So I finished my research paper and went to play a new video game. Only to find my console dead as a stone! So I went to trade it in… only to find it's too old and nobody's refurbishing them anymore! I can't afford the next gen so… defeat? A plucky heroine cannot accept defeat! I phoned up a fixit place and the guy I talked to said, "we don't refurbish them… but I've got an extra, wanna buy it?" So I did! Also the guy's name was Igor like Frankenstein's assistant and I got to meet his cute shopdog.

It was a marvelous adventure.

13 161 Twig ~Concert~

"No, Nancy, don't go in there!" Cassie hollers.

On the screen, Nancy Brew ignores this sensible advice and sneaks into the old mill where the smugglers are hiding.

Cassie, Phe, Amber and I have all finished our homework, and we're celebrating with ice cream, and a Nancy Brew movie marathon, from oldest to newest. This is one of the middle ones, and I have discovered that nineties hair happened in the magic dimension too.

Cassie asks, "Doesn't your friend Aria have a mystery? Is she still getting weird presents?"

Amber nods. "Aria sent me a picture… she got really weird flowers at her last show." Amber shows off the picture on her phone: a bouquet of purple flowers with weirdly curled petals that look like tongues.

Phe says, "That doesn't exactly say, 'I'm your biggest fan.'"

"Aria is a little worried about it. Do you all want to come with me to the concert here? Maybe you can look for clues."

"Of course!"

"Backstage? Yes!"

I look back and forth between them. Cassie explains, "Princess Amber gets to sing too, she always gets invited on stage."

Amber ducks her head and makes a face.

Cassie's excited, she conjures a notebook and starts making a list of strange events at Aria's concerts. Since Princess Amber and Aria are good friends Amber's got messages about them on her phone and helps Cassie make her list. We miss the end of the movie talking about the real life mystery.

Aria has been getting weird presents—which isn't actually weird since she's a famous singer. But for the last few weeks she's been getting fan mail and presents that are actually kind of creepy.

"Why are chocolates with a love spell on them creepy?"

"Because love spells are illegal." Phe explains, "Witch students use them to make boys take them out to dinner but using magic to change someone's mind is despicable."

"So enchanted chocolates mean a crazed fan who doesn't mind breaking the law."

"Yup! So when can we go investigate?"

"Friday afternoon I think. The concert is at night so they have to set up and do tests and things. Aria was worried more strange things might happen." Amber says earnestly.

Cassie is adorably delighted. She conjures a magnifying glass with a fancy colored-string wrapped handle. Amber conjures one with a rhinestone handle. Phe shakes his head at them and gets up to put on the next movie.

We get into backstage at the Magix auditorium just by having Princess Amber with us. All of Aria's tour people are happy to see her and whisk us inside to watch everything get set up. Aria may be a rock star but this isn't a giant concert like I was imagining. It's a big room with a stage, but there are also tables and chairs and big couches so the audience can sit and have drinks and dinner while Aria sings. The stage is black and shiny with lots of hanging prisms above it so the person on stage will be illuminated by a halo of rainbows.

Aria, looking very different with her hair down, rushes over, "Amber!"

"Yaya!" They hug, and Amber introduces us as, "My roommates, who like Nancy Brew so they want to investigate your weird presents! I'm going to be in hair and makeup for hours aren't I?"

"If you're comin' on stage you have to. I'm glad you guys came, I got another one and it's worse. Come see."

We go backstage to Aria's dressing room which holds an entire table full of makeup and hair products and her performance dress which is midnight blue and nearly solid with sequins and crystals, with a sparkly puff of tulle at the bottom. Princess Amber is going to wear her liquid silver dress she bought on Zenith.

"This came today—don't eat any." Aria points.

It's another box of chocolates that looks normal but when I try to get a sense of it with my magic a bitter stink seems to rise from it. "Ok, what kind of spell is that?"

Cassie whips out her magnifying glass.

I have one of those moments again. "Um, if it's poison shouldn't you tell the police?"

"I did. The officer is going to try to track the spell, but he was called away. And it isn't a very serious curse."

"No fingerprints." Cassie says, though I'm not sure she'd be able to see them with just a magnifying glass. Maybe she's using magic. "And the curse is… eh, it's a basic sore throat curse. It would've ruined your concert unless someone knew how to dispel it."

