The Princess and the Fangirl (Once Upon a Con #2)(75)

No way.

NO FRAKKIN’ WAY.

“I want to give you all a surprise—the title of the sequel! Can we bring it up on the screen?” he shouts back to the guy operating the lights. But what he hopefully doesn’t see is that the tech guy excused himself a few minutes ago after a fan—Elle, really—accidentally spilled an Icee all over him, and Ethan, cosplaying a techie in a too-short black shirt, quietly took his place.

I just hope Ethan knows how to operate the light board.

But the lights don’t even flicker.

I watch Amon’s phone light up as the number calls again, and again, but because it’s set to silent, it doesn’t vibrate. I begin to feel sick to my stomach.

Vance isn’t even looking at his phone, which is also faceup on the table. He gets a text from his mom (SWEETIE U LOOK SO HANDSOME!!) but that’s it.

Oh no.

Amon clears his throat. “Uh, tech guy? Hello—”

This time the lights flicker.

We need to stop this now.

The plan has become our worst-case scenario and I’m really regretting not telling Jessica about how unlucky I really am.

“Hey, is there a technical difficulty? I can show the title later—” Amon says, but he gets shut down very quickly by raucous booing fans. He quickly holds up his hands. “Okay, okay! We’ll wait.”

Vance glances over to me as if I’m responsible for this, and I give him a cheesy smile and wave, one finger after another, because yeah buddy we’re in this. We’re here for the ride. There’s no way to stop Bran, and it’s too late to call off Ethan, and the stage lights are crashing to black.

Besides, you know what they say:

Anything can happen once upon a con.

Everyone sits in darkness with baited breath. No one moves. No one speaks. It’s as if a weighted blanket has been thrown over the entire room. The audience is looking expectantly at the screen behind us, waiting for it to display the title and logo of the Starfield sequel, when suddenly the back door bursts open.

The thump of heels on padded retro carpet is the only sound in the room. From the light leaking in through the open doors, I watch as the folds of her radiant dress billow around her like a swirling dark-purple nebula, rhinestones and glitter and starlight sewn into the seams. The original, stolen straight from the glass coffin it was kept in. The dim light sparkles against her golden tiara, inset with crimson jewels to match the blood-red of her hair.

Starflame, she looks like Amara.

She looks like our princess never died.





I’VE HEARD FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES, ALL of them named Darien, that if you watch Starfield in chronological order, Amara has a redemption arc to rival Prince Zuko’s. She actively hates Carmindor in the beginning, she hates everything he stands for, she hates the Federation and the Intergalactic Peace Treaty. She wants to make her father proud.

In the second half of Starfield, she realizes that nothing can make him proud. There are lines she can’t cross. There are things she doesn’t want to do. There are things she does anyway.

And in the final episodes? She may not be nice—but she is good.

I am the best parts of her, and part of the Amaras I pass in the crowd—the gender-bent one across the aisle, the ten-year-old one with glitter in her hair, the Black Nebula Federation Princess Amara come back from the grave. I’m a part of every Amara at the con, every Amara on the screen—just as the first Amara is a part of me.

And we don’t die quietly.

There are stories that you tell and stories that tell things to you; stories that win awards and stories that win hearts. Sometimes they’re the same. Sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes the stories you want aren’t the ones you need, and the ones you need are the ones you never thought you’d like.

Perhaps this is one of those stories.

Perhaps Starfield is one of those kinds of stories to me.

With each step I take, the crowd grows increasingly restless. They begin to understand just what’s happening. That the Jessica on the panel is not me.

Vance Reigns lays eyes on me for the first time. “You—you’re Jessica? The real Jessica?”

I cock my head to him. “Are you the real Vance?”

He jabs a finger back at Imogen. “Seriously? This fake has been playing you? This whole time?”

At the end of the table, Amon tries to keep the panel under control. “There’s probably a reasonable explanation for all of this. Jess? Whichever one of you is real?”

“We’re both real,” I tell him.

Imogen is shaking her head at me. Something is wrong.

“Then why don’t you explain it and let us get back to our panel?” Vance replies, and if I didn’t know better I would’ve thought he was being very amiable. Not about to lose his temper. But there’s a muscle throbbing in his jaw. He doesn’t like being taken for a fool. “This is pretty rad.”

“Of course, but don’t you want to know the name of the film first? Friends?” I ask, looking back to the audience, and they cheer. I lower my hands and they quiet again. Wow, this kind of power is kind of addicting. “But I think Vance already knows it.”

Vance laughs. “Yeah, I can take a guess—”

“No guesses needed. Because you’re the one leaking the script.”