Page 25 of Witch You Would

Penelope hauled me up to the pool deck for a breakfast-and-planning meeting; no smooches, all business. The Miami sun roasted

us even in the shade of the beach umbrellas sticking out of the poolside tables, cooling charms dangling from their spokes,

but we had more quiet and privacy than in the restaurant. A few blocks away, Biscayne Boulevard traffic honked and vroomed

and screeched; in front of us, the sunlight sparkled on the water so brightly it hurt to look at. I didn’t get to spend much

time in this area—Sam and Ed and I lived in a part of South Miami rich people were trying super hard to gentrify—so it was

nice to have a little of that stereotypical Miami waterfront experience.

When we finally left for the warehouse, we had a checklist and schedule with times listed next to each step in the recipe.

She’d even included lunch breaks.

I loved it. I couldn’t tell her I loved it, because Leandro wasn’t like that, but I wanted to.

Maybe I would tell her I was Gil, sooner instead of later. Maybe my secrets would be safe with her. But dropping that reveal

now felt like a huge mistake. If we didn’t make it to the next round...

We had to make it. She needed the money and the prestige, and I needed the money for Grandpa Fred’s charity.

We had to stay focused and sharp, and I was already using up necessary brain space thinking sexy thoughts.

Adding my “secret identity” to the mix would be one more catalyst that could blow things up in our faces.

A messier-than-usual Isaac Knight awaited us on the soundstage after we finished with hair and makeup and mic placement. Someone

had brought him a box to stand on instead of using Dylan and Zeke’s station again. Tori stood next to him like his faux-hawk-wearing

shadow.

“Our techs and supply reps have gone through the storeroom,” Isaac told us. “You’ll be happy to know they didn’t find any

other ‘irregularities’ back there.” He made air quotes with his fingers. “We still don’t know what happened with the two bottles

of whatever the fuck—”

“Tarragon and sage,” Tori said.

“—but it seems to be a one-off. So don’t start thinking your fuckups aren’t your fault.” Isaac pointed at the clock, which

gave us a little under ten hours remaining. “Now we have to hustle so we don’t fall behind, which means a long day. Judging

comes after, as usual, so if you can do basic math, we’re looking at fourteen hours minimum. Suck it up, buttercups. Especially

if you’re non-union.” He got down from his box and stomped off, alternately muttering under his breath and yelling at the

top of his lungs.

We went back to our stations, the camera people readied their rigs, and the countdown started counting.

Penelope and I split our duties today. She handled the cauldron, and I was in charge of circle work.

Instead of glass, our centerpiece core was made of interwoven vines and stems from the flowers we’d be magically growing with the spell.

It wasn’t much to look at, just a green wreath about sixteen inches in diameter; once activated, it would get much bigger.

To make that happen, though, I had to layer in a separate enchantment for every type of flower we’d be using. It was pure

grunt work, the kind I’d done in labs back in college, but not as much since I’d started the Leandro videos. This competition

was forcing me to pull shit out of the depths of my brain that I hadn’t thought about in years.

This was what I’d hoped for when I got my PhD, this kind of boundary-pushing, theory-testing spellwork. Regardless of how

my parents thought the job market worked, I hadn’t expected a cushy tenure-track position, on a team with a huge research

budget from multiple major grants, to happen right after I graduated. Still, I’d imagined better than adjuncting, for practically

minimum wage if you counted grading time, and then Leandro Presto got big...

Four hours passed in a blink. I got up to stretch my aching calves and noticed the judges had arrived. Their call time was

later than ours, no doubt. They wandered around, examining things, asking questions. They’d reach us soon enough.

Penelope stretched, too, and gave a little groan as she rubbed the small of her back and rolled her head around. Today she

was wearing a black apron with yellow straps, the outline of a pointy hat with “Kiss the Witch” in yellow cursive on the front.

I wanted to do just that, but not in front of the cameras, obviously. Had she picked this apron specifically to tease me?

Not likely. That’s not how she thought.

I walked over and put a hand on Penelope’s neck, squeezing gently. “Massage, m’lady?”

Penelope’s shoulders went up, but she forced them back down. “I’m getting a cramp, so yes, please. Not too long; we have a

schedule.”

I’d given Sam and Ed enough rubs to have a decent idea how to manage.

I started at the top of her neck, then worked my way down and sideways to her shoulders, then reversed and went back up.

