once.

“Don’t,” Rishi tells me. Her midnight eyes are locked on mine.

“Don’t.”

Nova uncorks the vial. He brings the glass to Rishi’s lips. She

tries to keep them closed, but the Devourer forces them open.

“Nova,” I say his name. “You don’t have to do this.”

His voice is hard, and when he looks at me, he says, “Yes I do.”

The red liquid slides down the glass, a red bead pools at the tip.

I stop breathing. It’s as if El Corazуn has ripped my heart right out

of my chest. How can I watch Rishi die?

“I surrender,” I scream.

Nova drops the vial on the ground. It spills into the dirt.

The Devourer raises her hands, and I feel her magic seize me. My

chest burns as I struggle to breathe. I kick the air, try to pry the

force from around my neck until I feel a terrible pain stab at my

heart. Warm liquid drips from my ears, my nose; blurry, dark tears

sting my eyes. I’m choking. I’m dying. My heart flutters like the

wings of a hummingbird. My mind is heavy as the sea. I feel like I’ve

aged a hundred years and now I’m brittle and broken.

I stop struggling.

My arms drop to my sides. The force around my neck releases, then

drops me on the ground. A light floods from me and into the Devourer’s

palm. My power pulses like a star in her hand. She blows on it, and

the orb travels directly to the labyrinth, to the Tree of Souls.

The realization hits me like a gunshot to the heart. Tears spill

down my face. She took my light. She took my magic.

33

Sometimes, the Deos choose wrong.

There was an encantrix who broke the laws of nature.

She claimed herself a god. So the Deos

banished her to a land forgotten.

They should have known, wild magic can’t be tamed.

- The writings of Alta Bruja Kristiсe

“Noveno Santiago,” the Devourer says. She takes her nail and drags

it across her palm. Scarlet blood bubbles from the wound. “I free you

from our contract. From my blood to yours. I bless you with the lives

of the banished. Rise, no longer servant, but child of my darkness.”

He stands taller, tilting his face up to the heavens. She squeezes

her palm over his head. The blood drips down his forehead, over his

closed eyes, down his lips.

The black marks on his chest and arms light up. His chest expands,

then shudders. His light is blinding. I force myself to watch. To

remember the way this feels, so I can never feel this way again.

When the light fades, Nova stands still. The boy who crossed my

path on the street, the boy who found me, the boy who lit up the dark

for me is dead to me. I realize he never existed, and I’m just a fool

for thinking he did.

You chose well this time , the Devourer said. You’re losing your

touch.

How many others has he led down here? Does he think of them now as

he looks down at his hands? There is no recognition in his eyes, only

awe. They’re unmarked. Perfect. New. He touches his chest where the

marks were spreading around the sacred heart of his tattoo. They’re

all gone.

As if noticing I’m still standing here, he jumps.

A bit of metal glints in the black grass. My dagger.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warns me.

“Like think I could trust someone like you?”

Hurt flashes across his face briefly.

I try to stand tall and defiant, but I can’t. My muscles cramp and

burn until I double over.

“What you’re feeling is going to get worse, Alejandra. If you try

to fight me without your powers,” the Devourer tells me, “you will die

with the rest of your family. You’re only human now. If you’d like to

go home, Nova will create a portal.” She glances at the moon and sun,

and a broad smile fills her face. They’re nearly lined up perfectly.

Today. The eclipse happens today. “Though I suspect I’ll be seeing you

on the other side soon.”

The Devourer presses her hand on her chest. Something is wrong

with her. A thin line of blood trickles from her nostril. She wipes

the blood away. Licks it off her finger. She starts to glide across

the field covered in fog, back into the labyrinth. Then she stops. She

turns to look over her shoulder. “Nova.” She says his name the way a

mother would, urging her child to come along, to follow.

“If you stay here, I will kill you with my bare hands,” I tell

him.

He nods and disappears with her.

When she’s gone, I sink to the ground. I curl into fetal position.

I spent so many days and nights in my room like this, begging La Mama

to take the power from me. Now that it’s gone, I feel a void. A cold

sweat bubbles on my skin. I shiver uncontrollably and dig my fingers

into the earth. I can’t hear the pulse of the land or hear the words

in the wind. I can’t feel my family anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Alex,” Rishi cries. “Alex, please get up.”

Rishi needs me , I tell myself. The vines are still squeezing her.

I hear the crack of a rib, followed by Rishi’s scream. I push myself

up and find my dagger. I slice the vines, but it’s a hydra. Everywhere

I cut, the vines multiply and grow. I start digging around Rishi’s

feet until I find the root. I stab the core of the plant over and over

until it lets go of Rishi and dries up.

I catch Rishi as she falls. She wraps her arms around my neck and

we cling to each other. The land here is gray and bleak, cast in the

shadow of the labyrinth. I search for the magic inside of me but it’s

gone.

“I failed them,” I say.

Rishi shakes her head into my shoulder. “You’re still alive.”

“Sh.” I brush her hair out of her face. She’s covered in her own

blood. I reach for my power to heal her and come up empty. The void

inside me grows bigger by the second. I try to conjure a spark between

my fingers, and when I can’t, I pound my fists against the ground.

“You know when you want something so badly, but when you get it, it’s

not what you expected?”

She nods, stroking her thumb over my cheekbone.

“That’s what it felt like when I gave her my power. Only a

thousand times worse. When we were back home, I thought it was the

magic that made me do terrible things. I’ve always blamed the magic. I

hid behind it. But here, magic was the only thing that made sense. Now

it’s gone.”

Alejandra , a voice whispers to me.

Rishi turns to the labyrinth. She heard it too. It’s different

from the voice I was hearing in my head. That was the voice of my

power guiding me. This voice is different. It sounds like my aunt

Rosaria.

“I want you to take the mace,” I tell Rishi. “Find a place to

hide.”

She makes a very loud noise that lets me know she’s not going to

listen. “I heard that too.”

“I don’t have my power to protect us, but if the Devourer thinks

I’m going to turn around and go home, she’s wrong.”

“She can’t feed from the tree until the eclipse,” Rishi says. Her

lips are swelling, but she refuses to stay quiet. “You heard her.

She’ll have your family’s power. She’ll come into our world.”

I think of what Agosto said. She’s nearly drained Los Lagos dry.

She needs somewhere else to go. With our combined power, she could

break free of Los Lagos and into my world.

“You were right before when you said the answer is in the Tree of

Souls. Nova was just trying to make you second-guess yourself because

he was working for her.”

That stings more than it should. I’ll deal with Nova later on.

The tree. The answers lie in the tree.

“We have to get through the labyrinth. What would Lula do? Without