“Aren’t you embarrassed?” Seb asked.

  “Why would I be?” Adah said, then made another pouting face.

  Seb pressed the shutter button on his camera, capturing three photos in a burst. Adah walked to his side so that they could look at what he had captured in the digital viewfinder together. These shots were closer to what she wanted, but still not quite right.

  “Well, it’s like you’re posing in front of a mirror, except I’m the mirror,” Seb said.

  “Yeah, that’s the point,” Adah replied, moving in front of him again. “You are my mirror. This is practice—I want to see how different expressions look on camera. I need to understand this sort of thing better, so that it becomes natural. It’s a nice opportunity for you, too, isn’t it? You can take as many pictures of a magical girl as you want.”

  Adah had invited Seb to her room again for a few reasons, but chief among them was to improve her instincts in front of a camera. Something Iris had said offhandedly had stuck with Adah, as much as she hated to admit it. She still wasn’t comfortable in front of a camera.

  The near-kiss pose she had put herself and Rika into back during the IndieMagie photoshoot had been a spark of an idea that she was unable to replicate on command. Thinking about having to model Lina’s outfit in the near future made her palms sweat. It was ridiculous—a magical girl at her level should feel more natural with a camera pointed at her than without.

  Yet, a camera was still a black box to Adah. She still didn’t know whether to look into the lens or past it, or maybe even off to the side? Different shots called for different gazes, surely, but how was she supposed to figure that out without practice? Even if she did practice poses in the mirror, they always looked different in photos. That black box was an eye all its own, and the only way to understand how it saw the world was to have lots of photos taken of herself. Thus, she recruited Seb to help out.

  “So, it’s practice for me, too,” he said. “Then can I make it more useful? Can I ask you to pose a certain way?”

  “As long as it’s not creepy,” Adah said.

  “Why would it be?”

  Adah just raised her eyebrows and looked to the side, but Seb didn’t take the bait. Maybe the fact that Adah was aware of his feelings for Emi made him immune to most of her teasing. He had said he thought of her as an older sister, after all.

  “In her story, Heartbreak is a princess of demons, right?” he said. “But in reality, she’s also a magical girl. You need to be cute and charming in a way that only Heartbreak can be.”

  “That’s what I’m shooting for, yeah,” Adah said.

  “Then I’ve got an idea for all four of you,” Seb continued. “Something like a signature pose, or a kind of photo that could be your calling card. If we make the pose really bold, it’ll be clear right away who your characters are. At the same time, you can focus the rest of your attention on being cute about it. The pose is so obvious in telling the main story that you can put all your energy into how you look when doing it.”

  “I’m not sure I get it,” Adah said. “You want me to strike a superhero pose or something?”

  “Maybe we should just start with an example,” he said. “Like Heartbreak sitting on a throne. She’s a little aloof, but completely at home on her throne. The camera shoots her from a bit below. That could be iconic, right? It tells you exactly what kind of character she is, and you could never mistake her for some other magical girl. The challenge is making it appeal to people other than… well, the piglet types out there, if you know what I mean. Can we pose you like that, and still find a way for the average person to fall in love with you? Could an aspiring magical girl look at you and think, I want to be like her one day?”

  “Basically,” Adah said, “we’d practice a bunch of tiny variations to a very specific kind of photo. That would be easier to work with than a blank slate. Simpler to start by becoming an expert in one type of photo first.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Exactly!” Seb said. “If you ask me, this way of thinking about things suits Heartbreak better anyhow. Those photos I took of you the first day we met are still some of my favorites. You weren’t trying to be cute at all. You were just pissed about your shoe or how hot it was outside. I remember thinking how I’d never seen a magical girl like that before. It was just fun to look at you—I don’t mean that in a weird way.”

  It wasn’t a weird thing to say at all. In fact, it was probably at the heart of what made someone’s favorite magical girl their favorite. You just wanted to look at them, hear them, to point at them and say, “This is why they’re the best!” That sort of feeling was hard to put into words, but you could see evidence of this line of thinking everywhere.

