Page 14 of Witch You Would

We did, and by the third time we had it down. A couple of PAs clapped and hooted at us, and I blushed while Leandro gave them

an elaborate bow. Felicia, standing nearby, rolled her perfectly mascaraed eyes.

“So should we do that when we win a round, or when we do something cool, or what?” I asked.

Leandro shrugged. “Let’s go with what feels right.”

Of course he didn’t want to plan it.

Before I could pin him down, Felicia sneered at us. “You two are ridiculous. You’re not going to win. Everyone knows you’re

just here to make the rest of us look good.”

Someone said, “Oooh,” and loudly finger-slapped a few times like we were gonna scrap. Leandro froze, and my brain refused to come up with a snappy response. I’d said almost the same thing last night, hadn’t I? Nicer, but barely. With an epic eye roll, Felicia walked out.

“What’s that French thing?” I asked.

“French thing?” Leandro replied.

“You know, when you come up with a really sweet clapback way after the thing happens?”

“Esprit d’escalier?”

“Yeah.” Himbo my ass. “I’m going to figure out the best insult ever for that witch in like two hours, while I’m watching a

cauldron boil.”

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Or in the shower? I always have good ideas in the shower.”

“Hey, me too! I keep telling myself I need to buy bath crayons so I can write them down.”

“Smart.”

We stared at the door and sighed at the same time, then said, “We should go,” in unison.

I cracked a smile, he smoothed his mustache, and together we headed out into the Miami morning sunshine.

Leandro and I stood next to each other at our stations, wearing our matching clothes, trying not to look nervous as Syd did

the usual opening banter. Bruno and Fina did my hair and makeup again, with the “sloppy albondigas” from yesterday—Amy said

they were called space buns—and purple and gold eyeshadow to match my apron, which they loved. Was this anime waifu? Probably.

Syd finally cleared their throat and grinned, as if they knew we were all ready to explode from suspense. “Since we’re in Miami, and this edition of Cast Judgment features truly amazing Spellebrities, we’ve decided the theme for this season will be: celebration!”

Celebration? Like, a party?

“Every spell you design and cast will be working toward a huge, final event, a party like this show has never experienced

before.”

Butts. I wasn’t a party person. My cousin Gina worked for some extremely fancy event planning company, but we didn’t hang

out much. Not that it mattered, since I couldn’t call her for help.

“For today’s round, one of the most basic things every good celebration needs is...” Syd paused dramatically. “...light!

As fun as it is to party in the dark, we want each of you to come up with a unique, interesting lighting method that doesn’t

involve anything flammable. No candles, no lanterns with open flames, no fireworks or sparklers. Got it?”

We all nodded. I glanced at Gil, who was smoothing his mustache again. He seemed to do it when he was nervous.

Syd raised their arm and gestured at a giant LED clock on the wall. It lit up with a number eight and a bunch of zeroes. “Your

time begins... now!”

The timer switched to seven fifty-nine as the seconds began disappearing. I pulled my notebook and pencil out of my apron

pocket. As soon as the empty page was open in front of me, my brain locked up like my car’s brakes in the rain.

What were words? What was magic? Who was I? Seven fifty-eight and thirty-six seconds. Thirty-five. Thirty-four.

“Penelope?” Leandro peered into my eyes like he was checking for a concussion.

“I’m good,” I said.

“Are you sure? Because you’re choking that pencil to death.”

“No, I’m not.” My knuckles were white, and the wood creaked.

He grinned. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Broken pencil.”

Hah. “Broken pencil who?”

“Never mind, it’s pointless.”

I snort-laughed. “That was so bad. Hashtag dad jokes.”

“Made you laugh.”

“I wasn’t laughing, I was choking on how terrible that joke was.” I did feel better, though. He’d fixed my brakes, and now

the car was moving again.

Was that flirting? I didn’t know.

I wrote “LIGHT” at the top of the paper. “Okay, brainstorm time. Lighting methods, no fire. Has to be awesome.”

“Don’t worry about awesome yet,” Leandro said. “For now, just ideas.”

I could do that. Let’s see... chandeliers, fairy lights with residual memory-echoes of cucuyos inside instead of bulbs,

those glass ocean floats that lit up when they touched water... Leandro’s jellyfish. Cool, even if the underlying spell

was flawed. I didn’t want to copy his work, though. Plus the glow hadn’t been very bright; I could picture Hugh Burbank giving

me his hard stare as he said something like, Lighting should actually light up the area around it, Ms. Delmar .

I shivered.

“Are you cold?” Leandro asked.

“Yes.” Also catastrophizing. I wrote “jellyfish” and tapped the page with the pencil’s eraser. “Thoughts?”

He smoothed his mustache. “Aurora borealis?”

Fun. I wrote it down. Still not bright enough, but maybe with stars . . . Oh god.

“Sparklehair,” I said.

“Sparkle... hair?”

“I had a jerk customer the other day. He screwed up a hair spell and ended up with fireworks on his head.”

Leandro’s lip curled like his mustache. “How did he do that?”

“Broken duskywing butterfly wing.”

“Ooh, those are fragile.”

“Right? But he tried to play it like I messed up his reagents.”

“You? No me diga.” Leandro dramatically covered his mouth, then leaned against the counter on his elbows. “I bet you’ve never

messed up a spell in your life.”

“I wish.” I’d learned to be careful the hard way.

“So, sparkly hair?” he asked. “Turn everyone into a walking light?”

