Archive of Our Own ^beta

Al has one earbud in her ear, her head bobbing along to the music filtering through them as she walks through the halls of her school. It’s a new album from one of her favorite bands, and she’s been listening to it religiously any chance she gets. Which is why, when she feels the familiar buzz of a text message coming from her phone in her pocket, she huffs an agitated sigh - she doesn’t like being interrupted when she’s listening to music, especially when she hasn’t heard it before.

Nevertheless, she fishes her phone out of her pocket, and she sees the text is incoming from her mom. Hey baby! Be safe after school today, okay? Al rolls her eyes, putting her phone back in her pocket after responding with a simple always.

Al knows that it shouldn’t be annoying, her mom looking after her. It’s just - she’s in high school now, and she’s lived in New York City all her life. No one else at school has parents that send them texts every other day telling them to be careful, as if she doesn’t know that already. As if she has ever been anything less than careful.

The text does, however, reignite Al’s excitement for her plans with Langston and Cat after school. None of them go to the same school - they all live in different parts of the city, and it just wouldn’t have worked (as much as the three of them tried to figure out a way). But, once a week, they meet up at an ice cream shop that is located at a near-perfect trisection between all three of their schools, and they hang out there for a few hours before the inevitable dread of homework sets in.

Al looks forward to these meetups every week. She has friends at her school, sure, but she’s not as close to anyone as she is to Cat and Langston. They’re practically family - better than that, maybe, since they don’t have petty arguments as siblings tend to have (at least from what she’s observed from the sidelines).

Amidst her musings, Al finally reaches her final class of the day: biology. She’s always had a soft spot for all kinds of sciences - they’re just as analytical as math, but with more opportunities to actually apply the skills. Plus, she’s always been really, really good at it.

“Hey, Mr. Slyman!” Al says as she walks by her teacher, who’s standing outside of his classroom, students filtering in and out.

“Hey, Al. Ready for the lab today?” She nods as she walks in, taking a deep breath in to center herself, to get herself into a more focused headspace. Filter out everything else. This is all that matters right now. Al walks over to her lab, giving a quick greeting to her lab partner, a boy she doesn’t talk to outside of class.

She’s excited to see Cat and Langston after school, yes, but right now, all she’s focused on is this: the cool surface of the lab table below her palms, and the meticulous work of getting this lab just right.

--

As much as Cat hates living the farthest away of her friend group, she can’t deny how much she loves the ferry ride to mainland New York City, especially after a long day at school.

It’s not like it was particularly bad - she’s not super into school in the first place, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. It just never seemed to end, the time moving so slow she couldn't stand it. The ferry ride is a great way for her to decompress, to have some time to herself before she sees Langston and Al.

Sometimes, Cat feels bad that she even needs this time to herself - they’re her best friends, after all. She should be able to want to see them without having to prepare herself for it. It’s just - Langston and Al are so different from her, and it’s great, but it also makes her insecure sometimes. Like she needs to change some part of herself to not get left behind. She shakes her head against the thought, trying to remind herself that Al and Langston love her and that it doesn’t matter, but the reassurance doesn’t help to make the ever-present knot in her stomach dissipate.

The ferry pulls into the harbor, forcing Cat to stop dwelling on her thoughts. She walks off the ferry, tossing a quiet ‘thank you’ over her shoulder as she steps back onto land. She still has a lingering feeling of unease in her gut as she walks through the city, but she’s trying to shake it off. She reminds herself that she’s seeing Al and Langston, her favorite part of the week despite the twinge of anxiety it brings. She doesn’t really have friends at school, but for the most part, it doesn’t really bother her - these weekly meet-ups with Al and Langston are enough. They’re the best friends she’s ever had, and hopefully that she’ll ever have, and she can bear being mostly friendless at school as long as she knows she has them on her side, even if it’s sometimes hard for her to remind herself of the fact.

She gets a buzz from her phone as she’s walking to the ice cream shop they always meet at, and it turns out to be Langston in the group chat that the three of them have. I’m here, how far are you guys? it reads, and Cat texts out a quick response that she will be there shortly.

A few minutes later, Cat pushes open the door of the ice cream shop, the bell dinging faintly above her head, barely heard over the music still pulsing through her headphones. Al and Langston both look up from their table in the corner, smiles on both of their faces when they see Cat. Cat pauses her music, pushing her headphones down so they rest around her neck, and joins them at the table.

“Hey, Cat! We were just talking about Langston’s English class today,” Al says brightly around a spoonful of ice cream - butter pecan, her usual order.

“Ooh, catch me up,” she says conspiratorially, sitting down at their table. Almost immediately, the tension from her weird day bleeds out of her, the anxiety dissipating, at least for now. For now, she can just sit and gossip with her friends and forget the rest of it.

--

Recently, it feels like the only times Langston isn’t thinking obsessively about his future is when he’s with Al and Cat.

It didn’t always used to be this way; when he was young and he decided he wanted to be a doctor because he wanted to be just like his dad, he didn’t think too much about the ramifications of that. Because now, he’s constantly thinking about school, micromanaging his grades to get into the best college so that this thing he’s wanted for so long can become a reality. It’s exhausting, honestly.

But he’s not thinking about that now, at least not actively. Because now, he’s walking down the streets of New York City with Al and Cat on either side of him, absently listening to the two debate about some movie he never saw, letting their voices wash over him, distracting him from thinking about the sheer amount of homework he has to do.

He’s only kind of succeeding at this distraction tactic as the three of them turn onto a new street, and notices almost immediately that something feels off. The street is empty, which is unusual for this time of day - even in less crowded areas like this one, there’s usually at least a handful of people hanging around. But it’s completely deserted, and it unnerves Langston. He tries to ignore it, telling himself that he’s just overthinking like he’s wont to do.

That is, until a puddle begins to rise, forming into some sort of blob monster in front of his eyes.

“Uh, guys, are you seeing this?” He whispers in a panic, unable to take his eyes off the creature forming in front of them.

“Oh, thank fuck it’s not just me,” Cat whispers back, voice sounded equally panicked, which does little to reassure Langston.

The thing is, though, the creature doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Yes, it looks terrifying (as much as a thing made fully of water can look terrifying), but as of right now, it’s kind of just - hovering there, staring, or whatever it’s best approximation of staring is. It’s unnerving.

“Hey, should we, like, do something?” Al asks after a bit of their staredown. Langston starts to back up, figuring that that’s what she meant, but as he does so, the thing begins to - well, not speak, exactly, because it doesn’t have a mouth, but that’s the best way Langston can think to describe the way the water shifts in what could be seen as lips moving to speak.

“Langston Brown. Alejandra Matsui-Sinclair. Catherine Lee,” it says, voice low and rumbling. Langston feels his stomach drop - until this point, he was willing to let this pass as some sort of weird mass delusion - he’s heard of things like that happening before. But now, this thing has said his name, and the names of his best friends, and it feels like this is something much more real than that.

Suddenly, the creature begins to shift, forming into less of a unified figure and more of a normal-looking mass of water, besides the fact that it’s still hovering in the air. Soon enough, though, it begins to sink back into the concrete, and the pressure in Langston’s chest begins to dissipate. It must be over, he thinks, a cool rush of relief washing over him.

Before he’s able to completely calm down, however, it speaks up once more. “Save Nod,” it says, voice even louder and more unsettling, before it completely collapses back down. The force of it causes droplets of water to bounce back up, spraying Langston lightly in the face. He sputters, wiping the beads of water out of his eyes, and turns to look at his friends.

He’s known Al and Cat his entire life, and he can confidently say he’s never seen either of them look more freaked out than they do in this moment. He can’t be certain, but he thinks he sees Al’s hands trembling, just a bit. Despite the terror on their faces, it does help to calm him down, knowing that he’s not alone and that Cat and Al saw exactly what he did - whatever it was.

They stare at each other in silence for a moment, equal parts terrified and confused. After a beat, Cat turns her head between the two of them, her panicked expression clear on her face. “What,” she says, voice low and cautious. “The fuck. Was that?”

--

As they walk back to a park just down the street from the ice cream shop they initially met at (deliberately choosing somewhere where they knew there would be a lot of people), Al can’t stop replaying the image of that - that thing forming out of nowhere, speaking her name and the names of her best friends. Even the memory of it is enough to send a chill down her spine.

No one speaks as they walk, a silent agreement between them that whatever just happened needs to be given the proper space before they talk about it again, which is great, because Al’s not ready to talk about it again - she needs this walk to figure out what the hell just happened. Al’s always been a very analytical person, and this is challenging everything she’s ever known. She doesn’t know how to problem solve her way out of this - she’s not sure she even can. The thought makes her skin crawl.

Langston steers them towards a bench under the shade of a huge tree, just out of earshot of any passersby. They’re silent for a few beats more, the heaviness of the earth-shattering experience they just had sinking in. Cat speaks up, though, breaking the tense silence. “Okay, so what the hell do we do now?”

It’s a great question, one that Al’s not sure she could answer if she tried. Except - that’s not exactly true, is it? Despite the way her mind is spinning, one thing is sticking out. “Nod,” she says suddenly, a spike of frenzied panic in her voice, as if worried the thought will disappear the second she leaves it be. She can’t be sure; after everything that’s happened, who knows what could be happening to her memory?

“Nod,” Langston repeats softly, as if mulling over the word in his head, trying to figure out exactly what it means. Al herself is doing the same, but is coming up blank.

“Have either of you heard of a - a ‘Nod’ before?” Al asks, eyes squeezed closed as if that will manifest a buried memory of this - whatever this is. She knows it’s not helping, but it’s what she’s done since she was young, when she would put together mysteries from old Encyclopedia Brown books. She hates being in the dark; when she couldn’t figure out the ending of one of the mysteries, she would flip to the back of the book, secretly pretending she knew it all along. She wishes, petulantly, that she could flip to the ending here, too, that she could just understand whatever is going on.

And the infuriating part is, she feels like she does know, like an itch in the back of her mind she can’t quite get rid of. She just can’t figure out where it’s coming from, and as much as she’d love to sit here until she figures it out, she’s feeling more and more like that’s not going to happen.

She opens her eyes to Cat and Langston, both shaking their heads ‘no’ in response to her question. It’s not like she expected them to know, either, but a part of her wishes it would’ve been that simple. That the answer was in front of her the whole time, and she just needed a little push towards it.

“Okay,” Al says, more to herself than anything; a way to get her bearings. “Well, I guess that just means we have to get to the bottom of it ourselves.”

It sounds cheesy even as she says it, a cliched trope she’s seen done so many times, but it feels fitting. Either way, Cat grins wolfishly and Langston gives a weary nod to his head, and Al feels alight with a sense of discovery, trying to bury her warring frustration deep, deep down.

--

Langston is tapping his pencil frantically against his desk, rereading a paragraph in his world history textbook for what has to be the fifth time in a row. It’s frustrating; he’s not usually this unfocused when it comes to school, especially not this soon into the school year. He just can’t stop thinking about that - that thing.

He’s haunted by the vision of its face (if it can even be called that), contorting and twisting as it spoke. Its voice rings in his head, gravelly and unnatural, as it calls out his name. He shudders against the memory of it, yet he can’t stop replaying it over and over.

He gives a small shake of his head, trying to turn back to his work. Focus, he thinks to himself sternly. He has to get through this tonight; getting behind in classes this early would be nearly impossible to come back from.

The progress he makes is miniscule, however, because a few minutes later, his dad walks through the open door into his room. “Hey, Dad,” Langston says, not looking up from his reading, though he does set down his pencil, anticipating a conversation.

“Just coming in to say goodnight,” Kingston says, and Langston darts his eyes to the clock on his wall. It’s only eight thirty; his dad must have an early shift tomorrow.

Langston has always been close with his parents. They’re the best parents he could ask for, endlessly supportive and willing to do anything for him. When he was five and proudly exclaimed that he wanted to be a doctor “just like Dad,” Kingston took him to work with him the next day, showing him around the hospital. When he hit middle school and it became more and more clear that being a doctor wasn’t just a little-kid fantasy for Langston, that it was actually something he felt passionate about, Liz and Kingston have shown nothing but support. Point is, he knows they’d do anything for him, which is why now, he’s on the verge of spilling everything about his encounter with the water creature to Kingston.

He knows that he promised Cat and Al that he’d keep it secret, at least until they learned more, but he’s scared. The creature didn’t attack them or seem violent, sure, but what if it’s just the beginning? What if they’re in danger? He doesn’t want to face that alone, or with just his friends. He wants to get an adult involved despite the promises he made.

The words are on the tip of his tongue but as he opens his mouth to speak, he hears a voice in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like Cat, urging him not to say anything. It gives him pause; though he desperately wants to have some sort of help, maybe this voice is right. Maybe bringing someone else into this mess will only lead to more danger. Besides, he can always tell Kingston later; maybe he just needs to sleep on it.

Kingston’s still looking at him, though, and Langston’s mouth is still open as if to speak. Quickly, Langston turns to cough into the bend of his elbow. It’s a weak cover and he knows Kingston thinks so, too, when he says, “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Langston murmurs, turning back to his textbook. He’s so laser focused on the page below, not even reading the words but using it as an excuse to not be under the knowing stare of his dad any longer, that he doesn’t notice Kingston come up behind him until he’s dropping a kiss to the top of his head.

