my powers, they can’t reach me. I wish I could ask them.”

“Do you know what I ask myself sometimes?” Rishi takes my hand in

hers. “What would Alex do?”

I press my forehead to hers. The thing that drew me to Rishi was

her happiness, the way she wore it on her sleeve, the way it lit her

up like the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Now, in the most

hopeless of places, she gives me that light.

We pull each other up. We face the labyrinth. There’s a swirl of

black-and-gray clouds directly above it. I take a deep breath and

stretch my aching muscles. No power, no recoil.

Rishi takes my dagger, and I sling the mace over my shoulder.

I’m not the encantrix everyone thought I would be. Right now, I’m

just a girl, and there is also magic in that.

Part III

The One

34

I search for you in lost fields.

Hear me, my dear. Your loved ones wait here.

- Canto of Spirits, Book of Cantos

We run into the Campo de Almas.

There is no life, only dirt where nothing grows and rain doesn’t

fall. The sky is a fiery burst of red, like the top of the sky is on

fire while the rest of it sleeps.

The campo is a field of wandering souls. These souls are different

than the ones in the river. They’re thin as fog and move slowly, like

they’ve forgotten where they’re going. I wonder what’s worse than

roaming aimlessly without knowing you’re dead.

A cold hand grabs at me, and I instinctively pull on my magic.

Nothing comes. The hand on my shoulder is cold and soft. As soon as it

touches my skin, it passes through me. They’re less than

ghosts-they’re shells of memory. The soul repeats a word I don’t

understand. I realize it’s a girl’s name. He says it over and over in

a gruff voice, like it’s the only word he remembers, the only word

that matters beyond years and life and death.

“What’s wrong with them?” Rishi asks.

Directly above us is the labyrinth. It hits me. “This is where she

throws them away after she drains their energy.”

Rishi takes my hand, and we run through the wandering souls. Their

essences make my skin pucker, my heart ache. I can’t let his happen to

my family. Rishi squeezes my hand tighter. We’re chain links of

desperation attached to one another.

We reach the twisting black arches that mark the entrance of the

labyrinth.

“Stay close,” I tell her.

We step inside. The deep-blue darkness surrounds us, and I prick

myself on the twisting vines that wrap around the labyrinth wall. The

path is narrow and littered with stones. Above me, the sky is a sea of

storm clouds. My eyes adjust to the dark. The hedges tremble as they

shift. A deep rumble shakes the ground. My heart is in my throat as I

tell myself to run. Pick a path. Neither is going to be safe. Leaves

and branches change shape.

“The entrance is closing!” Rishi tries to run for it, but the

archway disappears and she hits a wall.

There’s no way out.

“You should’ve gone home,” Nova says, appearing in front of us.

“You’re moving on up,” Rishi tells him. “The Devourer got you a

new wardrobe and everything. Tell me, who are you wearing?”

“Shut up,” he snaps. His broad torso is covered in a black

material that looks as slick as oil but as hard as metal. It’s trim

and simple and makes his eyes that much brighter. He says my name.

I pull my arm back and punch him. His head snaps back and blood

gushes from his nose. My knuckles throb and my arm hurts like hell,

but I want to do it again.

“Don’t,” he tells me.

“Why are you here?” I ask him. “You got what you wanted. You’ve

got a power boost and it only took how many sacrifices?”

Nova wipes the blood from his nose. “You act like you’re so much

better than me. At the end of the day, you made the same choice I did.

You chose yourself. You have no idea what my life has been like.”

“I’m not like you at all, Nova.” I squeeze the mace handle, daring

him to make me use it. “I came here to fix my mistakes. You played me.

From the very beginning you played me. Did you jump in front of Maks’s

car on purpose? Or did it start at Lady’s shop?”

Nova rubs his hands across his head. It’s strange to see them

without the marks, but his brown skin is beautiful just the same.

“You don’t want to know,” he tells me.

“I need to know.”

“As you wish,” he says, unable to meet my eyes. “I could hear this

energy everywhere I went in the city. It was like a sigh that wanted

to be a scream. I thought I could find it. I needed more power to get

out of my contract.”

“Contract?” Rishi asks. Her eyes are so dark, I fear she’s going

to lunge at Nova with that dagger.

“Sinmagos like to joke that they make deals with the devil. In my

case, I really did. The Devourer promised she’d save me. All I had to

do was find brujos and brujas. It was the only thing I got from my

mother: the ability to charm my way into people’s hearts.”

“I hate you,” I tell him.

“I didn’t want to die, Alex,” Nova says. “The marks started

spreading, and I could feel it wrapping around my heart. Haven’t you?”

I hold out my palms, sucking in a breath. Thin, inky marks zigzag

around my wrists, up the meaty base of my palm, and finally pool at

the center, like two blazing, black stars.

“It happened after you conjured the elements. You were just

too”-he looks at Rishi-“preoccupied to see.”

I rub my palms on my pants as if that’s going to get rid of the

marks. “Why are you here?”

Nova takes a step toward me, but Rishi gets in the way. Nova

smirks, and for a second, I see the boy who traveled alongside us, the

boy who shared his magic with me and helped me fly a boat across a

river of souls.

“I’m here to tell you to turn back. I’ll make you a portal. I’ll

get you home.”

I step around Rishi and get up in Nova’s face. “My home is trapped

in that tree. Now, either sound the alarms, or get out of my way.”

I watch his features turn hard. Maybe the marks are gone, but he’s

still the same lost boy that wandered the streets of New York.

“If I walk away from you,” he says, “I’m as good as dead.”

But he holds out his hand and disappears into the open path. The

hedges change. They ripple, then form into a solid wall that blocks

our way.

“Why would he do that?” I ask.

“It’s another trick,” Rishi says.

Maybe Nova is trying to trick me again, or maybe a part of him

regrets what he did. I focus on looking for a way out. I need to find

the voice again. I close my eyes and listen. The wind stirs and

carries with it a whisper.

“Follow the light,” Aunt Rosaria’s voice says.

“I’m not crazy,” I say. “You heard that too?”

Rishi nods. “I heard it.”

The wind whistles as a ball of light appears out of thin air. It

bounces in place, then races to the right.

Follow the light.

I follow the ball of light as it travels down the pitch-black

path. Creatures hiss and hoot and caw from the shadows, between the

leaves, and everywhere, unseen. Something tries to grab my arms. Its

flesh is cold. I bash it with my mace and keep running. The earth

curves slightly, then becomes a ninety-degree angle that leads left.

The ground beneath me undulates, like a great serpent is traveling

beneath it. I lose my footing and fall forward. When I press my hands

to the ground here, all I see is black. It wraps around my heart,

whispering my deepest nightmares back to me. It is unlike the rest of

the earth I’ve touched in Los Lagos. It wants me out.