Then she turns to Rishi and me. “You two! Stay here.”
With a great flap of wings, the avianas disappear farther into the caves.
? ? ?
“Tell me everything,” Rishi says.
She leads me to a stream flowing inside the caves. The water glows blue, reflecting the phosphorescent green moss clinging to the side of giant boulders. She fills up a waterskin.
I’m so thirsty. I lower myself at the water’s edge and drink as if there isn’t enough of it on this earth to quench my thirst. It’s the purest water I’ve ever tasted, and when I’ve had my fill, I sit back on the cool stone. Rishi sits across from me. Her nose ring sparkles like the gems in the cave wall behind her. I want to touch her face to make sure she’s really here. But I hesitate. My magic flutters in my stomach again. I reach for the loose strand of hair falling over her face and tuck it back. Rishi is here.
“It’s so good to see you.”
She purses her lips and scowls. “Nice try. I’m still mad at you for standing me up.”
“The Ghoul Ball,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Just don’t do things to be sorry for. Now that you don’t have a choice, tell me. What the hell is going on?”
So I tell her about my family. About the magic of the brujas and brujos that exist in the world. About my Deathday and how I tried to send my powers back to where they came from. I tell her about Nova and how he’s helping me. When I’m all caught up, she just stares.
“Wow,” she whispers.
“Wow?”
“This is so cool.”
“I don’t think cool is the word I’d use.”
“Alex, you’re crazy. Why would you give up your powers? Imagine all the things you could do!”
“You don’t get it.” I pull my hand from hers. “Magic destroys. It’s only brought my family pain and death and loneliness. I thought I could break the cycle. Instead, I made things worse. I know what I did was wrong. I didn’t think about the consequences. That’s why I’m here to fix it. But I can’t do that without Nova.”
We’re quiet for a long time, listening to the hooting whispers of sleeping birds in nests high above and the ribbit of frog-like creatures that catch bugs from the stream.
“Your turn,” I tell Rishi. “How did you get here?”
“By the time I realized you weren’t coming, I called your house. No one answered, so I decided to just go yell at you myself. So then I pulled up to your house and there’s police circling the block and an ambulance. The doors and windows looked broken. They put that yellow tape up all over the place. I went in through your neighbor’s yard and climbed over the fence. The tree in your yard was doing this really weird thing, like it was breathing from the giant hole in its trunk. I could hear you screaming when I got real close. You and that guy. Also, where did he come from and how come you haven’t mentioned him before?”
“Wait, wait.” My head is swimming. “You just jumped in after me?”
“Of course I did,” she says. “I thought you were in trouble. Really, Alex, how could you not tell me about this? I knew your family was into some weird stuff, but in my head, it was like voodoo or Santeria or like Scientology or something. This is real magic. You are really magic.”
She says it with such furor that I don’t want to contradict her.
“When I jumped into the tree, I thought it would lead me to you.”
“Nova said portals are unpredictable. A one-way trip.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I just remember I started falling through the sky, over this silver river. I lost a lot of feathers on the way down. One wing is a little loose.” She shimmies one shoulder to show me. Then, in a low voice, she quickly adds, “Madra caught me before I fell in the river. They made me an honorary aviana because of my wings. I told her I needed to find you, but she said it isn’t safe out there.”
“She’s right,” I say, sounding more like Nova than I’d like. “We have to get you home. I’ll find a way to get Nova and get out. Then we’ll figure out a way to make a portal for you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “I came because I thought you were in trouble. You made a snake come out of a boy’s throat for me. I’m not going to leave you in some Neverland dimension with a guy you don’t even know. Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t want me here.”
I make an exasperated sound. “I do want you here.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that if you get hurt, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
“So you care about what happens to me but not about what happens to that guy you’re with?”
“His name’s Nova,” I say. “I hired him as my guide.”
“Well, that’s fine because I’m here for free.”
She smiles smugly, and I can tell I’ve lost this argument. Rishi might be almost as stubborn as Lula.
“So it’s settled,” she says. “Did you bring any food? There isn’t much to eat around here.”
“It’s in our backpack. But Nova was carrying it last.”
“I think I saw where it fell.” She takes off in a sprint, her black wings bouncing against her shoulders.
I take this second alone to compose myself. I press my hands on a boulder of shimmering stone. This land has a heartbeat. It’s faint, but I can feel it. It helps calm my fried nerves a little. What am I going to do to get us out of here? What if the avianas never let us leave?
Get a grip, I tell myself. You are taking Rishi and Nova and you’re going to keep going. I reach into my back pocket for the map, but when I can’t find it, I realize Nova must have it.
“Over here!” Rishi shouts from the other side of the cave. She holds the backpack in the air.
I return to the dais, where molten feathers litter the ground. There’s blood where the injured avianas fell. When I was hurt by the maloscuro, Lula and my mother healed me. Maybe these creatures have their own healers. The scars on my chest burn at the memory of that hideous, grinning face, those bloody claws.
We find a spot that’s relatively clean to sit and eat. I munch on a protein bar while Rishi tears into the bag of beef jerky. Avianas fly down from their nests in their bird forms and stand around us like seagulls at the beach. I remember the hunger in their eyes. Some of them have lost all their feathers. I can see their rib cages poke through skin, and my hunger goes away.
I take the two loaves of bread, the beef jerky, and the apples. I leave them out on the dais.
“Go on,” I tell them.
They swoop down on the food in a mad frenzy. It’s gone in seconds.
Rishi smiles at me. I forgot how much I missed her smile, like there’s an infinite well of happiness inside of her. I forgot how good I feel just being in her company.
“Why are they like this?” I ask Rishi.
“The way Madra tells it,” she says, “it’s too dangerous for them to go out. There’s some bad juju on the land. It wants the avianas to join her side. The avianas won’t, so the creature is starving them out. They call it—”