The music dies, replaced by whispers. Hundreds of eyes turn to stare at me.
“What the hell was that?” Nova turns to Rodriga. The salamander girl throws her goblet on the ground.
I hold up my hand to Nova. This isn’t his fight. It’s mine.
“Come on, encantrix,” Rodriga says. “Let’s see that power fly.”
“What’s your problem?” A dark coil of energy wraps itself around me. I could unleash it. I could make her hurt.
“Your weakness. Your lies. Your fear. I could smell it on you before you entered the meadow. You get to sing and dance and fall in love, while the rest of us have to be this for eternity.”
My anger snaps like a whip around her throat. I can feel her struggle for breath. Her pulse slowing in my veins.
I gasp and let her go. This isn’t me.
But it is, the voice in my head whispers.
Rodriga coughs, managing a weak laugh. “Maybe there is hope yet.”
I grit my teeth and keep my fists balled at my sides. “Why can’t magical people ever say what they really mean?”
“My Meadow King,” Rodriga hisses. Agosto is walking across the meadow. “I’m bound to him and the meadow. You don’t belong here, wretched girl. Get out before it’s too late.”
“But—”
“Rodriga!” Agosto shouts. His face is all shadows. His powerful, hoofed legs stomp across the meadow. His voice is a thunderclap. “I warned you.”
His fists hit her in the chest. She flies back and slams into a tree. The air around her splinters for the blink of an eye. She grabs her side and then slowly picks herself back up.
“Did you see that?” I whisper to Nova. Nova shakes his head. He holds his hand out, like he’s telling me to keep whatever I’ve seen to myself.
Agosto’s dark eyes trace the perimeter of the meadow, then fall back to me. “I am sorry if she has displeased you. Please, eat.”
Eat? How can I eat after this? At his command, dozens of adas run to the banquet table.
A fat bird with thorns coming out of his side lands on Agosto’s shoulder. It squawks in his ear, but Agosto shows no sign that it bothers him.
“Excuse me,” Agosto says. He conjures his flute and begins to play. The notes sound rougher, deeper than before.
Despite the openness of the meadow, it starts to feel small, like the trees are encroaching. A shadow howls in the wind, sending shivers along my skin. You don’t belong here, wretched girl. Get out before it’s too late.
Too late for what? My senses are groggy, like I’m waking from a long, long sleep. I know something isn’t right, but part of me still wants to believe in the spell of the meadow. Spell.
It’s all a spell.
Wretched girl. That’s what I am. That’s why I’m here in the first place. A jolt runs through me like lightning. My mind clears, and all at once, I can see their faces—my family. My mother. My mother was here and I turned my back on her again.
Wretched girl.
Too late.
“We have to go,” I shout at Nova.
“Wait.” Nova presses his hand to his stomach and shakes his head. “I’m going to be sick.”
He doubles over and throws up at my feet. I rub his back until he stops. I try to help him stand, but his knees give out and we fall on the grass.
“I can’t,” he cries.
“I’m going to get Rishi. Wait here.”
I search for her in the clusters of adas but can’t find her. The stench of rotting fruit is overwhelming. When I look down at the banquet table, all I see is moldy bread and fruits cracked open like skulls. Feverish fingers scoop the sloppy meat down their gullets. Fat tears run down their faces as they binge on the rotten feast. All the while, the music plays on. The adas stomp their hooves, claws, and feet to the rhythm of the flute and the strum of golden strings.
“Rishi!” I scream for her.
Rodriga’s words start to make sense. I fell for the spell of the meadow. We have to be this for eternity.
Then I see her.
Panic rushes through me as Rishi extends her arm to a fairy girl. The acrid smell of rot and bodily waste makes my head spin. Look twice.
The bracelet in the ada’s hand changes, and I see it for what it really is.
I break into a run, but I know I won’t make it in time. I hold my arms out and blast a shot of raw power at the ada. She flies back into an invisible barrier between two oak trees. The air fractures like a crack in a windowpane. Her bracelets are replaced by rusty manacles.
Blink. The glamour returns and they’re bracelets again.
Blink. I can see the adas for what they truly are—gaunt, thin, wrinkled. I wave my hand over the banquet table and find the glamour. I tear it down so the table reveals itself to all. The creatures wail and scream and cry. Nova squeezes his temples with his palms. Rishi gets on the ground and heaves.
“No!” The adas turn away from the banquet. “We cannot see! We cannot see!”
The table is nothing but rotting wood, the plates of rank food covered in slick, fat maggots.
The flute in Agosto’s hands disappears.
“You keep them here,” I tell him. “Why?”
The faun ambles toward me. His muscles ripple in the break-of-day light. The Meadowkin behind him cower.
“Is that what you see?” Agosto asks me. He is no longer the wild king of the forest I first saw. It’s as if all the wonder and hope has drained from his voice.
“You said you brought your people here for a better life, but you’re torturing them!”
Agosto tries to grab for me, to stop me, but I smack away his touch. My magic collides with him. He’s glamoured too. I can feel the magic around his aura. He shakes his head, but I’ve already gone too far. I break away his facade, revealing the shackles around his own wrists. The chain drags from the roots of the tree at the center of the meadow. Agosto sinks to his knees, like the weight of his horns is too much.
“Encantrix,” he says. “I’m trying to save us all.”
“By trapping me here?”
“I had no choice. She instructed us to keep you here. The way you saw the meadow when you arrived—that is how we used to be. Before we defied her. Before we lost. She will come for you. She will take everything you love. Your power can change everything. Your power—”
Agosto snaps his head toward the hiss coming from the trees. The winds change, bringing a terrible cold with them. Shadows whisper in my ears.
“She is coming.” Agosto jumps to his hooves and grabs me by the shoulders, pushing me to the border of the meadow. “Run to the Wastelands. Just run!”
“I can’t leave without them!” I try to shove the faun out of my way but he’s too solid. I scream for Nova and Rishi, but they’re too sick to understand, eyes glazed and smiles plastered on their faces. They don’t know we’re in danger. They stumble in my direction, listening to the ghost of the adas’ songs.
“Fix them,” I tell Agosto.
He shakes his head. “The only way is to purge the poison.”
“Poison?”
I grab Rishi’s arm first and wrap it around my shoulder. I turn and Nova trips over his own feet. I can carry one, but not the other.