Steadfast

11

NADIA DIDN’T SO MUCH FALL OFF THE BRIDGE AS FALL through it. Wood splintered around her, metal scraped her skin, and then ice-cold water splashed over her, surrounded her, dragged her down.

Despite her terror, Nadia stayed focused; she’d been a lifeguard once, and she was a strong enough swimmer to propel herself even through this mess. When she broke the surface, though, jagged metal stuck up in all directions, and broken boards littered the water. “Mateo!” she screamed. “Verlaine!”

Then she saw a flash of silver white—Verlaine’s wet hair, slicked down her head and back like a veil, as Verlaine pulled herself onto dry ground. The spell she’d cast had left a powerful magical resonance—that and whatever Elizabeth had cast—because for one moment, when Nadia looked at Verlaine, she saw her.

Really saw her. For one split second, Nadia looked at Verlaine without dark magic in the way and knew just how much she loved her friend, how good Verlaine had been to fight with her all this time.

“Verlaine—” she whispered, overcome by such overwhelming emotion that it outweighed everything else . . . until she heard Mateo splashing behind her.

Nadia turned back and saw him struggling in the water; it looked like his clothes were caught on something, keeping him from getting to safety. She swam to him, ignoring the boards that scraped her flesh, until they were side by side. Together they were able to tug him free and make it to shore.

All three of them ran, teeth chattering, back to Verlaine’s car. She turned on the heater, which was some help, but for a few long seconds they just sat there trying to thaw out enough to speak.

“We—we should go—to my place,” Mateo managed to say. “Dad’s working. You guys can—change into some of my sweatpants. Something like that.”

“Good thinking,” Verlaine said as she hugged herself tightly. “Uncle Dave and Uncle Gary wouldn’t know what to think if I came in like this. Nadia, I take it our plunge in the sound means the spell didn’t work?”

“She stopped me,” Nadia said, and it was so hard to admit it out loud, even when they all knew it already.

Mateo simply put his arm around her and said, “We knew it probably wouldn’t be that easy.”

Nadia just shrugged. She was still too upset to say anything else.

It wasn’t that Elizabeth had beaten her. Although Nadia had hoped to win, she had known all along that defeat was a strong possibility. What hurt worst was that Elizabeth had shut her down in seconds. The best plan Nadia had been able to come up with—for Elizabeth, it had probably been no more than an annoyance.

Lifting her face to her friends, Nadia tried to brace herself for their disappointment. But Mateo smiled at her like he knew everything in her heart and wanted to make it better for her if he could. He couldn’t, but Nadia loved that he wanted to try.

Meanwhile, Verlaine wrung water out of her long hair and sighed. “Well, this sucked.”

During his brief time in Captive’s Sound, Asa had sized up Kendall Bender as—insubstantial. Not terribly bright, not stupid, enamored of her own judgment: an entirely ordinary human being. But grief had awakened something else in her, something entirely individual.

The girl seemed to be in a daze as she wandered through the hallway, despite all the balloons and stuffed animals decorating her locker, despite all the questions about her sister. Her sandy hair wasn’t even brushed. Probably she’d come to school straight from the hospital.

Asa stood very near the now-unused chemistry lab. (The school had closed it due to potential contamination, though nobody could say what the contamination might be. Instead the class sat in study hall and watched “science documentaries,” which were mostly designed to amuse the brain-dead.) He was close enough to feel the enormous power lurking there—the wild, dark energy not far below the surface. It reminded Asa of pain. It reminded him of home.

Yet that darkness did not reach out to him, nor would it ever. The One Beneath did not speak to mere slaves.

A dog on a leash, Verlaine had said. Maddening girl.

Let her call him what she would. After last night’s disastrous attempt on Elizabeth’s life, no doubt Verlaine, Nadia, and Mateo were licking their wounds. They were doubting themselves now. That made them vulnerable.

He’d watched long enough. Waited long enough. The time had come for Asa to begin his work.

So here we go, Mateo thought. Plan B.

The butler opened the door, and his eyes widened in surprise. Mateo usually avoided Cabot House, showing up once a year for inspection/birthday wishes/weird, creepy, passive aggression from Grandma/a savings bond, before getting out again as quickly as possible. This was his third visit in three months.