“Well, don’t stay up too late,” Kingston says, and Langston nods, eyes still on the page. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Langston says back automatically, finally looking up. He gives a small smile to Kingston, and Kingston smiles back. That should be the end of it, but before Kingston turns away, Langston’s eyes are drawn to the token around his neck.

It’s not a new thing; in fact, Langston thinks he could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’s seen his dad without it. But something seems different; there’s a light glinting off of it as if it was in the sun, but it’s completely dark out, the only light in his room from his desk lamp. That maybe wouldn’t be strange on it’s own, but the more he looks at it, the more the light seems to not be bouncing off of it, but coming from it, a hazy golden glow seeming to emit from the token itself.

Langston almost says something - what, exactly, he’s not sure - but then Kingston turns, and the moment’s lost. He shakes his head, trying to tell himself it was a trick of the light as he gets back to his homework. But a voice in his head, one that’s only gotten louder since this afternoon, is telling him that he knows what he saw, and that it seems like something else.

Something... supernatural.

--

Cat’s geometry teacher is droning on about - well, to be honest, she’s not quite sure. For the past twenty minutes, she’s been spaced out, tapping her foot rapidly against the floor as she waits for the ding of the bell to signal the end of class.

She’s been antsy all day, more than usual, because she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the water monster and its ominous prophecy. The time has passed as if through molasses, dragging on so long it’s become almost unbearable. Cat sneaks a glance at the clock and is relieved to see that there’s only five minutes left of class. She tries to focus back in and at least listen to the end of whatever her teacher is saying, but Cat realizes he’s talking about triangular proofs, something she finds annoying on a good day, and she decides she’ll try to catch back up next class.

The bell rings, and Cat can’t get out of her seat fast enough. But today, she turns left out of the classroom instead of right, walking as fast as she can towards the library.

Her school’s library isn’t anything spectacular: a dozen or so long rows of books, with a handful of computers tucked away in the back corner. That’s where she makes a beeline to; any information she can possibly get on Nod will be much easier to find on the internet than in a bunch of books.

Or, at least that’s what she thinks until her fingers are hovering over the keyboard, trying to figure out what to type. Because she can’t just search ‘Nod’ - even if it weren’t an incredibly common word with multiple definitions, she knows that she’ll need to be more specific if she wants to find anything related to what she saw.

She huffs a sigh, finally settling on “nod supernatural occurrence,” but just looking at the top search results tells her that she’s not going to find anything. She gets a couple of unrelated YouTube videos of ghost hunters, a handful of tweets that don’t say anything of importance, and some blog posts dating back a handful of years ago. It all seems relatively worthless - she doesn’t really know why she thought this would work in the first place, if she’s being honest.

She moves the cursor to exit out of the page, feeling defeated, but before she presses down, something catches her eye: a seemingly unrelated article about the Bethesda Fountain. Normally, something like this wouldn’t stand out to her, but she’s visited this fountain a lot: it’s one of her mom’s favorite places to take her in Central Park. Curious where this may lead, she decides to give the article a shot.

Mostly it’s a bunch of historical information that Cat’s not really interested in. She skims the article, bored and discouraged, but there’s a paragraph near the bottom that catches her eye.

Several reports of the statue’s disappearance were reported in December 2018, though no authorities ever saw the fountain without the statue atop it. However, several other strange, almost paranormal events were alleged around the same time that year. Is it possible that the Angel of the Waters was able to leave the statue where she resided for nearly two and a half centuries?

She’s not sure if this is related, but it’s something. A grin breaks out on her face, but before she can go to text Langston and Al what she found, she feels her body heat up in a way that feels unfamiliar and, frankly, concerning. Seconds later, before she even has time to react, four bright blue lights shoot from her fingers, hovering inches above the computer.

Cat lets out a yelp, clamping her hand over her mouth, and finds that it’s still warm to the touch. Seconds later, the lights fizzle and dissolve away, and she slowly removes her hands from her mouth.

Maybe she’s a little more connected to all of this than she initially thought.

--

Langston is frantically scribbling down notes in his world history class, trying to keep up with his teacher’s lesson. In the back of his mind, though, he hasn’t stopped thinking about the day before. Honestly, it’s annoying; he wishes he could just focus and worry about this later. He can’t afford to fall behind in this class, especially after half-assing his homework yesterday.

His teacher takes a pause in her lecture, taking a sip from her water bottle, and it’s then that Langston gets a text on his phone. Normally, he would ignore it, but the day’s already been kind of a wash anyway, and his teacher’s not in the middle of something; it’s fine (at least, that’s what he tells himself).

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, keeping it close to his thigh as he reads. It’s from Cat, and she says might have found something out meet me by the bethesda fountain in central park after school. Langston furrows his eyebrows; they were nowhere near Central Park yesterday - how could this possibly be related?

His train of thought is cut abruptly short when his teacher goes, “Langston.” Surprised, he jumps and turns his head up to look at his teacher, and finds her eyes trained on the phone in his hand. Shit.

“You know the rule,” she says, and Langston feels his face flush with embarrassment. He can’t look at any of his classmates, terrified to see other people witnessing this moment - instead, he just holds out his phone, eyes trained on his desk below.

This isn’t like him; Langston has always been a diligent rule follower, even, as Cat and Al would argue, to his own detriment. Once, the three of them had planned to go to a concert with Cat’s parents, but Langston had backed out at the last minute to write an extra credit paper for his English class. Point is, he doesn’t make mistakes like this; he’s always been the best student he can be, and the fact that whatever happened yesterday is throwing him off his rhythm this much is concerning to him.

Even worse, he can tell that his classmates are staring at him, even if he doesn’t look at him. It makes his face burn - Langston has always much preferred to stay in the shadows, sitting quietly in class and letting other people do the speaking. Being the center of attention has always felt uncomfortable for him, and in this scenario it’s doubly so.

“You can get this after class,” his teacher says sternly, waving his phone in her hand before putting it on her desk, and he just gives a minute nod of his head before training his eyes on his notebook as she resumes her lesson.

The rest of the class passes fairly quickly; Langston is able to force himself to focus if only to escape from the acute embarrassment he currently feels. When the bell finally does ring, he does not follow the rest of his classmates out of the door, instead going to his teacher’s desk.

He goes to reach for his phone, and as he does, his teacher says, “I expected better of you, Langston.” The shame he feels lingers over his head like an anvil waiting to drop for the rest of the day.

--

Al is the first person to arrive at Central Park. She’s by the Bethesda Fountain, as Cat had asked her and Langston to, and like always, she’s blown away by the sheer magnitude of the statue. Growing up in New York City, Al sometimes forgets what a cool place it actually is, but looking up at the grand visage of this statue, crafted hundreds of years ago, she is viscerally aware of the fact.

She tears her eyes away from the statue as she hears a voice call out, “Al!” When she turns, she sees that it’s Langston, with Cat following just behind. She throws her hand up in a wave, a smile breaking out on her face. Even after knowing them for her entire life, she still lights up at the sight of them. Around Cat and Langston, Al feels comfortable, seen in a way she doesn’t feel often.

“Hey,” she says as Langston wraps her in a quick hug, followed by Cat. She revels in the comfort of their presence for a moment before turning to Cat. “So, what brings us here?

“Right,” Cat says, and a scheming smile breaks out on her face. Al is very familiar with that look; it means Cat has a plan, often one that Langston and Al hesitate at because of its possibility to get them in trouble. Al braces herself. “So, at lunch, I was trying to find out more information on Nod, right? Well, I didn’t find anything about Nod specifically, but a few years before we were born, there was some weird shit that happened here,” Cat says, pointing up at the hulking figure of the statue.

Al twists her face up in confusion. “What, like - like magic?”

Cat shrugs. “Only one way to find out.”

She goes to turn towards the fountain, but stops in her tracks, turning back towards Langston and Al. “Uh, I know this sounds wild, but I also had something else happen today.” She pauses, looking between the two of them as if needing permission to continue. This is odd; Cat almost never seems hesitant about things, especially when it comes to Al and Langston. Al gives a small nod of her head, urging her to continue.

“Well, I think - I think I did some magic? Which is crazy, I know, but right after I found out about the statue, I, like, shot light from my hands?” She seems unsure, which is so unlike her that it makes Al immediately believe her, despite the ridiculousness of what she just said.

Suddenly, Al feels a white hot pang of something shoot down her spine, and it registers a second later as jealousy. It immediately throws Al off - she should be feeling excited for Cat, at her having put together another piece of this overwhelming puzzle.

But Al has never done well with being second best. She’s always been top of her class, always pushed herself to have the best grades, to be involved in the most activities. Being behind in something isn’t her. And she is happy for Cat, don’t get her wrong, but there’s a part of her that wishes it was her that was solving this mystery, her that was coming into magical abilities.

She tries to push it down, nodding along excitedly with Langston as he says, “Cat, that’s so cool! Can you do anything now?” Cat shakes her head, a shy smile on her face as she says that she doesn’t feel the sizzling under her skin that she did the first time, and Al tries to not let the relief show on her face.

“Well, then,” Langston says, “Should we try to talk to this statue, I guess?”

Al steps forward first - if she can’t do magic, maybe she can do this. “Hello?” She says, and her voice is more timid than she expected it would be. “Um, we wanted to talk.”

There’s no response, and Al shouldn’t be surprised, but she is. She wanted this to work; she wanted to be able to prove herself.

She looks back at Langston and Cat, who both look equally confused. “Maybe say your name?” Langston says after a moment. “If that water thing knew it, maybe the statue will too?”

Al nods, turning back towards the statue. “Um, my name is Al. Alejandra Matsui-Sinclair.” There’s a pause after she says it where the air seems to go still, as if the park itself is holding its breath. It almost seems like nothing is going to happen, and Al starts to turn back around again, but -

But then, the statue blinks its eyes open.

--

Cat’s not sure exactly what she expected, but a statue easily five or ten times her size coming to life, its stone joints creaking as they move, is not quite it. For a moment, it’s a standstill - the statue staring at them, them staring back, all parties motionless. That is, until the statue reaches out its hand, saying, “Hello there! I’m the Bethesda Fountain, but you can call me Em.”

Her New York accent is thick, and it’s comforting to Cat who, out of the three of them, also has the most pronounced accent due to having grown up in Staten Island. She smiles; any fear that she had previously had about this excursion is immediately wiped away, and whether or not that’s a good thing remains to be seen.

Langston and Al, however, both look shell shocked next to her. She supposes that’s fair; even after the events of the past forty-eight hours, this is still a lot to take in. But Cat’s not scared; if anything, after the magical display she did earlier, she feels amped.

“Hello!” Cat says back after it becomes clear that Al and Langston aren’t in a state to speak. “Um, I’m Cat, and these are my friends, Langston and Al.” Langston gives a weak wave of his hand, Al a shaky smile. Something flashes behind Em’s eyes, but whatever it is, she can’t decipher. Reading body language on an entity made of stone is much harder than on people.

“Well, it’s good to meet you all! What brings you here?” Em asks, a bright smile on her face.

“Um, well, we had this - encounter yesterday, I guess.” Cat glances over at Al and Langston, but neither of them make a move to speak. It looks like Cat’s taking charge on this one. Privately, this makes her giddy. It’s nice to be able to feel like the best at something. So often she feels inadequate next to the two of them, though she knows (she thinks she knows) that they don’t see it like that. But having this, even if it is something they share, that she feels like she excels at - she could get used to it.

“There was this puddle - um, and it came to life, and it said all of our names, and it said ‘Save Nod.’” Another flash behind Em’s eyes; once again, she can’t decipher it. “And then I read about you, and I thought maybe you’d know more?”

“Well,” Em says, eyebrows furrowing. It’s a strange sight; her forehead can’t quite crease like a human’s would, and they end up just shifting a bit lower on her face. “I thought something was up. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to tell you all, but since you’re all wrapped up in it, I don’t think a little explanation could hurt.” Cat alights with anxious excitement, stronger than anything she’s felt since getting here. Maybe it’s the fact that her research worked; maybe it’s that they’re just finally getting answers. Either way, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Em if she tried.

“Nod is too much for me to possibly explain, but I will say this: there aren’t actually five boroughs of New York City - there’s six. Nod is the sixth: the Land of the Dreaming. It’s why I can do this,” she gestures down at herself, and Cat finds herself nodding along, mesmerized.

“But - well, lately, I’ve noticed a change. Magic is coming to me slower; that’s why it took me so long to wake up for you guys. And if you’re saying that someone told you to save Nod - well, I think there might be something wrong.”

“So what do we do?” Cat asks, unable to hold herself back. She can feel Al and Langston’s eyes on her, but she’s only focused on Em.

Em gives a sad smile. “I’m not sure.” But there’s something in her voice - a hesitation, like she’s holding something back. Cat may not be able to read Em super well, but she can tell this.

“You don’t know anything?” She pushes, and finally, she looks over to Langston and Al. They’re both staring back, seemingly affronted that she would be anything less than perfectly polite to Em. She ignores it; politeness won’t get her the answers she’s sure Em has.

