In winter 2014, Henry Strauss reaches a breaking point and gives up trying to fight the terms of his bargain. He resigns himself to the “prism” of the deal, increasingly seeing it as a curse rather than a gift, and forces himself through daily attempts to be a better friend, brother, and son while ignoring the emptiness he notices in other people’s eyes.

Henry keeps trying to pretend the attention he receives is real, and that he is real within it, but the strain of being constantly praised and yet fundamentally unseen wears him down. He feels lost and hollowed out by a charm he cannot turn off.

Then Henry meets a girl who disrupts the pattern. She walks into the bookstore and steals a book, and when Henry catches her in the street and she turns to face him, he expects the familiar “frost” and distance he’s come to associate with his deal.

Instead, Henry sees clear brown eyes and an unmistakable, undimmed presence. When the girl returns the next day and the effect remains, Henry realizes it is not a fluke: she is not looking at him through the spell’s haze.

The girl sees past “perfect” to Henry’s real self—someone who cares too much, feels too much, and is starving inside the confines of his bargain. For the first time in months, and perhaps ever, Henry feels genuinely seen, and he desperately does not want that feeling to end.