I'm wondering about the motive for sending a curse. Maybe it's another singer, someone who thinks they're better than Aria and wants to ruin her career. While we were listening to Cassie, Aria's gotten out some papers and is talking to Amber about what songs they're going to sing together. I realize listening that Aria's written duets just for the two of them, that's how long they've known each other and that's how often Amber is invited up on stage. It's really sweet.

I ask my friends, "Does Aria have a rival?"

"Not really." The singer says. "Not everybody likes me—there's a Hex Girls tribute band that wrote a mean song about me! But I ain't stolen anyone's lyrics or anything."

There's a knock on the door and a young man comes in. "Princess Amber!" He bows low.

Aria says, "Amber is going to sing with me, can you work with us on the scheduling and the lights?"

"I'd be glad to! Did—did you eat any of your chocolates?"

"They're cursed." Aria sighs.

"What? Aria! Who would do that?"

"Who knows. Amber's friends came to see if they can figure out who sent them." Aria looks at us, "This is my producer, Douglass, by the way."

Cassie pops up, "Do you have any idea who might be sending Aria weird presents?"

Douglass looks at her like she's an insect. Maybe he just doesn't have time for people who aren't famous. "Aria has many fans, a few of them are bound to be a little strange. Not everyone appreciates her."

Then Douglass sweeps out of the room like he's the rock star and a woman comes in to ask about something else about the stage effects.

Phe, Cassie and I putter around backstage for a while, looking at everything and poking our noses where they aren't wanted. Phe gets into the sound booth and it turns out he knows something about sound mixing. Phe knows about a lot of random things

I know nothing about sound mixing so I follow Cassie while she notes all the entrances and tracks the path the chocolates took getting to Aria's dressing room. It is true that the public isn't allowed into the building while everybody's setting up, but it's also true that any of the auditorium's employees could have accepted a box of chocolates and delivered it. Aria's always getting presents from fans—and love letters and discs delivered by hopeful musicians who want to be Aria's new backup singers. Aria also gets enough chocolate that she shares the extra with her staff. We get some too, and Cassie tests it with a spell and finds it curse-free. I'm still a little leery of eating any, so I put it in my purse for later.

Cassie takes fingerprints with her Nancy Brew detective kit, and I wander out on the stage. It's really beautiful, all shiny black reflecting the lights. When the lights go on hidden prisms placed in front of the lights throw rainbows across the room. I stick my head into the hole a light is hidden in, to get a closer look. The prisms are mounted on little springs so they move slightly. Up above the stage is a huge chandelier with a spiral of sparkling prisms. Someone calls out and tells me to stand on the mark—I have to look closely but there are less-polished circles on the stage so the performers know where to stand for maximum sparkle. I stand on the different ones and the invisible people in the lighting booth do things with the lights getting them angled so Aria and Amber will be illuminated as well as circled in rainbows in different patterns for different songs.

Stagehands place microphones—really cool ones, with jewels and wire wings coming off the backs. Magic rock star stuff!

Amber and Aria come out, not yet in their dresses but with their hair done. Aria's Mohawk is back, a shiny perfect crest over her head. Amber's long fire-colored hair has been braided along the right side of her face, so it spills over her left shoulder. She smiles and stretches, then hesitates for fear of messing up her hair. "Twyla, are you looking for clues?"

"Cassie is, she's around here somewhere. Phe's still in the sound booth. I'm helping them set up the lights."

"We came to do sound checks… oh!" Amber waves and calls, "Jamie! What are you doing here?"

There's Jamie, dressed in a staff T-shirt with his black hair tied back with a neat satin ribbon. "Good evening Your Highness." He bows and grins.

"You work here?"

"Aye." Jamie straightens his shirt proudly. "I just started. Moving tables and things, but I get to see the shows for free!"

"Aria, this is Jamie, we met during the competition..." Amber begins, but there's a cough from the ceiling and a voice over the intercom says, "Sorry Your Highness, but we need to check the microphones."

"Right, right." Aria goes to her microphone and tosses the other one to Amber. "What do you want us to sing?"

"Whatever you want."

Aria sings a line from a popular song, starting at a soft croon and finishing as a blast of brilliant sound. The ceiling rings. Tiny lights blink on Aria's microphone, green to blue.

"Now you, Your Highness."

Amber just sings the scale, the same one as on Earth, 'Do re mi fa so la-" There's a sharp pop and flash from Amber's microphone. She shrieks and jumps back, and the microphone falls over and continues to spark on the stage.

