Adah’s practice with Seb would come in handy sooner than she anticipated. Only a week after her team’s first visit to Lina’s studio, the designer called them back for more measurements.

  At least, that’s what Adah thought.

  “I’ll have you know this has been the most torturous week of my life,” Lina said when the girls arrived, skipping straight over any hellos. “I’ve had these outfits finished for three days with no one to put them on. It’s like I’ve made you dinner and you’ve let it go cold.”

  “They’re finished?” Adah asked. “Like completely? Already?”

  “I’ll need to make some alterations, of course, but most of my work is done. Now I walk by them every day and they scream out in pain, just hanging there empty. They’re starving. They crave you.”

  Rika whispered to the rest of the team, “Maybe this is the witch who’s going to eat us.”

  Through sheer force of will, the girls all managed to keep a straight face.

  “I can hear them crying still,” Lina said. “Let’s not waste any time—fitting can get complicated. I’ll need to start with Heartbreak again.”

  Maybe she was a problem child?

  ☆☆☆

  Adah’s fitting hadn’t taken as long as she had feared it might, thankfully. Going first even had some benefits—chiefly that she now had plenty of time to inspect her outfit while Lina worked with the other three girls. There was a floor-to-ceiling mirror attached to a section of one of the walls in Lina’s studio, to which Lina led Adah after getting her dressed.

  The most shocking part of the costume—or, at least, what struck Adah first—was its color. It was overwhelmingly white, almost like a wedding dress.

  “Heartbreak is always covered in darkness,” Lina said upon seeing Adah’s reaction. “Black and purple all over like a bruise. Even your hair is such a solid sheet of black. Don’t mistake me—it’s beautiful—but we can bring so much more out of you. Do you see already? It emphasizes the paleness of your skin, the shade of your hair.”

  Looking at herself in the mirror, Adah could recognize what Lina was talking about. The purity of color in her outfit was so strong it had almost applied a filter to her body’s natural features.

  “All you needed was something small and simple, something white and light. We’re going to reveal so much of what Heartbreak keeps hidden. She’s more than a cold, frustrated princess. Her heart is full of dreams, of fantasies her conscious mind thinks she’s locked out of, but that her inner self still clings to. That’s your desire. That’s what this outfit will expose. Then we use the size to complement your own and bring out your girlish innocence. Can you feel how the clothes direct you? Change you?”

  Adah wasn’t sure, but she felt she might. If her Heartbreak transformation brought out the crass and arrogant side of her personality, it was possible this outfit might almost force her attitude to the other end of the spectrum. It highlighted a tenderness in her body and her style.

  For Adah’s outfit, Lina had replicated the heavily decorated look of the bodices on display in her shop’s window. Since Adah’s top was white, Lina had achieved that frosted effect through an abundance of silver glitter, lace, and rhinestones, all of which caught the light that bounced off the pure white fabric. Heartbreak’s accent color found its way into the bodice through the violet ribbons that bound the front of the top in a crisscross, as well as even more lace in one of the more intricate pieces of the outfit.

  A translucent section of fabric covered the area around Adah’s sternum, stretching from her bust to her neck, ultimately connecting to a white satin collar. This sheer section of fabric was etched with purple lace in an impossibly intricate pattern that served as Lina’s hallmark. The collar, as well, was highlighted by a simple sequence of deep purple rhinestones. This translucent section left Adah’s shoulders and collarbones exposed, as the only other fabric on the top half of her body was that of the poofy, off-the-shoulder quarter-sleeves attached to the sides of her bodice.

  Adah’s skirt was as short as Lina had promised. In the fitting room, the length hadn’t bothered her so much. But in front of other people, Adah felt like she’d need to stand straight as a plank to avoid any embarrassment. As for the skirt itself, Lina had stuck to what she knew best: layers and lace. The main fabric of the skirt was covered by two additional layers of white lace, each as intricate as everything else on the outfit, yet somehow designed with each other in mind. As Adah moved, the designs of the bottom layer revealed themselves through the gaps of the top.

  To bring it all together, Adah’s legs were covered by a pair of white stockings that looked like glistening spiderwebs. Lina had spent several minutes staring at the three-inch gap of thigh between the stockings and skirt before finally nodding in approval.

