Page 17 of Witch You Would
Another thought smacked me. Gil. I needed to email him before Ofelia did.
Why hadn’t I ever told him my actual name? Why hadn’t I askedhim out? I made a constipated hippo noise and tried to open the store email.
I was locked out.
Ofelia had once bricked her computer by downloading enough malware to destroy reality, but she’d managed to change the emailpassword three seconds after firing me. How?
Rachel called, “Five minutes!” before vanishing again.
Five minutes? It took forever to mic me and Felicia. I guessed cotton shirts weren’t abominations in the ears of the soundgods.
I opened my personal email and started a new one to Gil. Thankfully I remembered his email address. My brain slipped intosome anxiety flow state as I typed faster than I ever had in my life. I barely even knew what I was saying. I think I toldhim I was going out of town and begged him to wait for me, like this was some period movie where I was going to war and hewould be left behind, staring out the window as a single tear rolled down his cheek and sad violins played.
I hit send before I could edit. When would I get my phone back? What if my email went to spam and he never saw it?
Why did I care more about this than getting fired?
A reply appeared. No way. Too fast. I opened it and my stomach sank to my feet.
An auto-reply. Apparently Gil was actually going out of town instead of pretending like me, and he would only be checkingemails periodically. I almost hit my forehead with my phone, except that would mess up my makeup, so I just shook it and growled.
I was fired, I would probably never talk to Gil again, and—
Stop it, Penelope! Breathe. I couldn’t be distracted right now. We weren’t starting the actual spell-casting until tomorrow, but I needed to make a good first impression on Charlotte Sharp. Therewas no way she’d think I was a cool, competent caster if I was twitching like I’d had a venti espresso.
“Time’s up,” Rachel announced. “Please place any phones, tablets, computers, and similar devices in the box.”
Little Manny put a large metal bin on the floor, and we all surrendered our electronics. Rachel closed the lid, locked it,and muttered an incantation. Glowing blue sigils floated about an inch from the sides and top for a few seconds before sinkinginto the surface with a silent rush of energy and a whiff of sulfur.
No turning back now.
“Okay, we’re good.” Rachel tapped her tablet and gestured at the door. “Let’s get you to the set.”
We followed her like ducklings—or a rubber duck, in my case.
The warehouse part of the building somehow managed to be enormous and claustrophobic at the same time. Fluorescent lightshung from bare concrete ceilings twenty feet above me, outshone by an array of sun-bright LED panels on stands. A fancy cameramounted on a crane thing loomed to one side like a long-necked metal dinosaur. There were carts with mystery gadgets coveredin dials and buttons and switches, cables snaking across the floor in every direction, and plastic bins and latched casesfor equipment. It smelled like sawdust, paint, and a hint of body spray.
In the middle of the open space rose a giant room with high walls and double doors but no ceiling. Cables poked out of smallholes in the insulated drywall, some leading to power strips and extension cords, others to a tower of blinking lights andTV screens in front of fancy ergonomic chairs. Unlike the quieter office area, here people rushed around, setting things up,moving them, muttering into walkie-talkies or collar mics. It felt like I’d stumbled into a beehive and I had to watch outor get stung.
Rachel led us through the double doors in the room-in-a-room, where we immediately hit another wall that branched into a hallway going left and right. We went left, turned a corner, and came to a stop.
In front of us, theCast Judgmentset waited in all its magic-making glory. The white walls were covered in stylized runes, sigils, mandalas, and other symbolsthat looked impressive but were magically inert. A giant silver pentacle gleamed on the floor, the prep stations arrangedin two rows behind it, plus one in the back center. Stainless steel countertops and tables gleamed above brightly coloredcabinets and shelves, one color per contestant—or in this case, per team. Each station also had its own wooden table, chalk-paintedfloor area, fridge with freezer, and fancy six-burner gas range with oven, way nicer than the one I used in the store.
Oh, right. I was fired. The delicate flower of my good mood withered.
“Amazing,” Amy breathed.
“This is so... wow,” Quentin said. “It’s one thing to see it on TV, ya know?”
“For real,” Dylan agreed.
Felicia looked bored.
Rachel walked to the other end of the room and muttered arguments into her collar mic that ended with her stabbing her tabletwith her finger like it had offended her.
“Schedule change,” Rachel told us. “We’re doing solo and pair interviews after lunch, pairs first. Host and judge intros andpartner assignments now. Camera guys are on their way to get everything set up, then Isaac and Tori will take over.”
A bald bear of a man strolled in carrying a complicated-lookingcamera on his shoulder. He wiggled his fingers at us, put the camera down, and waited. Another camera person ducked behind a wheeled tripod thing near the entrance, and I think there was one more in the back of the room somewhere. Lights were turned on and off. The camera on the crane swung into position overhead.
