Page 48 of Witch You Would

her full resting bitch face, while Charlotte kept checking her watch like it would make time pass more quickly.

“I should have realized something was up the first time you made my coffee,” Penelope said suddenly.

“Oh?”

“It’s perfect. I was like, how did he know?, and I assumed you’d gotten lucky.”

Oh. “You told me how you like it in one of our emails.”

“I’m surprised you remembered.”

I squeezed her knee. “That was one of my failed attempts to set myself up to ask you out. I had this whole elaborate plan,

where I’d ask how you liked your coffee, and you’d tell me, and I’d say, ‘I know this great place on Coral Way near the Turnpike,’

and then bam! Coffee date.”

Penelope squinted, thinking. “But all you did was tell me how you liked your coffee and then we started talking about...

that documentary on weather magic?”

“Yeah, I chickened out. Again.”

“So.” She nudged me with her knee. “Want to get coffee at that place you like?”

“It’s a date.” I held up my travel cup and she tapped hers against it.

The van finally came for us all, and we arrived, slightly moist, at the warehouse. Fina did her best on makeup, and Bruno

gave me this quietly desperate look and asked whether I would consider a different hairstyle, just for today. I had to turn

him down. Rule number two: stay in character.

“But don’t you want to look nicer for la novia?” Bruno asked.

“Yeah, but I have to look like this for the cameras,” I replied.

“Bueeeno,” he said. “Como tú quieras, brother.”

Liam, horrified as always by my shirt material, taped the mic on and left to fiddle with dials and buttons. Nate asked if

he could maybe have my autograph if it wasn’t a bother—it wasn’t, and I promised I’d take a selfie with him later, too. Little

Manny hugged me, Big Manny gave me a good luck fist bump, and as I was heading back to the greenroom, I ran into an enormously

excited Penelope.

“You’ll never believe what I found,” she said.

“What?”

She held out a walkie-talkie. Okay. Wait, it had a label.

“Is that... Just Manny’s radio?”

“It is!”

“Should I get a box and a stick?”

She smacked me with it. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re going to put it on a table and then hide.”

“Do we have time to—”

“Over here.”

Penelope dragged me to the last lonely cubicle in what used to be a room full of them.

She put the walkie-talkie on the desk, standing up so the antenna was clearly visible, then dragged me behind the fabric-covered metal partition.

We waited in silence, occasional bursts of static and voices assuring us that the thing was still there.

It occurred to me that we were alone where no one could see us, and Penelope’s back was pressed against my front. Fond memories

of a similar position in a casting booth gave certain parts of me ideas.

I kissed her neck. She shivered and gently elbowed me. I slipped my arms around her and kissed her again, and she melted into

me with a soft little sigh. I nibbled my way up to her ear—

Footsteps. So quiet I almost missed them. We both froze, waiting.

The scrape of plastic on plastic. Someone had picked up the radio.

Penelope tore out of my arms and jumped out. “Aha!”

The person screamed. I peeked over the top of the wall.

A perfectly normal guy stood there, staring at Penelope like she was loca. Brown hair, brown eyes, like a million people you’d

pass in a mall any day.

“Got you, Just Manny,” Penelope said smugly.

“You were... looking for me?” Just Manny asked, totally confused. “Did you need something?”

“We’re good,” I told him, hooking my arm through Penelope’s and tugging her toward the soundstage.

“Vindication!” Penelope shouted.

“I think the stress has broken your brain.”

“Wait until I tell Big Manny and Little Manny.”

I looked over my shoulder, intending to apologize, but Just Manny was already gone, disappeared back into whatever dimension

he existed in when Penelope wasn’t tricking him into revealing himself.

Magic? Nah. People couldn’t teleport or turn invisible. Unless...

A frantic Rachel herded us with her tablet, because apparently we’d made everyone late. Isaac shouted, “Fuck on your own time!”

as we passed, and I ignored him, because I was a mature adult. I did imagine cursing him, though, because I was also occasionally

petty.

