We cut through the wild grass. It practically swallows Rishi and me whole. Nova could pass for a disembodied head walking across the top of the emerald-green sea. Giant flowers grow in brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange. We use our knives and the mace to part our way and keep the flower’s thorny vines from scratching our skin. Still, when we reach the road at the clearing, my arms are covered in dozens of thin scratches.
The road here is dusty and sunken in, like thousands of feet have walked across it. Who were they? I wonder. What were they searching for?
Nova reaches for something around his neck—his prex, but it’s gone. Instead, he kisses the back of his thumb. “Thank El Papa for our passage.”
Rishi gives me a sideways glance and shrugs. I’ve got no one to ask blessings to because I know in my heart I don’t deserve it. Instead, I lower my head and ask El Guardia, Protector of All Living Things, to watch over my family.
We get to the fork in twenty minutes. I press on the sides of my watch. When it beeps, Nova’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stares at the paths in front of us.
“I’m not sure about this,” he says.
“Madra said to take the right path,” I say.
“Why are you so eager to trust the birds over me?”
Rishi coughs into her hand and says something that sounds like, “Thief.”
“Let’s look at this objectively,” I say. “The left path leads to the trail I wanted to take between Bone Valle and the Poison Garden.”
“I don’t know how I feel about bones or poison,” Rishi says.
“See?” Nova asks.
I scoff. “Now you agree with each other.”
The left fork looks bulldozed, cleared of trees and rubble.
“Now let’s look at my path,” Nova says, pointing to the one in the middle. The way is green and vibrant, lined by lush trees. White butterflies flutter by the dozens. When the wind blows, petals and leaves fall to the ground. Fuzzy animals that remind me of overgrown hamsters race from tree trunk to tree trunk. “It’s goddamn angelic is what it is.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Rishi says, “but that third one, the ‘right’ one we’re supposed to take, doesn’t look so hot.”
She’s not wrong. The third path is out of my worst nightmares. The trees are dry and black, like used coal. Thin and tangled like barbed wire, and just as prickly. A hunched, furless cat scatters up a tree with something dead in its jaws.
“I’m not just doing this to contradict you,” Nova says. “We don’t know Madra. For all we know, she could be leading us into a trap. The Meadow and the Wastelands lead to the mountain pass. Let’s take the way that looks less likely to kill us.”
“But—”
“You paid for a guide, Ladybird. So let me guide.”
Doubt makes my thoughts spin. I reset my stopwatch to keep track of our next leg. “It seems too easy.”
“We deserve a bit of easy, don’t you think?” Nova smiles, and it lights up his whole face.
Rishi raises her hand. “I like it easy.”
Madra did tell me to look twice. The more I look at the path on the right, the more it frightens me. A tiny imp creature lazily drags a bloody bag over his shoulders. It glares at us with black eyes, bares a row of tiny sharp teeth, and hisses, “Intruders.”
The middle path sings with light and life. One step closer to my family.
Finally, I hold my hands out and say, “After you.”
22
Look twice, my child,
for shadows change
and so do faces.
—Rezo de las Brujas
“So far, so breezy,” Nova says, whistling as we walk.
Their good mood is a wordless shift that happens when he flanks me on the right and Rishi on my left. It’s like there was never a different path or option. This was the only one.
As we walk, my magic tickles my skin. Something about these woods is magnetic. I want to reach out and let my power free, but I hold back.
“I wonder if the rest of Los Lagos looked like this once,” Rishi says. She picks up a white flower that fell from a tree and tucks it behind her ear. “Before the energy-sucking monster started destroying everything.”
“When I was little,” Nova says, “my gran used to say that Los Lagos began as a waiting place for spirits. La Mama and El Papa created it for the afterlife. But then the land took on a life of its own. It became solid. Grass and forests began to grow. Mountains formed, prairies shifted, and lakes and rivers cut across them all. The Tree of Souls was always the heart of it. Then the Deos sent animals and half-beings that didn’t belong in the human realm anymore.”
“Like the dodo bird?” Rishi asks hopefully. Out of every extinct animal, she wants to see a real-life dodo.
Nova chuckles. “Something like that. People came after that. Brujas and brujos were banished here. Some even came on their own, seeking to build a new life.”
“When did the Devourer show up?” I ask. Tiny animals on the trees shudder when I say the shadow creature’s name.
“I don’t know,” Nova says. “Maybe she was banished here or maybe she was here from the start.”
“I wish Madra were less cryptic,” I say. “I think the answer to defeating the Devourer is in the tree. Maybe we’ll come across another one of the tribes Madra mentioned. Maybe we can get real answers.”
“Maybe.” Rishi is half listening, half petting tiny, green fairies that jump on branches and walk alongside us. They come in all the colors of the forest, with gossamer bodies and slick, bald heads crowned with thorns. They seem to make it a game of seeing who can get the biggest bite out of us.
One opens its tiny pink mouth and goes for my face. I pinch her leathery skin and hold her up to my lips. I blow at the fairy, like she’s an eyelash at the tip of my finger. As she floats away, I wonder if I should’ve made a wish. Nova, on the other hand, flicks at one that lands on his shoulder. It hits a tree but recovers quickly, spitting in our wake.
“It’s hard to think of Madra being afraid of anyone,” Rishi says. “When she caught me in the middle of the sky, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Not that Hindus believe in that heaven, but you know what I mean.”
“Monsters are the origin for a lot of human myths,” Nova tells her. “Like angels.”
“Madra isn’t a monster!” Rishi says. “Madra is doing the same thing as Alex. She’s trying to keep her people alive. The Devourer is a monster.”
I remember the night of my Deathday. The portal opened up, and she was on the other side, waiting, her face hidden by the horned skull of a hideous beast. I’ve found you, she told me.
“I wonder what the Devourer looks like beneath that bone helmet,” I say. “The Book doesn’t have a sketch.”
“The avianas described her as a ‘terror in the night,’” Rishi says. “I’m not sure I want to find out what that looks like.”
“In a place of magic like this,” Nova says, “power doesn’t always have a single shape. It just is. Maybe the Devourer is a beautiful woman one moment and a winged demon the next.”
“I suppose it shouldn’t matter what she is,” I say, “as long as I can defeat her.”
Rishi makes a pondering sound. “What if she has a million eyes or poisonous fangs or, I don’t know, a flaming sword. What if she’s human?”