Mateo tried to keep a straight face. “We meet again.”

“Mrs. Cabot isn’t expecting you,” the butler said in his creaky voice. His weedy, white eyebrows seemed to be frozen in an expression halfway between surprise and disapproval.

“Just dropping by. Let her know I’m here, okay?”

He had to wait for her in a long room filled with ornate old furniture that hadn’t been used in a while. A fine layer of dust grayed and softened every line, as though the room had been draped in a veil. Mateo felt more like an intruder in a museum than a visiting grandson. That was pretty much par for the course.

All along the brocade wallpaper hung Cabot family portraits from decades and even centuries gone by. A few of them showed signs of damage from the fire that had damaged the upper stories of the house back when his mother was young. This frame showed some blackening; this picture was stained with soot. But the one that interested Mateo showed not the damage, but the person who had caused it.

There, in a Colonial-era portrait, stood members of Mateo’s family in knee breeches, full-length dresses, and powdered wigs—and next to them stood Elizabeth Pike.

Not Elizabeth as he knew her, of course. She’d spent most of the past four centuries aging backward from the old woman who’d made a deal with the One Beneath. Only now did she again look like a girl of seventeen. In this portrait Elizabeth still had gray hair, the more solid body of someone past middle age, but the painter must have been skilled, because the face remained unmistakably hers. Maybe it was the shape of her eyes; maybe it was the way she tilted her head just slightly.

No. What made Mateo so utterly sure this was Elizabeth was the expression the painter had captured in her eyes: contempt. Elizabeth thought everyone else in the world was beneath her, only fit to do her bidding.

“Mateo.” He turned to see Grandma standing in the door. She rarely stood any longer; it surprised him that she had the strength. Her ebony cane was clenched firmly in one frail hand. As always, she angled herself so that only one side of her face showed—the side without the horrible scars from the fire. “Your young lady appears to have heeded my warning.”

“Nadia and I are still together. Thanks for asking.” Mateo wasn’t going to waste any time trying to make this woman like him. Instead he simply stepped close and held up his phone. “Listen, I need to know if you’ve ever seen this.”

He brought up the picture Nadia had taken of a symbol drawn on yellowing old paper—a sort of wreathed circle made up of a few dozen curving lines that crisscrossed one another. At first Mateo had thought it looked vaguely Celtic, but that wasn’t quite right. Really, it was more like a drawing by this guy they’d studied in art history, M.C. Escher. Lines you thought led somewhere didn’t; angles that shouldn’t have existed did.

“That?” Apparently startled out of her usual gloom, Grandma nodded. “I’ve seen that design before.”

Usually Mateo hated that his grandmother lived in the past, that he was buried under so much horrible family history, it felt like it could crush him. But her obsession had finally paid off. “Where?”

“It’s an old knife—part of the family silver, though it resembles no serving piece I’ve ever seen. But I recall the symbol well. I thought it was some Cabot family crest, fallen out of use.”

“Any chance I could have that knife?”

Immediately she turned to frost again. “If you’re looking for items to hock, I’m sure there’s something more valuable in the house.”

“I’m not pawning anything, okay? You can have it back soon.” In theory, anyway: Nadia might have to use it for some spell that would turn it to ash or God only knew what. He’d deal with that if and when it happened. “My friends and I want to look at it. That’s all.”

“I’m not sure you should be trusted with a knife.”

“Come on. I work in a restaurant. Nothing but knives. So if I were looking for weapons, this is the last place I’d come. Right?” On second thought, Mateo wasn’t sure that was the ideal argument for him to make—but Grandma seemed to be considering it.

She didn’t know the whole truth about Captive’s Sound. Mateo was pretty sure she had no clue that witchcraft even existed. Still, she believed in the family curse—which was enough for her to know that the supernatural was very, very real. Slowly she shook her head no, then called for the butler to find the knife.

He noticed that she was leaning more heavily on her cane; her fingers trembled on the handle. Tentatively Mateo took hold of her elbow. “Hey. Do you want to sit down?”

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

“Okay, then.” He stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his letter jacket, took a couple of steps back.

When Grandma spoke again, however, her words were soft for once. “You meant to help. I realize that. But you’re cursed, Mateo. I swore after what your grandfather did to me that I would never again be touched by that curse if I could possibly avoid it.”

