Steadfast

24

AT FIRST NADIA COULD ONLY GAPE AT MS. WALSH. WHEN she could speak, she said the only thing she could think of: “You’re not a witch.”

“No, I’m not,” Ms. Walsh said. “But my mother was, and my grandmother before her. They taught me the signs. Bound me close. Made me a Steadfast.”

“You’re a Steadfast?” Verlaine, who had been looking even more panicked than Nadia felt, brightened, but only for a moment. “Wait. If your mom and grandmother were witches, why aren’t you one?”

Ms. Walsh stiffened slightly; this was a difficult subject. “I didn’t have the gift. It happens that way sometimes.”

Verlaine nodded. “Oh, so you’re a Squib.”

“No Harry Potter stuff,” Nadia said hurriedly. “I keep telling you. Witches hate that.” Her initial shock began to shake away; now she could only think of Mateo. “My Steadfast is in trouble right now. Come with us. We’ll talk on the way.”

“She’s not your Steadfast?” Ms. Walsh said, looking at Verlaine.

“Everyone thinks that,” Verlaine said. “Understandable mistake. But wow, are you in for a surprise.” She took Ms. Walsh’s arm and began ushering them out of the school building. With the postquake chaos, nobody would notice their departure—and besides, Nadia thought, they were leaving with a faculty member.

“You know this isn’t me,” Nadia said as their steps quickened to a jog at the edge of the parking lot. “The sickness, the destruction, any of it.”

Ms. Walsh replied, “That’s Elizabeth Pike. Is she doing what I think she’s doing?”

“If you think she’s trying to turn Captive’s Sound into the gateway to hell itself?” Nadia said. “Then yes.”

It turned out Ms. Walsh could run fast enough to keep up with them at full speed, even in her high heels.

They found Mateo in the back alley behind La Catrina. He lay on the cold pavement, not unconscious but in a stupor; his cell phone had fallen from his hand. A stray cat watched from the far steps as they struggled to get him inside.

Nadia’s hands shook as she sifted through the under-the-bar first-aid kit and found a shiny, silver emergency blanket; she wrapped it around Mateo, who now lay on one of the long, leather booths. Verlaine held his head, and Ms. Walsh his feet.

“A male Steadfast,” Ms. Walsh said as she looked down at him. “Unbelievable.”

“That word is almost meaningless to me now,” Verlaine replied, almost absentmindedly. “I guess I used to think some things were unbelievable, but I can’t remember any at the moment.”

Now to help Mateo recover—but how? Nadia didn’t know whether he was suffering from a new and more horrible aspect of his family’s curse, or some other spell of Elizabeth’s entirely. One of magic’s great powers was its mystery; it could be difficult to tell precisely what spells had been cast. Great if you were the spellcaster—not so great when the guy you loved was suffering.

But Mateo stirred, as if the warmth and their voices had awakened him from a nap. He opened his eyes just a crack. “Nadia?”

“Mateo!” She clutched his hand and was relieved to feel him squeeze back. “What happened?”

“The dreams—the ones from my—” Then he caught sight of Ms. Walsh and immediately froze. “I mean, I think I got dizzy. I passed out.”

“The dreams from your curse,” Ms. Walsh said. She smiled. “It’s okay. I’m a Steadfast, too.”

“Really?” Mateo looked back at Nadia, who nodded.

Verlaine cut in. “Wait. You said you’re Steadfast for your mother. But you said your mother was a witch, that she left you her Book of Shadows. Did you keep the powers after she died?”

Ms. Walsh kept smiling, but it was obviously a struggle now. A deep sadness filled her eyes. “My mother has Alzheimer’s. No spells overcome that, I’m afraid. She held on as long as she could, but a couple of years ago, she turned over her bracelet and spell book to me. Said she couldn’t be trusted to use them any longer. Now she’s in a home up in Boston. I go see her as often as I can. Sometimes she even knows me. But she’s not a witch anymore, not in any meaningful sense. Still, the Steadfast bond—it endures. Through everything.”

Nadia’s eyes met Mateo’s, and they each smiled. As terrifying as it was to remember they were bound together forever, their whole lives long—it was even more beautiful. In some ways, it was just proof of something they’d sensed the first time their eyes had met.

Sometimes Verlaine tried to write news stories in her head about her own life, just to get practice at summarizing quickly, and putting the most important information as the lede.

