Prologue

Prague, Fourteen Years Ago

When Christof Vogel passed the old Vysehrad train station on his way home from school, and a shimmering bumblebee meandered into his path, he grinned and changed direction, accepting the invitation. 

He hadn’t seen Ofelia at recess, which meant she was probably in the library or being a teacher’s assistant—a job no one truly wanted—but was one guaranteed way to avoid the dangers of being a social outcast on the schoolyard. She had it almost as bad as him. That she trusted him with this small magic made his chest ache in that peculiar way he longed for. Something settled in him, finally restful after the long day spent trying to avoid the attention of the older boys. 

Undeterred by the tall metal fencing, he headed toward the hill at the south end of the building, climbing the broken stone staircase cut into the slope. It ended at the changing house, and he crossed into the wild growth.

Ofelia had left him a path, and the brambles closed behind his heels as he went. She was as good with everyday plants as she was with magical bees. He found his way to a shorter chain link fence and scaled it easily. He kicked a leg over and dropped into the high grass along the tracks. 

The passenger station loomed, a three-storied beauty in sun-bleached shades of ivory that crumbled a little more every day, its boarded-up windows and doors relentlessly graffitied and roof a patchwork of blue tarps nailed down with boards. It seemed to sigh at his arrival, reminding him of a tired old woman slouching over her hand cart as she waited for the late-night tram.

The station was, everyone agreed,  the most tragic eyesore in all of Prague. Unlike the Municipal House, its more famous sibling, the art nouveau marvel had been lost to ruin and disrepair. Every few years, plans were announced for a restoration that never manifested. As close as it was to home, he and his siblings had been told to stay away from it often. 

He found the loose panel in a boarded-up door, scanning the rails and the grass to make sure he hadn’t been followed. He slipped his backpack inside first, then wiggled into the narrow opening. 

The terminal seemed far larger inside. He passed the corners of junk and trash left by squatters and vagrants. They’d claimed a few spots over the last few months, and he counted on the bees to help him find Ofelia. Each appeared irregularly but exactly when he would have taken a wrong turn. 

He climbed a spiral staircase all the way to the third floor. Upstairs was remarkably untouched. 

She had already made herself comfortable in a shaft of sunlight beneath the broken vent in one of the domed cupolas. She sat on a light spring jacket she’d worn to school that day, and a thick book filled her lap. She had been in the library at the break. Her thick black hair was organized in a complex network of braids, and her deep brown skin shone in the dusty sunlight. She always neatly dressed as though expecting to be presented for inspection. Today, her dress was a pale blue, with blue flowers around the neckline and a lace overlay on the skirt. Matching shoes, patent leather with little bows. Even the little ribbons tying off her braids were blue. He decided blue was his new favorite color. 

He swiped at the smudges of dust and grease on his pants and rubbed his tousled hair back into place. She looked as immaculate as she had in the classroom earlier. He wasn’t sure if there was a truer sign of magic than the inability of dirt to touch her.

When he looked up, Ofelia’s dark eyes were on him, holding the smile she never let reach her mouth. 

He gave up and flopped onto his belly with a sigh. “What is it today?”

He angled his head to read the book in her lap. “Dangerous Gardens: Poison Through History. They have that in the library?”

“Advantages of being a good library assistant.” She closed the massive book with a thud and tugged at his backpack. “Did you get them?”

“All yours.” He shifted to make it easier for her to reach.

“My sweet, sweet babies.” She drew the bag of gummy bears from the side pocket like a priceless treasure, pressing them to her chest with a grin before tearing it open. Her parents didn’t allow sweets.

“You going to eat them, or what?” He rolled his eyes, trying to sound as though her simple pleasure barely moved him. While she lined up a neat row of multicolored bears on her pencil case, he lifted the top of her backpack. He knew better to paw through a witch’s belongings uninvited. “What’d you get on the test?”

When the teacher had returned papers, Ofelia tucked hers quickly beneath the stack of books on her desk. 

Chris had allowed his to linger on top for too long, stunned by the teacher’s brief praise. “Much improvement, Christof.”

The chorus of jeers started as soon he turned back to the front of the room. One of the biggest boys leaned over his desk and grabbed the paper, his meaty breath hot on Chris’ neck. “Nice work, Christof.”

Chris hunched, trying to make himself smaller as he tugged it free and mashed it into his notebook. Something small and wet hit him in the back of the neck. He didn’t dare wipe it away.

