life.”

“Enough, Xara!”

I turn around at the sound of his voice. Agosto, the Faun King, is

flanked by his people. They wear armor made of tree bark and metal,

their weapons are ready to charge. Madra stands beside the faun and

bows her head in my direction. The avianas flap their wings and caw a

warning. There are so many of them, even creatures I don’t recognize.

The Devourer takes a step back. It’s a single step, but it’s

enough to show she didn’t expect this.

“The tribes of Los Lagos,” she says, recovering easily. “We’ve

been down this road before. It never ends well for any of you.”

“Maybe this time it will,” I tell her.

“Look at you,” she says. “I love it. A few days ago, you were

scared of your own shadow. Now, you’re ready to lead a rebellion.”

I’m still not ready , I think. My heart pounds. My legs shake. But

I have to be.

“How noble of you,” the Devourer says, turning her face to the

sky. The perfect circle of the sun and the crescent of the moon

eclipse each other. The symbol of La Mama and El Papa. “But I’m afraid

you’re too late.”

The Devourer raises her face to the sky. The rain clears and the

clouds part to reveal the coming eclipse. The crescent moon crowns the

white sphere of the sun, and together they’re lined up above the tree.

The cocoons of stolen power pulse faster and faster, changing from

white to black.

“No!” I shout. “Keep her away from the tree!”

Madra attacks first, swooping down from the sky. Her war cry fills

the air. Her talons scratch the Devourer’s face, ripping her eyes from

their sockets. The witch’s scream is a terrible thing that cuts

through my eardrums. Her trembling fingers touch the blood streaming

down her face.

The avianas swoop down and scratch her hands, peck at her hair,

her skin.

The Devourer blasts the air with crackling energy. It strikes four

birds down. They land, broken and twisted, at our feet.

It’s not enough. Her power isn’t weakening.

Your magic is your anchor. I used to believe it was my burden. I

used to believe it was the reason everything terrible happened to my

family. But what if we were ordinary people, without this darkness

surrounding us? Terrible things could happen still. That’s just the

way of the worlds. Here, in Los Lagos, my magic has done good. Can do

good-if I let it.

Wild magic can’t be tamed , I think, and for the first time in

forever, I don’t want to hold back. This magic is mine. I can feel it

calling to me.

I understand now. Magic is a living thing. It’s part of me. I

summon it, call it like a snake charmer calls a snake out of its

slumber. The magic answers back. It slithers from the tree. The

Devourer’s face contorts when she feels what I’m doing. My power, all

of it, is expelled from the cocoon and back into me. This time, I

don’t fight it. This is what Mama Juanita meant. I accept you.

I remember you.

The Devourer grabs my hand, and I get a flash of something.

A young woman alone on a hill, cursing the Deos.

I don’t want to see her impression. I don’t want to know, so I

pull away, leaving her staggering to the ground. I want to ask her,

How does it feel?

Instead I turn to the voices of the trapped souls in the tree.

They’re waiting for me. I just need blood, and I need it fast. The

eclipse is happening.

Blood of my blood.

I climb the roots of the tree to get to the center of the trunk.

The answer is the tree. I can’t help but think of Nova. It has to be

blood. Blood is life. I cut from my wrist up, blood flowing down the

trunk. I bite back the pain that burns as I cut. The tree becomes soft

as human flesh.

Free us , the voices whisper.

Release me , the land screams.

I raise my dagger and drive it deep into the bark.

38

Given the gifts of the Deos, the encantrix has a choice in the

worlds.

To heal it.

Or destroy it.

- The Creation of Witches, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz

The world falls apart.

It’s the only explanation for the way fire falls from the sky.

Gashes rip fresh wounds into the earth. The roots of the Tree of Souls

rise up from the ground like they’re waking up from a long, long

sleep. The black cocoons shatter into fractures of multicolored light.

My magic hums against my skin. Every part of me is glowing. Even

my necklace. The light beams at the tree, illuminating the people that

emerge. The sight of them brings me to my knees.

My mother, Lula, Rose, Mama Juanita. Tio Guacho and cousin Betsey.

Hundreds of generations of my brujas and brujos stand before me.

There’s a woman who looks like she walked out of a Renaissance

portrait. Her ruffled collar is almost as tall as her curls. She looks

at me with a haughty face that tells me she’s not pleased, that there

is no better place for me than this-on my knees asking for

forgiveness.

“There is nothing I can say that would change what I’ve done,” I

tell them.

“You got that right,” Lula mutters. I could kiss her beautiful

face.

The lady with the collar speaks in Castilian. I don’t understand

it, but I don’t expect what she says is forgiving. Beside her is a

woman I’ve only seen in a black-and-white photo. My great-aunt Santa

Orchidia who lived to a hundred and twenty. Her skin is black as coal.

Her silver hair is wrapped in a white scarf that matches her mourning

dress. White. We mourn death in white. She speaks in a language that

rattles my bones.

Mama Juanita steps forward. She puts her hand on my cheek. “I’m

proud of you, nena.”

I lower my head. They surround me now, the way they tried to do on

my Deathday.

An old man steps forward. In his withered old face, I see my

father’s eyes. Lula’s eyes.

“Alejandra Mortiz,” Papa Philomeno says. “You have my blessing

now, then, and always. Do you accept?”

“I accept.” I hold out my bleeding wrist. He touches the blood and

uses it to trace our symbol-the crescent crowning the sun-on my

forehead.

I can feel their hands, all of the Old Ones, encircling me,

repeating, “You have my blessing, now, then, and always.”

• • •

I didn’t expect a being as old as the Devourer to go out without a

fight.

And she doesn’t.

She shakes with magic, blasting away the ring of avianas and

Meadowkin. When she turns to me, I don’t recognize her.

Her skin is aged like cracked desert. Her body is doubled over

like a question mark. Talons and nails have bloodied her arms and

face. But still, she’s a fighter. She pulls at the magic of the earth,

the roots of the tree. My family has escaped, and so are other souls,

floating away into the air in silver wisps. She tries to draw them

back, but they fight like fish swimming upstream. Those who were

captured alive stand ready to fight.

“We’re not finished, Alejandra,” she says.

“No, we’re not, Xara.”

“Don’t you dare use my mortal name. Xara was weak and afraid, just

like you will always be.”

But I’m not afraid anymore. “The Deos don’t take kindly to false

names.”

An unusual sense of calm settles in my body. I can feel them, all

of them, the lines of my family crisscrossing, not just living beside

my magic but merging together to create something more. I know why

everyone was so excited when they found out what I was.

Encantrix. The one chosen by the Deos.

“I will destroy you,” she tells me. “I will drink the magic from

your bones and then spit them out.”