For fans of Stephanie Garber and Holly Black comes the bewitching sequel to The Glittering Edge, where magic is real, witches make irresistible boyfriends, and keeping secrets is dangerous—but not as dangerous as the truth.
Penny Emberly didn’t expect to fall head over heels for Alonso De Luca last summer—or to discover that he’s a witch. Together with their friend Corey Barrion, they managed to save her mother from a deadly spell. Now autumn has arrived, and Penny believes they can take on anything.
But darkness is descending on the small town of Idlewood. Corey is desperate to undo the bloody legacy that made his family rich. The price, however, is steep: to unravel the magical bargain made by his grandfather, Corey must take a life.
As Corey wrestles with an impossible choice, Alonso begins to change. The more he pushes the limits of his magic, the more volatile, violent, and possessive he becomes. When tragedy strikes one of their classmates, the trio is forced to confront a terrifying question: is Alonso being consumed by something that’s bent on the destruction of everyone around him—especially Penny and Corey?
As supernatural forces drive them apart, Penny, Corey, and Alonso must decide what they’re willing to sacrifice before more blood is spilled—even if it means losing each other.
Release date:
May 19, 2026
Publisher:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Print pages:
320
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Boxer’s Irish Pub is already full to the brim by the time he gets there. Everyone is dressed up in shiny polyester, horror movie masks, and tangled wigs. Old pop-EDM crossover hits from the 2010s are barely audible over clinking glasses and too-loud laughter.
From his vantage point near the makeshift stage, Corey shifts in his plastic chainmail. Every few minutes his football teammates remember they dragged him here, and they pull him into the conversation like he’s a balloon threatening to drift away. He nods and smiles as he marvels for the tenth time that night that nodding and smiling might be his only valuable skills.
Every time the conversation loses him, Corey’s eyes wander back to the door—where, any minute now, Penny Emberly is going to appear.
He didn’t tell her he changed his mind about tonight. He’ll make excuses, but she won’t be mad anyway. Especially once Alonso arrives to distract her.
That thought makes Corey’s stomach twist.
He tries to focus on watching the band set up onstage instead. There are cords being hooked into amps, mics being tested, plugs being inserted into ears. It’s chaotic and at least one of the band members is rolling their eyes, visibly stressed and anxious. But something about it brings Corey comfort.
Before long, though, Corey glances at the door again—just as it opens, letting in a blast of wind from outside. And with that wind comes Penny.
Corey cranes his neck to see her through the bodies. She’s wearing a short black dress, and she’s got some kind of prop in her hand. She stops to talk to the bouncer, who shouts and gives her an enthusiastic hug. This must be Sly. She’s recognizable from her place behind a drum set in the numerous Quicklime posters that are scattered on the walls of the bar:
QUICKLIME RETURNS FOR A TWO-WEEK RESIDENCY IN IDLEWOOD!
ALBUM RELEASE PARTY!
Y2K CONCERT—COME CELEBRATE THE END OF THE WORLD!
Corey takes a long pull from his beer bottle. He’ll say hi to Penny later. Ideally as he’s on his way out the door.
“Hey.”
At first, Corey doesn’t recognize the petite woman in the black wig. Then she glances up, and Corey’s composure cracks like glass.
It’s Dylan Mayberry. His ex-girlfriend.
“Oh,” he chokes out. “Hi.”
She sips a bright blue beverage and doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t leave, either, so Corey clears his throat and continues. “How are you?”
She eyes the band’s lead singer, a guy wearing what some people might call a tank top but which Corey would call two pieces of fabric barely held together at the seams. “Single. You?”
“Also single.” He pauses. “I knew you’d be here.”
“You almost sound happy.”
Corey can’t help it; he smiles. “I am. It’s good to see you.”
Whatever Dylan thinks of this comment, she shrugs it off. “You know me. I hate to miss a party.”
“Any bullying planned?”
Dylan’s smile fades. “Come on.”
“It’s a valid question.”
“No, Corey. I’m trying this thing where I don’t get drunk and do stuff like that.” She lifts up her glass. “This is nonalcoholic.”
“Cool,” Corey says, and he means it.
The tension between them dissipates for a moment. It would be so easy for them to fall back into old habits. To dance together, to fit their lips against each other’s like they’ve done thousands of times before. The thought might’ve been comforting to Corey last summer.
Not anymore.
Royce Montalban appears beside Dylan and whispers something in her ear. Dylan looks unenthused, but she shrugs and follows him. Just like that, she’s gone.
