The Flesh-Eater takesahold of my chin and jerks my face to his so I can smell the sour blood onhis breath. When he slides his viscous lips against mine, I keep deadly still.My teeth grate together, but it’s only seconds before I feel flesh crawlingalong my tongue. I can taste the decay in him.

Ridges crisscross down its body like scars, patched by motes of gray thatseep into its flesh. Each of its fins are set apart in razors, and its large torsois carved into endless folds, leading to arms that end in inky talons. Half-shark, half something far more demonic.The Flesh-Eater.

Thinking of Elian makes the night seem colder. I know whichever plan Igo with will lead to his death. Either I try to kill him now, or I wait to killhim after, but there’s no path I’ve mapped out for myself that doesn’t endalongside his life.Every action will betray. Every choice will slaughter. Despite what mymother says, I seem to be the exact kind of monster she wanted.

There’s something about the easy routine of the Saad that settles theawful parts holding true inside my heart. Nights are spent taking in theuncanny tranquility of the ocean, far from my mother’s wrath, and thecrew – even Kye, who isn’t at all afraid to be entirely unwelcoming – offersa unique comfort. The easy rapport they share reminds me of home. OfKahlia. They look at Elian the same way my cousin looks at me: withdevotion that isn’t offered in blind fidelity, but earned through somethingfar deeper. Trust. Friendship. Maybe even love. At the very least, I canpretend not to be my mother’s daughter. Live like I’ve never killed, andspend hours of a day without worrying that everything I do might be usedagainst me.I can almost see why Elian chose to abandon his birthright in favor ofsuch a nomadic life. Though I plan to return to the Diávolos Sea and takemy mother’s place, I can’t deny the appeal of a life spent far from theweight of kingdoms. It definitely isn’t the worst idea the prince has had.Most likely. At least he knows what he wants.

It’s an odd sensation to be able to sing and havenobody suffer a consequence for it. To use my voice in the completeopposite way it was intended, with neither death nor sorrow in its wake.Leaving behind nothing but a melody.I feel at peace.

My mission, my kingdom. The world. They existsomewhere other than in this moment, and now there is only this. Me, myship, and a girl with oceans in her eyes

it’s her feminine charm that’sspurred this whole thing on.As though she has any sort of charm

Lira places a hand on her hip and tries to pretend she doesn’t feel self-conscious, but it’s the first true thing I’ve seen on her face since we met.She may look like a pirate, but she’s got a way to go before she can pass forone.

I dare another look at Elian. His hat shields his eyes from the middaysun, but I can still feel them on me, watching. Waiting. For me to slip upand reveal my true intentions or, just maybe, for me to do something to earnhis loyalty. Let him watch. If Madrid has her way, the next time he sees me,I’ll be as much of a pirate as he is

“The men,” she says. “Ever since we pulled down to skeleton crew,there’s been too much testosterone aboard.”

Under order of the Sea Queen, these are the creatures we mate with.Before I was thrown into this curse, I was promised to the Flesh-Eater.Mermen have no time for names and other nonsenses and so we call themas they are: Phantom, Skinner, Flesh-Eater. While mermaids are fishthrough and through, laying eggs to be fertilized outside of their bodies,sirens are not as lucky. We must mate. And it’s the brutality and savagery ofthe mermen that make them a worthy combination to create more of ourmurderous race. At least, that’s what my mother says.

The truth is, I don’t. When it comes to relationships, I don’t know muchat all. In my kingdom, there’s no time to get to know someone or form abond. Humans speak of making love, but sirens are nothing if notregimented. We make love the same way we make war.

“You’re thinking too much,” Madrid says, settling beside me.“I’m making up for the people on this ship who don’t think at all.”

“Just so you know,” I say to Lira, “if you’re lying, I might kill you.”Lira tips her chin up, eyes defiant and too blue for me to look at herstraight. At first I’m not sure if she’s going to say anything back, but thenshe licks her lips and I know it’s because she can taste the sweetness ofwhatever insult she’s about to throw.“Maybe,” she says as the light whimpers against her skin, “I might justkill you first.”

Whenever I think of the people I’ve left behind, or the burdens of akingdom I’ll never feel ready to rule. If Lira’s story is true, then thenecklace probably belonged to the siren who killed her family. A talismanto remind her of the revenge she must carry out.

