Empty. The gymnasium had always been the culmination of my plans, the place where I would finally put the churning tide of ever present awful feelings to rest for good. Now, it was just nothing. The circle was ruined, runes half-formed and blown out from my misguided attempt at self actualization. My plan had worked, and somehow I felt sicker than ever.

Mara was gone.

I’d gotten exactly what I wanted at the cost of everything she’d waited decades for. Had she done it on purpose? The thought didn’t make me feel better. The idea that Mara cared enough about my pain to sacrifice herself for me made me want to tear through the floorboards to get back to her. I wanted this body more than anything, but it still wasn’t worth losing Mara. Suddenly, I found myself uncomfortably aware of how Connie and Marcus must’ve felt watching me act with little to no care for my own well-being.

“Connie!” I must’ve looked so odd running towards her in this brand new body, wings flapping behind me with strange muscles I hadn’t yet learned to properly control. It didn’t matter. I needed Constance. I needed to be close to somebody. This knowledge was agony. I threw myself into Constance’s arms and wrapped myself around her. I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up so bad. “Connie, she’s gone!”

It was so unlike what I’d envisioned. I’d been terrified to face Constance after everything that had happened, but here I was clutching her like my life depended on it. Who knows how many times I’d cried already today, but the tears were flowing again. Why did things have to turn out like this? How could I live knowing I got everything I could’ve ever wanted and more while Mara went back to suffering? “What do I do? Constance, please.”

“Hey! I-” If Constance had something else on her mind, the thought never made it to her mouth. Instead, she breathed a long, steady sigh and pulled me closer. “Shh, it’s okay.” I jumped ever so slightly at the alien sensation I soon discovered was Constance wrapping her tail around mine. Why did that feel so comforting? I’d only found out earlier today that Constance was a demon, and now I had joined her in the ranks of the unholy host. “Tell me what happened.”

I struggled to form the words. For Constance, my time with Mara had passed instantaneously. “She was a kid from my school, Connie. I knew her.” My hands found their way underneath Connie’s jacket and around her waist, my fingers twisting themselves in the soft fabric of her shirt. She smelled like her. “She told me she had no magic, but she just wanted to come home. She wanted to see her family. I was going to sign her contract, but I asked her to try…” Oh. Oh right. I hadn’t told Constance about…

“You asked her to try changing your body?” Constance ran her fingers through my now much longer hair. “It’s okay, I promise. Nobody’s upset at you for wanting to be yourself.”

“You knew?” I felt so stupid. All my efforts to hide my secret from Connie and Marcus had apparently been for nothing

“Kind of? Sort of. We both had our suspicions.” Connie looked equal parts embarrassed and ashamed. It wasn’t often I saw the confidence knocked out of her. “I wanted to say something, but Marcus said it was important for you to have space to figure it out on your own. Knowing that you’re- that you are who you are, I should’ve figured you’d try something like this. You two are both stubborn and reckless.” Mara had been right; they’d both known the whole time.

I fiddled with Connie’s shirt, trying my best to come up with something to get me out of the red hot wave of embarrassment flooding my body. How was I supposed to reconcile what I was feeling? For the first time in my life, my body felt right. My voice, my skin, my hair, my everything made me feel like the steps I had taken had been worth it. Along with that absolute euphoria came an all-encompassing guilt. All of my happiness came at the expense of somebody I’d promised to help, that I’d promised a way home. My joy was tainted.

My mind flipped through endless possibilities of how I might’ve gotten things to turn out differently. I was the one who asked Mara to delay her signing, to try and help me despite her reservations. Why had she done it? Everything I had thought about demons before coming to the school had been absolutely upended by both Connie and Mara. For that matter, I didn’t even know what was up with Connie in the first place. All of that had taken a backseat to the unhinged magic roller-coaster I had strapped myself into when I lit the circle. I finally broke the silence.

“Constance, how are you a demon?”

“I was born a demon.” Connie moved her hand from my head just long enough to flash her crimson claws. “How are you a demon?” Fuck. Should’ve seen that coming.

“I’m not really sure. Mara told me to try to see the person I wanted to be in my head, but when I did…” That couldn’t be it, could it? I went digging in my skull for the image of the woman I wanted to be, and I knew very well who I found. “...I saw you. I saw her.”

“And we’re both demons.” Constance laughed and squeezed me. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen out of her since I’d gotten out of the circle. “I’m flattered, really. Hate to break it to you, though; you don’t look like me.” My heart sank. I hadn't even gotten a chance to look at myself yet. Did I look weird? Wrong? Of course there was something wrong. This wasn’t something I was meant to have. I should’ve known better than to want to change things that were outside of my control. My breathing got faster, my heart rate sped up. “Hey, hey, hey! Hey, babe, not what I meant. You look like you.”

Constance pulled me up off the floor, guiding me back a few steps. With a snap of her fingers, a gorgeous, crystalline mirror appeared floating in midair. “This is you now.”

I stood in stunned silence at the girl in the reflection. Even in the dim light of the gymnasium, I could see her staring back at me. Connie grabbed my hand and held it above my head, giving me a spin. I looked all at once so different and so similar to what I had always been, minus the blue skin and demonic features. In my wildest thoughts I would've never pictured myself this way. Moonlight glimmered on my now chest-length hair. My spade-tipped tail danced behind me, batting the floating dust particles around like little flecks of magic.

