“Jess!” someone shouts.

I quickly turn toward the sound of my name. Harper is waving from the entrance of the hotel. Jess.

She called my name—mine!

I hurry to the front of the food truck, where Sage helps me onto the hood and her girlfriend Cal helps me to the ground. Their chubby wiener dog sits in the front seat of the truck, pink tongue dangling, and howls at all the noise.

The crowd parts like a Rebel ship colliding with a Death Cruiser at lightspeed, and on the other side is an impossible moment. A girl with lightning-flecked brown eyes and a warm smile, wearing a sequined dress decorated with the Starfield logo, and I didn’t think I could like her more.

Somewhere in the middle, Harper and I meet, and though I had words with the megaphone, they’re all lost on me now and I don’t know what to say. What can I say? How do I start?

So I do the only thing I can think of.

I give her the Starfield salute—You and I are made of stars—and I hope that’s enough. She smiles and presses her hands to mine in the same pose, and then slowly, finger by finger, they fall together—

And she kisses me.

She kisses me and the world is too small and my skin is too tight and the universe is impossible and Harper Hart is kissing me. She tastes like cherry soda and maroon lipstick and stardust, and I lean into her like a sunflower to the sun. I want to memorize the shape of her mouth and the softness of her lips and the sound of the crowd humming Amara’s Waltz from the movie.

And it is perfect.

And I am happy.

And I am enough.

Then she smiles and squeezes my hand. “Let’s go dance our tiaras off, ah’blena,” she says. And as Harper pulls me into the crowd of people I’ll never know, geeks and fangirls and nerds and friends, I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be.

DAY FOUR

SUNDAY

“What a strange life we lead, ah’blen. I can’t say I’d change it for all the stars in the sky.”

—Princess Amara, Episode 41, “Worse Than Death”

Imogen

I SCOOP THE REST OF MY #SAVEAMARA PINS into the cardboard box and close the lid. Slowly but steadily, the showroom is shutting down. In thirty minutes, the con will be empty, and everyone will wander back to their hotels, or to farewell parties, or home. My moms and I won’t leave until tomorrow, when we pack up the U-Haul with all the figurines and hit the road back to Asheville, and by then all of this will have been a dream.

A pretty frakkin’ sweet dream.