She reaches for my knife again, tentatively, and this time I let her. I cantell she’s enjoying the fact that I’m wary, as though it’s the greatestcompliment I could give. When her hand touches the knife, there’s a sparkin my chest, like a cog being pulled loose from a machine. I’ve always beenconnected to it in a way that I struggle to explain. When Lira touches it, Ifeel a sudden coldness passing from the blade through to my bones. I watchher with steady eyes, not risking a blink. She hesitates with the blade in herhands, as though considering all the possibilities it could bring. And thenshe takes a breath and swiftly cuts a line down my shirtsleeve.The blade grazes my skin but, miraculously, doesn’t draw blood.I snatch the knife back from her. “What do you think you’re doing?” Iask, surveying the tear below my shoulder.“Now you look like a pirate,” she says, and continues walking

Elian turns to him and gasps, placing a hand to his heart. “Gods,” hesays, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “What if she’s apirate?”

In spite of myself, I edge closer to Elian. There’s comfort in hispresence and how relaxed he disguises himself to be. As though he couldbelong anywhere if he truly wanted to.

Never the queen, always the minion.

I bite down on the corner of my lip and imagine holding somethingthat powerful.A knife that absorbs life and light.Elian’s stance goes rigid. His knuckles whiten on his hips, and his headtilts ever so slightly back toward the ship. To me. As though he can sensemy thoughts. When he turns, it’s slow and meaningful, and it takes a fewmoments for his eyes to find mine among his crew. He stares, unblinking,and just when I think he’s going to raise his hand and signal for Madrid toshoot me, or for Kye to throw me back into the crystal cave, he smirks. Theleft side of his mouth tugs upward, and the action, somehow, feels like adare.Then the look is gone and Elian turns to survey the rest of his crew.When he does, his smile becomes real and wide enough to dimple hisbronzed cheeks.

“What else do you need in life when you have love?” Madrid asks.Kye snorts. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”Madrid swipes at him and when Kye sidesteps her blow, she narrows hereyes. “This is supposed to be the land of romance,” she tells him.“Romance is for royals,” Kye says just as Torik throws an empty bag inthe middle of their makeshift circle.

I find it hard to believe the prince is a romantic. He seems as though hemight find the notion as ridiculous as I do. I would know in an instant thatMidas isn’t his favorite kingdom; men don’t make homes if they have themalready. But my guess would have been Ágrios, a nation of fearlessness. Orthe warrior kingdom of Polemistés that I chose for my origin. Lands forsoldiers on the precipice of war. Fighters and killers who see no use inpretending to be anything else.I would not have guessed that the infamous siren hunter had humanity inhim.

He takes off in a run and jumps the last of theway, so that when his feet touch the tufts of grass, small droplets explodeinto the air like rainfall. He pulls his hat off and takes a sweeping bow at theland. Then he reaches up a tanned hand, ruffles the wisps of his raven hair,and slips the hat back onto his head in a flourish. He takes a moment,surveying the canvas, his hands hitched on his hips.

I’ve shed Elian’s damp shirt, which clung and dried against me like asecond skin.

“You promised that you would set me free!” I shout to his retreatingfigure.“I promised you more comfortable living arrangements.” Elian’s handflickers over the switch. “I’ll get Kye to bring you a pillow.”I catch one last look at his angled smirk before the lantern dims and thelast speck of light is pulled from the room.

“This isn’t a bargain, it’s a deal.”“I’m not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages.”I twist my lips into a cruel smile. “Then by all means, let me out.”Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.“You know,” he says, approaching the cell, “I think I might like you.Thing is” – he taps his gun against my prison – “there’s a differencebetween liking someone and trusting them.”“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done either.”“When we get to Eidýllio,” Elian says, “we can drink to that.”The thought is enough to make me wince. Eidýllio is a land devoted toromance. They celebrate love as though it’s power, even though it has killedfar more humans than I ever have. I would rather be surrounded by theblinding gold of Midas than be in a kingdom where emotion is currency.“You trust me enough to buy me a drink?”Elian pockets his pistol and heads back to the switch. “Who said I’d bethe one buying?”

“Become the queen we need you tobe.”

My cousins gasped around us, their faces contorted in terror and grief.This was their choice: watch their mother die or see their sister killed. Istammered before my aunt, ready to scream and swim as far away as Icould. But then Crestell shot a look to Kahlia, who trembled on the seabed

“Kill her,” the Sea Queen said

the stench of myregret for killing the Kalokaírin prince. And no matter how much I tried toavoid looking at her, the queen could tell I had been crying. The tears werelong washed away, but my eyes remained bloodshot and I had done toogood of a job trying to scrub the blood off my hands

And I lost my chivalry around the same time.”

