Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1)
1
BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, NADIA FELT THE CHILL.
She wasn’t sure why. Her father already had the car’s heat on because of the awful weather. Her little brother, Cole, was too engrossed in his game to have rolled down any of the windows. The only sounds were the
slap-slap
of the windshield wipers, Cole’s thumbs tapping on the tablet screen, and Dad’s classical music—some piano concerto, notes rippling and rolling over them, not unlike the driving rain outside. It was just like the other countless hours they’d spent in this car today.
There was no reason for the trembling cold that snaked its way along Nadia’s skin. No reason for her head to swim as all her senses heightened.
No normal reason anyway.
Nadia straightened in her seat—in the back, next to her brother. The passenger seat in the front was always left empty, as if Mom might suddenly return at the next rest stop. “Dad, where are we?”
“Almost there.”
“You said that three states ago,” Cole chimed in, never looking up from his game.
“I mean it this time,” Dad insisted. “We should get into town any minute now. So hang in there, guys.”
“I just mean—my head hurts.” Honestly explaining what was wrong was out of the question. Nadia already knew that the strange sensations washing over her weren’t physical or emotional.
They were signs of magic.
Dad turned the piano music down to a soft wash. “You okay, sweetheart? There’s painkillers in the first-aid kit; we could pull over.”
“I’m fine,” Nadia said. “If we’re almost there, let’s not stop now.”
Even as she spoke, though, she felt as if she had made a mistake—as if she ought to have said,
Yes, pull over, let’s get out of this car as soon as possible
. Everything within her told her that they were traveling closer and closer to a source of magic—unlike any she had known before. But instinct alone told Nadia this magic was … primal. Powerful. Potentially overwhelming.
Her eyes flickered over to the empty seat next to her father. Mom would have known what to do—
Well, Mom’s not here
, Nadia told herself savagely.
She’s still back in Chicago, probably off drinking cocktails with some guy she just met. I’ll never finish my training. I’ll never be able to use magic the way she did
.
But we’re headed into something dangerous. I have to do
something.
But what?
Nadia glanced sideways at Cole, who remained wrapped up in his game. Like her father, he was oblivious to the forces they were approaching; like all males, they were magic-blind. Quickly she closed her eyes and settled her left wrist in her right hand. On her left wrist she wore what Dad called her charm bracelet—and it did look like one, at a glance.
Even after Mom had left, ruining their lives and all Nadia’s hopes, Nadia had kept wearing the bracelet every day. It was too hard to let it go.
Her fingers found the small pendant of ivory, the material she needed to balance her spell.
Silently, she went through the spell for illumination of magical shape. The ingredients came back to her faster than she would have thought.
A winter sunrise
.
The pain of abandonment
.
The knowledge of love
.
She went deep within herself, calling up the ingredients, experiencing each more powerfully than real memory—as if she were living them again—
The sun rising on a sharp, cold morning when the snow was high enough to sink into knee-deep, painting the sky a pale pink, while Nadia shivered on the balcony
.
Nadia standing dumbfounded in the door of her parents’ bedroom as Mom packed a suitcase and said, “Your father and I think we should live apart for a while.”
Waking up in a violent thunderstorm to find Cole curled next to her wearing his footie pajamas, in silent, total confidence that his big sister could protect him
.
The emotions and images coursed through her, reverberating through her powers, bouncing off the ivory until Nadia could see—a barrier. They were headed straight toward … what was this? … Was it meant to keep out any other forms of magic, or warn someone else if magic entered this space?
Nadia’s eyes widened. She’d be able to pass through the barrier—limits on magic didn’t apply to magic users—but that wasn’t her biggest problem.
Oh, no
, she thought.
The car
.
In the trunk, in her suitcase, wrapped in her clothes, was her Book of Shadows.
“Dad?” Her voice was tight and high with fear as they came closer to the barrier; she could almost feel it now, like static electricity against her skin. “Dad, can we pull over?”
He’d been too lost in his own thoughts to hear her. “What’s that, sweetheart?”
And then—impact.
The road seemed to jerk beneath the wheels of the car, as if the earth were being sheared away beneath them. Nadia slammed into the window as her father struggled for control of the wheel—in vain. She could hear the squeal of brakes and Cole’s scream as the world turned over, over again, thrashing her in every direction at once. Something hit her head, and then she couldn’t quite see, couldn’t quite hear. Yet Cole was still screaming—or was it her? She didn’t know anymore—
They crashed to a halt, the impact throwing her forward and backward so hard that her seat belt felt like a club smashing into her chest.
She slammed back into reality, and wished she hadn’t.
Nadia cried out as the window beside her—now beneath her—splintered, and mud and water began oozing in. Above her, Cole half dangled from his booster seat, wailing in panic. She reached up with a shaky hand to touch him, comfort him, make sure he wasn’t injured. But her head was still reeling.
