“Oh my god, I love your blog! I loved it before it got popular!” She envelops me in a hug, even though I don’t know her at all. Is she a commenter? Or just a reader? Does it matter? It feels like a real hug. Friendly. I hug her back.
“I recognized you from your avatar—I hope that’s not weird.” She steps back and looks at my costume. Yards and yards of Amara’s fabric, and the scraps of my father’s jacket as the shoulder pads, golden tassels dangling. “Is this your costume? The one you were talking about in your post?”
I hesitate. “Sorta. My dad’s, and my mom’s. Kind of a mashup. It doesn’t matter, though. This is all just so…so cool.” I say, motioning out of the bathroom to the larger con. “It’s everything Dad hoped it would be.”
A thoughtful look crosses the girl’s face. “Your dad?”
“He started ExcelsiCon,” I reply. “Well, one of the people who did—”
“Wait. You’re Robin Wittimer’s daughter?”
“I—yeah.” I nod. “He would’ve loved your outfit, by the way. I mean, it’s amazing. You look like Amara.”
“Thank you, but…” She flicks her eyes down the length of my costume, from the torn uniform to the broken starwing badge to the noticeable lack of a crown, and then, to my utter surprise, she plucks her own crown from her head.
“There.” She rests it on my brow. “Better.”
“What?” I touch it gingerly. “I can’t take this—”
She holds up a hand. “Don’t say no. I’ve been coming to this con for years. I love it. So consider it a thank-you.”
In the mirror, behind my mess of hair, Sage’s face flickers. I wait for her to complain about a new crown throwing off her whole look, but instead she snaps her fingers.
“That’s it!” she cries.
“What’s it?”
She digs a pack of makeup removal wipes out of her bag. “Wipe that makeup off. I’ve got a new idea.”
“But—”
“Shush! We’re against the clock. The contest starts in literally ten minutes.” Then she turns to our new friend. “Do you think you can get us a—a starwing? Or maybe a gold rubber band?”
“I can get you more than that,” she replies and hurries out of the bathroom.
I give Sage a strange look. “What are you doing?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” She enunciates slowly.
What can I say? “Yes. Of course.”
Behind her, the bathroom door bangs open, bringing in a flood of Carmindors and Amaras and Eucis and Nox Kings. So many Starfield characters, crowding around me, some I recognize from the message boards, new faces and old. They pick off pieces of themselves, handing them to Sage.
“If it wasn’t for Mr. Wittimer…” I hear them say.
“This was the first con I ever went to…”
“…For the first time in my life…”
“…felt like I belonged…”
“…thanks to your dad.”
My dad.
My dad.
I smile at all the cosplayers handing over bits and pieces of their costumes, because otherwise I might cry. They’re just small things—Amara’s gloves, licorice-colored earrings in my ears, even a sticky star under my left eye—“Because in the Black Nebula she’s galactic,” says a petite girl with a wink—and then, through the throng of people, an Amara with dark hair and purple glasses pushes through.
I do a double take. Oh—Holy Batnipples, no. It’s Calliope.
We lock eyes. Cal stares at me, frozen as though she’s just been ejected into space. She’s wearing such an expensive cosplay gown. It’s Princess Amara to the works—the best money could buy. It fits her beautifully, a deep blue with inlaid sequins and a draping neckline, silver-metal shoulder pads and clasped at her breast a brooch in the shape of starwings. I’m sure she doesn’t understand what any of it means.
The chattering crowd goes quiet. Sage freezes mid-braid. Cal steps up and looks at my dress—the dress she was supposed to wear—and the jacket that Chloe tore apart, and her eyes water.
“It looks so much better on you,” she whispers.
“Where’s Chloe?” My voice warbles.
“Out in the audience. She wants to get the best view for when…” She hesitates. “I’m so sorry, Elle. I didn’t think Chloe would go this far. She just…she really wants to be famous. She wants to be someone.”
“She is someone,” Sage snaps. “She’s the queen of awful.”
Cal looks at her helplessly. “She really isn’t that bad.”