Felicia and Charlotte once again waited together but not together. Syd and the judges were there already, too, at the front

of the room as usual. Syd, thankfully, didn’t crack a joke about us. Presumably Tori or Isaac had told them our real relationship

was not part of the show.

Since this was the second half of the round, all Syd had to announce was, “Contestants, you have eight hours remaining! We’re

halfway to the end and the final judgment.”

With that, the timer started counting down again, and off we went.

Penelope checked the freezer spell; no change. We moved on to the rest of our checklist: I had to enchant the rabbit and dove

components, and she had to finish brewing the potion that would make the environmental effects along with the critters.

I put the reagents at the correct positions in the chalk circle I drew yesterday, checking to be sure none of the lines or

sigils were smudged. All good. Yellow candle at one corner, rabbit fur at another, pure spring water at the third, and a dove

feather at the fourth. In the center, the coin that would be the catalyst. I sat on the floor and lit the candle. Inhale,

focus, exhale. I did that a few more times, until I was sure I was ready, then I channeled my intent into the circle.

The chalk lines lit up, sigils floating just above the floor along with the feather.

Energy rippled across the surface of my skin.

I muttered the incantation Penelope and I had written together.

On the twelfth repetition, the magic got sucked into the coin, which glowed briefly before fading.

I hummed a little tune to discharge any extra energy, cleaned up the used reagents, then got up to check on Penelope.

She was stirring the cauldron and murmuring her own spell, so I didn’t interrupt. I’d need her for the next circle enchantment,

but I could start setting it up.

We kept working like that, side by side and together, for hours. I made her stop to eat lunch; she brought me ice water and

some paper towels to wipe up my sweat when I overextended. I rubbed her neck and shoulders when they ached from stirring;

she pounded my lower back when it hurt from crouching to draw spell circles on the floor.

Just like this, I thought. This is what I want. The two of us, casting together, bringing each other sandwiches and coffee.

Not some big show in LA, not red carpets and flashing cameras. This. Her.

Penelope caught me looking at her and smiled, and I fell in love again. Life was good. It would only get better when we won.

Three hours before presentation time, I was so absorbed in drawing and redrawing a particularly stubborn symbol that the judges

surprised me. Legs burning, I stood up and stretched.

“Almost ready?” Hugh asked, his green eyes boring into mine like lasers.

“You know it,” I said, spinning the stick of chalk on my open palm with a flourish.

Fabienne gestured at the circle I was working on. “Which portion of the enchantment will this be?”

“Part of the spell involves cards doing tricks in the air, so I’m going to do them myself, and this will basically record

my movements.”

“Interesting,” Hugh said. “What technique are you using to—”

On the other side of the station, a red light flashed. Doris gasped in pain and stumbled backward, holding her left hand with

her right.

“Are you okay?” Syd asked, concern on their face as they approached her.

“I’m... fine,” Doris said. “Just a sudden cramp.”

Penelope stepped out from behind the stove, angrier than I’d ever seen her, even when she was yelling at me in the park. “Just

a cramp? You were trying to sabotage our spell!”

Syd stared at her, mouth open. Doris shook her head, hazel eyes wide. From across the room, Tori straightened up like a meerkat

sensing danger.

“How dare you accuse me of such a thing, young lady!” Doris said. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

Penelope gestured at the freezer. “Let’s check on my charm, then, and see if the water changed color.”

“What’s this about a charm?” Fabienne asked, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“Penelope made a freezer spell,” I explained. “It was designed to go off if someone tried to touch any of our stuff with malicious

intent.”

Both Hugh and Fabienne looked at Doris, whose pale skin had turned bone white. Tori stalked over, looking grim. Charlotte

and Felicia stopped what they were doing, too.

“Malicious intent?” Hugh asked, his voice low and harsh.

