Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1) (20 page)

The words Mateo wanted to say kept bubbling up inside him, but they changed from moment to moment, contradicting one another over and over:

You killed my mother. You ruined my life
.

I thought you were my friend. Make me understand
.

I’m going to destroy you if it’s the last thing I do
.

Can you shut this Steadfast thing off? Please just end the curse and leave us alone
.

If I were ever going to murder any human being, it would be you
.

Were any of my good memories of you real? I want at least one to be real, so I know I had at least one real thing
.

I hate you. I never knew what hate was before, but now I do
.

By the time he’d reached her front steps, he still didn’t know what he wanted to say. Standing this close to her house was like standing within a bonfire; the sickly hot light surrounded him now. Mateo tried to imagine it burning the halo away, but he knew that wouldn’t work. In fact, it seemed to him that he could almost feel the halo now—the circle of thorns cutting into his flesh—

“Mateo.” Her voice came from within the flames. He couldn’t actually see Elizabeth yet. She sounded as gentle and sweet as ever; of course, she wasn’t in school either. “I’ve been worried about you.”

All at once, he remembered Nadia so strongly that it was like she was right there with him—close enough to touch. She’d told him that he’d reacted to Elizabeth, that his Steadfast abilities had allowed him to see something unearthly in her. Something true. But when he’d reacted to that, she’d made him forget.

Don’t react this time
, he told himself as the hallucinatory flames flickered and parted.
No matter what Elizabeth looks like. No matter what she really is. Don’t react
.

Elizabeth stepped closer to him, and he saw her—really saw her, for the first time.

She wasn’t the aged, withered thing she ought to have been after four hundred years. No, her body looked like hers—if anything, she was even more beautiful.

But she was hardly even human.

Her skin seemed to be made of molten gold, shining and swirling and dripping along her bare limbs. Her curly chestnut hair was now a truer fire than the imaginary flames that surrounded him. Smoke swirled around her, forming her garment and her shroud. The lines of her face—while recognizably hers—were altered, with the nose almost flat and the cheekbones higher; the eyes were too large, and tilted like a cat’s. It was as if she were half-transformed into some kind of animal—a hunter, a predator. He could imagine blood dripping from that smile. Nothing he had yet seen as a Steadfast—not the scum over the sky, not the strange horned beast in the alleyway behind La Catrina, not even the halo of soot and blades around his head—had disgusted him as much. Or frightened him as much.

Mateo didn’t react. His face remained totally expressionless, and he kept his voice even. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. It’s been—scary.”

“You know you can always talk to me.” In her voice he could hear the rustling of dead leaves, the slithering of snakes. Her wet-gold hands cradled his face, and Mateo had to fight not to flinch. Yet she didn’t burn him; her touch felt just the same. “Tell me about your dreams.”

All the words he’d meant to say to her were gone now. Mateo knew he was powerless against this … thing that had masqueraded as his friend, as a regular human being. There was no point in shouting his hatred at her, or in begging her for explanations. Something like this didn’t explain. It took what it wanted and destroyed everything that got in the way.

Which meant she could never know Nadia was in the way.

So he went to his last dream and focused on that, only on that. “I dreamed of fire.”

Her eyes glinted as in triumph. “A terrible fire?”

“Yes.”

Elizabeth cocked her head to one side, a gesture so like the friend he remembered that his blood ran cold. “Does the fire kill Nadia Caldani?”

He remembered the sight of Nadia lying amid the fire, her dark hair curling like smoke. “Yes. It does.” Was he making Nadia sound too important in the visions? Would that make Elizabeth go after her? Desperate to protect Nadia, he improvised quickly. “Not only Nadia, though. I dream of everyone here in town—everybody dying.”

“Even me?”

Let Elizabeth be scared along with everyone else for a while. “Yeah. Even you. That’s why I haven’t called. I didn’t want to tell you.”

She flinched. “But you never dream of me any longer. You said so.”

Crap
. He’d gotten it wrong.

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, and he knew she’d realized he was lying.

Mateo tried to find the words to correct himself, to come up with anything to cover his tracks. But he couldn’t speak.

