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"So, why were they chasing you? I never get chased" Paris asked, licking his ice-cream. It was freezing outside, and here he was inhaling a vanilla ice-cream cone. Unbelievable. He forced us to stop for the cone, ignoring the fact that we were in the middle of a winter.

"They always chase. Then I break their cameras, and they chase some more. Though they were particularly rowdy today. Haven't figured out why yet" I stated to Paris, my tone indifferent. They adored harassing my sisters and I, though they tended to deal with the shine of the spotlight much better than me. No broken cameras or crushed fireflies. No front pages with my blurred out face making crude gestures at the camera. My bad temper had always been what lured them anyways, like moths to a flame. Maybe that was why I always got more coverage than them. I scoffed. That was deffinitely not why.

My sisters, at best, could be described as socialites. They held talent in magic and their practices, but it was all underwhelmingly mediocre. Nothing remarkable that could be specified as a one in a million ability. Nothing that they could build a brand off of. None of them were weak, heaven forbid, but they were nothing out of the ordinary either.

When my mother began her campaign as the East Coast, Matron of Magic, an influx of unwanted- or atleast unwanted in my part- attention donned on my family. So besides only fixating my shark of a mother, they became obsessed with my six sisters and I too. We held headlines for a while, each sister being straddled with one, singular, distinguishing quirk. There were simply too many of us for the public to all focus on, so the press made it a competition on who the public liked the most.

Deundre- the Responsible. Bronwyn, or Bunny, as she was called- the Beauty. Priya- the Ingenious. Pytha- the Rebellious. Calliope and Callpurina- the Twins. And me, Eulalia- the Bane. It was obvious that they wanted to straddle me with a much harsher name, maybe Eulalia the Evil or Eulalia the Despicable, but that was far as they could go without my mother's legal team suing for defamation of character. Honestly, Eulalia the Evil did have a nice ring to it

Each of my sisters was given a defining trait, my mother having chosen our names in specificality to our personalities. It was all pre planned. She had drakaeri witches read our minds in the womb, and psychic witches predict our personalities before we were born. Our births and personalities were already meticulously crafted political moves by her and her PR team.

The divination witch had predicted I would be "well-spoken", but she never predicted in what way. So my mother expected "Eulalia the Outspoken", a public activist or poet even, but not me- a bitter mess of cut-throat words and cruel insults. I sometimes believed my mother despised me so much, because I had been foiling her plans since before I was born.

Bunny, my second oldest sister, was a public favorite. She was a golden princess with her incomparable beauty and social-buterfly personality. She was a complete socialite, living for the camera and riding out her high on the fame. She handled it much better than any of us. Her dazzling smile was plastered on magazine covers and billboards, her name always in headlines. In fact, if her name wasn't in the headlines, we would assume something was wrong. She never fell from the publics favor.

They also adored Pytha, finding her rebellious tendencies exciting and perfect for their story's.  From street racing and crashing expensive sports cars, with her blood-sucking, rock-band girlfriends, to getting drunk and stealing yachts, Pytha was the perfect daredevil bombshell. She was fast, always getting involved in new messes before the old ones even settled down.

The rest of us, they didn't find as enthralling. Axel was already pushing 40, though he looked in his late twenties, by the time Mother became Matron of the East Coast Coven. Deundre was now a mother herself, and had always bored the press with her homeliness. She was the eldest of us all, and was a lost cause when it came to drama. They tired with her quickly.

Priya was a child-prodigy in the Magical Sciences and Technology, so she spent all her time away from the public eye in her laboratories. In fact, the only time we ever saw her name in the media, was plastered onto the side of her savvy tech, that came straight from her multi-million dollar research facilities. Calliope and Calpurina were both nine, so they held no significance. And I...well...I was me.

There was a period of time where my face was on every magazine, every gossip panel. But that was when I was five, having gained consciousness and my magical signature for the first time. It's no surprise that when the Matron of Magic's daughter, who came from a bloodline of purely Light Mages, turned out a Dark Practitioner, much less a Shadow Syphon, the world reacted uproariously.

