The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Candice cracked open the door of her room and peaked out. The coast was clear. Most of the other members of her sorority—her team—were out tonight, she knew, and it looked like Cara and Aisha were both shut up in their rooms, meditating and studying respectively, just like she’d expected.

She closed the door and looked at herself one last time in the mirror. Dressing was very important when you had secret identities to protect, and Candice had three. There was this one of course, the “real” her: Candice Cummings, Cape City U student, cheerleader, and vice president of Gamma Pi. Then there was the other one only a few people—her sorority sisters/teammates of course, and one or two others—knew about: Cosmic Cheerleader, superhero, founding member of the Girls Power, possessor of the Power Cosmic and the Spirit Cheer.

And then there was this one, the one who hid her long blonde hair under a black wig, put on foundation a shade lighter than normal and lipstic multiple shades darker, who pulled out of the back of her closet tall black boots and torn fishnets and a tight leather skirt. The one no one knew about that lived that most unspeakable shame: she liked different music than her friends.

Mostly she kept that fact to MP3s on her phone, listened to on headphones while she was out—with a few random pop songs she could switch to in case anyone asked her what she was listening to, of course. But her favorite band, Shadowsound, was in town, and she couldn’t miss that! Their sound was fantastic, dark and heavy yet melodic, and their lead singer and guitarist—Dominic deBaird—had the most amazing voice she’d ever heard, a low, seductive invitation into the dark with just enough roughness to feel dangerous.

And you’re gushing to yourself like a preteen obsessing over a boy band, Candice, she told herself. You have to get going. One more quick check that the coast was clear, and then she was gone.

In the room across the hall, behind a closed door, Cara—Corvid—floated in lotus position above her bed and allowed herself a slight smirk. Candice can be ridiculous sometimes. Does she really think we’d make fun of her for liking what she likes? She paused and corrected; it was important to be honest to herself in her meditations. Okay, I would, but only a little, and only because she’s already embarrassed about it.

DeBaird sat backstage and listened. He let the rolling waves of the currently performing band’s music sweep out over the crowd and then back in, bringing with it the sounds of the crowd. He felt the sound’s color, tasted its shape, heard its texture. The kids weren’t bad, he had to admit, but they weren’t great. The had some skill, but no power.

He ran a hand down the neck of his guitar and felt the power trembling within it, lightning and thunder imprisoned in its strings, waiting to be released with a stroke of his pick. There was power there, yes, but not as much as he had in himself. An inherited gift, trained from birth, to put power in his music, whatever instrument he cared to use. He supposed it was a form of magic, but that wasn’t important; what was important was that it let him live however he wanted, kept his bandmates loyal and dedicated, kept him touring and well-paid. That was what his power could do, so that was what it was for.

But something was off. An odd texture in the sound of the room, nearly buried. He used his power to focus in on it. Innocuous enough, a feminine voice ordering a drink. But something about it was different. Something... like power. Not his own power, power born of emotion and will. This came from something larger, something... cosmic. What could that power do in combination with his own?

He’d need to work quickly. And he’d need a focus, something that could symbolize—he looked down at the pick in his hands and smiled. Anything that made sound, he knew, could be an instrument. You just had to know how to play it.

Candice looked up as someone approached her while she waited at the bar. Club staff, judging by the logo on their black t-shirt. “Hey,” he said. “Bard wants to see you.”

Candice stared. “What?”

“Bard,” he repeated, shouting over the music and the crowd. “Wants to see you! Backstage!”

“No, I heard, I—the Bard? Dominic deBaird?“

The staffer shrugged and gestured her to follow him. Confused, but excited at the chance to meet her favorite singer, Candice followed to a dimly lit room behind the stage, where he left her.

“Welcome,” said that rich, dark voice from the shadows along one wall. deBaird stepped into the light, or what there was of light. He was tall and lanky, with an angular, aristocratic face with just a touch of stubble. His eyes were deep-set and dark, and his hair just as dark, straight, and parted in the middle to hang to his shoulders. His black and silver guitar was in his hands, and he strummed at it absentmindedly as he spoke.

“H-hi,” said Candice, suddenly feeling very warm and rather shy. “I—I don’t know why—”

His guitar thrummed. “Sometimes a fan catches my eye,” he said simply.

“Oh!” Candice blushed. “I—I’m not, not a groupie—I mean, I’m a huge fan, it’s not that, I’m...” Stupid stupid stupid, she thought. This is the sexiest voice in the world, finish a sentence!