Turning back to Em, Cat sees her sigh. “I’m really not supposed to say.” She pauses, then closes her eyes. “But, if it really is as dire as I suspect, I don’t see any other choice.” Cat’s stomach drops; without ever really making the decision to, she moves closer to Em.

“Talk to your parents. They know more about Nod than even I do.” Before Cat can even blink, much less ask more questions, the sturdy stone of Em’s figure sinks back on top of the fountain, and she deanimates.

--

Langston is pretty sure he stares at Em for a solid minute and a half after she deanimates.

In hindsight, he should’ve expected something like this after the water creature and whatever happened with Cat. But he’s good at compartmentalizing, and he’s now realizing that he’d been writing off everything that’s happened so far as a fluke, a trick of the mind. This, though, changes things - now, he can’t ignore what’s happening any longer, or his part in all of it (whatever it is; he’s still not one hundred percent sure).

Slowly, he turns back towards Al and Cat. Al looks in a similar state of shock to him; Cat, however, seems triumphant, a bright grin plastered on her face. If he was less freaked out, he would find it amusing - of course Cat would be the most equipped to deal with all this supernatural shit. As is, though, he can’t stop thinking about the way that Em blinked her eyes open to feel much of anything besides shock.

“So, that was cool!” Cat says, and it’s her speaking that snaps Langston out of his stupor. Because he does have to admit, as freaky and weird as it was, it was cool, in a weird way. He finds himself nodding, and Cat’s grin widens.

“Uh, but where do we go from here?” Langston says, and Cat’s grin fades.

“I mean, I guess we have to talk to our parents. Ugh, they’re going to be pissed.” Langston nods, but privately, he doesn’t agree. Concerned, yes, but he doesn’t think they’ll be mad. At least for his parents, they’ve always been extremely understanding - maybe too understanding.

All at once, the final thing Em said before returning to stone rings in his head. They know more about Nod than even I do. “Wait, do you think - are our parents connected to this?” He asks. Cat looks at him, a new look of understanding flashing on her face, and Al blinks, turning towards them, concern written all over her face.

“I mean, what else could Em have meant?” Al says, and she closes her eyes, clearly deep in thought. “God, I think this might be so much bigger than we thought.”

Langston is inclined to agree. Before he can say anything, though, a memory floats to the front of his mind. Last night, when his dad was telling him goodnight, and he could’ve sworn the subway token around his neck was glowing. He’d brushed it off in the moment, but now with what Em has told them, it seems more than likely that it’s related.

He tells Cat and Al about the token, and they both seem convinced. “Okay, so we need to talk to them,” Al confirms, and Langston and Cat nod their agreement. “How do we want to do this?”

“Isn’t dinner coming up soon?” Langston asks. For as long as he can remember, all of their parents have done dinner together at least once a month, sometimes with other friends joining in. It’s always been Langston’s favorite thing: all of his friends and his favorite aunts and uncles in one place. And now, it seems like the best place to bring all of this up.

“Yes, and I don’t think anyone else is coming, either,” Al confirms. “Okay, so we’ll wait it out until then, and figure out how to bring all of this up.” Langston nods in response, but nerves alight in his stomach. It’s not that he’s worried about his parents’ reactions; more that once they tell them, it won’t be a fun adventure for the three of them anymore. Likely, they’ll go back to school, back to extracurriculars, and their parents will take care of the rest of it. Their time in this world will be over.

Langston is struck with a sudden realization that he doesn’t want that to happen. He doesn’t want to just go back to studying and preparing for college and eventually med school, even if a week ago that was the only thing he was worried about. He’s been having fun with Cat and Al, trying to solve this mystery, and he doesn’t want it to end.

But he swallows his fears, following Al and Cat out of the park. He’ll figure it out; he always does.

--

Cat stands outside of her closet, poring over her clothing as she tries to pick out something to wear for dinner. It’s not something she usually cares about, especially for dinner with Al and Langston and their parents, but it seems important tonight.

She’s not delusional; she knows a nice outfit won’t distract their parents fully from the admission that, hey, actually, we’ve discovered this whole magic thing and were told by a living statue that you would be able to explain it to us, but she figures it can’t hurt. After a time, she settles on a pair of black jeans and an olive green button up, shrugging the button up on over a white tee.

The week leading up to tonight passed slowly, but Cat was surprised that she actually found filling the time enjoyable. She’d been occupied thoroughly by her magic, which had continued to manifest itself as small, mostly meaningless displays. This week, though, she’d started to get better control over it, which was a relief; ever since the first time she accidentally set off the sparks, she’d been half worried that something would happen in class, or in front of her parents.

She had been able to get enough of a hold on her abilities to show Al and Langston, which quickly asserted itself in her top three coolest moments ever. Being able to brag about something to them that was unique to her and have them be equally excited for her was an unbelievable feeling, something she wishes she could’ve bottled up to keep with her for the times she feels less than adequate.

School has been boring as usual, but every lunch break, she’s been holed up in the library, trying to find out as much as she can about this magical world before bringing it up with her parents. She started with the article she found about Em, following through links to blogs and conspiracy websites, and though she hasn’t found anything concrete, it’s been enough to prove to her that yes, this is real, she’s not delusional.

It’s been - interesting, having something to look forward to, and to have something she feels like she’s good at. So often, she’s felt inadequate next to Al and Langston because they’ve always been so good at school and she has just been okay. But this feels like what she was meant to do, and she has no qualms about throwing herself in this new, strange world that she just wants to know everything about.

“Cat?” Her mom calls from downstairs, jostling Cat out of her thoughts. “You about ready? We need to leave soon if we don’t want to be late.”

“Yeah, coming!” She responds, shutting the door to her closet. Before she leaves, though, she takes a glance at herself in the mirror, giving herself a quick once-over. She raises her hand, trying to conjure the energy that seems to be simmering just beneath the surface of her skin all the time, now. After a moment, a small orange flame fizzles into existence, floating just above her outstretched palm. Immediately, her nerves are dissolved, and she grins at her reflection before dispelling the flame, shutting off her bedroom light and heading downstairs.

--

“Hey!” Kingston says loudly as he opens the door to his apartment, arms wide as he wraps Al’s parents in a hug. “Good to see you guys!”

Her parents return the greeting, and Al takes the opportunity to peek inside. She doesn’t see Langston or Cat, but she does see Sofia talking to Liz on the couch, so she knows that they can’t be far.

Her parents finally step through the door, still talking to Kingston, and Al slips in after them, giving a wave to Sofia and Liz. “I think they’re in Langston’s room,” Liz says, and Al gives her a gracious smile, heading down the hall towards Langston’s familiar door.

Sure enough, that’s where she finds them, Cat laying on Langston’s bed and Langston sitting at his desk. Al gingerly sits down on the end of Langston’s bed and says, “Okay, should we go over the plan again?”

“Nice to see you, too,” Cat says sarcastically, sitting up and leaning against Langston’s headboard. Langston snorts a laugh, and Al chuckles, too, but it’s laced with nerves.

She doesn’t even need to go over the plan again; they’ve discussed it countlessly for the past week. They’ll sit down for dinner, Al and Cat and Langston all at the end of the table, and a few minutes into the meal, Langston will bring up the water monster and Em. Cat will field any confusion or anger from their parents, and Al will mostly just be there for moral support.

Which is part of the problem, or at least why Al is so nervous. Al likes to be in charge; she’s never been one to sit back and let others take the reins. She hates feeling useless, like she’s not contributing at all.

Worse, though, is that the plan makes sense. She has the least connection to all of this; Cat’s produced magic, and Langston saw that thing with his dad. All she’s done is been present during all the weird shit, but that goes for all of them. She doesn’t have a particularly high stake in this, at least compared to Langston and Cat.

It leaves a weird feeling in her gut, knowing that it’s the right thing but hating it all the same. It digs at something deep inside of her, an insecurity of her worth that she doesn’t like to think about.

“I really don’t think we need to do that,” Cat says. “We’ve had plenty of time to prepare.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. But aren’t you guys nervous?” She asks, wringing her hands as they sit in her lap. Langston stands, sitting next to her on the bed and putting an arm around her.

“Of course I am,” he says. “But we’re as ready as we’ll ever be; everything else is up to them,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the living room.

Al goes to respond, but there’s a knock on the door that cuts her off. “Dinner’s ready,” Ricky’s voice calls out, and Al swallows nervously. She meets Cat’s eyes, who gives her an encouraging smile, taking a deep, dramatic breath in. Al follows suit, though it doesn’t do much to placate her pounding heart.

“Ready?” Cat asks, and Al nods, though she’s never felt less ready in her life.

“As I’ll ever be.”

--

Chatter is light at the table as the adults talk amongst themselves, but Langston is too lost in his own thoughts to pay much attention to what’s being said. He keeps running over what he’s going to say, glancing at Al and Cat to figure out when the right time to bring it up would be.

They’d decided that he would lead the charge because he tends to be the person who, out of the three of them, adults listen to most. Any time the three of them would get in the slightest bit of trouble as kids, Langston was always able to weasel their way out of punishment, so he’s hoping that carries over to tonight. He’s not sure if this line of thinking will actually work, but being able to lead the charge makes him just as excited as he is nervous, so he doesn’t question it.

It is kind of making him nervous, the fact that he’s going to be the one that breaks the news that, hey, guess what, they know about magic now. He’s mostly scared for his own parents’ reactions; as much as he’s told himself that they won’t care, he can’t shake the feeling that everything could go horribly wrong. They could get mad that they didn’t come to them sooner, or just flat out not believe them at all. He has a general idea of how he wants to handle these scenarios, but the idea of having to challenge his parents makes him wildly uncomfortable, especially since it’s something he’s never had to do before.

There’s a lull in the conversation, and Al and Cat both give him a look that says, Now. He takes a deep breath and bites the bullet. “Hey, guys?” Immediately, six pairs of eyes are on him, and he fights to not squirm under the attention. “Um, there’s something we need to tell you.”

He begins to explain everything from the water monster, to meeting with Em, to Cat’s manifestation of powers. Through it all, everyone just stares at him, occasionally making expressions at each other that he can’t begin to decipher. “And we know this sounds crazy, but -”

Before he can finish, his dad speaks up. “It’s not crazy.” The token around his neck flickers and begins to glow, and Langston darts his eyes towards Cat and Al, trying to see if they can see it. For a second, he thinks it might be just a trick of the light, until he glances once more at the token, and feels seen in a way he never has before.

All of a sudden, he feels grounded, like a part of this. This not just in the sense of the dinner table, though that is part of it, but this as in the city, the ebbs and flows of the millions of people who inhabit it. He feels a surge of power run through him, something that feels an awful lot like how Cat described her magic just days before, and he straightens his shoulders. “But it’s what we saw, and we think we need your help with the rest of it,” he finishes, and his voice feels steadier, stronger.

He looks to Cat and Al, who both give him encouraging looks. But when he glances up at the adults at the table, they tell a completely different story. They’re a mix of staring at each other or staring at him, and none of them are speaking up. Instantly, he feels all of the confidence that had previously filled him disappear as if in a puff of smoke.

Shit.

--

Al isn’t breathing. The silence at the table is suffocating, choking her. The adults are all staring down the table at them, and Al doesn’t know what to do, whether she should say something or wait for Cat to speak up.

Al has never felt more helpless; she hates it. She knew she should have said something earlier when they were making the plan, told Cat and Langston that she wanted to help more actively, something.

More than that, though, she wishes she had something to prove to her parents, to everyone at the table. Something like Cat, where she could shoot magic out of her fingers and - and show them that this was real, that she was a part of this. Actively, not just having been there when Langston and Cat were.

She doesn’t know how to explain this all, though, and it feels selfish anyway, in a moment where the silence is so thick she’s still having trouble breathing through it. The idle anger (at her friends? her parents? herself?) bubbling up in her chest, though, is uncomfortable, and she tries to push it down, at least for now.

“We’d hoped it would still be some time before the Unsleeping City revealed itself to you guys,” Esther says, and that admission, as diverted as it is, makes the rage in Al’s chest swell. She balls her fists together in her lap; she won’t let her guard down, won’t let them see how much this upsets her, the idea that they could have been a part of this world the whole time and weren’t. “We had this whole plan, how we’d tell you guys.”

Al’s mom looks to the others, and Kingston speaks up. “Essentially, the Unsleeping City is just that - the land of dreams. Including magic. We’re all a part of it, in some way or another. We can get into specifics later, but -”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Al asks, the anger finally spilling over. She takes a sharp inhale, ignoring the stares of Cat and Langston on her. She knows she betrayed the plan, and instantly she feels bad about it; she, more than anyone, loves making a plan and sticking to it. It’s just - it’s been weeks of confusion, and frankly, terror, and she’s tired of it. She wants answers, wants everyone to stop talking around the issue and just spit it out.

And, if a selfish part of her wants an explanation so that she can better understand the world, and maybe get some magic out of it, no one has to know that part.

“We wanted to - we were going to,” Esther says, and Al trains her eyes on her mom. “But it - magic, Nod, the Unsleeping City, all of it - is dangerous, and we didn’t want you guys roped into it until you absolutely had to be.”

