Free Sorceress by Claudia Gray Page B

in any risk, even the slight one presented by going into the flooding basement, verged on the limits of the freedom allowed him by the One Beneath.
    But he wouldn’t abandon Verlaine even one second before he was forced to. Until then, he stayed by her side.
    “Coming!” he shouted, as he went into the water and the dark.
    “Again you’ve chosen your ingredients poorly,” Elizabeth said.
    Nadia only barely managed to conceal her frustration. “I haven’t been around as long as you.” That was putting it lightly. “I don’t have the same number of memories to choose from.”
    “You interpret events too literally, then.” Elizabeth’s smile was that of a queen on her throne—distant, unruffled, unchangeable. “We have weapons beyond experience, you know. We have nuance. Double meanings. The many shadows and possibilities tied up in what might have been.”
    Nadia frowned. Her mother had told her this much, of course—but she had also warned Nadia against doing this too often. “Mom said that twisting memories twists up your mind, in time. She said it makes you dishonest, and dirties your magic.”
    “We’re playing dirty,” Elizabeth said. “Haven’t you realized that yet?”
    Nadia’s cheeks flushed, and she stared down at the floor. When her mother had taught her about magic, she’d always stressed how smart Nadia was, how much she could do. Learning from Elizabeth was all about learning her limitations—and being made to feel small.
    She thinks I hardly even know what I’m doing , Nadia thought. I’ll show her.
    “Choose your memories again.” Elizabeth’s green eyes flicked up to Nadia’s, almost teasing. “Try again. See if you can sense the current this time.”
    How was she supposed to darken this spell? It was a cheerful one, hard to twist. Nadia’s eyes shut as she called the memories forth:
    The love of a child.
    A living thing rising from the earth.
    Hope through grief.
    Each one would have to be turned dark in some way—
    Cole sobbing against the door right after Mom had walked out, hitting it with his little fists, and the pure hatred Nadia had felt for her mother at that moment.
    The seaweed that had tangled around her limbs the night she dove for Goodwife Hale’s Book of Shadows, the living green stuff that had captured her and attempted to drown her.
    Hoping that her mother would be glad to see her during her last trip to Chicago, and the terrible disappointment when Mom had opened the door and felt only annoyance—when Nadia had seen that there was no love left in her at all.
    And she felt it—the current of the waters, surging through her as powerfully as her own heartbeat.
    At La Catrina, Mateo froze, knife in his hand, half-chopped tomato on the cutting board.
    What was that?
    It had felt like . . . an electric shock? No. The sensation had lasted too long for that. Whatever it was, it had coursed through his entire body, strong and insistent, just at the verge of pain.
    Mateo knew the sensation was related to magic; this was like the shadow of what he felt when he helped Nadia by strengthening a spell. In its wake it left behind sorrow, and guilt, and fear. Those emotions weren’t his own—they couldn’t be—but he knew they were related to whatever Nadia had just done.
    In an instant, he saw a face, pale and frightened as it got caught up in the wake of what had just happened. Someone who was now in danger.
    He sucked in a breath and whispered, “Verlaine.”
    Hurry, hurry, I’ve got to hurry—
    By now the water was up to Verlaine’s rib cage. She had taken on basement duty—wading through the floodwater to grab the most important files, then handing them off to Asa, who had stair duty. He’d grab an armload of files from her and hurry upstairs, depositing them safely, before running back down to help her.
    They were working as fast as they could, but the flood was rising faster.
    All these papers , Verlaine thought despairingly. She didn’t think of them as