“She is.” Sage folds her arms. “And you just go along with it.”
Cal blinks. And then, after a moment, she shakes her head. She takes a deep breath and says, “I’m so sorry, Elle. I think these are yours too. They’re really tight on me and…” She lifts her dress and steps out of my mother’s sparkling starlight shoes. “I think they’ll fit you better.”
Hesitantly, I slip out of the black flats Sage let me borrow and slide them on, one foot at a time. And for a moment I’m back in the living room, waltzing around on my dad’s feet as he twirls me, around and around, in Mom’s dress made of starlight and universes and love sewn into the seams.
The shoes fit perfectly.
“Contestant forty-two?” calls a stagehand, poking her head into the bathroom. “You’re on next! Hurry up!”
Sage looks me square in the eye. “You ready, Princess?”
“I—I think so.”
“Good.” She finishes wrapping my hair into the crown and snaps back her hands. “Take her away!”
I glance over at Cal one last time, and she gives me a small wave before the stagehand spirits me out of the bathroom. I dodge a long-eared Nox. I don’t even have time to look in the mirror, to look at what Sage and the other cosplayers did to me. I just know that she took the knots in my hair and folded them into the crown, and there are pieces of costumes on me that aren’t mine and glitter on my starched tailcoat that sheds like stardust as I’m pulled down the hallway, the folds of the universe billowing around me. My face feels too light. Not enough makeup. There’s too much me. I can’t be Princess Amara.
We pass the contestants that just went on, and they turn to look at me with strange, thoughtful looks. I try to ask if there’s something wrong, but the stagehand just keeps pulling me forward—and then we’re at the mouth of the stage and the emcee shouts, “Contestant forty-two: the Black Nebula Federation Princess Amara!”
“Go,” whispers the stagehand, and she nudges me gently.
My feet take the lead. One step. Then another.
My mother’s starlight slippers echo across the stage like glass against the ground.
Chin up, Elle, I hear Dad’s voice say in my ear. Look to the stars. Aim…
My hands fall out of their fists, my shoulders ease back, straight, relaxed. I’m half of my father. Half of my hero. And I am half of my mother. Half soft sighs and half sharp edges. And if they can be Carmindor and Amara—then somewhere in my blood and bones I can be too. I’m the lost princess. I’m the villain of my story, and the hero. Part of my mom and part of my dad. I am a fact of the universe. The Possible and the Impossible.
I am not no one.
I am my parents’ daughter, and then I realize—I realize that in this universe they’re alive too. They’re alive through me.
Fashioning my hands into a pistol, I point it at the ceiling, lifting my chin, raising my eyes against the blinding stage lights, and I ignite the stars.
IT’S HER EYES. THE WAY SHE looks at you like you’ve got all the time in the world and yet you’re still running out. Her gaze is steady, her shoulders held high even though she’s carrying the weight of the Federation on them. Her hair glows red, like the body of a dying sun, snarled and wild, around the golden crown.
As she walks, slow and steady, the clip of her sparkling heels on the stage, her dress swirls around her, fluttering, yards and yards
of universe wrapped around her curves and edges. Her mouth, thin with determination, sits against her pale face like a rigid dark line. She comes to a stop in the center and raises her hand in the form of a phaser, aiming it to the sky, and then lifts her eyes to me.
Her gaze strikes a familiar chord, but I can’t for the life of me think where I’ve seen it. I think it’s from the show, from the princess herself, the way her shoulders ease back and her chin rises.
Defiant, like in the final episode.
She’s wearing Princess Amara’s ball gown, like the one Jess wore in that scene where we danced in the ashes for eight hours. But this Amara is a little different, a little changed, just a step to the side. What Amara would look like, perhaps, on the other side of that great Black Nebula. Not just a princess but the commander of the Prospero, the captain of her own life, with Carmindor’s jacket draped over her shoulders, the collar crisp, the coattails starched and flaring behind her, the tips glimmering with a dusting of gold like a comet tail.