As near as she could tell, the front page for the Verlaine’s Life Gazette would read something like this:

END SERIOUSLY NIGH

Area Sorceress Near Completion of Bridge to Underworld Locals Feel Magical Effects: Earthquakes, Mysterious Illness, Demonic Incursion

Captive’s Sound came even closer to apocalypse today when Sorceress Elizabeth Pike initiated the final steps of her plan to bring demonic overlord the One Beneath into the mortal world. Should she succeed in completing her bridge between the underworld and our town, only a thin seal will remain between the world we’ve always known and total destruction.

Local witch Nadia Caldani, along with Steadfast Mateo Perez and stylish sidekick Verlaine Laughton, has been working tirelessly to stop Elizabeth Pike, with only limited success. Now, however, the Gazette has learned that Rodman High guidance counselor Faye Walsh is also a Steadfast and may have new insights about the magic being performed—perhaps enough to turn the tide.

That about summed it up, Verlaine thought. All she had to do was add Horoscopes, Page Five. And the horoscopes would be easy enough to do: Every single sign’s forecast would read Pray Really Hard.

“My dreams of the future aren’t waiting for me to fall asleep any longer,” Mateo explained. By now they were all seated around one of the big circular booths in the strange stillness of the closed restaurant. Nobody had even turned on the overhead lights, so the only illumination was the grayish excuse for sunlight that came through the windows. “It’s okay right now, but earlier—the dreams were taking me over. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, could hardly even move.”

Nadia never took her hand from his. “Elizabeth’s deepened the curse. I’m not sure why she’d do that, though. Your dreams help us sometimes, even though they hurt you.”

Ms. Walsh—no, Faye; she’d told them they could call her that off-campus—shook her head. “Elizabeth may not have a choice. The level of magic she’s performing now goes beyond anything even she would have done before. Right now all her magic may be intensifying at once. She can’t strengthen her influence in the world without strengthening every one of her curses, every one of her spells, at once.”

So, are people going to be even meaner to me? Verlaine wondered, then felt bad about even thinking it. The fate of the world was slightly more important than her social life. Besides, if the world ended, it would kind of be a moot point.

“She needs these people to suffer,” Nadia said. “All the ones she’s put in the hospital. And I’ve learned—the One Beneath uses emotions, a lot. He steals them. He takes them in trade.” She went silent for only a moment. “So maybe He uses them to build. Maybe those people’s pain is exactly what He’s using to build the bridge. I think pain is what the bridge is made of.”

Faye nodded. She looked . . . well, encouraged was too strong a word, but like they might be getting somewhere. “I went through my mother’s Book of Shadows, searching for something like a remedy for illness caused by witchcraft, something like that. I didn’t see anything, but you might.” From her leather satchel she pulled out a clothbound book. The cloth was plain, faded black, the kind of thing that generally didn’t earn a second glance. But Verlaine reminded herself that Nadia had said every Book of Shadows was different. Every Book of Shadows had its own power.

Sure enough, as Nadia reached for it, the pages flipped open of their own accord. “Whoa,” Mateo said. “Did it hear you?”

“Sometimes Books of Shadows do.” Nadia smiled almost fondly at it, then glanced at Faye. “Your mom must have been really powerful.”

For the first time since she’d come to them, Faye smiled. “She was something else. I wish you could’ve seen her in her prime.”

Nadia looked down into the Book of Shadows. At first Verlaine wondered if a light had come on somewhere, then realized the spell book was glowing. The gentle golden illumination revealed Nadia’s dawning excitement. “This isn’t a cure for illness. But it’s a way to ease pain, and end suffering. It’s pretty serious magic, but I think—I think I could do it.”

Wait. Had things suddenly gone from sucky to awesome? Verlaine brightened. “So you can stop Elizabeth from hurting Uncle Gary and all the others. When they stop hurting, she’s not causing them any more pain. And if they’re not in pain, she loses the building blocks she needs for the bridge. The bridge collapses, the One Beneath can’t get here, Elizabeth’s defeated, and it’s the best Thanksgiving ever. Right?”

“That’s the idea.” But Nadia only looked about one-tenth as excited as she ought to. “Verlaine, it’s dangerous.”

Of course it couldn’t be easy. Mateo leaned closer to Nadia. “You mean, you could be hurt?”

“Maybe, but that’s just part of working high-level magic.” Nadia didn’t even glance at him; it was Verlaine she spoke to. “I’m not talking about it being dangerous for me. I meant for Uncle Gary.”

“He’s in the hospital with about a zillion tubes in him and a crazy, evil witch keeping him in pain,” Verlaine said. “How much more dangerous could it get for him?”

Quietly Nadia replied, “If I do it wrong, he could die.”

