The unexpected news of her parents’ visit left Adah unable to focus much on her augmentation selection. Even though her teammates were ready to make all of their choices, Adah decided to put hers on hold again. She wasn’t able to explain it well to the other girls, but she couldn’t put herself in the headspace of Twilight Heartbreak—or any magical girl—after she read that text from her parents. She had a hard time feeling like anything other than their child when she interacted with them.
Adah reverted to a more insecure and self-conscious version of herself when she was around her mother and father. The last time she had seen them in person was nearly two years ago, back when she still went by Sparkling Starbloom. That persona hadn’t accomplished anything of note, and could barely be called a magical girl in the first place, so perhaps that contributed to how infantilized Adah had felt in her parents’ presence. She couldn’t help but concede her independence around them.
Whatever the reason, the experience had left such a bad taste in her mouth that she made up some excuse the next holiday season as to why she couldn’t visit home. Back then, she had seen herself as such a failure of a magical girl already that she didn’t want to reinforce those feelings by returning home. If she had to hear her mother suggest she stay a few extra days—it wasn’t like Adah had work waiting for her at the agency, anyway—she might have actually thrown in the towel on her dreams.
It wasn’t as though her parents looked down on her choice of career, nor that they were particularly cruel to her, they simply had expectations of her. They wouldn’t label their feelings as such, but that was the truth. And, whenever Adah spent time around them, she felt like her priorities shifted toward meeting those expectations.
Now that they were visiting her after all this time, Adah was determined to break out of that routine.
Her parents moved as expeditiously as the political system, as it turned out. Their first message to her was a statement—not a request—that they would be visiting her at the agency office and taking her out for lunch. Adah had replied asking when, which she promptly regretted; she should have offered a day to them rather than leaving it up to them. Thanks to her error, her parents’ second message was simply: We will see you tomorrow around noon.
They held true to their word, down to the minute. The next day, Adah heard a knock on the agency doors at the precise moment the clock on her phone updated to read “12:00.” Adah had gathered her three teammates and Grace in the agency lobby as a sort of welcome party for her parents. If they were coming all this way to visit, they’d probably be interested in meeting the people Adah lived with and the woman who managed so many other aspects of her life.
“Door’s open!” Ami yelled upon hearing the knock.
Adah put a finger to her lips to shush the twin, then rushed over to let her parents inside the lobby. She held the front door open for them as they entered.
They looked much as she remembered them from the last time she’d visited home. Her father was clean shaven, and his neatly trimmed hair perhaps contained slightly more salt than pepper compared to Adah’s memory of him. He had arrived from Region 1 prepared for the colder weather in this part of the country, covered by a long pea coat that draped halfway down his dark blue slacks. She couldn’t tell due to how his coat covered him, but Adah was sure that he was wearing a pristine white or gray button-up beneath his outer layer. He had always been a fan of simple outfits like that, which struck the right balance between casual and formal to be suitable for most occasions.
Her mother had conceded less to the weather in her fashion choices. She’d opted for a orange-and-gray patterned dress that only covered her just past her knees. This dress was another piece that Adah recognized—among the many qualities her parents shared was their appreciation for a minimalist wardrobe. The two of them would probably wear the same clothes every day if they could. In a haphazard attempt to protect herself from the elements, her mother had also tossed on some gray tights and a black cropped jacket that was so purely decorative that she couldn’t even button it up. Despite this, she walked indoors at a leisurely pace, with no indication that the winter weather bothered her at all.
And somehow, Adah had wound up shorter than both of them.
Adah shut the door behind them and then stood to their side as they came to a halt and faced the group of magical girls in front of them.
“Let me introduce—” Adah began to say, though her mother soon interrupted her.
“First, I’ll take a hug and you’ll take this,” she said.
She wrapped her arms around Adah, during which Adah felt something bounce against her back. That “something” turned out to be a fancy-looking shopping bag that her mother held. After their hug, her mother held out the bag, but before Adah could take it, her father came in for a hug of his own. Then, at last, Adah received the bag.
“For you and your friends,” her mother said. “Truffles from Donlow’s. You seemed to have forgotten to take the last box with you when you visited before. Don’t worry, this is a fresh batch.”
“We enjoyed the ones you forgot by ourselves,” her father added.
Sure enough, inside the bag was an equally fancy square box with the Donlow’s name printed in gold script across the top.
“What’s Down Low’s?” Ami asked as Adah inspected the bag.
“Donlow’s,” her mother corrected. “It’s a chocolatier from back home. Ever since she was a child, Adah would always ask for a box of their truffles for her birthday.”
She stopped and shifted her eyes between Ami and Emi, looking back and forth a few times before settling on Ami and smiling.
