Kayden had never been to California before, but for some reason, the entire city of Los Angeles rubbed her the wrong way. The palm trees that lined the road looked unnatural, as if they had been transplanted from some tropical island and thrust into the concrete sidewalks. The cars that pressed against them in heavy traffic were too perfect, boasting fancy paint jobs, glossy exteriors, and convertible roofs. And the people visually reeked of fake tans, Crest Whitening strips, and peroxide.

Of course, she knew that the main reason Los Angeles seemed so terrible at the moment was because she was crammed in the backseat of a small rental car with luggage pressed up against her in nearly all directions.

"Here we are," Celery announced from the front seat, turning the wheel sharply to the left.

Kayden peered out her window. They had pulled into a lengthy driveway of what looked like an expensive prom venue. The building wasn't too tall—four floors perhaps—but it was big, occupying a large acre of land. Grecian columns framed a set of French doors, and the bright green lawn was parted with a stone path lined by white flowers. A large sign perched in the lawn read "Le Lieu" in golden script.

"The loo?" Blaze said, leaning over Kayden's shoulder and making her feel even more claustrophobic. "Why would they name something like this the bathroom?"

"The Place," Helio translated with a groan from a seat over. "Someone needs to stop playing with illusions and crack open a language book. It's French."

Lexi turned around from the passenger seat, looking genuinely surprised. Her blond hair spiraled down past her shoulder as she tilted her head. "I didn't know you spoke French!"

Helio grinned broadly. "And Latin, Italian, and a touch of German, ma petite fleur." Lexi's face turned bright red and Kayden banged her head against the car window.

When they entered Le Lieu, Celery flashed a small golden invitation to a teenager working the concierge desk and they were directed down the hall and into a large ballroom.

The first thing Kayden noticed when she entered was just how overwhelmingly male the room was. Despite the size, the ballroom was packed with hundreds of men, each of them wearing expensive black suits and tapping their shoes impatiently on the wood floors. She tried to find a woman in the mix, but the females were conspicuously absent. For a moment, she wondered if she was in the right place, and she fiddled with the sleeves of Blaze's oversized jacket self-consciously.

Thankfully, the men didn't even give her a second glance. Their gazes were locked onto a raised dais on the other end of the room where a rectangular table and four empty chairs stood. It reminded Kayden of the one time she had gone to a rock concert, and how thousands of impatient fans kept staring at the stage, hoping for a sign of life as the minutes ticked by to show time.

As if on cue, a small side door creaked open.

"They're coming in now," Blaze said, and without saying anything else, he began pressing his way through the crowd to get to the front.

Kayden followed him, excusing herself as she jostled against the men in the room. Now people were glaring at her, but she was fairly certain it wasn't because of her gender.

Three men and one woman filed in through the side door, climbed up the small set of stairs, and took their places at the table. Each carried a small stack of papers and was accompanied by several burly men dressed in black: bodyguards.

"Good afternoon," one of the Congregation members—an older man with thinning white hair and glasses—addressed to the crowd. "Settle down please." Kayden stopped trying to press her way to the front. Blaze was several people ahead of her, and she had lost sight of Celery entirely, but Helio and Lexi were just behind her.

"Who is that?" Kayden whispered to Helio, sizing up the old man as a few press photographers in the front row eagerly snapped pictures.

"He's the head of the Congregation," he whispered back. "Lucas Carsten."

Mr. Carsten laced his fingers together; they looked like the tangled roots of an old tree. "We're here today," he began, "to address the ongoing crisis in our community. An unforeseen warp has caused a sudden shift in magic and our spells are no longer reliable. And so, in an effort to keep the community safe, we have wiped all spell books clean for the time being."

Except for the one Blaze has, Kayden thought pointedly.

"According to reports we've compiled from all over the world," Carsten continued, glancing down at the papers in front of him, "magic in almost all forms seems to be unreliable and potentially dangerous. This includes both small spells that are incantation-based, and larger, more permanent spells that require runes and potions. Some of you might have noticed that glamour spells on your homes or places of work have been failing. Now is the time to take action and come up with creative, non-magic solutions."

A murmur of discontent rippled through the crowd and Mr. Carsten took a handkerchief out of his suit and dabbed at his receding hairline. He turned to what Kayden could only guess was an assistant of sort, muttering a barely audible request to turn up the air conditioning.

"We understand the frustration," he said after a moment, "but it is imperative that we refrain from using any spells until this matter is sorted out."

"How long will that take?" someone asked from the crowd.

Mr. Carsten attempted to keep his face impassive, but Kayden caught the thin line of sweat forming at the top of his forehead, glistening like a string of diamonds. "It is unknown at this time."

The volume in the room increased dramatically. Dissent spread like a metastasizing cancer, infecting more and more people until the entire room was a churning sea of shouts.

"Please, settle down!" Carsten yelled, but the people weren't having it.

"What is the cause of this?" a voice called out sharply from amidst the shouts. "Why did this warp happen?"

Carsten reached out and gripped the microphone. "The most brilliant potestas minds in the world are trying to figure this out as we speak—"

"We can't be expected to just put our lives on hold because of this!" another man shouted.

"It's because of global warming!" an old man with wild Albert Einstein hair cried from the back. "There's been a sudden shift in the magical evolutionary tract that—"

"Quiet!" a new voice commanded from the front panel, chilling Kayden to the bone. The man who had spoken was slightly younger than Mr. Carsten, perhaps in his late forties, and he leaned into the microphone with an annoyed glare. "Everything is being done to prevent this from becoming an even larger crisis."

