Page 1 of Until the Stars Fall

CHAPTER ONE

If I could change one thing about my life, I wouldn’t be a witch. I also wouldn’t be driving a rented hovervan containing all my possessions into Crazy Al’s Pick-A-Part, although I guess it was a fitting place to say goodbye to this trashy planet.

My stomach churning with station coffee, I drove past a crumbled cinder block wall with a faded, chipped mural of Crazy Al himself. His cartoonish, gap-toothed smile leered at me, a mobile of stars orbiting his head like he’d just been KO’d in a fight.

If I could ask him, I bet even Crazy Al wouldn’t believe in magic. Most people thought it was a joke, a collective delusion perpetuated by crazy people on the internet writing love spells under a full moon and thinking the stars held meaning.

Bullshit. Magic was my daily nightmare. It was the fizzy feeling in my marrow that bubbled up, shooting through my veins in a jolting pantomime of adrenaline, itching under the skin of my palms like buzzing bees. And if I hadn’t been struggling against years of pent-up power rattling in my bones, maybe I would’ve had a kiss from a handsome, brilliant man to think about for the two-month journey to Gaia.

Instead, I lost my job and considered myself lucky that the police hadn’t been waiting for me when I arrived in New Orleans this morning.

I took a sharp turn into the junkyard proper, agitating the butterflies in my stomach into a mosh pit. The geo-locater on the dash marked me one hundred feet away from my sister Hannah’s pin. I couldn’t see her ship yet, only piles of bent dilating doors staring like the dead eyes of metal gods, the steel skeletons of stripped hulls, and everywhere, rusted sheets of riveted metal.

I paused and flipped the visor down to check my hair and makeup. I couldn’t look a mess meeting all my sister’s friends, even if they were all witches. Sure enough, one wayward strand had the audacity to slip out of my careful chignon in this wretched Louisiana humidity. I hadn’t missed this place at all, not the memories, not the wild, humid heat. I wiped a stray, faint smear of eyeliner and dove my hand into my bag in a practiced search for my lipstick, trying to ignore my lab coat thrown across the back seat.

Just seeing it stirred up dread in my chest like mud at the bottom of a canal. I held my breath, pushed it all down. I never wanted to use my magic again, much less lose control of it. And yet I did. I did, and I’d lost everything. Again.

After a deep, shaky breath, I pressed the pads of my fingers under my brimming eyes. All crying would do is mess up my makeup. It wouldn’t make anything better. The only way to get rid of my magic was to get to Madam Indigo on Gaia. The only way to Gaia was my sister’s ship.

Setting the hovervan into motion again, I pinged Hannah’s phone to let her know I was here. I turned past more piles of shield doors with fire scarring, an antique Zephyr hover from the 2130’s with the rounded decorative fenders like my grandpa used to collect, past the spiderwebbed metal of dented satellites dusted with ash, their guts rusting in the moisture-laden air.

My thoughts drifted ahead to Gaia. I’d be lucky to get another job in the astro-engineering industry. I was probably on some secret blacklist now. But even losing my job hadn’t been the worst of it—and I needed money badly—Madam Indigo didn’t come cheap. I’d caused so much damage, scared so many nice people.

After another turn, a silver behemoth emerged from the dead oaks and metal trash, and my chest tightened. “Holy Mother of God, is that her ship?” I ducked to get a better look through the windshield.

Al may have been “crazy to sell parts this low,” but my sister must’ve lost her damn mind if she thought this ship would be a good idea. If it was meticulously restored instead of dented and scarred by the fires of re-entry, I might’ve called it “vintage.” Its sleek, silver exterior, curvy stern, and gratuitous bevies of windows were typical of the golden age, hotel ships put out to pasture when interstellar travel boomed almost fifty years ago. When cruising around the rings of Saturn wasn’t fashionable unless it was a sentimental circuit on the way out of this godforsaken system.

Hannah appeared at the top of the ramp by the open cargo doors, her long blonde hair beachy and wild. She jumped and waved as I steered around another pile of disembodied ship parts and up the ramp. When I got closer and saw her sweet face more clearly, my chest hollowed out with relief, so pleased that my little sister looked happy and healthy.

I followed her pantomimed directions into the decrepit maw of the old ship, its cargo bay clogged with baggage. After squeezing down a narrow aisle, I shoehorned my vehicle into a spot beside a battered hovervan sporting a mural of a vampire queen riding a black Pegasus.

The moment I opened my door, Hannah squealed and launched herself into my arms. “Gemma!”

“Hannah!” I cried, squeezing her close. She smelled like lavender and sunshine, and I reveled in her fierce hug, tears stinging behind my eyes. It may’ve been the first honest affection I’d gotten since I left her five years ago. I didn’t want to let her go.

She pulled back and examined me, her blue eyes sparkling in the morning light. “Gem, you’re gorgeous, so sophisticated as always! Only you could come out of a two-day Tube trip without a hair out of place.”

I hugged her again. “I missed you so much.” She squeezed me in another tight hug and released me too soon. “Did work give you any trouble about the new launch date?”

My whole body went on edge, spooling up the lie I’d rehearsed all the way to New Orleans to cover for the magic Hannah didn’t know I still had. “Not exactly,” I said, choosing my next words carefully. “When I asked Evander, my boss, if I could have my leave early, he said no. And this was the leave he granted me a couple of months ago.”

Her mouth opened in outrage. “Wait, are you talking about the Evander Noble? The hot CEO’s son who’s been flirting with you for months? Why would he tell you no?”

I bit my lip to keep the truth in, that he’d really said yes, of course. That we’d flirted some more, and he’d leaned in to kiss me.

“Oh Hannah, I made such a big scene.” I hiccupped a sob. I wanted to kiss him, but my magic threw him across his office instead.

“Such a big scene. And he fired me.” Technically I ran away before he could fire me. Or have me arrested. He was yelling my name when I ran, so he couldn’t have been too badly injured. Guilt twisted my insides, laying the blame on an innocent man.

She wrapped her arms around me again. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“No way. You were surprised by the early slot too.” And she wasn’t the one who fled in terror, slamming open a glass door so hard it shattered down like a prismatic waterfall.

She released me, her mouth a line. “When we get to Gaia, you’d better hire a lawyer. They can’t just fire you like that.”

“I’ll deal with it when I get to Gaia.” I bit my lip on another lie. Would I ever not lie to her?

“It’s okay, Gemma. You know what? I think it’s a blessing in disguise. You told me you were happy in San Francisco, and I wanted to believe you, but you never looked happy. You can live with me and work at a local firm if you want.” She glanced at her watch. “But look, we have to get inside. Let’s get your most important stuff unpacked. I’ve got a cart ready.”

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