“That was okay?”
“Yeah, very.”
“It’s easier when I don’t think.”
“As you’ve often told me.”
“Baz?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a car—there’s a car! I don’t know how to stop!”
12
PENELOPE
Micah’s mother answers the door, and she seems confused to see me. Which makes sense. I do live in London.
“Mrs. Cordero,” I say, “hello.”
“Penelope… it’s so good to see you. Micah didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Oh, it’s sort of a surprise,” I say. “It all came together really quickly. Is he here?”
“Yeah, come in, of course.”
I step into their house. I love this house. I stayed in the spare bedroom when I came to see Micah two summers ago. All the rooms are huge, and only the bedrooms and bathrooms (there arefourbathrooms) have doors. And everything—all the walls and furniture and the two dozen kitchen cabinets—is in peaceful shades of cream and tan.
There are at leastthreetan leather sofas.
There aretwobeige sitting rooms.
There’s wall-to-wall carpeting exactly the shade of porridge.
Ugh, it’s so comforting. My house is every colour, none ofthem planned. And our furniture is whatever colour it was when my father spotted it at a yard sale. Also, our house has stuff everywhere. Micah’s family must have stuffsomewhere,but you never see it. The only things on the coffee tables (how many coffee tables are there? easily nine) are cream-coloured vases with cream-coloured flowers and tan, marble lamps.
“I’ll just—” Mrs. Cordero looks nervous. She must know Micah and I have been arguing. “I’ll go get Micah.”
I sit on one of the leather sofas, and a cream-coloured Pomeranian wanders up to me.
Micah’s parents are both magicians, which isn’t always true in America. They have no standards for these things here, and some magicians go their entire lives without meeting a mage who isn’t a relative. When magicians hook up with Normals, their kids usually have magic, but not always, and most people believe that diluted mages aren’t as powerful. But that might be because they get less training. There’s almost no scholarship on the matter, Mum says.
Micah thinks English magicians get too hung up on magic.“My familyusesmagic,”he says,“but it’s justpartof our identity.”
Utter nonsense. If you can speak with magic, you are a magician first and foremost—bother the rest of it.
Micah’s parents both work for health insurance companies. They use their magic mostly at home, for housework.
The Pomeranian is trying to jump into my lap, but she’s too small. I pick her up because I feel sorry for her, not because I feel like holding a dog.
Ireallythink this is all going to be okay. If Micah and I can just talk face-to-face. The last time I was here, everything clicked. We felt like a real couple for the first time.
“Penelope?”
“Micah!” I stand up, bringing the dog with me.Micah!
“Penny. What are you doing here?” He isn’t smiling. I wish he was smiling.
