Page 97 of Witch You Would
Dylan shook his head. “Not enough time for the spell to cook.”
Fire burned under my skin, smoke filled my mouth, and I had to breathe through it all to say, “You could pressure-cook it.”
Zeke clapped and pointed at me. “You really are a smartie, you know that? Pressure-cook it. I’ll be damned. Haven’t had todo a rush job in years.”
“It’s dangerous,” I said.
But he was already off, doing the math and sending Dylan to grab the right pot from the storeroom.
Gil grinned at me when I got back. “I let you go for an extra two minutes. Did you fix it?”
“Maybe.” Pressure-cooking wasn’t guaranteed to work, but it was their best chance. Just like it had been ours. I’d messedthings up for us before, but if this might save Dylan and Zeke’s spell, make it a fair contest...
I glanced at Felicia, who shook her head at me. Of course she didn’t care about fairness. She just wanted to win.
The timer counted down as I knotted one bracelet after another. My hands cramped; Gil massaged them. My neck hurt from bendingover the counter for so long; Gil rubbed that, too.
“If your show doesn’t work out,” I told him, “you could get a job doing those five-minute massages at the mall.”
“You think the tips are good?”
“For you, probably.”
God, what was I going to do for a job when this was over? At least I was getting paid to be here. That would buy me a little time . . .except I’d need more money for a deposit on an apartment, unless I could find a roommate . . .
“Worried?” Gil asked.
“Not about this,” I said. “Come on, three more to go.”
We finished with ten minutes to spare. The piñatas sat on the cutest plates I could find, in bright colors that mostly matched.We all took a break for dinner, only the judges and crew missing from the room. Even Syd stayed to eat and joke with us, tellingstories of silly things that had happened in previous seasons ofCast Judgment.
Tori stealthed in at some point with Liam, who checked all our mic transmitters and mics. The rest of the crew wandered backand took up their positions, and before the caffeine from my last soda hit my brain, it was judgment time.
Felicia and Charlotte went first. Apparently what I’d assumed were herbs or potpourri was actually specially blended tisanes,lemon and lavender with a color-changing enchantment. Sticking out of the top of each bag was a stirring rod, which couldheat or cool the tea depending on which direction you stirred. The temperature changed the tea color. Genius.
Or so I thought. I guess I wasn’t fancy enough to know you could already buy this sort of thing in stores—Athame Arts storesin particular—and Hugh Burbank especially wasn’t impressed by the enchantments being single-use. Charlotte took the critiquewell enough, but she and Felicia lost their polite smiles between the presentation pentacle and their station.
Dylan and Zeke were next. I held my breath, wondering how their rushed spell had turned out. The edible radios still hissed and buzzed, but they also played a few notes of what sounded like a tune from an old video game. They joked that it was intentional; the judges were not fooled, since they’d been told what to expectearlier. Still, major points for the delicious rum cake with mango and pineapple inside, and for how uniform they all were.
Finally it was our turn.
“Our spell is called ‘Clap and Explode’!” Gil said, with absolutely no chill.
“We made miniature self-destructing piñatas with a surprise inside,” I said.
“They don’t actually explode, do they?” Hugh asked.
“No, no,” I said. “You toss them up in the air and clap, and they’ll pop open. If someone can’t clap, they can just tear theleaf part off.”
“And they’re shaped like pineapples because?” Fabienne asked.
Gil grinned. “I like pineapples.”
They each grabbed one and looked at each other, as if silently deciding who would try it first. Hugh shrugged and threw hisabove his head, quickly clapping before it started to fall.
The little papier-mâché pineapple burst like it had been hit with a stick, and the bracelet inside clattered to the ground.I cringed, hoping the metal beads hadn’t bent and messed up the enchantment.
“This is what?” Hugh asked, picking it up.
