“Since when?” I asked before I could think better of it. I’d learned long ago that Alden, conversation, and I seldom mixed well.

“Since ever.” Alden gave me the scathing look I’d been expecting. “I just…don’t.”

“Which is fine.” Professor Tuttle had moved from stern teacher back to peacemaker. “You don’t fly. C—Some of us have limited funds. And I have a plan.”

Pulse pounding, I eyed those tickets again. Forget Alden and his blinged-out decks. I could hold my own in that tournament, and I knew it. I could solve so many of my problems. But rather than being giddy with hope, I felt like I’d swallowed Alden’s huge deck bag, a heavy weight pressing on my vital organs.

Whatever this plan was, I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like it.

Chapter Two

Alden

I straightened my shoulders, not letting my body lean forward like it wanted to. I wasn’t going to let myself be overeager. Not yet. Real-world plans had a way of seldom working out in my favor, which was why I loved Odyssey so much. In the game, all my careful strategies could come to fruition, as they had when I’d won out over Conrad a few minutes earlier. Across from me now, he had gone pale, his usual Disney-hero face gaunt and more than a little green.

“A plan?” he croaked. I had to admit, it was nice to see the Prince of Swagger off his game, even a little. He deserved to be off his game, in no small part thanks to his endless needling and mockery. He called it trash-talking, but I’d never seen the difference. It was hard not to take his comments personally when they always felt so targeted.

My fingers itched to reach for the tickets, to make sure they were real, but I wasn’t going to be the first to grab. I also wasn’t about to let Conrad—or anyone else—see how badly I wanted to go. Payton and Conrad undoubtedly wanted a ticket so they could party with other gamers, and Jasper was likely already envisioning the cosplay possibilities, but all I could think about was that tournament. A seat on the pro tour. Yeah, that would be worth something after the tire fire that was my last year.

A win like that would validate all the time I’d spent honing my game, but more importantly, it would give me the one thing my life was sorely lacking: control. I’d spent the past year racking up disappointment after disappointment, and here was my chance to seize a fresh new direction for my future that had nothing to do with the increasingly claustrophobic path my family had set me on.