In Veritas City, magic hides in pin sight. It shimmers in the spaces between streetlights, whispers in the rustling leaves of park trees, and occasionally, if you know where to look, reveals itself in the strange symbols etched into ancient architecture scattered throughout the metropolis. Most people walk past these signs every day, their eyes sliding over enchantments as old as the city itself. But some can see.

  Elias Chen had always been one of those who could see. Since he was a child, he'd noticed the odd glimmers, the impossible shadows, the way certain storefronts seemed to appear and disappear depending on the phase of the moon. For years, he kept these observations to himself, collecting them like private treasures.

  At seventeen, Elias was a hurricane of chaotic energy and brilliant insights. His room was a testament to his scattered interests—astronomy charts pinned beside vintage movie posters, half-built robots sharing shelf space with rare minerals, and notebooks filled with sketches of the strange symbols he'd spotted around the city.

  Three months ago, everything had changed. While exploring an abandoned bookshop that seemed to exist only on foggy Tuesday evenings, Elias had discovered a worn leather journal describing magical puzzles—riddles and contraptions designed to conceal and protect magical secrets. The journal had sparked an obsession more intense than any that had come before. Suddenly, all his disparate observations had purpose. The symbols weren't just curiosities; they were pieces of puzzles waiting to be solved.

  Marcus Reyes had been Elias's best friend since sixth grade, when he'd defended the smaller boy from bullies despite being the new kid himself. Quiet where Elias was loud, methodical where Elias was spontaneous, Marcus had spent six years orbiting his friend like a moon around a particurly bright pnet. What had begun as friendship had, somewhere around freshman year, bloomed into something deeper—at least for Marcus.

  Now, at seventeen, Marcus sat at his desk surrounded by library books on ancient ciphers and symbolic logic. His eyes burned, and his hand cramped from taking notes, but he pressed on. When Elias had first mentioned the magical puzzles, Marcus had nodded along, fascinated less by the puzzles themselves than by the way Elias's eyes lit up when he talked about them.

  Three weeks ter, when Elias had casually tossed him a strange metal contraption covered in shifting symbols, Marcus had fumbled both the catch and the solution. The disappointment in Elias's face had been brief but unmistakable.

  "It's cool if you're not into it," Elias had said, taking back the puzzle. "Not everybody gets this stuff."

  That night, Marcus had gone online and ordered every book on puzzles and ciphers he could find. If magical puzzles were what Elias cared about, then Marcus would learn to care about them too. He would learn to be good at them.

  Not because Elias had asked him to. Elias would never pressure him that way. But because the alternative—watching Elias drift toward people who shared his newest passion, people who weren't Marcus—was unthinkable.

  So far, his secret studies were paying off. Last weekend, he'd solved a runic sequence puzzle that had made Elias whoop with delight and throw his arms around him. The memory of that hug had kept Marcus warm for days.

  His phone buzzed with a text: "DUDE. Found something INSANE at that weird shop near the old clock tower. Coming over now. This is going to change EVERYTHING."

  Marcus smiled, pushing aside his books and notes. Whatever magical mystery Elias was bringing, he was determined to be ready for it.

  For Elias, he would solve any puzzle. Even if the greatest puzzle of all—how to tell your best friend you've been in love with him since you were fifteen—still seemed completely unsolvable.