Hidden under my seaweed lies, there’s truth.

thought princes liked saving young women in need.”Elian laughs, teeth flashing white against his handsome face. “You’re adamsel now?” he asks. “It’s funny, because you didn’t seem like one whenyou were trying to claw your way past me to attack a siren.”“I thought killing sirens was what people on this ship did.”“Usually not with their bare hands.”“Not everyone needs magical knives to do their dirty work for them.”“Not everyone can speak Psáriin,” he says.I keep a coy smile on my lips, playing my role well. “I have a talent forlanguages.”“Your Midasan says differently.”“I have a talent for interesting languages,” I amend, and Elian’s greeneyes crinkle.“What about your own language?” he asks.

Cristian’s murderer could be on my ship

“Parakaló,” I repeat. “It means ‘please.’ ”

“Lira,” he says. “You better have a damn good explanation.”

I’m about to break free, but the second Elian releases his grip on mywaist, his hands clamp down on my shoulders. He twists me around and I’mthrown against the door of the lower deck. When he leans over me, thescent of black sweets is fragrant on his breath.I dismiss him and make to move past, but he’s too quick, even for me,and blocks my path, pushing me back against the varnished wood. Slowly,he brings a hand to the paneling beside my head, closing me in.“You speak Psáriin.”His voice is throaty, his eyes as dark as the blood that seeps from hishand

“Afterwhat she just called me

She grins at this last part, smiling as though we’re old allies. As thoughshe has reason to feel comfortable around me.

“Please,” I say, and Elian’s eyes dart back to me.I’ve never used that word in any language, and even though Elian can’tpossibly know that, he looks unsettled. There’s a crack in the bravado. Afterall, I’m a half-naked girl being held prisoner and he’s a human prince.Royal by birth and destined to lead an empire. Chivalry is in his veins, andall I need to do is remind him of it.

Instead I say,“You’re a good swimmer,” in my best Midasan.“You’re not,” he retorts.

feeling newly blunt teeth against my skin

I’ve also never seen a dead womanbefore. At least, not one who wasn’t half-monster.

My jaw tightens. “I’m not letting anyone else die because of a damnedsiren.”

“What’s a girl doin’ in the middle of the damn ocean?

Then, through it all, my mother’s voice calls, “If you are the mightyPrinces’ Bane, then you should be able to steal this prince’s heart evenwithout your voice. Without your song.”

Barely a whisper, barely a word. A crack in the air masquerading as avoice, just like my aunt Crestell’s had before she was killed

And I have never heard it from my mother’smouth. I’m not even sure what it really means. To me, it has always beenjust a word that humans treasure for reasons I can’t comprehend. There isn’teven a way to say it in Psáriin

The end of the Saad and the oceanand the world I have seen twice over and would see again a thousand times.I would live the life of a king, as my father has always wanted, with asnow-born wife to rule by my side

I think about what a shame it is that she’s twice my age, becauseshe’s striking when she’s wicked, and wild underneath the pretense.

I reach out and grab the prince’s ankle, dragging him down so his body islevel with mine.I nudge his shoulder and when he doesn’t move, I roll him onto his back.Sand sticks to the gold of his cheeks and his lips part ever so slightly, wetwith ocean. He looks half-dead already.

My fingers press deeper into the mermaid’s skull and disappear inside herrainbow flesh. I can feel the sharp bone of her skeleton. The mermaid stills,but I don’t stop. I dig my fingers deeper and pull.Her head falls to the ocean floor

“It’s you.”My eyes shoot upward. The Prince of Midas stares down at us, horrifiedand awestricken. His lips tilt a little to the left.“Look at you,” he whispers. “My monster, come to find me.”I regard him with as much curiosity as he regards me. The way his blackhair sweeps messily by his shadowed jaw, falling across his forehead as heleans to get a better look. The deep dimple in his left cheek and the look ofwonder in his eyes.

“I’ve missed you,” he says to his ship. “I bet you missed me too. We’llfind it together, won’t we?

greener than seaweed

The Midasan prince is our murderer,” I say. “If I bring the queen hisheart as my eighteenth, then I could win back her favor.”

