Page 57 of The Glittering Edge

Focus, Alonso reminds himself. He sucks in a breath and looks at his palm.

Penny is right; this burn isn’t the same crescent shape as the charm hanging around Anita’s neck. It’s rectangular, but it’s what’s inside the rectangle that makes Alonso grimace.

Before his family gave up on their quest to teach Alonso about the world of witches, his mother and aunts made him memorize the crestof every coven in the world. There were 277 last time Alonso checked, but only 13 have permanent seats on the Council of Witches. These are the covens Alonso’s mother speaks of with reverence, even though it was the Council that sealed the De Lucas’ magic.

Alonso used to run his fingers over the crests, committing them to memory not because his family said it was important, but because these people had the power to take Alonso’s magic away. He could’ve contacted them. He could’ve confessed everything and asked them to make him mortal. That way, he wouldn’t have to be afraid of himself.

The only thing that stopped him from contacting the Council was the big unknown: What would they do if they discovered Alonso had his magic back? Would they simply seal it away—or would Alonso receive an additional punishment for keeping this secret for years?

So Alonso had never called them. But he spent enough hours staring at the crests of those thirteen families that he never forgot them.

Which is convenient. Because one of those crests is now burned into Alonso’s palm.

“Of course,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Do you recognize it? It looks like some sort of cross.”

Alonso turns his hand around and points. “You see that letter, under the cross? It’s aP. This is the crest of the Pierres.”

“Are the Pierres another coven?”

“They’re not just another coven, they’rethecoven. They’re the most powerful family of witches in the world, and their specialty is ward magic.”

Penny goes quiet as she considers his hand. “Why did they help Corey’s family?”

That’s a question Alonso can’t answer. How the hell did the Barrions manage to find the Pierres? And why would the Pierres have meddled in this curse? Witches stay away from other covens’ dark magic. It’s not just a superstition; since curses can only be broken by the witch who created them, any witch who tries to break a curse or even mitigate its effects is putting themselves at risk of being touched by thatdark magic. Which, in turn, can manifest as weakened magic for an entire coven.

What would’ve convinced the Pierres to take that kind of risk?

“Maybe Corey’s family paid them a lot of money?” Penny says.

Alonso closes his hand into a fist, letting the heat from the burn seep into his bones. “Except the Pierres don’t need money.”

“Then why do it? Did they want to help the Barrions?”

“That’s my guess. The Pierres might be soft. That could work in our favor.” A plan quickly forms in Alonso’s mind. “If we can get a Pierre to help us break this curse, that could make a huge difference. They train in magic every day from the moment they learn to walk and talk. If we get one of them to help us when we do the curse-breaker, it would make the spell much more powerful.”

“But what are they going to say if they find out you can… you know.”

“They might take my magic away,” Alonso says. “But this isn’t just about breaking the curse. I’ve been thinking about what you said at my place—about how we might not know for sure it was my grandpa who cursed the Barrions.”

Penny bites her lip. “You think I was right?”

“Probably not. But I want to look into it, to see if there were any other covens in Idlewood when the curse began. My grandma Allison died a few years ago, but she was always convinced my grandpa had been framed, that someone else had actually cursed the Barrions. She spent years looking for proof, like a blood oath or something.”

“Blood oaths sound ominous.”

“Think of them like legal testimony signed in blood, and if anything you write down is a lie, you burst into flames.”

Penny’s mouth falls open. “Actual flames?”

Alonso nods. “My grandma always said Gio was an asshole, but he never would’ve cursed anybody.”

“And you believe that?”

“I want to make sure we’ve got all the information we need beforewe attempt this spell. If it doesn’t work, I don’t think we’ll get another chance to try.”

“Why not?” Penny says. “We can use different items, write different incantations…”

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