"Amber!" I shout, and Jamie shouts and a few other people shout.

Amber sits down, shaking her hand and using some very unprincesslike language.

Aria gets to her first. "Let me see. Ouch! Douglass, is there a medic here? Amber got burned."

And it must hurt, because Amber isn't protesting that she's fine. I can see from here a big red burn over her palm and thumb where she was holding the microphone. Aria sits down and Amber leans against her.

Jamie's already thought of what I should've: to unplug the microphone. He comes back and starts looking at the part that was sparking, trying to get the cover off.

People are converging. A nurse-type woman appears and Phe and Cassie come running. Everyone has to make sure Amber's basically all right, which she is, then they start talking about what happened. There is shortly a lot of noise.

"Accident!" Douglass is saying, "A dangerous accident!"

I glance over just in time to see Jamie looking at him sharply. Then Jamie sees me looking and comes over, holding out the microphone.

With the outer cover removed it's easy to see one of the wires has been cut. It's a plastic covered wire so it's totally obvious it was snipped and didn't just wear out. And it's only the one wire. Someone must've looked up exactly what to do to make it zap someone.

"Yikes." I say. I have no idea what to do about this. Tell someone. Tell an actual grownup. "Aria." I say, not loud enough. Amber hears and looks at us. I go sit next to her, sort of off to the side since the nurse is putting a bandage on her burned hand.

"There, Your Highness. See your palace healer—you'll probably have a bandage for a day or two."

"It's not too bad." Amber says. "I was mostly just surprised."

"Amber, look." I show her the inside of the microphone.

Amber's gaze flickers to the two mic stands. "That was Aria's microphone, it was the first one on stage. Someone tried to zap her not me." Her face is tight; I think she's in more pain than she's admitting.

Aria says, "The venue is closed for setup. Someone here did it. I wonder if it's the same person who sent the cursed chocolate."

Whispers spread. Everyone looks around. The venue's employees are drifting away since the emergency's over. It's not their business if Aria has a stalker. Cassie's writing madly in her detective notebook and muttering to herself. "Lots of people pick up the microphones so fingerprints are no good… but it was someone here.

Aria's lips press together for a moment then she says, "Douglass, please call the security team and ask them to check as much of the place as they can in case this creep left us any more surprises. Amber, you and your friends should head back to Alfea."

"What? No! I'm going to sing!"

"You already got hurt, and the Dragon only knows what else will happen."

"Yaya, I promised! Everyone knows I'll be here, it's on the internet already."

Aria hesitates. I guess we should go home, but Amber sounds so upset. So I hesitate too, even though it's probably failing my job as a squire. And Aria finally says, "All right. If security doesn't find anything."

Over at the front door Douglass and a bunch of grownups with badges are talking seriously and then spreading out to look for sabotage.

This is not the time for high school students to hang around—I think. But Phe's joined the security team and Cassie's up on stage with us standing guard. They haven't transformed, but somehow they've gone from being teenagers to being fairies. Jamie's done the same thing, suddenly he's standing differently and I notice the hilt of a knife sticking up from the waist of his slacks. The back of my neck prickles at the sight of it, memories from Gardenia where a kid with a knife would be a big scary deal. Jamie's looking up, and suddenly he says, "I'll keep watch from up there." He ducks behind the edge of the stage, grabs a rope and swarms up it, vanishing into the ceiling in moments.

I can climb a rope—archery gives you serious arm muscles—but that was impressively fast.

Amber looks after him, smiling. "Can I go up… I guess not."

"Not if you want to sing. We have to find you another microphone and do sound checks again and then do our makeup again and get dressed. It's going to take a while." Aria sighs.

Amber nods and waves apologetically up to Jamie.

I offer, "Anything I can do to help?"

"Hang around and talk to my Mom if she calls?" Amber suggests hopefully.

"I'd tell her the truth." I warn.

Amber just sort of waves at me so I hang around while they do sound-whatever with carefully tested microphones and block out their places on stage. Some of the songs they're going to sing have choreography and they have to make sure not to trip over each other. It's long and kind of boring but also sort of neat since I get to see what's behind the scenes of a music show. Then Aria and Amber go back to their dressing room to get their makeup and hair back to perfection after the excitement.

I get to wait outside, because there isn't much room in there with two people getting ready. And I get to eavesdrop, I kind of have to since the door is partly open and I'm sitting on the floor outside. I can see the lights around the mirrors as Aria and Amber do their makeup. Or rather, Aria does both because Amber is only a little better at doing makeup than I was when I was thirteen.