She doesn’t want to punish me. She wants to humiliate me. Show akingdom whose fear and loyalty I’ve earned that I’m no different fromthem. That I don’t stand out. That I’m not worthy to take her crown

The heart explodes into a gruesome mass of blood and flesh.

Every queen begins as a siren, and when the crown passes to her, itsmagic steals her fins and leaves in their place mighty tentacles that hold thestrength of armies.

molokhia

argest pyramid

And the Midasan monarchs are crafted from gold itself

kohl-rimmed eyes

Madrid

And so now I carry around a magic blade that drinks the blood of itskill so quickly that I barely have time to admire it.

TECHNICALLY, I’M A MURDERER, but I like to think that’s one of my betterqualities.

“You are so beautiful,” says the queen, staring down at Kahlia withreverence. “I’m unsure how I’ve ever considered another.”

The wonder of whether the lips of a prince taste different from those ofany other human.

ndwhen they steal the hearts we keep, it isn’t for power. It’s because they thinkthat if they eat enough of them, they might become human themselves

Can a four-letter word hold all of these?

We’ll all get dragged down in the mud, and whenthe dust clears, all that will remain is the question: What if Juniper Songwas right?And this will become, in time, my story once again

I must make them see myside of the story. Athena was the leech, the vampire, the ghost whowouldn’t let me go; Candice her deranged wannabe proxy. I am innocent.My only sin is loving literature too much, and refusing to let Athena’s veryprenatal work go to waste

I scroll down past the deal announcement to the comments. Some areviciously celebratory; others express revulsion at the commodification of apainful, personal tragedy. A few people express disbelief that a first-timewriter would earn such a high advance for a book that doesn’t even existyet

I wonder how they feel whenever they walk past a bookstore, whether theyget a gnawing desire in their gut for the fairyland that cast them out

O HERE I AM, FINISHED.I crash through one week, and then another, with painkillers and sleepaids. Consciousness is a burden.

Eden is listed as one of the publishers whohave reached out to Candice’s agent. Daniella herself is quoted in the finallines: “Of course we’d love to work with Ms. Lee. It would be the ideal wayto make amends for the part we played in this tragedy, which we deeplyregret.”

THE DOCTORS LET ME LEAVE THE HOSPITAL AFTER FOUR DAYS, AFTER myclavicle and ankle have been se

She bites my wrist. Pain shoots up my arm. I jerk back, shocked. She’sdrawn blood—Jesus fucking Christ, it’s all over her teeth, all over my arm.Candice thrashes once more.

That the world should put them on a pedestal and shower them withopportunities. That reverse racism is okay. That they can bully, harass, andhumiliate people like me, just because I’m white, just because that counts aspunching up, because in this day and age, women like me are the lastacceptable target. Racism is bad, but you can still send death threats toKarens.

It all boils down to self-interest. Manipulating the story; gaining theupper hand. Doing whatever it takes. If publishing is rigged, you might aswell make sure it’s rigged in your favor.

“Yellowface. By Candice Lee.”

that her dad killed himself on the twentiethanniversary of Tiananmen.

“It’s Athena’s favorite workout,” says Candice. “She wouldn’t shut upabout it on Twitter. Wait, you didn’t know?” She registers my expression,then bursts into laughter. “You thought this was personal? That’s so good.That’s so good. I hope I got that.”

Like she’s been waiting forever to get her monologue in the spotlight.

“‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Candice mimics. “Is thathow you get away with everything? By batting your eyelashes andpretending to be a fucking idiot?”

“Candice?”“Hi, Juniper.” She drawls out my name like poison. “Long time nosee.”

IT’S NOT ATHENA.

There’s something off about her voice. I’ve only just noticed. It’s notthe voice you use with your friends. It’s pitchy and artificial, like she’sputting on a performance.

“It’s so good to see you again!”IT’S ATHENA. THAT’S UNDOUBTEDLY ATHENA’S VOICE, AFFECTING THATdisinterested, so-transparently-artificial-it’s-ironic-which-makes-it-realtimbre I’ve heard her employ dozens of times on radio interviews andpodcasts. “It’s been aaages.”

exorcist steps.tomorrow night.eleven.

