“I don’t see a reason why, I’ll be with you the whole time.”

That doesn’t seem very fair. With my phone number he can track my device if he wants to. Bran taught me about some of those programs. I take his phone and put in the number I know best—the local pizza joint back home in Asheville—and hand it back with a smile. “There.”

“Good, now—”

Before he can finish, the elevator doors open to the lobby flooded with fans and paparazzi and journalists. They turn their bright camera lights and cell phones to me.

“Jess, is it true?” someone shouts, and a camera flashes.

Ethan quickly takes me by the shoulder and steers me toward the door, but my lips are curving into a smile. Oh my God.

“Jess, I love you!”

“Please look over here!”

“Will you marry me?”

We’re only halfway across the lobby and all eyes are following Ethan and me like we’re the center of the universe. Is this what Jessica Stone comes out to every day? People shouting how much they love her? How much she matters?

Who would want to give up something like this?

“Miss Stone!”

“Jess!”

“Ah’blena!”

With each step, with each shout of her name, I fall in love. With the moment. With the feeling. With her life.

“Don’t listen to them,” Ethan whispers into my ear. But how can I not? It’s wonderful. “They’re trying to distract you. Let’s just get to the panel and—”

“Ethan.” I mimic Jessica’s voice so well that he jerks back in surprise. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

And then I do the most audacious thing I have ever done. I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s the wig, or the weird contacts that turn my eyes a sort of oceany blue, or the fans in the lobby or the paparazzi snapping photos or the journalists asking questions about the script, which is no doubt fake, right? Or maybe it’s that, deep down, I’m not only going to help Jessica Stone.

I’m going to save Amara. Not with petitions, not with pins, not with harassing Twitter trolls. But with my own words. My actions.

Jess’ll thank me later.

So I wink at my new assistant and boop his nose and head in the direction of my first panel of the day.

Jess

IMOGEN’S BOOTH IS WEDGED BETWEEN an artist hawking sexy pinups of burly men and a mustachioed gentleman selling carved wooden blocks with famous people’s faces on them—Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Edgar Allan Poe seemingly the most popular. Her booth is located toward the middle of the aisle and is decorated with glitter, with a display of fanart in saturated colors on the back wall.