Al files away that wording - “absolutely had to.” As if there’s some part of them that was inevitably going to be a part of this secret world, no matter how long it took. It deflates the anger in Al, just a bit, and she sits back against her chair.

Suddenly, Al is so, so tired. Of trying to figure this all out, trying to understand this weird world that doesn’t seem to come naturally to her at all. She lets the adults keep talking, only half listening, their voices washing over her as they explain everything - Nod (who she can’t quite tell if they’re a place or a person), their own magic, all of it.

It’s, quite honestly, more than she expected they’d get out of them. But then why doesn’t it feel like enough?

--

Back in Langston’s room, Cat doesn’t feel as victorious as she thought she would have. Just outside, she can hear the adults softly chatting, and she knows it’s about them and the conversation they had at dinner.

She keeps replaying the conversation over and over in her head, and she doesn’t really know what to do with it. It’s everything they wanted - a confirmation that yes, this stuff they’ve been seeing is real - but it still doesn’t feel like enough. Now that she has this information, she doesn’t know what to do with it, where to go from here.

Cat heaves a sigh, flopping down fully onto Langston’s bed. She got everything she wanted - why does she feel defeated?

She feels a presence next to her, and she cranes her head, seeing Al laying next to her, her head on Cat’s shoulder. Langston follows on the other side of Al, resting up against her. “You alright?” Al asks, and Cat shrugs.

“Was that incredibly underwhelming for anyone else?” Cat asks, and she feels Al nod against her shoulder. Cat screws her eyes shut - this feels awfully like the end, and she hates the way it’s making her feel. She doesn’t want to just go back to normal, not when she finally feels like she’s found something she loves doing.

There’s a knock on the door, and Langston mumbles, “Come in.” The door swings open, revealing Cat’s parents on the other side.

“Hey, sweetie. We’re heading out,” Sofia says softly, and Cat sits up, giving one last look towards Al and Langston. They give her reassuring smiles, Al mouthing that she’ll text when she gets home, and Cat follows her parents out.

The walk to the ferry is quiet, uncomfortably so. Unspoken words hover over all of their heads, and she knows they’re all thinking of what went down just an hour ago.

They board the ferry home, and after another few minutes of the suffocating silence, Cat feels like she can’t take it anymore. “There’s something else,” she says suddenly, and both of her parents turn their attention towards her. She swallows, suddenly nervous; there’s a reason that Langston handled the original reveal.

She wrings her hands together, staring at a point just to the left of her mom’s head. “The other day, in the library, I shot light. From my hands.” She cringes at how small, how unsure she sounds, when internally she feels just the opposite. Cat chances a look at her parents, and to her surprise, she finds them exchanging a glance, an entire conversation happening between their eyes.

“Well,” Dale says finally, breaking eye contact with Sofia. “We have something else, too.” Cat perks up, her excitement renewed once again.

“Have you ever heard of an aasimar?”

--

Langston hasn’t left his room since the party ended. If he’s being honest, he’s kind of scared to; he knows there’s not really a reason to be, since his parents reacted comparatively well to everything, but there’s still a sinking feeling of dread sitting low in his stomach.

There was just something in his dad’s eye when he was explaining everything that he can’t quite shake. It’s a look that feels familiar, but he just can’t figure out why. Not to mention, he’s a little freaked out by what he is almost sure is magic that he felt while he was explaining everything.

He sighs, pushing himself out of his bed. He needs to not be in this room anymore, even if the idea of facing his parents doesn’t seem much better. As he walks out into the living room, though, he’s immediately aware of the hushed conversation between his parents that stops immediately upon his entrance into the room.

“Hey,” he says wearily, glancing between the two of them. “Just getting some water.” They share a look, one that Langston can’t begin to decipher.

Kingston looks up at him after a moment and says, “Actually, do you think you could sit down for a second?” Langston nods, but his mind starts racing. Maybe they were waiting for everyone to leave to reprimand him. There’s no reason for him to think that, he knows; as far as parents go, he knows his are fairly lenient, and the few time they have been mad at him, it’s never started like this. But still, he can’t stop from worrying, and his stomach turns as he sits across from them on the couch.

There’s silence between the three of them for a beat, just enough to make Langston squirm, before Liz says, “Langston, hon, you know how we’ve always told you that you’re adopted?”

“Yeah,” he says, the uneasiness in his gut growing. He doesn’t know where this could possibly be going, but he doesn’t think he likes it.

“Well,” Kingston says, “That’s not entirely true. You were adopted, but not from an agency. You see, every so often, New York City has a protector of its history. Sometimes, it’s someone like me - the Vox Populi. But sometimes, they’re someone more - a part of the world.”

“What do you mean?” Langston asks. His own voice sounds far away, as if he’s hearing it from across the room. His heart is pounding in his ears, making it hard for him to hear the conversation as it’s happening in front of him.

His parents exchange a glance again, and Liz raises her eyebrows at Kingston. Kingston turns back to Langston. “The creature who granted me my powers was a - a dragon. And someday, you’ll do the same thing to someone else.”

Langston knows immediately what his dad is saying, but it takes a few more seconds for him to comprehend exactly what it means. “Are - are you saying I’m a dragon?” Kingston just nods in response, a softness behind his eyes that Langston knows is supposed to be comforting, but after what has just been said, misses the mark just slightly.

Langston can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Without really thinking, Langston looks down at his hands, as if expecting them to have suddenly grown scales in the seconds since knowing what he supposedly is. His dad is saying something - about how his dragon form likely won’t fully manifest for a few more years, but he’s not listening. He can’t - this has officially crossed the threshold of too much information.

Suddenly, he stands up in the middle of Kingston speaking, mouth opening and closing as if he’s going to speak. He can’t, though; he thinks that this, finally, has tipped him over the edge. Langston goes back to his room, unable to do anything but stare up at his ceiling and let his mind run with everything he just learned.

That is, until he feels - something. At first, it’s just a sinking feeling of dread settling all over his body, not too unlike what he’d felt earlier. But this is different - lingering, in a way he can’t quite explain.

A few seconds later, his vision goes fuzzy, as if before sleep, but instead of sleeping, he hears a voice, as if from inside his own head but not his own, say something. Langston, it says, voice weak in a way Langston has the sneaking suspicion it usually isn’t. I need you.

Langston sits bolt upright, heart pounding. Because if everything his parents said is true (and as much as it scares him, he thinks it is), then this could only mean one thing.

The city is in trouble.

--

Al is at school, the day washing over her as she sinks deeper and deeper into her own mind, unable to stop thinking about the previous night. Cat and Langston had both texted her after dinner about their own developments - about Cat being an aasimar (which, if Al’s being honest, she still doesn’t really understand), and Langston supposedly being a protector of the city as well as a fucking dragon.

In comparison, her night had been incredibly boring. Esther had come in to talk to her for a little bit, give a little more explanation of magic and her and Ricky’s places in it. No life-changing revelations for her, at least beyond things they already mostly knew.

She knows that that’s not important - in all honesty, she should probably be grateful that her perception of herself didn’t get completely flipped upside-down like she’s sure Cat and Langston’s did. But still, there’s an envious part of her that seems to be growing by the day.

The thing is - Al’s used to always understanding things. She’s always excelled at school, and signed up for every extracurricular she could get her hands on. She’s played softball since third grade, and the cello since sixth. Point being, she doesn’t like this feeling of being on the outside of her own life. Especially now, with seemingly nowhere to go next; despite the weight of every revelation, they don’t really have any concrete next steps. Magic is real, but they can’t really do anything with that, especially since their parents seem hesitant to actually introduce them to the world more than just telling them about their vague connections to it.

She sighs, checking her phone as she waits for her next class to start. She opens Instagram idley, scrolling through but not really paying attention to what she’s seeing. That is, until she sees a post from Scales Book and Tea Shop. It’s a routine post; Pete has always made sure to keep up a good social media presence. But Al starts thinking about the times she’s visited, and every time she’s seen Pete in general. He’s always had a sort of ethereal energy to him, something she could never quite place. Sort of like he floated above everything, like he could do anything if only he was able to conceive of it.

And she remembers her parents saying the previous night, “A lot of our friends are awakened to the Unsleeping City.” Every sign points to Pete being one of these said friends.

Al sends off a text to Cat and Langston, ignoring the pang in her chest as she sees the walls of text detailing their new magical prowesses. Meet @ Scales after school. I think Pete might be in on all of this.

Now she waits, hoping that this contribution will lead them on the right path. Hoping that she can at least contribute something to this adventure that seems like it’s falling more and more out of her reach every day.

--

The bell chimes faintly above the door of Scales Book and Tea Shop as Cat pushes it open, Al and Langston following in tow. She breathes in the scent of worn books and herbal teas as she walks in, wishing as she does every time she visits that she could bottle the scent and keep it.

It’s been a year or two since Cat has been here - she’s seen Pete more recently than that, of course, but getting out to this part of the city is enough of a trek that most of the time it doesn’t seem worth it despite how cool Pete’s shop is. Being here now, though, she wishes she was able to get out here more - it really is one of the most calming places she could think to be.

That is, until Pete spots them and says, “Hey, guys! Welcome in,” that she remembers why they’re here, and her throat instantly closes.

She hates that she’s nervous. If anything, Pete will be more understanding than their parents; he’s always been the leader of shenanigans at get togethers, often roping them into or joining in on some prank on their parents that never quite goes as expected. As long as he’s aware of this magical world, which she’s almost positive he is, there’s a near-guarantee that he’ll be cool with actually explaining whatever’s going on.

“Hey!” She says back, leading Al and Langston up to the front register where he’s currently standing. Once there, she looks at Al - after all, coming here was her idea, so it seems only fair that she tells him what’s going on.

Al catches Cat’s eye, seeming to understand exactly what Cat is trying to convey, and she clears her throat before ripping off the bandage and saying, “Hey, Pete. Um, do you by any chance know anything about the Unsleeping City?” Pete’s eyes widen immediately, excitement mixed with apprehension. We’re getting somewhere, Cat thinks, her confidence renewed.

“Why do you ask?” He asks carefully, and the three of them launch into a brief explanation of what their parents told them.

“So,” Cat finishes, “We figured you might be our best bet to tell us what’s actually going on, besides just saying ‘magic is real, good luck with the rest!’”

Pete chuckles, moving his arm so that it’s propping up his head on the counter. “Well, I will say I’m flattered,” he starts, and Cat has the sneaking suspicion that she’s not going to like where this goes. “But - this stuff is big. Something you can never be rid of once you know it. Are you sure you want to commit to being a part of this world?”

Cat glances at Al and Langston. She knows her answer - she’s felt better than she has about her place in the world than she has in a long time ever since discovering magic, and she knows that she’s all in. But she’s just one of three people - she doesn’t want to make the decision if Al or Langston don’t want to go forward.

Looking at them, though, she sees fiery determination in Al’s eyes, a resolute confidence in Langston’s. She smiles, unable to contain it, and says to Pete, “We’re in. Just tell us what to do.”

He grins back, leaning forward conspiratorially on the counter. Instinctively, Cat leans in, too. “Alright. Do you guys want to see Nod for yourselves?”

Cat nods enthusiastically and Pete says, “Follow me.” The three of them do as they’re told, weaving their way through the shelves until they reach a door in the back, one that she’s never noticed in her numerous times she’s been here, something she suddenly realizes was done intentionally.

“Ready?” Pete asks, and Cat nods again. Pete pushes open the door, standing aside to let them through. Cat steps through the door, sucking in a breath in anticipation as she does. Here goes nothing.

--

Immediately, Langston is overwhelmed by just about every part of Nod.

It’s not the inherent magic of it, though that is definitely part of it. No, it’s more the way it’s so similar to the New York City he’s used to - where they’re standing looks out onto the street just outside of Scales, the surrounding buildings much the same. It’s everything else - the fact that there’s creatures milling about that Langston couldn’t have ever pictured in his wildest imagination, the warm purpley-gray haze that seems to drape over every almost-familiar feature of the city. The fact that, when he looks up, he sees thousands of stars blinking in the distance despite it having still been light out when they entered.

He looks to Cat and Al, and to his bewilderment (though, honestly, it’s not even close to the weirdest thing he’s seen in the ten seconds since stepping through the door) sees that they’re flying. “How’d you do that?” He asks in shock, looking down at his own feet, planted firmly on the ground.

“I don’t really know!” Cat calls back with a laugh. “It just kinda happened!”

A hand plants itself on Langston’s shoulder, and he jolts in surprise before he realizes it’s only Pete. “You have to wish for it to happen,” he says before he too begins hovering. “Nod responds to dreams.”

Langston closes his eyes, wiggling his toes in his shoes, trying to will them to lift off from the ground. He waits for a few seconds with bated breath, before he starts to feel his body lift. He opens his eyes again excitedly, only to see that he’s only a few centimeters off the ground and doesn’t seem to be getting any higher.

“It’s also okay if it doesn’t happen,” Pete says conciliatory, and as if in solidarity, he lowers himself back to the ground. “You know, it took your dad a few years to even be able to do that.” Pete nods to Langston where he’s floating, and Langston tilts his head in surprise.