A guitar growls, and Corey turns around just as the band members are pulling on werewolf masks. A few ancient stage lights change from white to red. The lead singer has to put the mic halfway into the werewolf mask’s mouth to be heard over the crowd.
“Idlewood! Our favorite dump!”
A wave of sound rises—boos and cheers melding into a roar. The guitarist begins a descending riff that quickly turns hypnotic as the rest of the instruments join in. The sound quality is so bad that the lyrics are mostly inaudible, but people start dancing anyway.
Someone elbows him in the side, and for a second Corey wonders if he’s going to be in the middle of a mosh pit. Then the person who elbowed him yells, “BOO!” and Corey realizes he’s standing next to the human version of a mosh pit.
Alonso De Luca grins from under a pair of devil horns attached to a headband. His entire outfit is red: button-up shirt, pleather pants, and even his shoes have been spray-painted. Alonso holds out a hand, and Corey grins as he grabs it and claps him on the back. “Hey, man.”
“You came out!” Alonso nods at the stage. “You’re really into the band, huh?”
“Not really.” The moment the words come out of his mouth, Corey doesn’t know why he denied it. “It’s a good song.”
“Of course it is. It’s The Cramps.”
“Who?” Corey shouts over the noise.
“The Cramps! ‘Human Fly’? You’ve never heard this before?”
Corey shakes his head, but he makes a mental note to look them up when he gets home. This song almost makes him feel guilty, like he’s not supposed to enjoy it, even though he’s the one who decides what he does and doesn’t like. But Corey’s life is orderly, and this song is loose and angry and messy.
Maybe that’s why he’s drawn to it, though. What would it feel like to be onstage performing a song like this? To sway to the music and ignore the shocked faces in the crowd? To not care that anyone might be judging him?
Good, Corey thinks. It would feel good.
Alonso’s grin fades. “So how’ve you been? Since…”
Corey is saved from having to answer by the song ending. The bar erupts in cheers, and Corey claps, pretending he didn’t hear the question. Either Alonso is easily distracted or he got the hint, because he lets it drop as the next song starts up.
It’s weird, just existing around Alonso like this. Corey isn’t used to it, but he’s getting there. Idlewood, though? They don’t know what to make of the enemies-turned-almost-friends. From the corner of his eye, Corey can see the phones raised in their direction, as if there isn’t a much more interesting werewolf band playing three feet in front of them.
If Alonso notices the attention from the crowd, he doesn’t care. Or maybe he’s basking in it. He looks around them with a small grin on his face, and then he does a double take.
“Hide me, hide me,” he says, ducking around Corey and crouching down.
The crowd shifts, and a straw broom emerges from between the bodies. “Sorry!” comes Penny’s voice as she and Naomi appear. Naomi has used makeup to turn herself into one of the blue aliens from the Avatar movies, but Penny’s costume is more subtle. Unless you happened to spend the summer doing magic with her.
“You’re a witch?” Corey asks, grinning.
“I already had a black dress in my closet.” Penny beams up at him. “You made it!” She shifts to give him a one-armed hug, and he doesn’t look at her as he wraps an arm around her shoulders, barely touching her before he lets go and steps back.
Except he forgets that Alonso is behind him.
Corey gasps as he bumps into him. There’s a yelp as Alonso falls, narrowly missing the lead singer. The guitars screech to a halt.
“Whoa!” The singer jumps back. “Hey, it’s our stage, man!”
Corey shouts an apology and leans forward, reaching out to help Alonso up. But Alonso grins and gets to his feet onstage.
“Alonso?” Penny says, a hint of panic in her voice. “What are you doing?”
Alonso grabs the mic from the singer, who starts yelling something about getting security. But Alonso ignores him, and he leans into the red light as a grin spreads over his face.
“I just wanted to say something!” Alonso’s eyes lock on Penny. His grin flickers, and for a moment he looks like he’s forgotten that he just interrupted a band’s set.
“Hey,” he says, “I love you.”
Corey rolls his eyes as the crowd screams. Alonso lets the mic stand fall back into the singer’s hands as he hops off the stage.
“Such a drama queen,” Naomi shouts at Alonso, but Penny pulls him against her.
“That was embarrassing,” Penny mutters, but she’s smiling. He wraps his arms around her and presses his lips to the top of her head.
Corey clears his throat and tries to ignore the strange tightness in his chest. The longing for this thing he still can’t have.
