Glimmers of Glass (A Glimmers Novel #1: Cinderella)

Chapter 21

Imogen sat down with a thud and turned to me, gripping her desk with both hands. Her normally animated face was as intense as I'd seen it a while. Once she had me pinned down with her gaze, she took a deep breath.

"What. Happened."

I buried my head in my hands. "I have no idea."

I'd never seen a situation turn so sour so fast. If anyone needed more evidence that I was absolutely, positively, completely not cut out for this job, this was Exhibit A.

"I knew she shouldn't have bought the necklace," I said.

"I don't think it's the necklace," Imogen said. "I think it's that love spell."

And there was Exhibit B.

Mr. Duncan came into the room and set his coffee down with a sigh. He looked as tired as I was overwhelmed and probably wouldn't even notice if we kept talking, but I lowered my voice anyway. "I know," I said. "That was the stupidest idea I think I've ever had."

Imogen was nice enough to not start listing all the stupid ideas I'd ever had, even though she'd been there for most of them. Instead she handed me a stick of gum. I took off the shiny silver wrapper and popped the gum in my mouth. Cinnamon spread across my tongue, with a little hint of something else. "Infused with mead simmered under a full moon," she said. "One of my mom's witch friends makes it. Supposed to be good for stress."

"Thanks," I said. My heart vibrated with tension.

I had created a monster. Worse than that, I had created a monster that I couldn't actually pin down as being anything but a normal high school girl.

Elle hadn't done anything wrong. She seemed happy. She ate lunch with Tyler and hung around with him after school. She'd convinced him to come to Pumpkin Spice almost every day and bring his friends. I should have been thrilled. But somehow, for some reason, every time I saw them together, I felt sick.

"Tyler cornered me this morning and tried to get me to sign one of Elle's petitions," I said. "Apparently her dad is 'representative of the failing moral backbone of our great city.'"

"Elle cornered me this morning," Imogen said. "She told me that my hair looks 'just a little washed out' and could use a 'pop of color.' When did she become such an expert?"

My stress was punctured just for a moment by the giggle that bubbled out of my throat. "Are you just mad because she criticized your hair?"

"Of course I'm mad!" Imogen said. Mr. Duncan looked up at us and she mouthed Sorry and said, in a lower voice, "It's weird. She's been weird the last couple of weeks. I can't even pin it down. She's just... it's not right, you know?"

I pursed my lips and pulled my pencil out of my hair, where it had been wedged next to my wand. "It could be the manipulating people," I said.

Elle rolled her eyes at me. "Nah," she said sarcastically, waving me off.

"I should be happy but I can't stop cringing," I said.

Imogen nodded, pointing her pink gel pen at me. "It's like everything good about magic gone horribly, horribly wrong," she said. "But I can't even tell what's so gross about it. It's nothing you godmothers don't do all the time."

"Except the actual honest-to-God love spell. Nothing under a love spell is ever right," I said. "Have you ever heard of a love spell or potion not backfiring somehow? Isn't the moral of every Story always 'don't control people's hearts because it always ends badly'?"

"You did get permission for it," Imogen said.

She was right. I had. I'd thought it out, written a proposal, submitted the paperwork, and gotten it signed. But that was the weird part: my higher-ups had signed it. If I should have known better, they definitely should have known better. The more involved I got, the more I had the uncomfortable niggling feeling that godmothering was an icky, corrupt business from the get-go.