There’s wall-to-wall carpeting exactly the shade of porridge.

Ugh, it’s so comforting. My house is every colour, none of them planned. And our furniture is whatever colour it was when my father spotted it at a yard sale. Also, our house has stuff everywhere. Micah’s family must have stuff somewhere, but you never see it. The only things on the coffee tables (how many coffee tables are there? easily nine) are cream-coloured vases with cream-coloured flowers and tan, marble lamps.

“I’ll just—” Mrs. Cordero looks nervous. She must know Micah and I have been arguing. “I’ll go get Micah.”

I sit on one of the leather sofas, and a cream-coloured Pomeranian wanders up to me.

Micah’s parents are both magicians, which isn’t always true in America. They have no standards for these things here, and some magicians go their entire lives without meeting a mage who isn’t a relative. When magicians hook up with Normals, their kids usually have magic, but not always, and most people believe that diluted mages aren’t as powerful. But that might be because they get less training. There’s almost no scholarship on the matter, Mum says.

Micah thinks English magicians get too hung up on magic. “My family uses magic,” he says, “but it’s just part of our identity.”

Utter nonsense. If you can speak with magic, you are a magician first and foremost—bother the rest of it.

Micah’s parents both work for health insurance companies. They use their magic mostly at home, for housework.

The Pomeranian is trying to jump into my lap, but she’s too small. I pick her up because I feel sorry for her, not because I feel like holding a dog.

I really think this is all going to be okay. If Micah and I can just talk face-to-face. The last time I was here, everything clicked. We felt like a real couple for the first time.

“Penelope?”

“Micah!” I stand up, bringing the dog with me. Micah!

“Penny. What are you doing here?” He isn’t smiling. I wish he was smiling.

“I told you I was coming.”

“And I told you that you shouldn’t.”

“But I was going to be here anyway—”

“California isn’t here.”

“You said we needed to talk, Micah. And I agreed. We should talk.”

“I’ve been saying that for six months, Penny, and you’ve been putting me off.”

“I haven’t—”

Micah’s arms are folded. He looks so different from the last time I saw him. He’s growing one of those awful moustache/chin-beard combos. When was the last time we Skyped?

“Micah? I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want me here. I’m your girlfriend.”

He looks like I’ve just said something ridiculous. (Something like, “I’m going to grow a moustache/chin-beard thingy, what do you think?”) “Penelope … we’ve hardly talked in a year.”

“Because we’re both busy.”

“And we talked even less the year before that.”

“Well, those were extreme circumstances, you know that.”

“You can’t avoid me for two years and still think we have a relationship.”

“Micah, I wasn’t ever avoiding you, why would you say that?”

“You weren’t anything about me! We weren’t anything. I talked to my grandmother more than you.”

“Am I competing with your grandmother now?”

“Not like I was competing with Simon Snow.”

The Pomeranian barks.

“You know that Simon and I aren’t like that.”

He rolls his eyes. “I do. Actually. But I know that he matters to you—in a way I never have.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you felt this way?”

“Ha,” Micah says. Like I’m being the worst kind of funny. “I tried. I’d have better luck talking to a tornado. You are a tornado.”

I’m so confused. “We don’t really have tornadoes in England.…”

“Well, you’re a gale-force wind, Penelope Bunce. You just do what you want as forcefully as possible, and nothing else matters. I’ve tried to talk to you about this so many times, but you just blow right past me.”

“That’s not fair!” I say. I’m losing my cool.

He isn’t. “It’s more than fair—it’s true. You. Don’t. Listen. To me.”

“I certainly do.”

“Really? I told you I was tired of being in a long-distance relationship—”

“And I agreed that it was tiring!” I say.

“I told you that I thought we’d grown apart—”

“And I said that was natural!” I half shout.

He’s still looking at me like nothing about me makes sense. “What does it even mean to you to be in a relationship, Penny?”

“It—it means that we love each other. And that we have this part of our lives figured out. That we know who we’re going to be with in the end.”

“No,” he says, sounding—for the first time in this conversation—more sad than fed up. “A relationship isn’t about the end. It’s about being together every step of the way.”