Harvey smiled. “I’m against animal cruelty, but that seems an overreaction. What happened next?”
“The anti-pope sent the plague a century after Gregory died, so nothing much,” Nick answered. “That anti-pope was also historically known as the Mephistophelian the Procrastinator. Do you like history? Would you like to hear more interesting historical facts?”
Harvey was scanning the trees and mountains, the way Mrs. Link had. He could see nothing but Greendale under a cloud.
“Sure. Come inside and tell me historical facts.”
When he glanced over at Nick, he found Nick already scrutinizing him. “Why do you want me to go inside?”
“My neighbor just mentioned witches. It was weird.”
“Your neighbor?” Nick repeated in a condescending voice that set Harvey’s teeth on edge. “You’re concerned I’m in danger from an elderly lady? She must be four hundred years old.”
“She’s definitely not four hundred years old!”
“She looks it,” said Nick. “Everything is fine. The luck demon situation is handled. You worry too much.”
Harvey thought worry was an appropriate response. Nick never had appropriate responses to anything.
Salem hissed.
Nick hissed back. “I don’t trust creatures like you. Shoo, spy.”
Salem rose with dignity, departing for the woods with his tail in the air. Harvey supposed Nick must be more of a dog person.
“Now that you’ve seen off the wicked spy, let’s go inside.”
“If a senile neighbor threatens me, I can just teleport,” Nick said casually.
Harvey’s mouth fell open. “Dude, that’s awesome! Like Nightcrawler? Can all witches teleport?”
“No,” Nick gloated. “Only the awesome ones.”
He was so smug. Harvey was only letting him get away with it because teleporting was undeniably awesome.
“I’ll teleport you,” Nick offered. “Where do you want to go?”
Tommy was forever encouraging Harvey to get out of Greendale. Tommy had never left himself.
“Don’t do any magic,” Harvey snapped.
There was a silence colder than ice and snow.
Nick sneered, showing no understanding or pity, only a witch’s fury. “Sabrina’s a witch. How can you love a witch and hate magic?”
Harvey licked his dry lips and shook his head. “I keep trying to work that out.”
“Then work it out,” said Nick, relentless. “You chose someone extraordinary to love. Did you expect loving her to be ordinary? Would Sabrina ask you not to draw in front of her?”
“No,” said Harvey automatically. His heart sank. “Is it that important?”
Nick shook his head. “Magic’s more important.”
“I’m trying,” Harvey said, low.
He didn’t say: I’m so scared.
Nick’s face was furious for another moment. Then he gave an irritated sigh. “You’d better get used to magic fast, mortal.”
Harvey swallowed. “I know.”
In Greendale, there was no other option.
“You hurt yourself,” Nick remarked. “Don’t be careless. Sabrina will worry. What happened?”
Harvey frowned, confused, then followed the direction of Nick’s gaze. He saw his own hurt hand.
He looked across the snow-white fields into the dark woods. “I hit somebody. He was bad-mouthing my friend Susie, but I should’ve given him a warning.”
Nick seemed puzzled. “Why?”
There was no way to talk about his dad hitting him, how Harvey’s lack of surprise was worse than the blow.
“You think the world needs more people hurting each other in it?”
The answer seemed obvious, but none came. Harvey sat listening to the sound of the wind chasing itself through the ice-bound woods. When he turned his head, Nick was giving him a funny look.
“You’re so weird,” Nick said, but the last trace of anger had faded from his voice.
“No, you’re weird,” Harvey told him firmly. “What did you come to ask me?”
It was no use pushing about what Mrs. Link had said. Nick didn’t take mortals seriously and he wouldn’t listen, but he’d come here for help.
“I want to …” Nick began. “I saw you and Sabrina on a date once. You both looked—happy. Then I met Sabrina. She walked into our Infernal Choir in front of a dozen enemies, and she sang. Defying all of us, and Satan.”
Harvey thought of Sabrina singing in the woods, sweet as a wild bird. His magic girl.