  Even Mari had mentioned something like this about Apex Vox’s music videos. Fans would go back to replay a two-second stretch of the video over and over, just to see their favorite member say something in a cute way or make a certain face they liked. Comments on music videos and vlogs from magical girls were filled with timestamps focusing on exactly that. All the comment would say is something like: “Noa-nyan is too cute here!”

  That was the best anyone could explain it, really. Almost like the feeling of seeing a cute puppy combined with the inspirational stirring of an epic piece of music. It was its own form of magic. A dopamine for the eyes. That was the kind of addictive aura Adah wanted to practice embodying today.

  “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” Adah asked.

  “Of course,” Seb said. “I’m serious about helping you four reach the top. I can’t help but think about this stuff.”

  “How serious are you, exactly?”

  Adah looked Seb over. He bore a more confident air than the day they had first met at the park, but he still appeared so young. Not that Adah was more than a few years older, but she could clearly see he was fresh out of high school. He must have been even younger than the twins. Perhaps it was the waves in his hair or his thin frame glasses adding to the sense, but he had quite an innocent look. Maybe it was the same kind of look Adah had until recently.

  “I want you to understand where we’re at now, Seb,” Adah said. “I asked you to join us as a full-fledged member, but I’m not sure I’ve kept you looped in as one. If this isn’t what you thought you were signing up for, then no one will be upset if you want to back out. The Heartbreak you met back then, who was tripping over her own feet, is gone. The team of girls who just wanted to get a little more popular each week—they’re gone too.”

  Seb listened to her. One of his eyebrows raised ever so slightly, but otherwise his expression remained unchanged.

  “I need to be honest with you,” she continued. “I spoke with the other girls, and we’re all on the same page. I owe you the same courtesy. Things have changed. The Cruelties are different than they were before—more than most people understand—and the people who are supposed to protect us don’t seem interested in doing so. What happened to Ekki, and what could have happened to all those people Ami saved… I’m scared it’s going to happen more and more often.”

  “Does this have something to do with that bat Cruelty?” Seb asked. “That day we were filming for the music video, you acted strange around those shapes it summoned. Is that what you’re scared of?”

  “That’s part of it,” Adah said. “The Cruelties are finding new ways to fight back, and with people like Thibault at the helm, I feel like humanity is hurtling toward a disaster. So, rather than winning contests or getting super famous, our team has a different goal now. Even if we’re the only ones who recognize it, we’re at war. We want to win that war. Everything else—the photoshoots, the music videos, the social media—they’re all just weapons to help us win. Not only against the Cruelties, but against any people who get in our way.”

  “Have some faith in me!” Seb said. “You’re talking like I’m going to run out of here at the first sign of danger. Do you think I would’ve let you boss me around all this time if I wasn’t willing to stick with this team until the end? How many guys do you think would let you leave them on top of some barn while you fought a monster right next to them? Aren’t you supposed to be crazy about magical girls too? Don’t you get it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Pureheart asked you to support her no matter what, what would you say? There’s only one answer, right? It’s when your favorite magical girl is facing the toughest trouble that you want to support her the most. So, if you ask me if I want to keep supporting my four favorites, the only answer is hell yes!”

  Where had that schoolboy from a few moments ago gone? Seb was standing there with his chest puffed out and a fire in his eyes. He wasn’t even embarrassed about it; there wasn’t a hint of blush in his cheeks. If Emi could see him now, maybe he’d make some headway.

  Adah couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “Are all magical girl fans this dramatic about their feelings?” she teased.

  “Have you ever heard yourself talk?” Seb said. “What’s important is backing that passion up. So when Heartbreak takes the throne one day, you can bet I’ll be the one to capture the moment the crown touches your head. And I’ll be the one to remind you afterward that you’re still a girl who tripped over her own feet—whether you like it or not.”

  “If I am going to sit atop a throne one day, I need to be ready to look the part,” Adah said. “Shall we practice your pose, then? I think I’ve figured out exactly what your camera is looking for.”