Page 51 of The Glittering Edge

There’s a handwritten note on the inside cover. Penny reads it out loud: “‘Property of the Barnhardt coven.’”

“Oh yeah,” Alonso says. “They were the first coven in Idlewood.”

“There are other witches here?” Corey says. “Why didn’t we know that?”

“The Barnhardt coven is long gone,” Alonso says. “My ancestors never met them. They left their books on our front porch after my family settled in Idlewood, and they disappeared.” Alonso shrugs. “It’s not easy moving through the world as a witch. A lot of covens don’t make it.”

Penny runs her fingers over the note, carefully choosing her next words. “Are you sure they’re gone?”

“Yep.”

“So you’re positive nobody else could’ve cursed Corey’s family?”

Alonso’s brow furrows, but Corey jumps in immediately. “You know the story, Penny. It was Giovanni De Luca. He basically admitted to it when he…” Corey gives a vague hand gesture.

“Shot himself?” Alonso says, and Corey pulls a face.

“Right,” Penny whispers.

Alonso is working his jaw as if he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. They walk upstairs, following Alonso to a room at the back of the house. Penny is about to ask why they aren’t going to the front door, but when she steps inside the room, all thoughts leave her head.

Instead of walls, there are stained-glass windows that stretch from the floor all the way up to the second story of the house. The middle of the room is occupied by a wrought-iron table with matching chairs, but every other inch of the space is taken up with plants. Tall, short, tropical, grassy, blooming—all thriving. Penny stares up at a bird of paradise that is at least twice her height. She half expects the plant to grow even taller before her eyes.

“What is this place?” she asks.

Alonso shrugs. “It’s just the solarium.”

Penny is about to reply that this room isn’tjustanything, but the back door creaks as Corey steps outside. He glances at Penny over his shoulder and gives her the briefest of smiles. But since he’s Corey, it radiates warmth, and Penny feels herself smiling back.

Alonso steps into her line of sight. “You can leave through the front like a normal person.”

Penny follows him to the front door, but as he’s about to open it, the doorknob turns. There’s the jangle of keys in the lock.

Alonso turns on his heel and stares at Penny in horror. But she’s frozen in place. She feels like a skier in the path of an avalanche.

The door swings open, revealing the three De Luca sisters.

“Oh,” says Vera De Luca. She’s the spitting image of Alonso—all long limbs and messy blond hair, though hers is free of box-dye blue. Unlike Alonso, whose eyes are a stormy gray, Vera’s are green, and they only get brighter when they land on Penny.

Somehow, even though she’s in the De Luca home, this wasn’t on Penny’s bingo card. She makes a sound that was meant to be “Hi!” but comes out as a squeak.

Donna De Luca steps around Vera. Unlike Alonso’s mom, she’s short and stout, with black hair in a pixie cut. She’s puffing on a cigarette that seems to float above her hand. She gets in close, and Penny realizes she’s wearing some sort of cigarette-holder ring. If Penny wasn’t too terrified to speak, she might’ve told Donna that she looks like an alternate-universe Audrey Hepburn if she’d come of age in British punk clubs.

“Who,” Donna says, making a smoke ring, “are you?”

This is what snaps Penny out of it. “Alice in Wonderland!”

“It sure does seem that way,” Vera says.

Penny blushes. “Oh no, I meant she’s like the caterpillar.”

Donna’s smile falls. “Excuse me?”

Penny looks at Alonso, hoping he can throw her a lifesaver, but he’s given up. She’s at the mercy of his family now.

“I’m Penny,” she manages.

Donna’s smile somehow falls farther. “Emberly?”

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