Steadfast

by Claudia Gray

  “Oh, hey,” Kendall said, managing to reapply her lipstick and talk at the same time. “You sure do come here a lot. Like, all the time. I would’ve thought you guys would want Italian food sometimes.”

  Even by Kendall standards, this made no sense. Nadia frowned. “Why?”

  “You’re Italian, right? Caldani?”

  “Actually, no.” Dad usually said the name was Persian. That was an old habit, going back to when he was a little boy in the 1970s and his family had to deal with a lot of prejudice; the fact that his family had actually fled the Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t stop people from blaming them for his rule. Nadia preferred the direct approach. “We’re Iranian.”

  Mom’s half was part Scottish, part Greek, but Nadia didn’t bother mentioning that. It was too much fun watching Kendall’s eyes get wider. “I thought you were American.”

  “We are American. You didn’t think I was actually from Italy before, did you?” Nadia took another look at herself in the mirror. Gray T-shirt tucked into jeans, sari-print scarf knotted around her neck just so, earrings dangling instead of caught: Everything looked right.

  “Well, no, but.” Kendall said this like it somehow made sense. “Are you guys Muslim?”

  “No. We’re Chaldean Catholics. Well, at least in theory. Not many Chaldean Catholic churches around in the United States.” There had been one in Chicago, but in Rhode Island, particularly Captive’s Sound? Forget it. “What would it matter if we were Muslim anyway?”

  But Kendall had already moved on to the subject that, clearly, had interested her all along. “So, looks like you and Mateo are a thing.”

  Nadia felt an irrational stab of annoyance. It wasn’t like Mateo would ever in a thousand years go for Kendall—and to be fair, Kendall didn’t seem to be into Mateo, either. But she was always sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Still—Nadia was proud of loving Mateo, being with him. Why not tell Kendall? “Yeah. We’re together.”

  “Does Elizabeth Pike know?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Bet she’s not happy.”

  Halloween night, Kendall had seen Mateo under Elizabeth’s spell. Nadia decided to bunt. “They decided they’re better off as friends.”

  “Interesting” was the only reply, in a tone of voice that told Nadia the entire school would hear about this by tomorrow morning, if not within the hour. Kendall Bender was sort of a one-woman amplification system for gossip.

  Good, she decided. Let the whole world know.

  She said, “See you,” and left the bathroom as quickly as she could, giving Kendall a smile so warm it would have to confuse her.

  As she went back to her family’s booth, Nadia glanced over her shoulder to see Mateo taking the check to yet another table. He had the most wonderful lopsided grin, and he seemed to be kind to everybody, even customers who were questioning the tab. This wasn’t a guy whose love she had to fear.

  There’s no spell to break. Mateo wouldn’t leave you. He’s not going anywhere.

  Kendall’s voice rang out, sharp with fear, cutting through all the other chatter like a knife. “Riley?”

  When Nadia looked over at the Bender family’s table, she saw the older girl, the one in the Brown sweatshirt, putting her hands to her throat. That was the sign for choking, and Mateo ran toward the table—but he froze just as Nadia gasped in horror, just as Riley opened her mouth and black liquid began dribbling out.

  Everything was a blur after that. Kendall screamed, and Mateo grabbed his phone to dial 9-1-1, and Cole began crying. Although Nadia swept him into her arms, she never took her eyes away from Riley Bender. The panic in her eyes, the gruesome smell of death, the burns that dark, tarry stuff left on the table: All of it was just like what had happened to Mrs. Purdhy, who was still in a coma at the hospital.

  And if this was the same thing that had happened to Mrs. Purdhy, that meant . . .

  Nadia turned to see Elizabeth standing in the doorway of La Catrina. Even as everyone else ran around in a panic, Elizabeth walked slowly through the crowd, weaving her way through the onlookers. Mateo didn’t see her—he was on his knees trying to talk to Riley while her family held her head upright so she wouldn’t choke. But it seemed to Nadia like he ought to feel Elizabeth approaching, like a chill in the air or a tremor of the earth. Cold snaked through the place behind her, around her.

