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she really expected me to wear these. “But I have shoes.”
    Mom hesitated.
    â€œRory, you couldn’t get those any rattier even if you sprayed them with mud and then threw them in the garbage disposer,” Amy said.
    My sneakers were stained with dirt and grass, the laces were fraying, and there was a hole at the ankle. I would probably outgrow this pair soon anyway, but they had sentimental value. They had survived almost as many battles as I had.
    Even my family thought I needed to improve my look. The girls at school usually told me so, but this was the first time I’d ever heard about it from Mom and Amy.
    â€œYour tennis shoes are fine for visiting Lena,” Mom added. “But you need something to wear if Mrs. LaMarelle wants to take you someplace nice. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
    I didn’t mind wearing flats every once in a while, but if I wore them at EAS, they would fall off if I had to do something intense . . . like dodge an ice griffin or slay some dragons. I tried a different tactic. “But isn’t this kind of overkill? Couldn’t we have started out with sparkly shoes from Target or something?”
    â€œIs that all? Your mom wore them during filming. Wardrobe comes as a bonus. Those were free,” Amy explained.
    â€œIt’s nice that you and I are the same size now,” Mom added. “I get more samples than I know what to do with.”
    We were only the same size in shoes.
    My feet had shot out in the last year, forcing me out of kids’ sizes forever. My hands had also gotten huge, but I didn’t mind that so much—I could grip my sword hilt easier. Mom and Amy both swore that this meant I was going to be tall, but so far I just had clownishly big hands and feet. And that Mom forced some of her hand-me-downs on me.
    Sometimes you have to pick your battles. I wasn’t getting out of town without the shoes. “Okay. Thanks, then.”
    Amy and Mom both smiled, and then the phone rang. “Ooh! Maybe someone had a cancellation!” Amy said before answering. “Hello. Assistant to Maggie Wright speaking.”
    The rest of the evening passed in a blur of last-minute packing. When I said good night, Mom was standing in front of the mirror, tilting her head in a million different directions, looking for what her stylist had seen. Climbing into bed, I vowed to never go into any business where finding gray hair turned into a career emergency.
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    That night, I dreamed of satiny black hair flowing around a beautiful face. Her eyes were closed, the long lashes casting spiky shadows over her cheeks. Her lips were perfectly shaped, tinged with a delicate pink, like they belonged on a painted figurine. I started to wonder what Mia’s deal was, and why her hair was spread flat over the table, and if maybe she was practicing for a Tale where she got kissed. Then my gaze fell below her chin.
    It was Mia’s head—and only her head—resting on the table.

he next day at school was a totally different nightmare.
    Somebody thought we kids needed to bond before we left on break for nine and a half days, so they scheduled an extra thirty minutes of homeroom after last period. Clearly, the principal had never been a twelve-year-old girl.
    My homeroom only had five kids. It was easy to understand why if you met the other four girls in it. Everyone else had transferred out rather than spend extra time with Madison and the KATs.
    I was first in the class, even before the teacher. I shoved away the urge to hide in the bathroom for the next half hour, and I glanced out the window. The red door of the house across the street could take me to EAS. Ellie had set it up as part of the Door Trek system when I first started school here.
    Geez, I had faced down a flock of griffins yesterday without much fuss. I could handle homeroom.
    All four girls in Madison McDermott’s little