“Let me get this straight,” Cami said, drumming her fingers on her phone case. “You want me to go to an abandoned cult-barn with you because there might be a magical witch there giving you free powers?”

Helena hesitated, avoiding her eyes. Then she said, “Well, the abandoned part makes it less culty.”

“Still pretty culty. And your track record with strangers kind of sucks.” When Helena winced, she asked, “Too soon? I’m sorry.”

Helena leaned back against the couch. “I mean, you’re already here. Might as well make it a proper date and all.”

A hot blush shot up Cami’s cheeks. "A proper date?”

“Oh, uh.” Helena laughed, a high and anxious sound. It didn’t suit her. “I just think there’s nothing more romantic than investigating abandoned cult-barns.”

“And here you were trying to tell me it wasn’t culty,” Cami muttered, taking a sip of her ice water. She studied the glass it’d come in: pink and blue hearts dappled the sides, a hand-painted pattern. Probably made by someone here.

Really, just about everything in Helena’s house was made by someone here. Paintings covered every wall, mostly figure studies gone haywire: at some point, they’d probably been of normal bodies, but now there were so many eyes, wings, and arms, it was hard to tell what they’d looked like before. On every window sill lay succulents in hand-sculpted pots, pots framed by hand-carved gemstones.

And of course, there was the homemade Flatwoods Monster cutout across the hall. If Cami tilted her head just right, she could see it through the crack into Helena’s bedroom door, those wide, blank eyes just staring back…

Cami stuck her tongue out at it.

Helena poked her in the ribs. “Don’t bully Candace. She’s sensitive.”

Cami yelped. “Why are your nails so sharp? I felt that through my sweater.” She rubbed where she’d been jabbed. It was like getting snagged by a thorn bush.

“To slice my enemies to ribbons, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Cami echoed, dragging the word out. “But you still need my help, don’t you?”

Helena rolled her eyes. “I’m not going up against a witch without some backup. And you have your powers now, right?”

“Not yet,” Cami admitted. Her gaze switched to the glass again. “Trintio keeps putting it off.” First, it’d been something about the moon cycle. Then, something about the weather. “And he can’t lie, so I guess there's good reason. He keeps saying he wants it to be the best possible Awakening.”

“That could still be a lie, y’know,” Helena said.

“How so?”

“Well, like, maybe doing it on a full moon or whatever he’s calling for isn’t necessary.” Helena stood, stretching her arms out. “Fairies can’t lie, but they can play with the truth. Maybe it’s like when you want to plan a wedding around the weather, y’know? You can have a wedding on a rainy day, but most people prefer sunshine.”

It’d never occurred to Cami until now, but that actually made a lot of sense. “He’s, like, a million years old, so he’s probably learned how to bend the truth a bit.” She groaned, her head in her hands. “Why the fuck is he putting it off, then?”

“We’ll be here all day if you try and make sense of that guy.” She offered Cami her hand. “C’mon. Let’s get me some super-sketchy superpowers."

~

Cami had fond memories of the lake. Mainly because it was at the edge of town, and that meant she was leaving. Whether it was a field trip or visiting some relatives, it was the small town’s last hurrah before it gave way to the surrounding pines.

She vaguely remembered, some years ago, someone had tried to build a water park here.

“Do you think Wetbabes Waterpark was cancelled because of the cult-barn?” Cami asked Helena as their bus pulled to a stop.

“I think that might’ve had more to do with the name,” Helena replied dryly. She stood, and the two of them hopped off. “I mean, what the hell were they thinking, naming it Wetbabes?”

“Babes can mean baby, in old-fashioned speak,” Cami pointed out. “I think they were going for a whole fairytale vibe.”

“Because nothing says fairytales like tall-ass waterslides, huh?”

Cami snickered. “You’re funny, Hel.”

“I’m just compensating,” Helena said. Her hand drifted to her rose quartz, and she smiled almost sheepishly.

“Compensating?” Cami echoed, incredulous. “What’re you compensating for? I mean, look at yourself.”

The pendant dropped. Helena looked at Cami, and Cami tried to look back, to meet her eyes. They were a deep, dark brown, almost like a tunnel to somewhere far, far away.

“Cami, what’re you trying to do?” she asked, her head tilting to the side. It was an appraising gesture.

Not the response Cami had expected. “I’m… complimenting you?” It came out as a question. “You know, I was asking what you’d be compensating for, because… you’re really… um…” Her voice petered out. She needed words, but her mind was elsewhere. Feelings, images, ribbons of sound and sensation. But no words.

“I lit your table on fire,” Helena deadpanned.