  “Hi, Nadia,” Elizabeth said as though nothing were going on. “Hi there, Mr. Caldani.” Her father’s face went very red, for some reason.

  “What are you doing?” Nadia whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

  Of course Elizabeth didn’t answer. She only stooped beside the Benders’ table, right by a smoldering puddle of the black liquid. Once again she dipped her fingers into it and painted it onto her upper arm, ignoring the searing of her own flesh. Nobody around her noticed that, or thought it was odd. As always, her magic protected her from unwelcome attention—while she was choking Riley Bender from the inside out.

  Riley slumped over into the booth, unconscious. Her family’s wailing was drowned out only by the sound of ambulance sirens approaching. Elizabeth rose to her feet, and there was nothing for Nadia to do but hold on to Cole and watch her go.

  9

  MATEO WANTED TO ASK NADIA WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED, but right now it was more important to keep between his father and the outraged Bender family.

  “What the hell are you serving in this place?” Mr. Bender demanded. “My little girl’s on the way to the hospital right now because of you!”

  “Stay calm, my friend. Stay calm.” Dad was handling the situation pretty well, in Mateo’s opinion, but it didn’t matter. Mr. Bender had lost it.

  “You put, what, chemicals in the food? What?”

  “Daddy, please!” Tears were streaming down Kendall’s face. “Riley didn’t eat anything. The same thing happened to our teacher at school. It’s some kind of disease.” Nobody else seemed to hear her.

  “Somebody is responsible for this!” Mr. Bender yelled. It was just possible to see the panic behind his anger, but it wouldn’t matter what he was feeling if he broke Dad’s face.

  “Tony, come on.” Kendall’s grandmother started pulling at Mr. Bender’s arm. “We have to go to the hospital. The ambulance is going to leave any second.” That finally seemed to get through to him, and he turned. Mateo sighed in relief; his father did the same.

  Then Nadia put one hand on his shoulder. She must have just handed Cole off to her dad. “Mateo, did you see—”

  The golden light behind her. The column behind her so like a tree. The fall of her hair, the expression on her face. He’d seen it before.

  Mateo yanked Nadia down to the floor mere instants before Mr. Bender’s fist slammed into the column—just behind where her face had been. The paint cracked, creating a spiderweb around the brand-new dent.

  “Hey, hey!” Now Mr. Caldani was furious, too. “What are you doing? That’s my daughter!”

  “I—I thought—I was going for that other kid, the one who brought her the food—” Kendall’s father pulled his hand back; he’d struck the column hard enough to cut open his knuckles. If Nadia had still been standing there, she’d have suffered a black eye and a broken nose at the least, maybe even a concussion. He remembered the wet crack of bone he’d heard in his dreams and shuddered. Mateo leaned his head against her shoulder for a moment, grateful to have kept her safe. At least the curse was worth something.

  “Daddy, Riley never ate anything!” Kendall wailed. “Why won’t you ever listen to me?”

  Mr. Bender looked like he was in shock. Dad put one arm around Mr. Bender’s shoulders. “Listen to me, my friend. You’re not yourself. Your child’s sick. Let’s go look after her, okay? She needs you now.”

  It worked. Mr. Bender finally went to the door, surrounded by his family, though he still seemed to be in a daze.

  “Whoa.” Nadia slowly rose to her feet, and Mateo rose with her. “How did you know he was going to do that? Oh, wait. W
as it one of your dreams?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t understand it until just now.” He ran one hand through his hair. This was—not good. At all. “Did Elizabeth do this?”

  “She was here. You didn’t see her, but I did.”

  “Why? Why go after Kendall’s sister?”

  “I still don’t know.” Nadia looked so lost, so sad, that Mateo wanted to take her into his arms.

  But then her father was there, still irate at the man who had nearly hurt her, and her baby brother was sobbing. Mateo’s dad came up behind him. “We’re going to have to comp drinks and appetizers for every table,” he muttered, “just to make up for the disturbance, and if people start believing she actually ate something here that did this to her?”

