If Adah had learned any lesson from the past month of leading her team, it was that they needed planned breaks from their work. Giving themselves impromptu days off, as a reaction to someone already bumping against their limits, would make burning out inevitable.

  Something like that should have been obvious—most jobs had regularly scheduled days off, after all, but all four members of the Last Light had done nothing but work as magical girls after high school. For most of their time at the agency, they had plenty of days where they didn’t work at all. Up until their recent success, missions had made up most of their responsibilities, and those could pop up whenever. That kind of “always on” approach to work was easy to maintain when your workload was light.

  Now that their schedules were packed—and they still wanted to take opportune missions—they needed dedicated time off with breaks they could plan around. Adah and Grace had gone over all that Adah hoped to accomplish between now and the new year, searching for as many opportunities to give the team rest days as possible.

  That kind of planning was necessary for managing Adah’s expectations, as well. The process gave her a transactional perspective on her teammates’ time. Each activity—whether it was appearing on Hyperia’s web show or fitting in an extra dance practice—came with a precise cost of time. The only way to fit certain tasks into their schedule was by sacrificing another rest day. Adah was forced to ask herself what kind of work was worth taking another day off away from her team. Thinking in that way, it was an easy decision for Adah to drop some of her more ambitious ideas in favor of an extra day of rest.

  Today was the first of those rest days.

  This early into their grind of carnival preparation, the members of the Last Light were still full of energy, and they had no particular plans for how to spend the day. However, that was good in its own way. Days spent doing nothing in the agency lobby were also necessary. Rika had taught Adah that much.

  So, the four girls sat around most of the day chatting, staying out of the cold, and doing not much else. At least, until the phone at Grace’s desk rang.

  Their manager, who had also been treating the today as an unofficial day off, answered the phone in her usual professional manner. After inquiring about who was calling and a few vague back-and-forths, Grace’s eyes widened. She turned to look at the four magical girls spread out across the lobby’s furniture, her gaze eventually settling on Ami.

  “Just her?” Grace said to the caller.

  While the voice on the other end of the call said something to Grace, all the other members of the Last Light looked toward Ami as well. Seeing that, Grace forced herself to look away from the twin.

  “No, that won’t be an issue,” Grace continued. “She’s available. Was there a particular time—?”

  By this point, it was obvious enough that Ami was the topic of conversation for this call. The girl got up and walked over to Grace’s desk. She mouthed a silent litany of questions at their manager, but Grace simply held up a finger to tell her to wait.

  “That’s no problem,” Grace said as she grabbed a pen and scribbled something onto a stack of sticky notes she kept by her computer. “We’ll see you then.”

  On that note, Grace hung up the phone. She glanced at Ami, who was bent halfway over Grace’s desk in an attempt to spy what she had written on her sticky note. Ami brought herself upright and practically shouted what she’d been trying to mouth earlier.

  “What about me?” she said.

  Grace undid her signature ponytail and opted to leave her hair down for the time being. Her face didn’t look stressed to Adah, so there must have been another reason behind the action. Maybe she just wanted to change how she looked?

  “That was Pominomi,” Grace explained. “They want you to come for a go-see.”

  “A ghosty?”

  Grace’s hand moved to bunch up her hair again, but she stopped herself short.

  “They want to see you in person,” Grace explained. “Maybe try on some clothes.”

  “Who’s Pominomi?” Emi asked from the lobby’s couch.

  As Grace gathered up her wallet and other belongings from atop her desk, Adah said, “They’re a clothing brand. One of the ones that tends to use magical girls in their marketing. And they’re pretty big.”

  Magic users and the brands that associated themselves with magic users hadn’t yet replaced the traditional entertainment industry, and probably never would. Especially in some parts of the industry, traditional celebrities reigned supreme. The actors who landed the most major roles were still those who dedicated themselves to the job, rather than split their time between starring in films and exterminating Cruelties. On the other hand, magic users had more or less become the dominant force in pop music. The world of fashion existed somewhere in the middle, with some brands involving magic users more heavily than others.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “So this is like a modeling gig?” Ami asked.

  “Not exactly,” Grace said. “It’s a way to see if they think you’d be a good fit for their brand. They might have a specific project planned that they’re scouting for, or they might have just liked your look and want to see if they should keep you in mind for future projects. But since they called for you specifically, it’s safe to say they’ve taken an interest in you.”

  “Like ‘me,’ me?” Ami said. “Not like… us?”

  She didn’t have to name any names for everyone in the room to understand what she meant. In a vacuum, the twins could pass for one another—no problem. Something else must have caught Pominomi’s attention.

  “Just you,” Grace confirmed. “And they wanted to see you today, if possible. I figured that was an acceptable reason to steal some of your day off from you.”

  “S-Sure!” Ami agreed. “But is it…?”

  Ami turned around to confer with her teammates—one of them in particular. Adah and Rika cheered her on without reservation.

  “Something good for one of us will be good for all of us,” Adah said.

