Magical girls do not impress me.

  That’s why I’m not looking up at the sky, when one of them decides to end what little is left of my life.

  Everyone else is gawking skyward as the latest aerial battle crosses over Oxford New Park. Firework sunbursts glitter in shop windows, staining stagnant puddles with a familiar tricolour blush, strobing stutter-stop rainbows across the grey concrete pavement. A rush of air ruffles the treetops as a tattered company of tentacled gas-bags dash out from behind the nearest buildings — a flock of Volans polypus, ‘airborne polyps’. They scud overhead, their numbers already cut down to less than a dozen, though they likely started this incursion at over a hundred strong. Bright beams and showers of shining sparks chase them into the open sky, the signature moves of our noble protectors punishing and purging these interlopers in the waking world. Sirens split the air; they’ve been wailing for half a minute already, trying to herd we civilians down into the shelters, or at least indoors.

  But there’s no Nightmares in Oxford today. No terror on the wind, no pressure on the chest, no scratching behind the eyeballs, no cold sweat down one’s back. People don’t need the sirens to tell them when it’s a real Nightmare. They run before they know why.

  The whole park is at a standstill, pedestrians yelping and pointing, traffic snarled to a halt, people leaning out of windows, pointing and shouting, filming on their phones. Sirens can’t drown out the spectacle. The sharp crack of Dawn’s rifle, the flame-hot hiss of Edge’s sword, the gut-churning slam of Azure’s hammer. The Trio of Albion, calling out encouragement to each other, shouting warnings to we mortals below, and yelling challenges to enemies who cannot comprehend a word of the King’s English. And then, the hard-bone crunch and wet-flesh mulch of bursting polyps.

  I try not to flinch. Clench my teeth. Don’t show disgust.

  The evening news will edit out the gore. Perhaps they’ll leave a spot or two, most likely a picturesque splash of blood on the frilly hem of Edge’s white dress. The BBC always enjoys a tasteful touch of crimson to go with every victory, and Edge is particularly photogenic. The real stuff will be up on the internet within an hour, picked over by the enthusiasts, the perverts, other magical girls, and two dozen foreign intelligence agencies.

  A cheer goes up from the other end of the park; they’re right below the thick of the fight. Some fool is about to get splattered with falling ichor from a violated polyp. The news will make sure to show one of the girls helping the unfortunate civilian back to his feet. Azure, probably; she’s always got the winning angelic smile. But the cameras will stop rolling just before Dream Control turn up to haul that fool off for a month in an I&O ward, just in case the ichor causes strange dreams.

  We wouldn’t want strange dreams, would we?

  A distant drone edges closer, hidden behind the jumbled skyline. Low flying helicopters, half a dozen Tiger attack craft scrambled from the bloated base at RAF Brize Norton. A machine gun blurts sudden staccato thunder, drowning out the cheers, shredding a stray polyp which had escaped from the Trio. Harriers roar past in the distance, pretending they’re not superfluous to all this pageantry.

  The military likes to chip in for these easy fights. Show they’re not totally useless. A few polyps might bring down a helicopter if they try hard enough, but they’re no Nightmare. If the Trio were facing a Nightmare today, the choppers and the jets would be fleeing faster than the civilians, pilots chewing their own faces off and bleeding all over the cockpit instruments. One cannot fight Nightmares with bullets and missiles.

  Besides, the polyps aren’t even trying. Disoriented and dazed, like beached fish. Probably lost their way in the Dreamlands, wandered through a portal made by something else. A bad joke by an unknown Dreamer, or the wake of some idiot god passing too close to Earth.

  But the government calls upon the Trio of Albion regardless, just in case worse things turn up. To show that the waking world is still wide awake. To defend our sceptred isle.

  The real reason is to show the colours, wave the flag, remind the public who keeps the Dream at bay.

  A crimson blaze flares in the sky above the park, stains the grass and trees and paving stones blood-red for one blinding eyeblink. Edge, showing off with her sword, hacking through a thorny knot of polyp. Something up there squeals like a cross between a gutted pig and a set of bagpipes dredged from a swamp. The squeal turns liquid, sticky, clotted. The reek of burning meat fills the air.

