He paused, then shrugged. “Guess it was something about—you know, it’s dark in the hallway and then you come up here—”

“Like how you see red after a camera flash,” Nadia agreed. “Definitely. Happens to me all the time. By the way—what are you doing here?”

Did that sound unfriendly? She hoped not. But it was a pretty good question.

“Does this look familiar?” Mateo held up a cell phone identical to hers—wait.

“I never took it out of my backpack!” Nadia protested, going to pick up her pack to prove her point. That was when she discovered a brand-new hole in the side pocket. “Oh, great. Wow. I’m glad it fell out at La Catrina instead of on the side of the road or something.” Blushing—in embarrassment, in the shock of near-discovery, because Mateo was near, for a dozen reasons—Nadia gave him a sidelong glance. “Thanks.”

He smiled, but awkwardly. “So. I should get going. It’s late. I told my dad I’d be back to help close up. But we should, um, talk sometime. Yeah. Right?” Mateo sounded so awkward, and yet nothing like the guys at school who had no idea how to ask a girl out. There was something else behind his hesitation, something heavier. Nadia could sense the barriers he put between himself and the world, and how hard it was for him to reach past them. And there was something about his eyes—something lost, something hunted.

Something she wouldn’t understand tonight. So maybe she should stop staring at the guy.

“Definitely. We’ll talk. See you around,” Nadia said.

And then Mateo was gone, back down the attic ladder, the door shutting atop him.

Verlaine said, “Do the two of you usually affect each other like that?”

“Like what?”

“You know—big Bambi eyes, all bashful, kind of gooey—”

“I wasn’t gooey,” Nadia protested as she took her seat next to Verlaine again. “Wait. Did you think Mateo was, um, gooey?”

“We’ll figure it out later,” Verlaine said impatiently. “The flame definitely flared. Completely. You saw it, right? Am I your Steadfast now?”

“I—don’t know. I doubt it.” But Verlaine was right; Nadia had seen the flare for herself.

“Wouldn’t I feel it? I don’t feel any different.”

Nadia shrugged. “We’ll have to check to make sure.”

Something quick and simple would be best: Reigniting the cleansing flame, maybe? Nadia pinched a bit of the bone dust between her fingers; it was still warm. Bone had a slight oiliness to it that set it apart from sand or ash, a reminder that it had once been alive.

If Verlaine were her Steadfast, even brand-new, then the flame would flare up instantly, and brighter than ever before. Nadia snapped her fingers, feeling the bone crumble and spark between them—

—but a spark was all she got.

“It didn’t take,” Nadia said. “We’ll have to try again.”

Verlaine shook her head, suddenly panicked. “What if it took, but it’s Mateo Perez instead?”

“Impossible.”

“What are you talking about? He came in just when the flame went foomp and flared up. He could be your Steadfast now!”