My cheeks are hollow. My hair’s unwashed, my eyes bloodshot andsunken against dark, mottled bags. I haven’t slept. I haven’t talked toanyone who wasn’t my doorman in days. I’ve been living a hauntedexistence from hour to hour, trying to distract myself with my manuscriptso that my thoughts don’t torture me, and I can’t do this anymore. I’m sofucking tired of it all—the visions, the paranoia, the nightmares. I’m tired ofseeing Athena around every corner, hearing her voice, her laughter. I didn’task for this. I didn’t ask to witness Athena’s death in the first place. I didn’teven want to be there that night, but she insisted, and there I was, and it’sclearly fucked me up even more than I realized.I’m tired.

I take in her bright, hard eyes, razor-thin brows, the brilliant gash ofred lipstick across thin, angry lips. My stomach drops.It’s Diana Qiu.

ut what do I do with the ending?

The ghost devours me whole. The ghostrips me apart limb from limb and bathes in my blood. The ghost sinks intomy body and takes over my life for my remaining years as reparations. Theghost impels me to suicide, and I join her in the underworld: two miserablesouls without justice.But none of these produce the necessary catharsis. Athena is notsatisfied

The wildest thing about all this is that even now I cannot stopcomposing. I’m trying to funnel this awfulness into something lovely. Mysalacious roman à clef will become a horror novel. My terror will becomemy readers’ terror. I will take my fugue state of delirious panic and compostit into a fertile bed of creativity—for aren’t all the best novels borne fromsome madness, which is borne from truth?

I order incense sticks on Amazon and kung pao chickenfrom Kitchen No. 1 and place both before a framed photo of Athena, but allit does is stink up my apartment. I print paper cutouts of all the things Iimagine Athena could want in the underworld—stacks of money, a lavishapartment, the entire IKEA catalogue—and light them up with a match, butthat only sets off the fire alarm, which pisses off my neighbors and landsme with a hefty fine.

so many Chinese ghosts arehungry, angry, voiceless women

They areobsessed with death without peace. I learn that the most common word forghost, “gui,” is a homophone for a different “gui,” which means to return. Ilearn that the female revenant is a common theme in early Chineseliterature, a trope employed to explore the regrets of single, unmarriedwomen who died violent and unnatural deaths. I learn about a trope calledthe “amorous ghost,” in which all the female ghost needs to sate its haunteddesire is a good fucking. I learn about something called jiangshi, which asfar as I can tell is like a zombie, a corpse reanimated by a spell written on aslip of paper. Perhaps someone reanimated Athena. Perhaps I composed thespell myself, when I published her words against her will

The futility of itall. Like Echo looking at Narcissus. Like Icarus, hurtling straight at the sun,just to feel its warmth on his skin

But Athena is the reason for any modicum of success I’ve ever had.My career as an author does not exist without her.Without Athena, who am I?

Athena always thought that what she did was a gift. Adistillation of trauma into something eternal. Give me your bruises andhurts, she told us, and I will return to you a diamond. Only she never caredthat once the art was made, once the personal became spectacle, the painwas still there.

And I’d yell something desperate, something vulnerable, only tofind those same words published in a short story the very next month.Sometimes, when we fought, she would give me this very cool, narrow-eyed look. I knew that look, because it was the same look she got when shewas drafting a scene. And I never knew if she was really there during ourrelationship, or if the whole thing for her was some kind of ongoing story, ifshe did what she did just to document my reaction. I felt like I was losingmy mind.” He presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose.“Sometimes she would say things that made me upset, or ask about thingsI’d been through—and as time went on all I could think was that she wasmining me, using me as fodder.”

She stole from me, too,” Geoff says. “Constantly.”

I can’t believe that, though. Something else is going on here. Arandom troll doesn’t explain Athena showing up to my reading, or the factthat her specter haunts every professional move I make. Someone is pullingthe strings.

It’s Athena’s account, posting for the first time since the morningbefore her death. In the photo she’s sitting at her writing desk, smilingsweetly, but everything is off—her eyes are a bit too wide, her toothy smileso stretched it looks painful, and her skin is ghost pale despite the sunlightstreaming through her window. She looks like one of those CreepyPastamemes: an image that should look normal, but that makes your skin crawlwith its deranged intensity. Lying open by her right hand is The Last Frontin paperback. By her left, a slim hardcover of Mother Witch.I click to expand the caption.Thought you could get rid of me? Sorry, Junie. I’m still kicking. Glad you had a good writingday! I had a good writing day too—here’s me, flipping through some old works for inspiration.Heard you’re a fan ☺

