The Princess and the Fangirl (Once Upon a Con #2)(36)

“Yes, yes,” he replies impatiently. “Hairless? Looks like some ungodly demon spawn? Never mind. I’ll find it.” He resituates a stack of papers I assume is the con program under his arm and wanders off. Then I remember that Natalia Ford had a hairless cat when she walked in on my interview. Could it be the same one?

But what would Amon be doing with her cat?

Anyway, I don’t see the hairless nightmare or any sign of my thief. They’re probably long gone by now. But knowing they were here helps me feel a little better, even though this is beginning to feel like an impossible quest.

I stand in the exhibit for a moment longer, my gaze finding Carmindor’s original uniform. Huh, Darien was right—it is a different shade of blue. This one, the original one, is deeper somehow, more plum than navy, so rich that even after twenty-five years it hasn’t lost its color.

I bite into the top of my pretzel as I study the uniform when a kid comes up to me. He can’t be much older than nine, maybe ten, dressed as Carmindor, and he squints at me with a deep frown.

“You look like Amara,” he says decidedly.

My eyebrows jerk up.

He turns to his dad and says, “Doesn’t she look like Amara?”

At the sound of the character’s name, half the people in the exhibit turn to look at me, and I swallow my mouthful of pretzel with a dry gulp. “No, I’m not—”

“Ah, your meta cosplay of Jessica Stone is amazing!” adds a woman, grinning at me as she takes out her phone. “You even have a SPACE QUEEN beanie on, that’s adorable! What do you call your cosplay?”

I hesitate, knowing that if I flee they will think I’m—well—me, and if I play it off then…“Oh, this? It’s just Jessica Stone on Vacation.”

The woman barks a laugh and snaps a selfie of us. “Love it! Look to the stars!” she adds as she leaves through the exhibit, shoving up the Starfield salute. I smile and nod.

Right. Okay.

Time to leave.

Before anyone else can take a photo, I quickly disappear from the exhibit, looking for somewhere to sit and eat my free pretzel, but every bit of the wall is taken by tired con-goers. I shoulder my way to the back exit and out the side of the building, into what looks like a hotel courtyard—a barren space with grass and a sad-looking tree. I find an unoccupied bench and sit down in the quiet to snack on my pretzel and check the texts and emails I missed.

Oh, Ethan texted me a few minutes ago.

ETHAN (5:15PM)

—Vance Reigns is playing the new villain, if you haven’t heard.

—All’s fine here. Keeping her in check.

—Do you have any leads yet?



“I wish,” I murmur, putting my phone back into my pocket. I pry open the container of warm plastic cheese.

About twenty feet away on the grass are two dozen or so cosplayers dressed as Princess Amara (all different kinds, even a Black Nebula version, who seems to be leading the horde). I’ve heard about these get-togethers—meet-ups, I think Ethan calls them.

How many of them are like Imogen and want to save Amara?

You don’t understand, I want to scream at these Amara cosplayers. What about me? How come no one is trying to save me? The negative comments on my Insta and Twitter are so loud, I can barely hear anything else in my life. The strangers calling me ugly are so much louder than my own parents telling me I’m beautiful. My mother once said the only thing that can ever truly be ugly about a person is how they act, who they are on the inside—whether they’re good or rotted to the core.

It seems like there are a lot of people who’re rotten.

I wonder if, to some people, I’m one of them.

I twist my lanyard around my fingers, looking across the loading docks to the patch of green on the other side, and the gathering of Princess Amaras. The girl dressed as the Black Nebula Amara shouts the catchphrase “Look to the stars!” and the others shout “Aim. Ignite!” and thrust their hands in the air with the Starfield sign.

I once asked Dare why he thought Starfield needed a sign—like the Vulcan “live long and prosper” salute, or the Sailor Senshi “I will punish you” hand signs, or that weird Naruto run—and he said because everyone needs a universal greeting sometimes.

Starfield’s is “You and I are made of stars.”

It’s a hand sign that says we are the same.

What a novel thought. I wished I believed that.

The cosplayers are part of a photo shoot, absorbing the best thirty minutes of the day just before sundown. They strike all the poses I’ve had to meticulously learn for the movie’s promo images while trapped in a studio in front of a green screen, a fan blowing at my face to feather out my bleached-and-dyed crimson hair as a photographer told me to push my shoulder forward, lean back a little bit. I hated every minute of it.

Or I want to think I did.

But there is this strange, small part of me that wants to know what it’s like to be them. These girls who love an image of Amara in their heads. Girls who don’t have to worry about conforming to a producer’s or a director’s or the fans’ image of her, or run in heels even though she lobbied—in vain—to wear boots.

I want to know what it’s like to…

It’s silly.

I finish off my pretzel, scooping out the rest of the delicious cheesy goop and shoving it into my mouth. Not having a napkin, I brush my greasy fingers on my jeans. I turn to go back inside the con, but then feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around, my mouth full of pretzel. It’s the girl organizing the photo shoot—Black Nebula Amara—and she smiles when she sees me.