“Really?” Langston asks, intrigued, and Pete nods in response. His dad has always seemed effortlessly good at everything he does - him not being able to do something for years doesn’t line up with the image he has of his dad in his head. He files the information away, lowering himself back on the ground - as much as he’d liked the thrill, floating through a city that he’s seeing in a new light doesn’t seem like

“Alright,” Pete says, drawing Cat and Al’s attention from where they’re still taking in everything Nod has to offer. “Ready to head out?” Before waiting for an answer, he begins to lead them through this strange city, weaving them through the streets.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Langston says as a sprite-like creature with what seems like tendrils of shadow for hair passes by, “but it definitely wasn’t this.”

“Yeah, but this is fucking amazing,” Cat says, awe evident in her voice. “I can’t believe our parents have been hiding this from us our whole lives.”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” Al says. “They never really explained why they kept this from us, besides that it’s supposedly dangerous. Do any of you guys find that weird?”

Langston considers it. Truth be told, the night they confronted their parents, he was so overwhelmed by the wealth of information that he hadn’t been able to think beyond the immediate context of what was being said. But now that Al mentions it, it does seem weird that this huge part of their lives has been completely unknown to them until now. “I don’t know,” Langston says eventually. “It definitely doesn’t seem like them.”

Al looks like she’s about to say something in response, but Pete stops in front of a relatively normal looking house, all things considered, and turns back to them. “We’re here,” he announces. He looks between the three of them, considering them all.

“Are you guys ready to meet Nod?”

--

Cat isn’t sure what she expected from Nod, but it certainly isn’t the gray figure who stands before her who looks like they can’t be more than eight years old. Granted, Cat isn’t totally sure what kids of any age younger than twelve are supposed to look like, but the point is, Nod is young. Younger than her, easily, and she didn’t really expect the - creator? protector? - of all the magic in New York City to maybe not even be in the double-digits, age-wise.

“Pete!” Nod exclaims cheerily, running up to him and hugging him around his waist. Pete leans forwards and hugs them back, pulling away after a few moments, turning towards Cat, Al, and Langston.

“Nod, this is - well, you know who they are, I’m sure,” Pete says, and Nod bobs their head in affirmation.

“Of course. Cat, Langston, Al,” they say, and immediately Cat feels relieved that they use her and Al’s nicknames. She’s not sure exactly why, but she suspects it has to do with that water creature using their full names and the formality of it, the fear it left her with. And, it just feels nice, familiar, like she’s known Nod her entire life, and in some ways, it feels like she has.

A smile breaks out onto Nod’s face, and they continue. “I’ve been waiting to meet you guys - well, your entire lives.” Cat momentarily pauses at the mindfuck that is this person, who, again, looks like a child actually being older than the three of them, before she’s filled with some emotion she can’t name about the fact that Nod has just been here, knowing of their existences and wanting to meet them but Cat knowing nothing about it. It makes her ache in ways that she can’t really explain, but the magic that bubbles under her skin at the thought is a good indicator.

Speaking of - “Wait, do you know about my magic?” Cat blurts out, and after a look from Langston, she adds, “Our magic.”

“I do! Do you want to hear about it?” Nod asks, and Cat nods her head vigorously. Finally - after her parents dancing around the subject, acknowledging her magic and her aasimar ancestry but not really going any farther than that, she’s finally going to get an explanation.

“Cat, yours comes from your bloodline - your divinity. Your magic comes from this divine power that you possess from being an aasimar.” Cat, in all honesty, is a little underwhelmed, though she tries not to let it show. She didn’t realize until Nod said it, but she kind of thought her magic was because of something special about her as a person, not just the way she was born. Still, she tries to look excited, or at least not vaguely upset, as Nod continues, “And Langston, yours comes from the city itself, but it’s different than your dad’s is. Yours comes from the history of the city, everything that makes New York - well, New York.”

Cat waits for Nod to continue, to turn to Al and explain her yet-to-show abilities as well, but they don’t, falling back into silence. Cat glances over at Al and sees a flash of hurt cross her face before she settles it into something more neutral. Cat desperately wants to talk to Al about it, but she knows that now is not the time, and honestly, she knows Al doesn’t like talking about this kind of stuff. Cat’s not really even sure how she’d broach the topic.

“Actually, while you guys are here, there’s something else,” Nod says, and Cat immediately perks up. Maybe this is it - the next step they have to take in their quest. Cat glances at Pete, and he seems taken aback, which shocks her - she assumed that anything that Nod was going to tell them, Pete would already know.

Nod clears their throat, looking out the window of their room onto the rest of Nod, a swirling technicolor below. “I’m afraid,” they start, and Cat realizes suddenly that their voice is filled with tears, “That Nod is in danger.”

--

Al is so in her own head that she almost misses Nod’s revelation to the group. Granted, it’s not really something they didn’t already know - after all, that’s how they found out about all of this anyway. And anyway, Al’s still stuck on Nod telling Langston and Cat all about their powers, but saying nothing at all to Al.

Really, Al is trying her hardest not to be jealous, to be happy for Cat and Langston. And she is! It’s just - hard, to feel so inadequate, especially when she’s used to always being at the top. But for now, she tries to focus back in on Nod and what they’ve just said, and to Pete’s immediate response of, “What do you mean?”

Nod is still staring out the window of their room, and Al is struck again by just how young they look. Since their conversation, Al’s been able to mostly forget about it, because Nod speaks so unlike what their perceived age would seem to warrant. But now, Nod looks so small in front of them, their face an open book even in profile, and Al can tell that Nod is scared. Immediately, Al feels a twist of pain in her chest.

“I don’t know for sure what it is. All I know - I’ve been feeling a lot weaker. Something about New York City is wrong. Stagnant - like there’s nothing worthy of a dream happening anymore.”

Al glances at Pete, mostly to try to see how he’s reacting to this, and sees that he looks just as shocked as Al feels. “But - how have I not noticed?” He says, and the concern in his voice is palpable.

Nod shrugs, finally turning back towards the four of them. When they do, Al notices how tired they look, their eyes sunken into their face. Al hadn’t put the pieces together at first, but even though Nod is already fairly devoid of color, she can tell that this isn’t how Nod normally looks, their face sallow and lined with worry.

“I’ve been trying to hold on to as much power as possible,” Nod says. “I didn’t want you to worry.” Al’s heart twists; she doesn’t know Nod well, obviously, but in just that sentence alone she can tell how much they care for Pete and want to keep him safe from harm.

Pete and Nod continue speaking, and Al starts turning the gears in her head. Nod said that the city feels stagnant - she twists her eyes shut, trying to think of just how that fits.

She feels stuck - much like, she supposes, the magic in the city. Fitting. She turns towards the twinkling lights of the city out Nod’s window, technicolor in this strange dream world. She starts to feel angry, then - if only she knew more about this world, if she had any of her own ties to it, she would be able to help. The stars seem almost to glow brighter, nearly burning her retinas, and suddenly, she realizes: that might be exactly the problem.

“What if it’s us?” She blurts out, and Nod and Pete immediately fall silent. Al nearly falters under their gazes, but forces herself to continue - she has to say this, to prove she belongs here, magic or not. “Well, not us specifically, but - you said that magic was stagnant, right? Well, I can’t imagine our parents are the only ones who have kept magic from us. I mean, have you guys gotten new people in the city recently?” She cringes at her wording, but she’s still not exactly sure how all this magic stuff works, and she tries not to let her embarrassment show on her face.

Pete and Nod exchange a glance, and slowly Pete shakes his head. “I’m not too sure on the technical side, but I don’t think we’ve been actively recruiting for - a while now.”

Al doesn’t grin - the situation is definitely too bleak for that, but internally, she feels alight with pride. “I think that might be the problem, then.”

Pete, however, doesn't look too sure. “I’ll bring it up,” he says, but Al can tell he doesn’t fully buy into her idea. She tries not to let it bother her; she may be new to this world, but she thinks she understands it enough to know that this is feasible, that she might have just cracked it.

They don’t stay too long after that, Pete and Nod exchanging updates from their respective worlds before Pete begins to lead them out. Al, however, hangs back, walking up to Nod. “Hey,” she says, and Nod looks up and Al, their face unreadable. “I was just wondering - do you have any insight into any sort of magic that I might have?” It sounds pathetic to her own ears, and she tries to not cringe at how needy it sounds.

“I may be magic, but I can’t tell the future, unfortunately. I can only explain what’s already been presented.” Al tries to not let their disappointment show, but something must seep through, because Nod puts a conciliatory hand on Al’s side. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though,” they finish, and Al almost sees a look of - something, flash across their face. Al almost pushes, asks what they mean by that, but something in that look - she lets it go, waves goodbye to Nod, and goes to catch up with the group, trying not to let disappointment overtake her.

--

Langston spends the next few days reeling from - well, pretty much everything. Going to Nod, then meeting Nod, finally getting some answers and then getting even more questions. Like - how the fuck are the three of them supposed to save Nod?

It’s been a question that’s rattling around in his brain all afternoon. Because if Al’s right and they need to bring more people into the Unsleeping City, how are the three of them supposed to do that like that water creature said they needed to? It just all feels a little big for three people who found out that magic is real less than a month ago.

He’s thumbing through his phone as he thinks, his homework beneath him at his desk, untouched, when he hears the door open, and he gets an idea.

As much as the last few weeks have seemed to work to the contrary, Langston’s parents have always been honest with him, treating him as an equal. And even though they’ve been weird about anything pertaining to magic, he hopes that even now they’ll continue to answer the questions he has (which, admittedly, is a lot).

He stands from his desk, homework all but abandoned, and walks out into the living room, where he finds his dad sitting on the couch, a book open in his lap. “Hey, Dad,” Langston says, taking a seat in the chair next to the couch. “How was work?”

Kingston sets his book down on the coffee table, peering at Langston. “Good, good. Lotta people to help,” he says, and Langston can tell that Kingston knows that this isn’t really why Langston’s here, so Langston cuts to the chase.

“The, um - the last dragon. Who lived here. What, uh, what was he like?” All of a sudden, Langston is nervous, the idea of learning about the person he’s supposed to become a little more terrifying than he was expecting. Plus, he’s overwhelmed by the picture of Nod as an alternate version of New York City - the idea that he’s going to be a part of this world forever is more than a little intimidating.

Kingston sits back, leaning against the back of the couch. “Well, I only met him once.” For some reason, this surprises Langston - the way Kingston had talked about him when he first brought up the subject seemed more familiar. “But he was really great. Cared about the city deeply, and wanted the best for it.”

Langston nods, but his fears aren’t exactly expunged. “I just - I keep thinking about how it seems like my future has been laid out since I was born, and I’m just now learning about it. It’s just - not what I would’ve ever expected. Obviously.”

Kingston sighs, deep and heavy. “This is what I worried about, keeping this from you all this time.” Immediately, Langston’s ears perk up. Finally, it looks like he’s going to be getting answers. “We all agreed it was for the best of you three - the world is dangerous enough without magic added into the equation. We planned to tell you guys - honestly, soon, probably in a year or two. I still think it was the right choice,” Kingston says after seeing the look on Langston’s face, “But - I do regret that you missed out on so much.”

It’s more candid than he’s maybe ever heard his dad, and it’s honestly really comforting to hear. To know that even he had, and still has, his doubts about the way everything has happened. “Yeah,” Langston says. “It’s a lot. I don’t really know what to do with all of this, if I’m honest. Like, how am I supposed to keep going to school when I know what my life’s supposed to be? Can I even still be a doctor?”

“Well, I didn’t have to be a nurse,” Kingston says, and it kind of rocks Langston’s world. Because as much as he’s been hyper aware of this world being hidden from him, he hasn’t actually thought about his dad’s place in it. It never really occurred to him that his role in the world didn’t actually require him to be a nurse, that he did it just because he wanted to.

“Huh,” is Langston’s only response. The conversation peters out there - Kingston must be able to tell that this is something Langston is going to have to spend a lot of time processing. Because really, it feels like his world has just gotten turned on its head again, learning that he might not have to give up his dreams but that instead they’ll just look a little different than before. It’s still strange, something he’ll have to get used to, but he doesn’t think it’s bad.

“Thanks, Dad,” Langston says after a few minutes of silence between them, and he gets up from his chair to hug Kingston. His dad hugs him back, soft and warm and comforting, and for just a moment, Langston forgets to be terrified about the future.

--

Al feels uncomfortable.

She’s felt off since getting back from Nod - feeling a strange mix of pity and loathing for herself. She’s been having trouble focusing, and today when she got home from school she tried doing homework in her room, then tried reading, but being alone with her thoughts wasn’t really working, so she moved to the living room where she sits now. But things are still weird with her parents, at least on Al’s side - she just wants to talk about everything, but she doesn’t want to burden her parents with something she doesn’t think they want to talk much more about.

Now, it’s mostly fine - Esther and Ricky are making dinner a room over, but Al still can’t focus. She can’t stop replaying everything Nod said in her head, over and over. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Hah, as if. It’s practically the only thing she’s thought about since this world was revealed to the three of them. The more she ruminates, the more upset she gets. And the more upset she gets, the more she has to confront why. It’s been easy, so far, to let it be surface level - jealousy of Cat and Langston, anger towards her parents for keeping this from her. But she’s starting to realize that’s all been an excuse.

