Steadfast(30)

This was pretty massively unfair, given that Verlaine was one of the only people trying to deal with the person actually responsible for hurting Riley—but she couldn’t say that. Even if she did, nobody would listen. Instead she scrunched down in her desk and folded her arms in front of her chest. A few people snickered, but then Mr. Davis got them all talking about which pictures of Riley would be best for the montage.

So much for asking whether they were even going to try to cover the not-quite-an-ax-massacre at town hall. Only in this room did attempted murder not count as news.

A byline? They thought she only cared about a byline? As if anybody would have paid attention to her regardless. Verlaine only wanted people to start thinking about how weird Captive’s Sound actually was, to recognize that all these events were part of a larger, scarier pattern. But Elizabeth’s magic wouldn’t let them see that.

Just like Elizabeth’s magic wouldn’t let them see Verlaine for herself.

Nobody pays any attention to anything I do, no matter how hard I try, no matter how good it is. Even my best friends hardly notice me—and I know they don’t mean it, but it doesn’t matter, because the magic works on them, too. I might as well not even talk. Or show up.

Or exist.

That was usually the point where Verlaine reined herself in. Where she told herself that everything could change, that someday she’d go off to college and people would be nicer. Thinking about college and the better life she could create for herself there was the only way she made it through Rodman High.

But now she knew—it wasn’t true.

Nothing was going to change in college. Nothing was going to change, ever. The magic Elizabeth had worked, the magic that prevented anyone from caring about Verlaine—that was permanent. It would last forever.

No one would ever, ever care about her any more than they did right now, today. She was going to spend the rest of her life on the outside looking in. This horrible, clawing loneliness inside her, the thing she battled every single day . . .

The loneliness was going to win.

Verlaine drew her knees up in her chair and huddled into a ball, right there at her desk, because otherwise she would break down and cry.

Nobody noticed. And she knew nobody would have noticed if she’d cried, either.

Nadia used one of Cole’s purple markers to try to draw the shape again. Last night she’d made notes, but they weren’t quite right. Were the lines on Elizabeth’s shoulders a little more—curved, maybe?


“This tea tastes a little funny.” Her dad squinted down at the cup she’d made for him. “Are you sure this is the same stuff?”

“Absolutely,” she said. Just with a special ingredient added.

She put down the marker and touched the pearl charm on her bracelet. Betrayer’s Snare was another spell she’d never cast before; it could only be used in certain situations, and she wasn’t sure whether the seduction Elizabeth was attempting was even one of them. Tonight was her first chance to cast it—you needed the moon at three-quarters to be sure the spell would take root.

Hopefully, as of tomorrow night, Elizabeth wouldn’t be an issue any longer. But Betrayer’s Snare couldn’t hurt Dad, and Nadia didn’t want to take any chances.

An unkindness returned.

An unwanted message received.

A danger unseen until too late.



Nadia kept her eyes on her father as she pulled up the memories:

Toddler Cole pulling her hair one time too often, shouting at him that he was a little brat, and watching his face crumple.

Mom saying “It’s better this way” as she walked out the door for the last time.

Jerking back in horror as cobwebs closed over her face and body, entrapping her in Elizabeth’s run-down old house, and Nadia realizing Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows was an enemy in its own right—

Nothing happened. Dad still looked vaguely preoccupied. The only way to tell if Betrayer’s Snare worked was if the person you were trying to protect stayed safe. Right now, Nadia thought, that didn’t feel very comforting.

Cole came back into the room. When he saw that Nadia had stopped coloring, he started whining, “You didn’t draw the zebra. You promised you would make a zebra!”

“I’m on it, buddy.” Cole acted out when he was tired, and he was probably the most exhausted member of the family—which was saying something. He’d been torn apart last night, sobbing until after two a.m. Nadia and her father had taken turns sitting with him. It had been hard for her to focus on calming Cole down. She kept remembering Elizabeth’s taunts, noticing how her dad’s mind seemed to be . . . someplace else. She knew it wasn’t anything Dad had control over. He was in the grips of a spell most people couldn’t have fought off even this long. But still—yuck.

Was it only a few days ago that she’d been grossed out by imagining her dad dating again? If he took up with some normal forty-year-old woman now, Nadia thought she’d offer to babysit every night of the week. Anyone but Elizabeth. Anything but that.

“You’re not drawing my zebra!” Pouting, Cole grabbed the red marker and deliberately made an ugly mark across her design.

That should have earned him a time-out. Instead Nadia gasped. “Cole, that’s good. That’s really good.”

“It is?” He seemed too surprised to remember he was in a bad mood.