  Emi was quick to follow up with some encouragement of her own, adding, “Go kill it. And if they don’t like you, they can try again with me.”

  Ami laughed at that, her worries seemingly quelled for the moment. Then, she looked back to Grace and asked, “What should I do?”

  “Go change,” Grace said. “You’ll want something more form-fitting, but don’t overthink it. Jeans and a tank top is fine.”

  Ami nodded, darted upstairs, and then returned before the other girls could ask Grace any other questions. She had swapped her sweats for an all-black jeans and tank top combo in a minute flat.

  “Ready!” she said.

  “They’ll certainly appreciate the eagerness,” Grace said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be, but the drive alone will probably mean Ami and I will grab dinner while we’re out. You three all good here for the rest of the day?”

  The other members all answered with a unified “yes” before telling Grace and Ami to get going. The pair threw on their coats and made to leave, but not before Ami posed with a peace sign and declared her imminent victory.

  “Once they’re begging on their knees to hire me,” she said, “I’ll tell ‘em I’ll only do it if the rest of you can come with me!”

  “Please leave the negotiating to me,” Grace said with a sigh.

  With that, the two of them left the agency office and rushed through the cold toward Grace’s car. Adah, Rika, and Emi all settled back into their spots: Adah and Rika each in their own chair, and Emi sprawled out on the couch.

  The three girls lounged around in silence for a couple of minutes. Emi had been supportive of her sister, as expected, but Adah wondered if that was really all she was feeling. Yet, Adah didn’t want to say anything that might imply Emi should feel any particular way either. Maybe she was simply happy for her sister, and that was that.

  But soon enough, Emi answered any doubts Adah may have had.

  “How many songs do you have left to work on?” she asked Rika.

  Rika had apparently also been musing over how Emi must have felt, since the sudden question caught her off guard. She glanced toward Adah for help before realizing there was nothing for Adah to help with.

  “Well, it depends what you mean,” she said. “The lyrics aren’t finalized for any of them except the first single. But as far as the actual tracks go, there’s one I just started and another that I haven’t worked on at all yet. Why?”

  “Can that last one—” Emi began to ask another question, but stopped herself short. She paused to think, then continued, “I want that last one to be a duet with Adah and me.”

  “With me?” Adah said. “Not that I mind, but why me?”

  “It’s easy to do things with Ami,” Emi said. “Now that we understand each other better, I think we could handle anything together. But I don’t want to do something easy.”

  Emi had been lying down, enjoying the whole length of the couch by herself, but now she sat up and looked Adah straight in the eyes. A hint of red touched her cheeks, though her expression didn’t betray any embarrassment.

  “During the photoshoot, you were too much for me,” Emi said. “I couldn’t look you in the eye. I couldn’t act natural. But I think that was a good thing. You help… you force me to think about what a popular magical girl would do, and how Raindrop can do that sort of thing in her own way. When I’m with Ami, I don’t think about anything like that. It’s uncomfortable, but I think you force me to become better.”

  At the time, Adah had only thought of that situation during the photoshoot as Emi overcoming the embarrassment of getting close to her. They’d never held hands or posed like that before, and Emi was a reserved person overall, so that had seemed like the simplest interpretation. In fact, Emi had been trying to figure out how to act on the performance level, not only the social level.

  Perhaps Adah should have noticed sooner. Emi’s dynamic with her sister was different than how she acted around anyone else. Even among her teammates, if Ami wasn’t around, then Emi would behave a little differently. It was only natural that those differences would extend into her activities as a magical girl, too. Her battle against the lynx Cruelty was surely another example of how working with Adah pushed Emi beyond her comfort zone. That battle had served a purpose for Adah, but Emi had used it as her own catalyst as well.

  “Is the concert the right time to push yourself, though?” Adah asked. “None of us have performed live before, so it’ll be a new experience either way. Isn’t it okay to make it a little easier by having us all stick together?”

  Emi shook her head and said, “If it means becoming better, I want to struggle as much as possible. The concert is supposed to convince everyone to support us, right? It needs to be as amazing as it can be. The only way I can give my best performance is if I push myself.”

  She paused again and looked out the window to her left. The street outside led off into the distance, toward whatever destination Ami and Grace had set out for.

  “Ami was right,” she said. “There will be places one of us goes that the other can’t. I know she won’t be afraid to go where I can’t. I need to be brave enough to do the same. Someday, I’ll get there on my own. But right now, can you help me, Adah?”

  After hearing that, there was nothing for Adah to do but nod. She even struggled to find the words to agree.

  That fiery look in Emi’s eyes—Adah knew exactly what it meant. She had felt it in her own chest on so many nights over the past few months. It was an incurable frustration. Her job as captain was to give Emi a chance to put those feelings to rest.

  While Adah and Emi shared a look of understanding, Rika spoke up again.

  “You’re incredible, Emi,” she said. “Honestly incredible.”

  In her voice was the same pang of fragility that Adah had heard back when this whole Heartbreak journey had started. Back when Rika’s doubts had been at their worst.