Page 147 of The Glittering Edge

“Yep. Moving to Bloomington.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be easier than staying here.”

Penny closes her eyes. His words make her feel as if she’s falling off a skyscraper: She’s terrified, and she’s alone, and nobody can stop her from hitting the ground.

“Please tell me the Council didn’t seal your magic,” Penny whispers.

Alonso’s face is red. He’s stopped trying to get into his car; he just stands there, arms limp at his sides.

That’s her answer.

This is Penny’s fault. Alonso will never have magic again, and it’s all because she came to the record store a month ago and asked for his help. She wants to say sorry, but it feels meaningless. What can she possibly do to make up for what he’s lost?

Eventually she says, “When are you leaving?”

“One week. On the first day of school.”

“But—” Penny tries to swallow her anxiety back down. Every nerve is going haywire, but she can’t run away without saying what she came to say, because what if this is her last chance?

Maybe it won’t be worth it. He could’ve been lying at the gala. Or maybe everything that happened since the gala has destroyed whatever feelings Alonso used to have for her.

Still. She has to know.

“I don’t want you to go,” Penny says, watching his face for any sign of emotion. Of love.

But he won’t look at her. And when he speaks, it’s so soft she barely hears it.

“You’ll get over it.”

And that’s what it takes, somehow. Penny grits her teeth together and marches up to him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn around.

“At least look at me when you’re rejecting me,” Penny says.

Alonso yanks his arm out of her grip. “Ican’tlook at you, okay? I can’t.”

But then he glances at her, and for a moment Penny can’t breathe.She wants to see his face every day. She feels more like herself around Alonso than she ever expected, and now he’s going away, and Penny’s heart can’t handle it. She’s already losing her mom.

Now, she’s losing the boy she loves.

Alonso presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I spent the whole summer trying to break this curse, and now my family is leaving the town we’ve lived in for a hundred years. None of them are even speaking to me right now. And without my magic, I don’t—I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s like they erased me, or part of me.” He laughs. “I can’t help anyone. Including myself.”

Alonso gets in the car, and the engine roars. Penny wants to follow him, but she’s shaking so badly. She realizes she hasn’t eaten since breakfast, and the world starts to go blurry, but she doesn’t go back to her car. She stands there, watching him drive away.

He doesn’t look back.

Corey

COREY STANDS ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF MEREDITH HOUSE, LOOKINGout the picture window. Across the street, moving trucks are parked in front of the De Luca home for the second day in a row. The lawn is crowded with a century’s worth of antiques and paintings and family heirlooms. Every time Corey thinks their house must finally be empty, the movers file out with even more crap. Donna De Luca directs the movers as they load the ratty couches, stained wooden tables, crates of plants and candlestick holders and dusty books.

No matter how much Corey tries to ignore it, he always drifts back to this window.

Corey hasn’t seen Penny or Alonso since the gala. Not in person. Instead, he dreams about the curse-breaker every night.

When they cast the spell, there was a crescendo. It built and built, but when Corey should’ve felt something—a breaking, a beginning, some sign that the curse was gone—there was nothing. Just a gaping hole where his future should’ve been.

Was it his fault the spell didn’t work? Maybe he didn’t want it badly enough. Maybe he never truly believed breaking the curse was possible.

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