“It’s not a real engagement,” she says softly.
“Thanks.”
She turns her head towards me and looks into my eyes. Penelope only looks in your eyes when she expects something.
I wait for her to tell me what it is.
PENELOPE
I’ve been in this room too long with no one but Shepard.
He’s starting to feel more real than everything else. He’s starting to feel like the one thing that’s supposed to be here.
It should be the opposite—itisthe opposite. Shepard is a Normal. And Normals don’t matter. I mean, I’m sure they matter to other Normals—but they’re not supposed to matter to me. They’re supposed to be like ants. Or plants. Important to the overall ecosystem, but notimportant.
My mother always said there was no sense in making friends with Normals, because what could you even talk about, if you couldn’t talk about magic? What’s left?
(HaveIever said that?)
(Is that what drove Simon away?)
But Shep and I have been talking for days. And we’ve been talkingso muchabout magic. And so much abouteverything.
And I know that he’s a Normal, it’s not like I ever forget, but I can’t really imagine what would be different about being here with him if he had magic. I suppose he’d understand me a little better, he’d know what magic feels like . . . But magic feels different for everyone, even among mages. You can’t ever really know what it’s like tobesomeone else . . .
“Shepard.”
He pushes up his glasses. “Penelope.”
“Do you wish that you could do magic?”
He bites his lip. His bottom lip is pinker than the top, and there’s a dimple in the middle, so that the top of his bottom lip is shaped like the top of a heart. I only noticed this yesterday, and now I can’t stop.
“I feel sort of like you’re asking me whether I wish I could fly,” he says. “And the answer is—of course. Yes. I would love to do magic. But I don’t wish that I was something else. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of . . .”
“Like, I wouldn’t trade being who I am to be someone or something else that could do magic.”
“You don’t mind being Normal?”
He laughs at me.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
He smiles instead. “I don’t mind being what I am. We don’t call ourselves ‘Normal,’ you know?”
“But, Shepard, you spend so much time trying to get close to magic, you must . . .”
He looks like he’s going to laugh again, so I stop talking. He’s still holding the strawberry lace I gave him.
“Do you even like strawberry laces?” I ask.
“No, I’m sorry. They taste like cough syrup.”
I take it from him and take a bite.
His elbow is on the back of the couch, and he leans a little closer to me. “The thing is, I don’t feel apart from magic. The world is magickal, and it’s my world, too. Just becauseyouthink I’m not magickal—”