“You did do that.”

“I left you for dead at the Halloween party,” she went on.

“Agree to disagree.” Cami didn’t even remember most of that night, really. “You’d just hit it off with someone else.”

“And then they tried to maul me.”

“But they didn’t.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they just mauled Cassidy instead. I got someone mauled.”

“What’s your point?” Cami asked. All of this, because she’d tried to compliment someone. Maybe I messed up somehow. Maybe I hurt her feelings. Goddammit.

“My point,” Helena said, stopping in her tracks, “is that I don’t know how you haven't, like, kicked me out or something. All I’ve done is screw you over! I mean, hell, I’m dragging you to an abandoned cult-barn. I didn’t want to go alone, and I knew you were going through a lot, but for some stupid reason I brought you here, and for some stupid reason you actually came. God, I…” She scoffed, shaking her head. “I should’ve invited Rachel or someone.”

Cami’s heart picked up, beating hard against her ribs. “Did you not want me to come? I thought you--”

“I did, but I shouldn’t have.”

“You…” Cami needed a minute to string it together. “You wanted me to come, but you shouldn’t have wanted me to come?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “What does that even mean?”

“It means… it means…” Helena groaned, her head in her hands. “Goddammit, Cami. You’re too nice. You’re so forgiving and sweet, and I don’t get it at all. I really like you, but I shouldn’t, because I know I’m--”

“You like me?” Cami blurted out. That’d hit like a meteor, and suddenly nothing else she heard mattered. “Wait. Wait. Go back. Y-You don’t get to just…”

Helena’s bravado dissolved. She clutched at her pendant. “What?”

“You like me,” Cami said again, more statement than question. “That’s what you said. Did you mean it, like...”

A high, uneasy whine sliced through the air. Cami’s words died unspoken: that was the sound of a door opening.

And the only building here was…

Cami’s head whipped around. Sure enough, a stranger stood at the barn entrance, leaning against the doorframe without a care in the world.

Helena waved at them. Without looking to Cami, she said, “This is Rainbow. Hopefully, they’ll promote me from being the token human, so I can protect myself and the others can protect Jane. Or they just want to murder me, and you’ll save my life.”

Cami gulped. “I don’t know a lot about lifesaving.”

Helena took her by the arm, and the two of them ambled over, closing the space between themselves and the barn, themselves and Rainbow.

“Shouldn’t be that hard to learn,” Helena said breezily. “If they try to stab me, use your fairy powers to teleport us out of here. Or fly. Or something.”

“The only time I ever teleported, it’s because I got sensory overload,” Cami admitted. “And I’ve never tried flying before.”

“You have wings.”

“I don’t know how to use them!”

As they got into earshot, Rainbow clapped their hands together and exclaimed, “Okay, don’t tell me. I know I’ve got this one. It’s the fairy, right? Um, Carla?”

“Camilla,” Helena corrected before Cami could. “Her name is Camilla, and she’s here in case things go south. Not that I don’t trust you, but…”

“I get it,” Rainbow said. “You’ve gotta be careful, dealing with this kind of thing. I would’ve done the same, so I don’t take it personally.” They strode forward, scrounging through their coat pocket. It was a nice, black trench coat, the kind Cami had seen in old movies. And beneath it, she spotted a bright red button-up collar.

“What’s this going to look like?” Cami asked. “You’re giving Helena powers, or something like that?”

Rainbow nodded, pulling an old fountain pen from their pocket. They twirled it between their fingers, a fluid and effortless action. "I’m giving her a sigil. Sigils are generally used by us witches to give properties to people or objects. In the case of people, they’re usually etched into the skin."

“Like a tattoo?”

“Sure.” They laughed nervously. “Maybe a bit more painful, though. And this'll only last, like, six months.”

“I’m good with pain,” Helena assured them, rolling up her sleeve. “And bad with commitment. Shoot me up, or however this works.”

Rainbow took in a breath. The fountain pen lit up, its tip glowing as if molten. “You also might pass out,” they warned.

“Trust me, I’m acquainted with needles.” Helena pushed her bare arm forward, the grin on her face almost a challenge. When Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up, she quickly said “Not through, like, drugs. I’ve just done a lot of blood tests, and I help my friend Mars with their testosterone shots, like, all the time. I’m not squeamish.”

“It’s not about squeamishness, Helena. Your body is literally going to suppress its humanity in a radical transformation to unlock its capacity for magic.”

Helena considered this for a moment. Then she muttered, “You know, it sounds really fucking cool when you say it like that.”