  The crowd oohs and ahhs. Another cheer rings out. A chant starts up — ‘Scar-let Edge! Scar-let Edge!’

  My old wounds ache. Magical backwash from the fight, or all in my head? I’ll never know for sure; correlation isn’t causation. Migraine premonition flutters behind my right eye, anchored in the scar tissue down my cheek. The enclosed stump of my right thigh itches and burns inside the socket, where I can’t get at it until I have some privacy. My right arm is the worst. Phantom pain shoots all the way down my prosthetic, a spasm in muscles long gone. The motors in my fingers twitch and tremble, trying to free me from cramps that don’t exist. I reach over with my left hand, grab the socket where it joins real flesh, and squeeze as hard as I can, until I feel the stub of my amputated humerus grinding beneath the thin sheathe of scar tissue.

  I keep the pain off my face, because this was supposed to be our last day together, and I don’t want to worry Willow.

  Not that she’s looking. She’s looking up at the magical girls, just like everyone else.

  Nobody’s perfect, but Willow Finch is the closest a waking mortal can get. She is everything I am not. A friend to all who deserve it, an implacable foe to the cruel and the heartless, a light to those who need guidance in the dark. She is an intellectual giant, riding the bleeding edge of the new mathematics with nothing but her own brains. A woman without a hint of guile in her whole body, and a smile suited for every occasion, no matter how much melancholy the moment calls for. She doesn’t really understand me, but that’s never mattered, because she accepts everything about me anyway, without reservation. She accepted me when we met as children a decade ago, when I rejoined school after physical rehab, even though I was a year and a half older than her. I was an angry, bitter, scared cripple, who cried at weird moments, couldn’t keep my emotions off my face, and couldn’t even walk half the time. She chose me then, and nothing else has mattered so much since. She never complains that I should brighten up; but I have, bathed in the warmth of her shadow, though I am a withered thistle to her wild rose.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Even today, on the day we are supposed to collect our A-Level results together, she is perfect. Dressed in a long pink skirt and a white sweater, like an inverted blossom with a pale stem.

  Soft brown eyes gaze up at the magical fools in the air. Long brown hair in a low ponytail invites me to touch.

  Not that I can. Not in public. That would be a good way to get picked up by Dream Control.

  Willow Finch is my best friend, my first friend, my only friend, and maybe more, though so brief and fleeting. She protected me when no others would, when sometimes I didn’t deserve protection; she befriended a lost girl who had nothing else. She is better and brighter and more beautiful than any magical girl. I would tear the Trio out of the sky for her, if only I could.

  But why not hold her hand, beneath this airborne spectacle? Other people are doing that, grabbing at their fellows, joining hands, pointing at the sky. Willow has both hands clutched to her upper chest, as if she can’t contain her delight, as if the sight of magical girls murdering lost animals is the most wondrous thing she’s ever seen. Her eyes glitter with their reflected light, but the brilliance is all her own.

  Won’t you look at me like that, Willow? We don’t have much longer together, do we? Wasn’t this supposed to be our day?

  I reach for her hand. It feels like the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

  Today is likely our day of parting. Once we get those A-Level results, Willow and I are bound for different directions. Willow is a mathematics prodigy, she’s staying right here in Oxford, and not in the messy outskirts of the Oxford New Expanded Metropolitan Area, but right in the heart of the old city. She’s going to Magdalen College to study mathematics and computer science. Her results are a formality, they’ll have her working on one of the new Dream Institute super projects within a year or two.

  But I’m going north, and it doesn’t matter where. Anywhere I can fix myself, anywhere I can learn how. I’ve been telling myself for the better part of two years that I can fix myself, make myself worthy of her, come back a new woman.

  All lies.

  I have no doubt that we’ll see each other again a few times before August is done, but this day is the fulcrum of our futures, and the fight in the sky is a bad omen.

  This is far from the first time Willow and I have been caught beneath a fight together. We’ve been through much worse, but who hasn’t, these days? We’ve huddled close in shelters while real Nightmares raged and ravaged. We’ve slept beside each other on the school floor, with the city on lockdown, while the Trio and the military hunted larval Dreamers. We’ve waited in the dark, hand-in-hand, wondering if the waking world will be there when we emerge. We have clung together, when there might not be anything worth waking to.

