Spellcaster

Silently they walked into the parking lot—where Verlaine leaned against Ginger’s car, slightly disheveled. They must have tossed her out here for creating a disturbance. As soon as the doors swung shut, she said, “What just happened?”

Nadia didn’t answer—she couldn’t—and instead turned to Ginger. “Did you do something in the car? Cast a spell?”

Ginger shook her head no and shrugged.

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Tugging her hair up into a tail with both hands, Nadia breathed out in frustration. “Your spell shouldn’t have worn off on its own. Even if it weren’t strengthened by his—by there being a Steadfast around.”

The answer hit her in a rush: Elizabeth.

He was her crystal ball, her window to the future—she still needed him. Elizabeth’s dragon claws had been sunk into his family for hundreds of years; why would she let go now?

And she was still so attached to him, still so aware of everything about Mateo, that she’d sensed the spell without even being there.

How deep did that connection go? Would Nadia ever be able to free him? Was that even possible?

Nadia took a deep breath, trying to clear her head. She realized that Ginger had been scribbling something for a few seconds now, just as Ginger finished and held up her note: You’ve broken one of the First Laws. You have no right to the Craft.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” Nadia said, but she felt like she was dying inside. It was like all the anger her mother would have felt, all the scorn, was bleeding through Ginger into her—like somehow her mother had left because she knew this would happen, which made no sense but at this moment felt horribly true. She tried to stick to the subject. “Elizabeth did this. You know she did. Just like she’s the one who cursed Mateo in the first place—and cursed you.”

Ginger only stared, but Nadia knew that was the same as agreeing with her. Verlaine hugged herself and watched them with worried eyes.

“She’s planning something.” Nadia stepped closer. “Something terrible, this Halloween night at the carnival. I know you don’t approve of me. I know you think I’ve done something awful but—it’s not like what Elizabeth does, you get that much, right? You’re—” Her voice broke, and a flush of shame warmed her cheeks, but Nadia forced herself to keep going. “You’re the only other nonevil witch I know right now. My mother’s gone. Elizabeth’s a Sorceress. If we don’t stop her, I think a lot of people are going to get hurt. And I’m sure Mateo’s going to be the first. Please, tell me—what would you do? What are you going to do?”

Ginger jotted one more note, handed it to Nadia, and got into her car. The door was slammed shut in a way that suggested they wouldn’t be getting a ride back home.

Nadia looked down at the piece of paper, which said only, RUN.

16

MATEO KNEW HE WAS DRUGGED. THE HEAVY, SWEET taste on his tongue and the overpowering weight of his eyelids and his body told him that. It was as though he were sinking through endless fog but couldn’t bring himself to care.

Nadia had been here with him. That was the one thing he now knew for sure, the one thing that made the rest of it okay. If she had been here to check on him, then everything must be okay.

He saw nothing now; he didn’t care. His hand hurt—one constant pinpoint of pain. The IV, he thought, without really caring why there was one jabbed through his skin. Mateo’s only real connection with the rest of the world was hearing, though he didn’t bother making sense of what he heard.

“—keep him overnight for observation. We’ll need to do some tests.”

“Of course.” That was Dad. Mateo was sure of that much, and it was such a relief to know who Dad was, to remember him. But why a relief? He couldn’t put it together right now—not with the fog swirling all around him—“But everything looks normal?”

“His vitals are strong. We’re giving him antiseizure medication just in case, but if he doesn’t have another episode, he can go home tomorrow morning.”

That sounded good, Mateo decided. Now he could let himself fall asleep. But wasn’t there a reason he didn’t want to go to sleep? He could remember it now if he wanted to—

—but he didn’t want to. He relaxed and let the fog swallow him whole.

For a long time there was nothing.

Then he saw Nadia again.

They sat on the back porch of some house on the beach—not Mateo’s, but it might have been any of a few dozen strewn along the coast of Captive’s Sound. A fire pit flickered from the sand below, and crystal wind chimes sang with the breeze. It was late at night, and the sky was so clear he could see where the stars met the sea. They were curled up on a swing, and Nadia shivered from the chill.

“Don’t kiss me,” she said.

She was cold, so cold. Despite his own shivering, Mateo shrugged off his jacket and slipped it around her shoulders. Nadia’s dark eyes seemed like part of the night that surrounded them, and he couldn’t stop wanting to bury his hands in her black hair.

Why was this different?

“You’re not dying,” he whispered. “Not this time. It’s okay for me to be with you.”

Nadia smiled up at him as she trailed two fingers along his cheek, a touch that made him feel like he was melting. She smiled even as she said, “I’m dying the whole time this happens.”

Mateo laid one hand along her belly; he could feel the warmth of her skin through her shirt. Slowly he slid his hand toward her back, bringing her into his embrace.