Cami groaned. Unlike Helena, she was a fair bit squeamish, and she knew it. She’d had a panic attack at her last dentist appointment. They’d spent twenty minutes on numbing needles alone. “Can we just do this already?” Her hands flew up to cover her eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”

“Actually, we might need you,” Rainbow admitted. “To catch her. If she falls.”

Cami’s hands dropped. “You want me to catch Helena if she falls over? She’s, like, half a foot taller than me.” And after their last exchange, which Cami was still playing on loop in her head… had that been a confession? Or was she just misreading things? She had a tendency to do that, after all. But there were only so many things I really like you could mean in that context...

If Rainbow saw any of this hesitation, they didn’t acknowledge it. “Just, like, catch her and set her down gently so she doesn’t get a concussion.”

Helena scoffed. “Rainbow, seriously, I’m not scared enough to faint.”

“And I’m telling you it isn’t about fear,” Rainbow pressed. They took a step forward, pointing the pen beneath Helena’s chin like it was a blade. “I stole this pen from a diabolical witch who stole it from the best university in his country. It's strong stuff.”

Despite the pen at her throat and the steely, challenging gaze mere inches from hers, Helena didn’t back away. Her hands trembled, and one went up to touch her pendant, but otherwise she didn’t budge.

“So I might faint,” she said. “Okay.” She turned to Cami, batting her eyelashes. “Wanna protect me from a concussion?”

You have a lot of nerve playing the tease right now, Cami thought. But she bit her tongue, slipped behind Helena, and stuck her arms out. “Is it going to be kind of like a trust fall?” she asked.

“Sure.” Rainbow took Helena’s wrist. “Just catch her.”

“Okay, I probably can’t mess that up.”

Probably. Cami studied the ground beneath them. What choices in her life had led her here, exactly?

“So, does the sigil have to be a special design?” Helena asked. “Or is the magic all in the pen? If it’s all in the pen, can I get, like, a frog on a skateboard?”

Without looking up, Rainbow muttered, “You cannot get a frog on a skateboard.”

“Hm.” Helena smiled, as if this made perfect sense. “So, the magic is in both the design and the pen?”

“The sigil tells the magic in pen what to do. If I wanted, I could make a sigil that would stop your heart.”

Cami’s head shot up. “You what?”

“But I won’t!” Rainbow exclaimed. Helena yelped as they squeezed her arm. “Okay, okay, enough talk. Let’s just do this.”

The pen hit Helena’s skin with a crackle. Cami winced as the other girl hissed in pain.

“Just stay still,” Rainbow said, drawing the pen along in a smooth, curved line. The ink was a deep, bright silver, the kind that made Cami think of moonlight. “Stay... still.” It crossed over, and then over again, and as Cami peered past Helena, awe bloomed in her chest: this wasn’t even comparable to a tattoo. It was grand, it was sweeping, it was geometrical and precise.

And it had side effects. The veins under Helena’s skin lit up with a deep, pulsating glow, as if some switch had been flipped. Helena’s free hand shot out, grabbing Cami’s with a vicelike grip.

“You’re going to crush my bones,” Cami mumbled, forcing out a laugh. “Hang in there, okay?”

“Easier said than done,” Helena mumbled through clenched teeth. “It feels like… like…”

“Like your bloodstream is on fire?” Rainbow finished. “Yeah, uh, that’s a common side effect. Not literally, just sensation-wise. Just a little bit longer, okay?”

Cami’s hand had gone numb. “A little bit longer,” she repeated. She wasn’t even the one getting the sigil, and she wanted it to be over. “Okay. Okay.”

“Not okay.” Helena’s voice was high and taut, like a guitar string about to snap. “Ohhh shit.”

There was a final, earsplitting snap as Rainbow lifted the pen. Helena’s arm dropped like it was made of lead. She swayed where she stood, and Cami kept her arms at the ready.

But Helena didn’t fall. Instead, she looked to Cami and asked, “Can you help me lay down?” The words came out slurred together, like she’d just woken up from a deep sleep. The skin on her arm still crackled faintly.

“How are you not unconscious?” Rainbow murmured, and for the first time all day, they seemed genuinely surprised.

“Spite.” Helena’s hand crept up Cami’s arm, wrapping around her shoulders. “Caaaaami.”

“Helena,” Cami replied. She wasn’t sure what else to say.

Helena’s legs buckled, and Cami yelped as the other girl’s weight overtook her. The two hit the ground with a low thud. Helena giggled, a lilting sound that, even now, made Cami’s heart skip a beat.

“Finally,” Rainbow muttered. They stooped down, meeting Cami’s eyes. “We need to talk.”