Even after Mom had left, ruining their lives and all Nadia’s hopes, Nadia had kept wearing the bracelet every day. It was too hard to let it go.

Her fingers found the small pendant of ivory, the material she needed to balance her spell.

Silently, she went through the spell for illumination of magical shape. The ingredients came back to her faster than she would have thought.

A winter sunrise.

The pain of abandonment.

The knowledge of love.

She went deep within herself, calling up the ingredients, experiencing each more powerfully than real memory—as if she were living them again—

The sun rising on a sharp, cold morning when the snow was high enough to sink into knee-deep, painting the sky a pale pink, while Nadia shivered on the balcony.

Nadia standing dumbfounded in the door of her parents’ bedroom as Mom packed a suitcase and said, “Your father and I think we should live apart for a while.”

Waking up in a violent thunderstorm to find Cole curled next to her wearing his footie pajamas, in silent, total confidence that his big sister could protect him.

The emotions and images coursed through her, reverberating through her powers, bouncing off the ivory until Nadia could see—a barrier. They were headed straight toward … what was this? … Was it meant to keep out any other forms of magic, or warn someone else if magic entered this space?

Nadia’s eyes widened. She’d be able to pass through the barrier—limits on magic didn’t apply to magic users—but that wasn’t her biggest problem.

Oh, no, she thought. The car.

In the trunk, in her suitcase, wrapped in her clothes, was her Book of Shadows.

“Dad?” Her voice was tight and high with fear as they came closer to the barrier; she could almost feel it now, like static electricity against her skin. “Dad, can we pull over?”

He’d been too lost in his own thoughts to hear her. “What’s that, sweetheart?”

And then—impact.

The road seemed to jerk beneath the wheels of the car, as if the earth were being sheared away beneath them. Nadia slammed into the window as her father struggled for control of the wheel—in vain. She could hear the squeal of brakes and Cole’s scream as the world turned over, over again, thrashing her in every direction at once. Something hit her head, and then she couldn’t quite see, couldn’t quite hear. Yet Cole was still screaming—or was it her? She didn’t know anymore—

They crashed to a halt, the impact throwing her forward and backward so hard that her seat belt felt like a club smashing into her chest.

She slammed back into reality, and wished she hadn’t.

Nadia cried out as the window beside her—now beneath her—splintered, and mud and water began oozing in. Above her, Cole half dangled from his booster seat, wailing in panic. She reached up with a shaky hand to touch him, comfort him, make sure he wasn’t injured. But her head was still reeling.