The black rage made him tremble, and he lay back on the bed, trying to slow his breathing. If a doctor came in now, they’d think he was having another “seizure” and he’d be stuck in here for another day.

“Hey.” Nadia put her hand on his shoulder, but he was so angry he couldn’t even appreciate the touch. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Physically I guess I’m fine.”

Mateo knew he wouldn’t have to say the rest.

Nadia’s hand slowly slid from his shoulder as she hugged herself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said absently.

“Isn’t it?”

He shook his head, but at the moment, his fury eclipsed everything else—even Nadia sitting next to him.

Confronting Elizabeth was the worst thing he could do. If she’d restored his memory, she could probably steal it again. And if she started to wonder how he knew about magic, she’d realize Nadia had broken one of the First Laws to tell him. That could only put Nadia in greater danger.

But he knew he’d never feel complete—not for one second of one day—until he’d had some kind of revenge.

Elizabeth had ruined so many lives. She was trying to ruin his. No way was he going to let her get away with it.

No way in hell.

“So, I heard that they were, like, going to put him in the psych ward, but then they figured out the collapse was, like, physical instead of mental—who knew, right? And so they thought maybe he had a brain tumor, and they were going to do emergency surgery, and they were starting to shave his head, and that’s why his hair looks like that.” Kendall Bender led her crew of girls down the hallway past Nadia, who was stashing her stuff in her locker. “But then he didn’t have a tumor and maybe it was a seizure, and I was thinking, maybe there’s something in the food, like, at that restaurant? Because I like the burritos there and all but you can never tell with stuff that’s, like, you know, foreign.”

Nadia didn’t bother contradicting Kendall. Her mind was too full of what she had to do today. Right now, beyond anything else, she needed to get to Mateo.

All last night, she’d tossed and turned. There was only one thing she could do—only one responsible choice she could make—and as much as she hated it, Nadia knew what she had to do. She couldn’t put this conversation off one moment longer.

When she finally saw Mateo, he was walking across the gravel area of the quad. His haircut really was lopsided—Ginger had freaked out midsnip, apparently—but otherwise Mateo looked fine. Amazing, really. When he saw her, his face lit up in a smile that warmed his brown eyes and made something inside her melt.

Just get it out, she told herself. Walk over there and say it.

Already Mateo was coming over to her. Brown leaves caught in the wind skittered across the gravel, in front of her feet. Nadia clutched her hoodie more closely around her and tried to find her strength.