Page 8 of The Glittering Edge

And they’re both right.

Does Corey want people to know about the family curse? No. If everyone knew, they wouldn’t just pity Corey—they would be afraidof getting too close. Keeping it a secret means Corey can pretend to be normal. But in moments like this, with the De Lucas looking him in the face when they should be begging for forgiveness, Corey wishes he could shout it through a megaphone:

The De Lucas killed my mom! They killed so many members of my family! And if I ever fall in love, whoever she is, she’ll die, too!

It’s the reality that has haunted him ever since his mom died, when he realized that no one in his family would escape this curse untouched. Corey never had a chance at normalcy.

“My family,” Vera says, “already paid the price for what my dad did. The Council sealed our magic forever. You know this. What more do you want from us?”

“James.” Aunt Helen’s delicate hand alights on her brother’s shoulder. “It’s late. Let’s go inside.”

“No,” Corey’s dad snarls, pushing Aunt Helen’s hand away and jabbing a finger in Vera’s direction. “This will never end until you leave this town forever. I want everyone in Idlewood to forget your family ever existed.”

His words make even the cicadas go quiet. Corey stands at his dad’s side, and for a second, he thinks it’s over.

He’s wrong. Immediately, Alonso throws his head back, howling with laughter. “Are you joking? None of you assholes will ever forget about us. The curse hasn’t killed anyone in years, but we’re all you think about, aren’t we? Admit it, you’d miss us.”

Time slows at his words. There are shouts from the Barrions, but Corey can’t hear them. He gets the sensation he’s falling even though his body hasn’t moved an inch. Corey remembers the way Alonso singled out Penny Emberly at the party. Quiet, reserved Penny, who has probably never spoken a word to a De Luca in her life. Corey could see the mortification in her face, and it made it impossible to walk away from them. It was better to redirect Alonso’s attention than let him bully someone who didn’t deserve it. But that’s what Alonso’s family does: They scare and hurt people, and they enjoy every second of it.

“Howdareyou.”

The rage in Sofía Barrion’s voice brings Corey back to himself. She’s marching down the lawn in a silk robe, her long dark hair in a loose braid over her shoulder.

“How dare you mock us?” Sofía says, eyes trained on Alonso. “Do you know how many people we’ve lost because of you? Corey’s mother, my father, my own Ramón—”

James holds up a hand to silence Sofía. “You don’t have to remind them. They know. They just don’t care.”

Corey is rooted to the spot, watching his family fall apart. Aunt Helen starts whispering angrily to Corey’s dad. Sofía’s daughter, Camila, stands on the porch next to Julian, tears rolling down her face.

And through the front window of Meredith House, there’s movement.

The Barrions’ library sits in the front of the house, in a space that would usually be occupied by a living room. Its large window looks out onto the street—and onto the De Lucas’ home. Right now the drapes are pulled back, and while the lights are off, there’s a glow coming from the motion lights outside, and it lands on a figure in the window.

Charles Barrion watches the scene unfolding between his family and the coven that killed his wife. His chin is angled up, but his expression is unreadable from this distance.

Corey’s dad follows his gaze, and when he sees Charles Barrion standing in the window, his expression shutters. “Corey, go. Make sure he doesn’t come outside.”

This isn’t because Charles Barrion is senile, or he might trip down the stairs. Charles Barrion’s mind is sharp as ever. But James Barrion is afraid of what seeing the De Lucas might trigger in the Barrion patriarch. There’s a reason nobody is allowed to mention the De Lucas unless Corey’s grandfather mentions them first; he’s known to fly into a rage when the coven comes up.

Before Corey can go inside, Vera and Alonso retreat, walking past the overgrown gardens and broken statues that line the path to theirhouse. Alonso holds the front door open for his mom and aunts, but he looks at the Barrions one last time.

“If you want us gone, why don’t you just burn us at the stake? That’s how people used to handle this kind of thing.”

Before Alonso can say anything else, his mother grabs him by the ear and drags him inside.

Penny

WHEN PENNY WAKES UP, NAOMI’S SLEEPING BAG IS ALREADY GONE.She must’ve left to get an early start on filming her makeup tutorials. Penny stretches her arms above her head, breathing in the quiet morning—and there’s the scent of coffee. Strange. Nobody is supposed to be home.

“Mom?” she calls.

“In the kitchen, sweet pea.”

Anita Emberly is seated at their small dining table, which is actually a converted diner booth with cracked, comfortable brown seats. The table is overflowing with houseplants and bills and an unruly stack of tarot cards. When Penny walks in, her mom is writing in her diary, the pen moving fast across the lines. She’s wearing her favorite sundress, which is bright against her suntanned white skin. Her blond hair falls softly on her shoulders.

People are always surprised to find out they’re related. Maybe it’s because Penny looks like her dad, or because she knows how to blend into a crowd and stay away from drama. In that sense, Penny and her mom are opposites. Anita moved to Idlewood when she was in high school, but thanks to her determination to live exactly the way she wants, the town still treats her like an outsider. Penny’s early memories are a mishmash of whispered judgment: people at the grocery store falling silent as she and her mom walked by, or church ladies congregating outside the café just to peer in and whisper and shake theirheads. But Anita has never cared. Sometimes she starts friendly conversations just to make people uncomfortable. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a Hoosier who is bold enough to return your polite hello with silence. Instead, Idlewood’s residents save their whispers until Anita’s back is turned.

But they never cared if Penny heard. They never considered that their whispers would create a fight-or-flight response so intense that Penny would wish she was invisible.

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