Remedial Magic Read Free Page A

puke. I swear, he’s never met a girl he didn’t immediately want to shag. She, of course, ate it up, blushing and batting her eyelashes at him.
    “Do I even want to know what the two of you were up to?” Ethan asked Dee Dee while giving me a sidelong look that said he knew perfectly well that whatever had gone wrong was my fault.
    Dee Dee smiled at him. “Probably not.”
    I sighed, knowing a lost cause when I saw it. Ethan was going to make a play for Dee Dee, and by the time he was done with her—which with his track record would be in a couple of weeks—she was going to hate me by association. I tried to tell myself it was good riddance. After all, if she were really good friendship material, she probably wouldn’t start ignoring me the moment she caught sight of Ethan. Not to mention that she hadn’t even tried to help me when the bears attacked. If they’d attacked her, you can bet I’d have done something more useful than plaster myself to the wall and scream.
    But I couldn’t help mourning the loss. I’d give anything to have a real friend. One who didn’t care about my magical shortcomings, one who liked me for who I am, not for what I can do. One who could be in the same room with both me and Ethan and still remember I existed.
    Dee Dee departed on Ethan’s arm, leaving me alone in the shambles of my bedroom. The place was a freaking disaster area, and I needed to clean up the mess before my dad got home. Ethan wouldn’t tattle on me—I have to grudgingly admit he has some redeeming qualities—which meant if I could hide all the evidence, my dad never had to know what a complete fool I’d made of myself.
    It wasn’t until I picked up the bowtie that had adorned my mother’s bear that I fully understood what I had lost that afternoon. Not just my dignity, or my hope, or my friend. But also the teddy bear that represented my last link to my mother. My eyes filled with tears, and no matter how glad I was that Ethan had saved me, I couldn’t help wishing he’d found some other way to do it.
    Heartsick, I fastened the plaid bowtie on one of the surviving bears, knowing that although it was Ethan who’d cast the spell that destroyed the bear, I had only myself to blame. From now on, I vowed, I was going to be satisfied with what little magic I had. I was going to be proud of myself for my academic achievements, and I was going to stop feeling like a pathetic loser. I was even going to stop comparing myself to Ethan.
    Too bad there wasn’t enough magic in all of Faerie to make a vow like that come true.

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    THE FIRST FAERIEWALKER NOVEL

    GLIMMERGLASS

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Prologue

    The absolute last straw was when my mom showed up at my recital drunk. I don’t mean tipsy—I mean staggering, slurring, everyone-knows drunk. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she was late, too, so that when she pushed through the doors and practically fell into a metal folding chair at the back, everyone turned to glare at her for interrupting the performance.
    Standing in the wings, I wanted to sink through the floor in embarrassment. Ms. Morris, my voice teacher, was the only one in the room who realized the person causing the disruption was my mother. I’d very carefully avoided any contact between my mom and the students of this school—my newest one, and the one I hoped to graduate from if we could manage two full years in the same location just this once.
    When it was my turn to perform, Ms. Morris gave me a sympathetic look before she put her hands on the piano. My face felt hot with embarrassment, and my throat was so tight I worried my voice would crack the moment I opened my mouth.
    My voice is naturally pretty—a result of my ultra-secret, hush-hush Fae heritage. Truthfully, I didn’t need the voice lessons, but summer vacation was going to start in a few weeks, and I’d wanted an excuse that would get me out of the house now and then but wouldn’t