Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1) (2 page)

Lightning streaked through the sky overhead again, and Mateo remembered dimly that standing next to a large tree was probably not the smartest thing he could be doing right now. But shock had numbed him past the ability to move.

Besides—he knew he wouldn’t be killed by lightning tonight.

He
knew
.

All day, he’d tried to ignore the dream he’d had. He’d told himself that it was a nightmare like any other—the vision of the storm, the crash, the beautiful girl trapped in the wreckage. But when the sun had set and the rain had come, Mateo had been unable to ignore the dream any longer.

He’d come out here in the hopes of proving to himself that it wasn’t true. For hours, he’d stood in the rain, watching and waiting, pissed off at himself for even believing this was possible, yet more hopeful as time ticked on and nothing happened.

And then—right when he’d begun to believe it really was only a dream—everything had happened just as he’d known it would.

She’s real
, he thought.
If the crash happened like I saw it would, then so will everything else I’ve seen
.

Shaky and cold with horror, Mateo closed his eyes against the realization that he was doomed.

And if the girl from his dreams didn’t stay far away from him—she’d be doomed, too.

DESPITE WHIPLASH AND THE BANDAGES ON HER SORE
arm, Nadia got to work unpacking right away. Dad couldn’t manage much with his ribs broken, Cole was way too young to help with anything besides putting away his toys, and besides—there were certain items she wanted to be positive nobody else saw.

Like, say, her witchcraft supplies.

I could come up with an explanation for the glass jars, like, they were for makeup or something
, Nadia mused as she unwrapped them from wads of newspaper.
But the powdered bone? Forget it. Dad would probably think I was on drugs
.

It felt stupid to have kept everything. Without Mom, there was no hope of continuing her training; witchcraft was a closely held secret, passed down between female relatives in the rare bloodlines that had the power. Mom had never revealed the other members of her coven to Nadia—which was just how things were. Nadia wouldn’t have expected to learn any of their names until she was a true witch herself and able to join the coven in her own right.

Still, she’d thought one of them might reveal herself after the divorce—come forward and offer to teach Nadia, or at least give some advice—

But nothing. Mom probably hadn’t even told them that she’d abandoned her own daughter half-trained, with only enough knowledge to get herself in trouble, not nearly enough to solve any of her problems.

No matter how good a student she’d been, no matter how hard she’d worked her whole life—Nadia would never get to become a witch now. Mom had taken that with her, too.

Even as her throat tightened with unshed tears, Nadia tried to snap herself out of it.
You know enough to do
some
things. It’s still useful, right?

Useful enough to get us in a car crash. If I’d faced facts and ditched my Book of Shadows
—

But no. She could never do that. A Book of Shadows—even one as new as hers—had power. You couldn’t leave that lying around. And she didn’t have the heart to destroy it.

Despite everything, Nadia didn’t have the heart to walk away from the Craft yet.

As she thought of the wreck, the images of that night swept over her so vividly that it was like she was back there in that ditch. The way the storm had crashed and rolled overhead. The terror of feeling herself sliding down into the cold muck, not knowing whether she could escape.

And Mateo’s face, outlined by lightning, as he reached in to save her—

Nadia’s breath caught in her throat. Who was he? And how had he known her?

But that wasn’t the biggest mystery of that night, and Nadia knew it. The biggest mystery was—who had put up that magical barrier around Captive’s Sound?

And why?

“Make a Mickey Mouse one!”

Nadia poured the pancake batter into three circles, two small ones for the ears and a big one for Mickey’s face. “No whipped cream for the smile today, buddy, but you’re going to eat him too fast for that, anyway, aren’t you?”

“Definitely.” Cole walked to the kitchen table with his glass of milk—way too full, Nadia saw, but he didn’t spill any.

“What’s this?” Dad came into the kitchen of their new house; he was moving easily now, without pain, but the stark white of his bandages still showed through his dress shirt. “I was going to make you guys breakfast. To celebrate the big day.”