  “She didn’t. People will know that. It’s okay.”

  “Wish I could believe you. But come on, help me clean this up. What the hell is that gunk on the floor?”

  Before his father could bend down to examine the smoldering black stuff, Mateo caught his arm. “Don’t touch it, Dad. No matter what you do, don’t touch it.”

  Nadia had meant to go home with Dad and Cole; by now Cole was sobbing. Ever since Mom left, he got scared so easily. Something like this meant nightmares for sure. If she sang him to sleep, or rubbed his back, maybe it would help.

  Just as they got to the car, though, Nadia looked up and saw a figure sitting on a corner bench, pale in the nighttime gloom. As always, Elizabeth wore a white dress. She hadn’t gone home; she just sat there with her hands folded, as though waiting for a bus.

  “Go home without me,” Nadia said quietly to her father. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Dad was too distracted to argue. “Yeah, check on Mateo. Tell his dad to talk to me if that guy tries to sue. I can find a good torts lawyer for him.”

  “Sure.”

  Nadia crossed the street, walking toward Elizabeth. In a town as small as Captive’s Sound, even this spot by one of the main intersections was quiet and almost deserted. Nadia didn’t see anyone else any closer than the La Catrina parking lot; their only audience was a crow that had perched on a nearby lamppost and seemed to be watching them with odd, grayish eyes.

  Elizabeth’s pale face and curling hair made her look like a pre-Raphaelite painting, soft and dreamy, but there was no mistaking the menace just beneath the surface. Like that Ophelia picture, Nadia thought . . . if the girl climbed out of the river and decided to kill Hamlet instead.

  As Nadia took the final steps and stood in front of Elizabeth, she was able to see the new burns on her shoulder—two lines that crossed the ones she’d made when Mrs. Purdhy collapsed, but at an odd angle. She willed herself to remember the pattern, to memorize it.

  “You’re killing people,” Nadia said.

  “They won’t die.” Elizabeth motioned toward the other side of the bench, inviting Nadia to sit by her; Nadia remained standing. If Elizabeth cared, she gave no sign. “At least, not yet.”

  “Then why are you hurting them?”

  “If you knew more about witchcraft, you would understand. That’s why you must become my student.”

  Nadia had to laugh. “Why would you ever, ever think that could happen?”

  “Mateo isn’t here now. There’s no need to posture for his benefit. We can be entirely honest with each other.” When Elizabeth leaned forward, her usual hazy inattention to the mundane world around her vanished; Nadia felt the full sharpness of her attention. “You’ve taken yourself almost as far in the Craft as you can go on your own. Already you’re working at the very limits of your knowledge, and you’ve seen the dangers, haven’t you? Face facts. You make mistakes. Some of them are merely amusing, but some of them go beyond that.”

  They’d taken Mrs. Prasad away in a van. Apparently she was still under twenty-four-hour psychiatric observation. Her son had already been killed; would she wind up in an institution, too?

  “I’m still learning,” Nadia said, as evenly as she could manage. Anger bubbled beneath the surface, but she was trying to keep it under control. The less Elizabeth expected a fight, the more shocked she’d be when she got one. “Every witch learns throughout her lifetime.”

  “From her teacher.”

  “And from experience. And the spells of other witches.”

  “Which they learn in covens, not from some notes Prudence Hale wrote four hundred years ago.” Elizabeth cocked her head, a movement uncannily like the crow perched nearby. “You must acknowledge that you will never fulfill your true potential as a witch without a teacher, and I’m your only chance.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll never fulfill my potential,” Nadia snapped. “Maybe I won’t be as strong as I might have been, but—that doesn’t mean I can’t be good. And it definitely means I don’t have to work for the One Beneath, or ever work with you.”

  Elizabeth’s smile was easy, even contented. “You can say that so easily only because you haven’t even begun to grasp what your true potential really is.”

  What did she mean by that? Deep within Nadia’s revulsion and anger, another emotion flickered—curiosity.

