Spellcaster

Less than a week—

Oh, crap. Chemistry lab.

Walking by that place put the damper on his good mood. He couldn’t think of why, exactly, but lately chem lab gave him that creepy feeling like there were eyes watching him from behind, or as though he’d heard an odd sound in the house while showering alone: watchful, jittery, tense.

But it got a whole lot worse when Elizabeth walked into the hall.

She was right next to the Piranha, who didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. To her, Elizabeth probably looked the way Mateo had always thought: clean-scrubbed and natural, with fair freckled skin and chestnut curls.

Now he saw her for herself, a creature thick with something gold and febrile that rippled down her like so many snakes. The glow around her was brilliant, almost blinding, and yet there was nothing beautiful about it.

“Thanks for the extra-credit work,” Elizabeth said sweetly.

“No prob.” The Piranha grinned at her like an idiot—the same way Mateo used to grin at her himself. “I only wish I had more students as motivated as you!”

As the Piranha wandered off toward the teachers’ lounge, Elizabeth began walking toward him. “Mateo.” Her voice was so warm and sugary. Like honey. It disgusted him now. “Where have you been hiding lately?”

He’d kept himself from shrinking away, hadn’t revealed that he could see her true form. But Mateo knew he couldn’t keep up the lie one second more. After what had happened to Nadia, it was impossible to think that anything he did could put her in more danger; Nadia was already in as much danger as she could be.

And just once, he wanted Elizabeth to hear what he thought of her.

He said only, “I know what you are.”

She paused, then tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“I know what you are.” Mateo’s hands balled into fists. He would never, ever hit a woman, but Elizabeth didn’t even count as a woman any longer. “You don’t get any more of my dreams. You don’t get to pretend we’re best friends any longer. Keep your fake memories and your fake smile to yourself from now on, okay? Don’t come near me again, or I swear to God, no matter how much magic you’ve got, I’ll find a way to hurt you. Do you understand me?”

Elizabeth didn’t protest. She didn’t ask what he was talking about. But she didn’t lash out, either. She simply stood up straight—less like the sweet girl who had played at being his friend and more like an equal. Why had he never noticed before how tall she was? She could look him squarely in the eyes. “It’s not worth making you forget,” she said. “I’m bored with it.”

Then she walked away, as smoothly and calmly as ever.

It wasn’t the epic revenge he’d dreamed of. Maybe that would have to wait for Halloween night.

But at least he never had to pretend to be Elizabeth Pike’s friend ever again.

Nadia Caldani had broken one of the First Laws. She had told a man about magic.

Elizabeth was shocked—and she had for centuries believed herself to be beyond the reach of shock any longer. Even she, who had broken so many of the First Laws, had never broken that one. And a young girl like Nadia had?

She must have recognized the curse, Elizabeth realized as she headed home. Which I should have anticipated she would do.

That was no reason to assume that Nadia would then go so far as to tell a male about the Craft. No witch properly schooled would ever have made such an assumption … or done such a thing without a compelling reason. Abandoned by her mother and teacher she might have been, but Nadia would have learned this rule from the very first.

Then again—Mateo had stopped telling Elizabeth about his dreams. Nadia had taken away Elizabeth’s window into the future, which at this point was more a moral victory than a real one. But still, that could be her motivation.

Was it reason enough to tell him about the Craft? It wouldn’t be for most witches. But Nadia was apparently far more ruthless than Elizabeth had realized. Mere girl though she was, primitive though her magical skills might be … she was a fighter. A worthy opponent.

Gulping down the last of her water, Elizabeth tossed the bottle onto the floor amid the shards of broken glass. She made her way through her home to the bright light of her stove, by now the only heat in a very cold house. Neither heat nor cold mattered much to her any longer, but some spells worked better by the light of this unearthly fire.

First she went to the ancient, half-rotted chest of drawers leaning against the far wall. Slowly she pried open a small drawer she hadn’t gone into for a decade, not since Lauren Cabot had committed suicide.

There, amid the dust and stained wood, was a human finger bone, yellow with age. This she had possessed even longer than her immortality. George Cabot, the first of his family she had known, the first to serve her: This was all that remained of him. It was all she needed to keep the curse going forever.

Elizabeth’s first impulse was to crush it. Mateo Perez would never again share his dreams with her; that made the curse useless. He would only have been able to assist her for another few days at the most anyway, and had already done his last and greatest service by showing her how dangerous Nadia had the potential to be … by showing her that many of her plans, in the future, would be dedicated to Nadia’s destruction. So why not end the curse?

But no. The curse on the Cabots was part of the magic that underlay all her works; by now it was as much a part of Captive’s Sound as the beach or the sea. It would be foolish to disrupt that so profoundly, so close to her goal. No, that curse would die only with her.