Spellcaster

It would be, of course. Tonight Gage would probably die, just like most of the residents of Captive’s Sound.

Asa felt a wave of pity for the young man, who seemed friendly and kind. He wished he could say, Get in your car. Go. Drive as far as you can, as fast as you can.

But Asa belonged to the One Beneath. Working against Him was impossible. If he even tried to speak one word that would go against Elizabeth’s plan, so much as attempted to perform an act that might save one of the lives that needed to be ended, not only would he fail, but he would also be immolated in a flame that would make hell look like a top vacation destination. And that fire would outlast even hell, because death was a mercy he would never receive.

Yet at least a few of his actions could be his own, if they were harmless enough. “Come on. I’ll help you look for the chair.”

Gage stared at him. “Uh, okay. That’s—nice of you.”

Apparently Jeremy Prasad hadn’t spent much of his life being nice for no reason. It hardly mattered. No one here would have time to realize that Jeremy was dead, or who—no, what—was walking around in his skin.

So Asa enjoyed what freedom he had, walking along the beach with Gage to look for a plastic patio chair and reveling in the beauty of the last dawn this town would ever see.

Nadia kept struggling. Kept fighting. She pulled the cobwebs from her face, freed one hand, then the other, then the first again. Her feet could kick the tendrils loose for a second before they ensnared her once more. Some of the spiders had found the holes in her tights and were crawling inside them now. Long ago, she’d given up screaming; she couldn’t even spare that much breath, and she didn’t want to give the Book of Shadows the satisfaction.

No matter how hard I fight, it’s not enough, she thought. Elizabeth’s got me, no matter how hard I try.

How hard I try.

An idea flickered into flame, and Nadia gasped.

A spell like this, meant to entrap—it would naturally wrap itself around someone trying to get away. The harder she fought, the harder it clutched at her.

What if she stopped fighting?

Merely lying still wouldn’t work—no spell of protection could be that easily fooled—but there were other spells that might be more convincing.

Such as a spell that would keep her right here.

Nadia pulled against the cobwebs wound around her upper arms to bring one hand to her bracelet. Two fingers found the quartz charm, and quickly she assembled the ingredients:

Love unbreakable.

Hatred implacable.

Hope eternal.

She had to think it, feel it, believe it more powerfully than ever before —

Hugging her father as he left for New York City with Cole, knowing she might not ever see him again.

The moment she’d realized that Elizabeth had tried to kill Verlaine—then the moment she knew Elizabeth had Mateo in her grasp.

Her own hand reaching for the shards of mirror, hour after hour, despite exhaustion and terror, because there had to be a chance; there had to be.

The spell of encirclement sprang to life around her. Immediately the spiderwebs slithered back. A few of the small crawly guests in the legs of her tights followed suit. The circle spread around her, a soft blue glow, a sphere that was meant to hold her in position against any force. It was what she would have cast the night of the wreck, if she’d had time; it would have kept her and her family almost motionless as the car flipped down around them, protecting them from every blow. Lacking independent thought, Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows knew only that another spell now held Nadia in place, that its protections were no longer required, and so the spiderwebs inched away.

No Book of Shadows, not even this one, could know that Nadia controlled the spell herself, that she would be able to use the sphere to move away as she wished.

Her whole body shaking with exhaustion, Nadia began stumbling toward the door. Now she didn’t have to worry about the broken glass; the blue sphere around her kept it from touching her feet. She did, however, stop in the middle of the room and rip off the remnants of her tights. A last spider tumbled down and scurried away. She shuddered.

Still Elizabeth’s house remained empty. Wherever she had taken Mateo, it wasn’t here. But wait—was that daylight outside? She’d been in the grip of a powerful enchantment; time could get lost during an enchantment, making hours seem like days, or years seem like minutes.

I can’t have been here all night. Please, no.

Nadia looked out the window and her heart sank. Not only was that daylight—it was late afternoon. No, evening. The sun would be setting any moment. She’d lost nearly twenty-four hours.

The Halloween carnival would already have begun.

She hadn’t prepared any more spells. Hadn’t thought any more about how to defeat Elizabeth’s plan of ripping away the entire magical framework of Captive’s Sound. She hadn’t even bathed or slept.

Didn’t matter. She was out of time.

Nadia saw a pair of Elizabeth’s shoes next to the door, simple flats, and quickly slipped them on. She could run in these if she had to, and she had to.

Just then she heard a chiming from her pocket—her phone ringing.

Dad! Nadia thought. Oh, crap, he’d probably tried to call or text a dozen times last night, and she hadn’t answered or even heard it over her own screams. Now he was no doubt on his way home to find out what the hell was going on.

But when she looked down at the screen, it was Verlaine’s face she saw smiling back. Was one of her dads calling from Verlaine’s phone? Please, she thought, please don’t let her have gotten worse. Don’t let her be— “Hello?”