Senioritis was possibly Luc’s biggest struggle, even over working multiple jobs and keeping the lights on. It was the little voice that whispered in the back of her mind every day, telling her that she’d be able to do so much more if she just dropped out.

  Of course, she couldn’t. Her only ticket out of this town was getting into college, if she could somehow swing paying for it. Maybe if this deal with Commissioner Blanchet took off.

  She shook the idea away. First, she had to get through school.

  Standing at her locker, Luc pulled out the small lunch box she had and went to close a door when someone caught it from the other side.

  Tobias came leaning around the side of her locker. “You’re joining us for lunch, right?”

  “How could I forget?” she muttered. When he’d suggested it the night before, she hadn’t believed he actually meant it. People said a lot of things and very rarely meant them. But apparently, Tobias actually wanted her to join him for lunch and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  “Great!” He released the locker door, letting her close it. Then he reached out for her lunch box, trying to take it from her.

  She jerked back. “I am not your girlfriend.”

  “God forbid a person try and be chivalrous,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Carry it yourself. I was just trying to be nice.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure your girlfriend would really appreciate you carrying another girl’s things,” Luc said.

  “You’re really obsessed with this boyfriend/girlfriend thing,” Tobias said, shaking his head at her. “You realize how unhealthy that is, don’t you?”

  Luc ignored him, as much as she could as they walked side by side into the cafeteria. She winced at the sheer amount of noise within the space.

  Being a senior, she rarely ate here, leaving like most of the others during lunch period. Except, where the rest of her classmates usually went out to eat, she sat in her car in blissful silence. Why had she agreed to eat lunch with Tobias and his friends?

  “How do you talk in here?” she asked, grimacing as she looked around.

  He shrugged and kept walking, straight through the cafeteria to the door at the back. Brisk fall air met them as they walked out onto the small cement patio outside, a sparse collection of tables already occupied. Luc recognized the two sitting at the wooden table furthest from the door—a pair of twins with golden blond, curly hair. They would have been entirely identical, if one of them hadn’t transitioned in middle school.

  She’d talked to him more than she had to her, but only because Mason was in her English class.

  “Found her,” Tobias declared with satisfaction. He walked around the table, sliding into the seat beside Maisey, an angular blonde who always wore dresses to school and helped out in the library as much as they would allow her.

  She swatted his arm. “Tobias, I can’t believe you made her carry her own stuff!”

  Tobias shot Luc a look that said it was all her fault. “She wouldn’t let me carry it. She’s weird about that sort of thing.”

  “It’s weird to be so insistent on carrying my things,” Luc said, taking a seat opposite them, leaving enough room for someone else to sit between her and Mason.

  “Ignore them,” Mason said, shaking his head. “They have weird, antiquated ideas about chivalry.”

  “It’s not weird,” Maisey said, glaring at her brother. “It’s polite. The world would be a better place if more men truly understood the idea of being chivalrous.”

  “What happened to feminism?” Mason asked.

  “Right, because I’m destroying all of feminism’s progress with my backwards thinking,” Maisey said, rolling her eyes.

  “Just let her have this,” Tobias said. “I really don’t mind carrying people’s things. Makes me feel useful.”

  Luc unzipped her lunchbox as silently as possible, watching the conversation unfold like a deer in the headlights. So not only was Tobias strange, his girlfriend was too. That explained why he wasn’t worried about his meaning being misconstrued when he climbed through her window last night.

  Just must not have been quiet enough, because Maisey swung her head around and stared at Luc with her weirdly wide blue eyes. They were captivating, in that otherworldly, elven way.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. “Tobias told me you got pretty beat up yesterday.”

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  “He exaggerated,” Luc said, shooting him a quick glare. “It was just a scratch.”

  Maisey sighed in relief. “That’s good. I was really worried after Tobias told me everything that happened yesterday. I mean, a little infestation turning into a huge monster?”

  “Well, it didn’t turn into a huge monster,” Luc said. “I got rid of the infestation, and then this manifested. Two different things entirely.”

  “Oh. Isn’t that weird?”

  “It is,” Luc agreed. “Tobias asked me to set up a scanner on the farm to figure out why magic keeps manifesting there.”

  “Probably trying to get Tobias,” Maisey said, pink lips twisting into a smile as she grabbed his shoulder. “Turn him into a magical boy. He’d make such a good one.”

  “No thanks,” he said, shaking his head. “Not interested, not in the slightest.”

  “Oh, but think of the couple we’d make!”

  Luc tilted her head to the side, looking at Maisey in a new light. “You’re a magical girl?”