Which was why she’d frozen out his mother. Why she’d only begrudgingly acknowledged Mateo’s existence once a year for his whole life.

But now that Mateo stood this close, he could see the other side of his grandmother’s face despite her attempt to keep it turned toward the shadows. The welts had never healed, not after decades. It looked as though claws had raked across her skin, twisting cheek and eyebrow and jaw into mockeries of themselves.

Elizabeth had made her suffer, too.

Quietly he said, “None of us chose this, you know.”

For one moment his grandmother looked at him—straight at him, not trying to hide her damage—and he saw just how lonely she was. They both suffered the same isolation because of the curse; they both mourned his mother, and hated being set apart from the world. Was that only pity in her eyes, or did she maybe, finally understand him a little?

But Grandma sniffed. “I chose this when I was fool enough to marry your grandfather and bear him a child. I won’t choose it again.”

When she pulled farther back, Mateo let her go.

The butler reappeared with something large and flat wrapped in a sueded cloth; the heft of it surprised Mateo as he took it. When he flipped back one corner of the fabric, he saw a long, silver knife—more like a dagger—almost black with tarnish. Although the pattern was almost hidden in the blackness, he could tell it was the same. “This is great. Thanks for loaning it to me.”

“There is no need to return it in person,” Grandma said. “If you must come here, try to send advance word.”

She still feared him. Mateo shrugged it off as best he could, heading for the door. “Right. Got it. By the way, make that guy polish the silver sometime. What else does he do all day?”

Now that Cole had been pacified with what had to be his nine thousandth viewing of Lilo & Stitch, Nadia had a chance to unwind.

Well. If extreme moping could be considered unwinding.

Mateo and Verlaine had been so positive and encouraging, but Nadia’s heart still stung from last night’s failure. She still thought the idea had been a good one, in theory—but Elizabeth had charms and protections Nadia could only guess at.

What if she’s just too strong? What if there’s no way for me to take her on? Is it like—like when Cole tells Dad he wants to wrestle? Dad makes a good game of it and they roll around on the floor, but it’s not like he can’t pin Cole in an instant as soon as he’s ready.

Maybe that’s all Elizabeth is doing. Toying with me.

Then a rap on the window startled Nadia from her reverie. She sat upright, brightening as she thought that Mateo must have come to see her. But why hadn’t he come to the front door? Maybe he thought sneaking into her bedroom was romantic. If so, he was right.

Nadia rose and slid open her window—and realized it wasn’t Mateo who’d come to visit.

“Mind if I come in?” Asa smiled. He perched easily on the tree branch; though the limb swayed in the strong wind, his balance remained perfect.

“Yes.”

“Too bad.”

With a leap, he landed on her roof, hands on the windowsill just between hers. There was no sound, as if he were light as a cat. Nadia jumped back, an automatic reflex, but one that allowed Asa to slip through the window and stand in front of her. He wore jeans and a dark gray sweater, the expensive kind with a soft sheen to it. In every way, Asa looked just like the spoiled rich kid Jeremy Prasad had been; only the uncanny grace of his movements and the knowing sharpness of his gaze betrayed his true nature.

“Willow,” he said with a nod toward the pressed leaves and flowers on her walls. “Lavender. Minor protections, to be sure, but even little things add up after a while.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” she said, keeping her voice as low as she could while still making it really clear Asa wasn’t wanted. “Get out.”

“First we should have a chat.”

“Actually, no, we shouldn’t. Get out now.”

“I’ll leave in ten seconds.” That sounded promising—until he lifted his hands and clapped. The sounds of Cole’s movie from downstairs stopped in an instant; the music playing on her computer did, too. Nadia didn’t even bother looking at her clock. She already knew time was standing still. Asa folded his arms across his chest and leaned against her wall. “And yet we still have plenty of time to talk.”

“I don’t know what it is you think you have to say to me. What, are you going to tell me how much fun it is to work for Elizabeth? We both know that’s not true.”

“Elizabeth is cold, cruel, and merciless,” Asa said, startling her with his honesty. “Yes, she wants me to convince you to join her. To start learning from her. But Elizabeth has a weakness—arrogance. For instance, it never occurred to her that I might ask you to start studying with her for my own reasons, not hers.”