Literally, he couldn’t. His mouth wouldn’t open; air wouldn’t move through his larynx. He felt as if Elizabeth’s fingers had curled around his throat so tightly it was impossible even to breathe—but she just stood there like before, the same blithe smile on her face.

“Tell me the truth,” she said.

“No, I didn’t dream of you in the fire. I only said that because I wanted you to be scared.”
What the hell?
Mateo tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. It was as if he were a puppet in Elizabeth’s hands.

“Why would you want me to be scared? We’re friends.”

As desperately as Mateo attempted to keep his mouth shut, it was impossible. “No, we’re not. You just use me.”

Elizabeth cocked her head. “Who told you that?”

“Nadia.”
Damn it!

“Still meddling.”

But the look on Elizabeth’s face was more amused than alarmed. She might as easily have found one of her cats burrowing into the clean laundry. Mateo’s heart sank as he realized that Elizabeth wasn’t afraid of them or of anything they could do. They weren’t a threat as far as she was concerned—and he figured she was probably right.

Her fingertips smoothed along his cheek, half a caress, as she whispered, “Go back to the dream about the fire.”

Wait—where was he?

Mateo stumbled and barely caught himself from falling. As his vision cleared, he saw Elizabeth standing in front of him—golden, inhuman, horrific—and just barely controlled his panic.
What did I tell her? Something about the dreams. I told her that I saw her in my dream of the fire, that she died, too. Did she believe me?

Apparently she had. Elizabeth turned around, smoke billowing around her, and walked back into her house without another word.

Probably she’d always dismissed him just like that, and he hadn’t remembered.

Legs shaking, Mateo made his way back toward home. He got all the way to the beach before the cramping in his gut took over, and then he fell down and retched and retched. And yet even when he couldn’t vomit any longer, when he lay there with sand on his face, he knew he hadn’t gotten all the poison out.

Late at night, Nadia sat up in her attic, both Books of Shadows open in front of her.

Every time she deciphered one of Goodwife Hale’s old spells into modern terms, she jotted it into her own book. Not only would it be easier to reference this way, but the spell’s power would also become part of her Book of Shadows.

So she ought to have felt more confident as she transcribed more and more of it. Instead, the fear only got stronger.

She understood so little of this. When she’d been working with her mother, Nadia had felt confident. Mom swore her power was exceptional; she’d studied hard and practiced every single day to make sure that power reached its full potential. All Nadia had ever wanted was to be a real witch, the best one she could possibly be.

Well, now that she didn’t have a teacher, it looked like the best witch she could possibly be sucked.

This book of Goodwife Hale’s—the one she’d thought could give her so many tricks and tips—most of it was completely incomprehensible to her. The terms used were centuries old, archaic. Some of the items needed for more complex spells were things nobody had today—a “spindle from a wheel”? Good luck getting her hands on that. “The first butter from the churn”? Probably Parkay wasn’t going to work.

Even worse, sometimes Nadia could work through the old-timey language enough to realize that complex, intricate magic was described in the book … but she didn’t have the knowledge that would allow her to understand it, much less use it.

Like the final journal entry Goodwife Hale had ever made—it was either far over Nadia’s head or it was nothing but nonsense.

She tried to put it in her own words, to see if she could parse it out. “Magic forms the bars of the cage. The bars of the cage lie beneath us all. To cut through the bars, the magic will be stolen, and only magic can replace it. The strongest force is not in opposition; it is in … partnership. Or something.”

What was that even about?

Head aching, she turned back to the last spell she’d managed to decipher—one for forecasting weather, which would be handy if not exactly life-altering—stuck in a bookmark, and slammed the covers shut. It was well after one a.m.; tomorrow was going to be a four-Diet-Cokes day. Nadia lowered the attic stepladder and made her way down—

—then stopped short as she saw her father standing in the hallway, in pajama pants and an old Northwestern T-shirt. His arms were crossed in front of his chest as he leaned against the wall, obviously waiting for her.

“Did I wake you?” she whispered. The attic steps were close to the door of Cole’s room.

“No.”

