Mom talked the whole way home.

  Not the fake small talk she did with customers, either. Real chatter, excited and breathless, words tripping over each other like they were racing.

  “The chemistry building has those hoods you see in professional labs. And the library had a quiet room with antique desks just for writing. And that pool—my God, that pool. It was huge like in the Olympics. You could fit our whole block in there. Twice.”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching the trees blur by my window. “It was…a lot.”

  “And those kids.” She shook her head, turning onto Boston Street. “They walk around like they already know where they’re going in life. Like college is just…a thing that happens. Can you imagine?”

  I could. Sort of. It made my stomach hurt.

  “And Ms. Cho,” Mom went on, fierce admiration in her voice. “That woman has it together. She knows everything that’s going on. She had answers for questions I didn’t even know I had. You could tell she cared, too. Not just about the school, about you. She saw you, Di. Really saw you.”

  “Yeah,” I said again. I remembered the way Ms. Cho’s gaze had landed on me, like I was an equation she was halfway through solving. It didn’t feel like being “seen” so much as being X in someone else’s math.

  Mom didn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm. She was off again. “Full scholarship. Can you believe that? When I asked about fees, she didn’t even blink. ‘Covered,’ just like that. Bus from Canton. Books. Uniform. I had to stop myself from pinching my arm.”

  I stayed mostly quiet. Not because I wasn’t happy—I was. Somewhere under the buzzing panic and the monster stuff, there was a solid, stunned happiness. But it was tangled up with everything else I couldn’t say.

  I couldn’t say: By the way, Mom, she wants to train me to fight monsters you don’t see.

  I couldn’t say: She showed me police reports about me like I was a case file.

  I couldn’t say: Her assistant had a gorgeous winged lizard on his shoulder like a pet.

  So I said, “It’s…a big deal,” and let her fill in the rest with normal things. GPA, AP classes, college lists.

  Somewhere between Fell’s Point and home, she reached over and squeezed my knee. “I know this is scary,” she said. “Starting over in the middle of the year. New school, new kids. But this is good scary, okay? Doors opening. Not…the other things we’ve been dealing with.”

  Everything else. Dad. The precinct. The dare.

  “Okay,” I said, because she needed me to say it.

  We parked behind the triplex. Mom checked the time and sighed. “I’ve got an extra shift at the bar tonight,” she said. “Janine’s kid is sick. I’ll nap for an hour and then go. You should call your friends. Tell them the news.”

  Friends. Jess and Mara, who’d be impressed for exactly five minutes before pivoting back to Tyler’s permit. Sketch, who’d started all of this by following me to a wall and believing me when I said I’d seen something impossible.

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  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll let people know.”

  Upstairs, Mom dumped her purse on the table and went straight for the bedroom with a mumbled, “Wake me at six if I’m not up.” The apartment felt both too small and too big without her voice filling it.

  I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen. For a second I hovered over Jess’s name, then Mara’s. What would I even say? Hey, so I’m leaving in three days to go be a scholarship freak at Northbridge, but don’t worry, it’s not because I painted a skating rink wall and saw a giant murder-worm?

  My thumb slid to Sketch instead.

  Me: You free? Need to debrief.

  Sketch: Yesss. Tell me everything. Did they give you a scepter? A cape? At least a pen?

  Me: Come over? Easier in person.

  Sketch: On my way. If this is about you becoming a wizard, I’m going to be very jealous.

  Me: No wands, promise. Door’ll be unlocked.

  I shoved the phone in my pocket before I could overthink it. Ms. Cho’s warning echoed in my head—You do not discuss what we’ve talked about with other people. Saying yes to this was apparently sign-up for a life of secrets and half-truths.

  But Sketch already knew more than anyone. He’d been there since slime-worm night. He had an entire sketchbook that would get him put on a watchlist if anyone else saw it. If I was “visible,” he was standing way too close to my glow.

  And also, selfishly—I didn’t want to carry this alone.

  He knocked once, then entered. Mom didn’t call out the usual reminder. She was out cold.

  “Hey,” he said, leaving my bedroom door open without being asked. Habit. Respect. Things that made my chest tighten a little.

  “Hey.” I motioned him to my floor.

  We sat in our usual configuration. I held my pillow in my lap like a shield.

  “So. Tell me everything. Did they sort you into a house? Is there a secret underground lake? Do you get a lion on your blazer, or is it more of a majestic goose?”

  I snorted. “You’re unbearable.”

  “Deflection noted.” He tapped the sketchbook with his pencil. “Seriously. How was it?”

  I leaned back against the headboard and tried to pick a place to start. “It’s…big,” I said. “And clean. Like, creepily clean. The main building looks like a mansion from a movie about people with generational wealth. There’s a cupola. I did not know what a cupola was before today. Now I’ve met three.”

  He smiled, “What about the kids?”

  “They look like they were grown in a lab for ‘future leaders of America.’” I made a face. “Blazers, ties, perfect hair. They walk like they’re on their way to accept awards. The swim team walks around in these matching parkas like they own the water. Which, honestly, they probably do.”

  “And the person who interviewed you?”

  I hesitated. Trying to describe her felt like trying to draw gravity.

  “Ms Cho’s…” I groped. “Scary organized. Like if a spreadsheet became a person. She knew stuff about me I didn’t think teachers knew. My grades, yeah, but also all the little comments they write on forms. Reliable, takes initiative, blah blah. Assuming she didn’t make that part up.”

  “So they read your permanent record,” he said. “And instead of using it to yell at you, they offered you Magic School.”

  “There’s no magic,” I said automatically, then bit my tongue. That was…debatable, depending on definition.

  “Did you get in?”

  “Yeah.” The word felt too small. “Full scholarship. Bus from here. Books. Uniform. The works.”

  He whooped once, then clapped a hand over his mouth because Mom was sleeping. “That’s insane, Di. In a good way. You’re going there. You’re actually going there.”

  “Monday,” I said.

  His eyes widened. “Like…this Monday?”

  “Apparently they’re in a hurry.” I twisted the pillow in my lap. “They said a scholarship spot opened up and they didn’t want to waste it.”

  “Because of course your life couldn’t just be normal-timing weird,” he said. Then he caught the way I was mangling the pillow and his smile faded a notch. “Okay. That’s the brochure version. What’s the part you’re not saying?”

  I stared at the wall above his head. The cracks in the paint made tiny rivers. “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” I said. “Like, explicitly. She said not to tell anyone. Not teachers, not cops, not therapists.” I flicked a glance at him. “Not even…friends.”

  He watched me, one brown eye, one blue. “And yet,” he said quietly, “you texted me ‘need to debrief.’”

  “Yeah.” I blew out a breath. “So either I’m terrible at following instructions, or you’re an exception. Maybe both.”

  He didn’t say anything, just quirked one side of his mouth and waited.