“I don’t like your face either, but I still have to look at it,” I say. She rolls her eyes, and I’m relieved we can still tease each other like always.
Rose perks up and quirks an eyebrow. “What kind of plan?”
“It doesn’t matter what kind of plan,” Alex says. “Once you get shut down by the Circle, they’re going to be watching you.”
“No, they won’t,” I say. “But I need your help. You too, Rosie.”
“Me?” Rose gets up from the chair and comes closer.
Alex shakes her head. “We leave Rose out of this.”
“No way,” Rose says, and it’s disconcerting to recognize the Mortiz-stubbornness in her features. “Don’t forget, my power’s been awake since I was born. Any kind of spirit magic needs me there.”
“Fine,” Alex groans. “Let’s hear this plan.”
“I remember a canto,” I say. “It’s in the Book. It’s old. Way old.”
“Mom old or Great-Great Grandpa Philomeno old?” Rose asks.
“Older,” I say, and her eyes light up with curiosity. “It’s a blood healing canto. The ingredients are easy to get. The most important part is—”
“Blood?” Alex asks sarcastically.
“Aside from that, herbs and mirrors blessed by an Alta Bruja.”
“Lady blesses all her jewelry,” Rose says, smirking despite Alex’s disapproving glares.
Alex paces back and forth. Tiny sparks shower over her head like it’s the Fourth of July just for us. Her magic still has a wildness to it. Wild magic can’t be tamed. I’m surprised she kept it together when Detective Hill was here.
“I’m no one to tell you not to do this.” She wrings her hands. “You know I’m not. But maybe I should be. Don’t make the same mistake I made.”
“Mistake?” I ask her. “The mistake was hiding your secret. The mistake was trying to get rid of your magic and nearly getting us all killed.”
“I know what my mistake was,” she says, stopping suddenly. “That’s why I don’t want you to repeat it.”
“But if you hadn’t done all that, you wouldn’t have Rishi. You wouldn’t have met Nova and we wouldn’t have Dad back.”
“Don’t.” She holds her hand up, as if that’ll deflect my words. There’s a crack in her voice. “Don’t throw that in my face. Rishi and I would’ve found each other eventually. What I did was selfish—I hurt you. You were trapped in that awful place and I wish I could take that pain back. Why do I glamour you every morning to hide your scars? Why do you think I do your chores, Lula? Do you think I like being your personal maid? No, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything I did to hurt you. Every single day you’ve been distant and sad, and I know it’s my fault. That’s why I take care of you.”
“You’re right,” I say, solidifying the plans in my mind. I know I’m doing the right thing. “You did hurt me. You owe me, Alex. You owe me. All I want is to try and heal him. That’s it. He’s still in there somewhere. What good is our power if we can’t help the people we love?”
I can see the war playing out in my sister’s mind, but I know she’ll give in to me. She always has because she loves me.
“Once,” she says, holding up a single finger. “We’re trying this once. If Mom and the High Circle figure out what we’re doing, it’s over. If it doesn’t work, you have to let him go.”
“I will,” I say, kissing her hand, knowing a part of me is lying when I say, “I promise.”
6
The Deos, too, learned their limits.
El Fuego extinguished into ash.
La Ola crumbled into salt.
El Terroz clove the earth in pieces.
El Viento fell and kept on falling.
But from their limits, Lady de la Muerte was born.
—The Creation of the Deos, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz
To a sinmago, the High Circle of Brooklyn looks like a nice group of middle-aged friends and family who bring me gifts.
But for brujas, it’s bad luck to visit the sickly empty-handed. Valeria brings me her famous apple pie. The spice and buttery smell of it reminds me I still have an appetite. Gustavo brings me a new prex made of onyx beads, customary for when someone is ill. Lady and the other three women bring flowers and candles that my mother arranges into a makeshift altar in the corner.
“We prayed to La Estrella to guide you back with her light,” Maria tells me, her hands cold and clammy around my cheeks, her puckered smile bleeding burgundy lipstick at the edges.
“I’m better thanks to my family,” I say, sitting up to get down to business.
Her lips uncurl from a smile into a taut line. The High Circle exchanges awkward glances, but I don’t care that I’ve made them uncomfortable because they would’ve let me die. My family isn’t in the best standing anymore either. After what Alex did and after my father’s sudden reappearance, the High Circle has been wary of us. Even Valeria, who was my mother’s midwife for Rose and who survived the Trujillo reign in the Dominican Republic, thinks we’re cursed. They fear the curse of the Mortiz family might cling to them. We’ve even stopped going to our brujeria classes at Lady’s shop.
But despite Alex’s canto gone wrong, I think they fear my father the most. When they walk past, they give him a wide birth. He’s the inexplicable ghost in all our lives, and no one has yet to make sense of him. Dad and Alex, linked by their otherness, linger against the wall as the High Circle sits around my bed.
“Thanks for answering my call, Lady,” I say.
Lady Lunes stands at the foot of my bed. She always looks lost in time, better suited for a smoky lounge from the twenties than now. She wears her long, coarse, black hair wrapped in a scarlet scarf that matches her lips and brings out the mahogany of her brown skin. A necklace of a dozen tiny mirrors hangs from her neck, and her dark eyes travel the room, detached and somber. Hospitals scare all of us who have magic. The air is thick with lingering spirits, not all of them good.
But her voice is calm as she says, “We’ve missed you at classes. It’s been boring without you and Alex fighting all day.”
“Why did you call us here?” Gustavo asks anxiously. He’s about the same age as my dad, with two sons, one who just had his Deathday. We were not invited.
With their eyes on me, my sisters have a chance to move on with our plan. Time to draw their attention as long as I can.
“I know my parents asked you to heal me, and that you declined.” I keep my face stern and my head high, even if every moment of it takes all my strength. At least Valeria and Lady have the decency to look sorry. “And I want you to know that I’m not upset, even if some of us are family. But I want to implore the High Circle to heal Maks and save his life. I’ve never asked anything of you before, and I’m prepared to pay any price.”
“Selfish,” Gustavo mutters even before I get in my last word.
“Watch your tongue,” my father says. He doesn’t move an inch, but Gustavo flinches back as if my dad struck him.
“Stop!” Alex gets up, putting up a barrier between them with her magic. The shield lasts a few moments, rippling like the clearest water. It reminds them of her power, the power none of them have, not even an Alta Bruja like Lady. “If anyone knows what it’s like to confront the darkness, it’s me. I defeated the Devourer, or have you forgotten?”
“I was there, Alex, of course I haven’t,” Lady says dryly.
Alex places a hand on Lady’s back and smiles apologetically. Then my sister looks at me and takes a deep, shaky breath. “That’s why I can’t let you do this.”
“Alex, if you ruin this,” I say, “I swear on the Deos—”
“What’s going on?” Ma asks, eyes darting between Alex and me.
“What aren’t you telling us?” Lady points in my direction, her voice fills the room like billowing smoke. “Ever since I stepped foot in this room, I can’t get a read on you. Not that it’s surprising considering the energies surrounding your family.”
“I’m sorry, Lula,” Alex says. I start to speak, but she holds her hand up, closes it. My throat burns and I wheeze, scratching at the sides of my neck. She’s stolen my voice. A pulsing light is trapped under her fingers.