Spellcaster

Mateo kept kissing her, his hands clutching her against his body, his lips finding her cheeks and her throat. It was almost amusing to feel her physical response—imagine, being carried away by something as silly and primitive as human sex. She hadn’t indulged in so long; no doubt that was why. Elizabeth laughed softly before kissing his mouth again.

A Steadfast gave by far the most power to the witch she … or he … was bound to. But any witch’s spells would gain strength if cast in the proximity of another’s Steadfast. Elizabeth would keep Mateo by her side from now until her death. Perhaps he would die with her. That had a sort of poetry—dying with the last of the Cabots in her arms.

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, knowing he would hear it in Nadia’s voice, that even now he looked down and saw Nadia’s face. The illusion was only for him—anyone else watching saw her as herself, knew that it was Mateo Perez and Elizabeth Pike in a passionate embrace. But that let her make the illusion even more powerful for him, even more compelling. “You and me.”

How young he looked, how nervous and hopeful. “Yeah.” Mateo swallowed. “We need to talk about how we can use the info we’ve gotten to go after Elizabeth—”

“There are other things we could do.” Elizabeth kissed his neck, and knew now he would follow her no matter what.

Okay, Mateo thought. We’re going to go over all of this. Make our final plans against Elizabeth. That’s what we’re really doing here. At least, it’s what we’re doing first. Right?

Still, something about the way Nadia had kissed him—as if she wanted all of him, body and soul—

The world might end tomorrow, Mateo reminded himself. Live for tonight.

His hand tightened around Nadia’s. He’d always thought of her as having such small hands. But her palm was square in his, her fingers so long they seemed to wrap around his wrist entirely.

“Where will we go?” he whispered. They were halfway down the beach by now; Gage’s party was only a few flickering lights on the horizon behind them.

She gave him a flirtatious glance over her shoulder. “I know a place.”

A stray thought wandered in: Why aren’t we going to her house?

Her father and brother were out of town. Obviously that was their best chance at having privacy as long as they wanted—to talk and plan and—anything else, all night long—

He swallowed hard.

But they were walking in exactly the wrong direction to go to Nadia’s home, and besides, if that were where they were headed, she would’ve said so.

Maybe he should suggest it. “Want to go to your house?”

“I have a better idea.” Nadia stepped closer to him. Funny—she was a little taller than he’d realized, too. Maybe his feet were sinking into the sand. She kissed him, slow and deep, and for a few moments all his worries were very far away. When at last their lips parted, and he was gasping for breath, Nadia said, “Bind yourself to me.”

“I’m already bound to you. Steadfast, remember?” He slung his hands around her waist.

“This is different. Better. It keeps us close no matter what.” She smiled as she added, “Trust me?”

“Of course.”

Nadia took his wrists in hers and started whispering some kind of incantation. It was different than any spell he’d seen her cast before, and he felt it immediately—as if unseen cords were wrapping around his hands, tying them together.

Mateo had assumed “close no matter what” was an emotional thing, not a physical one. This was more like … well, like she’d handcuffed him. “Um, Nadia?”

He didn’t get a chance to object, though, because now they were no longer alone.

“What have we here?” Jeremy Prasad had wandered off from the party, too, apparently; he had a bottle in one hand and his usual arrogant sneer on his face. “Wow, Mateo, I knew you didn’t have much luck with girls, but here’s a tip: They like it if you actually take them inside first.”

Mateo wanted to tell Jeremy to get lost, but more than that, he wanted his hands free, and whatever spell Nadia had cast was really strong. Too strong.

Nadia gave Jeremy an appraising look and said simply, “You’ll do.”

Then she held one hand out, and it was—impossible to describe, something blacker than night, insubstantial and swirling like octopus ink in water, lacing through the air almost faster than he could see and piercing Jeremy’s body like so many knives.

Jeremy’s face froze in an expression of pain and shock—and then he went limp. He fell face-first into the sand, hard. The bottle landed beside him, and beer glugged out, forming a puddle around one of Jeremy’s hands.

Mateo knew, just by looking at him, that Jeremy was dead.

He turned to look at Nadia, realizing even as he did so that this wasn’t Nadia. As he watched, horrified, her face and form seemed to melt, like spun sugar dissolving in water. The mask split, peeled off, and washed away, leaving Elizabeth standing there.

She was no longer half-animal, no longer coated in writhing gold. She was only herself, and yet somehow more terrible than ever before.

“I would have kept the illusion for a while,” she said, almost apologetic. “You would have enjoyed being with the girl you wanted for a night. I suppose I owed you that much. But I needed to do this. No illusion would have held after you’d seen me take a life.”

Mateo wanted to vomit. He wanted to spit the taste of her kisses from his mouth. But even what had been done to him paled in comparison to the fact that Jeremy Prasad’s dead body lay only a few feet away. The guy was—he had been a total ass, no question, but he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to get murdered, to fall where he’d been standing. Now he lay on the beach like so much trash washed up by the tide.