I’m not the only one who would end up hurt, either—how will Miles feel if he gets attached to me, and Alex and I break up? It’s horrible, at any age, to have someone you love and depend on suddenly disappear from your life. But it’s more confusing for children, who don’t understandwhy, who might blame themselves.
I have only one hard and fast rule for dating.Nobody with children. I’ve never voiced this out loud to anyone, because it might make me sound insensitive. But I can’t go through what I did with Adalyn, again.
And yet? Do I have a choice? It’sAlex.
Yes, I have a choice, I argue with myself, washing my hands under the spigot, rinsing off my trowel and gloves to prevent mixing magics with their next use. Cross-pollinating protection spells with any other, such as spells for weather, could result in any number of small calamities.End this now, gracefully, before you get in too deep.
I’m overwhelmed. I need help. Withwhat, exactly, or from whom, remains unclear.
Up above the pergola embroidered with purple wisteria and soft, tiny lights that twinkle like fairies, a window in the apartment screeches open. A head of blond curls leans out. “It’s midnight, little garden elf,” Luna observes, fresh-faced from a bath. “Wanna talk about it?”
I sigh. “Maybe.”
She shuts the window, waiting for me up in her apartment.
Jingle and Snapdragon are stretched out on Luna’s bed, engines purring, their paws curling and uncurling. Snapdragon contorts himself to rub the top of his head against my knee as I climb under the covers beside my sister.
Luna’s bedroom is a nest of treasures: suncatchers hanging in the big round window, glow-in-the-dark cat eyes painted on the wardrobe doors. Rows of books by Tamora Pierce. There’s a gold birdcage hanging from the rafters, stuffed with dried Spanish moss and a plush fox from our childhood that we believe might hold a two-thousand-year-old sleeping demon. Glass-front cabinets display such riches as falling-apart vintage spellbooks, our grandmother’s perfumes, special editions ofTributalesbooks, quartz known as “witch’s fingers.” Jareth’s crystal ball with Sarah trapped inside, fromLabyrinth, which Luna won in a contest she found on the back of a cereal box. Harmonicas. A Disney World viewfinder souvenir of a vignette featuring us sisters barreling down Splash Mountain; every time I hold it up to my eye like a pirate’s spyglass, I’m immersed in sunscreen and ocean, the music of Main Street, USA, and the awe of watching fireworks boom over the parade.
“The silver moth prophecy needs to hurry up and play itself out,” I say, reaching out to spin the mottled blue plastic ball of a world globe. Antarctica rolls face up like the losing number on a die.
Yes. That’s exactly where I should go to escape my mess.
“Why do you say that?” Luna closes her door, revealing an oldDeath Becomes Herposter taped to this side, the corners curling. She removes her septum ring and earrings, which fall withclinks into a dish, then rubs lotion onto her hands and elbows as she pads to the bed. Moves aside a bowl of milk with three Froot Loops floating around the spoon’s handle as if magnetized by it, which she must have set down when she heard me in the garden. Peculiar, since I don’t think I was making much noise.
“Once I meet my one true love,” I tell her, “I won’t ever think about Alexander King again. And then I won’t have to feel this way again.” Desperate. Unmoored.
“Ahh.” She snuggles beside me. “Unless you’re thein over her headsister.”
I make a face. “No.”
She taps my nose. “Have you considered that maybe—”
“Rawrrghhhh!” a small shape shrieks, throwing open the bedroom door and diving at us like a flying squirrel. Jingle’s a quick flash of ebony, diving under the bed.
“Ash!” Luna and I cry.
“You’re having a party in here without me. How cruel!”
“We’re not having a party.” Luna ruffles Ash’s bangs. “Go back to bed. It’s a school night.”
Aisling burrows under the quilt like a mole, tunneling her way up to the pillows to make herself at home between us. She closes her eyes and breathes heavily, pretending to be asleep. Luna and I lock eyes, amused.
“Just keep talking like I’m not here,” Ash whispers, eyes still closed.
“We were discussing what sort of summer school we should send you to,” I tease. “Math camp? Or maybe one especially for...dodgeball.”
“I bet you two were really gossiping aboutboys,” Ash reports sourly. “Mom, I heard you on the phone telling Great-Aunt Misty that Aunt Romina is still in love with—”
Luna muffles the end of Ash’s sentence with her hand. “Shh! You little eavesdropper.”
I smack Luna with a pillow. “She gets it fromyou.”
“Well, she gets her big mouth from—”
“Shut up.” Now it’s Luna’s turn to have her mouth covered. I slap a hand over it, sitting up. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Both of them still, ears perking.
