How can so many people congregate in such a small space for…what? A bunch of vendors that only want one thing: their money? Don’t they realize that most of this stuff doesn’t really matter?
It’s just make-believe. A bunch of adults pretending that their love for a TV show or a movie or a game means more than it actually does.
I just don’t get it.
I walk along the aisle until I think I come to the spot where the photo was taken. The thief was here, overlooking Artists’ Alley. I had been less than fifty feet away. I grip my phone and scan the masses of humanity, but I don’t recognize anyone from the hotel lobby.
Blond hair, biker jacket, pink nails, lip gloss, mole-on-cheek, bunny, I recall the lobby scene in my head. The girls on the sofa, the guy at the desk with his back turned. None of them are here.
I approach a girl behind a row of anime plushies. “Was someone standing here just a few minutes ago?”
She looks up. Her hair is streaked with pinks and purples and greens, her glasses are large and round. She blinks at me, and then slowly shakes her head. “I haven’t seen anyone.”
But then I notice that she’s playing a game on her phone. I doubt she’d have noticed someone standing here, anyway. I turn away from her but then she says, “Hey, you kinda look like Princess Amara—that girl.”
That girl.
In alarm, I pull on my glasses. “Thanks, I get that a I—”
“MONSTERRRRRRR!”
I look up, along with half of the crowd, and see a particularly tall and muscular guy coming toward me, his brown hair almost contained in his backward snapback, a curl twisting out of the opening. His arms are flapping in the air, as if he’s waving someone down. He’s looking directly at me.
“Hey! Monster! You wouldn’t believe what just happened!” he shouts again.
I glance around to see if anyone is responding.
No, no they are not.
That leaves only one possibility.
The girl selling plushies looks at me and says, “I think he means you.”
“I was afraid of that,” I reply. Imogen definitely didn’t tell me about him, or the person with him—ebony skinned, slender and waspish, dressed in a half cape and pointed witch’s hat, an umbrella resting on his shoulder. He’s cosplaying as someone, but hell if I know who.
And I am definitely not going to stick around just so they and the plushie seller can find out that I am most certainly not “Monster” and am, in fact, that girl who plays Princess Amara.
I slip my phone into my pocket and take a step backward, and then another.
“Monster! Monster?” the muscular guy shouts. His thick eyebrows furrow. He’s about twenty feet from me and—
All right. I’m leaving.
I take off out of Artists’ Alley as fast as I can, pushing through a group of people dressed as angels, and to my absolutely awful luck, Imogen’s friends pursue.
Here’s the thing: I’m terrible at running (especially in heels—hello, I tripped on the freaking red carpet). Never mind sports. Tennis, softball, track. I am horrible at literally every form of exercise. I’m even bad at the elliptical, which is something no human being in the world is bad at, except me. And that is why I never do my own stunts. It’s just not something I’m good at.
So when I take off running out of Artists’ Alley, I am praying that my knees don’t buckle and I am able to worm my way between enough people to lose Hunky and his friend in my wake. I’m lithe. Just have to pretend I’m a dancer and swirl through the crowd. Plus, it’s much easier to run in flats.
My shoes slap hard against the tiled floor as I turn onto a skybridge, dodging under a cosplayer with a six-foot wingspan.
They call again, “Mo! Mo, watch o—”
I’m hanging a left at the end of the skybridge when my foot slams into the long purple tail of someone dressed as the Nox King (of course). I pitch forward and slam into the ground.
THIS MANY PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE able to fit inside a room this size, although I know, from being a plebian squeezed into the back row last year, that indeed they can. I was smooshed between a Deadpool and a comics collector when the cast of the fantasy series Blades of Valor, starring the dreamy Vance Reigns, played an impromptu game of Never Have I Ever onstage. Vance had put a finger down for “Never have I ever had a crush on Ron Swanson.” (“We’re all on a sexual spectrum, and mine is girls and Ron Swanson,” he clarified later.) I thought that was going to be the highlight of my life in this room.
Alas, I was gravely mistaken.