He laughed, and it was just as rich and dark and dangerous as his singing. “I just meant you seemed like a fan. I like to meet fans sometimes, remind myself that people like my music, not just crowds.”

“Oh!” She blushed harder.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “That’s how we become people. I’m Dominic deBaird, but my friends call me Bard.”

“I—I know,” she stammered. “I mean, I’m Candice. Candice Cummings.” Why did I say my whole name?

“We’re up, Bard!” someone called into the room, and deBaird nodded.

“Here, Candice,” he said, and handed her his guitar pick. “A souvenir. I have to get going.” He fished another out of a pocket and left the room with his guitar.

She took it in both hands, and held it a moment, still confused. Then she shook her head and went back out into the audience. As bedazzled and frazzled as she was, it never even occurred to her to ask how he’d been playing his guitar with no amp.

Two songs into the set, Candice was feeling much better. They’d been two of her favorite songs from the last album, and silly as it felt to admit it, having the pick in her hand made it even better. More real, somehow. Maybe there’s something to this meeting people to make them people thing, she thought.

But then the song faded, and for a moment there was quiet, before deBaird took the mic. “This next song goes to one of my favorite fans. This is for you, Candice Cummings!”

The band played an intro, and then he began to sing, his voice dipping low, dripping with invitation, asking her to walk into shadows with him. And she wanted to, so very much. She wasn’t even hearing the lyrics, just the shape of the sound, a dark caress, a hold so gentle and yet unbreakable, pulling her into darkness. Everything seemed to be fading away except herself, deBaird, and...

And the pick. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the stage, but she raised the pick. It seemed to be glowing in the darkness, a faint purple that should probably have alarmed her, but it was so hard to think as the song caressed her, reaching somehow through the pick, in through her ears and eyes to wrap around her mind, twining around her body, dark and sensual.

And then the chorus began, and now the lyrics surged into conscious awareness for her while the glow of the pick reflected in her eyes, their normal green replaced by a shining purple.

Now you’re mine

Fall in line

You’re a good little puppet who’ll do what I say

It’s your power I desire

And you will obey!

There was no fighting this. The music was everywhere. In her, around her, binding her, filling her, squeezing out everything else.

You’re mine

For all time

Your strings are mine to pull

Head empty and yet full

Completely and submissively under my spell

Yes, you will now obey

You’re deep within my thrall

My instrument to play

Surrender as you fall

She was a puppet and he held her strings. His to use however he wished. And it felt so, so good. A wild grin spread across her face while the pick in her hands glowed purple, and her eyes shone a bright purple that covered iris and white alike. She was falling, and as she did, she gladly surrendered.

She was his.

She waited backstage for him, trembling in anticipation, the pick clutched tightly in her hands. Its glow had faded until it was barely visible, just like the glow of her eyes—but they remained violent instead of their usual green.

He smiled as he saw her. “Hello, my puppet. Are you ready to obey me?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft, distance, slightly singsong. “I will now obey. I’m deep within your thrall.”

He stepped forward and stroked her cheek. Her knees trembled at the need to please him. “Good puppet.” He handed her a black leather band with a set of tiny hooks on either end. “Use this as a choker to wear the pick I gave you.”

She inclined her head obediently, then hooked one end into the pick, wrapped the other around her neck, and hooked it in place. The pick nestled against her throat, purple and shiny but no longer seeming to glow.

“Against your throat like that should be perfect placement for what I want. Sing with me, puppet.” He took a breath, and then began to sing, to the same tune as his earlier song:

Your power’s in your voice

Connected now with mine

You have no will, no choice

Let your submission shine

The pick pulsed once more with purple light, in time to their singing, and Candice felt something, a kind of electric energy, arcing from it, through her skin, and into her vocal cords. She repeated his song, and concentric waves of purple light flowed out from her.

deBraid laughed. “It’s working. This strange power of yours is amplifying my magic! Oh, this is perfect. With you in my crowds, I won’t be limited to subtle control of one person at a time, or occasionally snaring someone more deeply if I throw in a symbolic focus like that pick. With you, my thrall, I’ll be able to enslave entire crowds at once! Every one of them will come away an adoring, obsessed, worshipful fan! I am going to be a rock god!“

He tilted her chin up and looked down into her distant, purple eyes. “And I have you to thank, my pretty little toy.” He kissed her, hard, and she folded her arms around him in response. She was his, and that meant as soon as she understood what he wanted, she had to give it to him. Her body responded eagerly to his touch, while the pick at her throat sent purple waves of energy through her, echoing over and over in her mind, driving out all else with the sound of his voice:

Yes, you will now obey

You’re deep within my thrall

My instrument to play

Surrender as you fall

Again, and again, and again, stuck in her head, a mantra carrying her ever deeper into his power.