But as I dig into the past, I find myself lingering on good memories,too. There are more of them than I realized. I haven’t let myself dwell oncollege for so long, but once I scratch the surface, it all comes bubbling tothe fore. Starbucks every Tuesday after our Women in Victorian Litseminar: an iced mocha for me, a Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher forAthena. Nights at slam poetry events during which we’d sipped gingerbeers and giggled at the performers, who were not real poets, and whowould one day certainly grow out of this nonsense. A Les Mis sing-alongparty at a drama major’s apartment, where we’d shrieked at the top of ourlungs, “One day more!”As I transcribe all this, I wonder if our friendship had indeed been asstrained as I’d perceived it. Was that jealous tension always there? Were werivals from the start? Or had I, in the throes of my insecurity, projected it allagainst Athena?I remember the day during our senior year that Athena received thefirst offer on her debut novel, when her agent called and told her on her wayto barre class that she would soon have her book on shelves. She called mefirst. Me. She hadn’t even told her parents yet

What more can we want as writers than such immortality? Don’tghosts just want to be remembered?

that Daniellahad a habit of saying all sorts of bigoted things during meetings (“Wealready have a Muslim writer,” she’d told the team once duringacquisitions. “Any more and we’ll be outnumbered.”

I’ll play up the sapphic quality of it all, too. Readers will love that;queer love stories are all the rage now. Drop in a little hint of girl crushingand the TikTokers will go rabid.

’ll write about us. Well, no—a fictionalized version of us, a pseudo-autobiography in which I blur fact and fiction. I’ll describe the night shedied in all its heart-stopping, lurid detail. I’ll describe how I stole her workand published it. I’ll describe every step along my way to literary stardom,and then my horrifying fall. Academics and scholars will have a field daywith this text. They’ll write entire books about how I cleverly blended thetruth with lies, how I reclaimed the rumors about me, subverted the uglygossip about a treasured friendship into a tale that confronts the reader withtheir own sick desire for scandal and destruction. They’ll call it radical.Groundbreaking. No one’s ever refuted literary expectations like thisbefore.

daisychain453

A musicianneeds to be heard; a writer needs to be read. I want to move people’s hearts.I want my books in stores all over the world. I couldn’t stand to be likeMom and Rory, living their little and self-contained lives, with no greatprojects or prospects to propel them from one chapter to the next. I want theworld to wait with bated breath for what I will say next. I want my words tolast forever. I want to be eternal, permanent; when I’m gone, I want to leavebehind a mountain of pages that scream, Juniper Song was here, and shetold us what was on her mind.

A musicianneeds to be heard; a writer needs to be read. I want to move people’s hearts.I want my books in stores all over the world. I couldn’t stand to be likeMom and Rory, living their little and self-contained lives, with no greatprojects or prospects to propel them from one chapter to the next. I want theworld to wait with bated breath for what I will say next. I want my words tolast forever. I want to be eternal, permanent; when I’m gone, I want to leavebehind a mountain of pages that scream, Juniper Song was here, and shetold us what was on her mind.

toput Rory and me through good schools with minimal student debt

Juniper Song and Aurora Whisper.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that it was Rory who liked Chinese,and that Chinese food makes my stomach roil,

and no onecares about the inner musings of a plain, straight white girl from Philly.They want the new and exotic, the diverse, and if I want to stay afloat,that’s what I have to give them.

Marketing and publicity make you distill hundreds ofpages of careful, nuanced reflection into cute, tweet-size talking points.

pixie cut

ut then I take stock of the whole situation, and it’sastoundingly pathetic. I don’t need to engage in a she-said, she-said battlewith a seventeen-year-old. I’m too big for this

I’ve won. It’s a pathetic victory, sure, but it’s better than sitting hereand suffering their mocking glares.

“You think she took it right out of her apartment? Like, the night shedied?”“Oh my God,” says Skylar, delighted and horrified. “That’sdiabolical.”“Do you think she killed her?”“Oh my God, don’t—

I glimpse my students through thewindow of Mimi’s, one of the many bubble tea cafés near campus. Thetwelve of them are crowded around a table meant for six; so many chairspulled up that they each get only a little bit of table space. They seemtotally comfortable around one another, hunched over their laptops andnotebooks. They’re writing—perhaps working on my homeworkassignment. I watch as they show one another snippets of work, laughing atfunny turns of phrase, nodding appreciatively as they take turns reading outloud.

