“That’s not what I mean.” Mateo’s thumb brushed along the crook of her elbow, back and forth, the smallest, gentlest touch she could imagine. “You said I had to stop believing in you. Well, I can’t.”

Nadia refused to cry. She wouldn’t. Even if her eyes were blurring and she couldn’t get a word out because her breaths were coming hard and fast, even if Mateo kept looking at her like that, she wasn’t going to cry.

Mateo kept going. “You’ve already done the impossible. Remember? I’m a Steadfast. Shouldn’t happen. But it has. You’ve already figured out more about Elizabeth than just about anyone else in town ever did. I don’t know enough about all this to say whether you could ever be stronger than her, but—I think you could be strong enough. Nadia, you could be strong enough to do anything.”

She gulped down something that was either a sob or a laugh, and although she still wanted to pull her arm away, she couldn’t bring herself to. She could only look back at Mateo and wish she were anything like the person he thought he saw.

“Okay, so, you two are having a moment.” Verlaine jerked her backpack onto her shoulders in a huff. “Mateo, good luck getting through to her. Nadia, call me when you’re talking sense again.” With that, Verlaine stalked off across the grounds, her silvery hair seemingly a tangled part of the gray fall sky.

Once they were alone, Nadia whispered, “Mateo, you aren’t listening.”

“You’re not talking. Your fear is.” He breathed out. “Listen. Can we go somewhere? Hang out for a while? We could talk about this better if we weren’t about forty feet from cheerleader practice.”

“My house. Dad’s at his hearing, and Cole’s over at a friend’s for a while.” Nadia realized that she needed to be at home; more than that she needed to be in her attic, surrounded by the tools of her Craft. It was the Craft that had shaped her life so much so far, that had brought Verlaine and Mateo to her. It was the Craft she was coming close to abandoning.

So it was the Craft she needed to confront now—and when she did, she wanted Mateo beside her.

“The last time I was here I thought it was bigger,” Mateo said as he stooped his head; the sloping roof of the attic meant that he could only stand up straight at the very center. “Of course, the last time I was here I was seeing my first magic spell. So I guess I got distracted.”

Nadia sat cross-legged on one of the oversize pillows on the floor; normally she popped her phone into the dock she kept in the corner, both for the music and to make sure her father and Cole wouldn’t overhear anything they shouldn’t. Doing that now felt like trying to set a mood or something, though, so she didn’t. But that meant Mateo took his seat across from her in a silence that felt heavy and strange.

Yet not awkward. Mateo—even though he was a guy, even though they couldn’t agree on what to do or how to do it—he belonged here.

Didn’t mean she knew what to say to him.

Their eyes met, and she looked at him from a different angle than before—and then it was hard to meet his eyes. Mateo said, “Okay. Where do we start? You’re finally smiling, so I guess we’re on the same page.”

“It’s not that.” Nadia tried to cover her mouth with her hand, the better to disguise her smile. “Momentary distraction. Sorry.”

“What is it?”

“It’s just—” She put this as gently as she could. “Ginger really shortchanged you on that cut.”

“Is my whole head still lopsided?” When Nadia nodded, Mateo groaned. “Great. I’m trying to have a serious discussion while I look like an idiot.”

“You don’t. Look like an idiot, I mean.” Nadia hesitated. His hair was the least of their concerns—something for her to focus on instead of the bigger issue—but maybe it was better to get rid of any distractions. Besides, Mateo really did need some help. “Hey. I keep some scissors up here. Let me finish it.”

“Cut my hair?”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. I could try,” she said. “Only if you want me to.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Nadia leaned over to one of her toolboxes (she used ones from the hardware store—less suspicious and supersturdy) to get her scissors; Mateo slipped off his letter jacket, revealing the hard lines of his chest and arms beneath a long-sleeved black T-shirt. At first she was startled—by how amazing he looked, how close he was, the fact that he was taking his clothes off—but then she thought, He doesn’t want to get hair all over himself. Obviously. Don’t be an idiot.

But her pulse was pounding as she took the scissors, and grabbed one of her drop cloths to drape around his shoulders.

When she slipped her arms around his neck, he shifted his weight—surprised the same way she had been, she thought, by how close they were. Just thinking that made her cheeks flush hot, and Mateo wasn’t looking her straight in the eyes any longer, either. He said only, “You’ve cut hair before, right?”

“Sure. Plenty of times.” No need to tell him that the hair she’d cut had belonged to her old Barbie dolls, which all looked demented afterward.

Nadia tentatively reached toward him, her fingertips barely short of his hair, until finally she ran her hands through it. Mateo’s hair felt like warm silk against her palms. At her touch, he closed his eyes. Him reacting like that—it made the silence in the room softer, something that could hold them both.