They didn't even know half of it, and yet they were still desperate to get coverage on me. They hounded me at every gate, paparazzi stalking me by the hundreds, screaming obscenities and insults at me simply to get a reaction for their prized photos. Eventually, when my birth records were somehow leaked to the media, proving that I was indeed a full blooded Light Mage, the Magical Bureau stepped in to provide me protection. Really, they were just wanting to rid of a nuisance, not appreciating people hacking into medical bases for gossip. Mothers flimsy body guards were no longer much use to us...well...to me at that point.

The memories of my childhood were hazy as if dipped in oil paints, but the year I turned five was a sour, vivid stain on my memory. My disastrous Magical Ascension, as we called it, would not fade from my mind. I blinked, seeing Paris was staring at me. I had zoned out, and was at a stand still in the middle of the street. Paris was looking at me in a concerned manner, his eye brows furrowed, as I snapped out of my trance-like state. Rearranging my bags on my arms I causally began walking again.

"So..." Paris began. I didn't look at him, walking with my gaze straight ahead, "You wanna go get more ice cream?"

His vanilla cone was gone. He was looking at me expectantly with those green puppy dog eyes.

"Sure. Why not?" I sighed, glad for the change of topic. We made our way around the winding white streets, towards a small ice-cream parlor on the corner of 5th Avenue. It was closer than the one he had originally gone to, which remained blocks away. We stopped outside the white, neo-classical building.

He went inside to get himself a second cone. I sat down on a bench, having no particular desire to eat ice cream. He bought me one last time, despite me telling him I didn't want any. I dealt with the problem by biting through the thing in one whole bite. The cold ice cream had seeped through my from teeth. He cringed at the sight, but my teeth were never sensitive to the cold like they should have been. Paris called me a cold-blooded lizard because of it. 

Paris walked in, and then came back out moments later without ice cream. His eyes were wide and frantic as he glanced at me. I looked up from my phone and raised an eyebrow at him. What happened to him? He strided towards me briskly.

"Alright let's go" He said nudging me up from the white slab of marble I was sitting on. One thing I hated about Magical New York, was that they refused to add normal benches. They had slabs of white stone instead, that didn't allow you to sit comfortably and hurt your bottom if you stayed too long on it. The marble was also always freezing cold.

"Where's your ice cream?" I asked Paris, crossing my arms. He looked down at his hands, as if suddenly realizing the absence.

"They were all out"

"They were all out?" I asked skeptically. He nodded at me enthusiastically.

"The ice cream shop was all out of ice cream. In the middle of the day. On a weekend" I repeated to him slowly. He still did not fess up.

"Alright then. I'll just go check for myself" I stated, rising up from my slab.

"No!" He shouted. Paris' hands shot out to stop me. He didn't make contact, but they were extended towards me none the less. I took a big step to the side, distancing myself from his reach.

"For the Mother's sake, what is wrong with you? " I shoved his hand away with one of my bags. His arms fell to his side.

"What is it? Did you see a friend in there or something, and you don't want to be seen with me?" I asked him.

"What? No!" He blurted. I narrowed my silver eyes at him. What was wrong with him?

"An ex-girl friend then?" I questioned him. If it was some ex-girlfriend, it was understandable. But why on earth would he not just come out and say it? So much for friendship and honesty.

"No", he swallowed. Oh for the Mothers sake. I pushed past him, irritated. He quickly followed behind me, rambling excuses on why I shouldn't go in. Ignoring him, I slammed open the door and strode In. My eyes scanned the shop suspiciously, ready to see who he was hiding in here, but was met by an empty room.

The worker looked at me with wide eyes, but I ignored her, swiveling towards Paris. He was at the door, also wide eyed and frozen in place. There was nobody in here-

My eyes grew in shock, finally catching on to what Paris was concealing from me. By the door, stood a magazine stand with recent catalogs. I strode up to it, ripping out a magazine from the stand. It had my fathers face plastered on the cover. All of them did.

"Oh for the Mothers sake-" I scowled, yanking open the pages and storming out.  Typical. Typical. Of course my no-good, deadbeat, moron of a father would be caught with another woman. How hard was it to keep to under wraps and behind doors?