Her jacket—of a blue you see at dusk, a hue that makes you wish you could fly off into it—is the perfect shade. The right shade. The brass buttons along it are polished, gleaming, not because they’re new but simply from being cared for. The starwings pinned on her lapel glimmer in the stage lights.
This is Amara. The true Amara. The one Carmindor fell in love with. The one he would have looked back at two seconds earlier. She makes me remember why I fell in love with Starfield, the hypothesis that in every universe, in every world, there is a Carmindor and an Amara.
In any universe, in any world, as anyone—we are them. They are us.
I glance over at the other two judges. They gape at her, enthralled. I begin to grin. Right? I want to tell them. My thoughts exactly.
THE MOMENT I WALK OFFSTAGE I shake out all my limbs, trying to get the nervous sizzle out of them. I feel like I just touched a live wire. But I actually did it. I walked out there. I stared up at the judges, blind as a freaking bat, and hoped like hell I made eye contact with at least one of them.
And I sort of hope Darien Freeman didn’t recognize me.
“Your Highness!” Sage whisper-yells, throwing herself at me. We hug and she prances, throwing her arms in the air. “That was stellar! You were stellar. Everything was stellar! There were some other good ones, but oh god, I’m feeling good about this. Really good!”
“You are? Because I think I blacked out,” I whisper back. “Do you think Chloe recognized me?”
“She didn’t,” says Cal’s voice. She’s behind us, hovering. “I—I texted her at the last minute about an emergency with my costume, so she had to leave the theater. There’s a good chance she won’t be getting back in.”
I look at Cal, full of surprise and gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “I really don’t deserve it. It’ll take a long time before I do.”
“Contestants?” The stagehand calls us all back toward the stage.
Sage hugs me one last time and whispers “Good luck!” before I’m ushered back into the bright glaring lights. I glance at her in the wings, unable to stop the grin spreading across my face, and in that moment I sort of realize it doesn’t matter if I win. We made it this far, we competed, and nothing can take that away.
Third place goes to a Euci, who looks exactly like the movie promos. Not me. I knew it wouldn’t be me, but still. I had a little hope. It was a good run. When I glance back at Sage, how come she’s smiling? Does she know something I don’t?
It’s just the residual high of competing. There’s forty-three of us and only three winners. Cal stands beside me, nervously twitching.
“I hate this,” Cal whispers. “It reminds me of tennis tournaments.”
“My dad used to say it was the best feeling in the world.” I look out over the crowd, my heart thundering in my ears and lungs expanding in short, frantic puffs.
Cal looks at me strangely. “What, this?”
“Being your favorite character. I don’t care if I win. I’m just glad I’m here,” I whisper back.
“I wish I’d known him better,” she says, picking at her nails. “I wish I knew Starfield better.”
“I can teach you,” I offer.
She looks over at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Sage and I both can.”
A blush tinges her cheeks. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
It must be a strange thing to say because she’s just about to ask another question, her face twisted in concern, when the emcee cries, “Second place goes to…number forty-two, the Black Nebula Federation Princess Amara!”
The crowd cheers.
I don’t hear him at first. Like, my ears didn’t register those sounds in that order. But then Cal elbows me and jerks her head toward the front. Her lips move around the words “That’s you.”
That’s me?
I look back toward the audience. The crowd. They’re cheering so loudly it rattles in my ribcage. The emcee gives me a patient smile, nudging his head toward the front of the stage. I take one step. Every great journey always begins with one, doesn’t it? All it takes is one. Then another. And another.
“Congratulations!” the emcee cries, handing me the prize. Two tickets to the Cosplay Ball. Second-place prize. Second place. I clutch the tickets tightly to my chest.
The emcee takes the last card from the envelope and looks down at it. His eyebrows jerk up into his hairline. “And first place, with a five-hundred-dollar prize and exclusive tickets to the premiere of Starfield is…number seventeen, Princess Carmindor!”
From the other side of the lineup, a cosplayer gathers up her tattered Federation uniform dress and sways up to retrieve her prize, waving to the audience. Even without her crown, she still nabbed first.
