Steadfast(67)

For the first part of the drive, Mateo wasn’t able to see anything out of the ordinary—at least, for a Steadfast. The same strange magical flickerings that marked the town were still there, though it seemed to him they burned more feverishly than before.

Really, if anything was unusual, it was Verlaine herself. She was back in vintage mode with her leopard-print coat and a white silk scarf tied around her hair, but the attempt at glam didn’t disguise how exhausted she looked. Yet something had energized her, too. It reminded him of the way he felt when he was cramming for exams and drank coffee all night long. “You okay?” he said.

“I’m questioning the nature of love. I don’t know whether I’m strong enough to do all the things I have to do. Also I’m wondering whether it’s worth breaking into one of the houses on the Hill to get something to eat that’s not canned beets. How are you?”

Mateo thought about that for a moment. “Uh, the same, actually.”

They rounded a hill that brought them within sight of the sea, and then he couldn’t think about anything else any longer, because something was taking shape beneath the water. Something vast, immeasurable, and awful.

“Can you see that?” he said, pointing at the darkness beneath the waves. It looked so substantial that he wondered whether it could be made only of magic.

“The lighthouse? The water? What?”


“Never mind. It’s something only a Steadfast can see: this weird, huge shape under the water,” Mateo said. “But trust me. It’s not good.”

“Crap crap crap crap,” Verlaine muttered, flooring it.

They pulled up alongside the beach, not that far from Mateo’s house. Together they dashed onto the sand, as if getting any closer would help Mateo understand what was going on. It was low tide, and they were well out into flat, drying sand before he stopped running.

Verlaine came to a stop beside him. “Tell me what you see,” she said. “Describe it.”

“It’s like—like video you see on TV of whales. You know, this huge, huge shadow in all the blue. But this isn’t alive. It’s solid; I’m sure of that. But it’s also like a hole. A hole so deep there’s no bottom.”

“We’ll just pretend that made sense,” Verlaine said. The wind whipped the edges of her white scarf, which was brilliant in the deepening night. “Magic. It’s weird. Okay. Where is this thing?”

“Underneath the sound. Almost the entire sound.” The strange glimmering of energy he could see under the surface illuminated the outline of this shape. It came very close to shore, and went very far out to sea.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Verlaine said. “Are we talking about the bridge the One Beneath crosses to get into our world?”

“No idea. But yeah, that would be my first guess.” Nadia, I need you. When didn’t he need her? Right now, though, Mateo felt it so sharply it was an almost physical pain.

Then a woman’s voice came from farther down the shore: “Steadfast.”

He turned to see Elizabeth striding toward him. She looked even more ragged than before; it was as though she didn’t remember how to brush her hair, or maybe even bathe. Her gray cloak whipped in the cold wind. Behind her was Asa, who followed haltingly, as if it was difficult for him to walk. His arm was wrapped in something, and clutched to his chest.

“Are you here to witness my handiwork?” Elizabeth said. Her lovely face betrayed no hint of the evil that lurked within. Her eyes sparkled with the deepest happiness.

“Go away.” Mateo didn’t feel like he had anything else to say to Elizabeth, now or ever.

Elizabeth went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I should have known you were near. Your strength makes me more powerful.”

He hated this—the fact that being a Steadfast meant he gave more power to any witch he came near. Though he was Nadia’s Steadfast, bound to her and able to give her more energy than he would anyone else, Mateo couldn’t prevent Elizabeth from feeding off it, too, like a leech. “I’d stop it if I could.”

“There is one way,” she said. “You could die.”

Ignore her, he told himself, and he might have been able to, except that Verlaine stepped past him, heading toward Asa. “Are you okay?” she said, then turned to Elizabeth. “What did you do to him?”

Asa shook his head, and he smiled, though it was only a shadow of his normal smirk. “Verlaine, don’t.”

Verlaine didn’t listen. She shouted at Elizabeth as though she was outraged. “What did you do?”

“Nothing that is not my right,” Elizabeth replied. The lilt in her voice made him wonder if she was trying not to laugh.

She’d tortured Asa. Mateo understood that now. As little as he liked the demon, he hated the idea of torturing anyone or anything. “Every time I think I’ve learned just how disgusting you really are, I realize I haven’t even seen the half of it.”

Elizabeth didn’t reply. For a few moments she gazed at Verlaine, who stood there with her fists clenched at her sides in impotent fury. “You’re irrelevant. You—” She turned to Mateo, expression hardening. “It’s been useful having a Steadfast around. But as you’re sworn to Nadia, and she refuses to swear herself to me, you’re simply a tool she can use to oppose my plans. And I think she’s had use of you nearly long enough.”