Apparently she had. Elizabeth turned around, smoke billowing around her, and walked back into her house without another word.

Probably she’d always dismissed him just like that, and he hadn’t remembered.

Legs shaking, Mateo made his way back toward home. He got all the way to the beach before the cramping in his gut took over, and then he fell down and retched and retched. And yet even when he couldn’t vomit any longer, when he lay there with sand on his face, he knew he hadn’t gotten all the poison out.

Late at night, Nadia sat up in her attic, both Books of Shadows open in front of her.

Every time she deciphered one of Goodwife Hale’s old spells into modern terms, she jotted it into her own book. Not only would it be easier to reference this way, but the spell’s power would also become part of her Book of Shadows.

So she ought to have felt more confident as she transcribed more and more of it. Instead, the fear only got stronger.

She understood so little of this. When she’d been working with her mother, Nadia had felt confident. Mom swore her power was exceptional; she’d studied hard and practiced every single day to make sure that power reached its full potential. All Nadia had ever wanted was to be a real witch, the best one she could possibly be.

Well, now that she didn’t have a teacher, it looked like the best witch she could possibly be sucked.

This book of Goodwife Hale’s—the one she’d thought could give her so many tricks and tips—most of it was completely incomprehensible to her. The terms used were centuries old, archaic. Some of the items needed for more complex spells were things nobody had today—a “spindle from a wheel”? Good luck getting her hands on that. “The first butter from the churn”? Probably Parkay wasn’t going to work.

Even worse, sometimes Nadia could work through the old-timey language enough to realize that complex, intricate magic was described in the book … but she didn’t have the knowledge that would allow her to understand it, much less use it.

Like the final journal entry Goodwife Hale had ever made—it was either far over Nadia’s head or it was nothing but nonsense.

She tried to put it in her own words, to see if she could parse it out. “Magic forms the bars of the cage. The bars of the cage lie beneath us all. To cut through the bars, the magic will be stolen, and only magic can replace it. The strongest force is not in opposition; it is in … partnership. Or something.”

What was that even about?

Head aching, she turned back to the last spell she’d managed to decipher—one for forecasting weather, which would be handy if not exactly life-altering—stuck in a bookmark, and slammed the covers shut. It was well after one a.m.; tomorrow was going to be a four-Diet-Cokes day. Nadia lowered the attic stepladder and made her way down—