I peek out between the black stage curtains, pulling at the high collar of my—well, Jess’s—dress. It’s navy blue with white trim, and my hose is a shimmery black. The blue isn’t the right Starfield shade, the hose is demonic, and don’t get me started on the heels. Given her history with these torture devices, you would think she’d have sworn them off long ago.
Apparently Jessica Stone is one of those people who double down.
So now I have to worry about tripping in front of three thousand people. How nice of her.
Is it hot in here or is it just me? I’m trying not to sweat too much and keep my arms chicken-winged from my sides so I don’t leave pit stains.
Starflame, how does she operate under these conditions?
Her grumpy assistant sits down in one of the reserved seats in the front row, shrugging into a casual dark-gray suit jacket. Ugh, doesn’t he know he’s at a con? The only people dressed in suits are Men in Black, any of the butler shojo and shonen anime, and occasionally a Doctor, depending on the season. Clearly, Ethan is cosplaying as a douche with a giant stick up his butt. But I can’t let some too-cool-for-school wannabe Bond ruin what’ll be the best days of my life.
“I’m probably going to complain—this is ridiculous,” a voice behind me, well, complains. It’s male, all-American. Calvin Rolfe. I look over my shoulder and there he is with a Starbucks cup, wearing a brown bomber jacket, his ginger hair swooped up into a wave. The freckles on his nose look more prominent without movie makeup, and they draw together when he scrunches his nose. “A panel every day?”
“It’s ExcelsiCon, which started as a Starfield con. What else do you expect?” Darien replies—the Darien Freeman. Prince Carmindor. Now that I’m not looking at him in the spotlight, he looks a lot more…normal? I don’t know how that’s possible since he looks like freaking Carmindor even in real life—curly black hair and smooth brown skin and eyelashes that go on for days. But there is something decidedly nonchalant about him. Also, he isn’t as tall as I thought.
Or maybe I’m just a giant in these heels.
Calvin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, and your girlfriend’s tied to it, so of course you’ll take the con’s side.”
I’ve never seen Darien Freeman glare more ferociously.
Calvin raises his hands in defeat. “All I’m saying is that we should only do one panel at a thing like this. We’re busy people with busy lives. Our time is money and, uh, we’re not getting paid nearly enough.”
“They’re our fans. It’s the least we can do.”
“Can you get your fanboy head out of your fanboy a—”
“I think it’s really cool,” I interject before my common sense can reel me in and tell me it’s a trap.
Darien and Calvin look over at me, surprised either that I spoke up or that I’m defending Darien and this con, I’m not sure which.
I clear my throat and tug on a lock of wig hair. “I mean, they’re all here to see us, right? And this panel’s about villains in Starfield. It should be fun.”
“Except our Nox King super isn’t here,” Calvin points out. “Why isn’t Robert coming again?”
“The great Robert Thomas Eddington is shooting King Lear in Scotland as we speak,” Darien says begrudgingly. He gives me a curious look. Oh no, did I do Jess’s voice wrong or something? Remember the tilt, the toneless accent, the drawl.
Calvin sighs. “Ugh, why am I here, wasting this perfectly good Frida
y? Euci isn’t a villain.”
“Actually, in episode—” I stop myself before I can recite the exact episode in question, because Jess wouldn’t know “—in an episode, I think, when you nearly get everyone killed. With, like…a lightsaber or something.”
It pains me to say lightsaber. In the episode, Euci becomes possessed by the Balu’atho, an ancient Noxian blade, and goes absolutely bonkers on the ship. What we don’t find out until the end is that the artifact only channels the darkness that’s already inside a person’s heart. Euci is terribly jealous of Carmindor—sometimes so much that he does become a villain.
It’s only fair. I mean, I get it. Carmindor is damn near perfect—like my brother, I guess. It’s impossible to live up to that.
“She’s not wrong,” Darien adds, giving me another unreadable look. “And I’m here because I’m the only one of us who actually watches the show, but apparently…”
“Oh no, I haven’t watched it,” I quickly lie. “I read the Wikipedia.”
“Ah.”
Calvin slaps him on the shoulder. “Thanks for taking one for the team, buddy!”
