“I’m okay.” Verlaine handed Cole his Slusho and took a slurp from hers. “Better now that I’m not being abandoned to investigate my parents’—I mean, our science project all on my own. Plus the whole thing with, um, with Elizabeth.”

“Is Elizabeth your girlfriend?” Cole said to Mateo. He looked all kid-innocent, but there was mischief in his eyes to go with the pink Slusho mustache. “Nadia said she was.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mateo said.

Nadia quickly interjected, “Cole, wouldn’t it be fun to play in the yard for a while?”

“I’m not supposed to take snacks outside because of that time I got gravel in my sandwich.”

“I wouldn’t tell. Just this once!”

Cole grinned as he sat in the nearest chair, kicking his legs back and forth. “Nope. I like it here.”

Mateo had always wished he weren’t an only child, but now he wasn’t so sure about that. They’d have to be careful about how they said things. “So our … science project is about the sinkholes in town. And what might be pulling the town out from under our feet.”

Nadia gasped, so sharply that Mateo thought she might have hurt herself. He leaned toward her, concerned, but instead she thumped her hand fast against the wall. “Oh, that’s it. That’s actually it.”

Verlaine stared at Mateo, who shrugged. “That’s what?”

Nadia grabbed the remote and turned on the television; almost instantly, Cole wandered toward it like a kid hypnotized. Then she gestured them closer and whispered, “Goodwife Hale’s—book. She said something about this, about the framework of this town being built on mag—on, uh, magnetism.”

“He’s not listening!” Verlaine whispered. “Magic. It’s built on magic?”

“I think so,” Nadia continued. “That’s what Elizabeth’s doing. She’s ripping out that old magic. Pulling the town out from under us.”

“With the sinkholes,” Mateo said, trying to make sure he had this straight.

“Yes, but it’s more than that. The way this town is sick on the inside—and all the curses she’s laid, whatever the hell that is buried beneath the chemistry lab—there’s magic everywhere here, do you understand?”

“We do now,” Verlaine said, “but where are you going with this?”

Looking straight at Mateo, Nadia continued, “You said the magic was a part of us. That it wasn’t meant to be taken away. That’s true for this whole town. See? Captive’s Sound has been cursed and enchanted for so long that it’s—it’s literally lying on a foundation of magic. Elizabeth’s stripping away her own spells. She’s removing the framework.”

He could kind of see that. “Why?”

“The One Beneath must want it. I don’t know what for. They say sometimes he demands death for its own sake.” Nadia said that so quietly, so matter-of-factly, that it sent a chill along Mateo’s spine. Next to him, Verlaine shuddered. “But now I know some of the spells she must be using. That means—that means I have an idea what to do to stop her.”

“This sounds dangerous,” Verlaine said.