(“Anna Karenina,”declares Johnson. “Only Anna wouldn’t kill herself.”)

I’m not sure that Brett understands that the people who are intomagical realism are so not into near-future science fiction of this sort.

Women are raised in institutions, born and bred to bebaby-makers, and they’re sold to their husbands as house slaves.

I could go for a Star Warsnovel, maybe. I mean, it sounds very difficult, and I’d have to really digdeep into my nerd past to make myself care about whatever bit characterthey fling my way, but I could make something work

I’msupposed to take down quotes as we’re talking, but I don’t want to have mypen and notebook out in case that intimidates him.

Ratatouille and Mulan combined.

Stop being such a nervous white girl, I scold myself. Real people livehere; it’s not a war zone. I can’t learn their stories if I’m acting like a jumpytourist.

I think one of my grandparents or great-grandparents might have been Jewish

on Nathan Hale’s statue on campus

Like Taylor Swift, I had nointention of becoming a white supremacist Barbie. Obviously I’m not aTrumper—I voted for Biden! But if these people are hurling money at me,is it so wrong of me to accept? Should we not celebrate scamming cashfrom racist rednecks whenever we get the chance?

“I know,” says Mrs. Liu, and now there’s a hard edge in her voice. “Iknow, June. Athena never would have written something like that.”

But she is terrified of what lies inside those Moleskines. That is clearernow than ever. I’m speaking to a mother who, when it comes down to it,would really rather not confront what dark things lay buried in herdaughter’s soul. No mother wants to know her child that well. Here, then,are the terms of our bargain—she’ll keep my secrets, as long as she neverhas to confront Athena’s.

I’ve torn that from her. I’ve denied a mother her daughter’s finalwords. If I tell her the truth now, Mrs. Liu will at least get those wordsback. She’ll see the effort that occupied the last years of Athena’s life.

It’s Patricia Liu. Athena’s mom.”

What happensnext will happen, no matter what I do or say.

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

I flipped the issue open to page twelve, Athena’s story, and found myown words staring back at me.But they weren’t quite my words. Just my feelings, all of my confusedand tangled thoughts, articulated in a clean, understated yet sophisticatedstyle that I didn’t then have the eloquence to achieve.

I woke up the nextmorning with my panties around my ankles and violent, purplish-blackhickeys on my neck. My vagina, to be honest, felt fine—later I would pokeand prod at it, trying to tell if I was sore or bleeding,

And yet it’s this story that brings me down

Our protagonist is a barefootgirl, a young witch chasing her immortal mother through eternity,uncovering her secrets only to form more questions about herself and where

In my nightmares she walks into a dark and never-ending hallway, andas many times as I call her name, she never turns around. Her dress leaveswet streaks on the carpet. Her pale arms are bloody and scratched. I knowshe has slain the bear. I know she has escaped the forest. She moves nowwith that same urgency, abandoning the past like Orpheus, inverted, like ifshe never glances back over her shoulder, it will cease to exist. She forgets Iam trapped here, unable to move, unable to make her see me. She forgetsme entirely.

if I hit you, would it feel like a kiss?

Rook was alreadydead when I arrived

which involves a YA writer who sent anonymous death threats to arival for months before slipping up and sending one from her own emailaddress

the affected writer has started a GoFundMe to raise money to sue foremotional damages.

Geoffrey Carlino isn’t an alphamale whose fury can’t be tamed. He’s a pathetic, insecure little boy who’sall bluster, who has no more cards up his sleeve.

She called you some loser fromschool. Said she didn’t know why you were still hacking at it, that yourdebut was thoroughly mediocre, and that you’d be better off calling it quitsbefore this industry chewed you up entirely.

He looks like the love interest from some dark andsteamy YA novel come to life, all mussed dark hair and rough stubble

Does anyone get weird looks when they ask for “real spicy, not just white people spicy” at Indianrestaurants?

android girl named Xiao Li who puts up with anumber of abuses from lecherous human clients before self-destructing in ablast that destroys over half of New Beijing.

Heart hammering, I pull up Twitter and search “Geoffrey Carlino” tosee what Athena’s ex-boyfriend has been up to lately.

She was too pretty, too successful,too suspiciously clean to have nothing on her ledger. She had it coming forher,

He doesn’t ask any more questions. Tom, bless him, takes everythingat face value. So does Rory. I feel a deep pang of affection for them rightthen. There’s no guile in this family; just open, loving trust,

The SpiderwickChronicles

Hey, Tom? Could you trace theIP address of, like, any random Twitter account?

