about saying Thibault’s a bad guy,” Adah explained. “It’s about saying how we, the teams of Region 4, need everyone’s help. Something is rotten in the city of Padoux, and we need the people to protect us like we’ve been protecting them.”

  While the magic users fought the Cruelties, the citizens could fight the Department of Magic.