Now Oliver feels like an idiot. Embarrassment consumes him as quickly as his love of the book cover. In all his rage about never seeing enough gay heroes in books, he completely overlooked how he could always see white or white-passing people in TV shows and movies and pretty much any book cover. If Oliver wanted to dress up as Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker at some convention no one would bat an eye, whereas Winter would probably turn heads as the Hispanic Captain America or the brown Jon Snow.

“You sold me on it, Winter,” Oliver says with the paperback in one hand and the gift card in the other.

There goes his bright smile again. “Really?!”

“It’s everything I want,” Oliver says. “Minus the Swordsman and the Boy-King flying off into the sunset.”

“You’ll have to come back and tell me what you think about the ending,” Winter says with his eyes cast low. “I work afternoons every weekend.”

“I’ll be back this weekend,” Oliver says, his chest soaring with the promise of seeing Winter again soon and dropping when he thought of how far away that already feels.

No matter what the possibilities hold for the two of them, as Oliver makes his purchase and leaves the bookstore, he’s already dreaming up the conventions where he’s hanging out with Winter as the Swordsman to his Boy-King.

Fingers crossed that he won’t have to write fan fiction about what it’s like to kiss Winter.

Meet the Authors

Meet the Authors

Meet the Authors

Anna-Marie McLemore writes magical realism and fairy tales from the Latinx and LGBTQ+ communities she calls home. Her work has been longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, a finalist for the William C. Morris Award, and named a Stonewall Honor Book. Find her online at annamariemclemore.com or on Twitter @LaAnnaMarie.

Previous work: The Weight of Feathers (2015); When the Moon Was Ours (2016); Wild Beauty (2017); Blanca & Roja (2018); contributor to multiple anthologies.

Danielle Paige writes New York Times bestselling young adult books and works in the television industry, where she’s received a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. She is a graduate of Columbia University and currently lives in New York City. You can find her @daniellempaige on Twitter and Instagram.

Previous work: Dorothy Must Die (2014); The Wicked Will Rise (2015); Yellow Brick War (2016); Stealing Snow (2016); The End of Oz (2017); and several Dorothy Must Die novellas.

Lauren Gibaldi is a public librarian who’s been, among other things, a magazine editor, high school English teacher, bookseller, and circus aerialist (seriously). She lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and daughters. Find her online at laurengibaldi.com or on Twitter @laurengibaldi.

Previous work: The Night We Said Yes (2015); Autofocus (2016); This Tiny Perfect World (2018); contributor to multiple anthologies.