I was me.

“You got a name to go with the look?” Constance eyed me up and down. What was my name? I hadn’t exactly gotten a chance to think it through.

“Mara’s just been calling me Holly.”

“Holly. Like, H-O-L-L-Y Holly, not your last name, Hawley?”

“Y-yeah. Yes.”

“Holly Hawley?”

“I haven’t picked a real name yet!” I pouted. It wasn’t like thinking about names wasn’t something I wanted to do. I had a list of possible names a mile long back in my room, but I was an indecisive bitch. “Plus, that’s not important right now!”

“Listen, it’d be cute even if you stuck with Holly.” Connie ruffled my hair and my tail curled reflexively behind me. Having a body part that liked to act on its own half the time was going to take some getting used to. “Any name would be cute on you. I’m happy for you, Holly.”

“Connie, please! She’s trapped in there!” As much as I always enjoyed getting doted on by Constance, now was not the time or place. I was ignorant to how all of this worked, and every minute I waited was another minute Mara languished in Hell thinking I wasn’t coming back for her. I wasn’t leaving this room until I’d pulled her out. “You have to help me open the circle again!”

“Holly.” Constance’s response took an uncomfortably long time to come out. I could watch the gears turning in her head as she figured out how not to hurt my feelings. “It’s a miracle you made it out the way you did. You got so lucky, girl. You have no idea how badly that could’ve gone.” I trembled. It wasn’t the response I was hoping for. “Even if we wanted to reopen the circle, it’s trashed. You charged it with a bunch of toys; it’s no wonder the thing broke down.” Constance crossed her arms and curled her tail around herself. “I’m shocked you got it to work in the first place. What you did was dangerous as all hell.”

“I don’t care! I mean, I do, about making you worry, and about putting myself in danger, but we’re already here! Mara lost everything trying to help me. I can’t leave her there!” Couldn’t she see how upset I was? Surely we could do it together. I had done it alone the first time!

“I don’t trust like that.” Constance locked eyes with me and dropped any hint of playfulness in her voice. “Do you remember how long it took me to let you in?”

“I just thought you were shy.”

“Holly, when we first met, I stayed away from you because I assumed you’d be another little religious baby bigot. I did my best to scare you off, but you were unfailingly sincere and sweet. It was like you couldn’t even tell when I was trying to dunk on you.”

“You were trying to dunk on me?” I tilted my head ever so slightly.

“Not the point. Even if Mara helped you, even if she was a human, she’s a demon now. If we opened that circle back up, we’d be taking another gamble at something happening to you.” Constance slipped her fingers between mine. “I love you, idiot. You’ve been scaring the shit out of me for a while now.” Shame crept up my spine the way it had so many times before. It was hard to see past myself in the throes of my self-loathing, but I had hurt the two people who cared about me most.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Connie.” My tail curled itself around my leg and squeezed. I felt positively awful.

“Hey, none of that. Don’t forget the part where I love you.” Connie snapped her fingers and the mirror vanished. “I’m not even trying to talk shit about Mara. I don’t know her, and that’s the problem. Even if I trusted her fully, there’s nothing to say she couldn’t accidentally drag you down with her. Anything could happen.”

I turned my eyes to the ravaged circle behind me. It wasn’t long ago that this place was so full of hope for me, but now it felt almost like a grave. If I left now, I’d be closing the door on one of the biggest regrets of my lifetime. Getting this body meant nothing if it meant Mara had to pay the cost. Whatever I had to do to have a chance at getting my familiar back, I was going to do it.

“Constance, I’m sorry I scared you.” Gently, I peeled Connie’s hand away from mine. I scanned the room and found the place where I had left my tools from earlier and found my bottle of ink. “I love you, too. I understand why you don’t want to help me, and I’m not going to try to make you, but I can’t let Mara suffer. I made her a promise that I would get her home, so I’m going to reopen the circle.”

“And just how do you figure you’re gonna do that?” Connie’s hand came to rest on her hip as she looked at me incredulously.

“I super don’t know, if I’m being honest.” I knelt to the ground and started to work repainting one of the runes I had absolutely destroyed. Figuring out the shape and placement of these things was going to be a nightmare, but I really didn’t have another choice. “I’ll make it work. I always do, somehow.”

Constance let loose a frustrated sigh. “There’s no stopping you, is there?”

“Not really. A friend of mine once called me stubborn and reckless.” I turned to Connie with a smirk and stuck my tongue out at her. Connie did her best to keep the smile off her face. When she couldn’t, she opted for option number two and flipped me off. I giggled. It was so nice to love my laugh.

“Fine. Fuck it, whatever.” Connie snapped her fingers and a vial of ink appeared in her hands. “Scoot over, you little shit.” She knelt to the ground beside me, playfully bumping me out of the way with her hip.

“Hey!” I nearly fell over, my laughter only intensifying.

“You really are just like him, you know.” Connie grabbed a brush and began to work on the broken rune next to mine. “Let’s get your girl back.”