“Nobody celebrates the first day of school,” Cole said as he took his seat, tiny sneakered feet now dangling above the wood floor. He was in such a good mood—so confident and easygoing—and Nadia and her father exchanged a look. Cole was finally doing better; maybe the fresh start was working precisely like they’d hoped.

“Making breakfast is no big deal,” Nadia said. “Anyway, I’m a better cook than you, and you know it.”

Dad nodded, acknowledging this, as he took his seat. “But how else am I going to learn?”

Cooking wasn’t a chore for her; it was a hobby, even a passion. She’d filled some of the hours that had once gone to her witchcraft lessons with studying cookbooks and experimenting. Still—one way or the other, she wouldn’t be at home full-time after graduation, so maybe she ought to teach him a few things, just to make sure they wouldn’t starve. “I’ll give you lessons. Wait and see.”

Although Dad looked like he wanted to protest, he’d also caught sight of the bacon she’d put on the table. Distraction provided; discussion over.

The kitchen in their new house was one of the few things about it Nadia didn’t like. In their Chicago condominium, they’d had the best and brightest appliances her father’s big law-firm salary could buy, and oceans of counter space. Here, everything was old-fashioned and a little shabby. But what she disliked in the kitchen was precisely what made the rest of the house so awesome. It was an old Victorian, two stories not counting the large attic she’d claimed as her private space—the perfect hiding place for her Book of Shadows and the supplies for her magic. She’d expected Cole to pitch a fit, but he was so thrilled by having a real, true backyard of his own that he showed no signs of coming indoors of his own free will ever again. The oaken plank floors creaked comfortingly, and a stained-glass window let cranberry-tinted light into the stairwell. If it was all slightly run-down, it was also beautiful—and as big a change from their high-rise condo as she could imagine.

Nadia didn’t want any reminders of their life before. She wanted to seal her family into a place where nothing could hurt them—not memory, not her mother, not whatever weird magic was at work in this town. This house seemed to provide a chance, and she knew just enough of the Craft to help that along.

So she’d whispered the spells, encircled it with the best protection she knew. She’d slipped out in the night to bury moonstones next to the steps; she’d begun the work of painting the attic ceiling blue.
To make it cute
, she’d told her dad. The real power of that particular shade, what it meant for a home to be protected from above—those were things he never had to know.

Great
, Nadia thought as she stared at her new high school, Isaac P. Rodman High.
Just great
.

Just the fact that it was a high school was bad enough. On top of that, it was a new school for her senior year. She’d accepted they needed the move, but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to navigating completely new people and teachers and cliques for the nine and a half months before she’d graduate and be free again. Her new school was far smaller than the one she’d attended in Chicago, but in some ways that was more intimidating, not less. Everyone here knew one another, and probably had for their whole lives. That made her the odd one out.

But beyond that, there was something else. Something shivering just beneath the surface—once again, something magical, though it was different from anything else she’d ever known. Precisely how it was different, she couldn’t say, but this energy was familiar and unfamiliar at once. Nadia could feel it coursing all around her, that static-electricity thing all over again.

This was … a complication.

What is going on here? It’s not like someone is using magic near me—even if I could feel that, I don’t think it would feel like this. It’s more like some source of magical energy is kept here. But shielded—encased—in a way I don’t understand
.

Nadia clutched the straps of her backpack tighter as she hurried inside the registrar’s office.
Don’t think about it now
, she told herself.
You can figure it out later. Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it without Mom around to help. For now? All you have to do is get through the day
.

Even waiting for her class schedule was almost more than she could take.

“So, like, Jinnie’s just standing there, like nothing is going on, even though we both know what’s going on, so I’m like,
hey, Jinnie
, and she’s like,
hey, Kendall
, and I’m like,
what’s up
, and she’s like,
nothing
. I swear to God, she is so fake.” The girl in front of Nadia somehow managed to talk into her cell phone without pausing, even though she was chewing at least half a pack of gum at once. “And she’s all,
did you have a good summer
, and I just went,
yeah
, because I’m so not getting into that with her.”

