Steadfast(23)

Then she realized he’d do it even if he did know, and she hugged him from behind. He laughed. “Now, what was that for?”

“Just for being awesome.”

When they got to the side hedge, Uncle Gary pushed some of the branches aside. “Look at that. Somebody vandalized Bradford’s little garden. Who would do that to a gnome?”

The garden gnome that usually watched over their neighbor’s vegetable patch had been torn up—no. Melted. It had melted right where it stood, like it had been exposed to some terrible heat.

She remembered Asa, and the unearthly, demonic heat that emanated from him every time he came near.

As Uncle Gary went next door to give them the bad news, Verlaine prodded the melted stuff with the toe of her shoe. Then she looked over at her house. This exact scorched spot was the very best place to see the light from her bedroom window.

Asa walked home through the dark, hands in the pockets of his black coat. He’d been playing spy for Elizabeth—tracking and observing Nadia and her closest friends, the better to learn their habits and vulnerabilities.

With Nadia and Mateo that was simple enough. But he found himself getting distracted when he watched Verlaine.

There was something about her that intrigued him.

He found himself walking home without seeing the houses around him, or the stars overhead. In his mind he saw only the silver fall of Verlaine’s hair.





8


NADIA SAT BENEATH THE PROTECTIVE BLUE CEILING OF her attic, poring through the Book of Shadows that had belonged to Goodwife Hale centuries before. So much information was written down in here—spells Nadia had never heard of before, the history that had told her the truth about Elizabeth Pike—but there wasn’t anything about whatever had happened to Mrs. Purdhy a couple of days ago.

She had been able to find specifics about demons, but almost wished she hadn’t. They were only called upon for the darkest, most dangerous magic. And now he was following Verlaine.

Probably he’s following all of us, Nadia thought. Spying for Elizabeth.

Well, let Elizabeth learn what she could. If Nadia perfected this spell of forgetting, Elizabeth would lose this information as well as all her magic.

Right now, though, she was distracted. She’d gotten an email from Faye Walsh today, asking Nadia to schedule a conference. There was no reason for them to have a conference. Not unless Ms. Walsh was about to start asking questions Nadia couldn’t answer.

The way she’d stared at Nadia after the incident at town hall—had Ms. Walsh guessed the truth? Did she somehow know Nadia was a witch?

“Naaaaaaadiaaaaa!” Cole yelled from downstairs. “Dad says we all need to get out of the house for a while!”

Probably that really meant that he’d botched making dinner again. But eating out meant going to a restaurant, which meant Mateo. “Be right there!”

“See, buddy?” Nadia ruffled Cole’s hair as the entire family got settled in their booth at La Catrina. “We made it just fine.”

“Something always happens when we try to go here.” Her little brother looked around at the skeletons on the walls; he didn’t seem to care that they were all happily playing guitars or dancing. “Every time.”

“Not this time. We finally get to try the best Mexican food in town for ourselves.” Dad clapped his hands together. He seemed cheerful—way too cheerful, really, unless he’d had a serious jones for Mexican food the last couple of months and was now more excited about empanadas than any other man on Earth. Nadia felt like he’d been in a weird mood all day, or at least since she got home from school, but probably it was just work crap. Lawyers seemed to deal with that a lot.

Across the room, she finally caught sight of Mateo at the same moment he saw her. Even though he had platters of fajitas in his hands and balanced on his forearms, he grinned at her through the steam.

That was all it took. It was as though the world was in black and white until she saw Mateo, and then it was in color—all the vibrant gold, red, and turquoise of La Catrina coming alive around her, like Dorothy stepping into Oz. As though she’d only listened to the noise of knives on plates and dull conversations and now she could hear the music, Mateo showed her how vivid the world around her really was, how beautiful, if she’d only see.

When he came to their table, he was wearing a smile so broad it almost made her laugh—though probably she looked just as stupid. He only glanced away to slide some crayons and a kids’ place mat to Cole. “Glad you guys stopped by.”

“The hero himself,” Dad said, and held out his hand to shake.

Mateo shrugged as if it had been no big deal, when in fact he’d helped her dad pull Cole out of their wrecked car, then rescued Nadia himself. That was the first time his visions had led him to her, the night they’d met. “Good to see you, Mr. Caldani. Now, do you guys want to hear tonight’s special?”

Nadia ordered her usual without even thinking about it, the better to concentrate on how Mateo looked in his black T-shirt.

Her dad finished, “. . . and a margarita. Could definitely use a margarita. Nadia can drive home, can’t you, honey?”

“Sure thing.” That, too, was surprising. Dad rarely drank around her and Cole.

“Okay, coming right back with your drinks.” Mateo finished writing on his notepad, ducked down to kiss Nadia on the cheek, then hurried to check on yet another new table nearby . . . Kendall Bender, in fact, though instead of her usual troop of loyal Plastics, she was with her family. There seemed to be about a dozen of them, from grandparents to an older sister in a college sweatshirt; they’d be keeping Mateo busy.