Spellcaster

Then he said, “God, you’re a tight ass.” Grinning, he added, “I like a tight ass on a girl.”

“Too bad for you I don’t like slime on a guy.”

His black eyes glinted with anger—real anger—but he just turned away from her to surreptitiously text someone. Even from where she sat, Nadia could read the words stuck-up bitch.

Nadia wondered whether there really were spells for turning men into toads. Probably not. But thinking about it helped.

“Maybe we should go check on him,” Verlaine suggested after school.

Nadia shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“But why are you assuming he’s cutting class? I mean, Elizabeth could have confronted him—or he could have confronted her—and he could be, I don’t know, a hostage in her house. Imprisoned!” In her mind, Verlaine saw this scenario as something suspiciously Disneyesque—Mateo seemed to be wearing a cape, even—but there was a black cave and bars over the windows and plenty of scarier elements that seemed totally like they might be Elizabeth’s modus operandi.

“No, he’s okay. He was working his shift at La Catrina last night.”

Verlaine paused, the keys in her hand hovering just short of her car door’s lock. “Wait, you saw him? You guys talked?”

Awkwardly Nadia said, “Well, I saw him.”

Through narrowed eyes, Verlaine said, “You’re spying on people again.” Nadia didn’t deny it. “Remember how I said that was maybe not such a great idea?”

“You were the one who said we should check on him! That’s what I was doing. Just … covertly.”

Verlaine shook her head as she unlocked the car. Her old land yacht might be beaten up and ancient and slightly stinky, like French fries were always in the glove compartment, but at least it was a little bit of a haven away from the rest of the school. When they were both inside, doors shut, Verlaine said, “You just spied on the restaurant?”

“Yeah. I sat in front of the barbershop across the street. Hey, does the woman who works there—is she not friendly?”

“Oh, that’s just Ginger. She never talks.” Verlaine didn’t let herself get sidetracked. “What about his house? Did you spy there, too?”

“No. Give me some credit, okay? I just wanted to know he wasn’t in danger from Elizabeth. More danger, I mean.” Nadia raked her fingers through her black hair, and Verlaine realized her hands were shaking. Whoa. She’d known Nadia was worried about Mateo, but not that she was truly scared for him. Seeing Verlaine’s face, Nadia sighed. “Elizabeth said—she told me Mateo was hers to control, anytime she wanted. She said she could make him love her, even believe that he’d always loved her. Which—I hate that idea, I hate it, but I’d rather think about him being with Elizabeth than the alternatives.”

“What alternatives?”

“Think about it. She can control him, if she wants to. What if she’s making him—do something crazy, even criminal, so everybody turns against him? Or she could have turned him into a puppet, somebody who’s just sleepwalking through life while she waits for him to have another dream. Elizabeth could even tell him to kill himself.” Nadia’s voice trembled. “Think about it. His mother did, right? We’ve been assuming that’s because the visions drove her crazy—but what if going crazy meant she just wasn’t useful to Elizabeth anymore? Elizabeth might have tossed her aside. Wadded her up and thrown her away like scrap paper. She could do it to Mateo, too.”

Okay, all of that sounded … extremely bad. But also extremely theoretical. “Hey. Mateo was at La Catrina last night. So none of that scary stuff has happened. It’s going to be all right. You know?”

“No. I don’t know that.”

“Yeah, Elizabeth’s a powerful witch, but now you’ve got this badass old spell book, and your own magic, and we’ve figured out where and when her big plan is going down—”

Nadia snapped, “But we don’t have any idea what it is, and even if we did—Verlaine, what do you think I can do about it? My magic is nothing compared to hers. Nothing. She’s hundreds of years old! By now her Book of Shadows could probably take me out by itself. If she figures out that we’re trying to get in her way—you get that this is dangerous, right?”

“Hey, don’t bite my head off, okay?”

“Sorry.” Nadia breathed out, then said it more like she really meant it. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared for Mateo. For all of us.”

Fear curled up inside Verlaine’s belly, cold and slithery. She remembered the map she’d posted on the Lightning Rod website, where anyone could see it (but, of course, no one ever looked). Again she thought about the target and envisioned herself standing in the center of it, looking up at an arrow swooshing down at her out of the sky.

But there was no running from what was coming. It was aimed not just at Verlaine, but at her uncles. Her house. Her closet. Smuckers. Everything she held dear and everything she hated—everything she knew.

What else was there to do but try to fight?

It seemed obvious to Verlaine, but as she watched Nadia curling up in her car, pulling on her headphones to try to shut out the world, she wasn’t sure Nadia remembered that right now.

Mateo didn’t blow off his shifts at the restaurant. The last thing he needed to deal with was Dad freaking out at him.