Nadia sat back on the corner of her bed. This conversation was changing directions every second. “Why would I care about your reasons?”

“Because I think they’re the same as yours.” Asa stepped away from the wall, coming a little closer to Nadia, close enough for her to again feel that strange, unearthly heat. “Believe it or not, Nadia, we both want the same thing. We want to see Elizabeth crushed, defeated, destroyed forever. I can’t do that. Maybe you can.”

“But you both serve the One Beneath.”

“Precisely. I serve Him, not her. And if you think the One Beneath doesn’t accept deceit and backstabbing among His servants, then, I have to tell you, you haven’t even started to understand Him.” Asa’s grin was fierce, almost frightening. “He loves her, you know. Insofar as the One Beneath can love anyone or anything, He loves Elizabeth. But He would glory in her devastation just as He would in anybody else’s. We’re all just kindling for His fires. There’s no one He wouldn’t burn.”

Her heart was thumping wildly inside her chest, though her fear diminished by the moment. Asa was giving her the one thing she needed most, the one thing she couldn’t get any other way: knowledge. “Okay. You want her defeated. So do I. Joining her doesn’t do that. It only helps her win.”

“Only if you play by her rules, Nadia. What if you played by mine?”

Asa leaned forward then, his hands on the bed, on either side of her. His face was very close to hers, the heat overwhelming. Nadia’s eyes met his, and a shudder went through her, one so delicious that it took her a moment to remember she should be disgusted by him.

But she wasn’t. Not even close.

Asa’s smile broadened. He looked like a panther caught midpounce. “Don’t feel guilty,” he murmured. “You can’t help yourself. Sin, temptation, craving, unmentionable desires: That’s the stuff demons are made of. How else could we be so hard to resist?”

Flushed, Nadia pushed herself farther back on the bed to put at least a few more inches between her face and Asa’s. She had to think clearly now. “Stop playing games and just tell me what you’re suggesting.”

“Join Elizabeth. Work with her. Learn from her. Learn all the magic she has to teach—and she has so much, Nadia, more than any other witch has ever possessed. Discover the countless spells a Sorceress has at her disposal. Tell her you must learn more before you swear yourself to the One Beneath; she’ll accept that. It’s how they all begin, really. You can start as only her student, no more. And you’ll learn enough to destroy her long before the One Beneath ever has a claim on your soul.”

Could that work? It sounded . . . plausible. Even coming from a demon.

Asa backed away, giving her a few moments to think. Nadia pushed her hair back from her face and stared down at her Book of Shadows. It so obviously belonged to a beginner: Crayola spells in the front, blank pages in the back. If she could learn more—become nearly as powerful as Elizabeth herself—

Demons tempted people. That was what they did. And they always tempted them down the path of evil, into the keeping of the One Beneath. So Nadia had every reason to doubt and distrust what he told her now.

Yet she also knew that the hatred in Asa’s voice when he spoke of Elizabeth was absolutely true.

“If I become powerful,” she said, “and I stop Elizabeth for good, that harms the One Beneath. You can’t work against Him. It’s impossible.”

“True enough,” Asa said. “I can’t work against Him. But I can assist in Elizabeth’s destruction, which is what I’d very much like to do. After that—yes, He’ll come after you, and I’ll help Him. But that’s going to happen no matter what, Nadia. At least my way you’d stand a chance, and we’d get to see Elizabeth go down in flames. Your way, you’re just a stick of kindling for his next blaze. Think about it.”

He clapped his hands again; sounds from the rest of the house rushed in, and Nadia let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. When she looked up from her Book of Shadows, Asa was already gone. He must have slipped out the window again, without a sound.

Asa smiled as he walked away from the Caldani home. He’d made a good beginning of it, if he said so himself. Honesty always worked better than lies.

Of course, Nadia didn’t know the other purpose behind the plan he’d suggested—pulling her away from her friends, from the people she loved. He was rather proud of having found a way to do Elizabeth’s work and his own with a single stroke.

Well—not a single stroke. He had two more people to visit tonight.

Seduction was never accomplished in a single conversation, or on a single night. It had to begin slowly. You took people so far, then no further, and waited for them to travel the rest of the way to hell on their own. They always did, in the end.