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NEARLY EVERY GRAVESTONE IN THE CEMETERY OF Captive’s Sound made a promise about forever

The tos like Remembered Evermore or Always In Our Hearts But for all those pro devotion, nobody seemed to visit very often

Today, though, three people had arrived

Nadia Caldani stood directly under the cast-iron gate, which bent into curves to i about her wine-red sweater or dark jeans betrayed theand only half-trained, but more powerful than she’d once believed

Her thick black hair was gathered back into a ponytail, which revealed the bruise on her te one cheek Less than thirty-six hours before, she’d fought the darkest ic she kneielded by Elizabeth, a sorceress, a servant of the One Beneath Soainst all odds, Nadia had won She knew she should feel elated And yet fear still flickered inside her, a fire that wouldn’t quite go out

I got lucky, she thought But at least Elizabeth’s gone, and we can start picking up the pieces

Next to her stood Mateo Perez, letter jacket slung over the black T-shirt and jeans he’d have to wear for his shift at the restaurant later Nadia knew he’d always thought of himself as an outsider in Captive’s Sound, isolated by the curse that followed his fa time, he’d believed he had only one true friend—but that had only been Elizabeth playing games with his mind Elizabeth had used him, and the curse, for her own purposes

Nadia had been able to show Mateo what Elizabeth really was More i enough to bear the curse Someone who could serve as her Steadfast, the person who could ath of her witchcraft Soht and dark She had knoithin weeks that she needed him beside her, always They’d kissed for the first time only days before; she felt like she could taste that kiss, feel his lips against hers, every moment

We have tiht as he looked sideways at Nadia All the time in the world So today isn’t about us It’s about Verlaine

Verlaine Laughton leaned against the gate, trying to catch her breath Her pale hand clung to the cast-iron leaves; around her wrist dangled the white plastic bracelet she’d worn in the hospital and hadn’t cut off yet Though her dads had protested her going out with her friends so soon after being discharged, she’d convinced them she needed it “Sunshine,” she’d said “Fresh air” That sounded healthy, right?

Now she was about to walk to her parents’ graves for the first tiic, and maybe Mateo’s abilities as her Steadfast, Verlaine would learn whether their deaths had been caused by dark ic—whether every sorrow in her lonely life, all the way froe seventeen, was a result of a spell Elizabeth had cast

Elizabeth’s gone forever, Verlaine told herself I can’t get back at her now nowe can do to reverse the spell now that Elizabeth’s dead So what good does it do to find out?