Sorceress Read Online Free PDF Page A

Shadows, to connect with it. Only then did she pick up Goodwife Hale’s spell book —
    “Ow!” Nadia pulled her hand back as the book tumbled onto the floor. Her fingertips stung, as though she’d been shocked. That couldn’t be right. The only electrical sockets up here were several feet away. “Is there—broken glass on the floor?” Although Nadia didn’t remember breaking anything, maybe Cole had sneaked up here.
    “No. Nothing.” Verlaine picked up the spell book and turned it over. “Did a spider bite you or something?”
    “I hope not.” With a shudder, Nadia remembered the thousands of spiders living in Elizabeth’s home. “Here, I’ll—ow!”
    The Book of Shadows shocked her again, worse this time, and Nadia jerked back. When the truth sank in, she felt it cold and heavy in her gut.
    Verlaine looked down from Nadia’s face toward the spellbook, then up again. “What’s going on?”
    “The Book of Shadows has rejected me. It knows I’m working with Elizabeth.”
    “It’s a book. How can it know that? No, wait, how can it know anything?”
    “It knows,” Nadia repeated.
    The spell book knows I’m bound to evil.
    “Wow. Awkward. Whole new area of awkward.” Verlaine bit her lower lip. “Are you still going to be able to use it?”
    Nadia took a deep breath. She had to be smarter than a mere book, however supernatural it might be; she had to remember her goal, to get to a day when she could break her bonds to Elizabeth and the One Beneath, permanently. “I can still use it, but only through you.”
    “Through me?”
    Maybe Mateo could have used it, too, but Nadia still wasn’t sure what effect a male Steadfast might have. So she simply nodded. “You take it. Read your way through. You might not understand all of it, but all you have to do is look for any reference to demons.”
    Verlaine peered at the hefty, overstuffed tome in her lap. “I guess an index is too much to hope for.”
    “No index.” Nadia had already combed through the book backward and forward, taking what notes she could and learning her way around. Working with a handwritten spell book that old was like memorizing paths through a forest without using a map. “I know there’s nothing in there directly about killing demons, because I looked as soonas Asa showed up. But there are probably hints we can put together. Just write it all down, and come back to me.”
    “You mean you want me to take the Book of Shadows home?”
    “Not like I can do anything with it here. Actually, take them both.” Nadia pointed toward the other borrowed spell book she had, the one that once belonged to Faye Walsh’s mother. She hadn’t found time to explore that one yet. “I doubt either of the books wants to have much to do with me. Just be careful with them.”
    “No using the ancient, priceless spell books for coffee coasters. Check.” Verlaine grinned at her, and Nadia managed to smile back.
    But as the evening went on, and she played cars with Cole, and stir-fried veggies for dinner, Nadia could only remember the terrible sting against her hand as the book had rejected her. The physical pain had been slight, almost meaningless. What hurt worse was the knowledge of how much she was changing. Her own Book of Shadows still responded to her, because it reflected Nadia herself; as she became darker, so did her spell book. Magic had changed for her, probably forever.
    Not dark magic, though. It still loves me.
    Nadia decided not to think any further about magic, dark or otherwise, until the time came for her to obey Elizabeth’s summons later that night. Already she could feel the pull—the strange, unearthly undertow that was Elizabeth’s way of calling Nadia to her side. She would have to go soon.She texted Mateo that she couldn’t come to La Catrina—even though she desperately wanted to see him. But if she saw him, she would have to tell him what had happened, and right now she didn’t think she could stand to speak the