This is why he shouldn’t have come tonight. He doesn’t want to be angry at anyone else for being happy. And if this past summer taught him anything, it’s that Corey can’t trust himself. Not his words, and not his actions.
Especially where Penny and Alonso are concerned.
“Your hair!” Naomi says.
Corey glances back at Alonso, and that’s when he notices it.
“Whoa,” Corey says. “It’s red.”
Alonso reaches up and touches the neon red ends of his hair. The blue is still visible in a couple spots, but mostly, Alonso’s hair is as bright as the stage lights.
Penny gasps. “It was blue at school today! When did you do it?”
“An hour ago. You like it?”
“I know you’re only asking Penny,” Naomi says, “but I think it makes you look deranged.”
“Nice.”
The Teenage Werewolves launch into their next song as if people interrupt them to give declarations of love during every show. Penny runs her fingers through the ends of Alonso’s hair, her eyes soft.
“I love it,” Penny says. “And you.”
“I know,” Alonso says, beaming.
“No making out,” Naomi says. “It’s too hetero in here already.”
Alonso laughs as he and Penny disentangle themselves. Then he bumps Corey’s shoulder. “I’m going to get some root beer. Want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Corey says.
As he follows Alonso through the crowd and puts space between himself and Penny, the knots in Corey’s stomach begin to unfurl. When they have their drinks, Alonso rests his back against the edge of the bar and considers Corey. “So what’s up with you?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, what’s going on? Penny and I barely hear from you anymore.”
Corey tries to laugh it off, but dread encroaches, crawling up his body like a million tiny spiders. “Just busy. Lots of stuff happening with the company.”
“She’s worried about you.” Alonso looks off into the crowd. “So am I.”
Corey snorts. “Really?”
But Alonso doesn’t smile. “I hated your grandfather, but I never wanted him to die.”
Corey stares at the floor. Ever since the murder of his grandfather, Charles Barrion, at the end of the summer, people have treated him like he’s fragile, just like they did when his mom died. Everyone talks around it as if acknowledging it directly will cause Corey to have a breakdown. He wishes people could just say what they’re thinking.
But now, hearing Alonso’s blunt words, Corey isn’t so sure that’s what he wants after all.
“We’re dealing with it,” Corey says.
“You want us to come over? See if we can find the spell?”
When they learned his grandfather had created a bargain sacrificing the lives of Barrion loved ones in exchange for the success of their company, they also found out that the only way to undo it is to create another bargain that cancels it out. Corey will have to make a sacrifice to set it in motion, just like his grandfather did.
And his grandfather killed someone.
Corey’s entire body buzzes with anxiety, as if he can run from the reality of what he has to do. But of course he can’t.
If Corey wants to save his family, he’ll have to kill someone, too. Someone important to him.
“I can’t think about that yet,” Corey says.
“Hey,” Alonso says, “maybe there’s another way.”
“If Milton says there isn’t, I believe him.” Milton Pierre is another witch who helped them save Penny’s mom last summer. The scion of the Pierre coven, one of the most powerful witch families in the world, Milton knows his way around magic in a way Alonso doesn’t. And according to him, bargains can only be counteracted. Not broken, like curses.
Alonso opens his mouth to say something else, but a short man with greasy hair appears from the crowd and shoves Alonso to get to the bar. Alonso jerks aside, his root beer bottle falling from his hand and crashing into a million shards on the floor.
The guy who pushed him doesn’t even look up.
Alonso stares at the broken bottle for half a second. Corey’s hands are up, as if he’s about to defuse a very fragile, very deadly bomb. But Alonso doesn’t explode. He just leans back against the bar like nothing happened.
“I’ll get you another one,” Corey says.
But Alonso sighs, and suddenly he doesn’t seem angry at all. “It was empty anyway. Let’s find Penny and Naomi?”
People do change, apparently. Corey grins, and he’s about to say yes, they should go back into the swarm.
Until slurred words cut into their conversation.
“Well. It’s Corey Barrion.” The drunk man steps back from the bar and sizes Corey up. “Out spending daddy’s money, are you?”
The man’s words send a prickle of unease over Corey’s skin. “Excuse me?”
“Must be nice,” the man says, “sitting in your pretty house while the people who work for you suffer.”
“Whoa, Keith,” the bartender says, and then she turns to Corey. “He’s had too many drinks, Mr. Barrion. I’m sorry, just ignore him!“
Mr. Barrion. That makes Corey squirm. This bartender is at least twenty years older than him.
