“So where are you guys headed?” Kendall said. Her eyes darted down to their joined hands; no doubt she thought this was the gossip scoop of the year.

“The haunted house.” Elizabeth leaned against Mateo’s shoulder, probably just for the pleasure of knowing how touching her would disgust him. “I like a good scare.”

From Rodman High, at least from the top of the football-field bleachers, the carnival in Swindoll Park glittered on the far hill like a swarm of fireflies.

Asa sat on the highest rung of the stands, watching the party far away. He would have felt bad for the people celebrating, if there were any point. At least he didn’t have to watch them die.

No, his work would keep him right here.

His gaze drifted down to the main school building, specifically to one spot that he’d been told was the location of the chemistry lab.

Nadia made it to the carnival right after dark. She looked around frantically, but so far nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary—and there was no sign of Mateo or Elizabeth.

Chest heaving, exhausted, she braced herself against a nearby picnic table and tried to think. Where would Elizabeth be? Dead center—right at the bull’s-eye of the target Verlaine had showed her. But where was that? When they’d looked at it before, Swindoll Park had seemed specific enough, but this park was pretty big, and now it was filled with hundreds of people. She should have downloaded Verlaine’s data onto her phone, something like that—

“Whoa. Nadia.” Kendall stood in front of her, wearing a pointy hat and some kind of weird green minidress with a jagged hem. “Are you doing, like, a sexy zombie thing? Because it’s really more scary than sexy. Just FYI.”

Her ripped dress and crazy hair probably would make people stare on any day but Halloween. “Kendall. Hey. No offense—gotta go.”

“What, are you looking for Mateo? I mean, I’m not being insensitive, like, honestly, everybody could tell you were crushed out on him, so I think you should know about him and Elizabeth.”

“I’ve been told.” Kendall must have heard the party gossip, too. Nadia pushed her hair back from her face.

“Plus, you know, he’s got that crazy gene that runs in his family, and I hear they might have, like, stem cell therapy for it someday, but for now he’s bad news. I don’t know what Elizabeth’s thinking. Taking a guy like that into a haunted house? That is basically asking for a total psychotic break.”

Nadia grabbed Kendall’s arm. “Did you say they’re in the haunted house?”

“They said they were going that way.”

All her spells, all her magic, all their desperate efforts to fight Elizabeth, and they’d gotten their single biggest break from Kendall Bender.

“Kendall, thank you,” Nadia said, and then she took off running toward the gnarled old house with orange lights in all the windows—using her last strength to reach Elizabeth and Mateo, if she could only make it in time.