“Mateo?” He only half turned, so she took a few steps closer to him. “What you saw—in the attic—”

“Yeah?”

You must never speak of witchcraft to any man. One of the First Laws—but maybe there was a way to bend that rule without breaking it. “It wasn’t drugs. But it—it wasn’t only the light.”

Slowly he came back toward her. “Then what was it?”

“I can’t tell you.” Before he could protest, Nadia held up a hand. “I mean it. I can’t.”

“Did it do this to me? Whatever it was?”

“I’m not sure. I can find out, though. If it did, maybe I can undo it.”

Mateo’s eyes lit up with desperate hope. Though he clearly had no idea what she was talking about, he was clutching at any possibility. “Come on. You have to tell me.”

“I can’t,” Nadia insisted. “Mateo, please. I know this is hard for you—”

“Thinking I’m going crazy like my mom? The one who drowned herself in the ocean? You have no idea how hard that is for me.”

Almost on instinct, Nadia laid one hand against his chest to comfort him. He instantly stilled at her touch. It was amazing to think she could do that just by touching him.

Quickly she said, “We have to trust each other right now, okay? We have to … take some things on faith. You just have to understand—I believe you about everything you say you’ve seen. I believe in you.”

Mateo’s lips parted slightly. Was it that astonishing, thinking that somebody really might trust him?

Nadia finished, “So I’m asking you to believe in me right now. Let me work this out. If I had anything to do with what’s happening to you—I’ll know soon.”

He nodded. “Today? This week?”

Right away, Nadia wanted to say, but already people were starting to mill around in the hallways—only a few, but enough that she no longer felt safe to experiment in the lab uninterrupted.

But there was something she might be able to try even in the middle of class—quiet, simple, something nobody would even notice her casting—and she needed to do this right away, during the next class period they shared.

She looked back at Mateo and gave him the most encouraging smile she could manage. “Sometime during chemistry.”

“Obviously we need to review how to write a lab report,” the Piranha said as everyone began assembling their materials. “I’ve put an outline on the board, which should prove useful to those of you who have learned how to read. This is apparently a minority.”

Nadia had finally been assigned a lab partner, which would have been bad news for her today no matter what. The fact that she’d been stuck with that slimy Jeremy Prasad made it worse. She didn’t care what Verlaine said; as far as Nadia was concerned, the view wasn’t worth it, no matter how hot he was.

“She’s such a bitch,” he said as he handed Nadia the sodium bicarbonate for their experiment.