Keith sneers. “You get to ignore me every other day of your life. Not today, though.” He steps closer to Corey. Alonso is a foot away, still leaning back on the bar. His eyes are closed, and he looks like he’s doing an elaborate breathing exercise.
Stay out of this, Corey wants to tell him, but already Keith is grabbing the collar of Corey’s shirt.
“I lost my job because of your old man,” Keith spits. “Thirty years I worked on that manufacturing floor, and then my job becomes obsolete. I’ve got nothing now, and you still have everything! Does that sound right to you?”
The heat in the bar becomes unbearable. This isn’t just some belligerent stranger who’s had too many drinks; he was laid off from Barrion Heating & Cooling.
Freshman year of high school, Corey arrived at his locker to see that someone had written on it with permanent marker: THERE R NO ETHICAL BILLIONAIRES.
He’d wanted to find the culprit more than anything. To tell them what his family suffered as a result of this curse, but how they persevered. How, despite everything, they kept Idlewood afloat when all other companies shut down or left. Most billionaires seemed bad, it was true. But the Barrions were the exception.
Corey is glad he never found out who graffitied his locker. Because after he learned what his grandfather did to their family, Corey realized the Barrions aren’t the exception after all.
Corey almost wants to apologize, but through the haze of his panic he knows that would be the worst thing he could say. What does it matter if he’s sorry? That won’t get Keith his job back.
“Sly!” the bartender calls, running out from behind the bar. More people are looking at them now, whispering and laughing and staring with wide eyes.
“You need to let go of me,” Corey says, trying to keep his voice even.
“Or what? You’ll start crying?” Keith scoffs. “Bet you’ve never felt any pain your entire life.”
Whatever Corey was going to say next disappears from his mind like this man reached down his throat and stole the words. All Corey can do is gape at him.
Corey’s mom. His uncle Jason. His cousin’s genius husband, Ramón. And everything that happened this past summer—all the fear and risks taken and lives almost lost.
Please see it when you look at me, Corey thinks. See how wrong you are.
Keith just grins, the red lights from the bar reflecting off his teeth. “How about I introduce you to the real world?” he says, and he lifts his fist to throw a punch.
There’s a blur of motion, and Corey is shoved back, stumbling a few steps before he catches himself on the bar.
Keith is on the floor, wailing as he clutches his nose. Blood gushes from between his fingers.
Alonso stands in front of him, shaking out his fist. He throws a look over his shoulder. “You good?”
“Fine,” Corey manages to say.
Sly appears in front of them. Her eyes aren’t on the injured man; they’re just on Alonso. “De Luca. You promised to behave.”
“I know.” Alonso runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll leave.”
Alonso sweeps by Corey, clapping him on the shoulder before he disappears into the night, leaving only a gust of cold air in his wake.
PENNY BURSTS ONTO THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF BOXER’S. A FEW people stand outside smoking, and they glance up at her before quickly returning to their conversations. Penny is still holding her broom, but she lost her witch’s hat in the crowd. It belongs to Boxer’s now.
“Alonso!” she shouts, looking all around. But he’s nowhere.
Corey found her in the crowd after the fight, if you want to call it that. And when Penny checked her texts, there was one message from Alonso:
i’ll meet you outside.
“Alonso!” Penny calls again.
“Penny?” someone says. It’s Aidan Lostis, Alonso’s friend. He has his arms wrapped around a thin person in a hot dog costume. “You looking for Alonso?”
“Yeah, have you seen him?”
“He went that way.” Aidan gestures behind them, up the street. He gives her a sympathetic smile. “I recognize that look. Did he do something?”
“Corey was attacked,” Penny says. “I guess Alonso stepped in.”
“Look at him, being all noble,” Aidan says.
Penny tries to smile, but she can’t ignore the anxious feeling in her stomach. This is the first fight Alonso has been in since the summer. Part of her wants to defend him even though nobody asked for that, and the other part of her wants to apologize on his behalf.
“I’m going to find him,” Penny says. “See you at school?”
“See you,” Aidan says, already pulling his date down for a kiss.
Penny runs past Village Blues Records and through downtown Idlewood. As she reaches Horizon Café—a periwinkle hole-in-the-wall that her mom and godfather have owned and operated for over a decade—she stops. In the dark windows of the café, she sees herself: hair permanently disheveled, tight dress riding up, eyeliner making her look less like a sexy witch and more like a shocked mouse. She wipes the black smudges from beneath her eyes and then wipes her hands on her dress.