He released her and she smiled, hungrily, wickedly, before returning to him eagerly for more, just as he wanted. He kissed her again, but this time he slid hand up between her thighs, over and past her stockings, under her skirt, until he could tweak aside her panties and slip into her. She was already hot and wet for him, and she cried out in helpless delight, exactly as he wanted her to.

“Tomorrow night,” he said. “Some half-trained autotuned pop star is playing the University Arena. There will be thousands, and you are going to bring every one of them under my control.”

“Mmm,” she purred. “Anything you want.”

“I know.”

It was morning before Candice returned to campus. That meant anyone could see her, wigless, her blonde hair rumpled, still wearing her black, goth outfit, and boots, and choker. She no longer cared.

As she entered the sorority house, she found Cara, Aisha, and Stephanie at the breakfast table.

“Wow,” said Stephanie. “That’s uh, that’s an outfit.”

“Looks like someone had a good night,” Cara said drily. “Finally decided to stop sneaking around with it?”

“Are you goth?” Aisha gushed. “That’s so cool! All the goths at my high school were kinda jerks, never wanted to talk to anyone who didn’t dress like them.” She paused. “Then again, that was everyone at my high school.“

“That’s everyone at every high school,” Stephanie sighed. “Thankfully you’re no longer in high school.” She shook her head. Aisha was a couple of years younger than the others, and sometimes it showed.

“So anyway, where’d you go last night? A club? Can you take me?”

“A concert,” Candice said sharply. “And no. You’re not 21.”

“I can get ID!” Aisha insisted.

“Aisha!” Stephanie gasped, and Candice laughed coldly.

“You look twelve,” she said. “No amount of fake ID is getting you in. And look at Ms. Holtzmann, acting like fake IDs are so shocking. You’re in the city now farm girl, people aren’t scared to break a few rules.” She strode past them.

“OK, so not a good night,” said Cara.

“That was more than a bad night,” Stephanie said, gazing after Candice curiously. “I’m going to go check on her.”

She followed Candice up to her room and knocked. When she didn’t hear an answer, she cracked the door open. The room was dark, and Candice sat in front of her computer, ordering something on a ticket website.

“Candice, you okay?” Stephanie asked.

Candice muttered something in reply. No, not muttered, Stephanie realized as she approached. She’s singing something under her breath.

“Candice?” Stephanie repeated. “This isn’t like you. Talk to me.”

But Candice seemed laser-focused on her task, ignoring Stephanie completely. Stephanie leaned in closer, and now she could hear what Candice was softly singing, her voice so distant, yet something about it seemed to draw Stephanie in.

—in my thrall

My instrument to play

Surrender as you fall

“Nope!” said Stephanie, spinning Candice around. Her eyes widened. Candice’s choker and eyes were both glowing purple, her face expressionless as she sang the same four lines over and over.

“Candice!” Stephanie snapped, and slapped her. She knew Candice was innately nearly as impervious as Stephanie was with her Glory Field at full, so she didn’t hold back, letting her aura surround her hand as she struck her sorority sister.

Candice was sent sprawling, but immediately leaped back to her feet, one hand on her cheek while her expression suddenly ignited into a savage grin. She launched herself at Stephanie, who didn’t have a chance to spread her Glory Field across her body so was easily pinned. She found herself looking up into Candice’s eyes, which were now glowing purple across the entire orb, as Candice kept singing that song softly. As she did, purple waves seemed to ripple across Stephanie’s vision, while that song kept repeating in her head.

That damnably catchy song. Something about it was soothing, luring, seductive. It seemed to echo in her head, deepening as it did, until it sounded more like a man’s voice. In her head, anyway. Outside, where purple waves rippled by so fast they became almost like a purple light suffusing everything, it sounded like the voices of two women.

Oh, thought Stephanie. I’m singing too. And then there was nothing but the song.

Downstairs, Cara felt something strange as Candice sang to Stephanie. Oh, that’s not good. “We’ve got a problem,” she said to Aisha, and then ran upstairs, gesturing as she went. Her yoga pants and hoodie dissolved away suddenly, replaced by the vaguely avian hooded robe she wore as Corvid. Seeing her change, Aisha split off as they reached the upper floor, popping into her own room to pull on the uniform she wore as Contour.

