He nods and disappears with her.
When she’s gone, I sink to the ground. I curl into fetal position. I spent so many days and nights in my room like this, begging La Mama to take the power from me. Now that it’s gone, I feel a void. A cold sweat bubbles on my skin. I shiver uncontrollably and dig my fingers into the earth. I can’t hear the pulse of the land or hear the words in the wind. I can’t feel my family anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Alex,” Rishi cries. “Alex, please get up.”
Rishi needs me, I tell myself. The vines are still squeezing her. I hear the crack of a rib, followed by Rishi’s scream. I push myself up and find my dagger. I slice the vines, but it’s a hydra. Everywhere I cut, the vines multiply and grow. I start digging around Rishi’s feet until I find the root. I stab the core of the plant over and over until it lets go of Rishi and dries up.
I catch Rishi as she falls. She wraps her arms around my neck and we cling to each other. The land here is gray and bleak, cast in the shadow of the labyrinth. I search for the magic inside of me but it’s gone.
“I failed them,” I say.
Rishi shakes her head into my shoulder. “You’re still alive.”
“Sh.” I brush her hair out of her face. She’s covered in her own blood. I reach for my power to heal her and come up empty. The void inside me grows bigger by the second. I try to conjure a spark between my fingers, and when I can’t, I pound my fists against the ground. “You know when you want something so badly, but when you get it, it’s not what you expected?”
She nods, stroking her thumb over my cheekbone.
“That’s what it felt like when I gave her my power. Only a thousand times worse. When we were back home, I thought it was the magic that made me do terrible things. I’ve always blamed the magic. I hid behind it. But here, magic was the only thing that made sense. Now it’s gone.”
Alejandra, a voice whispers to me.
Rishi turns to the labyrinth. She heard it too. It’s different from the voice I was hearing in my head. That was the voice of my power guiding me. This voice is different. It sounds like my aunt Rosaria.
“I want you to take the mace,” I tell Rishi. “Find a place to hide.”
She makes a very loud noise that lets me know she’s not going to listen. “I heard that too.”
“I don’t have my power to protect us, but if the Devourer thinks I’m going to turn around and go home, she’s wrong.”
“She can’t feed from the tree until the eclipse,” Rishi says. Her lips are swelling, but she refuses to stay quiet. “You heard her. She’ll have your family’s power. She’ll come into our world.”
I think of what Agosto said. She’s nearly drained Los Lagos dry. She needs somewhere else to go. With our combined power, she could break free of Los Lagos and into my world.
“You were right before when you said the answer is in the Tree of Souls. Nova was just trying to make you second-guess yourself because he was working for her.”
That stings more than it should. I’ll deal with Nova later on.
The tree. The answers lie in the tree.
“We have to get through the labyrinth. What would Lula do? Without my powers, they can’t reach me. I wish I could ask them.”
“Do you know what I ask myself sometimes?” Rishi takes my hand in hers. “What would Alex do?”
I press my forehead to hers. The thing that drew me to Rishi was her happiness, the way she wore it on her sleeve, the way it lit her up like the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Now, in the most hopeless of places, she gives me that light.
We pull each other up. We face the labyrinth. There’s a swirl of black-and-gray clouds directly above it. I take a deep breath and stretch my aching muscles. No power, no recoil.
Rishi takes my dagger, and I sling the mace over my shoulder.
I’m not the encantrix everyone thought I would be. Right now, I’m just a girl, and there is also magic in that.
Part III
The One
34
I search for you in lost fields.
Hear me, my dear. Your loved ones wait here.
—Canto of Spirits, Book of Cantos
We run into the Campo de Almas.
There is no life, only dirt where nothing grows and rain doesn’t fall. The sky is a fiery burst of red, like the top of the sky is on fire while the rest of it sleeps.
The campo is a field of wandering souls. These souls are different than the ones in the river. They’re thin as fog and move slowly, like they’ve forgotten where they’re going. I wonder what’s worse than roaming aimlessly without knowing you’re dead.
A cold hand grabs at me, and I instinctively pull on my magic. Nothing comes. The hand on my shoulder is cold and soft. As soon as it touches my skin, it passes through me. They’re less than ghosts—they’re shells of memory. The soul repeats a word I don’t understand. I realize it’s a girl’s name. He says it over and over in a gruff voice, like it’s the only word he remembers, the only word that matters beyond years and life and death.
“What’s wrong with them?” Rishi asks.
Directly above us is the labyrinth. It hits me. “This is where she throws them away after she drains their energy.”
Rishi takes my hand, and we run through the wandering souls. Their essences make my skin pucker, my heart ache. I can’t let his happen to my family. Rishi squeezes my hand tighter. We’re chain links of desperation attached to one another.
We reach the twisting black arches that mark the entrance of the labyrinth.
“Stay close,” I tell her.
We step inside. The deep-blue darkness surrounds us, and I prick myself on the twisting vines that wrap around the labyrinth wall. The path is narrow and littered with stones. Above me, the sky is a sea of storm clouds. My eyes adjust to the dark. The hedges tremble as they shift. A deep rumble shakes the ground. My heart is in my throat as I tell myself to run. Pick a path. Neither is going to be safe. Leaves and branches change shape.
“The entrance is closing!” