They’re here. In Artists’ Alley!

I quickly look around, but my peripheral vision is constantly blocked by these nerd glasses. I shove them onto my head but of course don’t see anyone suspicious. Everyone’s looking at their phones, gossiping about the script. I couldn’t care less. The only thing I care about is who is leaking it.

I don’t notice that Harper is looking at me until I’ve already decided to leave and look for the thief. She doesn’t stop me, and I lose her booth in the crowd.

The photo was taken somewhere nearby—that much I know. There’s the purple in the banner in the background, and the retro carpet, and the narrow aisles…

I spin around, trying to gauge where the thief would have been when the photo was taken. I pass another aisle, glancing down at the tweet, at the background around the script page, up at the sea of cosplayers and fans. I feel like I’m suffocating.

How can so many people congregate in such a small space for…what? A bunch of vendors that only want one thing: their money? Don’t they realize that most of this stuff doesn’t really matter?

It’s just make-believe. A bunch of adults pretending that their love for a TV show or a movie or a game means more than it actually does.

I just don’t get it.

I walk along the aisle until I think I come to the spot where the photo was taken. The thief was here, overlooking Artists’ Alley. I had been less than fifty feet away. I grip my phone and scan the masses of humanity, but I don’t recognize anyone from the hotel lobby.

Blond hair, biker jacket, pink nails, lip gloss, mole-on-cheek, bunny, I recall the lobby scene in my head. The girls on the sofa, the guy at the desk with his back turned. None of them are here.

I approach a girl behind a row of anime plushies. “Was someone standing here just a few minutes ago?”

She looks up. Her hair is streaked with pinks and purples and greens, her glasses are large and round. She blinks at me, and then slowly shakes her head. “I haven’t seen anyone.”

But then I notice that she’s playing a game on her phone. I doubt she’d have noticed someone standing here, anyway. I turn away from her but then she says, “Hey, you kinda look like Princess Amara—that girl.”

That girl.

In alarm, I pull on my glasses. “Thanks, I get that a I—”

“MONSTERRRRRRR!”

I look up, along with half of the crowd, and see a particularly tall and muscular guy coming toward me, his brown hair almost contained in his backward snapback, a curl twisting out of the opening. His arms are flapping in the air, as if he’s waving someone down. He’s looking directly at me.