“Thanks,” I say, craning my neck to smile half-heartedly at her. She grins in response, and the highlight on her cheeks changes color from silver to an iridescent purple. Xiomara and Isabel mumble indecipherable greetings at me. The two of them are engrossed in playing that weird kid’s game where you zap electricity at each other until someone cries uncle. They’re young enough that they can’t generate much power, but it still hurts after a while.

“I have to drop them at Boca Middle,” Ana says. Her dark eyes lock on mine. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I’m itching to hold her hand, but I keep that impulse in check. “You too.”

The moment is bittersweet. It reminds me that I have to tell her what’s going on. Forget what we agreed about not talking about scholarship stuff—this is bigger than that.

“Hey, I need to talk to you about something,” I say quietly. “Later. Maybe after school?”

As the words come out of my mouth, I realize that giving advance notice of a serious conversation this early is a terrible, horrible, asshole move. It forces the other person to worry about what the content of said serious conversation is going to be for hours beforehand.

Or at least that’s what I do. I think Ana might be slightly less anxious than me.

“Sure,” Ana says, her face unreadable. She puts the van in reverse, and it levitates unsteadily before gliding out of the parking spot in front of my apartment. “Is something wrong?”

“I mean, don’t worry about it,” I say. “We should just talk later.”

“Okay.” She laughs affectionately. “You’re being weird, Shay.”

“I’m frequently weird.”

“That’s true,” she says, nodding gravely.

After school, I post up behind the cafeteria, which has the perk of being both pretty private and not too bizarre of a place for me to ask Brittany to meet me. I sent her a WizConnect message saying that I had a thing about the show I wanted to discuss with her. I’m not sure why, but she agreed to come talk without too much fuss.

I pace the sidewalk, watching the cracks in the cement. My head feels thick with nerves. I don’t want to do this. I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Of course, the moment I start to spiral into self-doubt is when Brittany shows up. She comes around the corner wearing her most dismissive expression. Once she catches sight of me, she twirls the tip of her ponytail around her finger and shoots me a stony glare.

“So, what’s your problem?” she says. “Do you need extra help with the choreography or something? I know dancing isn’t exactly your thing.”

A stab of irritation goes through my chest. This is off to a great start.

“Um, that’s not actually what I wanted to talk about.”

“Okay?”