"So, Jamie, do you like-like him?"

Amber giggles. "No! That's—he doesn't care about stuff like that. He's the only person I know who doesn't care about my royal destiny."

"So what do you two talk about?" I hear clicks as Aria closes one compact and opens several others, looking for just the right shade.

"I dunno, normal stuff. Boats, a lot. Adventuring. Or we go out and swing on swings at the park and stuff."

Aria lowers her voice, "And where is your squire while you're doing this?"

Amber answers quietly, unaware of how close I'm sitting. "In class mostly. Please please don't tell Twig I ditch her, she'd feel bad."

And I do feel bad. Well—embarrassed. I had no idea Amber was sneaking out! I count back and find only a few times she wasn't in the dorm after class when I expected her to be. I just assumed she was at the library or off at some princess event.

Aria's giving Amber some big-sisterly grief about it, saying, "Your squire is there so people don't have anything to gossip about!" and, "Twyla seems nice, you should treat her right!"

To my relief Amber does defend me. "Twig's great, it's not that..."

But I really need to quit listening. The only thing worse than knowing my charge sometimes sneaks out on me is for her to know I heard. I stand up really quietly and sneak away. I'll find a place to sit where I can stand guard out of earshot.

I've just found a suitable chair—and seen in a mirror that I'm all red from humiliation—when there's a thump and Jamie drops into the hall six feet away from me. I jump. "How'd you do that?"

He points, and I see a rope overhead tied to a weighted sandbag. "It's just like rigging on a ship. I found something up there. Amber!"

There's a big of shuffling then Amber looks out the dressing room door. She's finished her makeup and looks… not thirteen. The bright red lipstick and thick eyeliner that will make her features visible on stage should make her look clownish, but instead she almost looks like her mother. Her gas-flame eyes almost glow. I glance at Jamie, but he's not looking like Tetsuo looks at me when I'm all dolled up.

He just says, "Get your friends, come see this. How do ordinary people get onto the catwalk anyway?"

Aria's done shows here before so she knows where the door is. The catwalk over the stage is surprisingly wide, plenty of room for people to change the light bulbs and dust the crystals and do things with the speakers that are up here. Or for the six of us to gather around the spiral chandelier over the stage. And the strange device attached to it.

Not a sleek modern device, it's a cobbled together thing with the chain of the chandelier threaded through it.

Aria's ducking to keep her carefully sprayed Mohawk from hitting anything. "I've been up here before, there's a winch that lets the chandelier down for cleaning. But that isn't it. I don't know what that is."

Well there is one possibility. My eyes follow the chain from the very modern winch that isn't fully winched up, through the strange device, to the chandelier.

Cassie says it. "If this bit here unclipped the whole thing would fall. Whoever was on stage would be squashed!"

Jamie's looking at the winch. "There are six feet of chain still on here. It'd scare the blue blazes out of whoever had the bad luck to be below, but they wouldn't be done for. Probably."

Aria raises her hand to her hair, with which she's definitely taller than six feet while wearing heels.

Cassie has an idea. "So… we change it so it won't fall that far and then watch to see what happens."

"We could change how much it falls…" Phe adds. He and Jamie are checking out the device. "But I'm not sure we should let it fall at all."

"Chains can break if-" Jamie makes a yanking motion with his hands.

"So we put a slow-fall spell on it." Cassie adds.

Aria nods slowly. "Let's put that spell on… everything. Every spotlight and speaker up here. The catwalk we're on. The ceiling."

So Cassie shows me the spell and we all cast it until our eyes cross. I want to try casting it on other things—it only slows stuff from falling so I bet if I cast it on an arrow it'd go for miles.

Then we climb down from the catwalk and Aria tells the security team what we found. I feel much better about things with actual professional grownups on the case.

The head of security has the same suggestion Cassie did: that we let Aria go on stage and see what happens. She and Amber can protect themselves magically and everyone will be around to protect them so it shouldn't be too dangerous.

Aria nods slowly. "All right. Let's say we need another sound check and I'll go on stage." her gaze flicks over to Amber and she adds, "And you won't because I don't want you to get hurt."

"Yaya..." Amber's fists clench, but she pulls herself back from arguing. Jamie waves her to join him in the audience area, where there's nothing that could fall on them. Phe goes and talks to the sound people and Aria goes to stand on stage, at her microphone, directly under the rigged chandelier.