By the third repetition, she was practically jelly, and her butt had gotten a little too close to my crotch for decency.

“Good?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Penelope said, a little breathy.

“Sweet. Back to work, then.” Except I needed a minute to get the tiny brain in my pants under control. Hopefully the cameras

wouldn’t see anything they shouldn’t.

Tori did, though. She gave me a thumbs-up. Ugh.

The judges eventually made it to our station. Hugh dressed like his wardrobe was sponsored by one of the high-end stores in

the Design District; Fabienne wore a corporate-chic purple dress and her usual unreadable smile; and Doris was going full

abuelita, with pearls and a mint-green sweater covered in pink flowers.

“Tell us about your spell,” Fabienne asked, her dark eyes digging into us like awls.

Penelope explained while I looked excited and derpy. It wasn’t hard, for a change. The more we worked together, the happier

I got.

“Are you certain the naudhiz rune is suited for this particular circle?” Hugh asked.

“In this case,” Penelope replied, “we’ve combined it with kenaz, which should guide the transformation—”

The table we’d been assembling our centerpiece on jolted under my hands. One of the glass jars that held some of our catalyzing

solution tipped sideways. Before I could grab it, it fell over and shattered, spilling its contents across the table.

“Oh dear!” Doris said.

Shit, shit. I rushed to grab a towel to clean up the mess. Penelope picked up the centerpiece before the liquid could reach it and disrupt the enchantments I’d spent hours laying.

Tori ran over, looking grim. “What now?”

“An accident,” Penelope said, glaring at me.

At me? Hold up. “I didn’t—”

“How does this impact your spell?” Tori asked us, her face suggesting it had better not be a problem.

Penelope aimed her fake smile at Tori. “We’ll need a minute to figure it out.” She moved the wreath to the other end of our

station, as far from me as she could get.

Meanwhile, Felicia held Doris by her elbow. “Are you okay?” she asked, in the most syrupy voice I’d heard from her since we

met.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” Doris patted Felicia’s arm.

What the fuck?

Tori hustled the judges away before I could ask Doris what had happened. Had she fallen against the table? Had Felicia pushed

her?

Would it matter? Not likely, after Isaac’s speech.

Time for damage control. I checked the wall clock. A little under six hours to go. Penelope had started putting the catalyst

together yesterday. No way would she have time to brew it up again. Unless...

When I finally finished cleaning the mess up, Penelope had retreated to an empty corner of the table with her notebook and

was furiously scribbling something.

“We have to shortcut the process,” I said. “There’s a way that should work, but...”

“But?”

“We have to watch it super carefully or it could cause a blowback.”

She stopped writing. “You want to use Papin’s thaumaturgical pression process. To pressure-cook it.”

Of course she’d know. “Yeah. That.”

Penelope choked the pencil, her skin losing color. “Have you... ever done it?”

“In college, when I had to pull a few all-nighters.” The first time, I’d been in a cold sweat, worrying that I’d get caught

by a TA and yelled at, or worse, wreck the lab. “Have you?”

“Once.” The way she whispered it made me wary.

“I can take lead if—”

“No,” she said. “No way. I swore I’d never do it again.”

She snapped the pencil in half and stared down at her hand in horror.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “I hear you. I’m just not sure how we can re-create that potion without it.”

“We can... do something else.” Penelope laid the broken pencil pieces on the table. “It won’t be as elaborate as we’d planned,

but...”

“It’s a risk.” I smoothed down my mustache nervously. “We could lose the round like Quentin and Tanner did.”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t spilled the potion, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Wow. Even after our conversation last night, she still jumped to the worst possible conclusion. That felt fucking great.

I forced a derpy smile as I leaned closer. “We can talk about what really happened later, but for now, we have to keep pretending

we like each other and fix this. If you don’t want to pressure-cook the spell, I respect that. What’s the backup plan?”

“Gassman’s one-pot fusion,” she said. “It bypasses the separation and purification steps.”

“That can’t hold both transformations, though.”

“So we brew two potions simultaneously, one per transformation.”

It could work. Maybe.

“Okay,” I said. “What do we need?”

Penelope took a deep breath, grabbed another pencil, and started writing.

We’d been serious and focused before, but we doubled up now. I had planned a couple of jokes and tricks for some of the tiny

gaps in the schedule; fuck that, there wasn’t time.

I did have to make a bathroom trip to deal with my mustache. The adhesive was supposed to last all day, but it seemed like