Verlaine sucked in a breath. Faye put one hand on her shoulder, temporarily back in school-counselor mode.

It wasn’t like Verlaine hadn’t been afraid of this before now. She’d hardly been able to think of anything else since Uncle Gary’s collapse. But hearing it from the exact person she’d been counting on to save him—that made it much more real. She whispered, “Why would he die?”

“Right now the magic is holding him in this painful space between life and death.” The amber light from the spell book still played across Nadia’s face. “I’m going to ease his pain, which means easing the spell’s hold on him. He should come back to the side of life. But—I don’t see anything in this spell to guarantee that. I don’t know what kind of condition he’s in, or whether there’s more to what Elizabeth has done. So I’d be cutting all her ties at once, and anything could happen.”

“The spell is about easing suffering, right?” Verlaine demanded. “What kind of loser spell would only end suffering by killing people?”

“It’s probably more about helping people who are sick or injured through normal means, rather than suffering because of magic,” Faye suggested.

Mateo said, “Are we sure this is a good idea? There are a lot of people in the hospital. That’s a lot of lives to take a risk with.”

“I don’t know.” Nadia bit her lower lip. “Maybe—maybe I jumped to conclusions.”

They were jumping to conclusions about something that could kill Uncle Gary? And yet what was the alternative? Her brain was doing the calculations her heart was too weary to handle.

“We should think about it,” Mateo said.

“I know,” Nadia agreed. “I know. We just don’t have much time to think. And the spell has to be anchored—someone would have to be at the hospital, in the thick of it, wearing one of my own witching charms. The pearl. That person would bear the biggest part of the risk. Even if none of the patients died, this person might.”

“I could do it,” Faye offered. “If we decide to cast this spell.”

Verlaine made up her mind. “You have to do it. You have to try. And I’ll anchor the spell.”

Everyone stared at her. Verlaine couldn’t quite believe she’d said that herself. But she knew what she knew.

“I love Uncle Gary as much as I love anybody on Earth.” Her breath didn’t want to support her voice; it felt caught in her chest, waiting for tears she wouldn’t let come. “But I don’t just love him. I know him. And if we could tell him how much is at stake—that this could mean the deaths of thousands and thousands of people if we fail—then he’d say to take the chance. He’d do it himself if he could. I know that, for sure.”

It felt beyond horrible to risk Uncle Gary’s life like that. Just getting the words out seemed to have stolen the strength from her body.

But a life was more than a pulse, more than a breath. A life was also made up of what you believed and what you stood for. Of what you were willing to do—and who you loved. Protecting Uncle Gary’s survival at the cost of so much pain and suffering would betray his life more surely than anything else, and Verlaine knew it.

“I’ll take the chance with him,” she said, holding out her hand for Nadia’s pearl charm.

Mateo reached across the table and took her free hand. Verlaine was surprised how much it helped.

“I’m going to get it right,” Nadia said . . . no, promised. Her dark eyes burned with intensity as she removed the pearl charm from her bracelet and put it into Verlaine’s palm. This was the swearing of a solemn oath. “I can do it. I can and I will.”

“I know,” Verlaine replied, and for a moment she could really believe.

Mateo’s hand tightened around hers. At first she thought he was still attempting to comfort her, but then his grip became even tighter, until the bones of her hand ached. She looked at him in alarm, but he was staring past her—through her—

Nadia shook his shoulder. “Mateo?”

He collapsed.

“I serve the One Beneath, and he will not be denied,” Elizabeth said, storm winds whipping her chestnut hair, her eyes alight as if with an unearthly fire.

“Someone, help!” Verlaine ran along a corridor, pursued by pounding footsteps and the shouts of dozens of—people? Demons? In the shadows Mateo couldn’t tell any difference. All he saw was fury and destruction, bearing down on her faster by the moment.

Nadia was attempting to stand amid rushing water, as though she were in the middle of a flooded river. And yet she was holding on to something like a door, or a pillar—like she was inside, even as the waves rose higher.

The storm winds whipped Nadia’s blue-black hair, lightning brilliant in the sky, as she said, “I serve the One Beneath—”

“Mateo? Mateo!”

The dizzying swirl of potential future and present steadied, and he once again knew where he was: La Catrina, specifically lying on the floor. His head lay in Nadia’s lap, Verlaine was patting one of his hands, and Faye seemed to be grabbing something from the bar, maybe a damp rag or some ice. Mateo shifted his weight, then winced. “Ow.”

“You fell pretty hard,” Nadia said. “The visions again? What did you see?”