“She used to sing for me,” he murmured.
Not anymore.
“When I got to know Sabrina,” continued Nick, “I thought … I want to be happy too.”
Nick said the word happy as though it was in a strange language. Harvey couldn’t believe he was feeling sorry for a guy determined to steal his girl. Harvey really was stupid.
Since he was stupid anyway, he asked: “Are you … not happy? Is there anyone at Invisible Academy to talk to?”
He was pretty sure witch school didn’t have guidance counselors. Even though it was becoming clear witch school needed guidance counselors.
“There’s Prudence,” said Nick.
Harvey nodded. “Prudence seems cool.”
She’d scared him, but that didn’t matter compared to the way Prudence’s face changed when she gazed down at her baby brother. For a moment Harvey’d thought they could all be friends. Then he’d go to Sabrina and say he understood, and he wasn’t scared anymore.
Nick seemed surprised. “You enjoy getting force-fed truth potions?”
“I wish Sabrina had told me the truth.”
Sabrina had made him forget the truth, once. He wished she hadn’t. He wished she’d made him believe. Maybe before magic hurt him, he would’ve loved it, as he loved everything else about her.
“Seems like telling the truth screwed everything up,” Nick remarked. “Best if you never found out.”
Harvey shook his head. “Telling the truth is the only way to have something real. Is there anyone besides Prudence?”
Nick blinked. “There’s Dorian. He’s a bartender.”
“Oh, a bartender friend?”
His dad also had a bartender friend. By the time your bartender was your best friend, things were very bad.
“When the Academy is too much, I go to his bar to forget.”
“Maybe you could just talk to someone about your feelings!”
Nick looked like he might throw up.
Harvey bit his lip. “If you want … you could come here.”
It was a dumb suggestion. His dad hadn’t ever chosen to go home instead of the bar, and his dad actually lived here.
“All right,” Nick said quietly.
Harvey knew he shouldn’t show how surprised he was, so he nodded. He wasn’t sure if mortals and witches could be friends, but everybody needed someone they could talk to.
“So …” said Harvey. “Witches talk about weird sex stuff all day long, but everybody pretends they don’t have feelings?”
“Of course!”
Harvey was speechless.
Sadly, Nick was not. “The way mortals and witches do things is so different. What would you think if someone hit you with the line ‘Hey, sexy, I don’t care if you live or die’?”
“I would think the person speaking to me was a sociopath who might steal my skin,” said Harvey.
“And then you wouldn’t go out with them, probably!”
“Definitely not! Is that a typical witch pickup line? Are there typical witch pickup lines?”
Nick nodded. Against his better judgement, Harvey made a gesture for him to continue. Nick began to smile his devil smile.
“Divination is my specialty, and I see a date with me in your future.”
Harvey shook his head. “That’s really bad.”
“Wreck me like a broom you flew into a hurricane,” said Nick brightly.
Harvey put his face in his hands. “Oh my Go
d.”
“An ye harm none, do with me as thou wilt.”
“No to all of this.” Harvey shook his head and laughed and shook his head some more. “No to everything.”
Nick winked. “I’ve only got eye of newt for you.”
“This might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Harvey.
Nick seemed highly amused by Harvey’s horror.
“Did the false god hurl you from heaven? Because you are hot as hell.”
“Stop now.”
“I haven’t even told you the one where I say, ‘This is where the magic happens’ and point to my pants.”
Harvey snorted. “If you tried anything like that on Sabrina, of course it isn’t working.”
“Please don’t insult me, Harry. I did not use any of those lines on Sabrina. I actually have game.”
“Do you, though?” Harvey asked. “Because I don’t have any, yet here you are asking for advice. What did you do with your, uh, several girlfriends?”
He still couldn’t believe Nick had dated the whole band.
“It was more sexual sorcery in the woods than actual dating. You know, stripteases with vanishing spells, the black arts with bondage.”
