Page 18

Penny

“PENNY, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I WOKE UP TO PEOPLE TEXTING ME photos of you with Corey and Alonso. Onstage. And they’re wearing the vests .” Naomi whimpers. “It’s not fair.”

“I swear it wasn’t as fun as it looked. They almost fought twice.” Penny adjusts her earbuds as she gets out of the hospital elevator. Even thinking about last night makes her tired. In the moment, it seemed smart to get Corey and Alonso on the same page, to see if they were willing to work with Penny to break the curse. But in the light of day, it seems less like a brilliant idea and more like history’s worst babysitting gig. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine, but that’s not what we’re talking about. You literally pulled off the greatest piece of performance art I’ve ever seen. How did you convince them to do it? Did they know they would be wearing matching outfits?”

“Definitely not.” Penny needs to change the subject, and fast. She’s a bad liar to begin with, and she’s not about to drag Naomi into all this magical nonsense. There’s a slim chance Naomi would believe the whole story, and that’s what Penny is afraid of: Her best friend wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. She would insist on helping, and that’s a risk Penny isn’t willing to take. “I just got to the hospital, so can I fill you in once I check on Mom?”

“Oh,” Naomi says, a note of disappointment in her voice. “Sure. Give Anita a kiss for me.”

As soon as Penny hangs up, the quiet of the hospital becomes suffocating. She sinks into her usual chair at Anita’s bedside. Today, her mom’s face has more color, and her breathing is measured. Calm. It’s not much, but Penny chooses to see this as a good sign.

Her phone vibrates with a text. Penny almost chokes on her own saliva when she sees who it’s from.

Where should we meet?

Alonso De Luca is texting her. Penny’s heart hammers against her ribs. Maybe one day this will feel normal. But not today.

She types, Meet me at the cafe at 5. Ron won’t be there.

He likes her message, and then it’s settled. Penny has plans with Alonso.

“I should promise to be careful, right?” Penny says to her mom.

Except Penny can’t make herself lie. She’s officially entered the De Luca–Barrion orbit—will it ever be possible to escape?

Penny is sitting behind Horizon Café’s counter when Alonso arrives, a bottle of Fizzy Barrel Root Beer hanging from his hand. When he sees Corey in janitor mode, he starts pouting.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

Corey holds up the mop. “We broke a laptop, remember?”

“Do you want a leftover raspberry bar?” Penny asks.

“Don’t try to distract me with food. Next time you need to warn me.”

“He took the first shift to pay Ron back,” Penny says as she sorts receipts. “You should be thanking him.”

Alonso frowns. “Never.”

“Hey.” Corey straightens up. “We agreed we were all going to meet today. If you’re trying to do magic behind my back, I’ll find a way to contact the Council and tell them to pay you a visit.”

“So you’re blackmailing me now?” Alonso asks.

“It’s not blackmail. It’s insurance.”

Alonso snorts, dropping into one of the booths. “Okay, Liam Neeson, what happens if the Council seals my magic? Then this curse keeps doing exactly what it’s been doing for years. Where are all the other De Lucas waiting to help you?”

If this were any other day, Penny would back away slowly, or tune them out. She would want them to forget she was here at all. But today, Penny feels a strange tension in her chest. Something like… annoyance.

Penny sighs, dropping the receipts on the counter. “Would you guys please stop?”

They both fall silent. The root beer was halfway to Alonso’s mouth, and now it hangs in the air, a few drops falling onto his black T-shirt.

“You told us you might’ve found a way to break the curse, Alonso,” Penny says. “We don’t even know the details, but you both want the same thing, don’t you? So if we’re going to give this everything we have, maybe you two should… I don’t know. Stop fighting?”

Babysitter mode: activated.

The full force of Alonso’s glare is directed at Penny, and she remembers exactly who it is she’s talking to. Her anxiety threatens to bubble up—did she take her meds today? Yes. What time? Eight in the morning, like always.

