Page 69 of The Glittering Edge

It’s the Second World. Alonso can see it across the Veil. And standing in it, its form shimmering, is a shadow.

It’s amorphous, darkness corralled into the shape of limbs and torso and head. And even though it has no eyes—no face at all—Alonso feels it staring at him.

“Alonso!”

The voice breaks him from his trance. Penny is suddenly in front of him, blocking the shadow figure from view.

“It’s too late,” Milton says. “He needs to see this to the end.”

Alonso tunes them out. All he can do is stare at Penny—blue eyes, errant curls, a few freckles on her cheekbones.

“One letter at a time,” Penny says.

So Alonso writes one letter, then another, then another. Penny stays with him, and he measures time by her breaths as he writes the final sentence:If given the choice, I will give my life to save others from this curse.

Milton appears beside Penny, an ornate knife clutched in his hand. “I swear this on the moon, on my ancestors, and on my life.”

Alonso almost blacks out. The world in front of him is a blur, his hand no more than a strange animal shape moving across the scroll. But when his vision clears, the words are legible, though the blue-black ink drips in messy rivulets down the page.

Alonso gives Milton his left hand—it’s like lifting a car, it takes so much effort, but it’s nothing compared to the pain when Milton takes the knife and slashes Alonso across the palm. A sound lets loose from Alonso’s throat that’s somewhere between a scream and a sob, and Milton holds his hand over the animal hide, letting the cut drip and drip and drip, each bead of blood absorbed by the hide. After a moment, at the very bottom of the page, his name appears.

Alonso Pietro De Luca.

Alonso is almost at the finish line. Then he looks past Milton.

The Veil is still visible, its silken weft obscuring the Second World beyond. The Shadow is gone, but there’s somebody else there now. Someone who’s watching him with a careless, familiar grin.

It’s almost like looking into a mirror, even though the man staring back is a decade older, and there’s a scar along his chin.

But it’s his eyes that draw Alonso in. Eyes that are pure white.

“Grandpa?” Alonso gasps.

From across the Veil, Giovanni De Luca smiles. “You don’t even know how much power you have.”

The words surround Alonso like a tornado. Giovanni is staring at Alonso with hunger—hunger for his life. Hunger for his magic.

And Alonso doesn’t have the strength to fight him.

Arms wrap around Alonso and pull him back, away from the blood oath. Suddenly he’s lying face up on the floor of the emporium, and his body feels like his own. He lifts his hands; the left one is bloodied, but they aren’t old anymore. His lungs breathe easily. It’s like the blood oath never happened, except he feels hollowed out like a Roman candle, and there are spots in his vision.

But it did happen. He saw the Veil again.

He saw his grandfather.

There’s only one reason Giovanni De Luca would still be in the Second World. After almost fifty years, his spirit should’ve moved on by now, to whatever realm is next. If he’s there, he’s not a spirit anymore.

Giovanni is a poltergeist.

Penny

AS MILTON MURMURS A SPELL, ALONSO’S SKIN KNITS TOGETHER LIKEcloth, the redness fading to purple. Penny is mesmerized by it. When it’s over, the cut is halfway healed, but Alonso has a faraway look in his eyes.

During the blood oath, it was like the air was sucked out of the room. There was a moment when Alonso looked past Milton, and whatever he saw made him pale as a ghost. His skin turned gray, and he looked almost translucent. As if he was in the room with them, but also not. All Penny knew was she needed to make him see her instead, to keep him present. It was a strange instinct, and who knows if it even worked.

Why did you agree to this?Penny wants to ask.Why didn’t you bail?

Before this summer, if you had asked Penny whether Alonso De Luca would willingly risk his life to help a random girl and his family’s greatest enemy, Penny would’ve laughed. Now she can’t make herself say anything.

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