Steadfast

“I know—it’s got to be weird, but we try. I’m sorry we don’t do better.”

Verlaine was certain that Nadia was completely sincere, but at the moment she just didn’t care. “Do you know what I’d give to have anybody feel about me the way Mateo feels about you? Anybody in the world?”

Nadia’s face flushed. “Are you telling me you’re in love with Mateo, too?”

“No! Of course not!” Sure, Mateo was handsome, but he didn’t do it for her. Unfortunately her type seemed to be limited to either jerks in her class or demons from hell. Mateo was way too nice to qualify, not to mention undamned. “But if somebody ever loved me—if they even could love me—I don’t even know what that would mean. I only know it would be the most amazing thing in the world.”

Nobody spoke for a while. Awkward, Verlaine thought, and she wondered if she should put on the radio or something. Then, very quietly, Nadia said, “I see you sometimes. I mean, the real you.”

“Huh?”

“When I cast a really powerful spell, or other high-level magic is happening around us.” Her words came in a rush, but Nadia kept on, determined. “It’s like—like just for a second, it blocks out whatever else is keeping us from seeing you for who you really are. The last time was when we were out at Davis Bridge, just after it collapsed. Obviously I couldn’t say anything, because we were all swimming for our lives, and now it’s hard for me to even remember straight. But I know it happened. For one second, I loved you so much—”

Hot tears blurred Verlaine’s vision; her hands felt warm and weak on the steering wheel. “So it’s true. What Asa said is true.” There really is something in me to love. It’s in here. It always has been. Sometimes I didn’t believe it but it’s true, and it’s been there all along.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” Verlaine shook her head as she wiped at her cheeks. “I’m okay.”

Nadia wasn’t deceived. “I made you cry,” she said, beginning to tear up herself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. I’m glad you did. I just—I can’t right now, okay? I can’t.”

Instead of replying, Nadia just burst into tears.

For a few minutes they just sat there in the car and cried, no sound in the car except their sobs and the wheeze of half-warm air through the heater. Finally Verlaine punched at the glove compartment. Nadia jumped back, but Verlaine shook her head. “You have to hit it to make it open. Piece of junk.”

She grabbed the packet of Kleenex from the glove compartment, handed a wad of them to Nadia, and started cleaning herself up. When Verlaine had pulled herself together enough to see, she realized that mascara had run all the way down Nadia’s cheeks. “You look like crap, by the way.”

“So do you.”

Then they started laughing, which was probably a sign of hysteria, but whatever. It felt better than crying, even if it did make tears run down their cheeks again.

“Okay,” Verlaine finally said, once they were back to themselves. “I need to get home to Uncle Dave, but I hereby decree that we need an emergency DQ run. There’s no way I can deal with any of this without a Blizzard.”

Nadia slumped back in her seat, obviously exhausted. “Please, yes.”

They could fight the overwhelming evil tomorrow, Verlaine decided. It wasn’t as though anything else could happen tonight to make the situation worse.

As Verlaine drove toward Dairy Queen, Nadia tried to sort through what to do next.

Talking about the collapse of Davis Bridge had reminded her of that crushing failure—but also of why it might have gone wrong. The more Nadia considered it, the more she became convinced that Elizabeth couldn’t have simply sensed the spell on her own. By the time she recognized a spell of forgetting, it should have been too late for her to act to protect herself.

There were only two ways Elizabeth could have slithered out of that one. First, she had access to some form of protective spell that went beyond anything Nadia had come across. Second, she had been warned by someone else . . . or something else.

Demons could sense magic. Asa might have been able to warn Elizabeth in time. But Asa wouldn’t have bothered warning Elizabeth. He hated her—however manipulative Asa was, however many silky lies he’d whispered into Mateo’s ear, Nadia felt sure Asa wasn’t lying about his hatred for the Sorceress who took such glee in enslaving him.

The only other possible way Elizabeth could have been warned was by her Book of Shadows.

Spell books became sensitive to magic over time, even possessed magic of their own. After her spooky encounter with Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows, Nadia felt certain that it had not only power, but a certain level of consciousness. It wasn’t just the best weapon in Elizabeth’s arsenal; it was her collaborator. Her ally.

In the past, both Mateo and Verlaine had suggested trying to steal it. Nadia had told them it was far too dangerous to consider, and she still believed that.

But what if she didn’t try to steal it?

What if she tried to destroy it?

As Verlaine shouted their orders into the tinny drive-through speaker, Nadia sank deeper into thought, coming up with a plan.

“If you’re taking too much of a loss on the margaritas, what’s the point?” Mateo said. He was driving the truck, just in case his dad was able to talk the package-store owner into a free tequila tasting.