“Not dinner, sorry. Maybe some salsa and chips, though,” Verlaine said cheerfully. “Oh, how about two virgin margaritas? What do you think, Nadia?”

“Sure.” Nadia never stopped looking at Mateo; he never looked back at her.

“Got it,” Mateo said, scribbling it down. “Have that right out to you.”

As he walked away, Nadia said, “Did it seem like Mateo was, I don’t know—trying to ignore me?”

“He always ignores me. Which makes him one of the nice guys. I mean, at least he’s never mean to me.” Verlaine stopped. “Wait. How do you know Mateo? I thought you just moved to town.”

“I don’t know him, really. But I met him when—when he pulled me out of a car accident.”

“What?”

Nadia retold the whole story while Verlaine stared, open-mouthed. Only when it was all over did Verlaine manage to say, “That is wild.”

“I wish I knew why he acted like he knew me that night,” Nadia said. “Or why he acts like he wishes he didn’t know me now.”

“Well, probably because he’s crazy.”

With a shrug, Nadia said, “Like all guys are crazy?” The ones she liked never seemed to be the ones who liked her.

“No, I mean, crazy crazy.” Verlaine glanced over her shoulder to check for Mateo. “I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings. Like I said, he’s always been nice enough to leave me alone. But his mother was a Cabot, and everybody knows all the Cabots eventually lose their minds. It’s the family curse.”

Nadia didn’t hear those words; she felt them. Literally felt them as a sudden sickening drop in her belly, like she was riding a roller coaster that had started to plunge downward. “What did you say?”

“They all go insane. Apparently it’s hereditary or something. They’ve lived in this town since the beginning of time—well, the 1600s. And they’ve been going crazy ever since. I feel bad for him, but it’s not like anything can change your genes.” Verlaine glanced toward the bar, where Mateo was grabbing a tray of sodas for another table. “Why does it always happen to the hot ones?”

“The family curse,” Nadia repeated. Maybe it was only a saying. Maybe it was the small-town version of an urban legend. For Mateo’s sake, she hoped so.

Verlaine clearly was ready to get back to the subject. “So, come on. Tell me the laws of witchcraft.”

The First Laws were so familiar to Nadia—so often repeated to her, so much a part of her—that the words seemed to flow out almost without her thinking about it. “The most unbreakable one is that you must never be sworn to the One Beneath and do his bidding. Besides that—you must not reveal the Craft to anyone who would betray it. You must never speak of witchcraft to any man. You must never attempt to divine your own fate. You must never bear a child to the son of another witch. You must never command the will of another. You must never suffer a demon to walk among mortals.” Her eyes sought Mateo as she spoke the last remaining law: