Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes by Marion G. Harmon

The way I felt about Brian… if I got crushed again I wouldn’t be able to stay. Or he wouldn’t, and he had to; in a weird way, Ozma—and Nox and Nix—had become his family.
    So I’d have to go join Heroes Without Borders or the Hollywood Knights or something, and that wasn’t going to happen either. It was what it was, and I’d get over it. I’d grown up that much, at least.
    “One little drop of Love’s Measure would clear that right up,” Ozma murmured without looking up from her needles.
    I barely kept from rolling my eyes. Using magic to play with people’s minds wasn’t exactly verboten in her rulebook; she’d turn you into a contented hat and then use crystalized Water of Oblivion to wipe your memory of it afterward if she didn’t feel you deserved to keep the experience as a lesson (a favor she hadn’t done for Spinner), but I’d been relieved to find we drew the same line at anything that shaded into brainwashing. So her offer was a dig and a test, and not a nice one. Which was totally Ozma; she was royal, she was courteous, she was Good, but she wasn’t nice .
    Nice hadn’t ruled a small empire for a hundred years, and nice wouldn’t liberate Oz.
    She made a final twist with her needles and neatly bit off the threads, spreading it out so I could see it: a short ribbon of delicate snowflake lace, so white it seemed to glow.
    “Moonmoth silk.”
    “Okay…”
    Instead of explaining, she took my hand and wound it round my ring-finger, tying it into a neat little bow so that it made a tiny lace ring. “Don’t take it off until you have to.” she whispered and leaned in to kiss my cheek, soft as the brush of a falling petal. A bloom of warmth pulsed where she touched my skin, echoed in my finger where the lace hugged it tight.
    I rubbed my cheek. Amazingly nobody else even blinked. Only Grendel seemed to be looking our way at all.
    “Well, thank you? I didn’t get you anything?”
    She laughed quietly, an innocently inscrutable sweet-sixteen centenarian. “You will. Remember, do not take it off too soon. The Question Box said you will be traveling a long way today. Alone.”
    I froze, breath caught. “Then what—”
    “ Astra ,” Blackstone spoke in my earbug. “ I need you to get your go-bag and go now. You are meeting your ride over Ohio .”
    Sometimes I really do hate magic.
    ----
    I ran. “How long will I be gone? Where am I going?”
    “ Classified. This comes through DSA channels .”
    I stumbled and stopped. The DSA. Now I knew where I was going and wasn’t sure I wanted to go there. Alone?
    “ Astra ?”
    I got going. “I’m here. I— What’s happening?”
    “ I don’t know, my dear. The call came from Director Kayle’s office.   Your help is requested and required, and you’ve been called up through your Illinois State Militia officer’s commission .”
    That almost stopped me again. Our state commissions were partly intended to protect capes like us from getting drafted by Washington—which meant the DSA had had to get hold of the governor and get his permission to activate me while I’d been showering and doing paperwork. Telling myself that this had to be a good thing didn’t stop the churning in my stomach. What was going on ?
    The elevator doors didn’t close fast enough for me, and I spent the seconds before they opened on the bay spinning in my head. Every question I wanted to ask would just have led back to “classified,” so I didn’t. “Understood, sir. The review? The team?”
    “ Will be taken care of. Your testimony is recorded and if there are further questions then they can wait. Good luck, Astra .”
    The doors opened and it took just seconds for me to pull the rest of my uniform off my designated rack. Sliding my gloves on, I was careful of Ozma’s gift. Go-bag over my shoulder, I launched up and out of the still opening hatch. “Shell?”
    “Right here!” Shell floated beside me. “What the hell is going on ?”
    “Like I know?