  “Just recently,” she said, cheeks going rosy. “I haven’t registered yet, or anything, and I barely know how to do anything with my magic, but yeah. I am.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Not really,” Mason said. “She hasn’t decided if she’s going to do anything with it yet.”

  “Because it’s dangerous,” Maisey said. “And I have no idea what I’m doing. Plus, I want to finish school. Could that be why there’s so much magic at the farm?”

  She directed the last question at Luc, who considered it carefully, remembering her own process with manifestation. She hadn’t even noticed it at first, the bits of magic forming around her room and poking at her until she accepted them. Magic sometimes did that. Got so interested in a person it kept showing up until you accepted it. But that was far from the only reason magic manifested in places.

  “Could be,” she said finally. “Or, there’s something else there it really enjoys. It could just be that the farm is a great environment for magic.”

  “Whatever it is, we need to figure it out,” Tobias said. “We can’t exactly have the harvest festival if the place is infested with magic.”

  “Oh yeah. I can probably come over this weekend and start building that monitor, or maybe a barrier?” Luc considered the idea for a moment. Barrier would probably be better, but it wouldn’t let her figure out why magic was so interested in the farm. She’d have to discuss it more with Tobias, and maybe his parents too.

  “We should make it a group thing,” Maisey suggested. “I’d love to see how you use your magic. Also, Toby mentioned something about getting you some more visibility? Something about beating the girl from Mercy West?”

  Luc groaned. “Yeah. I’m now officially Marie Blanchet’s rival, and I got told I don’t have any star power.”

  “And I said it’s not fair for some rich girl to take the spotlight just because she has more money, when Luc clearly has the skills,” Tobias said. “We just need to figure out how to make her into a star.”

  “You could start with that hair,” Mason suggested, side eyeing her. “How did you end up as her rival anyway?”

  The truth caught on Luc’s tongue for a moment, but she decided to speak it anyway. “I’m getting paid for it,” she said with a shrug. “Mages in big cities do this sort of thing to bring in views. They’ll sell merch and stuff like that, make themselves really popular by fighting each other.”

  “So you’re going to be fighting this girl from Mercy West?” Mason asked, then chuckled. “I know plenty of people who’d pay to see that.”

  “We’ll see,” Luc said. “I haven’t even met her yet, not really. And I have no idea when I will meet her.”

  “Maybe when she comes to poach your jobs again,” Tobias said, and Luc glared back.

  “Ew, she’s a thief?” Mason asked. “Yeah, you should definitely fight her.”

  “We’ll see,” Luc said again. She still wasn’t thrilled about the idea of fighting another magical girl, or anyone, for that matter.

  Her phone went off as Maisey started talking about her plans for turning Luc into a star, starting this weekend. A smile stretched across her face as she read over the message from the commission.

  Her magical monitor was ready for pickup, and she was officially reinstated for work.

  “Good over there, Luc?” Tobias asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” she said, still grinning. “I have to go by the commission after school.”

  “Do you think I can come with you?” Maisey asked, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the table. “I’d like to know what all I have to do to get registered.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be a magical girl?” Mason pointed out.

  “I don’t want to get arrested for unregistered magic, either,” she said. “Can I come?”

  “Sure,” Luc said, then thought about it for another moment. “My car is a mess though.”

  Maisey waved her concerns off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll meet you in the parking lot after work?”

  Luc nodded in agreement, and then finished off her lunch right before the bell went off.

  The rest of the school day passed in a rush, with Luc struggling to complete homework before handing it in. When last period came to an end, Luc gathered up her things and made her way into the parking lot, where Maisey was already waiting.

  She hopped up from the rock she’d been sitting on, holding her bag in her lap. “Ready to go?”

  She is so eager. “Ready,” Luc sighed.

  They made their way across the parking lot, just reaching Luc’s car when a car she didn’t recognize came roaring into the parking lot. She wasn’t the only one to stop and watch it, because it stuck out like a sore thumb. It was too nice, too new, better than any other car parked in front of the school.

  The driver slammed on the brakes in front of Luc’s car as her stomach twisted, recognizing the person sitting behind the driver’s wheel of the convertible. Marie Blanchet swiveled toward her, smiling with her perfectly straight, white teeth.

  “Hello, Luc,” she said, smile only widening. “I couldn’t wait to meet you.”

  Maisey leaned over, brushing against Luc’s shoulder. “Who is that?”

  “Marie Blanchet,” Luc said, crossing her arms over her chest. She raised her voice, meeting the girl’s gaze. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to meet my rival,” Marie said.

  “Oh!” Maisey clapped her hands together, and gave Luc a tiny push forward. “The commission can wait, this is your chance to start making a name for yourself. Fight her!”