Our moderator—a chipper older woman with pastel rainbow hair—calls us over, telling us that we can make our way onto the stage. Calvin goes first, and I begin to follow, but then I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I jump.
It’s Amon Wilkins.
He grins, all Hollywood-white teeth and dashing surfer-bro swagger, looking like he could be in the next remake of Point Break. “So, how’re you enjoying the con so far?” he asks, putting his phone into his back pocket. The moment he does, it dings with a notification.
Then again, and again—and a shadow of annoyance crosses his eyes, until he decides to ignore it. His gaze settles on me, prompting me to answer.
I snap out of my stupor. “Um—yeah—great! Much great. Very fine. Wow.”
Oh, starflame, I’m supposed to be acting like Jessica Stone, not Doge.
Amon laughs and squeezes my shoulder, and a weird feeling reverberates through me as his phone lets out another series of dings. He is going to silence that before the panel, right? No one likes those people. “Hope the reading material was to your liking. I have a feeling today is going to be great. I’ve got a killer surprise,” he adds, and follows Calvin up the stairs to the stage.
Reading material? Was Jess—I mean me—supposed to read something for this panel?
Darien lingers on the steps, waiting for me. I quickly put my hands on my hips, elbows out, praying that he doesn’t notice how badly I’m sweating and that this is just…a pose I struck. Just to strike it. Because Jessica Stone doesn’t sweat. She barely breathes.
Oh starflame. My cover is so blown.
But as I make my way up the stairs, he does the weirdest thing—Darien Freeman loops his arm through one of mine. “You’ll be fine,” he whispers, and leads me onto the stage like…
Like we’re friends.
I know a lot about Darien Freeman and Jessica Stone and Calvin Rolfe. I follow the gossip blogs and watch TMZ. But somehow it never crossed my mind that Darien and Jessica could be friends. Well, that anyone could be Jessica’s friend. Not because she’s mean or curt or aloof (though she is kind of all of those things, but who can blame her?) but because…
I don’t know.
Of course they’d be friends.
And for a moment I feel like an imposter again—someone who’s stepped into someone else’s life undeserving.
Why am I so nervous?
I wasn’t nervous yesterday, when I was pretending to be a girl I only knew from interviews and rumors on Twitter and Insta comments. But now I’m supposed to be her—not a caricature— only better. The Jessica that everyone wants Jessica to be.
The one who would sign the #SaveAmara petition.
Remember your goal.
I have a job to do, and a career to save, and a princess to rescue. Or, at least, an argument to make for the princess to rescue herself.
I might not know who I am sometimes, but I know who everyone wants Jessica Stone to be. I know who I want Jessica Stone to be. Someone in whom every girl can see herself.
I am Jessica Stone.
The din of the room just a few moments ago goes deathly quiet as we all take the stage. Darien lets go of my arm as we reach our seats. I take the chair between Darien and Calvin—the one with Jessica Stone’s name card in front of it—and sit down, brushing my fake brown hair behind my shoulder in what I hope is a cool, aloof Jessica Stone way.
I breathe deeply and raise my eyes to the crowd. Three thousand pairs stare back, the stage lights almost blinding me as they rise to illuminate us.
The moderator introduces herself as Laurel Brinkley, a columnist for a sci-fi magazine, and asks us to introduce ourselves and name our favorite villains.
Amon leans into the microphone, mulling over the question with a dramatic pause. “That’s a tough one. Oh! By the way, I’m Amon Wilkins, the director of Starfield and the upcoming untitled sequel. I want to say I’m my favorite villain because who on earth would do what I did to poor Amara?” He winks at me, and I am really regretting my decision to like him. “But I digress. My favorite’s the Nox King. Robert sends his regards, by the way. He’s sorry he couldn’t make it.”
The crowd cheers, and he gives them a quick wave.
“You took mine,” complains Calvin. “So I guess probably Darth Vader if we’re sticking old-school. He’s super scary. I’m Calvin Rolfe, also known as Euci. Hi everyone, thanks for coming!”
There’s a steady cheer from the crowd.
