There’s a bathroom off the living room, and I robot-run in to look in the mirror, hope soaring in my chest. Thank god! I can stop pretending with Dad and Grams and just be—

My face drops when I still see blond-haired Jamie. A moment later Dawn appears in the doorframe, now holding the vase on her hip like it’s a toddler. She scrutinizes my reflection.

“You kinda look like her … but your hair is way less damaged, you have no nose ring, and your face is different … You have a beauty mark. Are you taller? Who are you?”

Apparently, she can see the actual me, but I can’t. A flash of anger sears over my skin as I meet her eyes through the mirror. “I’m the sister she abandoned fourteen years ago.”

The vase slips from Dawn’s fingers and crashes into pieces at her feet.

47. A Girl Fancies Zarar

JAMIE

September 4, Friday Afternoon

New York City

Zarar and I spill out of the train and start the hike up to ground level.

“So…” he starts, straightforward and even-toned as ever. “You’re saying you’ve been using the last four days to prepare to switch places with your sister. And on the final day of the retreat, you encountered a magical glitter bomb, and later when you woke up on the plane to New Jersey, you were wearing Siri’s reflection, but when you looked down at yourself, you saw yourself. And your theory is that happy haunted magic knew what you needed to make your farfetched Parent Confrontation Trap plan work, so it dusted you and Siri with mirage magic and now you’re successfully living as her with your mom who you haven’t seen in fourteen years, and you intend to use this week to mildly torture her?”

I’m wheezing, listening to him say it aloud. “Yep. I also intend to mine the experience for new set material. If I can’t turn this into something amazing, then I truly am barking up the wrong career.” I try not to think about the infuriatingly blank New Set page in my notebook … and fail.

Zarar purses his lips. “I don’t know how to process the magic bit of all this.”

“No shit. I don’t know how to process the magic bit either, but here we be. You saw it with your own two lovely brown eyes.”

“I don’t think you’re barking up the wrong career,” he adds.

“Thanks, Z. We’ll see.”

When we finally hit street level, Zarar leads us off to the side of the subway entrance, and we come to a stop. I exhale a pre-goodbye breath. My hands automatically search for pockets along Siri’s yoga pants and come up uncomfortably empty.

“Well, time for me to go my own way.” I scrunch my shoulders to my ears.

“I loved running into you,” Zarar says. The left end of his mouth turns up.