That’s good cosplay. Fantastic cosplay. Gender-bending Carmindor? She was amazing. I clap with the rest of them, smiling.
The judges come out from the wings to congratulate us. I’m in a daze, trying to soak in everything but at the same time just trying to keep breathing. I didn’t win. I don’t have the cash prize. I’m not going to L.A.
But…
I look down at the golden tickets in my hand and my eyes begin to tear up. The Cosplay Ball.
“Good job,” says a deep voice. It sounds familiar.
I glance over. Darien Freeman.
“You were amazing—I mean, that costume. You did a jood gob. I mean, a good job. Thank you—I mean—”
“Nox got your tongue?” I say before I can stop myself.
His eyes widen. His hands go slack. “You—you’re the girl from the office. Rebelgunner.”
There’s a strange control to his voice that makes me want to both apologize for calling him spoiled and scold him for treating Miss May like an idiot.
Instead I just ease a smile onto my lips—he was one-third of my second-place vote, after all. “Glad you didn’t try and chicken out of this too.”
His eyes darken and his lips twist slightly downward, as if he’s about to say something incredibly bratty, when Sage slings her arm across my shoulder and the other cosplayers—Nox knight and Steampunk Euci and Lord Dragnot (episode 3, minor character), along with a rainbow of others, flood around me with promise-sworn cries of joy.
How come I feel like I won even though I didn’t?
Sage pulls me into a hug. “Second, yeah! I can take second.”
“So who’s your date?” Cal asks, nudging her chin toward the tickets. “For the ball.”
“I don’t know…” I chew the inside of my cheek. “I mean, I guess I figured Sage would—”
“Oh no,” Sage interrupts. “You’re relishing your winnings. Besides, I don’t have a costume, duh.”
“Sage’ll be too busy hanging out with me,” Cal blurts out. I barely understand what she says.
Sage’s mouth drops open. “I…um…,” she stammers. And then she blushes beneath already-rouged cheeks.
My stepsister turns to her. “I mean, um, what do yo
u say? Maybe we could grab a bite? If you want to.” She stares at the ground. “With me, I mean.”
Sage’s mouth is moving but nothing’s coming out. So I help her along and press the heel of my starlight slipper onto her toes. It must kick-start her brain because she yelps.
“Yes! I mean—like a date? I mean, um, yeah. Yeah, that’d be cool.” And then she smiles, her eyes trained on Cal like she’s the North Star.
Cal smiles. “Cool.” Then, as if remembering her other half—or sensing evil, who knows—she glances into the crowd. “Elle, you might want to hurry off before Chloe comes up here. I know she’s on her way.”
“Let her come.” Sage juts out her chin. “I’ll punch her in the face.”
“No, I think I should just go,” I say. “Thank you again,” I say to Cal, even though she’ll just tell me that she doesn’t deserve to be thanked. Which might be true, but I’m half my mom, and my mom was always kind and always thankful. And my dad would want me to be like her.
Sage hands over my duffel bag and I pick up my dress, hurrying out of the throng of people. I know Carmindor hasn’t responded since last night, but I’ve been busy too with the con. I can’t imagine who else I’d bring to the ball.
In the bathroom, I drop my bag and splash water on my face. When I look up, a terrible thought strikes me.
What if he says no?
The girl in the mirror, with the crown of stars knotted in messy hair, with her mascara bleeding, in her hand-me-down cosplay jacket and her mother’s dress, whom no one wanted, no one ever wanted, not since Dad died. But at this con, surrounded by the makings of my dad’s dream…
Maybe he’ll say yes. Maybe at this con the worlds are colliding, and nothing is impossible.
I reach into my duffel bag, building up the courage to ask him. Even if he says no, it’ll be all right. Even if he doesn’t want to meet me, I’ll understand. But as I take out my phone, I see there’s a message already waiting for me.
Carmindor 1:47 PM
—I’m sorry, Elle.
—I don’t think we should talk anymore.
My excitement, my anticipation, my hopefulness slowly slide down to rest like a lump of coal in my stomach.