Nadia prayed for the ancient secretary behind the counter in her lilac polyester suit to find whatever the heck it was this girl wanted so she’d leave already. Or shut up. Either way.

The door opened and shut behind her; Nadia didn’t bother turning around. The girl in front of her did, her sandy hair falling over her shoulder. Almost instantly, her freckled face went from pleasant to nasty, her expression from vapid to mean. “Speaking of total fake bitches,” she said into her phone, far too loudly, “that skank Verlaine just walked in.”

Nadia couldn’t help but turn back to look.

The first word that came into her mind when she saw Verlaine was
Goth
. But that wasn’t right. The black dress she wore wasn’t lace or leather; it had puffed sleeves and a wide belt at the waist like something from a 1950s movie, and her shoes were cheerful kelly-green Converse sneakers. Her complexion was so white that Nadia had assumed she was wearing that stuff Goths used to come across like porcelain dolls or ghosts—but Verlaine was really that fair all over. And her long hair wasn’t an elaborate wig or even a dye job, unless she’d been thorough enough to even do her eyebrows. Instead, it was really, truly, totally silver-gray, though Verlaine seemed to be no older than Nadia herself.

The most striking thing about her, though, was how … hopeless she looked. Like people were mean to her all the time, and she no longer even dreamed of anything better. Her only response was to roll her eyes and say, “Kendall, give it a rest.”

Kendall said, “I have to go. If I don’t get out of here soon, the skank overload will kill me.” She stowed her phone with another withering glance toward Verlaine; Kendall’s bubbly personality seemed to have changed in an instant. “You’d think having two fags for dads would mean at least somebody would tell you what to wear.”

Nadia couldn’t hold it back any longer. “You’d think anybody wearing
those
shoes would know they didn’t have the right to tell anybody else what to wear.”

Kendall, caught up short, stared down at her shoes like she was trying to guess what was wrong with them. They were fine, as far as Nadia could tell, but with fashion, attitude was half the battle. Verlaine’s face lit up; her smile looked uneven, as though she didn’t get much practice.

“Here you go, Miss Bender.” The secretary shuffled out with a manila folder, which Kendall snatched from her hands before stomping out. “And you are?”

“Nadia Caldani. I’m new. You should have my records from Chicago.”

“Oh, yes. We have your schedule—right back here—” The secretary wandered toward the back room, still in no hurry.

“Thanks,” Verlaine whispered. “Kendall was being such a witch.”

Nadia tried to brush aside her momentary annoyance. “I prefer
bitch
, actually. Most witches are perfectly nice people. Sorry—pet peeve.”

“No worries. About time somebody else with some attitude got here. Captive’s Sound is mostly a graveyard for the living.”

“Wow, you make it sound awesome.”

“I’m exaggerating. Graveyards are more exciting.”

Nadia smiled, but talking to Verlaine felt—weird. She didn’t want to make any friends. After the way everybody had started avoiding her in Chicago—like her bad luck was catching—well, “friendship” obviously didn’t mean what Nadia had always thought it did. And there was just something about Verlaine … something she couldn’t put her finger on....

There was no time to think about that, though. By the time the secretary finally waddled forth with her class schedule, Nadia was already almost late for her first class. She politely waved good-bye to Verlaine, who didn’t really react, only nodded; then she rushed toward what she thought was the right building. Forget the locker—that she could find later, and it wasn’t like she had any of her books yet.

“There he is,” whispered one girl excitedly. “Holy crap, he got even hotter over the summer. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“He’s nice to look at,” said another whisper, “but he’s bad news. You know that.”

“It’s a bunch of crazy gossiping old people. That’s all that is.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, how come you never talk to him, either?”

“Shut up.”

Nadia couldn’t help but turn her head to see who the whispering was about—and her eyes went wide.

Mateo. He was here, in her school—letter jacket on his shoulders, dark hair brushed back, even more gorgeous in the daylight than he’d been in the dark. In those first terrifying moments, she’d assumed he was a couple years older than she was, but apparently he was a student at Rodman, too.