In Candice’s room, Corvid concentrated, feeling the shadows of the magic that had been here. “Music,” she said as Contour entered. “That’s a dangerous kind of magic.”

“Oh?” Contour asked, adjusting the black domino mask she wore over her specially designed ultra-stretchy pink and gold leotard.

“Magic is... it comes from the soul. And there’s nothing that can express or touch a person’s soul as powerfully as music. It’s rare and powerful stuff, but because it’s so close to the emotions, it’s easy to be corrupted by.”

“And something’s going on with it?”

“Yes,” said Corvid. “Something with Candice I think. Maybe Stephanie too. Now if I could just figure out where they went...” She looked at the open window. It was a bright day, so following their shadows would be difficult...

“I think I know,” said Contour, pointing at Candice’s still-open computer. “She just bought a three tickets to the Callie Connor show tonight.”

“Then we’ll wait for her there,” said Corvid.

deBaird lay back on the couch in his hotel room, two superheroines kneeling at his feet. “God, this town is amazing,” he said, looking down at Cosmic Cheerleader and Glory Girl, the former in her uniform of a blue and white pleated skirt, blue sleeveless blouse with a CC symbol on it in white, and tall white boots, the latter in her “uniform” of the shimmering multicolored aura of her Glory Field covering whatever she happened to have been wearing when she activated it. Neither was engaged in particularly superheroic tasks as he understood them, however: instead, they were kissing each other sloppily around his hard cock. “Why have I never bothered to visit here before?”

His puppets didn’t answer. They knew that wasn’t what he wanted. As long as his song, channeled through his enchanted pick and amplified by Cosmic Cheerleader’s power, echoed in their minds, they would do anything at all for him.

He let his head loll back on the couch and groaned as he came, thick ropes of cum spattering over the kneeling girls’ faces. “What time is the concert?” he asked.

“Doors at six,” Cosmic Cheerleader replied. She’d brought her uniform when she and Glory Girl left the Gamma Pi house. It wasn’t that she thought it would please her puppeteer; neither she nor Glory Girl were thinking anything except the endless loop of four lines of music. Rather, the magic filling them both simply informed her of what he would want her to do, and she did it thoughtlessly, obediently, like the puppet they both now were.

“Good,” said deBaird. “That should be plenty of time to get me hard again. Let’s see which of you can persuade me to fuck her.”

They complied with every appearance of eagerness and pleasure. But in their minds there was still only the endlessly echoing song.

The crowd was chanting, eager, ready. In a moment, Callie Connor herself would be coming out, a pop princess if ever there was one. Everyone there was eager, anticipating a great concert from her—except for five people.

Corvid and Contour were two of them. They had been let in by the security guards, who recognized them as superheroes and were happy to help, and now they perched in the rafters above the Arena, looking for any sign of their friends—or for whoever was controlling them.

Cosmic Cheerleader and Glory Girl were two more. They anticipated nothing, were eager for nothing; for them, there was only the song already playing in their heads. Glory Girl simply had her aura down, leaving her in street clothes; Cosmic Cheerleader had pulled a school sweatshirt on over her uniform, obscuring her logo.

DeBaird was the last. He had plenty of anticipation and excitement for what was to come, but he knew no one would be hearing her concert, because he had charmed—quite literally, with a few enchanted chords—his way into the sound booth and disconnected that feed to replace it with his own, a physically disconnected plug magically linked to the pick around Cosmic Cheerleaders neck.

The platform in the center of the stage rose, a cute pink-clad blonde in the middle of it. Lights focused in on her, the center of attention, and deBaird hummed softly to himself, willing his puppets forward. Glory Girl’s aura flared to life and she flew toward the stage; meanwhile, Cosmic Cheerleader just sprinted, sending people flying, until she was within superpowered jumping distance of the stage.

“There!” said Corvid. “Contour, try to keep them from hurting anybody, I’m going to look for the magic controlling them.”

Contour stared at her. “You want me to... them?“

“The Spirit Cheer can rip through any barrier I can make,” Corvid said, “and I am not invulnerable. You pretty much are. You can do this.”

Contour nodded, but her face was anxious. “I’ll try.” She extended her arm to grab the next rafter thirty feet away, and swung down toward the stage. Corvid focused her magical senses, every shadow in the arena coming into sharp focus—but something else as well, an active magic, like purple threads attached to Cosmic Cheerleader’s and Glory Girl’s limbs, glowing puppet threads that extended back to—of course. Where else would a wielder of musical magic be watching from? The sound booth.

