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Pandora finds me atop the Leyton & Messier commercial skyscraper, looking out on the city of Forks from a brand new viewpoint. The battle with Thunderclap was chaotic, but ultimately short; it’s still midday. The city is alive and bustling.

Twenty years ago, this was a nothing town. Forks was known for its lumber industry and its proximity to a national park, which might have been more exceptional if it wasn’t located in Washington of all places. We have three national parks, nine national forests, and a metric assload of trees.

But a lot can change in twenty years. Now, Forks is the rising star of the state, its urban sprawl greedily devouring the surrounding woods that were once its lifeblood. Concrete and glass have overwritten the green, replacing natural color with an artificial rainbow of advertisements and commercial projects.

And oh, do we have our share of projects. Out west, the Quillayute Airport, once barely in service, has grown to the size and traffic of Spokane International, though it’s still no SeaTac. Nearby coastal towns like La Push and Clallam Bay have seen an increased demand for fresh fish, and the local marijuana business is booming. I’ve been to three different weed shops that claim to source their premium stock from a magical girl with botanical powers, though only one of them was telling the truth.

The crown jewel of modern Forks is its entertainment industry. A handful of American film companies poured a fortune into aggressively poaching from Vancouver’s studios, aided by lucrative deals with Visage and its stable of photogenic magical girls, in an attempt to steal the title of “Hollywood North” from the Canadians. A magical girl can do her own stunts and make her own special effects; she can even survive getting shot with real bullets. The climate conditions restrict the outdoors scenes you can shoot, but not as much as you’d think (especially when a few magical girls have a degree of weather manipulation).

The city district where most of the filming takes place falls in the shadow of the Visage Spire, a massive structure built to look like two twining towers, sinuous and sleek, with a golden orb held levitating between them by Memento’s signature power. The Spire is a monument to what magical girls can do to build, not just fight. The industry around the Spire is a monument to how magical girls can be monetized.

I’ve lived here for the better part of ten years; I moved from Everett into the dorms at the then-new University of Forks, hoping to see more magical girls up close. In the end, I guess I got my wish.

“So,” Pandora asks me, “how do you feel?”

I hum to myself as I consider how to answer. My feet dangle off the side of the roof, five hundred feet above the ground. I feel… “Powerful. But not powerful enough.”

The cat tilts its head. “Oh?”

“Don’t give me that. You were watching, weren’t you? You vanished after giving me powers, then didn’t show up again until the fight was over. Did you know she was going to attack? Did you let it happen?”

“I’m a Jovian,” it says apologetically. “I can empower and guide, but I can’t intervene. If it’s any consolation, I was confident you would win. I don’t pick losers, Ms. Emily. So, yes, I was watching, and I sensed Thunderclap’s approach, but I didn’t let it happen.”

I chew on its response. It’s hard to really trust a creature like Pandora. I’ve watched too many magical girl shows where the entities granting powers are revealed to be the real villains. I guess it’s different when you’re explicitly working for the baddies, though. I am a villain, now that I’m a witch. I should get used to that.

“You’re disappointed that Striga brushed you off,” Pandora guesses. “Is that why you don’t feel powerful enough?”

I sigh. “I shouldn’t be surprised. She does B-list work when it comes her way, but Strix Striga isn’t a small-timer; she’s meant for fighting Catastrophes, not newbies like me. If Echidna really is in town, I don’t have a chance at grabbing her attention.”

The Catastrophes. Each continent has their own name for the category, and their own local threats, but the concept is pretty simple: witches so dangerous they’re living calamities.

Typhon, the Unnatural Disaster. She has the strongest weather control ability ever recorded, and she’s able to manifest tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, you name it. Her only saving grace is that you always see her coming, so a big enough team of magical girls can usually drive her off before she hits a major population center.

Phage, the Vampire Witch. Her energy drain power resurrects anyone she kills as a brainwashed thrall with a weaker version of the same power, and their victims come back with an even weaker copy that can’t make more vampires. She likes to hide in the chaos of other Catastrophes, seeding problems that won’t reveal themselves until long after she’s left the area.

And Echidna, the Queen of Beasts. Able to take control of any biological material she touches and completely resequence it, she would be a lethal threat even without the mutated products of her deranged experiments. If she’s set up a new lab in Washington, every city in the state will be dealing with her runaway pets soon enough.

The Catastrophes exist outside of the truce terms enforced by Coterie and Vanguard; in fact, part of the pact is an agreement to work together against the Catastrophes wherever they show up. Arguably, Thunderclap’s attack was a violation of the pact in two regards; practically, neither organization will care to enforce the terms until Echidna escalates her operations.

“Do you want to become a Catastrophe?” Pandora asks.

“What? No!” I lean away from the cat and scowl. “I’m not crazy enough to want that, and I’m certainly not stupid enough to think I could get away with it. Being a Catastrophe would get Sophie’s attention, sure, but there’s no banter there, no flirting, no back-and-forth. Only death. No, I need to become a strong enough witch that I can occupy Striga without becoming another continental threat that merits every magical girl in three hundred miles showing up to kick my teeth in.”

