Spellcaster

Mateo groaned as he flopped back onto the bed. He’d stayed up for hours past the point when his father would think he was asleep—late enough that the alarm tomorrow was going to seriously hurt—but maybe this way he wouldn’t dream.

And yet when he spent those hours thinking about Nadia, it was just another kind of torture.

He’d known from his dreams that she was beautiful, with the kind of quiet beauty that most people wouldn’t see right away. He’d known she would have enormous dark eyes and a heart-shaped face. Some of the dreams had even told him what the heavy silk of her hair would feel like in his hands.

So many of them had showed him how she might die.

Why did I stop for her today? The temptation had come over him, even though Mateo knew better. None of the dreams showed her dying on a motorcycle, so that was probably safe, he’d decided. Everything had turned out fine. But when would he make one excuse too many to be near her, and put her in danger?

If the dreams showed him there when she died, and he refused to be anywhere near her, then Nadia would be okay. At least, none of those dreams could come true—not if he didn’t let them.

Mateo tugged his blanket over his head, closed his eyes, and willed himself not to think about her any longer. He’d done that at least a dozen times that night.

This time, though, he was finally exhausted enough for it to work. He fell asleep.

And dreamed.

Their surroundings were so murky he could barely make her out amid the green-gray swirls. Nadia drifted above him, her black hair streaming out all around. In that first instant, Mateo could only think how amazing she looked—like some kind of angel descending to Earth—until he saw the chains.

Were they chains? Whatever they were they were heavy, and dark, and wrapped around her ankles. Nadia was reaching upward, her fingertips straining toward something overhead and out of sight, but she couldn’t escape.

Nadia’s eyes met his, a silent plea for him to help her, to save her. Mateo grabbed the chains, but they were loose, slippery, and they fell from his fingers—

He awoke with a start, panting, desperate for air. His head buzzed and his ears rang; Mateo realized he’d been holding his breath in his sleep.

The next day, in chemistry, Nadia was determined to ignore Mateo.

Well, not ignore. It would be rude to ignore a classmate who had given you a ride home, not to mention rescued your whole family a week and a half ago. But she was going to be friendly. A just-friends kind of friendly. That was how you treated a guy who had a girlfriend.

Yet she knew the minute he walked in. Her head lifted from her lab table at that moment, her eyes drawn to Mateo as if by some irresistible force. Whatever it was, he felt it, too; their gazes met, and in that first second, she couldn’t even breathe.

Nadia broke the glance, though, and Mateo went quickly to his lab table, where Elizabeth was waiting for him.

She pushed aside her disappointment and tried to focus … not on chemistry, but on the magical power she felt within this room. Beneath it.

Something is buried here, Nadia thought. Buried deep under the foundation of the school—so there’s no chance I can find out what it is.

Whatever it was, its power was almost eerie. Not unlike the weird barrier they had collided with on the edge of town. Magic, but twisted and gnarled from its rightful shape. This wasn’t a power Nadia or any other witch could call upon. It was a power that … drained. Subtracted. Withered. A power that wanted something it didn’t have.

She thought again of the gray skies and dead trees in Captive’s Sound. Was this why? Because the town was near—this, whatever it was?

And, of course, if something was buried, someone had done the burying. At one point, there had been witches in Captive’s Sound. Surely they couldn’t be here any longer, but back in the town’s history, there had to have been powerful witches at work. A coven, even.

Nadia sat up straighter in her seat, suddenly energized. There’s going to be a whole history of magic here. I don’t have any idea how to find it yet, but there has to be a way, and—it’s something I could learn, right? Something I can teach myself.

It was the first time since Mom’s departure that Nadia had thought about striking out on her own. Always, before, the task of training herself in the final, most complex stages of witchcraft had seemed impossible. She still thought it was impossible. And yet—even if she couldn’t take herself all the way, maybe she could at least take herself further.

Yes, there had to have been many witches here, and gifted ones, to control, capture, and bury something this powerfully dark....

Witches, or a Sorceress.

A chill swept through Nadia. Then she told herself she was being stupid. There had only been a handful of Sorceresses in the whole history of witchcraft, which went back to the dawn of civilization at Uruk. A Sorceress broke the One Absolute Law. She was outcast, soulless, beyond what anyone could call “wicked” or “evil”—so complete was her dedication to destruction.

A Sorceress had sworn allegiance to the One Beneath.

Once again, Nadia shivered.

“Cold?” murmured a tall, good-looking guy who sat near her. Before she could answer, he smirked. “Nice thin T-shirt shows that off. I like it.”

Gross. “Die in a fire,” Nadia muttered.

She hugged herself and tried, belatedly, to pay attention to her chemistry teacher, even to the sniggering jerk next to her, to anything at all besides the idea of a Sorceress and the horrible writhing power lurking underneath her feet.