Corvid concentrated. This would take power, more than she usually liked using right before a combat, but the element of surprise would be worth it. She made her shadow darken and intensify until it was utterly, impossibly black, like a hole in space, and then slipped through it and out through a shadow in the booth. She emerged wrapped in darkness, her eyes glowing red, and gestured at the man she found in there. Before he could react, his shadow hurled itself across the room, dragging him with it to slam into a wall.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

“A far more powerful mage than you,” Corvid replied calmly, raising a wall of darkness and sending it rushing at him.

He hastily scooped up his guitar and played a power chord, crafting a wall of sound that rushed at the darkness and tore it in two. “We’ll see about that, bitch,” he said.

On stage, Contour landed between her onrushing friends and the cowering pop princess. “No,” she said firmly. She threw her arms forward, stretching them and expanding her hands to wrap around the other girls, then used her arms like whips to hurl them at high speed into the wall. Unfortunately they weren’t fazed, and Glory Girl shot toward her and punched her with the full force of her aura. Contour’s chest collapsed in and back, her entire body stretched and twisted by the force of the blow—and then she snapped back, unharmed.

She gave Glory Girl a quick smirk, then grabbed her in two hands—each stretched to five feet across—and spun, lengthening her arms and snapping them around, cracking her arms like a whip to send Glory Girl hurtling into and threw the ceiling at nearly the speed of sound. Then she turned to face Cosmic Cheerleader, who was across the stage and visibly taking a deep breath.

Contour braced herself for the blast of the Spirit Cheer, but it didn’t come, at least not in the form she was used to. Instead, Cosmic Cheerleader’s eyes and the pick on her choker flared a brilliant purple-white, and she began to sing a song backed by the full force of the Power Cosmic. Waves of purple energy rippled outward across the arena, and Contour instinctively folded over her ears, rolling them tightly to plug themselves. Even so, she could feel the music lurking around the edges of her awareness, probing for cracks.

The crowd had no such defense. Every jaw went slack, every eye glowed purple, every body sagged like a puppet with its strings cut. Then Callie Connors rose to her feet, almost like she was being dragged by strings, and began to sing along with Cosmic Cheerleader, her voice empty, distant, blank. The crowd began to sing along the same way, softly, under their breaths, but the cumulative effect layered onto Cosmic Cheerleader’s own powerful singing, like a vise pressing slowly in on Contour’s mind. She could feel the tune getting stuck, starting to loop. She could almost make out the lyrics, but she couldn’t let herself, had to focus on—

Swooping down from the stratosphere since Contour had thrown her up there, Glory Girl turned just before she hit the ground and struck Contour hard. The stretchy girl couldn’t stretch fast enough; her whole body flew through the wall of the arena, hurtling at least as hard and fast as she’d thrown Glory Girl.

In the booth, deBaird grinned as his chords slashed Corvid’s attack apart. “The name’s deBaird, by the way, bitch. Not that you asked.”

“Seriously?” asked Corvid. “The musical mage calls himself the Bard? And I thought calling myself a crow was a bit on the nose.”

He struck at her again with a power chord, a stabbing spike of sound that she sidestepped. “But then, it’s hardly your only mistake. The first was thinking that sound can do anything to a shadow.” She clapped, and the two halves of the wall of darkness snapped together and forward, flinging him against the wall and pinning him there. “Now, you can break the spell you’ve been casting, or I can introduce you to one of the reasons humans are instinctively afraid of the dark.” Her eyes glowed an even deeper red, and the shadows around them lengthened and darkened as her voice echoed eerily.

“Sound can’t work against shadows,” deBaird said, affecting confidence despite the strain in his voice from being pinned. “But what about the Power Cosmic?”

Everyone in the arena except Corvid was thoroughly under his spell. There was no need for Cosmic Cheerleader to continue what she was doing. So, Glory Girl grabbed her arm and spun like a discus thrower, then threw her at the sound booth. Cosmic Cheerleader punched through the soundproof glass wall facing the stage, and landed in a crouch on the floor of the booth. Straightening, she let loose a short sharp shriek, and the cosmic energies of her voice—energies born of fundamental order just as Corvid’s shadow magic was born of chaos—shredded every magical shadow in the room and sent Corvid sprawling.

“Oh, it can work,” said Corvid. Then she grinned, her eyes flaring red once again. “But now that I’ve got a closer look at her, I can see the symbol you’ve anchored the spell on.” She gestured, and a handful of neede-like shadows pinned Cosmic Cheerleader’s shadow in place, paralyzing her. One blast of her voice would break it, but Corvid only needed her to be still a moment.