The cold air assaulted me as soon as I stepped out. I didn't bother paying, and I didn't think the girl in the front would chase me down for the five dollars. She recognized me. That was fact. And even if she did demand I pay, why would I pay to read about my own adultering father?

"I'm sorry" Paris commented from beside me as I skimmed the article. I hadn't noticed him follow me out, completely absorbed by the situation at hand. The mystery woman was pretty and dark, with long, black, curly hair, which was certainly a change from his usual, leggy, blonde. She had a nice backside, that was for sure, which seemed to be the only constant in my fathers never-ending rotation of girls.

Slamming the magazine shut, I sighed, "No wonder the press was chasing me today. They're really giving Daphne a run for her money. It'll be difficult to swindle our way out of this one". I rubbed my temple, slouching back down on the slab of stone. A scowl was situated on my face. I was worried that, one day, my face would freeze in this expression.

When Paris simply looked at me, confused, I added on, "Daphne is my mothers assistant and publicist", for clarification. He blinked at me, the confusion ever present. Honesty, what did this boy not understand?

"Are you- are you not upset?" He asked, his sandy brows furrowed. It was my turn to gawk, confused by the question.

"No? Why would I be upset? Inconvenienced, yes, considering the fact that the moron can't seem to keep his rendezvous out of the news. But I'm not upset. He can slither his way out of this like he has all the other times"

I drafted a message to Daphne and Bunny, asking them if they knew about this. I then deleted the message. Of course they knew about this. Everyone in the bloody continent knew about this, if it had gotten out to the press. I shut off my phone, the silver screen blinking to black. It was not my job to deal with this.

"You're father cheats regularly?" He asked me, sitting near, but carefully keeping his distance. I gave him a sharp glance, evaluating this from his perspective. He has a family that loves each other. Of course he finds this strange. His family does not pull stunts like this every morning, noon and dawn, which is also why their names are never in the news. They don't spin up shit storms like my family. If you can even call us that.

"Yes, of course he does" I said matter of factly, "He's just supposed to keep it out of sight. This is the third time he's been spotted, and I'm afraid poor Daphne is going to quit. Too much for one person to handle, magical or not"

"Is she a witch?" He asked, after some time of contemplentation, probably unsure on how to approach this topic of my father and his mistresses.

"Who, Daphne?" I gave him a confused look.

"No, I mean the girl. With your dad" He clarified for me tenaciously. To that I openly scoffed.

"Hah! I wish. Now that would be a sight to behold, worthy of all the fuss the media stirs up"

"Why?" He asked me, and I simply raised an eyebrow at him, smiling at the absurd concept.

"Have fun finding a sane witch who is willing to go against Welhemine Fontaine. My mother would crush her. That's why my father sticks with mortals; the witches are too scared to take up the offer. Rightfully so, of course, but it's easier for him to find simple, mortal girls who like his pretty face and even prettier penny"

"But don't they question him? It's not every day a millionaire falls into your lap" He asked, attempting to understand the big image. I waved him off like one would to a pesky fly.

"Oh please. The only thing they care about is his money. The mortals tend to view him as a business tycoon, aware that he has an innumerable sum of money, but having no clue where the wealth came from. Besides, their mouthes are always a bit...preoccupied to be asking him questions"

Paris' face flushed red at the statement, and had I been someone decent, someone with access to morals, I would have too. But quite frankly, I did not care. If my father wasn't embarrassed to flaunt his relationships to the public, then I wasn't embarrassed to make assumptions about what they did in those relationships.

I looked down at the magazine. It was crumpled in my hand from my crushing, viselike grip. I got up, throwing it into the white trash can. It was a golden slot in the wall, one that you would push inwards to dispose of the trash, like mail slots in a door. Magical New York was meticulous about its cleanliness, even making the trashcans invisible. It was as if they believed the sheer existence of trash cans on the street could cross contaminate the pristinity of our shopping district. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Let's go?" I asked him. I gave Paris an unbothered smirk, thought the smile itself was tight and ingenuine. Without waiting for his reply, I strode off, choosing to ignore the nightmarish gene pool some liked to call my family.