This answer seems to pacify Kathy. “I did. But I meant like school functions, not comic-con panels.”
“You should’ve specified,” Milo replies. But before she can chide him for back-talking, he turns and throws up his arms. “Bran! Right on time. We just got back, too.”
“Nice to see you, babe.” Bran Simons, Milo’s boyfriend, stands on the other side of the booth, laden with three bags of collectors’ items. He gives Milo a smile as bright as the sun, lighting a spark in his dark eyes. He is short, like me, and a little waifish, all ear-cuffs and close-cropped hair and bronze skin. He offers Milo the bags, careful not to disturb the meticulously stacked Sailor Moon collectible keychains. Milo takes them and heads to the back of the booth. Bran and Milo met last year in high school, in astronomy lab, but I think they spent more time studying each other’s astrological compatibility than learning about solar physics.
He slides behind the booth as Kathy attends to a customer. “So how’s your con going?”
“It’s going. You?”
Bran sighs. “I’m trying to convince your brother to go to a viewing of Demolition Man at three a.m.”
“Yikes. You know he likes sleep.”
“I’m hoping he likes me a little more. I like your hair by the way—is it fresh?”
“It is.” A brightly hued lock sticks out from my beanie, which I sheepishly pull off. My hair is normally a mousy brown, like Milo’s, but pixied. I dyed it just before ExcelsiCon. I like how the pink looks with my gray eyes. I don’t really resemble either of my moms, although Kathy carried both Milo and me. I look like the sperm donor, apparently. My brother has Kathy’s button nose, which I’m envious about.
Milo emerges again from the back, fixing his snapback. “Whoa, whoa, who’s contesting my love?”
“He is,” I say, pointing to Bran. “Demolition Man with your boyfriend at three a.m. or sleep?”
Milo wilts and looks pleadingly at Bran. “Uh, do I have to choose?”
“You can sleep in the theater.”
“Deal.”
My brother squeezes out of the side of the booth, nodding to a customer looking at the Dick Grayson/Nightwing collectible figurine—you know, the one with the really, really sculpted buttocks. Everyone who passes by looks at it. I look at it.
For hours.
Milo and Bran bid us goodbye, and my moms don’t even ask where he’s going or when he’ll be back. They never do. They always ask me, but then again Milo’s never in the wrong place at the wrong time, or delivering someone’s homework to a house party when the cops show up, or getting in a fender bender at one in the morning without a driver’s license, or—
You get the idea.
My phone dings and I take it out. To my surprise, it’s Harper.
HARPER (4:55 PM)
—Can’t wait till tomorrow!
—Should I wear a name tag? Dress in a certain color? Hold up a sign that says
—FANGIRL TRASH UNITE?
IMOGEN (4:57 PM)
—LOL I think you’ll recognize me!!
—AND I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU!!
—Oh, I am also wearing your beanie so I’ll be really easy to spot~
—And thank you so much for handing out those pins today!
HARPER (4:57 PM)
—Well duh. I want to save Amara too!
—BUT OH! Speaking of Amara—did you hear what happened on the panel today?
I cringe and lean back against the booth’s table, which starts to wobble. A $300 Supergirl tilts precariously, but I save her in time and step away from the figurines. My moms are talking to customers, blissfully unaware.
IMOGEN (4:59 PM)
—Oh, no. What happened…?
HARPER (4:59 PM)
—Jessica Stone said she loves Amara—even though we all know she’s faking it.
—She must’ve gotten told off by her agent or something.
—It was weird.
IMOGEN (4:59 PM)
—You were there?
HARPER (5:00 PM)
—I got someone to cover my booth. Couldn’t miss it.
—Hey, suddenly got a line of customers—can’t wait to meet you!
Ha, yeah. Except you kinda already met me but just didn’t know it. I frown and stare at Harper’s texts. I mean, of course people would think Jessica Stone’s faking it, after she spent almost a year not caring one iota about Starfield or the fandom. I don’t know what she had to worry about with me.
It’s not like I can magically change her image.
Minerva sidles up beside me and gestures regally to the throne. “You should try it.”
I put my phone away. “Building a throne of toys?”
“Sitting on it. It’d be a waste for it to go unattended.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, maybe if I was ten. I have to go hand out some more buttons and help you with the booth and—”
Minerva stops me with a delicate maroon-clawed hand. “Monster,” she says lovingly, “breathe, slow down, take your time.”
But how can I, when everyone else is lightyears ahead of me?
“But—”
“Sit.”
I shoot her a look that I hope means I don’t want to sit, but she is unrelenting. Giving in, I climb onto the throne of boxes. It’s a lot higher than I thought. I can see a few rows down, past the banners and the shelving and the booths, almost all the way to the life-sized Prospero display.
It…isn’t half bad up here. Quiet. Not actually quiet, but kinda what it’d sound like if I was sitting on the Iron Throne, or looking out over Pride Rock to a kingdom where no kingdom should exist, here for four days and then gone.
This is my kingdom. This is where I grew up, where I cut my teeth on fan battles and shipper wars, and the sight fills me with…what?
Glorious, insatiable possibility.
Because I am a nobody, but I’m a nobody who wants to leave the world a little brighter than when she arrived.
Minerva was right, and she’s looking up at me knowing she was right. “So? How’s the view, Princess?”
Gloriously full of possibilities. I’ll meet Harper IRL tomorrow and avoid Jasper (aka He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named) for the rest of forever, get some kick-ass fan art and save Amara. I just know I will.
I hope I will.
I have to.
I sit up straight and languidly cross one leg over the other, then I quote Princess Amara in her familiar Noxian lilt: “The horizon’s wide and I have a kingdom to rule.”
Minerva cracks a smile.
THE STREETS BELOW ME THRUM WITH a strange Thursday night madness. It feels like the hours before a big concert, tension in the air so alive it’s almost electrifying. Except a concert lasts a few hours and I’m stuck at this con for four days.
Four whole days.
I don’t understand the allure of any of it. The crowds, the lines, the waiting. And I definitely don’t understand dressing up like it’s Halloween—cosplaying, as Dare often corrects me. Ethan’s in the bathroom changing out of his mock-cosplay; he’s shirtless, and sure he’s pretty cut, but my eyes don’t really linger. He’d be a catch if someone burns all of his nerd T-shirts and puts him in some jeans that actually show he has a butt.