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It has to be I’ve already lost Verlaine, already let her down, and I can’t lose Mateo, too--

Finally Nadia reached the street where Elizabeth lived She’d been here before--had jealously spied on Mateo and Elizabeth together That felt so childish now, so pointless But even then she’d known that approaching Elizabeth’s houseinside could be protective spells, wards, and watchers, oht be inside, too, in danger, and that left her no choice Nadia went up the steps without hesitation and tried the door It was unlocked What she saas … a co out of a Pottery Barn catalog Not what she’d been expecting

No This wasn’t right It had to be a glah the sihts necessary to construct a spell of disillusion, and watched as the Pottery Barn facadeher breath, Nadia carefully stepped between the shards of broken glass and hts had been all but shredded away--could feel a layer of thick, oily dust underneath If she put even one foot wrong, though, she’d feel even worse when glass stabbed through her foot

She heard nothing, but that was ht have taken Mateo’s voice the sa to warn her but unable to speak a word In any roo

The house was alht Nadia found her way by cae front rooht it cast didn’t flicker like flae cast to it, as if the yelloere too close to green And the heat of it alh it was a dozen feet away

Don’t look at it, Nadia told herself Whatever it was, however unnatural that burning ht be, that couldn’tMateo if he was here, and getting out again as fast as possible if he wasn’t

Carefully she edged her way along one wall, trying to push solass out of the ith her toes There were the stairs--but they were so rotten, more spiderweb than wood by now, that surely Elizabeth and Mateo couldn’t have cli, Nadia reached out for the doorknob and turned it slowly, so slowly

She pushed the door open Hinges creaked, and her breath caught again in her chest The stove’s light barely reached this room, its heat, either; the chill of the shadows inside turned Nadia’s breath to a cloud

If they’re in there, they know you’re here Elizabeth knows Step inside and find out At least there was no glass on that floor

Nadia walked inside The room was completely empty except for spiderwebs--countless spiderwebs, so thick they’d covered the s, and a couple of the walls, coh of both relief and disappointht Mateo to her house, then wherein the far corner Nothing Mateo would have left behind, though, just a--

--a book

Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows

A spiderweb brushed against her ar her jump Nadia flicked it away