“Has to be environmental. The sparkles, though...” I tapped the pencil against my mouth. What could we pair with sparkles

like that?

A crack of thunder outside made me jump. Miami weather. If the storm hadn’t hit us yet, it would soon.

Storm. Hmm. I wrote that down.

“Storm, like clouds?” Leandro asked. “What about party fog?”

Party fog! “If we could make that glow brightly, and add the sparkles to simulate lightning...” I started scribbling ingredients

that might work for the spell.

Leandro read over my shoulder. “Do we want it to float overhead or stay at ground level?”

Ground would be easier. “Let’s try to float it.”

“Playing on hard mode,” he said. “Nice. What’s our delivery mechanism?”

What containers could trap a spell like this inside? “Bottle, like a genie? Balloon? Mason jar?”

“A teapot!”

“What?” I blinked at him.

“You know, like a tempest in a teapot?”

“Is that a pun?”

“It’s a saying,” he explained. “It’s when a small thing gets blown up into a huge deal.”

“So like... exagerada? Muy dramática?”

“Pretty much.”

Well, he was the pun expert. Every spell for his show had a funny name.

“Tempest in a teapot it is,” I said, writing it at the top of the paper with a flourish. I smiled at Leandro, who grinned

back.

“Should we high-five now?” he asked.

I sort of wanted to, but Felicia’s bitch ass popped up in my brain. “Not yet. Let’s work up to it. We don’t want to do it

too much or it will get old.”

“True, true.” He looked at the list of reagents I’d started. “If we don’t want the cloud to dissipate too fast, we’re going

to need something to make it persistent or regenerating, beyond the mineral oil.”

“Spearmint?”

“Maybe zephyrlily...”

We debated how they would interact with each other and what activation mechanisms would work best. Hot or cold mist?

How thick did we want it to be? How large did the teapot need to be to account for Boyle’s principle of hydrostatic recursion?

Which base incantation type did we want to use?

I didn’t notice the camera crew creeping up on us, with Syd in the lead, until they were right next to our station.

My customer service smile activated instinctually.

“Yellow team!” Syd said. “You’re matching again. Adorable.”

“We’re on a wavelength,” Leandro added, making a wave with his arms.

Thunder rumbled again, louder this time. Rain started pounding on the roof.

“Do you two have a plan yet?” Syd asked.

“Yes,” we said at the same time. Leandro made a go ahead gesture at me.

“We’re calling it ‘Tempest in a Teapot,’” I said.

“Catchy!” Syd grinned. “Are you planning to bottle some of the bad weather we’re having right now?”

Leandro and I laughed.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Check in soon!” Syd drifted away, toward Quentin’s area.

Deep breath. That went fine. I glanced at the clock again. Seven twenty-five. Yikes.

“I’ll get the reagents, and you prep the equipment,” I told Leandro.

He nodded and started digging into the cabinets. That surprised me. For some reason I’d expected him to argue or clown around

more. Maybe he really would take this seriously. I could only hope.

I raced to the supply area, which was through the exit and down the hall in the other direction. It was somewhere between

the size of a dollar store and a grocery store, taking up the whole back part of the warehouse. Aisle after aisle of ingredients

beckoned, with shelves high enough that I’d need the conveniently provided wheeled ladder to reach some things.

I grabbed a cart and went nuts. Every so often I saw something that looked like it might be worth adding to our spell and tossed it in, too. Dylan passed me at one point, and we shared distracted smiles. Amy paced frantically, and I asked her what was wrong.

“Have you seen any origami paper?” she asked. “I thought it would be near the inks, but...”

“Paper is by yarn and textiles,” I said. “Don’t ask me why, I don’t make the rules.”

Amy laughed, her eyes scrunching up behind her red glasses. “I bet you’re the kind of person who gets asked for help in stores

a lot.”

She was right. “I also put stuff back where it goes when I find it on a random shelf.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”

Felicia avoided me like I was contagious. Whatever.

By the time I got back, Leandro had everything in place: bowls in rows by size, cast iron pot on the stove, vacuum pump assembled

and waiting. Again, a surprise. I’d assumed he would be messier.

I unloaded the stuff I’d picked up, trying to keep our area as neat as he had. One by one, I made sure the prepacked reagents

hadn’t expired, then opened them to check that the insides matched the labels. Everything looked and smelled fine.

“You chop, I mash?” Leandro asked, peering at the herbs and flowers. “Unless you’re not as good with a blade as I am.” He

twirled a knife like a fancy Japanese chef, grinning.

“Well, now I’m definitely doing it,” I said. “With my luck, you’ll drop that on my foot.”

“I’m careful.” Spin, spin.

“Give.” I held out my hand, and he offered me the knife hilt-first with an elaborate bow.

I chopped. He used the mortar and pestle to grind what needed to be a paste. I started water boiling, glancing at the clock again. Six forty-nine. Ah! What next?

On and on we went, step by step, reagent by reagent, building our spell up. When it came time for the first cooling of the

fluid components, I carefully poured the pot’s contents into a heatproof bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. Leandro held

the fridge door open, and I carried the bowl over, trying not to trip over my own feet. Inside it went, and when he closed

the door, I sighed in relief.

“Handshake?” Leandro asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Handshake,” I agreed. We grabbed each other’s hands, did our quick dance move, and made the appropriate explosion noise at

the end. I turned around, smiling, to check my notes for the next part of the recipe.

Then thunder crashed right on top of us, so loud I jumped away from the table and backed into Leandro. Without a flicker of

warning, the power went out.