And then it’s Darien’s turn. A chorus of squeals erupts and outlasts all the other welcoming applause. He waves, disarming the screams of lust with a dashing smile, and the audience quickly quiets down. “I’m Darien Freeman, and I’d probably have to be the odd fish out and say the xenomorphs from Alien. They are terrifying.”
“That they are,” agrees the moderator, and then all four of them look down the panel to hear my answer.
Well.
I squint through the glare of the lights to the front row. To Jessica’s assistant, who crosses his arms and shifts in his seat like a bored four-year-old at a movie, as if he’s already predicted exactly what I will do.
Well, think again, bucko.
“I think everyone knows who I am,” I begin in Jessica’s sweet voice, turning my gaze to the audience, “and the most terrifying villain is, without a doubt, m—”
The stage lights flicker.
A crackling boom erupts from the speakers.
And a masculine voice, low and soft, purrs:
“Me.”
I jerk back from the microphone. What’s happening?
Everyone twists around, craning their necks to glimpse the source of the voice. Darien and Calvin look over, as if I’m the one doing it, but I shake my head. The lights flicker brightly again and then go out.
Something catches the corner of my eye.
A figure is coming up the back stairs to the stage, a golden robe billowing behind him, glimmering like the sun.
My stomach flops.
Me, I was going to say. Amara. But I’d forgotten about one villain. He was in only a few episodes but sent invisible spiders crawling across my skin the second I first saw him. The Nox King may be scary, but he’s nothing like this guy.
The figure in the gold costume stalks in front of the panel table; in the darkened room, his uniform shines like it’s made of the sun itself. Lights embedded in his cape blink and sparkle, neon-yellow piping underneath his crisp Noxian uniform glows. But he’s not Noxian, not in the least, with long white-blond hair braided down one shoulder and his pointed yet human cheekbones. He wears fear on his sleeves like precious cuff links and tugs at them as he stops center stage.
Is he here to interrupt the panel? Darien and Calvin don’t seem to understand either. They’re looking back at the volunteer behind the stage and then at Amon.
Who is smiling.
Oh. I
get it.
This is part of the program.
The golden man outstretches his arms, and in the darkness I can hear the murmur of the crowd, the click of cell phone cameras, the rustling of bodies to get a better view.
He says, “My brothers, have you missed me?”
The crowd is silent.
Then everyone who has seen the show, anyone who knows who this golden knight is, collectively loses their minds. Like the christening of a champagne bottle against a new ship, I hear a thousand Tumblr stansites being born. The noise is so loud my waterglass vibrates, as if this guy’s the second coming of Loki at San Diego Comic-Con.
He holds up two white-gloved hands, lowers them gently, and the crowd quiets again, under his spell.
My heart races. Darien leans over and whispers, “Did you know?”
I subtly shake my head. How could I? I’m an imposter of Jessica Stone—I know less than anyone on this panel. Except for maybe Calvin. I don’t think Calvin realizes what is happening at all.
I didn’t prepare for this. I hadn’t even thought this could be a possibility. And also, this prick interrupted me. He could’ve waited until after I’d answered.
Or maybe this is symbolic of how Princess Amara and Jessica Stone are old news?
Whatever it is, it is very, very bad for me.
“I have woken from an endless slumber, brothers,” the golden knight says, addressing the audience, “and I know some of you are not quite sure what to make of me yet. But you will, I promise. All will become clear within the guiding light of the Sun. You will be saved, my children, my brothers, my…friends.” He says the last bit slowly, oily, and a tremble races down my spine.
He turns his head slightly—to me—and leans back against the table. He slowly raises a hand and runs his finger along my jawline. My brain turns to putty.
“All you must do,” he says, as if we are two lovers whispering intimately, “is conscript your fate to me.”
I stare into his face, which is lit from the glow of his costume, and see the thin mic headset clipped to his ear, the slope of his nose, the thin curve of his lips.
He slides the tip of his finger to the edge of my chin, following the contour of my face, before turning back to the audience. His smile imitates that of the original actor—the late Arthur Boise—down to the slight uptick on the left side of his lips.
The Princess and the Fangirl Page 9