This brings her some comfort. She needs a little bravado of her own to get through this, so she straightens up in her chair, cocking her head at Alonso in what she hopes he interprets as a challenge. She can only hope it’s convincing.

In response, Alonso slumps into the booth and drinks more root beer. Penny takes that as a victory.

“You do have a plan, right?” she says.

“I never said I had a ‘plan.’” Alonso uses air quotes. “It’s more of a hunch.”

“I knew it,” Corey mutters. He grabs his backpack from one of the booths. “I’m leaving.”

“Already?” Alonso says, not sounding upset in the least.

“A hunch isn’t good enough,” Corey says. “If you’re going to lie to us, I have better things to do.”

Alonso drums his fingers on the table. “There’s this story.”

Corey pauses halfway to the door.

“It’s about a witch who broke a very old curse that she didn’t create,” Alonso says. “Her name was Park HaeJung. She’s probably the most famous witch of all time. Lots of covens wrote about her, studied with her. She was constantly coming up with new spells, almost by instinct. But HaeJung was bad at recording her process. A lot of the spells that made her famous have been lost.”

“Including this one?” Penny asks.

“We have the incantation. There’s only one curse-breaker spell, remember? We just don’t know why it worked for her and never for anybody else.” He shrugs. “It might’ve been because she was powerful enough to manage it.”

“So we’re here because of a legend,” Corey mutters.

“Not a legend. This really happened, so we know it’s possible.”

“What makes you think it’s possible for you ?” Corey says.

Alonso doesn’t answer.

That day back in the woods, when he brought the kitten back to life, Alonso didn’t use any incantations. It just… happened.

“What separates powerful witches from… I don’t know, the regular ones?” Penny asks. “You said HaeJung could do magic by instinct?”

“All witches get their power from the Second World, across the Veil,” Alonso says.

“The Veil?” Penny says. “What’s that?”

Corey drops his backpack into a booth again. “It’s what separates our world from the spirit world, right? My dad’s cousin Sofía told me about it. She’s done a lot of research on the occult.”

Penny is barely listening. The Veil, the spirit world… all these things really exist. She shivers.

“The Second World is where we go after death,” Alonso says. “It’s basically a waiting room before we move on to whatever’s next. It’s full of magical energy generated by all these spirits, and witches can access and manipulate that energy, but mortals can’t.”

“So Corey and I can’t break the curse? You’d have to do it?” Penny asks.

“You can lend your own energy to a spell to make it stronger, but you need a witch to be your conduit. Aka, me. You guys have electricity, but I’m the electrical wire.”

“And the incantations are predetermined,” Penny says, trying to calm her heart rate.

Alonso nods. “But witches like Park HaeJung didn’t even need spell books. She could make stuff up on the fly, and the spells would work. She was like the Mozart of witches. A total virtuoso. And in this case, she was able to break a curse that had been around for a hundred years.”

Alonso’s voice grows quiet as he speaks. Like he’s in awe.

“And you think there’s a chance you can do what only a legendary witch has managed to accomplish?” Corey says.

Alonso shrugs. “I’m willing to try. Plus, my mom is always saying I’m so much like my grandfather. Maybe that could work in our favor.”

“That’s not a compliment,” Corey says.

Alonso’s smirk fades. “Trust me, my mom doesn’t mean it as a compliment.”

Is that self-awareness or self-deprecation? Penny isn’t sure, so she says nothing. Corey goes back to mopping.

Penny changes the subject. “So where’s this spell? The curse-breaker?”

“It’s somewhere in my basement. That’s where we keep all our old books.” Alonso stands up, twirling his keys around his finger. “Let’s go. My mom and aunts are shopping in Indy today.”

Corey looks like he’s on the verge of saying no, but Penny cuts in. “I’ll drive separately. Corey?”

Corey frowns as he thinks about it, but he finally says, “Fine. But I’m using the back door. I don’t need my family seeing me at your house.”