“I can’t tell. Sometimes the dreams aren’t literal; you know that.” He groaned and pushed himself to sit upright. “I saw you in trouble—as usual. Verlaine, too.”

“Oh, yay,” Verlaine muttered.

The front door jingled, and Mateo frowned; he thought he’d locked that door. But someone else had a copy of the key—Dad, who was staring at him in dawning horror. “Madre de Dios, Mateo, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Mateo said, but he didn’t think it was too convincing, seeing as how he was sprawled out on the floor.

Sure enough, Dad ran to him, his face white. “Is this another one of the seizures? I was just starting to think maybe that was a one-time thing, but now—”

Last month, a spell gone wrong had landed Mateo in the hospital overnight; the doctors, having no other way of understanding what ailed him, assumed he must have had a seizure. Mateo had felt awful about panicking his father, but he’d thought they’d all get over it quickly enough. So much for that. “I don’t think so.”

Dad wasn’t buying it. “We’re taking you to the hospital, right now.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” Faye said, stepping out from behind the bar, ice bag still in her hands. “Mr. Perez? I’m Faye Walsh from Rodman High. I understand your concern for your son, but given the illness sweeping through the community, not to mention the quake—the hospital’s not going to have capacity for Mateo right now. These are emergency situations.”

Wow, she was a good liar. And because she was an adult, Dad actually listened.

“I don’t like it,” his father said, but he sighed. “You’re right, though. Mateo, have you been taking your antiseizure medication?”

“No,” he admitted. This was because the stuff was useless, but at least Dad wouldn’t look any harder for an explanation.

“I tell you, and I tell you! In one ear and out the other!” Dad rarely yelled unless he was really, really scared. He was yelling now. “Come on. I’m taking you home. You’re going to take your medicine and lie down for a while.”

Mateo turned to Nadia in dismay. He wanted to be with her now—to lend his Steadfast power to the spells she would cast. That had just become impossible.

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if concentrating, and suddenly they were suffused by an aquamarine light. He realized immediately that nobody else could see this besides him, and perhaps Faye: This was magic. Nadia had just cast a spell, and whatever it was, it made him feel steadier instantly. It was a little like being desperately seasick aboard a boat, then stepping onto solid ground.

“This should help you sort out the dreams,” she murmured, low enough for Dad not to hear. “I don’t know that it’s going to stop them, but you should be able to tell the difference between dreams and reality.”

Faye had engaged Dad in a conversation about how the school could accommodate Mateo’s condition. He decided he liked her. Quickly Mateo whispered, “I can sneak out. Just give me ten minutes or so at the house.”

To his surprise, Nadia shook her head. “If you’re overcome—it’s dangerous to both of us, Mateo. What I want you to do is to report the visions to me if you can. Text me, or call. If you start to see a more definite future, and there’s something you can warn me about, then warn me, okay?”

“Or me,” Verlaine piped up. He’d almost forgotten she was sitting near them. “Since I’m in danger, too. If the One Beneath is coming after me, I’d appreciate a heads-up.”

“I want to be with you,” he said to Nadia. “I want to help you.”

“You do. Every hour. Every minute.” She framed his face with her hands. “You’re my strength, always.”

It didn’t matter if the others were watching. Mateo pulled her close and kissed her, and tried very hard to believe it wouldn’t be for the last time.

“That was amazing,” Gage said as he smiled dazedly at the ceiling.

Naked, Elizabeth rose from the pile of blankets that Gage believed to be a bed. His mind was now clouded by her magic. The worst effects of Betrayer’s Snare had by now worn off; a couple hours’ use of a male body had burned away the fever of her desire and left behind only sore muscles and a slightly elevated pulse.

“You always seemed so, I don’t know—shy.” He grinned over at her, utterly besotted. She stared back impassively; he would be incapable of recognizing her indifference. “Guess I got that wrong. Or maybe you just choose your moments to show that wild side.”

“I choose my moments,” she said, considering her options.

It would be easy enough to make Gage forget the entire encounter. However, she could do that at any point. With Betrayer’s Snare no longer influencing her, she would have no more need of him in her bed, but that didn’t mean he was useless.

Sex was a necessary ingredient in a spell she hadn’t cast in a very long time. At this critical moment, couldn’t she use more than one servant? Asa’s loyalties were so cloudy, his obedience so grudging; to have a slave who obeyed from slavish adoration rather than fear might prove useful.

Once Gage became her thrall, she could use him to spy. To undermine. Even to kill. And he would never question it.

“Come here, my love.” Elizabeth held out her hand. Gage rose to take it, just as willingly as he would soon give her his blood.