The Princess and the Fangirl (Once Upon a Con #2)(24)

One thing at a time.

I wiggle the wig over my neon-pink pixie, flip it back, and comb my fingers through the brown strands. It seems like a pretty expensive wig. The hair feels real. Starflame, it might even be real. I smooth it out until it looks like my own hair—well, what I guess my hair would look like if I grew it out this long, though I never will. I hate the way it feels on my neck. Plus the whole bit about long hair being more feminine is Noxballs. Social constructs can go take a hike.

I gather a section at the front and braid it like Princess Amara’s hair in the thirteenth episode of Starfield, when Prince Carmindor first meets her. It’s a subtle nod, but fans will recognize it. I used to braid Minerva’s glossy black locks like this all the time when I was younger. Then I twist the braid behind my head, pinning it with one of the bobby pins in the bottom of the plastic bag.

But I still don’t feel like Jessica.

“Hey, uh, dude,” I call from the bathroom, realizing that I can’t remember his name. “Do I look enough like her now? I still feel a little weird. The wig doesn’t look too wiggy, does it?”

He looks up from his phone, clearly about to snark at me again, but whatever he was going to say falls from his lips. I shift on my feet, self-consciously.

He tries to speak, closes his mouth. Then tries again.

Wow, he must really love Jess—I mean, of course he does. He’s only babysitting me because he loves her so much.

Finally, he says, “Jess doesn’t wear her hair like that.”

I stand up a little straighter. “Then I guess it’s time for her to try something new. Besides, the braid hides some of the wiggy-ness.”

He eyes the braid, not liking it at all. “It will do.”

“Good.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

“After you,” I reply, flourishing a bow as he wrenches the door open. I grab Jessica’s purse from the edge of the bed and we head out down the hallway. Once inside the glass elevator, he pushes the button for the ground floor. As we descend, the mythical land that is the showroom floor slowly unfurls underneath the transparent elevator floor. People are already cosplaying, milling about in clusters on the three levels of the lobby. No matter how many times I see this spectacle, I am constantly in awe. So many nerds coming together to celebrate the things we love.

It’s magical.

Meanwhile, Ethan—Ethan! that’s his name!—clears his throat, startling me out of my thoughts. “Hmm?” I ask.

“I said, give me your phone number. In case we get separated.” I hesitate.

“You’re not leaving this elevator until you give me a number.”

“So you can keep track of me? Can I have yours, too?”

“I don’t see a reason why, I’ll be with you the whole time.”

That doesn’t seem very fair. With my phone number he can track my device if he wants to. Bran taught me about some of those programs. I take his phone and put in the number I know best—the local pizza joint back home in Asheville—and hand it back with a smile. “There.”

“Good, now—”

Before he can finish, the elevator doors open to the lobby flooded with fans and paparazzi and journalists. They turn their bright camera lights and cell phones to me.

“Jess, is it true?” someone shouts, and a camera flashes.

Ethan quickly takes me by the shoulder and steers me toward the door, but my lips are curving into a smile. Oh my God.

“Jess, I love you!”

“Please look over here!”

“Will you marry me?”

We’re only halfway across the lobby and all eyes are following Ethan and me like we’re the center of the universe. Is this what Jessica Stone comes out to every day? People shouting how much they love her? How much she matters?

Who would want to give up something like this?

“Miss Stone!”

“Jess!”

“Ah’blena!”

With each step, with each shout of her name, I fall in love. With the moment. With the feeling. With her life.

“Don’t listen to them,” Ethan whispers into my ear. But how can I not? It’s wonderful. “They’re trying to distract you. Let’s just get to the panel and—”

“Ethan.” I mimic Jessica’s voice so well that he jerks back in surprise. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

And then I do the most audacious thing I have ever done. I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s the wig, or the weird contacts that turn my eyes a sort of oceany blue, or the fans in the lobby or the paparazzi snapping photos or the journalists asking questions about the script, which is no doubt fake, right? Or maybe it’s that, deep down, I’m not only going to help Jessica Stone.

I’m going to save Amara. Not with petitions, not with pins, not with harassing Twitter trolls. But with my own words. My actions.

Jess’ll thank me later.

So I wink at my new assistant and boop his nose and head in the direction of my first panel of the day.





IMOGEN’S BOOTH IS WEDGED BETWEEN an artist hawking sexy pinups of burly men and a mustachioed gentleman selling carved wooden blocks with famous people’s faces on them—Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Edgar Allan Poe seemingly the most popular. Her booth is located toward the middle of the aisle and is decorated with glitter, with a display of fanart in saturated colors on the back wall.