  When Adah had first stepped out of the fitting room, she was fairly certain every last drop of blood in her body had rushed straight to her face. Her teammates and Grace began shouting as soon as they saw her, with Ami whistling in a manner Adah didn’t know could be so profane. They had swarmed her and looked her all over until Lina finally broke the crowd apart and pushed Adah in front of the mirror so she could get a clear look at herself.

  “You’re the centerpiece of this all,” Lina whispered to her. “It’s not flattery, it’s simply by design. Use it to your advantage, and everyone—everyone—will follow you.”

  Adah took a deep breath to relieve some of the color in her face, then watched her reflection.

  The girl she saw in the mirror was not herself. She had transformed, even beyond how she changed when becoming Twilight Heartbreak. Adah had often imagined what it might feel like to wear a costume such as this, but having it here—actually on her body—was different than anything she had dreamed up. What she felt in her heart now made Heartbreak’s design feel like nothing more than cosplay.

  “Next up, the lover,” Lina said, spinning around to face the rest of Adah’s team. “Time to wear your passion on your sleeve, not only in your eyes.”

  The woman walked toward the fitting room on her own, leaving Rika to rush to catch up. While the two of them prepared Rika’s outfit, the twins and Grace paced circles around Adah, checking out every little detail of her own.

  Rika stepped out of the fitting room a short time later. Apparently Lina didn’t plan to apply the black-and-white theme to every team member, as Rika’s outfit was primarily a vibrant scarlet, its hue so intense that Adah wondered how Lina had produced it without magic. Of course, this color brought out the green of Rika’s eyes, making them shine like emeralds. The effect would only become more extreme once she had on the right makeup.

  The throughline of all their outfits seemed to be the thin translucent fabric that stretched up from the bust. Rika’s featured this element as well, though hers was etched with a red lace, leading to the same kind of bejeweled collar as Adah’s. The rhinestones along Rika’s collar were pure white and arranged in a tightly packed flowery style no doubt inspired by the lily brooch of her transformation design. Her top itself differed from Adah’s as well, as it was cropped right at the bottom of her ribs, exposing her whole stomach. It seemed to be made of a firm material, but layered with dainty frills—including a longer, almost dress-like, section that fell down to her waist on the right side.

  Her outfit also shared the same off-the-shoulder sleeves as Adah’s, albeit full-length ones. Lina had even managed what Adah couldn’t and got the girl into a skirt. Well, presumably she’d never given Rika an option. It was of a similar style to Adah’s own, layered with longer sections of scarlet fabric and shorter sections of white lace. Rika’s signature style piece—that is, an oversized, double-holed belt—held the skirt in place. Lina had even prepared Rika’s footwear by this point: a pair of calf-high boots covered by a frilly fabric of their own.

  When Rika stepped out, Lina hurried her over to Adah and posed the girls next to each other.

  “It’s come to life already,” she said, almost out of breath. “Too perfect, too perfect. We can put a little red shadow on Heartbreak’s face… I’m falling in love.”

  Without elaborating, Lina grabbed both twins at once and dragged them into the fitting room next. Although Adah wasn’t sure what exactly had come to life, she was certainly enraptured by the image she saw in the mirror. The extreme white and scarlet outfits were bold when set beside each other, such that she couldn’t help but stare.

  “It’s too cute to hide,” Adah said, pointing at Rika’s stomach.

  “Same to you,” Rika said, winking and looking down at Adah’s skirt. On reflex, Adah flattened both sides of the skirt against her legs.

  The two of them spent the rest of the time that the twins were in the fitting room inspecting each other’s outfits up close and making less embarrassing comments on both. When Lina finally emerged with Ami and Emi, she was tapping the knuckles of one hand against the palm of the other in a crazed rhythm.

  “Not done yet,” she said. “Not quite right.”

  She stopped in her tracks and lined the twins up face to face, giving them another look over.

  “Something, something, but what? It’s cracked but not broken. You need the tiniest push, something to reveal the desires hiding behind those faces. If only I could see those feelings… what would those expressions look like? That’s the key to it all.”