A sharp wooden crack echoed through the room. The bigger boy shouted in alarm as a leg of his desk snapped, sending him tumbling to the floor. His elbow and cheek hit the boards with echoing thuds. 

When Chris looked up, Ofelia was focused on her exercise in her seat near the front of the room. Only her still-twitching finger gave her away.

In the train station hours later, Chris smiled. “Nice trick with the desk leg. But you shouldn’t waste your gifts on those idiots.”

“Mom says practice will make me stronger.” She shrugged and produced the test from her backpack for him. 

A perfect score. If she could have gotten higher, she would have. He compared the tests, seeing what he’d missed and frowning with the effort of committing the correct answers to memory. With his second oldest brother away at Oxford, she was officially the smartest person he knew.

When he looked up, laughter obliterated his worry that she was too smart to waste time with him. 

The fifth-grade genius and witch-in-training was using magic to march a row of gummy bears up her arm to the back of her wrist, which leaped into her mouth one by one. 

“Want one?” She asked between bites.

“Yellow, please.” He opened his mouth and closed his eyes.

“They all taste the same.”

He opened one eye. “The yellow ones are the best.”

“Whatever.” With a little smile, a yellow bear took a flying leap sideways off her thumb. It hit his nose and bounced off. He lunged to catch it before it hit the floor and rolled to his back with a grin and the gummy clenched between his teeth. She frowned. “Working on my aim.”

It was the only place outside his home he’d ever see magic, and never used so mundanely. He’d tried to warn her about the dangers of being what they were so close to the Necromancer Azrael’s seat, as his mother had often warned his brothers. Ofelia had listened patiently and then patted his head like reassuring a little dog afraid to cross the street before a noisy van. “Don’t worry, Woof. I’ll protect you.”

Though everyone in the family tried to hide it from him and his sister, he knew what had happened to his brothers. He’d begun to have the dreams. Ofelia had seen it on the first day of school, her eyes growing wide with excitement and anticipation.

“Want to visit him today?” She asked when she’d had her fill and tucked the gummy bears into a secret pocket of her bag.

Chris rolled onto his belly, worried. It was a lot of magic, even for her. “Are you sure?”

“It’s Friday. I can rest this weekend.” She nodded briskly and dusted off her hands. “Close your eyes.”

He would have obeyed before her fingertips threaded through the hair at the back of his head, but that made it easy. 

The air stilled so that even the dust motes froze their lazy spirals, and the delicate scent of her magic—fennel and citrus—flooded his nostrils.

“Can you picture it?” She invited.

The first time, she’d told him to think of a special place, a safe place. One he had been to in real life worked best. His mind went automatically to the clearing he hiked to with his mom on the weekends. Back when Mark and Toby lived at home, she’d take all the boys up to the family cabin on the edge of the Šumava forest for the weekends. 

His older brothers went into the woods. Camping.

Chris and Mom spent the evenings playing board games and the days hiking, tending to her garden, and gathering herbs in glades just like this one until his brothers returned Sunday evening, disheveled and weary. 

When he could see the glade exactly in his mind, he exhaled with a nod.

She built a place between them using his memory until the last gust of dusty old train station was replaced by forest loam, rotting leaves, and wild trees. The gnarled trunks pushed through the undergrowth. City trees smelled different somehow—even the ones in the big parks and green belts. These trees had never been civilized.

It was that final hour of light before the dark that never truly came, no matter how long he stayed. 

At first, it had taken what felt like hours to get his first glimpse of pale fur, but when Ofelia had brought him back, only a few moments had passed. It’s like dreaming, she’d explained. Not less real, just not bound by things like time and space. It’s yours. You and Woof.

Today, he was aware that he was being watched long before he caught a glimpse of a tail or the flick of an ear. It took effort to keep the smile off his face, not to give away the game. 

The juvenile wolf came in a rush of silver fur, mouth open but tongue lolling. Chris dropped to one knee at the last minute, and the wolf tumbled through the space the boy had been. He recovered quickly, spun with an unearthly grace, and Chris was waiting for him. They wrestled until Chris was muddy and the pup’s pale fur tipped with streaks of loam. It would be years before they were united in the tangible world, but Ofelia had seen the wolf in him and created this place for them.

Usually, nothing reached them here. But today, the young wolf raised his head, ears and gaze pointed at the distance over Chris’ left shoulder. 