“Smooth.”
Penny gasps. Reflected in the window, Alonso stands a few feet behind her with a small smile on his face. His devil-horn headband is gone, and a few more buttons on his red shirt have come undone, revealing a sliver of his chest.
“There you are,” she says, turning around. “I thought you’d—”
She stops. There’s nobody there.
Penny’s eyes move from side to side. She can already feel herself smiling, but she tries not to let it show. “Huh. I thought I saw my boyfriend.” She shrugs. “Guess I’ll go home!”
She turns on her heel to leave, but she immediately bumps into Alonso’s chest, which materializes out of thin air. He wraps his arms around her, and she does the same. She doesn’t even think about touching him anymore; it’s like a reflex. Instinct.
“Invisibility spell?” Penny says.
“Yeah.” Alonso rests his chin on top of her head. “I switched out the amaranth for chicory. Lets me be visible in mirrors and windows. Creepy, right?”
“If by creepy you mean hot…”
Alonso lifts her chin. In the low light from the streetlamps, there’s a blush barely visible on his cheeks. I did that, Penny thinks.
“I would tell you creepy shouldn’t be hot,” Alonso says, “but in this case, I’ll allow it.”
The memory of the events at Boxer’s interrupts Penny’s reverie, and her smile falls. “Are you—”
Alonso puts a finger to her lips. It makes whatever she was about to ask—are you okay, did you hurt yourself, why did you have to hurt that man—evaporate. All she can think about is the feel of his strong hand, so much bigger than her own, as it touches her mouth. Heat floods her limbs, making her lightheaded.
“I have something to show you,” Alonso says.
His hand drops to grab hers, and then they’re weaving through Idlewood at night.
The streets are abandoned. Not a single car drives by, and trick-or-treaters have gone home for the night. As Penny and Alonso move from Main Street into Penny’s neighborhood, the laughter and music of Halloween parties occasionally interrupt the crickets. When they hear a slow, mournful song coming through someone’s screen door, Alonso stops and blinks as if he’s just woken up from a dream. The song is fuzzy, like the recording is from the early days of music, but the voice is soaring.
“What is it?” Penny asks.
“The Ink Spots.”
Penny doesn’t get a chance to ask who that is; already Alonso is pulling her close, wrapping one arm around her waist.
And just like that, they’re dancing in the street.
Alonso whispers the lyrics to her. Penny has never heard the song before, but she closes her eyes and lets the words wash over her: something about setting the world on fire, and burning flames in hearts, and having only one desire.
When the song ends, they keep walking. Alonso holds her hand against his chest, keeping it warm.
Is this real life? Penny wonders, but she can’t question it. She just breathes in the chilly night air until it makes her lungs sting.
Gradually, the houses give way to trees and the rush of water. They stop by the Porter River, which divides central and northern Idlewood. The water is thirty feet below them. Running across the river is a railway bridge, massive and rusting and echoing with eerie whispers as the wind moves through the tangle of metal beams that hold it in the air.
“We’re here,” Alonso says.
Penny looks around, trying to figure out what he so desperately wants to show her. Before she finds it, Alonso takes off running toward the bridge.
Penny laughs as she follows him, but when he starts running on the bridge itself, she stops. There’s a rotting wooden guardrail on either side that will save literally nobody. This close to the edge, the drop into the foaming river looks much higher. Penny’s heart pounds painfully against her ribs.
Alonso doesn’t stop until he gets to the middle of the bridge. He looks up at the night sky, beaming like a little boy. Above them, a gibbous moon glows behind smoky clouds.
A low call disrupts Penny’s thoughts, and she squints into the distance as she listens. There it is again, and this time, she recognizes it.
A train whistle.
Alonso is too far out. He’ll get trapped.
“Come back!” Penny calls. “There’s a train!”
Alonso grins at her. Then he ducks under the guardrail.
That’s what it takes for Penny to run onto the bridge. By the time she reaches the spot where Alonso stood, he’s disappeared.
Penny leans over the edge, looking down into the churning water. “ALONSO!” she screams, searching desperately for him. He could’ve survived this fall, right? If he jumped, he must’ve known that he would be okay.
Then his head appears from only a few feet underneath her, and Penny lets out a truncated yell. “What are you doing?!”
“There’s a platform,” Alonso says. “Come on!”
Penny grits her teeth. The train is getting closer by the minute, and the chill in the autumn air is making her hands go numb. Or maybe that’s the stress.