The Book of Shadows—it hit that barrier, and it was like—like an explosion or something—
“Cole! Nadia!” The inside of the car was almost entirely dark now that the lights were as dead as the engine, but she could make out the shadow of her father trying to clamber into the backseat with them. “Are you all right?”
“We’re okay,” Nadia managed to gasp.
“The water—”
“I see it!” Already the muck was rising—or was the car sinking? Nadia couldn’t tell.
Dad stopped trying to get in the back with them; instead he managed to push open the passenger-side front door and climb out of the car. For one moment, Nadia felt crazy terror stab her—
he’s left us, where’s Dad, where’s Dad?
—but then Cole’s door opened and Dad reached inside to pull her little brother free.
“Daddy!” Cole wailed as he clamped his arms around their father’s neck. Raindrops fell into the car now, hard and stinging. Nadia managed to undo the straps of his safety seat, so Dad could lift him.
“That’s right. Daddy’s here. Nadia, I’m going to get Cole out of this ditch and come right back for you. Right back! Hang on!”
Nadia nodded, too quickly, because her whiplash-stung neck ached. She clawed at her seat belt, freeing herself just as the water rose high enough to wash over one of her legs. The seat belt had been keeping her out of the mud, and she tumbled into it. It was cold—so cold the mere touch of it numbed her to the bone. A long scrape along her forearm stung tears into her eyes. She was clumsy now, and even more afraid than before. But it didn’t matter as long as she could still climb out.
She braced her feet against the armrest and tried to stand; she was dizzy, but she could do it. Where was her father? Was he all right?
Lightning flashed. In the blaze of that sudden light, Nadia glimpsed someone above her.
He was her age, perhaps. Dark hair, dark eyes, though she could tell nothing else in the night and the rain. But in that flash of lightning, she’d already seen that he was beautiful—so much that she wondered if the crash had dazed her into seeing phantoms, delusions, angels. Thunder rolled.
“Take my hand!” he shouted, reaching into the wreck.
Nadia grabbed his hand. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and they felt like the only warmth in the world. She let him tow her upward, helping him by climbing as best she could. Rain spattered against her face and hands as she emerged from the wreckage, and her rescuer slung one arm around her waist to pull her away from the car, onto the nearby bank of the ditch they’d crashed into.
As they flopped onto the muddy ground, lightning crashed again, painting his face in eerie blue. He must have seen her more clearly, too, because he whispered, “Oh, my God. It’s you.”
She drew in a sharp breath. This guy knew her?
How could he know her when she didn’t know him?
Next to them were Dad and Cole. “Thank you,” her father breathed, clutching one side as if in pain; Nadia only then realized he’d been injured.
“Dad! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, though his whole body was stiff with pain. “I was able to call 911 while our new friend—what’s your name?”
“Mateo.”
Nadia turned back to him, but Mateo was already looking away from her, as if unwilling to meet her eyes. He, too, was gasping for breath; the rescue couldn’t have been much less frightening for him than the crash had been for her.
But how could he know her?
Did
he know her? Was she imagining things in the aftermath of the wreck?
“While Mateo helped you. We’ll—we’ll be all right.”
“What happened?” Cole sniffled. He clung to his father as if afraid he might fall in the ditch again.
Nadia scooted closer to them so she could take her little brother’s hand. “It’s okay, buddy. We’re okay. We had a wreck, that’s all.”
“Sometimes cars hydroplane during a storm.” Dad breathed in and out through his nose, hand still braced against his ribs. “That means the tires are actually on the water instead of the road. It can be dangerous. I really thought—I thought we were going slow enough to avoid that—”
“You weren’t doing anything wrong.” Nadia wished she could have told her father not to blame himself, but he could never understand what had just happened to them, or why.
She turned back to see her mysterious rescuer—Mateo—but he was gone. Peering through the rain and gloom, Nadia tried to make out where he might be. He couldn’t have gotten far. But she couldn’t find him; it was as if he’d vanished.
Her father, distracted with pain and Cole’s fear, didn’t seem to notice that Mateo had left. “We’re okay,” he kept repeating, rocking her little brother back and forth. “We’re all okay, and nothing else matters.”
In the distance, sirens wailed, and she could make out the beat of red-blue lights from a far-off police car or ambulance. Help was on the way, yet Nadia shivered from the cold and the adrenaline and the pent-up fear.
She glanced upward to see that they’d damaged a sign in the wreck. Leaning to one side, rocking back and forth in the wind of the storm, was a placard emblazoned with the words
WELCOME TO CAPTIVE’S SOUND
.
She’s real
.
Mateo stood in the woods, his back to a tree, as he watched the police see to the family he’d just helped. An ambulance had pulled up for the father, but there didn’t seem to be any particular rush for them to get to the hospital. Nobody was hurt too badly. Good.
Despite the darkness, he could see the girl sitting in the backseat of the police car. A pale blanket had been wrapped around her shoulders. It helped to think of her warm and safe.