"Everything my ass! People are dying!" someone shouted.

"Well there is nothing more we can do about it right now," the man hissed through his teeth.

Lexi fell deeper into Helio's arms. "God, he's scary."

"That's Russ Naven," he whispered back. "My father has seen him flip out over the smallest things for no reason. You do not want to get on his bad side. Trust me."

Lexi frowned. "He can't be that bad. Someone had to elect him, right?"

Helio shook his head. "Members are usually elected based on how powerful they are. And Naven is powerful. Maybe second only to Carsten."

Lexi frowned and opened her mouth to say something else, but then her eyes fell on her cousin. "Kay!" she said with a gasp, pointing to her wrist. "That symbol thing is—"

"Yeah I see," Kayden said, staring down at the stretch of smooth flesh. The symbol was glowing bright, an acid green that sent an ugly cast of light onto her jeans. But it wasn't the symbol that worried her; she was more concerned that her stomach was churning painfully, leaving a sharp ache focused on her left side. She had initially thought it was just built-up nerves from the tension in the room, and yet more and more it felt like a tug yanking her towards her left. She turned her head and spotted Blaze several people away; his eyes were on the Congregation, but his hand massaged his right side as if it pained him.

The spell is getting stronger, she realized with a start. Being apart from Blaze, even by just a few feet, was physically starting to hurt her. She took a step closer to him, to test her theory, and the pain eased slightly.

"This is bad," she murmured, feeling her heart thud painfully against the inside of her chest. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes tightly, trying to calm herself with images of her friends and family. I'm home in New Jersey, and Lexi is visiting from Florida for a month, she thought, taking slow deep breaths. Craig is at Dartmouth, but he texts me almost everyday. Isaac is in Spain but sends me Facebook messages when he has access to a computer. And Jason is going to come over tomorrow with his girlfriend and she'll glare at me when I sit anywhere near him on the couch, but I'll ignore her. And my mom will be in the kitchen putting together bowls of pretzels for us to snack on, and I'll go see my dad this weekend and we'll go to a diner together and order chocolate chip pancakes...

But Kayden couldn't fool herself. The angry wizards that pressed against her were not figments of her imagination. The shouts and screams and cries that filled the hall stung her eardrums, and the pain that pierced her side was hot and all too tangible. It was all real.

Which meant that she and Blaze were in real trouble.

"Please settle down," came another voice over the speaker system, but it was spoken so calmly and simply that Kayden was surprised when the room around her finally settled into silence.

Kayden opened her eyes and watched as the only female member of the Congregation leaned into her microphone. Her auburn hair was heavily streaked with grey and pulled back in a low bun. Her lips were tinged with red lipstick, and her eyes were flanked by crow's feet.

Russ Naven nodded at the woman and gripped the microphone in front of him. "Thank you, Lira."

"I'm not done," the woman said, staring out at the crowd. Kayden could feel the power emanating from her words, but she didn't feel frightened. Lira reminded her a bit of her grandmother, a woman who would offer her freshly baked scones and smiles only if she were on her best behavior.

"Times are tough now," Lira said, pressing the palms of her hands onto the table. "The fabric of our world has been turned inside out. However, turning against one another, placing blame, will do nothing. The only thing we can do is work together towards a solution." She passed a thick stack of orange papers to one of her advisors, and he began to hand them out through the crowd.

Lira held up one of the sheets, waving it in the air. "It would be entirely unproductive to discuss every grievance in a single day—there is simply not enough time. However, we have allotted a two-week stay here at Le Lieu. Each day we will discuss a different aspect of this crisis. Tomorrow morning will be the education meeting, followed by a discussion on how to adequately glamour your homes without magic. The rest of the events are listed on these sheets. If you do not wish to attend, you can always look for coverage online at potestascongregation.poc. We will updating the website on a daily basis to keep you up-to-date with every new development."

Her gaze swept the audience one more time. For a split second, Kayden thought the woman's gaze had lingered on her, but the moment passed by too quickly for her to be sure.

"I understand the frustration," Lira said, her voice a near whisper. "And yet I promise you that we have the best minds in the world working on finding a solution. Give us some time to sort things through. But keep in mind that we want this issue solved as soon as possible. So please, give us your patience and your trust, and we will do everything in our power to fix this situation. With that said, are there any questions?"

A few souls raised their hands to voice a concern, but not too many; most people seemed to accept that, for right now, there was no solution. When someone did ask a question, all four members tried as best as they could to answer, even if the results were less than satisfying. Kayden was particularly surprised by how well Naven spoke; when he wasn't trying to quiet a room, she found him to be somewhat charming. She looked over at Lexi to see what she thought, but her cousin was folding one of the orange pamphlets into an origami heart.

Kayden was tempted to raise her hand; she wanted an explanation for the glowing mark on her skin. But Blaze's warning kept popping into her head: What we did was technically illegal. There was no point in risking their freedom when there was no solution in sight. So she stayed quiet, realizing that maybe Helio was right and this whole situation just needed some time to be sorted out.

After the last question was asked, Lira looked over at Carsten. The head of the Congregation stood up with a nod. "All right then," he said, hunching over the microphone. "We will see some of you tomorrow. Thanks for coming out, and have a safe drive home."