“You’ll catch me?”
Alonso’s smile fades. “Always, Penny.”
And she believes him.
She moves slowly: ducking under the rail, kneeling down, dangling one leg. There’s a warm pressure on her calf: Alonso’s hand, holding her steady, reassuring her. She activates the little bit of upper body strength she has, and Alonso’s arms wrap around her, lowering her slowly until her feet touch the floor. Then he grabs her around the ribs, and she lets go of the bridge as he guides her underneath it.
Penny looks down and she gasps, clinging to the metal beam closest to her. What Alonso described as a “platform” is really a strip of metal between the support beams underneath the bridge. The metal doesn’t extend all the way across, and one wrong step in either direction will send them careening into the river.
The train whistle blows again, still a ways off.
“You hang out here a lot?” Penny asks in a shaky voice.
Alonso laughs. “Heard about it from some people at bike polo.” He points to some scratches in the metal: MOLLY WAS HERE!!!, J + A FOREVER, DIAL THIS NUMBER FOR SEX XOXOXO. Penny blushes and drags her eyes back up to Alonso’s face. The wind down here is much more intense, and Alonso’s newly red hair blows around his face. He holds on to the beams above him, and the necklaces he always wears make light, musical sounds as they clink against each other.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
Penny blushes. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
He steps closer until Penny’s back is pressed against the beam behind her.
Against her will, Penny thinks about the looks they got at Boxer’s. It happens every day at school, too: people laughing behind their hands or whispering to each other as Penny and Alonso walk by. She tries to ignore all of it, but when she lies down at night, sleep doesn’t come. She just hears their whispers.
They’re really dating?
Six months ago, Penny wouldn’t have believed it, either. But for some reason, when other people say it, it hurts so much more.
Every day, Penny wonders if Alonso will realize they’re right. Now that they’re together and Alonso has stopped the boxing matches with Corey, people aren’t as afraid of him as they once were. She sees the way girls look at him. Alonso could have anyone he wanted.
So why would he choose her?
“Hey.”
Reluctantly, she looks up at him.
“Where’d you go?” Alonso whispers. His voice gets carried away by the wind, but Penny can read his lips.
“Nowhere.”
Alonso contemplates her. She expects him to push for a real answer, but he just reaches up with both hands and brushes her hair away from her face. She glances at his mouth, and then she can’t look away. Alonso lets out a low breath.
“You can’t look at me like that,” he mutters.
“Why not?”
Instead of answering her, Alonso leans in and presses his lips to hers.
The kiss is slow at first. Steady. Reassuring. But the wind picks up, and Penny pulls him closer, opening her mouth to breathe him in. He gasps, and Penny can feel his tongue against hers. He uses one hand to tilt her head up, and he moves his mouth down to her chin, her neck, and Penny’s breathing grows ragged.
“I want you,” he whispers into her neck. “You’re all I think about. Every day…”
“That’s not—” True. She manages to stop that final word before it leaves her lips. But Alonso is already pulling back, letting the cold wind in between them.
“Not what?”
Penny sighs, pushing her curls out of her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do. So tell me.”
The words spill from her like water. “I don’t know why! Why you want me.”
Alonso narrows his eyes at her. Then he turns his gaze to the river below them.
“You make me want to be better,” he says. “Better than I am.”
Hesitantly, Penny reaches out and grabs a fistful of his red silk shirt. “You’re already good, Alonso. With or without me.”
Alonso lifts his hand so she can see his bruised knuckles. “I don’t think so.”
Penny lets her eyes run over his hand. Then she grabs it and brings his knuckles to her lips. Alonso softens, stepping closer to her again.
“It’s hard for me to believe, too,” he whispers. “That you want this.”
“I do,” Penny says.
He presses his lips together. “It didn’t feel good, hurting that guy. But he deserved it.”
There’s a surety to his words that makes Penny shiver. She believes him, though. As she learned over the summer, Alonso isn’t the person she thought he was. He doesn’t go looking for violence.
Still.
“Even if he deserved it,” Penny begins, “you’re strong. You have the power to really hurt people.” Because fistfights aren’t the only weapon in Alonso’s arsenal. According to Milton, Alonso is also one of the most powerful witches alive. Penny would be lying if she said that didn’t scare her. But she won’t tell Alonso that. Believing in someone isn’t always easy. It’s a choice.
Alonso considers her, his gaze unrelenting. Then he nods. “Yeah. You’re right. I—”
His words are cut off by the . . .
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