She held it there, and held it there. Her skin turned red, and the thin wisp of smoke rising from the candle began to darken. The tallow scent deepened into the smell of smoldering flesh.
Hotter, Elizabeth thought. Pain-sparked tears welled in her eyes, but they were meaningless. Her fingers had begun to turn black. Make it hotter.
Make it boil.
Nadia leaned her head back on the heavy curved rim of the claw-foot tub, breathed in steam and put the ingredients together:
Bone through flesh
Something shattered to the sound of a scream
The destruction of a thing beloved
The air was almost uncomfortably thick with steam now, and Nadia could feel her whole body prickling with heat from the tub—she hadn’t turned the cold tap enough—but she knew she had to concentrate.
An X-ray in shadows of blue and gray, revealing the jagged white fault line where her ulna should have showed through strong, and pain lancing its way up her arm while Mom stroked her hair.
The car windows the night of the wreck, splintering into spiderweb patterns as they flipped over and over, as all of them shrieked in sudden terror.
But Nadia couldn’t think; the water was so freaking hot—it almost burned.
Her eyes opened wide as she realized the water was getting hotter. Though the taps were off, the water in the tub was heating up second by second, faster all the time, and she gasped aloud to see steam billowing up—oh, God, it stung, it hurt, it was going to start cooking her—
Nadia shoved herself out of the tub, flopping over the side onto the tile floor so hard it knocked the breath out of her. As she lay there in a puddle, skin red and burning, trying to inhale again, the room heated even further and she heard the unmistakable sound of water boiling. She grabbed a towel to hold over her face, coughing into it as the steam thickened until she couldn’t see her own toes. The heat was almost overpowering, and for a moment she thought she might pass out.
But she pushed herself to her feet. The doorknob glowed with heat, but she got to the bathroom window—an old-timey little rectangle that swung out from a side hinge, at least in theory. Nadia had never tried to open it before. Desperately she pushed at its wooden frame, but it wouldn’t budge; the window had been painted shut, probably almost a century before—
—then it gave. A blast of cold air rushed into the room. Although steam still filled the air, already Nadia could see through it again, and the temperature went from unbearable to merely uncomfortable.
A crow landed immediately outside, the wings flapping so close it startled her, so she yanked the window back until it was only open a crack. It didn’t matter; the worst had passed.
She leaned against the beadboard wall, gasping for breath. After a few seconds, she took a washcloth and pulled the glowing-hot metal chain of the stopper out of the tub; what little water hadn’t been evaporated began to drain away, leaving trails of glittery quartz dust behind. She wiped it up, then used the washcloth to undo the lock on the bathroom door.
Elizabeth knew. I wasn’t even all the way into the spell, but she still knew. She nearly boiled me to death.
She would have killed me, and this spell—it was so little—
Somehow Nadia struggled into her robe and managed to stay on her feet as she walked out of the bathroom. In the hallway she passed her father, who gave her a look. “Honey, there’s steam halfway down the hall. I know girls like their baths, but running the hot-water heater costs money, okay?”
She couldn’t give him any answer but a nod.
Elizabeth pulled her hand from the candle. The flesh had been charred away deeply enough in spots for her to see the bone.
You scare me, Asa said. And I’m from hell.
“Silence, beast.”
She flexed her fingers, ignoring the stark pain this earned her. As Elizabeth watched, the flesh began to bubble, and the skin lightened from black to a charred tan back to its natural pink. The wounds closed over again, restoring her hand to what it had been before.
Immortality had burdened her for so long, but it had its benefits.
Nadia Caldani still lived—Elizabeth could sense that much—but a warning had been delivered. Perhaps it would be heeded, and these pointless distractions would stop. Surely her threat had been clear enough that she needed to take no further action at this time.
Still, she hung Verlaine’s bracelet on a hook near the stove, keeping it close, just in case.
“You should have called me,” Mateo said. He knew he was repeating himself, but he was almost too freaked out to think straight. “You’re safe now. You’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” Nadia’s voice trembled. “But I’m not safe. None of us are.”
The three of them were sitting on one of the outside picnic tables, theoretically eating lunch outside despite the chill, but their food lay there, ignored. The thought of Elizabeth somehow reaching across town to hurt Nadia, to try to kill her—“I never dreamed about her attacking you that way.”
“You weren’t with me. That must be why. You can only dream of the future you’re going to see.” Nadia was trying hard to sound like she was in control again, but he knew better. Besides, what she was saying was no comfort whatsoever. He dreamed of Nadia in constant peril; it was even worse to think that she faced other dangers he’d never see, never have the chance to warn her against.
Verlaine sat across the table from them, huddled in a fake leopard-skin coat with a wide black collar. “How did Elizabeth know you were trying the spell?”