Nadia glanced toward Cole’s door. “Oh, no—did he have another nightmare about the monsters?”

“Cole’s fine. I was worried about you.”

She tried to smile for him. “You know I don’t need as much sleep as normal humans.”

But Dad wasn’t going for the joke. “It’s not just the staying up late. You’ve been on edge all week. Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

Like she could ever talk to him about any of this. She’d
had
to tell Mateo about magic, but he was the only guy she would ever, ever be able to discuss it with. Her dad was totally cut out of this part of her life, forever. And it wasn’t just the magic, either; Dad had spent more time at his law firm than his house until Mom left and forced his hand. He hadn’t been around for virtually any of the most important moments in Nadia’s life. Why did he even pretend to understand her?

Before she could stop herself, she shot back, “The person I need to talk to is Mom.”

His expression crumpled. Nadia had thought it was impossible to feel stupider than she had while getting lost in those ancient spells—but she’d been so wrong. Now she felt stupid and evil.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I just—I need to go to bed.” Nadia pushed past her father to get to her own room. He didn’t follow her, or knock after she shut the door.

So she was alone as she lay there in bed, tears streaming down her face. It was weird how hurting someone you loved was even worse than being hurt. That stayed with you longer, and weighed you down all through the night into dawn.

“SO, ARE YOU WEARING A COSTUME TO THE HALLOWEEN
carnival?”

Mateo looked up from the stuff in his plastic cup. “What?”

Kendall Bender—who was the one throwing the party, or at any rate was the one who brought the cooler now holding the beers—shouted over the music. “Are you, like, wearing a costume? Because I know sometimes guys are like, that’s so gay, not gay as in actual gay but gay as in not cool, except I guess maybe some costumes are actual gay if they’re, like, drag and makeup or something, but then on the other hand some guys like to wear, like, horror costumes and look all badass and so I was wondering if you were going to maybe do something like that?”

He shrugged. Halloween was too far away to care about.

Somehow Kendall took this as encouragement. “I’m going to go as a geisha girl, but, like, a sexy geisha girl, so the kimono is, like, all short and stuff, and I saw the costume comes with this wig, and I was going to do this makeup with my eyes but then somebody said that was racist, and I went, um, you are way too PC, and, like, you have to think for yourself. Right?”

“I wouldn’t treat someone else’s race as a costume.”

Her face fell. “I forgot you aren’t white. Sorry! Do you want another drink?”

He did, badly, even though he wasn’t even halfway done with this one yet. But he wanted Kendall to leave him alone even more. “I’m good.”

“Okay, well, bye.” She jogged through the sand to the main group, where the music and laughter were loudest, and the light from the dock shone more brightly. Mateo figured the shadows suited him better.

“You think she’d forget
I’m
not white?” Gage appeared at his side; Mateo had almost forgotten he was still around. “Doubt it. Anyway, don’t you count as the Caucasian persuasion? You’re half, like, Pilgrim.”

“The other half is Mexican, and in this uptight town? People notice.”

Which was true enough. But of course it was the Cabot half everybody saw when they looked at him, the part they couldn’t get over. That was the reason Kendall was laughing with her friends now, making that little swirly gesture beside her temple that meant
crazy
.

He was cursed, not crazy. Mateo was reminded of that every time he looked in the mirror and saw the storm cloud writhing around his head. And he was reminded that the person who had cursed him was—

Mateo closed his eyes tightly against the pain.

“You’re kinda slamming them back, there,” Gage said.

“Looks like a cup you’ve got in your hand.”

“This is
Sprite
. Even if I did have a beer, I’d just be chilling. You’re—it’s like you’re trying to get yourself to pass out or something. Again.”

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t be for long, if you keep that up.” Gage shifted his weight from foot to foot, awkward now. “Dude, the last few days—no, all week—you haven’t been … right.”

Well, that was one way to put it. Haunted by the dark visions of magic that surrounded his home and his town and his own head, racked by dreams that showed Nadia Caldani dying over and over again, avoiding Nadia even though she was the only person he really wanted to see, and knowing that the one responsible for all this pain was the girl he’d believed was his best and only friend: “Not right.” Sure.