In kindergarten, Al couldn’t tie her shoes. She was just awful at it - she would sit in her room, practicing tying the laces together over and over with growing frustration. Because everyone in her class could tie their shoes, and she couldn’t, and why couldn’t she just tie her shoes?

Eventually, she learned, sitting down with her dad as he patiently explained the steps to her and it finally clicked. But that frustration of being behind, of being the last person to learn to do something - she supposes it’s stuck with her. And she supposes it’s what’s sticking with her now.

Embarrassingly enough, Al begins to cry. She feels it before she really realizes what’s happening - a tear rolls down her cheek, catching on the side of her nose, and she hurries to wipe it away. A sniffle escapes and she freezes, hoping her parents didn’t hear, but then Ricky peeks his head out of the doorway, and she tries to turn away but it’s too late. “Sweetheart? You okay?”

Frantically, Al nods, but Ricky makes his way over to her nonetheless, sitting next to her on the couch and drawing her into his side. It makes her feel five years old again, and she tries not to feel too pathetic for it, instead leaning into the comfort of her dad. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid,” she murmurs, tears falling harder now. She knows it’s futile - Ricky isn’t pushy, but she knows it’s just a matter of time until the words spill out of her mouth, especially considering how long these feelings have been building up inside of her. Still, though, she tries to delay the inevitable - call it hubris, or something like that.

Al feels a weight settle in on her other side, and knows it has to be Esther. She lets out a sigh, much more tearfully than she intended, and sits up, staring down at her lap, tears still falling. “It’s just - I feel dumb for not having magic like Cat and Langston.” It feels like the absolute worst way to say it, but it also feels like a weight being lifted - she hasn’t had anyone to talk to about this until now, and even if she feels immensely childish for it, it’s nice to have at least said it at all.

“Al, honey,” Esther says, putting a hand comfortingly on her back. “You’re not dumb at all. God, you know how long it took me to understand magic?” Al sniffles and shakes her head. “It was months, at least. Magic is weird, and it’s hard. Plus, Cat and Langston already had a leg up,” she points out.

Al tries to picture her mom in her position, trying desperately to learn magic but just not getting it. It doesn’t line up with the image of her mom she has in her head - she’s always seemed to do things, even non-magic, so effortlessly that when Al had found out about her mom’s magic, she had just assumed that was the same. This, though - this changes things. She still feels inadequate, sure, but knowing that her mom was once in the same boat - maybe that’s a little comforting, too.

Still, she’s not sure if that’s really all of it. “Yeah, but - it just sucks, feeling left out like this,” she says.

“You’ll get there, honey,” Esther says comfortingly.

“And if you don’t,” Ricky adds, “Magic isn’t everything. Plenty of people are involved in this world without magic.”

“Yeah,” Al finally concedes, though she doesn’t really believe it. She knows there’s no winning against her parents. Plus, she doesn’t feel as bad anymore; she’s stopped crying, at least, the lump in her throat gone. She’s not sure if she feels better - despite her dad’s words, she still really, really wants magic of her own. But with the comforting presence of her parents on either side of her, she does at least feel better, and maybe that’s all that matters.

--

Weeks pass, and things almost seem to quiet down. Cat still goes to school, though she doesn’t pay much attention in classes. No, she’s much more interested in what happens after class: namely, practicing magic.

Her parents have gotten less skittish, and her mom even joins her sometimes, helping her with different spells. She didn’t realize how much work went into practicing magic - for something that’s apparently innate to her, it really does take a lot of work.

Her and Al and Langston still talk about their role in all of this - even though their parents have gotten a bit more relaxed about them knowing magic, the three of them being able to help with whatever’s seemingly wrong with Nod is a whole different story. Al is still convinced about her theory, and honestly, Cat is too. Besides, no one else seems to be coming up with anything better. But when Al had told their parents about what she thought was going on, they seemed to not pay it much attention.

Well, that’s not exactly right. Because they did take it into consideration, but in that way adults do when they think they know better than kids just because they’re older. Which Cat understands, but still hates nonetheless. Just because they’re young and new to this magic shit doesn’t mean they don’t have valuable opinions - but whatever.

So, progress isn’t really getting made on the whole “saving Nod” thing, but she knows the adults are having closed door meetings about it, so there’s not really much she feels like she can do besides to keep practicing magic and get prepared for whatever is to come.

Which is why school feels so tedious, because she can’t be doing anything she actually wants to do. Instead, she sits in boring classes and barely pays attention as she thinks about when she can go home and practice magic again.

She glances up at the clock in the class she’s in now, biology, and sighs. She still has seventeen minutes left, and then two more classes after this. Her teacher is talking about cell division, or something like that - Cat got behind in the class a few weeks ago and hasn’t really figured out what’s going on since then. Before magic, bio was her worst class anyway, but she’s still skating by with a low C, so she considers that a win.

She’s staring up at her teacher, listening but without processing much of anything being said, when something flashes out of the corner of her eye. She ignores it, at least until it flashes again. Quickly, she darts her head to the side, and in the corner of the classroom she sees - well, she’s not actually sure what she sees.

If she had to describe it, she would say it looks like a ghost of some kind. But that’s not exactly it - it’s translucent and seems only semi-corporeal, sure, but that’s where the similarities end. It’s not pale white, instead a dingy, lifeless gray, and it has a humanlike silhouette but with a lack of any sort of definable features. It’s almost like the impression of a person, like someone had tried to sketch the outline of a human with their eyes closed.

Immediately, Cat turns to her classmates, trying to discern if anyone else sees what she sees. No one seems to be paying attention to the corner of the room, not even the people seated closest to the figure who would be hard pressed to not notice it. In a near-panic, Cat looks back to the ghostly figure, and gets the distinct impression that, even without any recognizable facial features, it’s staring back at her, bearing into her soul.

Shakily, Cat raises her hand, and when she’s called on, she asks, “Can I go to the bathroom?” She tries her hardest to keep her voice stable, but she’s not sure if it works.

Either way, her teacher just sighs - clearly, Cat had just interrupted something that her teacher did not want to be interrupted - and says, “If you must.” It’s all the permission she needs - in a heartbeat, Cat is out of her seat, walking briskly down the hallway.

She knows that she can’t, won’t go back to class. This seems serious, even deadly. As she walks, a feeling settles low in her gut: whatever’s been going on in the city, it’s ending now, one way or another, and she thinks this figure is just the beginning of the end of whatever the hell is going on.

--

Langston’s phone buzzes when he’s in the middle of class. Internally, he debates whether or not to check it; he remembers what happened the last time he tried. But this is a different class, with a different teacher, so he chances a peek down just in case.

As it turns out, that’s exactly what he needed to do, because staring back up at him is a text from Cat. something’s happening you guys need to meet me @ Gramercy. tell your parents.

Langston, as he’s prone to do, begins freaking out. One, because Cat gave him and Al next to no details, leaving Langston’s mind racing with possibilities - like, what if someone’s dying? Two, because he doesn’t know how the hell he’s going to be able to weasel his way out of this class.

After a moment of internal debate, he finally raises his hand, asking to use the bathroom. His teacher concedes, telling him to, “Be quick.” He cringes at that, knowing that she is about to be very disappointed in him, and that his classmates are almost definitely going to be talking about his disappearance, but he leaves nonetheless, walking as quickly as he can down the hall. As he does so, he drafts and re-drafts a text to his dad.

It’s not that he’s scared to text his dad, exactly, but he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. Finding out about the power Kingston holds in the Unsleeping City and that Langston himself is going to hold one day has been intimidating, to say the least. He feels the need to be perfect, to not let his fear and confusion show.

What he ends up sending is, Hey dad, cat just said there’s something going on w/ the unsleeping city. Can you meet us at Gramercy? He hopes it’s sufficient, and he pockets his phone, walking so fast down the hall that it's nearly a sprint.

He makes it outside with no problem, but as he’s making his way down the front steps of school, he realizes exactly what Cat meant when she said “something’s happening,” because he finds himself face to face with what he can only describe as a ghost.

His heart immediately drops into his stomach, and he stops in his tracks. This can’t be happening, he thinks in the back of his head, but he knows that it is, that this has to be just the tip of the iceberg of whatever’s going on right now.

Langston doesn't let himself ruminate in his thoughts; he can’t, because as he’s frozen on the front steps, the ghoul is making its way ever closer, its soulless face boring into Langston’s. He doesn’t know what to do; he barely knows what his magic is or what it does, and he doesn’t know how to protect himself. I’m going to die, he thinks pathetically.

Suddenly, he thinks of his dad, how confident he’s always been, the confidence he’s tried to instill in Langston for as long as he can remember. He hasn’t known about his dad’s involvement with magic for long, but he can imagine exactly what he thinks his dad would do, and he sure as hell wouldn’t give up. So, Langston straightens his shoulders, trying to calm the terror pulsing through his veins, and thinks, No. I am going to fucking live.

“Leave me alone,” Langston says, voice low but sure. For a beat, time seems to stand still, nothing existing in the world except for Langston and this apparition in front of him. But then, as if on a swivel, the apparition turns, walking back exactly the way it came.

Langston could nearly collapse with relief. He looks down at his hands and sees a crackle of energy pass through them, lightning strung between his fingers. He smiles down, proud of himself, but then the moment passes as he looks up towards the sky.

The sky is gray, but not in a way that’s natural. No, this is something completely different. It's as if the color itself has been sucked outside of the sky, leaving everything around it in grayscale. Things are clearly bad; there’s no time to waste. He runs down the rest of the steps, hoping that the impending doom can hold off long enough for him to get to Gramercy.

--

Cat’s leg is bouncing up and down uncontrollably as she sits in the central room of Gramercy waiting for everyone to show up. Her mom is already here, along with Esther and Ricky. The three of them are crowded around a screen on the wall, talking in hushed voices about whatever’s on the screen.

Cat wishes, more than anything, that she could be a part of the conversation. She knows, theoretically, she could; there’s nothing stopping her from standing up and crossing the length of the room to where the three of them are standing. But still, something stops her - maybe it’s her own insecurity, maybe it’s a fear that they wouldn’t take her seriously. So she stays where she is, leg bouncing as if on its own accord, and she waits.

It takes only a few more minutes for Al to show up, and a few minutes after that for Langston to come through the doors. The rest of the adults trickle in, too; when Dale sees Cat on the couch, he seems to visibly relax, which makes her feel equal parts comforted and worried.

“So, what’s going on, exactly?” Kingston asks, still in his nurses’ scrubs. The question is directed at Esther, which Cat can’t exactly blame him for, but it still hurts a little, to be unacknowledged for her discovery of this whole situation.

“We’re not exactly sure - we’ve never seen anything like this before,” Esther says, still staring intently at the screen projected in front of her. “It looks like a bunch of spirits, but devoid of any life behind them. The only thing that ever came close to something like this was Null.” At this, all the adults in the room shudder, a shared memory passing between them that Cat isn’t privy to. She glances at Al and Langston, but the two of them seem just as confused, which is at least a small comfort.

Silence befalls them all for a second, and Dale pipes up, “So what do we do about it?”

“Well, there’s a lot more of them than there are us, and they’re spread out all over the city. So we need to get them all to a central location - some manipulation of the highway lines should be able to do that in a few hours - and then it’s looking like we’ll have to fight.” When Esther says this, immediately the adults all start throwing ideas out, different tactics to follow to take down these spirits.

“What do you want us to do?” Langston pipes up after a few minutes of their discussion. Immediately, the chatter quiets down, all attention on the three of them.

“You guys can stay here, wait until this all blows over,” Esther says after a moment, for the first time addressing them directly instead of the screen. The attention should feel good; after all, this whole time, it feels like they haven’t been taken seriously. But it doesn’t - if anything it feels patronizing.

But Cat’s not giving up. They’ve been through all of this, and she’s not going to sit this out just because their parents don’t want them to fight. For God’s sake, they were the ones who were told to save Nod, not the adults. “No.”

“Catherine,” Sofia says in a warning voice, but Cat plows forward, trying to shake off the use of her full name.

“No. We’re a part of this now, too, whether you like it or not. We should have a say.” Cat starts to feel her confidence falter, with the eyes of everyone in the room on her, but she won’t let that stop her; she’s waited too long for that. “If Al is right, and this has all been caused by there being a lack of new voices in the city, we should come.”

The adults all glance at each other, silent conversations happening between them. Cat is content to wait, as long as it means that they’re listening.

Finally, Sofia speaks up again. “It’s going to be dangerous. We just want to keep you safe,” she says, and this is different than she’s ever seen her mom before. She looks scared. Immediately, all of Cat’s defenses fall, and she stands, crossing the room until she’s standing right in front of her mom.

“I know,” she says, voice soft. “But I think this is the best way - the only way.” Sofia looks down at her, unspilled tears pooling in her eyes, before she finally nods, turning to the rest of the group.

“They should come. We can keep an extra eye on them, but they’re right - we can’t keep them out of this forever.” Slowly, the rest of the adults concede, and Cat can’t help but feel proud of herself for causing this.

Cat wraps her arms around her mom, pulling her in a tight hug. Her mom returns it, holding her just as tight, and Cat whispers, “Thank you,” into her shoulder.