There was a pause.
“I’d strongly suggest a movie first,” said Harvey.
“How does it go for you two?” Nick asked. “Walk me through this. Look, I’ll be Sabrina.”
“Nick! I don’t like this game.”
Nick proceeded without missing a beat: “So Sabrina says to you, ‘Hey, little mortal love—’ ”
“Do you seriously imagine that is how Sabrina talks to me?” Harvey demanded.
“Why not? She suggests going to a movie—in one of those mortal movie theaters?”
“Um,” said Harvey. “Yeah. Have you never been to one?”
Nick shook his head. “Have I got this down? She says, ‘Come with me’ and you say, ‘Yes, I will.’ There isn’t something I’m missing here?”
Bondage and the black arts, but no movies. Witches led strange lives.
Harvey remembered the shocking naked astral projection suggestion Nick had once made, and added: “I hope you were crystal clear that the activity would involve clothing.”
“Oh,” said Nick.
“Nicholas Scratch!” said Harvey. “You have to be clear!”
“Actually, now you mention it, she might’ve thought … Maybe that was the problem.”
“Yeah, maybe!”
Nick shook his head as if stunned. “This dating business has pitfalls at every turn. Can we go to the movies?”
“What?” Harvey asked blankly.
“I don’t want to mess this up, so I need a trial run. Why, do you not want to? Should I ensorcel some mortal girl to go with me?”
“No you should not!” Harvey yelped.
“So you’ll come.”
It would be an act of civic responsibility to stop a warlock from running amok enchanting the populace. And it wasn’t as if Harvey had any plans.
Harvey sighed. “Yeah, I will.”
How bad could it be? He’d been to the movies in Greendale literally hundreds of times. Sabrina loved horror movies, Susie loved action movies, and Roz loved depressing movies with subtitles, so there was always something to see. Harvey used to go to the movie theater with his friends almost every weekend. He missed it, as he missed a lot about the old life he’d thought was ordinary and boring at the time.
Unless they had the worst luck in the world, Harvey didn’t see how watching a movie could go wrong.
When Sabrina turned Nick down for the five hundredth time, he waited until she was gone. Then he covered his face with his hands and surrendered to despair.
“I’m going to die alone. Well. Probably at a bacchanal with sexy dryads, but alone in a meaningful way.” He raked a hand through his hair. Now it was a total mess, much like him.
Prudence slapped him on the back. “Nick, listen to yourself, you’re raving.”
“I have to go,” said Nick, with sudden resolve.
“You idiot harlot. Sure, take romantic advice from a witch-hunter who can barely dress himself,” Prudence called after Nick. “Enjoy having your head cut off and your mouth filled with salt when it’s buried at the crossroads.”
The door slammed. Nick’s idiot harlot decisions were his own. Prudence had other livers to fry.
Hilda Spellman had mentioned Zelda was visiting her at work, so Prudence intended to drop by the café and verify Sabrina was praising Prudence as promised. Zelda hadn’t been to the Academy since before Yule, and Prudence hadn’t been able to think up a pretext to drop by the Spellman house. The silly mortal café was a public place. Prudence could go there if she wished. She could leave Judas with her sisters for a while longer. He’d thank her later, once she’d secured him a suitable candidate for a mother.
Prudence hurried out of the Academy and headed toward the town and the bookstore within it. She wasn’t Nick Scratch, who wanted to marry books and raise little baby novellas, but she’d noted there were several interesting volumes on demonology in that shop. She could peruse the shelves until Zelda arrived.
She was busy thinking up the perfect way to engineer their accidental encounter, sailing down the icy main road and past the alleyway where she and Sabrina had banished the demon. A sudden impulse stayed her step. She decided to look in on the scene of their victory. It felt like that might bring her luck.
She walked down toward the upturned trash cans. Someone had gotten rid of the fallen woman’s clothes, but the garbage was still on the ground. The tea shop was shut up and silent. They’d really banished a demon, she and Sabrina. She wondered whether her father would be impressed if he knew.
