“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want their money,” I say.

Ana nudges me with her foot. “You’re getting so good at acting. I almost believed that.”

I preen a little. “Thank you.”

I wasn’t completely pretending, though. Yes, I wish that I could have the money and the admission to Willington. But am I willing to sell my soul over it? No. I put too much pressure on myself to get that stupid scholarship anyway.

Our food shows up, greeted by enthusiastic cheers from Ed and Mikey. We all tear into our stacks of pancakes and French toast like ravenous wolves.

“You know that Ken Gardener dude?” Ed says through a mouthful of pancake.

“The CEO from the magic-sharing scandal?” Ana asks.

“Yeah, yeah. That guy,” Ed says.

“Are you putting hot sauce on your pancakes?” Mikey asks, staring at Ed.

Ed is, in fact, midway through dousing his whipped-cream-covered pancakes in Cholula. “Don’t judge my choices, dude,” Ed says. “Okay, so that Gardener guy is going to court now. He could go to jail.”

Huh. I thought that rich, powerful wizards were always fine in the end. Like, no matter what happened, they wouldn’t really face consequences for their actions.

“Do you think Mr. B could go to jail?” Ed asks.

Mikey’s expression freezes for a second, and then he stuffs a huge chunk of French toast in his mouth. I remember just how close Mikey was to Mr. B. He and Ed have been generally supportive and chill since the scholarship ceremony, but every so often I get flashes of discomfort from him.

The problem is that, like Mikey, lots of people liked Mr. B. But now that he’s done something bad, they can’t reconcile the Mr. B they liked with the Mr. B who did something wrong. In reality, he’s both of those people.

Anyway, I do understand that it’s hard to imagine someone you liked going to jail. But I can’t field every person’s Mr. B–related feelings. They can talk to other people about that.

“Jail? For what?” Ana says. “What Mr. B did was fucked up, but I don’t think it’s illegal.”

“Okay, Mr. B talk is canceled for the day. Thank you,” I say, waving my fork in the air for emphasis. “We’re celebrating here, aren’t we?”

“You’re right,” Ed says, lifting his hands in surrender. “We did open a show tonight.”

“Hell yeah,” Mikey says. He turns his attention to me and Ana. “Do you guys think you’ll do the show next year?”

“No,” Ana and I say in perfect unison.

“Shay doesn’t even like acting,” Ana adds.

Mikey looks thoughtful. “That makes sense actually.”

“Yeah, I hate it,” I say. “This will hopefully be the last time I’m ever on a stage.”

“Ah, the ice queen cometh,” Ed says, his gaze trained at something over my shoulder.