Spellcaster

Loved and lost. Nadia had gone out with guys, had cared about a few, but she’d never truly fallen for someone—not the way she sensed she could fall for Mateo. The only love she’d lost was her mother’s love.

And that loss had gutted her beyond anything else Nadia had ever experienced or imagined. It still hurt so badly, every single day—

The thought of setting herself up for that kind of pain again made Nadia feel faint. She put one hand out to steady herself against the cinder-block wall of the school. Elizabeth’s chin lifted—she’d seen Nadia’s weakness, and Nadia hated herself for it.

Elizabeth said only, “For your own sake, you should move on. From me, from this town. Keep your family safe. Haven’t you been through enough?”

Then she simply walked away.

Would that warning be sufficient?

Elizabeth thought so. She doubted a slip of a girl like Nadia Caldani represented any real danger in the first place; any complications from Nadia’s crush on Mateo would be minor and easily corrected with spells of forgetting or compulsion. Nadia would never tell Mateo about magic, or therefore about Elizabeth’s own witchcraft—someone so earnestly self-righteous would never break one of the First Laws.

And yet Elizabeth had to think of another besides herself.

Were Nadia to turn her avid curiosity away from Elizabeth and onto the magic she must, by now, have sensed beneath the chemistry lab—

No, that would not do.

Quickly Elizabeth cast a simple spell to shield the chemistry lab better. No magic on earth was capable of shielding that much power for very long, but she only needed another few weeks now.

I protect you, she thought to the last One she would ever love. I stand between you and all who would oppose you, weak or mighty.

The spell shimmered out across the school, settling deep within the earth, where it could do the most good.

Now, to cover her tracks. Briefly Elizabeth considered having Nadia forget everything about her. It would be cleaner—but probably short-lived. If Nadia had figured out this much already, she’d probably manage to figure out that Elizabeth was a witch again—and again—and again. Repeated confrontations: What a bore.

Besides, Nadia’s knowledge was no more threat than Nadia herself, now that the Chamber was protected. Elizabeth needed only to ensure that would continue.

So she sent out a spell of forgetting, highly targeted, highly specific—and sufficient to make sure Nadia Caldani could do nothing to interfere with Elizabeth’s plans, in even the slightest way.

Nadia stopped in her tracks, books in her arms. Did I forget something?

She’d been freaking out about Elizabeth facing her down that way—so much that apparently she’d lost track of something else. And it was important, too. Did it have to do with chemistry class, maybe?

I bet there’s an assignment I forgot to write down, she thought, and sighed. She’d have to ask Mateo about it later.

The neighbors looked at Mateo warily when he asked to borrow the boat, but then, that was how they always looked at him. As soon as they said yes, he texted Nadia: Meet me at sunset at the boathouse. Is Verlaine coming?

I didn’t tell her about it, Nadia replied, and Mateo felt slightly relieved. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Verlaine—he kind of did, which surprised him, since as long as he could remember, she’d been the only kid more outcast than he was in Captive’s Sound. But whatever they found in the ocean—if it explained more about who Elizabeth really was, what she was keeping from him—then he wanted to talk about that with Nadia, alone.

Already he felt like he could tell Nadia everything.

What was it about someone that made you know, just know, your secrets were safe with them? Mateo had come to know Nadia first in his dreams, and in those dreams he’d felt—protectiveness, trust, even something that might be love. But those had been only nightmare visions, the emotions experienced there as fleeting as sleep. What was stirring between him and Nadia now—that was real. It could endure. Could he trust that feeling, and trust her?

Walking out to the water that evening made him shiver. Not from the chill in the air—though it was coming, fall already threatening to turn into winter with September not even quite over—but from the view, the look at his hometown that revealed all the evil he’d always sensed but never before seen.

Being a Steadfast meant more than strengthening Nadia’s powers. It meant facing the world for what it really was—filled with magic, more dangerous and far stranger than anyone could ever guess.

Even during the daytime, the sky overhead was different than it should have been. Dingier. Lower. When he looked at it, Mateo had the uncanny sense that it was looking back. At first he thought he could even see the reflection of that gloom on the waters, but then he realized they were poisoned in the exact same way. Staring at the ocean, the waves seemed not blue but a slick, iridescent black, as if in the aftermath of an oil spill.

As the sun lowered enough to touch the eerie surface of the ocean, Nadia appeared at the boathouse. Her figure was all but obscured by the heavy fleece top and sweatpants she wore.

It wasn’t like Mateo hadn’t noticed before then that Nadia had an incredible body. He was a guy. There was no chance he’d miss that. But he hadn’t realized he was already in the habit of checking Nadia out every single time he saw her. Maybe he should think about that some more later, he decided as he straightened up. They had a job to do.

“You got a boat?” she said. “Good work.”