And she was still so attached to him, still so aware of everything about Mateo, that she’d sensed the spell without even being there.

How deep did that connection go? Would Nadia ever be able to free him? Was that even possible?

Nadia took a deep breath, trying to clear her head. She realized that Ginger had been scribbling something for a few seconds now, just as Ginger finished and held up her note: You’ve broken one of the First Laws. You have no right to the Craft.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” Nadia said, but she felt like she was dying inside. It was like all the anger her mother would have felt, all the scorn, was bleeding through Ginger into her—like somehow her mother had left because she knew this would happen, which made no sense but at this moment felt horribly true. She tried to stick to the subject. “Elizabeth did this. You know she did. Just like she’s the one who cursed Mateo in the first place—and cursed you.”

Ginger only stared, but Nadia knew that was the same as agreeing with her. Verlaine hugged herself and watched them with worried eyes.

“She’s planning something.” Nadia stepped closer. “Something terrible, this Halloween night at the carnival. I know you don’t approve of me. I know you think I’ve done something awful but—it’s not like what Elizabeth does, you get that much, right? You’re—” Her voice broke, and a flush of shame warmed her cheeks, but Nadia forced herself to keep going. “You’re the only other nonevil witch I know right now. My mother’s gone. Elizabeth’s a Sorceress. If we don’t stop her, I think a lot of people are going to get hurt. And I’m sure Mateo’s going to be the first. Please, tell me—what would you do? What are you going to do?”

Ginger jotted one more note, handed it to Nadia, and got into her car. The door was slammed shut in a way that suggested they wouldn’t be getting a ride back home.

Nadia looked down at the piece of paper, which said only, RUN.

16

MATEO KNEW HE WAS DRUGGED. THE HEAVY, SWEET taste on his tongue and the overpowering weight of his eyelids and his body told him that. It was as though he were sinking through endless fog but couldn’t bring himself to care.

Nadia had been here with him. That was the one thing he now knew for sure, the one thing that made the rest of it okay. If she had been here to check on him, then everything must be okay.

He saw nothing now; he didn’t care. His hand hurt—one constant pinpoint of pain. The IV, he thought, without really caring why there was one jabbed through his skin. Mateo’s only real connection with the rest of the world was hearing, though he didn’t bother making sense of what he heard.

“—keep him overnight for observation. We’ll need to do some tests.”

“Of course.” That was Dad. Mateo was sure of that much, and it was such a relief to know who Dad was, to remember him. But why a relief? He couldn’t put it together right now—not with the fog swirling all around him—“But everything looks normal?”