  But this was supposed to be our day, the last of our days. And the girls in the sky have ruined it.

  If I ever come back to Oxford, Willow will be long gone. Married off, or vanished into the bowels of the military industrial complex, or both. Maybe she’ll be designing stuff for those girls in the air, or for the next generation coming up behind them, or even for Dream Control. Without Willow, I am going to struggle, and it will not be long until I fall apart. I was always going to slip up sooner or later. A year or two perhaps, then I’ll get picked up by Dream Control or Section Special, probably for some piece of behaviour I didn’t even know I needed to hide. And Willow won’t be there to be normal for me.

  So why not hold Willow’s hand, like we used to, one more time? Why won’t you focus on me today, Willow? This is our end, isn’t it? Let me have you now, at least.

  My fingers uncurl — my left, because if I’m going to hold Willow’s hand once more before the end, I’m going to do it with the hand that can feel, even if it is through a glove.

  But then I stop, because something doesn’t fit. And it’s not Willow, because she fits anywhere she chooses.

  There’s one other person not looking up at the sky.

  A girl glides through the crowd on the pavement, parallel to the line of shops on one side and the park on the other. She slides like a fish in water, no need to shoulder her way past clumps of people, no awkward squeezes, no murmured excuses, moving like nobody else is present. White sandals tap on concrete, white sundress floats around her calves. Long hazel hair messy as brambles, all cowlicks and upcurls. My age or maybe younger, a teenager or slight enough to pass for one. The backwash of colours from the fight doesn’t touch her dress, or her pale forearms, or the bright green eyes that dart left and right. Her colours are untainted, too clear, unreal.

  A smile curves her mouth, crinkling the corners of her eyes, full of mischief. Her lips twitch, holding back a cackle.

  Our eyes meet, because we’re the only two not looking up at the magical girls.

  She pauses, raises a pair of thick eyebrows, shoots me a wink. She stops as a little clearing forms in the crowd. She turns away, looks up at the magical girls finishing their show-fight, and smiles wider.

  My face goes cold, my mouth hangs open, my heart climbs up my throat. I grab Willow’s hand, but there’s no romance in it now.

  Willow finally looks at me, sudden concern on her brow.

  “Octavia?” she says my name.

  Behind Willow, the girl in the white dress is breaking the rules of reality.

  She reaches under the skirt of her dress and pulls out a length of tapered steel, six feet long, as if producing it from thin air. A javelin, tipped with a thick triangle of dull metal. I have no idea what it is, but I know there is not enough room up that girl’s skirt to conceal even a quarter the length of that object.

  The girl glances at me again. Her smile explodes into a toothy grin so wide it threatens to split her face.

  She winds her arm back, takes aim at the sky.

  “Octavia?” Willow repeats. “What’s wrong?”

  I fill my lungs to scream a warning.

  Dreamer!

  The girl in the white dress — the unseen Dreamer among us, for she cannot be anything but that — hurls the javelin skyward, putting more strength into the throw than her slender body could possibly produce, hopping forward and overbalancing as the weapon leaves her hand.

  I finally look at the sky as the weapon flies, as it arcs up into the air above the park, to join the darting forms of the Trio of Albion. They don’t see it coming. Azure is off over the trees, hammering a polyp to death. Dawn turns at the last second, levelling her rifle, trying to knock the surprise out of the air.

  Scarlet Edge is right above us, cream-and-crimson dress flapping in the wind, ruby sword held at rest, posing for the cameras, for the crowd, for the glory.

  She takes the javelin in the centre of her chest. The aim is impeccable.

  The bomb in the javelin’s tip detonates right above the crowd.

  The world turns into screams and black smoke and heat on my face. I see a snippet of scarlet flutter falling to the ground — Edge, burned and scorched, dress in cinders. My own field of vision spins, slams to the concrete, my head cradled by loving hands.

  Willow has bundled herself on top of me, and protected my skull.

  She has taken my share of the explosion.

  Maidens of the Fall. Whether you're reading this note on the day I launch the story, or years in the future, I dearly hope you enjoy it.

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