Free Sorceress by Claudia Gray

clouds from all over being drawn toward Captive’s Sound? Nadia couldhardly believe there was so much rain in the whole world.
    “When does the rain stop?” Nadia said as she walked into Elizabeth’s front room, instead of hello. She began to shuck her raincoat, then realized water was trickling through the decrepit building’s roof, all the way down to the ground floor. The water wasn’t puddling—mostly because the floorboards leaked as badly as the roof—but the entire place was musty and wet. The raincoat stayed on.
    Elizabeth paid no attention to the water, or to Nadia’s question. “Would you like to know how to move water?”
    “I know that spell, actually.”
    “Good.” She smiled up at Nadia; her tattered white dress was gray with damp, but none of it seemed to touch her. “Then I can help you make it stronger. Together we can direct the currents. We’ll even own the sea.”
    Was this about clearing the One Beneath’s pathway to their world? Nadia knew the sound itself was important, for that. Yet she sensed this was something else.
    And how was she able to sense that?
    I’m tuning in to her magic more , Nadia realized. I’m starting to understand this on a whole different level.
    Was that understanding dangerous? Or was it the only way for her to ever conquer Elizabeth? Both things might be true.
    Either way, there was nothing for Nadia to do but to sit beside Elizabeth, nod, and say, “Let’s begin.”

5
    I’VE GOT IT BAD , VERLAINE THOUGHT. IF YOU’RE MAKING out with a guy and you actually hear music? You have to be completely, totally in . . .
    “Wait,” she gasped, pulling back from Asa. “My phone.”
    “To hell with your phone.” Asa kissed her throat, just beneath her jaw.
    “Uncle Gary. He’s only been out of the hospital—”
    “I know,” Asa groaned, but he loosened his embrace around her and even grabbed her purse, placing it in her lap.
    Verlaine scooted back into her seat—not that she’d actually left it, but there had been some sprawling—and grabbed her phone. Since this was the first-ever time she’d made out with a guy, she would have blown off any other text; however, this song was Uncle Gary’s tone, and if he was in trouble, she had to help him if she could.
    As she caught her breath, she saw the message. Are you at the Guardian ?
    “I interrupted making out for a parental panic attack?” She rolled her eyes.
    Asa laughed and kissed her forehead. “Go on and tell him you’re alive. The last thing I need is to be accosted by a protective father with a shotgun.”
    Uncle Gary with a shotgun: absurd. Verlaine quickly typed back, Not there yet. Headed that way.
    “Headed to the newspaper? Already?” Asa’s fingers tangled in her hair as he pulled her close again. “Are you sure I couldn’t persuade you to stay?”
    It wasn’t like Verlaine had forgotten that hooking up with a demon was a really terrible idea. But the voice inside her head reminding her of that had gotten very, very quiet during the last half hour. She smiled up at Asa. “I meant, I’m headed there . . . eventually.”
    “Like, a couple hours from now? Or tomorrow?” His lips traced along her neck, making her shiver deliciously. “How long can I talk you into staying here with me?”
    Verlaine never found out, because her phone chimed again in her hand. Don’t go anywhere near it! Apparently the newspaper offices are flooding.
    “Oh, my God.” She scrambled back from Asa, all the adrenaline coursing through her instantly turning to panic. “The Guardian is flooding. We have to get there.”
    It took Asa a moment to catch up. He ran one hand through his rumpled hair, trying to refocus. “Verlaine, it’s dangerous. What is it you think you can do? The rain won’t stop.”
    “The archives.” She cranked the car, and the aged motor rumbled into life. The windshield wipers began slap-slapping back and forth. “Those records—I digitized some of them, but there are whole