“Just - promise me you’ll be as safe as you can?”

“I promise,” Cat says, and it’s one she intends to keep.

--

They walk down to Central Park hours later, once the spirits have been directed there by some complicated technical magic that Al doesn’t really understand. She’s sandwiched between her parents, Esther on her right and Ricky on her left. It’s the most intense she’s ever seen the two of them: her mom is holding a staff, a look of complete determinism in her eyes, and her dad has in his hands a spiked baseball bat, staring resolutely ahead as he walks.

If she’s being honest, she never really expected any of this to get to this point, at least not so soon. She’d at least hoped that she would have her magic before this all culminated like this; she’s feeling uniquely powerless, especially as all of the adults around her carry various weapons.

She swallows, trying to calm her nerves but to no avail. Her mom seems to sense this, and she reaches down, squeezes her hand like she would when Al was young. “You alright?”

Al nods, trying to instill confidence behind the look. “Yeah, just - just nervous.” She doesn’t sound convincing to even her own ears, and her mom stops walking, turning to face her.

“Before my first fight, I was scared out of my mind,” she says, and it’s hard for Al to imagine, especially seeing her mom so confident in front of her.

“What did you do?”

Esther looks off into the distance, clearly falling back into a memory. “I did what I had to; I fought. But I was much less prepared than you were; I wasn’t with a group this big, or a group that cared about me this much.”

“But you had to have had something - magic, or a weapon,” Al counters, and Esther draws her eyebrows together like she finally understands. Another time, Al would feel self conscious being vulnerable like this, but there’s no time now. After all, she might die, something she’s being more acutely aware of by the second, and this feels like something so miniscule in comparison.

“I did. But you don’t need any of that to be strong. Is it valuable? Sure. But if you never get magic, or if you find that fighting isn’t for you, there’s other ways for you to be a part of this world, if it’s what you really want.”

“It is,” Al breathes out, and she doesn’t realize how true it is until she says it. Because that’s really all it is; she wants this, maybe more than she’s wanted anything (which is saying something, with how driven Al is).

“Then it’ll all work out,” Esther says, putting a comforting hand on Al’s shoulder. “But, if it makes you feel better, you can have this,” she continues, procuring a small dagger from her bag, handing it to Al before she turns back to catch up with the group. Al still hangs back, though; she’s still not entirely sure if she feels confident in her ability to do this, even with the weight of the dagger in her hand.

She feels a presence move beside her, and sees Cat and Langston have walked up to her. “Hey,” Langston says, nudging her with his shoulder. “You alright?”

Al opens her mouth, microseconds away from brushing him off, insisting that she’s okay and continuing to move on. But she realizes that she doesn’t want to do that - she’s hidden her feelings from them for so long, and now feels as good a time as any to confide in them, finally.

“Honestly? I could be better,” she says, and she has barely even said anything of value, but it already feels like a weight off her shoulder. “I just - I don’t have magic like you guys; I don’t even know what I’ll bring to the fight. And - and I’m worried I’ll just slow everyone down.”

“Hey,” Cat says immediately, voice firm but not harsh. “You couldn’t slow us down. Plus, you’re, like, the smartest fucking person I know. Hell, you figured out this whole thing, even if no one wanted to acknowledge it. So what if you don’t have magic?”

“Yeah, you’re capable as hell,” Langston echoes, and there’s so much kindness from every side that Al almost can’t remember why she didn’t want to tell them before. “Plus, we’ll make sure you stay safe,” he says, and Al feels tears spring to her eyes, unbidden. The love she’s feeling from the two of them is overwhelming - she doesn’t really know what to do with it.

“Thanks, guys,” she says, voice tight. It doesn’t feel like enough; she doesn’t know what could be, after all that, but she has to settle for it. Besides, there’s no more time - they’ve arrived at Central Park.

--

Cat has never seen Central Park like this, so ominous and lifeless. There’s spirits everywhere, but it’s so unlike the normal crowd at Central Park - this feels much, much worse. It feels, for lack of a better phrase, like the end of the world.

The adults split up - she’d heard them talking about a central figure that they need to track down - and Cat looks to her parents for the go-ahead. As much as she wants to just jump right in, she finally feels like she’s starting to understand where her parents’ fears are coming from. And honestly, she’s starting to become fucking terrified. But Sofia gives her a little nod, and Dale shoots her a thumbs up, and it’s go time. Neither of her parents leave in search of the central spirit, which helps to calm her, and Cat flexes her fingers, trying to channel her magic through them. Trying to ignore the spike of nerves sitting low in the pit of her stomach.

Instantly, Cat feels unprepared, even with all the practice she’s been doing in the past weeks to expand her magic. It’s just - her magic is still erratic at best, and she’s never tried to sustain it for as long as the battle is sure to go on for. For the first time since her magic has manifested, she doesn’t feel full confidence in it, and it makes her feel unsteady on her feet.

Before making any moves, she glances around. She sees Langston hanging near Al, both of them staring down the spirits, appearing to wait for something to happen before making any moves of their own. She sees Esther and Ricky, side by side, marching their way through to where the central ghoul lies, or at least that’s what she assumes. She sees Kingston, and Pete and Cody and Iga and all these people she’s known her whole life, and she thinks, I can do this. Even if she doesn’t fully believe it, it’s enough to make her feel less frozen in place with fear.

So, she puts out her hands, her magic pulsing within them, and sends a beam of blue light from her fingertips, hitting one of the spirits square in the chest. It pauses from where it was meandering towards Langston and Al, turning to look (well, what would constitute as looking if it had eyes) at Cat instead. It charges for her, latching onto her shoulder. She yelps in surprise, and then again a moment later as it seems to literally suck her life out of her.

It’s a feeling she can’t really describe; it’s nothing she’s ever felt before. She feels herself weakening, her magic dulling inside her. In fact, her whole being feels as if it’s dimming, falling into grayscale like the being in front of her. She can’t, won’t let this stand.

With a grunt, she twists her hand, the magical tether between herself and the ghost activating and causing more damage to the spirit. It howls, low and nearly melodic, before it dissolves into mist before her eyes.

Holy fuck. She did it, she killed one of these bastards. She doesn’t have time to celebrate, though - the second she begins to revel in her accomplishment, two more spirits come up upon her, and she has to quickly turn towards them, tapping back into the dimmed power that lives beneath her skin. She turns to them, sending two magical darts in their direction, knowing with full certainty that they’ll strike true.

Bring it on, she thinks as she casts the spell, feels the power build up and then dispel. As long as she feels this power thrum under her veins, even with the weird effects of these spirits dampening it, she feels unstoppable, and she refuses to let this feeling die any time soon.

--

Langston feels like he’s never felt before. He feels powerful, in control of his magic in a way he hasn’t since it manifested. There’s also a bit of existential terror about what this sense of pride means for him, but he’s trying not to think too hard about it, at least for now.

He’s not doing a lot of the actual fighting, mostly serving as support for everyone else who is. Patching up wounds with his magic, that kind of thing. It’s so much like what he wants for his non magical self that he almost aches with it, the feeling of accomplishment growing within him, an equal feeling of terror accompanying it, because it’s so, so different than he ever imagined.

Sometime in the throes of battle, though, something in him shifts. He’s not sure what it is at first; he thinks it’s just something to do with his magic, the way it pulsates in the space beneath his skin. He mostly ignores it at first, focused instead on keeping everyone around him on their feet and able to fight. But it persists, a nagging, tingling sensation all throughout his body, and he looks down at his hands, finding the flesh there glimmering. He panics for a second before it finally clicks: they’re scales, trying to push up from beneath his skin.

His dragon form is trying to make its first appearance.

He’s so stunned he freezes in the middle of battle, ignoring everything that’s going on just to stare at his hands. Because it’s one thing to know that you’re a dragon theoretically, and it’s another to see the scales shimmering atop your skin, your fractured reflection staring back at you through them.

Langston doesn’t know what to do; he knows he should want to embrace this, to transform into what he was always meant to be, but he’s scared. Scared of the change, and honestly, scared of the permanency. Because once he transforms, there’s no turning back - he’ll always be the boy that can turn into a dragon. It’ll be him accepting his role in this strange, magical world, and he’s not sure if he’s ready for that.

Frantically, he glances around the battlefield, trying to see if anyone has noticed. He doesn’t want to do this on his own; he wants someone to hold his hand, tell him it’s going to be okay, no matter how childish it sounds. Finally, he makes eye contact with his dad over a sea of spirits, and though they’re too far away to speak, he must see something in Langston’s eyes, because he begins making his way over to Langston.

“You alright?” Kingston asks when he reaches Langston’s side, panting a bit with the exertion of battle. Wordlessly, Langston holds out his hand, showing the scales that have started settling more concretely on top of his skin. Kingston claps a hand on Langston’s shoulder, and Langston can see his face is filled with pride.

“Hey, alright. Look at that,” he says just under his breath. And then, as if remembering the look of terror on Langston’s face, he continues, “You’re gonna be alright, I promise. I’ll be right by your side the whole time.”

Langston nods, but still he hesitates. “I just - I don’t want to change,” he says, and his voice is quiet, something even he can barely hear over the droning noise of battle. Still, Kingston seems to hear, and more importantly, to understand, and he squeezes Langston’s shoulder comfortingly.

“You won’t. Not in the ways that matter.” Langston nods again, takes a deep breath in, and gives into the impulse of his body.

The transformation he undergoes is unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. It’s something like his human form crumbling away, a dragon form emerging on top of it. After a mere few seconds, Langston is fully a dragon.

It feels odd, but not as odd as he thought it would. It’s not like being in a foreign body - even though it’s his first time as a dragon, there’s a comfort in it, as if it was always there, waiting for him, and he supposes that’s not far from the truth.

He turns to Kingston again, now towering over him, and the grin his dad wears is splitting. Langston tries to smile in response, but his dragon mouth makes it awkward, so he settles for a gentle bat of Kingston with his tail. “Now go kick some ass!” Kingston yells up at him, and Langston turns to do just that.

--

There is so much commotion happening in front of Al that she can’t process any of it, and it doesn’t help that there’s nothing she can do in the first place. I should have just stayed behind, she thinks gloomily as she watches Cat take down yet another spirit.

She was hanging back with Langston, watching intently as he patched up everyone that needed it, but then he went and turned into a fucking dragon, which is the coolest thing Al’s ever seen even if her jealousy won’t let her fully admire it. So now she’s alone again, fiddling with the dagger in her hand as she watches things unfold, feeling powerless to do anything about it.

She tried, at the beginning of the battle to conjure - anything magical, really, but predictably, she felt nothing. None of the tingling, thudding magic in her fingertips that seems to come so easily to Cat and Langston.

It’s not even jealousy, she thinks, but a uselessness she’s not used to feeling. Al likes to take charge, to be a leader, and it feels like all she’s been doing lately is following. It’s infuriating. It makes her want to do something - something stupid.

Without thinking, she charges towards a spirit near her, dagger clutched tightly in her hand. She doesn’t exactly know what she’s going to do when she reaches it, seeing as it’s not fully corporeal and Al has never been in a fight in her life, but she’ll figure it out. She has to, because sitting around and waiting for others to take care of it has never been quite her speed.

Just as she approaches, she hears someone whisper, I wouldn’t do that. It’s a voice she doesn’t recognize, and she whips her head around trying to locate the source. No one is around her.

“What the fuck,” she breathes out. Because the only thing she can think of is one of the spirits is talking to her, which doesn’t even make sense, but she’s not sure what else it could be.

I’m not out there, kid, the voice says again, and with horror, it dawns on her: something, someone is speaking inside her head. “What the fuck?” she says again, this time louder. She supposes it’s not much of a stretch to think that someone could talk to her in her head, considering the whole magic thing, but it still feels like too much, and she knows it’s something she won’t fully process until later.

Listen. I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you’ve been so damn stubborn, wanting to figure out all this magic shit as fast as possible. Not everything’s a race. Al tightens her grip on the hilt of the dagger; if this entity thinks they’re helping, they absolutely aren’t.

At least, until Al processes what they actually said. “Wait,” she says. “You’re saying I actually have magic?”

Yeah, kid. You just had to be willing to listen. The spirit in front of her dissolves in a puff of smoke, a flurry of stars standing where it once stood. They twinkle and twirl in the air in front of her, a technicolor glow, and Al thinks she’s never seen anything more beautiful.

After a moment, the stars start to form into something - a creature of some sort. Al can’t quite make it out; her brain is not quite working at full capacity. “What was I supposed to be listening for?” She asks, genuinely curious. She’s been wracking her brain in the silence and she can’t think of what she missed.

To yourself. As much as Al wants to protest, she supposes she can’t; over the last few months, she has let her jealousy get the better of her, consume her to the point where it’s overpowered anything else. Any time she’s tried to do magic until now, she realizes, it hasn’t been out of a genuine desire to learn, but just to staunch her jealousy.

“Okay, but why are you showing up now? And who are you anyway?”

I can see you’ve been trying, and what kind of fuckin’ guy would I be if I didn’t reward the effort? All of a sudden, a rush of energy pulses through Al; it feels like nothing she thought it would, but even still, she knows exactly what it is. She flexes her fingers, watching the energy crackle through them, and can’t help but smile.