She rushed forward and grabbed the pick to tear it off Cosmic Cheerleader’s neck. As she touched it, she felt a thrill of energy up her arm, the insidious emotional influence of magical music. But there were shadows in her very blood; it could not reach her heart or her soul. She braced herself for the attack certain to come, and started to pull off the choker.

But Cosmic Cheerleader didn’t attack. She was already using her voice, since the moment she ended the brief burst of her Spirit Cheer, doing what she automatically did whenever she wasn’t using her voice for anything else: softly, blankly, emptily singing the song stuck in her head, the mantra of her enslavement.

Yes, you will now obey

You’re deep within my thrall

My instrument to play

Surrender as you fall

Outside the booth, the crowd, the pop princess on stage, and Glory Girl had been singing it all along, in perfect unison, their voices eerily inviting and soothing. That sound had been entering the booth since the window shattered. But now was the first time Corvid consciously heard the lyrics, and even singing as softly as she was, the Power Cosmic was still in the enchanted heroine’s voice.

The power against which Corvid’s defenses, even the shadows in her blood, could not stand. She felt it creeping up her arms and in through her ears, soothing and yet inexorable, soft and inescapable. She needed to let go, to retreat, but instead the darkly glowing red slits her eyes became as she wielded her power gazed into Cosmic Cheerleader’s own glowing purple orbs. Corvid’s gaze softened, her face slackened. No, she thought. Run before you will now obey—no, that’s the song, not my thoughts, not my instrument to play, surrender as you fall... yes, you will—no!

Gradually the light faded from her eyes as the shadows in the room returned to normal. Their ordinary brown then began to gradually change to a purple that reflected the light in Cosmic Cheerleader’s, and the haunting, seductive song dripped from both their lips, from every mouth in the arena except deBaird’s.

Yes, you will now obey

You’re deep within my thrall

My instrument to play

Surrender as you fall

But in every one of their heads, it was his voice, his will. The power was intoxicating—and with another mage to aid him, perhaps he could grow it even farther. The Bard, huh? he thought. Not so funny now, is it, shadow bitch? He tilted her chin up to look at him. “Short,” he said. “But pretty sweet curves under that cloak. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a thick goth girl from time to time. But you’re going to do a lot more for me than that. Together the three of us are going to find a way to make my song reach the entire world. This will be a planet of puppets, all for me.“

Then a tiny hand at the end of a similarly thin arm, both stretched to their absolute limits, snaked in through the hole, around Cosmic Cheerleader, and grabbed her choker. It snapped back like a rubber band, accompanied by a similarly stretched eye that snapped back as well, picking up speed as it went. They were going well over the speed of sound by the time they reached a quarter mile away, where Contour had crashed down after Glory Girl sent her flying—and so that was the speed at which the pick hit the wall behind her when she let it go.

Every glowing purple eye in the arena winked out. Every blankly singing voice stopped. Corvid and Cosmic Cheerleader turned to face the Bard, who hastily played a power chord that blasted away the wall behind him and ran for it.

Just in time for Glory Girl to smash through the wall right in front of him. “Nope,” she said.

“I cannot believe I missed it!” Michelle said to her friends. “I could have helped! My powers—”

“Are telepathic in nature,” said Cara. “And you would have been surrounded by thousands of minds all thinking the same enslaving song. You would’ve dropped faster than Stephanie did.”

“Hey, that’s not—” Stephanie protested, but then shrugged and joined in the laughter of the others.

Candice walked in and the others stopped.

“Hello, sister Candice!” Michelle chirped. “Are you coming to the redo of the concert with Stephanie and Aisha and I tonight?”

“No,” said Candice. She took a deep breath. “I... I don’t like pop. And the Daughters of Discord are playing the Q Street club, and—”

“OK!” Michelle said cheerfully. “Have fun!”

“We will,” said Cara.

“Wait, what?” asked Candice. “Y... you don’t have to come, I know it’s... none of you—”

“Candice,” said Cara. “I am a shadow sorceress who goes by the Latin for crow. I’m not going as a favor to you, I’ve been a Daughters fan since their original drummer. So we. Will. Have fun.”

“Oh,” said Candice.

Cara stood. “We should have just enough time to see if anything in my closet will fit you. Honestly, you were dressed like a high schooler from 1997 the other night, we can do much better.” Grabbing Candice’s hand, she led her friend from the room.