Spellcaster

Glancing around nervously, Nadia said, “Is there someplace we can talk?”

“Not at school. Let me think—someplace quiet—”

“No. Someplace loud.” Nadia seemed very sure about this. “People overhear you in quiet places. Nobody overhears when it’s loud. Mom—my mother would talk about it in the mall, or at Cubs games, places like that.”

Her mother was a—whatever she was—too? This was getting better and better. And for once, Verlaine was absolutely sure she knew the right thing to suggest. “If you want loud, we should go to La Catrina.”

La Catrina turned out to be the only Mexican restaurant in town, or at least the busiest. Even though Nadia had yet to taste the food, she could understand why everybody came here; this was pretty much the first cheerful public place she’d seen in Captive’s Sound. It was warm and welcoming, with pressed-tin panels on the ceiling, dark gold walls, and tons of woodwork stained a deep red. Brilliantly painted carvings hung on the walls—all of them skeletons, though they were the happy kind, grinning merrily, wearing sombreros or colorful dresses, and apparently having the time of their afterlives.

Verlaine leaned over the table, obviously starting to digest everything Nadia had told her. “So, you don’t look like a witch.” She glanced around, but the din of laughter, conversation, and jukebox music made it obvious they wouldn’t be overheard. “Either the haglike, warty, green variety or the mystical pagan sexpot variety.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess.”

“You’re not going to try to recruit me, are you? Is this one of those things where you learn about the witchcraft and then, that’s it, you’re trapped in it for life?”

“No. I can tell you about it, and that’s fine. But you really shouldn’t tell anyone else.” There were spells Nadia could use to make sure Verlaine didn’t tell anyone—spells of silencing or forgetting—but they were drastic measures. Messing with another person’s head that way was nasty work, something you only did if you had no other choice.

But Verlaine said only, “Who could I possibly tell? Nobody would ever believe me.” Then she frowned. “Wait. You can teach me some spells, right? Without me being sworn to witchcraft for eternity or anything. I really want to stress that last part.”

“It’s too late for me to teach you,” Nadia said.

“You mean—too late today, or what?”

“I mean, too late ever.” Nadia made the words as gentle as she could. What would it be like, to discover that witchcraft was real but you were left out? “You have to start learning in childhood. The earlier the better, my mom always said. And not every girl can be a witch. If witchcraft doesn’t run in your family, you probably don’t have the blood for it. And even if you did, by now, you would have lost the potential.”

“Oh.” Verlaine frowned. “That leaves you with the power, then, doesn’t it?”

“Pretty much.” It was the truth; why should she apologize for it?

“How do I know you won’t turn me into a newt or something?”

“Honestly, where are you getting this? Listen. Most of what’s in pop culture about witchcraft is crap. What I practice doesn’t have anything to do with being Wiccan, either; that’s a religion of its own. I think the Craft I practice might have been linked to it way back when, but they parted paths a long time ago. And in neither of those is there any turning people into newts.”

Verlaine didn’t seem comforted in the slightest. “I wasn’t specifically afraid of newthood. What I mean is, it’s kind of freaky to know somebody has power over you that you can’t understand.”

Nadia shrugged. “Yeah. It throws a lot of people off. Which is exactly why we try to keep it secret. But you wanted to know. And now you do.”

After an awkward pause, Verlaine said, “Okay, no newts. But what kind of stuff can you do?”

Nadia felt weird—beyond weird—talking about this with someone who wasn’t a witch herself. Mom was the only witch she’d ever known well; Grandma had been in the Craft herself, of course, and had taught Mom, but she’d died when Nadia was eight and had learned only the basics. Not every witch was so isolated—some cities and even small towns had active communities—but Mom had stuck to her one secret coven in Chicago. Nadia had never been introduced to them, and had not expected to be; usually you only met witches outside of your family once you were grown and fully possessed of your power. And while it wasn’t forbidden to reveal witchcraft to a woman who didn’t practice, it was something you were supposed to do as little as possible … which Nadia now understood completely.

Secrecy is important, Mom always said. Secrecy is what protects us from the ignorant and the hateful. Secrecy is the first and most precious rule.

Well, Mom always said she loved us forever, Nadia thought savagely. So who cares about her rules?

“The only real limit on what a witch can do is how much she’s learned so far,” Nadia said. “Well, that and the First Laws, of course.”

“What are the laws?” Verlaine asked. But that was the moment the waiter strolled up to their table.

“Hello there and welcome to …” Mateo’s voice trailed off as he recognized them; his eyes widened as they met Nadia’s. But he barely paused in his spiel. “La Catrina.”

“You work here?” Nadia asked, then felt stupid. He wasn’t walking up to their table in a black apron because he was trying to set a fashion trend.