“You could go back to Oros and give him your little moon,” he tells me. “But you wouldn’t, would you? I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Ladybird. If you can’t learn to sacrifice the small things, you’ll never get the thing you’re after.”
I focus on the silver waves that undulate beneath us, the dark shore that starts to take the shape of caves. One step closer to getting to the labyrinth.
As we keep going, every face that I see in the wave fills my heart with more hurt. I regret the choices I made that brought us here. I regret putting my family in danger. I breathe the sorrow in the wind, and its breaks my concentration.
“Alejandra—” the souls call to me, cut off by the wind.
“Alex,” Nova says. “What are you doing?”
I realize I’ve started to lean toward the water. The oar starts to slide through the ring holding it in place. I lunge for it, but filmy, silver hands reach up and grab it. I manage to grip the top of the handle, but they’re so strong.
“Nova, I can’t hold it.”
“Let it go!”
The souls pull the oar out of my grasp. On the other side of the vessel, the souls yank the other oar from my grip. The momentum makes me fall backward. My head hits the ledge so hard I’m afraid to open my eyes out of fear of seeing stars. What was it Oros said? If you make it to the other side.
“Take my oars,” Nova tells me.
I step around him to swap seats and start to row. He unzips the backpack and grabs the mace club by the handle. He swings upward and smashes the first hand that tries to climb over the side.
“To your left!” I shout as another soul pushes itself over the side. The spiked head of the club slams into its face, and it flies back into the river.
“Thanks.” He turns to me with a flashing smile that doesn’t last. His eyes widen when he sees something behind me. He jumps over my seat, rocking us precariously. I try not to look back, to focus on rowing, but his screams are distracting.
“It’s like Whac-A-Mole for the dead,” he says, panting more and more with every swing.
There’s no way he can handle every one of them on both ends of the boat.
“Keep them away with your light!”
He looks at his palm. The worry crease on his forehead is deeper than ever. He shakes his head.
“My powers don’t work like that,” he says. “I can’t hold it for long.”
“You have to!”
He stands, holding his inked palms up to the sky. He conjures a light that halos his entire body. It pulses with energy, spreading all around us.
For a while, it works. The light kisses my skin and warms the cold breath coming from the silver river. Then he starts to weaken. He grinds his teeth, like he’s holding on to a great weight. He falters.
And so do I.
My head throbs where I hit it. My thoughts are a messy stream of faces. My family. Oros. The dead of the river. I can’t tell if the voices I hear are in my head or not. Except for his voice. Nova says my name. It’s a desperate thing, and I know if I don’t focus, we’re lost. I row and row and row, despite the fire in my muscles and the pain in head.
“Alejandra.” The voice I heard before comes again, like someone searching for me in a crowd. I can almost see her. It isn’t coming from the river of souls. It’s something else—someone else. When I look up, hoping to see her familiar face, all I see is death.
The skeletal, silver face lunges at me. The boat has come to a slow, painful drag. The withered creatures are pulling apart from their eternal soup and clamoring for us. They cling to the oars as I struggle to row. They cling to the top of the stern and the golden dragon’s head at the bow.
Nova screams my name. With his magic exhausted, he picks up the mace again and swings. I channel the magic inside me, but it’s thinning and weak, and I can’t get ahold of it. What’s the point of being what I am if I can’t use it when I need it to save my life?
The hungry soul bends over the side of the boat, its body a disfigured, warped mass of bone. I can feel the cold of its being, the angry force that keeps it moving. Those deathly hands reach for me, inching closer to my skin. This can’t end before we’ve even started.
My voice is a horse scream and I grab the soul. I hold its skull. It’s like nothing I would have ever thought touching a soul would feel like. The skin on my palms bubbles and burns. When I close my eyes, I see my mother wrapping her arms around me after I burned my hands on the stove. I know that’s impossible, but I feel her now, warm and comforting. And when I open my eyes, I know it’s the memory I needed to channel my magic back from its hiding place.
Power erupts from my chest in a blast of fire. I can feel the heat of it on my face. The magic rushes through my veins and lights up my senses. With all my strength, I push the creature back into the river, and it writhes and cries out in the terrible wail of the damned.
Above us, the sky crackles; the lightning looks more like the sparks at the end of fried cables. Rain descends on us, hard and fast. Without oars, the river is an angry rush that starts to push us off our path.
“Alex—help me.”
My red, raw hands tremble. Nova can’t fight them all, and it took so much of my energy just to push one of them away.
“There has to be another way,” I shout.
The winds get stronger now and carry the whisper of my name with them. I can’t see her, but I can feel her spirit in the breeze that wraps around me. She’s been calling me since we got on the river. Aunt Rosaria. I know it’s her. I can’t tell if she’s haunting me or guiding me.
I pull on my magic. I reach out to the wind and grab it. The wind itself latches on to my power. The gust is so strong that our boat is lifted up into the air and away from the silver hands that grasp for us. So strong it nearly knocks me overboard, but Nova holds on to me like an anchor.
“Nova!”
He takes my hand, and I let my power flow, our magics melding together like metals under fire. Up in the air, we’re safe. I wish I could look at us from a distance—a flying, golden boat sailing across the River Luxaria.
“This is amazing!” he shouts over the moaning wind.
I squeeze his hand as we climb higher and higher, and I think there is nothing as wonderful as feeling like you can fly.
“We’re not slowing down.” Panic takes over my sense of triumph. “We’re about to pass the shore!”
I let go of Nova’s hand. The wind cuts out around me, and I fight to rein it back in.
“Just a little longer, Alex,” Nova tells me. “You can land this thing.”
“It isn’t a plane,” I shout.
“We have to jump,” he says.
I shake my head and cling to the sides of the boat. We spin in a funnel of air. Doubt clouds my mind. I had it under control, and now I’ve lost it. The black beach is fast approaching.
“Hold on!” he shouts. For the second time today, we’re falling.
My muscles seize and spasm from the recoil of my magic, so I’m unable to shout, I can’t!
But when he wraps his arms around me, I realize he isn’t telling me to hold on to my magic or the ship.
He means, “Hold on to me.”
16
Like a shadow, she crept across the land.
Like a weed, she took hold and grew.