She doesn't even look up. She's sleek and cool as her perfect hair.

There's a little static from the intercom then, "Aria are you… ok, how about something a capella for adjusting the speakers?"

"All right." Aria says, her voice echoing from speakers all over the room. The sound system makes her naturally smooth alto voice echo into layers that wash back over each other. She raises her voice in a song I've never heard, something slow and liquid.

There's a moment that's just perfect, Aria shines like a distant moon and her voice is a soft night wind. She's amazing.

Then there's a crack from the ceiling and the chandelier shakes, sending rainbows juddering across the stage. Aria jumps aside, her gasp echoing around us

And someone rushes across the stage to push her out of the way as the chandelier jerks downward.

It's Douglass.

Aria shoves her producer away. "You-" She knows, her face twists with rage. "You got out here really fast, you knew it was going to fall! Did you do everything else too?"

"Aria I—love you!" He sputters like he can't help it, like he's imagined this moment so many times he can't change the script even here in the real world with all of us staring at him

Aria gapes for a moment, then punches Douglass in the nose. Just hauls off and socks him.

Amber whoops. Then everybody's talking at once, asking questions over each other while we all rush onto the stage. Next to me Cassie is muttering about motive, means and opportunity, not really trying to be heard just going over it herself.

And it makes sense now. The first gifts, he must've been doing a secret admirer thing and when that didn't work he made up a stalker so he could play heroic rescuer and win her heart that way. Which is dumb.

Douglass is sputtering out basically everything I just thought of, sounding hopeful and confused like he thinks 'love' is a defense for putting people in danger and the object of his love isn't staring at him in horrified rage and likely to sock him again.

Phe says, "Poor guy." and Cassie says, "Idiot." both of which I agree with.

And then the security guys haul Douglass off for a chat with the police and Aria goes to her dressing room to recover a little. The rest of us hand around talking for a few minutes then Amber gets up on stage. "Hey, sound booth! Do you want to make a program for me to do a solo concert in case Aria doesn't come back?"

The crew snaps out of their distraction and rushes to do that. There's nothing for me to do so I sit with Phe and Cassie and we help Cassie write a 'report' of the 'case' and watch the action—mostly the same action as before, plus a bunch of people climbing up to fix the chandelier. And I watch Jamie watch Amber. He looks more starstruck than lovestruck. Maybe it's because they're kids, or it's just that Amber in her dress doesn't look 'cute' really, she's more like a beautiful painting, all light and color.

And her voice is high and pure as crystal.

Of course it is, there's no way Amber's singing would be less than perfect.

Her warmup is interrupted when a portal opens on the stage. Princess Mila appears—and has to catch Amber who almost tripped getting out of the way.

"What happened? Where's Aria? She texted it was something serious."

"Her producer was creeping on her."

"Whaaaaat? No way! He was nice! Where is she? And what are you doing out here?"

I don't think Princess Mila took a breath through that. Amber looks a little stunned. "Yaya said she needed a minute… how did you even get here?"

"I had a portal ready. Was coming to the concert. I'll go see if Aria still wants to be alone."

"A-ask her if she's going to come back. We're supposed to have a concert in an hour." Amber looks down at us waiting in the audience seats. "You can stay and listen or go home."

We have been here more hours than we were expecting to, but I want to see the show. Cassie looks at us and says, "Can we have food? I want to stay but I'm hungry!" Phe and I nod, and Amber talks to a staff member and we get free dinner and a table and Jamie gets to join us, just because Amber asked.

My phone chimes a message. Vera says Madder's shadow is gone and could I try to ask the Winx about a gift that might help get it back.

Aria is the person who might be able to help, but I can't ask her about anything now! Or until tomorrow or maybe later; I can't ask for weird favors after she's just had a traumatic event. It'll be a while. We just had a situation. And now we're going to have a concert.

Weren't you just saying how much homework you have? Vera texts back.

I frown at my sister through the phone which, since I have hologram turned off, she doesn't see. Why don't you ask Mom? She knows the Winx too.

Ok. Tell me the story of your situation once I'm done with mine ok?

I stop frowning and feel a little bad about it. But why'd she have to bring up homework? Hmmf. I start to thumb in a question about her situation but the doors at the back of the room open and the actual audience pours in. It's starting! Call you later!