“She said she didn’t,” Alexa snapped.
Liss ignored that. “Dan, you promised.”
Dan’s eyes went glossy and wet, like she was getting ready to cry, which would be a very Dan thing to do. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, then opened it again and finally said, “You talked to him? How?”
Just like that, Liss had burned through her patience. “That’s what you want to know? How?” Liss exploded. “I called him on the fucking phone, Dan. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? He’s at some guy named Kasyan’s house and he needs a ride home. But don’t worry, I can manage it myself.”
Dan recoiled as though she’d been slapped, but Liss didn’t wait for her to pull herself together. Her blood was on fire as she stalked back to her car. How dare Dan be so ungrateful for everything Liss had done to make this right for both of them? Liss let the force of her anger and exhaustion crush the mislaid faith she’d put in Dan’s help. She would not let herself be disappointed. True, her fingers practically curled for the Black Book, but she’d been getting by without it, hadn’t she? Liss gritted her teeth and reached for the Range Rover’s door.
“Kasyan? Like Lord Kasyan?”
Liss and Dan both trained their eyes on Alexa.
Liss kicked herself. The last thing she needed was this aspiring art school dropout on her case. She chose her words delicately. “That’s what I said. Kasyan. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing. My aunt Lorelei told me a few scary stories about him when I was a kid. You know, the Lord of Last Resort.” Liss narrowed her eyes at Alexa—her choppy bob, the bitchy slant to her mouth. Alexa held her gaze. “They’re fairy tales.”
“Thanks for that incredible insight.” Liss yanked open the door to the Range Rover. “Dan, if your phone gets fixed, undelete my number and let me know if you want to help.”
As Liss pulled out of Dan’s drive, she looked back. Dan was standing in the feeble yellow glow of the porch light. Even from this distance, Liss could see her huddled posture, as if she were steeling herself against some pain that hadn’t yet come.
Liss set her mouth in a firm line. Dan would text her if she knew what was good for her—which she almost never did without Liss telling her.
“See you soon, bestie,” she whispered as she left Dogtown behind her.
* * *
—
Liss took Highway 1’s switchbacks on the drive from Dogtown down to Marlena Beach with the same mechanical precision with which she punched in the security code at her house’s gate and guided the red Range Rover into its parking place beside the two white BMWs (one sedan, one SUV).
Liss did not get out of the car.
She checked her phone for texts she might have missed in the spotty coverage between Dogtown and Marlena, but there was nothing from Dan. So she spent a few minutes checking her social accounts, not even concentrating enough to register what was going on in the little videos she was liking, then checked her texts again, as if the little videos had been a ritual that would make new texts appear.
No new texts appeared, specifically no new texts from Dan, which was mainly annoying because it was only a matter of time until Dan texted her, because Dan was Dan and she was Liss and it was the natural order of things that Dan would text her back.
Especially about this. Dan had promised.
Liss went to rub her eyes, then remembered how filthy her hands were and stopped herself.
She was so, so tired.
She tipped her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Liss took a heavy breath and let it out, using her diaphragm the way a therapist had taught her once as a holistic anxiety management technique. But focusing on her breathing made all the other stuff that wasn’t her breathing—all the stuff that focusing on her breathing was meant to quiet—even louder and hotter and brighter. They were the fires that caught in the dark, burning your retinas so you saw them even in the blackness.
That afternoon, the sun had already been low as she half slid down the bank of a creek in Digger’s Gulch State Park, which meant her spell had been done nearly in the dark. She had laid her mirror on the leaves at the bottom of the crevasse and carefully pooled water like mercury on the mirror’s surface. Then she dug her hands into the mud on either side, locked eyes with her own harried reflection, and whispered the words of the spell. She fought against the chill in the December air, the worsening ache in her back, the ever-more-intrusive voice in her head calling this a lost cause.
Then the water began to change. Something milky white bled into it. Similar things had happened before—oily shimmers or puke orange; once ice crystals had formed. Soon Liss’s reflection was obscured, and all at once she knew this time was different. The energy of a correctly executed spell had an inexpressible feeling of alignment that melded profound perfection with absolute relief. If Liss hadn’t forced herself to focus on the words of the spell, she would have stopped breathing entirely.
When she felt the connection, it was like a phone that had been answered before anyone spoke. Liss had expected Johnny’s face to appear in the fluid on the mirror, but it wasn’t that at all. He was in her mind, his face so gaunt and gray she barely recognized him.
Liss? Oh my god, Liss, get me out of here.
Liss didn’t know if he was speaking aloud or just thinking to her, but his words sounded reedy and thin.
Out of where? she’d pleaded. Where did she take you? Who was she?
Her name is Mora. We’re underground, I think, I don’t know where. But she’s not the one keeping me here. He had been trembling then, his heart racing, mouth dry—she had felt his fear in her own body.
Who?
Kasyan—he’s a demon or something. He’s trapped here too. It’s some kind of prison. Help me, Liss. It’s a fucking nightmare down here. The words stumbled out of him like they’d had nowhere to go all these months. I don’t want to die here . . .
The spell had fractured then, before she’d been able to promise him she was coming, and she’d been left gasping and shaking and alone.
A fucking nightmare.
A fucking nightmare.
A fucking nightmare.
A fucking nightmare.
Liss made herself count to four and back, to four and back, to four and back, tapping out the familiar rhythm that helped her feel still even when she couldn’t stop moving, stop working, stop thinking.
Liss opened her eyes. Some of the dirt caked under her nails had loosened and fallen onto her already mud-streaked skirt.
She grabbed her backpack and got out of the car.
* * *
—