“What is it?” Chris rubbed dirt out of his hair, thankful he wouldn’t take any of this mess back with him. His mother would have killed him for ruining another pair of pants. She’d stopped wasting her magic on stains and rips years ago.

One ear flicked back to Chris, accompanied by the swift glance of smokey blue eyes, a mirror of his own. Usually, when their time was over, the wolf would wag his body bonelessly in a playful goodbye and vanish into the woods. 

This tension in his neck was new. The fur on his spine rippled and bunched.

Trouble. It wasn’t a word so much as sense of a threat.

Ofelia was unprotected and casting the enchantment that brought him to this impossible place to bond with the animal inside him.

Chris lurched to his feet, face to the sky. “Bring me back, now!”

The transition was rough, a yank that left him gasping. Her cool hand settled on the back of his neck, tingling with remnants of energy.

“You’re fine. Everything is fine,” she breathed. Wide eyes the color of a deep wood at midnight met his, searching. “What happened?”

Chris rocked to his hands and knees. He longed for the wolf’s senses. The wolf’s strength. How could he possibly protect her as he was now.

In the silence, his gaze found hers. Confusion etched a line in her brow, tiny furrows at the corners of her smiling mouth. The enchantment always made her seemed weary in a way he couldn’t place, as though some of the vibrance in her deep brown skin and endless woods-in-night eyes had dulled. He wished there was some way to give it back. 

He opened his mouth to speak. The distant creak of board and a squeal of rusted nails cut him off. Ofelia’s face didn’t change. She hadn’t heard it. 

Maybe he had a bit of the wolf after all. Hope surged in his ribcage.

She started to speak, but he squeezed her hand. 

They had been coming to this place since the fall when it became clear that being together at school only doubled the attention they got from their bullies. She reviewed the lessons he struggled with in school so that he would pass a test or took him to the place where he could meet his wolf or read to him from whatever magazine she had stolen from her mother. In exchange, he brought bags of gummy bears, trinkets, smooth rocks, strange leaves, and branches from his weekends at the cabin. They came and went separately and waved goodbye at dusk. 

He’d never held hands with a girl. Any girl. Never mind the most beautiful—and the only magical—girl in his grade.

Her skin was warm and softer than he’d ever imagined. He had been imagining this moment for months. His chest seemed to expand and tighten all at once. 

Their eyes met. His grip eased. 

She laced her fingers in his and squeezed back. Her expression softened. Maybe it was his imagination, but some of the brightness returned to her cheeks. The heat built in his neck. He was probably turning red. As the fairest skinned of all his siblings, his visible flush had been a source of teasing since he was small.

She was going to laugh at him.

Instead, she smiled, her eyes darting to their clasped hands. It was as if all the bees she’d ever used to summon him buzzed madly under his collarbones. He forgot everything: the noise, the warning, the wolf.

When their eyes met again, the hundreds of wings settled, and he was aware of every mote of dust in the air of the sun-drenched cupola moving between them again, the tiny springy curls at her nape, and her smile, warmer than any beam of light—a little shy. 

Her free hand wrapped in his worn collared shirt, a hand me down from Tobias, and tugged. 

She kissed him—barely a touch of lips featherlight on his own. He tasted gummy bears and magic on her breath.

Another creak. This time, a board snapped below as though forced to bear too much weight. Chris yanked away, eyes wide. 

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry—“

“Someone’s here.” He whispered.

She released his hand abruptly and began stuffing her backpack. He helped, then shoved the last of his belongings recklessly into his. 

“Where are you rats hiding?” A voice floated up from the lower floor, echoing off the broken walls.

The hairs on his neck rose in recognition—the meanest of the boys in their grade. The accompanying chuckles and heavy footfalls meant he wasn’t alone. He never went anywhere without his cronies.

“What did you drag us to this old wreck for?” A fourth voice, one of the boys from the grade ahead, called. Their voices were distant, echoing. He wished for the wolf’s ability to pinpoint by sound and scent alone. 

“They come here. I saw them.”

Chris met Ofelia’s gaze. Anger and a shining edge he’d never seen lit hers. He mouthed. “We have to go.”

She held up a hand. Closed her eyes. 

“There!” A shout rose below, and the footsteps moved away from the stairs and the broken door.

She opened her eyes, bright with victory but feverish. “Distraction.”

He lurched to his feet. She wobbled. Whatever she’d done had drained her even more. When she reached out, his hand was waiting. 

“Ready?” He forced a smile he hoped conveyed fearlessness.

