Yuna blushed wildly. “You have?”

“Well now, maybe not a whole year—”

She laughed, and the Master Smith and his assistants laughed, and the little boys dispersed once their targets seemed otherwise engaged with the sword-wielding smiths. After the hollering died down, Himil walked Yuna to the gates of the town market square.

“I’m still trembling,” Yuna said, laughing shakily, grabbing the reins of her horse.

One of the little boys scurried by and hissed. “Poxplague! Poison!”

Himil rolled his eyes. “Can’t fix Silendar in a day.”

“No. Nor can I fix myself in a day either,” Yuna said. “Or my father.” She mounted her horse. “Himil, I’m mixing mortar this afternoon. The wall will be repaired this afternoon.”

“I see,” Himil said. He stepped back a few paces, and Yuna strode forward on her horse. She passed him by but halted to look over her shoulder.

“But I will be sure the gate is open at sunset,” she said with a smile. “Just in time for supper.”

Something Gay and Magical

Something Gay and Magical

Adam Silvera

Everyone would be happier if books were gayer.

Okay, maybe not everyone, but Oliver Espinoza would be. He only has twenty more minutes in this bookstore until his mother picks him up.

Oliver hasn’t spent a single dollar yet. He’s always been aggressively sentimental, sometimes to a fault, but he got this gift card for his eighteenth birthday and he wants to buy something special for once. He already tore through all the popular books about magical academies, battle arenas, and underground societies like everyone else on the planet because duh, he’s not walking into any movie theater without having read the book first.

But would it really be so impossible for these heroes to be gay and make out in between all the world saving? Not to be dramatic, but he would cry so hard that he would solve the world’s water crisis.

He has been very vocal about all of this at school, mind you.

When his classmate Richard told Oliver that he was spending too much time online with social justice warriors, Oliver promptly unfollowed Richard on Instagram. When his friend Diana (bless her) went on about the single shelf that her local bookstore has for “gay stuff,” Oscar got the message: he was supposed to sail across the city in a big gay arc on his private rainbow ship to worship at this shrine of a shelf.