—then stopped short as she saw her father standing in the hallway, in pajama pants and an old Northwestern T-shirt. His arms were crossed in front of his chest as he leaned against the wall, obviously waiting for her.

“Did I wake you?” she whispered. The attic steps were close to the door of Cole’s room.

“No.”

Nadia glanced toward Cole’s door. “Oh, no—did he have another nightmare about the monsters?”

“Cole’s fine. I was worried about you.”

She tried to smile for him. “You know I don’t need as much sleep as normal humans.”

But Dad wasn’t going for the joke. “It’s not just the staying up late. You’ve been on edge all week. Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

Like she could ever talk to him about any of this. She’d had to tell Mateo about magic, but he was the only guy she would ever, ever be able to discuss it with. Her dad was totally cut out of this part of her life, forever. And it wasn’t just the magic, either; Dad had spent more time at his law firm than his house until Mom left and forced his hand. He hadn’t been around for virtually any of the most important moments in Nadia’s life. Why did he even pretend to understand her?

Before she could stop herself, she shot back, “The person I need to talk to is Mom.”

His expression crumpled. Nadia had thought it was impossible to feel stupider than she had while getting lost in those ancient spells—but she’d been so wrong. Now she felt stupid and evil.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I just—I need to go to bed.” Nadia pushed past her father to get to her own room. He didn’t follow her, or knock after she shut the door.

So she was alone as she lay there in bed, tears streaming down her face. It was weird how hurting someone you loved was even worse than being hurt. That stayed with you longer, and weighed you down all through the night into dawn.

13

“SO, ARE YOU WEARING A COSTUME TO THE HALLOWEEN carnival?”

Mateo looked up from the stuff in his plastic cup. “What?”

Kendall Bender—who was the one throwing the party, or at any rate was the one who brought the cooler now holding the beers—shouted over the music. “Are you, like, wearing a costume? Because I know sometimes guys are like, that’s so gay, not gay as in actual gay but gay as in not cool, except I guess maybe some costumes are actual gay if they’re, like, drag and makeup or something, but then on the other hand some guys like to wear, like, horror costumes and look all badass and so I was wondering if you were going to maybe do something like that?”

He shrugged. Halloween was too far away to care about.

Somehow Kendall took this as encouragement. “I’m going to go as a geisha girl, but, like, a sexy geisha girl, so the kimono is, like, all short and stuff, and I saw the costume comes with this wig, and I was going to do this makeup with my eyes but then somebody said that was racist, and I went, um, you are way too PC, and, like, you have to think for yourself. Right?”