She nodded.

He crept along the edge of the room, guiding her around the squeakiest spots on the stairs as they descended. Floor two. He considered turning here. This level mainly had offices and a central mezzanine overlooking the main floor. There was another loose window at the end of the hall, but that would put them on the roof, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to get the rest of the way from there, and she could get hurt falling from that height. 

Their best shot was the way they’d come in. At the foot of the staircase, he leaned out. He could just make out the boys at the other end of the terminal, following a glimmer of something bright, the vaguest outline. A glance at her face showed the strain of maintaining the illusion wearing on her. 

Her fingers trembled in his. He squeezed her hand. “Now.”

They gave up on stealth, sprinting toward the broken board. The boys had ripped it almost entirely away. Daylight glittered through the splintered panel. Freedom.

A shadow crossed the door. One of the older boys blocked the path, his smile a threat.

Chris bared his teeth and let go of her hand. Without slowing down, he hurtled all his weight at the bigger boy. They crashed into the wall, leaving the opening clear. Shouts echoed from the far end of the hall. 

Chris stumbled to his feet, wild-eyed. The boy he’d hit lay on the floor, gasping for breath like a landed fish.

Ofelia stood on the other side of the opening, knotting her fingers together like she would spark a spell. Flares of color sputtered from her fingertips but winked out. Nothing.

“I can’t—” He’d never heard fear in her voice before.

He tossed her backpack through the opening and then gave her a shove after it. “Run.”

She stumbled. The only way to keep from falling was to pull herself through. Ripped boards tore the once immaculate fabric of her skirt. She whimpered, one hand clamped to her calf. 

She hesitated, eyes on the boys racing toward them at the end of the hall. “Come with me.”

“They’ll catch us.” He tried to summon the wolf’s authority. “Go.”

She shook her head once, eyes shining.

“Please, Ofelia.” He begged. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Her chin wobbled, but she grabbed her backpack. Taking one last look at him, she sprinted down the platform toward the tracks. 

Fresh blood on a shard of broken board caught his eye. Her blood. He wiped it clean with his sleeve. A witch’s blood was precious and should be kept safe.

Chris shoved the board closed as best he could. 

Ofelia was small but fast. She just had to make it to the tram stop. From there, she would be safe. She just needed a head start. 

Chris dropped his backpack at his feet, hefted the nail-studded board, and backed himself up against the door to face the gathering boys.

“Out of the way, runt,” the big boy said. “We only want her.”

If he wasn’t afraid his voice would shake, or squeak, he would have given them a line from one of Mark’s old gangster movies. He decided silence was his best bet. 

The boys from his grade looked nervous for the first time. “Thought we were just going to scare them.”

The ringleader ignored him, addressing Chris again. “You’d get a cut of the reward.” 

Desperately, Chris called for the wolf. But the line between them was still solid. Perhaps in a year, he would come quickly, but now?

Chris flexed his knees and lifted his upper lip, baring his teeth in what he hoped was a respectable snarl as he took a few trial swings with the board. 

The older boy frowned at his classmate. “Look for another way out.”

There wasn’t one. Chris knew that. After the last time the city had cleared the vagrants out, they’d done an even better job of sealing off all the entrances and exits. 

“What are you going to do?” His classmate looked at Chris, hesitating.

The bigger boy grinned. “Move this little piece of shit out of the way.” 

* * *

Chris missed a week of school. His first day back, the tingle of her presence was absent from all her usual haunts, and her scent was old. 

City workers boarded the train station up again—this time with metal bars.

He finally got up the courage to go into the office, waiting until the secretary who always smiled at him was at the counter. 

“Ofelia?” She squinted at his whispered request. He nodded, stumbling over her last name. “Adjei.”

She rifled through her desk for a file. “Oh. Yes. I prepared her transfer paperwork.”

A great big hole opened in his chest and sucked his lungs into it. He tried to speak, failed, and tried again.

She smiled, a little curious, a little worried. “Last week. It was a bit of a rush.”

“Do you know…why…what school she went to?”

“Some fancy boarding school in Switzerland.” The secretary shrugged, puzzled. “Her father was called back into service. A former embassy official, you know. Swiss.”

Gone. Ofelia was gone.

She frowned. “You look a little pale. Would you like me a note to your teacher so you can go to the infirmary?”

Chris shook his head. He didn’t even look at the decrepit old train station on his way home. All the magic that mattered in his life was gone.

Coming 11.20.24
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