TikTok-obsessed basic bitch in training.

“Well, sure. But that’s just Wonder Woman; that’s not seriousliterature.

And it’s so crazy to call Chelsea a racist—I mean,she’s a Democrat. She voted for Obama

Islamicmysticism

Ailin for her thoughts onBridgerton.

“So you have a problemwith unacknowledged Asian labor?”

release of the French edition ofThe Last Front

oom where ithappens

This dress is Juniper Song’s villainorigin story

How much do you want to bet she loves the IDF, too?

You lost that right when you let a white man colonize yourcunt.

a YA writer wasdriven off social media for encouraging her fans to leave one-star reviewson another writer’s debut

I know some authors who have been able to jump from scandal toscandal with their reputations perfectly intact. Mostly white.

What happened to critical reading skills

All I did was write once that I couldn’trelate to an Indian writer’s romance novel, because all the characters wereunlikable and way too obsessed with their family duties to the point ofdisbelief

The literal definition of yellowface,

reyl089.

There’s then a heated debate over whether it’s appropriate to use thewords “lynch mob” when describing a white woman, and it ends withdozens of people calling the above referenced author a racist. Said author’saccount is locked within hours.

It’s notlike these two things are connected.

Wikipedia page about me. They’ll writeendless think pieces about me

The first tweet comes from an account named @Athena LiusGhost,created earlier this week; no profile picture, no words in the bio:Juniper Song, aka June Hayward, did not write The Last Front. I did. She stole my book, stolemy voice, and stole my words. #SaveAthena.

Why not the world

arm in arm with the handsome Asian actor they cast to play AGeng

“It’s a translation, really.And translation across mediums is inherently unfaithful to some extent.Roland Barthes. An act of translation is an act of betrayal.”

“You are exactly right,” he says. “We need you. My English, it is notso good. Your generation has very good English. You can tell them ourstory. Make sure they remember us.” He nods, determined. “Yes. Make surethey remember us.”

t makes me feelrotten

Great Wall Express

I want to die. I want toopen the car door and roll out onto the highway and be obliterated byoncoming traffic

Kim Jong Un’s girlboss propagandist sisterimmediately comes to mind, only because I’d once seen a news photographof her wearing a similar suit and sunglasses

get that they’re armymen, and they’re uncouth, but this feels like tragedy porn,

domino theory

Profiting from someone else’s suffering. God, what a cruel way to putit. Athena used to struggle with this, publicly, performatively.

I often rehearse pretendarguments in the shower.

Annie Watersmeme,” which involves pictures of bland and mediocre-looking whitewomen paired with the caption, taken from the book, “She was a litheyoung thing, with hair the color of the rising sun and eyes like the ocean,and the men could not keep their eyes off her as she floated past

“For my next video,” drawls Kimberly Deng, “I will be doing anAnnie Waters makeup tutorial, featuring a turmeric face mask and whitetears.”

Annie Waters—a character I’d expandedfrom Athena’s draft, the seventeen-year-old daughter of YMCAmissionaries—visits the laborers’ camp alone to hand out Bibles andChristmas biscuits. The men, who haven’t seen their wives or any womenof their kind in months, understandably ogle over her. She’s blonde, slim,and pretty; of course they can’t get enough of her. One asks if he can kissher on the cheek, and since it’s Christmastime, she bashfully permits it.I thought the scene was touching. Here we have people divided bylanguage and race, who are nonetheless able to share a tender moment inthe middle of a war. The scene also fixed an earlier gripe Daniella had withthe novel, which was that it centered almost entirely on men. The era of themacho war story is over, she’d written. We need to start elevating femaleperspectives.

Also, what’s The Untamed?

“one of themany white women, like those who write queer fan fiction of The Untamed,who not only have an unexamined fetish for feminine-looking Asian men,but who think Chinese history is something to cherry-pick from in search ofintriguing and shiny nuggets, like nice Ming vases to set in the corner.”

“I am white,” I say, more frostily than I’d intended. What is sheinsinuating? That I can’t be a good mentor to her unless I’m Asian?

I am a woman who helps otherwomen.

Right,” I say. I’m a little surprised Heidi knows the word “subaltern.”“And without us, these stories wouldn’t get told.”“Precisely. Precisely.

Japanese art history, meaning tentacleporn,