Mortal affairs were none of her concern. Prudence didn’t pay any attention to the bustle of mortals on the street.
Not until she was hit by the blow from behind.
Something struck the back of her head, heavy and sharp-edged, hard enough to bring her to her knees. Prudence staggered and caught herself, hand braced against the wall of the alley for support. Darkness veiled her eyes for a moment, but even before the blackness receded, she spun around.
There was a small band of mortals before her. As she turned, she had to dodge another missile. It glanced off the side of her head rather than between her eyes, where it was aimed. Prudence touched the gash she could feel opening on her forehead. Blood trickled hot into one eye, obscuring her vision further, but she was able to make out a few faces and a few words.
“… saw her and two evil hags in the woods …”
“… tricked me, ensnared me with illusions …”
“Witch!”
“… told lies …”
“Witch!”
She thought she recalled a boy who she’d tormented in the mines … and another man who she believed was a miner. A guy she didn’t recognize stepped forward, eyes narrowing, a brick in his fist.
They were throwing bricks at her. She was already dazed and bleeding. It might be time to try sweet-talking the mortals.
“Burn slow, witch,” he yelled, hurling his brick.
Prudence caught the brick in her blood-slick hand, murmured a spell, and made the brick turn to red dust in her palm.
“Die screaming, mortal.”
She’d never been that good at sweet-talking. She should let go of the wall and run at them, but she wasn’t sure she could stand without support. She’d have to try an illusion spell, she thought, and tried to piece together, in her scrambled brain, the words for any spell at all.
The mouth of the alley went dark, as though someone had drawn a black curtain across it. Against the sudden midnight, like a singer taking center stage, stood Zelda Spellman.
“Hello, boys,” she said, and put her cigarette out against the wall.
Her hair curled bright beneath a small black hat adorned by a tasteful raven feather. She wore a black trench coat cinched by a sharkskin belt, and on the belt was a row of shark tee
th.
“I know a witch who would make you run scared by telling you she knows the deepest secrets of your own filthy hearts.”
The men stared at her.
Zelda’s own teeth showed as she smiled. “But she’s the nice sister. I’m not. I’d rather cut out your hearts and eat them between two slices of bread. Then I’d spit them out, because no matter how long it’s been since I had long pig, I still wouldn’t sully myself by touching any of you.”
A fool raised a brick and then dropped it with a howl. There was a sound like a bough breaking. Prudence realized it was the bone of his arm snapping.
“You have one chance to run,” said Zelda. “Or you’re sandwiches.”
They ran, disappearing into the dark. Zelda strode forward, laying a hand against Prudence’s forehead as though she was taking her temperature. Prudence felt magic rush over her skin, cooling and healing, and she let herself collapse into Zelda’s waiting arms.
She woke up on her settee in the Academy, but the settee had been enchanted wider than her bed, and it was piled high with deliciously soft velvet cushions. A brocade blanket had been drawn over her, and she lay in a plush nest.
Over her head came the sounds of Zelda and Father Blackwood—no, Prudence reminded herself, her father—talking.
“Occasionally a mortal does get suspicious,” said Zelda. “All it takes is a memory charm to sort them out. If that isn’t effective, I’ll break their nasty little necks and use their innards for spell ingredients.”
“I do admire an efficient woman,” murmured Prudence’s father.
Quickly, Prudence scribbled a warning to Nick. No sooner was she done than someone pulled her blanket back.
“Prudence, you’re awake,” said Zelda. “How are you feeling?”
She couldn’t show weakness in front of her father. “Infernally well.”
She tried to sit up. Zelda pushed her back flat against the velvet cushions. “If you have the sense Satan gave a toad, you won’t even dream of stirring before morning.”
“Who will see to the babe?” demanded Prudence’s father.
Prudence’s eyes went to the cradle, where Judas lay. Zelda must have retrieved him from her sisters.
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