Free Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1) by Claudia Gray

of it, I thought it was, like, me being in a mood. But it’s not, is it?”
    “No. It’s not.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “I’m not sure. But I think it has to do with whatever’s buried beneath the chemistry lab.” As Verlaine’s eyes widened, Nadia said, “I have no idea. All I know is, it’s dark and it’s strange and some other witch has to have buried it there a long time ago. It’s dark enough to poison this town. To hollow it out.”
    Verlaine took that in for a few moments. “Is it—dangerous? I mean, beyond sucking the life out of Captive’s Sound, assuming it had any life to begin with.” Her ghostly skin somehow became even paler. “Can it get worse ? I would’ve thought that was impossible, but—you know, the sinkholes—”
    “I don’t know that those are related,” Nadia said. Then again, she didn’t know that they weren’t. Was it possible that she’d arrived just as things took a turn for the worse? As the thing buried beneath Captive’s Sound finally … got out?
    “Is there a spell we can do to find out?” Verlaine drummed her fingers against her notebook, nervous energy crackling from her almost like static electricity.
    Slowly, Nadia answered, “We could try to tell the future.”
    “You can tell the future? Awesome . Do I ever—wait. No. You can’t tell the future. That was one of the First Laws, wasn’t it? That you’re not supposed to do that.”
    “You have a good memory. Yes, that’s one of the laws. But there are a few ways around it.” Deep in thought, Nadia tried to remember what Mom had said about when you could work with that rule, bend it without breaking it entirely. “If I tried to tell my own future, or yours, it would break that law. Also, it would seriously mess us up, mentally, but—never mind. What we could do is tell the town ’s future. See what’s happening to Captive’s Sound. That’s distant enough from us that it’s allowed, and that would be enough to tell us whether—whether something serious has begun, or whether the way things are is permanent. Not changing.”
    “Probably the latter,” Verlaine said, “with my luck. Nothing ever changes around here.”
    There were worse things than not changing, Nadia thought. “I should probably do this spell alone.”
    Verlaine’s dark, silvery eyebrows knitted together as she scowled. “Oh, come on. I know about magic, remember? So why can’t I watch? I want to see! Something besides flying cars, anyway, even though that was excellent.”
    “You shouldn’t watch because it’s dangerous.”
    To Nadia’s astonishment, Verlaine grinned. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for something interesting to happen to me? I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I don’t care what it is. Bring it.”

6
    THE CROW SWOOPED OVER CAPTIVE’S SOUND, WINGS outspread. His cobweb eyes saw nothing and everything.
    They saw two girls walking together along the street, one’s hair black and one’s nearly white, one short and one tall, yet not opposites. Not apart as they should be.
    They saw the girls go toward a large house the color of the sky at dawn in early spring. The house glowed from within with a force that flickered like candlelight but had the potential to become a flame.
    Beyond anything else they saw the dark ripples through the earth, tracing rings beneath every street, every house, every human being in Captive’s Sound. The energy leaped and sparked as it found the deep lines of power that underlay this town, but those lines couldn’t stop the web from being spun. They only made it stronger.
    Something else looked through the crow’s stolen eyes and recorded it all. The crow flew on, unknowing, enslaved, and blind.
    “Can I go now?” Mateo asked as he loaded the final pitchers into the dishwasher.
    “You haven’t touched the Bissell, and I don’t see any chopped peppers in this fridge.” Dad crossed his arms. “What’s up with you? You’ve been trying to escape for twenty