Page 70 of The Glittering Edge

She doesn’t know the true Alonso. Nobody does.

Penny sidles up to Alonso and places a hand on his shoulder. It’s kind of pathetic, but it’s better than doing nothing. Alonso looks up at her, his forehead gleaming with sweat.

Then he shrugs her hand off.

Penny looks away, trying to hide how red her face has become. She shouldn’t have touched him; she crossed the line. It’s not like they’re friends. They have a common goal and that’s it.

If only Milton could snap his fingers and make Penny disappear.

Corey stands off to the side of the room, pressed against the curtains with his arms crossed. “Does this mean you’ll help us?”

“I’ll help,” Milton says, “but I’m going to keep a distance.”

“Then you won’t do the curse-breaker spell with us?” Penny says. “Even after Alonso signed the blood oath?”

“I’m going to keep Alonso’s secret,” Milton says, rolling up the scroll. “But I don’t want to bring bad luck on my family because I got my hands dirty with the curse-breaker. I can give you resources and that’s it.”

Penny grits her teeth. Alonso nearly died, and Milton is going to give them “resources.” He sounds like a bad guidance counselor. “We need more than that.”

“I’ll send you a link to SkyCat. It’s the online database of magical texts. You’ll be able to look through case studies of previous curses, read through their incantations, see what items they used to anchor the spell. That’ll have to be enough.”

Except it’s not. Before she can stop herself, Penny says, “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not right to punish an entire coven for the mistakes of one witch?”

Now they’re all looking at her. Milton’s eyes have been kind, but now they’re guarded.

“This isn’t your world,” he says, “so save your feedback.”

Alonso pushes to his feet. He’s shaky, but Penny doesn’t try to help him. Her hand is burning from when he shrugged her off.

“There’s one more thing you can do,” Alonso says.

Milton doesn’t look convinced, but he waits for Alonso to continue.

“You can tell us if there were any other active covens in Idlewood at the time the Barrions were cursed,” Alonso says.

Corey tenses, but he doesn’t argue. Milton raises an eyebrow. “Why does that matter?”

Penny jumps in. “We need to cover all our bases. If there’s even the slightest chance that this curse could’ve come from another coven, we need to know.”

Corey shakes his head. “C’mon, Penny. Really?”

Penny swallows, remembering the face of Giovanni De Luca. Whether her dream really happened or not, he certainly looked like the kind of person who would curse generations of people because of a bruised ego. But she makes herself say, “It can’t hurt to know for sure.”

Milton considers Alonso. “Do you have any reason to believe Giovanni was innocent?”

Alonso pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I know my grandpa was the likely candidate. But my family was always convinced there was more to the story.”

“Of course they were,” Corey mutters.

“Alonso said the curse-breaker could take a lot out of us,” Penny says. “We might not be able to try the spell again. This could be our only shot.”

Milton nods. “Not sure it’s worth our time, but I’ll look into it.” He holds up the blood oath. “I guess I owe you that much.”

“I guess you do,” Alonso says.

Corey pushes off the wall. He walks over to Alonso, who glares at him.

“C’mon,” Corey says. “I’ll help you get outside.”

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