As a test, she sticks her hand out towards another nearby spirit. On cue, a blinding light streaks out of her hand, hitting the spirit square on. She laughs; finally, finally. It feels so good to finally have this, to be a part of the team. Honestly, she doesn’t even care that it took this long anymore; just to have it at all feels like a gift enough.

The stars flicker in front of her, their glow dimming, and she can sense that whoever is speaking in her head is about to leave. And, kid, the name’s Kugrash. Al cocks her head; she feels like she’s supposed to know what that means, but she’s completely in the dark. She goes to say something in response, but the stars in front of her begin dimming, signalling the end of the conversation. Right before the stars glint out, though, she realizes that the shape that the stars had taken was one of a rat.

--

The battle drones on. Langston loses track of most of it, all of his focus centered on his new dragon form. It’s exhilarating but entirely overwhelming, and it takes all of his energy to be able to stay in it at all, much less be helpful in the fight.

When it finally ends, when the remaining spirits fizzle into nothing in front of him, Langston shifts back into his human form. Immediately he doubles over with exhaustion, doing everything in his power to just keep standing. He stays like this for a while, hands on his knees as he focuses on controlling his ragged breathing, until he feels a hand smack against his shoulder. “Dude, that was fucking awesome!” Cat exclaims, and Langston grins, standing up fully despite the effort it takes.

“Really?” He asks, suddenly feeling shy despite the proud smile plastered on his face. He’s not great at taking the limelight, much preferring to live in the shadows. But, he must admit, it feels good to do something that other people find not only worthy of attention, but admirable. Unconsciously, he finds himself squaring his shoulders with newfound pride.

“Uh, yeah, obviously. Sometime when we’re not, you know, in the middle of a fight, you’ll have to do that again. I want to see you as a dragon when I don’t have to focus on a thousand other things.” Langston laughs bright and bashful in response.

It’s then that Al comes up to the two of them, and Cat turns towards her, smacking her shoulder in the same way she did to Langston just a minute before. “And you! You did magic!” Langston turns to Al, shocked; in his hyperfocused state he hadn’t noticed, but the shy, proud grin on her face all but confirms that what Cat said was true.

“Yeah, um. And I think I met the person - or, uh, deity, I guess - who gave me my powers? I don’t know - it was really confusing.” Langston nods along, understanding her confusion; he still has so many questions about his powers, possibly even more so now that he’s actually transformed.

The three of them talk amongst themselves for a bit, sharing their exciting victories in battle, before Kingston approaches the three of them. He looks rough - there’s blood dried on his face, and a gash down his arm that’s still actively bleeding. Immediately, Langston runs up to him. “Dad,” he says, catching his attention. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” Kingston assures him, but Langston doesn’t feel convinced. Gently, he hovers his hand over his dad’s arm, willing some healing magic to come through. It’s not much; the wound stops bleeding, but it’s very much still present, likely still hurting, but Kingston still smiles up at Langston nonetheless, pride glowing in his eyes. “Thanks, kid.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. He stands there awkwardly for a moment - he doesn’t know how this works, what they’re supposed to do now that the battle is over. If it even is - just because the spirits are gone doesn’t mean that the threat is gone from the city, he realizes suddenly, and a new flash of terror waves through him.

Plus, he’s feeling strange after everything. Being in his dragon self, despite how new it was, felt natural in a way that was honestly more than a bit terrifying, because Langston still hasn’t really adjusted to the idea that this is his life forever now, that this is who it is. But it was also, despite all odds, calming, an antidote to the terror he’s been feeling about this; he feels grounded in a way he never quite has before.

He can’t really describe it. It’s like - when he closes his eyes, he sees the neighborhoods of the city sprawling behind his eyelids like their own living, breathing beings, trying to speak to him, speak with him. He can’t quite understand what they’re saying yet, but he gets the feeling that it’s only a matter of time until he’ll be able to, until he and the city are indistinguishable from each other. And it’s terrifying, but not as much as he thought it would be. Now, it just feels - right.

So, instead of any of the questions he has, the next thing that Langston ends up asking his dad is, “What’s it like, being the voice of the city?” Kingston’s smile widens, and he rests a hand on Langston’s shoulder, beginning one of his winding, fascinating stories about the city, and Langston thinks, yeah, I think that I can do this.

--

Cat taps her feet anxiously against the tile of her eighth period class, watching the seconds tick down until the final bell rings. She’s not usually this antsy for school to end, at least not recently, but today she has to take the ferry down to Gramercy as fast as possible because the meeting they have planned did not account for her living on and going to school in Staten Island.

But it’s alright, because she’s happy they’re doing this at all. This being a program that her, Langston, and Al have been drafting for the last few months, with the help of their parents, to introduce more teens into the Unsleeping City. It’s been a whirlwind of identifying people with ties to magic, through family or circumstance or a dozen other reasons, people who would be good candidates to slowly induct into the society.

It’s been a lot of work, but they finally narrowed down just under a dozen people, ages fifteen to twenty, who seem to fit the kind of work they’re trying to do, and today, they’re all meeting up for the first time. The meeting is mostly going to be run by Esther, as the Chairwoman of Gramercy, but Cat, Langston, and Al are still going to be there as liaisons of sorts to make sure that everyone in the group feels welcomed and comfortable.

After everything with the spirits, the adults finally seemed to take their concerns seriously, finally listening to Al’s theory that Nod’s power was being drained because there weren’t enough new voices in the city. Surprisingly to Cat, though, they also finally seemed to realize that the three of them could actually be helpful in changing this, and spent a lot of time asking for their opinions on things, seeming to truly value what the three of them had to say.

In the meantime, Cat has also been visiting Pete at Scales Book and Tea Shop a lot, traveling to Nod as much as she can. She loves it there; she’s obviously not as connected to Nod as Pete is, not nearly on the same level as the Vox Phantasma (a position she has learned a lot about in the past few months and that she is fascinated by), but there is a feeling she gets anytime she enters Nod, a feeling that she belongs in a way she doesn’t feel anywhere else.

She absolutely adores talking to Nod, too, and she thinks she’s asked them no less than a thousand questions about magic in the dozens of times she’s visited them. To Nod’s credit, they do try to answer every one, and Cat drinks it up eagerly every time, thrilled to learn as much about this world as she can.

It’s still an adjustment, how passionately Cat feels about the Unsleeping City in just the short time she’s known about its existence. Secretly, she’s been doing a lot of her own research on the Occult Society; she plans to ask Esther if she can intern over the summer, wanting to dive into magic more solidly. It’s slightly terrifying - going from feeling mostly directionless to knowing exactly what she wants to do for the rest of her life makes her feel a bit like she’s standing on the edge of a cliff, and if she thinks about it too long, she starts to feel dizzy and off kilter. But it’s a good change; she loves everything about the magic world so far, and she doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.

The bell rings, it’s shrillness snapping Cat back to reality. She jolts, quickly packing up her notebook and pencil, and rushes out the door to try to catch the next ferry before it leaves. She texts Al and Langston that she’s on her way, putting a smiley emoticon at the end of it and finds a matching smile on her face.

She expected to feel more nervous about this first meeting, but all she feels is readiness, and she only hopes that the people they’re about to meet are just as excited as she is.

--

Langston pushes open the doors to the Gramercy Occult Society and is delighted to see some people already there, all of them new to the Society. Esther is talking to some of them, but she pauses to wave at Langston as he walks in. “This is Langston; some of you were probably contacted by him.” Langston waves at them, and he sees that he does recognize a few of the faces in the crowd.

Two weeks ago, in preparation for this meeting, Langston, Al, and Cat had all reached out to a handful of the candidates. Originally it was going to be Esther, seeing as she’s the head of the Occult Society, but Langston had mentioned that they might be more receptive to someone around their age, and it was decided that the three of them would be tasked with reconnaissance instead.

One of the people in the crowd, though, is familiar even though he did not contact them about the Unsleeping City. It takes him a few seconds to place it, but then he realizes: they go to his school. The person has a similar look of recognition on their face, and Langston goes up to them.

“Hey,” he says, trying to wrack his brain for their name. He doesn’t think they’re in Langston’s grade, but he knows he’s seen them around in some club or another.

“Langston, right?” They say, and he nods, shocked that they were able to remember Langston’s name despite the two of them having never talked before. It’s honestly a little validating that Langston is memorable enough to be remembered, though he does have a brief moment of self-consciousness about it. Maybe it’s something to do with my connection to the city, he thinks, hoping it’s that as opposed to gossip from the day of the battle when he left school in the middle of the day.

Langston has spent the last few months mainly with his dad trying to learn how to hone his abilities. He’s only transformed into his dragon form a few times; it’s still wildly difficult to maintain without feeling like he needs to sleep for ten hours afterwards, but he’s getting there. He’s also been learning a lot more about the previous dragon of Bleecker Street. It’s still overwhelming most of the time, trying to conceptualize that this is who he’s going to be one day, but it’s not as terrifying as it once was; after all, his dad has been in a similar position for the last few decades, and he seems all the better for it. Langston hopes he can feel the same one day, and he’s confident that he will.

Now, though, it still feels just out of his reach. He’s still a little bit sad about the life he won’t get to have; Kingston has been sure to emphasize that Langston can still have a relatively normal life, but Langston knows deep down that it won’t be the same as what he’s been envisioning since he was a child. Still, though, he’s starting to learn that that doesn’t mean it’s going to be worse; he’s even starting to believe it, too.

Back in the present, Langston says, “Yeah, yeah. And you’re…?” He feels bad about not remembering this person’s name, but thankfully they don’t seem too put off by it.

“Nell,” they say, and Langston immediately remembers where he recognizes them from.

“Oh, you were in the musical!” He says, and they nod sheepishly. “You were incredible.” And they were; Langston has a sneaking suspicion, now that he thinks back on it, that their talent is a little more than human, and he grins. He can’t wait to see what they’re able to do once they can start tapping into magic.

“Thanks,” they say, and then glance over at the rest of the group. It’s gotten bigger since they’ve been talking, and both Al and Cat have arrived, each talking to different people. “So, uh, what kind of stuff do you do here?”

Langston tries to think how to explain it, what exactly he does do. It’s hard for him to understand and explain to people who are familiar with magic; describing it to someone completely new to magic seems near impossible. Finally, he settles on, “I’m supposed to protect the city,” and he finds that it fits just right.

--

Al is standing slightly behind her mom as she closes off the meeting, her gaze bouncing off of all the people enraptured by what Esther’s saying. Much to Al’s relief, the meeting went really well; everyone seemed truly interested in being a part of the Unsleeping City, willing to go through the slowed-down initiation process so that they can get used to the world before being thrown into protecting it. It’s something Al wishes she, Langston, and Cat had had, all those months ago. She’s glad, at least, that it’s something she can provide to these new initiates, the ability to adjust to magic before being thrust into it headfirst, to provide them with what she wishes she had been able to have as well.

If she’s being honest, Al still doesn’t really feel like any sort of authority figure on magic, and a tiny part of her wishes she wasn’t standing up here, and instead in the crowd, listening to her mom talk, as a new initiate. It’s not that she feels completely incompetent; it’s more that she still wishes she felt more prepared for the position she’s in, more knowledgeable.

Having Kugrash as the person (or, she supposes, deity - when she’d explained what had happened with him talking to her in the fight, Ricky had gotten incredibly excited, calling Sofia over and having her explain who, exactly, he was, and suddenly everything had made much more sense) who supplies her magic has been interesting, to say the least. He’s very erratic, and her magic isn’t exactly reliable - some days, she can conjure it just fine, and others, she can barely even do the simplest of spells.

It frustrated her at first, how she couldn’t just take control over her magic, that she had to rely on another person, especially one that was so wishy-washy in actually supplying magic. But over time, she’s learned to be mostly okay with the fact that she isn’t as good at magic as Cat and Langston, and possibly never will be.

Besides, Cat and Langston are so talented at magic that it just about makes up for it. She still gets jealous sometimes, but she tries not to let it overpower her, trying her best to acknowledge it and let it go, instead trying to be so, so proud of them, which isn’t hard when they seem to be surpassing her expectations every day. So, Al just tries to throw herself into the less magical parts of it all, like working day and night with her mom to get this group set up, which seems to be done for the day, if the way that everyone standing up and chatting in small groups means anything.

Al flits around once her mom formally ends the meeting, talking to a few of the new recruits. One of the girls, Cassie, she sees a lot of herself in. Al had actually fought for her to be included; she didn’t show any sort of inclination towards magic, not like the other candidates had, but Al could still feel that she belongs here in a way not unlike herself.

After a bit of chatting with the new initiates, Al meets back up with Cat and Langston, talking a bit away from everyone else still in Gramercy. “So, I think that went well,” Al says, and Cat and Langston nod in affirmation.

“Yeah,” Cat says, “I think that we’ve got a really solid group.”

“Mm-hm,” Al hums. She glances back out at them once again, a surge of pride that she helped to put this all together, that she made an impact in this world at all. “None of them are as good as you guys, though,” Al jokes, and Cat and Langston laugh, and Al can’t help but think of how lucky she is to have the best friends in the world.