“Shut up.” I laugh. “He’s normally less weird than that, right?”

Ed starts laughing as well. “Oh yeah,” he says through his laughter. “I’m going to make fun of him for that so hard.”

“All right, let’s go back to the top,” Mr. B announces. He drops down to the stage floor, wiping sweat off his forehead.

“Millionth time’s the charm,” Ed whispers to me as we get to our feet. I cross my fingers in response. Maybe this will be the time that Mr. B is satisfied with our performance of “Bronxtown Broom Race.” As the scholarship ceremony performance gets closer, Mr. B gets more and more anxious about this song being perfect.

We take our doses of the Light as a Feather potion—I swear this production alone is keeping this potion brand in business—and hurry to our places for the beginning of the song. As the music starts, I sneak a glance at Ana. She hasn’t talked to me much the last few days. Even in AP Transfiguration, where we’ve been paired up to work on a project, she doesn’t chat with me any more than necessary. I guess she got the memo that I was avoiding her. Which is . . . fine. I miss her, but this is how it has to be.

Ana and I launch ourselves toward the broom props suspended above us. We meet Ed and Mikey midair and pair off, me with Mikey and Ana with Ed. Even though I’ve seen this a million times before, my gaze still gets stuck on Ana as we all dance. She looks beautiful in the air.

“Focus, Shay!” Mr. B calls out. When my attention snaps back out to the audience, he gives me a thumbs-up and a wink.

Potions club on Fridays is my safe place. No rehearsal, no Mr. B, no Brittany—just a bunch of nerds brewing potions in Dr. Davidson’s classroom. The most stressful thing that happens there is me having to explain for the millionth time that we can’t brew More Amore potions on campus illegally and that love potions aren’t half as effective as people think they are anyway.

Our president has completely checked out since she got into a licensing college, so most of the club leadership duties have been passed on to me as the vice president. Now I spend less time brewing my own potions and more time making sure freshmen don’t set themselves on fire.

This Friday, after setting the club members up to brew Illusion Dust, I hover near Lina Gregory, one of the freshmen. She has an unfortunate habit of accidentally igniting every third potion she makes. To disguise my true purpose for being near Lina, I idly scroll through my favorite potion blogs on my phone, looking for recipes the club could brew in the future.