“Ami,” she addressed the twin.
Correct on the first guess—that had to be worth bonus points. However, Ami didn’t intend to give her the victory that easily.
“Actually, I’m Emi,” she said, then pointed to her sister. “That’s Ami.”
Adah’s mother’s smile didn’t falter.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. Once again, words that someone else might say in a joking tone came out of her mother’s mouth like a command. Ami’s eyes fell to the floor, then she glanced up like a scolded puppy.
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re right.”
“In which case, this must be Emi, and Rika, and Grace,” Adah’s father looked at each member of the Last Light in turn, offering his hand for a shake from each. “Please call me Ethan.”
“Hannah,” her mother made her own curt introduction.
With names out of the way, Grace took over the introductions from the side of the Last Light.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Grace said. “I don’t know how much she tells you about what we do here, but I can tell you that you have an extremely talented and driven daughter. Adah has accomplished some incredible things this past year.”
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“Thank you for watching over her all this time,” Adah’s mother said with another smile. “Although her accomplishments are why we wanted to visit today. Lately, I seem to hear more about my daughter from the news than I do from her phone calls. Therefore, I thought we may have more luck catching up over lunch.”
Her mother had phrased that more kindly than she’d needed to. The truth was that Adah had barely called home at all throughout the last year. She wasn’t completely ignorant to how her parents must have felt about that, especially given some of the recent events Adah had been a part of. What her mother had said was no exaggeration—her parents must have heard Adah’s voice more on the television than over the phone.
“I hope you won’t be offended that we’d like to spend this time with our daughter alone,” her mother continued. “However, considering recent developments, perhaps we should invite Rika along? Unless I’ve misunderstood you two.”
She turned in Adah’s direction and tilted her head. Adah’s words jammed in her throat, not out of any resistance to sharing her and Rika’s relationship, but rather from debating whether she’d have any easier time dealing with her parents alone. Before she could reach a conclusion, Rika spoke up on her own.
“I’d love to,” she said.
“Four it is, then,” Adah’s father declared. “I have a client in Padoux, but I’ve never eaten at his restaurant. That should tell you how serious a profession marketing is. Regardless, he receives rave reviews. We’ll take you there.”
“Lovely,” Adah’s mother said. “Let’s be off.”
Expeditious as ever.
☆☆☆
Whether her father had a client in the region’s capital or not, it was no shock that Adah’s parents wanted to dine in Padoux. Anything less populated than that would probably seem like a farm village to them. Adah didn’t always mesh with the more rural aspects of Region 4, but she didn’t share her parents’ attachment to the sprawling metropolis that made up Region 1.
The two of them had a clear and unshakable image of themselves, and being surrounded by so many other people probably made them all the more confident of their own direction in life. The more people around them, the more definitively they could contrast their own identities with those people. For Adah, growing up in a major city had the opposite effect. With so many talented and passionate people around her, she had always felt herself blending into the background.
That sense of losing herself among the crowd had extended to her home life. Most likely, her parents’ intense personalities were the reason she always conceded so much of her own personality in their presence. If she wasn’t confident in who she was, it was only natural she’d let her parents take the lead.
Today, though, Adah didn’t want to concede a single inch of herself to them. They were her parents, but she was an adult in her own right. After the Cruelties she’d fought, after what she’d just done with Thibault and Elise, how could she be intimidated by her own parents? Their daughter wasn’t just their daughter anymore, she was Twilight Heartbreak. And Heartbreak needed to be capable of being Heartbreak no matter the situation.
Adah spent the whole car ride to Padoux preparing to maintain her new mindset.
Once they arrived at the restaurant, a small tavern draped in rustic chic, Adah’s parents ordered their meals with as much decisiveness as they conducted the rest of their lives. For her father, a grilled salmon with mustard glaze. For her mother, a simple pesto pasta. Adah and Rika couldn’t choose their own meals as easily, and ended up agreeing to each get one dish that looked appetizing and share them half-and-half with one another. Together, they settled on a chicken parm sandwich and a margherita flatbread.
To Adah’s surprise, Rika took the initiative in conversation while they waited for their food.
“Mr.—er—Ethan,” she said, “you mentioned this restaurant was a marketing client. Is that what you do?”
“Branding, specifically,” Adah’s father said. “I tend to work with clients who are in the process of launching. You can think of me as a creative kickstarter more than anything else. I help small places like this get off on the right foot. I worry about their image so they can focus on their business. I suppose the two of you know a little something about that now.”
“And what about you, Hannah?” Rika asked.
“Editor-in-chief at a dying art magazine,” Adah’s mother said with a sigh. “Or, as far as anyone else is concerned, a gravekeeper.”
“She’s being dramatic,” Adah said.