  Ami and Emi looked at each other and frowned. Neither of them had anything to say to Lina’s rambling.

  “Too similar,” Lina went on. “But how should it be different? Oh, if I could see the answer, I’d be ashamed by how obvious it is. I’ll need to think on it.”

  Although Adah couldn’t understand exactly what Lina meant, she did see how the designs were too similar. The twins’ outfits were nearly identical, differing primarily through their colors. A matching approach would be anyone’s natural instinct upon seeing how much the two girls looked like one another; Adah had needed to force herself to take their transformation designs in unique directions.

  On top, the outfits featured proper black corsets, the tops of which peeked out from beneath kimono-like robes. The robes were cropped and tied to cover only the top halves of the girls’ bodies, with loose sleeves that draped themselves over the girls’ arms. The lineup’s throughline continued, although the sheer fabric that connected the twins’ corsets to their collars was black instead of white. Both their robes and the rhinestones that covered their collars were in each girl’s assigned color: Ami’s seafoam green and Emi’s cerulean blue.

  The length of the twins’ skirts was at the opposite extreme from Adah’s—they cascaded down to the girls’ ankles in tiers of layered black chiffon and lace. The gems and metallic adornments Lina loved so much also found their way onto these skirts, lined up in curving trails like a sparkling river flowing down each skirt. The rhinestones added some additional color to the otherwise simple skirts.

  Beyond that, the twins were also distinguished by Lina’s choice of accessory. For Ami: a pair of black lace gloves with exposed fingers. For Emi: a black headdress almost like a mourning veil, rimmed by a thin silver chain not unlike the one that held Heartbreak’s shawl in place.

  “Stand all beside each other, if you don’t mind,” Lina said. “I will find a way to shatter the twins’ mirror, that much I promise. And for being such a good sport, I can add tails to your back, Heartbreak. We can’t have your face looking redder than your lover’s clothes.”

  The girls did as they were asked, and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the studio’s mirror.

  “Hmm,” Lina hummed as she walked back and forth in front of the lineup of magical girls. “Between everyone’s alterations and updates, it will probably take until tomorrow afternoon. Can you come back for another check then?”

  “That fast again?” Adah said.

  “If you have a lovely slice of cake in front of you, how long could you resist devouring it?” Lina asked.

  “I think you’ve misunderstood why I was shocked,” Adah mumbled.

  “Shouldn’t delay much longer than that anyway,” Lina continued. “If we can finalize everything by the end of tomorrow, that should give Neil enough forewarning to book us sometime next week.”

  “By ‘book,’ do you mean a photoshoot?” Grace asked.

  While she was talking, Lina must have seen something else in the girls’ outfits that she wanted a record of, since she started taking even more photos with her phone. She held her phone above eye level and angled its camera down to view the girls from slightly above.

  “That’s right,” she said as she worked her way down the lineup again. “Neil’s shot jewelry and other random pieces for me on regular models, so it’s about time I reward him with actual magical girls. That’s his specialty, and I’d like for it to become mine.”

  Next week could work out well for their team. The original plan had been to use the Heartshot music video to propel their team to take on a B-Rank mission, resulting in a one-two punch of exposure. But with the timing and outcome of the hydra fight, that whole idea had fizzled out. Lina had given them a second chance at making a big splash among their fans.

  They could show off their combat skills on a proper B-Rank mission, then dazzle everyone with Lina’s designs.

  Adah looked at herself in the mirror while Grace worked with Lina to find space on their team’s calendar. She hadn’t done anything special with her hair or makeup today, so if she concentrated on her face, she appeared just as she always did. That face was the same Adah who always looked back at her.

  If she took it all in, though—all the sparkles and lace, the extremities of cuteness and girlishness in the design—she saw someone else. A fairytale’s princess. An idol. A commander of crowds.

  Adah could picture the girl she saw in the mirror standing at the center of an arena stage, with an ocean of fans all chanting her name. If she let her heart fill with enough confidence, that image was no longer a fantasy but a destination.

  Adah saw the path to that future. It was a dream made real, a fantasy she could touch. Lina was right—she had pulled that desire out of Adah’s heart and draped it over her skin.

  A magical girl to surpass all others.