  But Elizabeth continued, “I am engaged in magnificent work, Nadia. Work that can reshape everything we have ever known about magic. You should help me. One way or another, you will help me. You can’t imagine the glory waiting for you if you join me—though I can tell you what will happen first, if you continue to resist.”

  Nadia was very aware of the weight of her bracelet around her wrist. If Elizabeth cast a spell at this moment, could she counteract it? Did she intend to just strike her down, here and now?

  Instead Elizabeth said, “First, I’ll go back to your house, just like I did yesterday. Your father didn’t mention it, did he? But not because he forgot. I promise you, he’ll never forget yesterday afternoon.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “A spell of desire.”

  There was no such thing as a love spell; love sprang into being of its own accord, and that was all there was to it. But there were spells of desire—spells of lust, basically. Mom had always said it was wrong to use them outside of an existing relationship, “just to spice things up once in a while.” They would be effective on anyone, though. A spell of desire put someone in your bed. Nadia remembered the way her father had wanted a drink, how flustered he’d been when Elizabeth walked in, and thought for a moment she might throw up.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Nothing happened this time. I didn’t use much; I didn’t think I’d have to. Upstanding men are so rare. Your father resisted very bravely. But it’s in his head now—the idea of having me. Your mother left him months and months ago; he must be very lonely. If I go back to him, why, I might not even need the spell that time.”

  At first Nadia couldn’t find her voice, but then she managed to say, “Leave my father out of this.”

  “It’s too late for that. At this rate, I’m very close to going to Ms. Walsh for a counseling session, when I’d confess that I’d been pressured into an affair by one of my friends’ fathers. I wonder what your life would be like if he went to prison for statutory rape? Would you be old enough to take custody of Cole full-time? Though of course you’d have to drop out of school and work to support you both. Even if you did find a job, you couldn’t keep that lovely house, I’d imagine. There are some cheaper apartments further inland that might do. Then again, maybe you’re not old enough after all. Would Cole go into foster care?” Elizabeth frowned, momentarily confused. “Or do they still have workhouses? I can’t recall.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “What is it you think I wouldn’t dare to do?” With a shrug, Elizabeth said, “You know, I could simply falsely accuse your father. Everyone would believe me.”

  They would. Part of Elizabeth’s power was the deep enchantment she somehow held over most of the people in Captive’s Sound. Nobody ever saw the horrible things she did, or questioned the fact that she’d been present for nearly four hundred years. Instead she was excused, accepted,
and adored.

  “But I wouldn’t do that, Nadia. I would make sure he was really, truly guilty. Then the whole time he rotted away in prison, the knowledge of what he’d done would be there within your father. As I said, he’s a good man. He’d never understand why he committed such a terrible sin. It would destroy him, slowly, from the inside. Even when he did get out of jail, he’d never be the same.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Nadia wished she could think of a spell horrible enough for Elizabeth, anything as gruesome as she deserved. “Why do you care if I work with you or not? The One Beneath has you already. Why would He need me?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, the first sign of anger Nadia had glimpsed in her. “I’m only explaining what will happen if you don’t join me. But you will. Then, instead of punishments, there will be rewards.”

  “There is nothing you have that I want. Listen to me. I’m going to figure out what you’re up to, and I’m going to stop you. I don’t care how hard it is or how long it takes. I will stop you. And if you don’t leave my father alone, I swear to God, I’ll find a way to make you sorry.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” With that, Elizabeth rose and walked away, never even glancing back. But Nadia felt as though she was still being watched, maybe because of that crow with the strange eyes, the one that never stopped staring at her.

  Let her go. Don’t argue any longer. Soon you’re going to steal her memories. Steal her magic. And she won’t be able to do anything to your father or to anyone else you love. To anyone, ever again. Let Elizabeth walk away tonight. Next time—the tables will be turned.

  Nadia took one last look at the burns on Elizabeth’s shoulder before she was swallowed up by the darkness. Imagined the pattern burning itself into her retinas to leave a shadow, like staring at the sun too long.

  Elizabeth came home to find Asa waiting for her, as her servant should; instead of kneeling and awaiting her bidding, however, he was reading a book by candlelight.