Spellcaster

Mateo bolted from the bathroom and ran from his house, scrambling down the rocky slope that led from their backyard down to the beach. Gritty sand dragged at his boots as he stumbled toward the ocean—toward the vast darkness where nothing had changed, nothing was sick, and everything remained sane.

Is that why you did it, Mom? Is that why you decided to drown? Was this the last place left you could get any peace?

But the waves weren’t dark any longer. Out in the distance, not far from the lighthouse, a beam shone up from the water like a spotlight aimed at the stars. It gleamed a vivid pale green, more steadily than it should have for something submerged in the ocean.

Hugging himself against the chill, staring at the eerie light, Mateo fought back the urge to vomit. The fear that had been haunting him since the dreams began was on him now, like a bird of prey on its kill, and he felt paralyzed. Numbly he thought that he should call Elizabeth—one of the handful of numbers saved in his phone, by far his most called. She’d know what to do. She always did.

But Elizabeth still believed he was sane, and he couldn’t bear the thought of her giving up on him like everybody else.

Soon everyone would know, though. Dad, Gage, even Nadia—

Nadia, the girl he’d thought he might be able to keep safe. What a joke. Maybe his insanity was the reason she was going to die.

Then, once more, he remembered the light in her attic—the light that had surrounded her.

Which was a stupid thing to be thinking about, except that something about that light—some quality it had that he couldn’t name—was sort of like the halo he’d seen in the mirror. The difference was that the halo was hideous, and that light had been beautiful. But they were alike.

And both of them were like the strange green glow he saw out in the sound.

How was that possible?

And what did Nadia Caldani have to do with it?

Even taking time to make waffles for Cole and double-check that he had all his art supplies, Nadia got to school early. She hoped to have a chance to sneak into the chemistry lab.

Something was buried there—long buried, sunk deep. Whatever it was, it held enormous power.

Was that power linked to the darker fate she saw in store for Captive’s Sound? It had taken Nadia the better part of an hour to calm Verlaine down, to explain that the devastation she saw could be either a week or a century away, or anything in between. But as Verlaine had said—that meant “one week” was a possibility, and so they’d better figure some things out sooner rather than later.

Rodman High wasn’t deserted, even this early; a few teachers on morning duty stood around clutching go-mugs of coffee, and a couple of cheerleaders were putting up posters about the first football game. But none of them paid much attention to Nadia as she darted inside. Despite the uncertainty churning inside her, she continued with her plan to investigate the chemistry lab.

Great. All I have to do is throw my stuff in my locker and figure out a question to ask the Piranha if she shows up in her room early—

Halfway down the hall, Nadia froze. There, sitting on the floor with his back against her locker, was Mateo. To judge by his rumpled hair and the shadows under his eyes, he might have been there for hours, even all night.

At the echo of her footsteps, Mateo looked up. “Nadia. Hey.”

“Hi.” She started walking toward him, her backpack off one shoulder, unsure what to think. But when she saw again how exhausted he looked, she said, “Are you okay?”

“No.” Mateo pushed himself to his feet. “Listen. I know how this is going to sound. I’ve gone over this in my head about a thousand times, trying to make it make sense. It never does. But I’ve got to ask you.” He took a deep breath as she reached him, and they were face-to-face. “Last night—when I looked into your attic and saw that light—”

Oh, crap. Nadia tried to think of another, better explanation than she’d been able to come up with last night.

But then he said, “Did you do something to me?”

“Do something to you? Did it—did the attic light hurt your eyes?” Maybe cleansing flame was damaging to people who weren’t prepared for it? Nadia had never heard of anything like that, but maybe it was only one of the countless things Mom hadn’t gotten around to explaining.

“After I left your house, for a while I felt kind of dizzy—disoriented—”

Which could happen to a Steadfast, but that had to be a coincidence.

“—then I started seeing things.” Mateo’s hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides, like he had to force himself to get through this. “As in, strange phantom animals in the alleyway. Weird lights and stuff around houses. And the sky—it’s all over town, and I thought it might be better when the sun went up, but it’s not. It’s like Captive’s Sound is completely surrounded by something dirty and cloudy and—and evil.”

This can’t be happening, she thought. There’s no possible way. It was like things falling upward. Or suddenly needing to breathe water instead of air. Men didn’t possess magic. They couldn’t. That rule was absolute.

“Were you maybe—I don’t know—cooking some kind of drugs? Something that makes you trip? The purple flame—that could be a hallucination, maybe.” He held up his hands. “I swear I won’t report you, or anything like that, but if that’s true, please tell me the truth so I’ll know this is going to get out of my system.”