Page 66 of Witch You Would
The room went dead silent. From outside, Isaac yelled, “What the fuck was that?” loud enough to be heard down the street.Tori whipped out a phone and started typing furiously, then snapped at Rachel to follow her and left.
Penelope shivered, her face pressed against my chest. Her breath came fast, too fast. She was going to pass out if she didn’tcalm down.
“Hey, shh,” I said, stroking her hair. “It’s okay. Everyone is okay. Breathe.” I kept saying things quietly, whatever poppedinto my head, in English and Spanish and even random Italian I’d learned in college.
I didn’t know if she could hear me, but she turned her face awayfrom the podium and started muttering between deep breaths. The shaking stopped.
I didn’t let go of her, though. I held on to Penelope while Rachel led Amy and Jaya out of the soundstage, and one of thePAs poured more salt water all over the charred lump that used to be a spell.
An ugly part of me thought, I guess our pumpkin isn’t going home after all.
Chapter 14
Penelope
Seeing Leandro spill our potion had hit me like a punch to the gut. Having him suggest using the pressure cooker had stressedme out immensely because of what had happened the first and last time I’d done it.
And then... this.
The fire. The screaming—some real, some in my head, in memories that still gave me nightmares. It was a hundred times worsethan Leandro’s trick in the first round. I’d gone so deep into a panic attack that I thought my heart would explode. I couldn’tthink, couldn’t breathe.
Leandro finally got through to me enough that I could remember the exercises my therapist taught me, back when I had healthinsurance in college. First, box breathing. Then, listing things I could see, feel, hear, smell, and taste.
At first, it was all Leandro. His ridiculous shirt, with shapes like construction paper cutouts, in black and red and yellow and pale blue. Silky material against my cheek, his arms holding me tightly, like he was afraid I might fall if he let go. He whispered to me that it would be okay, everyone was okay, other stuff I couldn’tunderstand in another language. Italian? I could smell him, apples and lavender and sweat. Adrenaline made my mouth taste sour and sharp, like licking a battery.
The panic drained slowly as a clogged sink. Now I heard Isaac yelling, and people moving around, here on the soundstage andoutside. Even though the ceiling in the warehouse was super high, the smell of smoke still lingered. Someone, maybe more thanone person, had done a brine and confine—salt water to neutralize the spell, plus the containment circle to hold any othermagical blowback. They’d be able to tell whether it was truly inert soon, but meanwhile, this kept everyone safe.
Tori came back through the hallway entrance and clapped; even though I was looking right at her, the sound still made me jump.Leandro hugged me harder.
“We’ll film the elimination as soon as the area is secure,” Tori said. “Give me shots that don’t show the mess on the floor.Upper bodies, faces, whatever.”
Cameras were shifted into new places, with Nate moving to the back of the room.
“Mic checks,” Tori said. “When I point at you, say ‘check, one, two, three,’ got it?”
We all got it, and did as we were told. I made myself step away from Leandro, who didn’t seem happy to let me go.
Are you okay?he mouthed at me.
I nodded. Total lie.
The judges, who had left to discuss point allocations, came back in with Syd and took up their positions. They very carefullydid not look at the mess of Amy and Jaya’s spell.
Now that my brain was climbing out of its screaming panic pit, itstarted yeeting thoughts at me. The biggest one was a single word, all caps, in huge font: SABOTAGE.
This was the second spell that had gone catastrophically wrong. On a typical season ofCast Judgment, there might be problems here and there. Contestants were expected to be good at casting after so many rounds of auditions,but nobody was perfect, and magic played by its own rules. Random factors could throw off a spell in unexpected ways.
The celebrities, though? They were all professionals with their own businesses and shows and stuff. They might make mistakes,too, but not like this.
Would the producers have to stop the show and start over? They couldn’t just play this off like it was nothing, could they?Even after Isaac’s speech this morning, I couldn’t believe that. They had to know this was messed up. There were laws abouttampering with competitions.
We moved to our places and Syd gave their speech about people winning and people going home. Just like the last round, weall knew what was coming as far as losers went. Only the winner might be a surprise.
Felicia and Charlotte got it this time. I was so sure it would be Dylan and Zeke again, but apparently the judges were moreimpressed by the degree of transformation in the Cinderella spell. Harder to go from gourd to carriage to moving people andback than it was to shift chocolate and cake to differently shaped chocolate and cake, no matter how good it looked and tasted.
Leandro and I were separated again after a short joint confessional. I didn’t know whether they rushed us because our day had already gone too long, or they didn’t want us spilling any tea aboutwhat had happened. Por qué no los dos? Either way, I barely remembered what I said. Something about how we’d keep learning and upping our game.
On the drive back to the hotel, I tried to organize what I was going to say to Leandro about his potion-spilling shenanigans.Brain fog from the panic attack and not having slept enough made it hard to do more than have a pretend fight with him insidemy head—and even that was mostly just me asking him, “How could you?” while he smiled his himbo mustache smile.