“Like mother, like daughter,” Rika whispered.
“And what of you two?” Adah’s mother continued. “I had thought you were a magical girl, Adah, but now you seem to be playing politics.”
And so it began.
“It’s a long story,” Adah said.
“Please tell it. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” her mother said. “Though, if you’re interested in running for office, you’re better off coming back home. Deerwood graduates have an excellent reputation in Region 1. I don’t know if the people here are aware of that.”
“What’s Deerwood?” Rika asked, proving its reputation also didn’t extend to Region 2, where she grew up. “Some kind of school?”
“Exactly,” Adah’s father said. “Don’t be mistaken, though. Deerwood isn’t a rich kid’s daycare. They enroll primarily by merit.”
“If that’s true,” Adah said, “they screwed up a lot with my class.”
“I didn’t know you went to private school,” Rika said, a smile curling on her face. “Did you wear a uniform and everything?”
“You know, it’s been so long I barely remember it,” Adah said.
“Some kind of forest plaid,” her mother answered on her behalf. “For some reason, Adah refused to wear the right color socks. She would follow the rest of the dress code down to the letter, but she had to find some way to rebel.”
“Socks?” Rika said with a giggle. “That sounds ridiculous. Do you, perhaps, have lots of pictures of her like that?”
“You know what,” Adah said, “we don’t need to talk about Deerwood because I’m not getting into politics. Let’s all put away our phones and listen to me tell that long story you wanted to hear so badly.”
Now that she’d avoided the exposure of any relics of her past youth, Adah caught her parents up to speed on Twilight Heartbreak’s journey. As they had pointed out, her parents had heard many of the big picture details from the news, so Adah tried to focus on what went on behind the scenes and why she had taken some of her more extreme actions in recent weeks.
Summarizing six months of her life took longer than Adah anticipated, especially as Rika reminded her of details she’d forgotten and offered her own perspective on certain events. By the time Adah finished explaining all the intricacies of her current entanglement with the Department of Magic, the four of them had all finished their meals and were waiting for the check to arrive.
Adah’s father reached into his pocket, which prompted Adah to scramble to produce her own wallet. Maybe she hadn’t done a great job asserting her adulthood so far today, but this was an easy win she could still secure.
“No, no,” she said. “You came all the way out here, so I’m going to pay.”
Adah did her best to channel some of the intensity her mother spoke with, and that seemed to do the trick. Her father put away his own wallet and shared a look with her mother.
“In that case,” he said, “I think I’ll order dessert.”
“I’ll join you,” her mother said. “You will, as well, Rika.”
Once again, a sentence that should have been a question left her mother’s mouth as a statement.
“Go nuts…” Adah mumbled.
Once they had put in their orders, Adah’s mother returned to the topic at hand: the many recent developments in Adah’s career.
“Regardless of what you think,” she said, “you are playing politics. You are aware that—even back home—people are watching you, aren’t you?”
“That’s the point,” Adah said. “The more attention a magical girl gets, the better.”
“Some people will pay attention to you out of malice,” her mother said. “Have you thought about that?”
“I'm aware of that, too. You should meet this girl Iris. She was watching me with malice long before any of this political stuff.”
“I know of Iris,” her mother said. “I saw what happened to you during the IndieMagie. We’ve seen everything that’s happened to you. I didn’t like seeing my daughter like that.”
“We were inexperienced,” Adah said with a frown. “I had a good plan, but they figured out how to exploit it. I can tell you I hated losing that duel more than you did watching me.”
Her mother shook her head and stared into Adah’s eyes.
“I don’t mean losing, Adah,” she said. “I mean bloodied. Beaten halfway to a pulp. Hurt.”
Adah had been putting up a good fight thus far, but she felt herself shrinking into herself as her mother stared at her.
“It was all part of the duel, Mom,” she said. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was fine the next day.”
She must have said something wrong. Her mom’s back stiffened and her dad reached out to rub her shoulder.
“Is this scandal with the Department of Magic a big deal?” her mom asked.
“Huh?” Adah said. “I mean, sure, but—”
“What about that monster you fought?” her mom went on, her words picking up speed. “The hydra or whatever it was. A dozen snakes all as tall as an office building. Was that a big deal?”
“That was—”
“When that boy nearly died—when you nearly died—was that a big deal?”
“Mom…”
Her mom reached across the table and grabbed Adah’s hand. She squeezed tight enough that Adah’s knuckles pressed against each other.
“I only find out anything about you on the news,” she repeated. “I don’t want to turn it on one day and find out… and find out something horrible.”
There was a raw fear in her mother’s voice, replacing her usual commanding tone.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
In Adah’s voice, there was no trace of Twilight Heartbreak.