Dad’s attempt to talk like a teenager was embarrassing, but not so much that Nadia missed the opportunity. “Can we? Please? We should go soon. Halloween weekend, definitely.”

“Halloween? But there’s some big carnival here in town, with a haunted house and everything.”

“It’s supposed to be incredibly lame.” Nadia thought fast. “Last year a kid around Cole’s age cut his hand open in the haunted house. I heard he needed a dozen stitches. It’s really unsafe.”

Dad frowned. “Huh. Well, I wouldn’t want Cole running around in something like that.”

“You should get the tickets to New York tonight. I bet there’s tons of fun stuff to do in Manhattan on Halloween. And Cole misses the ‘L’ so much, probably he’ll want to ride the subway the whole time.” Little boys had a thing about trains.

“You know what? I think it’s a good idea.” Dad nodded, satisfied with himself. “This is going to be good for us. I’ll get online after dinner tonight.”

An incredible tension that had been gripping her heart seemed to release in an instant. Whatever happened on Halloween night, Dad and Cole would be far away. Nadia could come up with an excuse not to go at the last minute—a school project, something like that. Knowing they were safe would let her concentrate. That was one less thing Elizabeth could do to her, one less weapon Elizabeth would have against them. No matter what happened to Nadia, the rest of her family would be okay.

When Dad hugged her before standing up, she hugged him back for a really long time. He seemed to need it.

Reasons to Visit My Parents’ Graves Soon

1.  Have to know if that hag Elizabeth killed them or not.

2.  Should probably take flowers or something because I’ve never taken anything there and maybe that’s kind of awful, and I am somehow being the worst daughter ever to people who aren’t even alive.

3.  If Elizabeth did this, then revenge is necessary even though she is a megabadass witch from ye olden days and I am a high school senior with a shrieking-alarm key chain as my sole means of self-defense. So some planning time for said revenge is probably necessary.

Reasons Not to Visit My Parents’ Graves Soon

1.  Not sure I’m ready to deal with that, at all.

2.  Already working on stopping Elizabeth in her tracks, so revenge motivation is an unnecessary addition to my plans.

3.  Also that’s probably the only way to make this apocalypse-averting thing even more stressful than it already is.

Verlaine stared at the lists on her laptop screen and groaned. Even though both lists were short, she knew she could keep adding items all night and still wind up with no clear conclusion.

She had made her usual nest behind the Guardian front desk for the Thursday night “late hours,” which was something the editor, Mrs. Chew, had come up with to help Verlaine burn more internship credits. Her coffee milk was in its usual glass at her side; the funky Bakelite bracelet she’d found seriously underpriced at the thrift store, the one that was too bulky to wear while typing, made a turquoise ring on the other side of her laptop. Since the newspaper wasn’t exactly a hotbed of activity even during regular hours, Verlaine usually found this a good time to update the Lightning Rod or get homework out of the way before the weekend.

Or, in this case, to sit around making useless lists that didn’t do anything to settle her chaotic mind.

Between two fingers, Verlaine caught the shorter strand of her hair—the one she’d cut the other day. Mateo had sworn he’d seen something, and she believed him. Somewhere, sometime, magic had been worked on her, and the taint of it lingered.

But that doesn’t mean it’s why Mom and Dad died. Your hair could have turned gray from the shock. That’s what Uncle Gary always said. You were alone in that house with them for a day, and it must have been scary as hell. Sometimes she had nightmares about it—not real memories, but her imagination running wild with what it would mean to be trapped in a house with two dead bodies.

If not her parents, though—then what was the magic about?

Sourly Verlaine thought, Maybe it’s all about making me the least popular kid in school. Yeah, I bet that’s it. Elizabeth uses her badass witch vibes to figure out who doesn’t get to be prom queen.

“Hello, Verlaine.”

She glanced up to see Elizabeth standing right in front of the desk.

About eighty thousand swear words ran through Verlaine’s mind all at the same second, which was maybe why none of them came out of her mouth. Instead she just gaped.

Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice. She seemed as calm and gentle as ever, a knit cardigan pulled over one of her white dresses. Her windswept chestnut hair fell over one shoulder, and she smiled, unbothered by Verlaine’s silence. “These evening hours are a good idea. I wanted to ask about the fee to place a classified ad?”

She couldn’t seriously want that, could she? Maybe she did. Maybe evil Sorceresses had their own classified-ad needs. Help Wanted: Henchman/Underling for part-time service. For Sale: Eye of toad, never used. “Um, I’m not sure. Let me check.”

“If at all possible.”

It felt beyond weird to go look this up for Elizabeth Pike, the same as she would have for any other customer. But Verlaine didn’t know what else to do. Without Nadia by her side, any confrontation would have been stupid to the point of suicidal. For now, all she could do was act naturally.

So maybe not letting her fingers shake so much while she typed on the keyboard would be a good idea.