Penelope plunked the jar from the freezer onto the counter. The frozen liquid inside had gone from clear to a reddish purple,

frost coating the inside of the glass, but the words on the spell paper dangling by a piece of twine from the lid were still

legible.

“Doris,” Tori said through clenched teeth, her normally statue-calm face twitching. “Tampering with this competition is a federal crime. You know that.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.” Doris crossed her arms. “I will not be subjected to this, this insinuation.”

“I’m not insinuating, I’m straight-up saying it,” Penelope muttered. “I just don’t understand why.”

I remembered the conversation I’d heard the first day of filming, confirmed by Isaac at the restaurant. “She’s being forced

to retire.”

Doris glared at me, lips thin.

“It’s gotta be revenge, right?” I continued. “She’s pissed that she’s getting pushed out of the show she helped start, so

she’s wrecking it on the way out. If she can’t be here, no one can.”

Penelope shook her head. “Super petty. Wow.”

“Pure nonsense,” Doris said, but the way Hugh and Fabienne were looking at her, I knew I’d nailed it.

Isaac stormed in like a low-rent Zeus ready to spit lightning. “Now what the fuck is going on in here?”

“Doris has been sabotaging everyone’s spells,” I said.

“What did I say about talking shit?” Isaac yelled. “Get back to your stations and finish this fucking round.”

“No way,” Penelope said. “This show has been rigged from the start. If it weren’t for Doris, the whole competition might have

gone completely differently. Any of the other teams could be here instead.”

“Speak for yourself,” Felicia grumbled.

Penelope rolled her eyes.

“You can’t prove shit,” Isaac said.

Unfortunately true. All we could prove was that she’d set off the freezer spell, and even that was our word against hers. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Nate quietly filming. There would be evidence of this, at least, assuming the footage wasn’t destroyed later.

I said, “I’ll bet if you go through all the dailies you might be able to catch her in the act.”

Doris made a scoffing noise. Okay, maybe she was too careful for that.

Charlotte spoke up then. “Listen, the round is almost over. Why don’t we finish and then figure things out afterward?”

Penelope shook her head. “I won’t let our work be judged by someone who was trying to sabotage it. She can’t be trusted to

be fair.”

“What she said,” I agreed.

“Then Hugh and Fabienne can judge without Doris,” Charlotte said.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You want to take the chance that your spell hasn’t been compromised?”

“Ours is fine,” Charlotte insisted.

“How can you be sure?” Penelope asked. “I bet you bribed Doris the way you tried to bribe me.”

“And me,” I added. “Maybe Doris hadn’t even planned to risk sabotage until she knew there was an extra check in it for her.”

Charlotte glared at us both. “I never did any such thing, and if you even hint it in public, I’ll bury you in lawsuits.”

“That’s what I said!” Isaac yelled.

“I knew this would come down to lawyer ninjas,” Penelope muttered.

“It’s okay,” I said. “My dad is the best lawyer ninja around.”

Isaac growled, grabbed the freezer spell off our table, and threw it. The container shattered against the wall, spraying glass

and colored ice all over the decorative arcane symbols and the floor.

“Fuck this and fuck you!” he shouted. “I have a date with enough tequila to put a horse in a coma, so get back to your stations and finish this round.” He gave all of us double middle fingers and then stomped back out.

“Places, everyone. We’ll start up again in ten.” Tori smoothly delivered a few more orders, then stepped outside with her

phone glued to her ear. Probably calling someone higher up to off-load the whole problem now that it was, as my dad used to

say, above her pay grade.

Penelope stared at the glass-and-ice mess. “Is there a rule about the showrunner wrecking a contestant’s stuff?”

I grinned at her. “What does Leandro Presto know about rules?”

She snorted, then busted out laughing. “Oh my god, this round really did end on a spectacle, didn’t it?”

“I liked ours yesterday better,” I whispered in her ear.

Penelope blushed and bumped me with her hip. I put an arm around her shoulders. No matter what happened with the show now

that it had all gone to shit, at least we had each other, and that was pretty magical.