The cat licks a paw. “I see. Well, I think you have an admirable sense of perspective about this issue. I believe I can help you achieve your goal, Ms. Emily. There is a witch in town that can help you refine your control of your abilities—specifically your familiar creation, the mastery of which is vital to avoid getting in further brawls with your foes. Would you like me to introduce you?”

My interest perks up. “Networking with a witch? Yeah, I’m definitely interested, but, who is it? Harlequin? Sweet Tooth?”

“Not someone you’d recognize, I’m sorry to say. She’s a witch from California, and she prefers to stay under the radar. I’ll get in touch with her and arrange the meeting. It shouldn’t take more than a few days. Until then, I recommend you take it easy. You have magic now, Rachel. Enjoy it.”

When I blink, the cat vanishes. Dramatic little shit.

It’s still good advice. The magic thing, I mean. The kind of person who gets magic powers and immediately starts planning how to optimize their use is a nerd. And, okay, I may spend a lot of time modeling the powersets of magical girls in game systems, and I might play a card game that is quintessentially for nerds, but I’m not that bad. Probably.

I want to have fun. I want to celebrate this moment. I have magic powers, and I beat up a magical girl for trying to kill me, and I’m immortal and I can fly now and the whole world is my oyster if I can just make my powers stronger.

And then I can be with Sophia.

I let out another heavy, too-tired breath. I don’t know why I thought I could get everything I wanted without having to work for it. There was never a world where I became a witch and Sophia just fell in my lap. To win Sophia, to win her time and keep her eyes on me, I need to be more than just an ordinary witch.

I need to be the kind of witch that beats the odds. The one in a hundred chance. Every witch is gambling that they’ll be the one to survive, but luck can’t carry you when the competition is this fierce. I have to be a card sharp, counting symbols and goading the other players into making the wrong decisions.

Because if I fail, there’s no more Sophia. No more Rachel. No more card games, no more gacha on my phone, no more burgers and lemonade, no more anything.

No more nights like seven years ago when Sophia held me close in her arms, the two of us buried beneath blankets in her dorm room bed. She held me as I cried and shivered, and that night I fell in love. I would do anything for another night in her arms.

I would give everything for Sophia to be mine.

I stand up and perch on the very edge of the skyscraper roof, staring down at the city that has been my home and my curse for all of my adult life. I don’t have a fear of heights, but it’s natural to be a little scared looking down from this high up. It’s just as natural to feel the call of the void, that voice in the back of your head wondering what would happen if you let your feet slip and fell all the way down to splat against the pavement below.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and step off. The wind rushes past my face and scours my mind of pointless, petty worries. Right now, I don’t need to worry about my relationship with Sophia. I don’t need to feel bad about what I’ve done with my life. I don’t need to feel afraid of the future.

I fall, and everything else falls away. The ground rushes at me, and the cars and the people, and at just the right moment I spread my wings and soar.

Concrete, glass, and steel. Electric lights and billboard advertisements. The people of Forks are playing with their phones, scurrying back from lunch breaks, and making plans for the afternoon. I fly over the heads of a thousand ordinary souls, a city of normal humans that are all just like I was a few hours ago. They call out to each other and point as I pass by, eager to be the first to snap a picture of the new witch in town.

This city loves magic. How could it not? There are magical girls—and even a few witches—slapped on everything. The wall art on the taqueria, the figures in the windows of the clothing shop, licensed appearances in ads plastered in paper or playing on screens. If you have powers, you’re special, and everyone wants to be special. Everyone wants to be you.

I drink it all in as I keep flying. I do a circle of Rainywood—the entertainment district—and wave to a crew working in one of the outdoor lots. I zip from one end of the city to its opposite, flying too fast to even see most of the buildings that I’m passing. I pass the game shop, my favorite restaurants, and the apartment complex where Sophie and I stay. I pass the college I dropped out of, too, and other less enjoyable sights.

I can fly anywhere. Why keep it to Forks? The drive to the coast is twenty minutes (usually longer because of airport traffic getting in the way), but at top speed it only takes me three minutes to reach the ocean and run my hand through the water.

I fly past fishing boats and wave to tourists on the beach before swinging back, crossing through Forks again, and climbing the slopes of the Olympic Mountains. For all the city expands, it’s still no Seattle; you’re never too far from the forest.

The evergreens are as gorgeous as ever, and higher up is covered in clear white snow. Snow! In October! I love it. I haven’t been up here in ages. Not since a trip with Sophia and our other classmates when we were in a course together.

I dive into the snow and roll around in it. The freezing temperature is refreshing, like a soothing balm against my supernaturally warm skin. I can make a snow angel with real wings! That’s the coolest thing ever!

The air is so fresh out in the woods and in the mountains. It’s like you’re living in a whole different world from the cramped, choked city. I settle into the snow, my internal furnace keeping the cold from getting painful, and I watch the clouds roll by.

I could get used to this. I could take walks in the woods and not have to worry about bears or getting lost. I could come to the mountains every weekend just to play in the snow.

And there’s so much more I can do. A world of possibilities. It’s strange having so much hope for the future. Not measuring my week just by when I can next roll the dice on spending time with Sophia, or when rent is due.

For the first time in forever, I feel alive again. I get to meet another witch soon! I get to experiment with my magic powers! I get to be someone important. Someone special.

Maybe, just this once, everything is going to turn out alright.

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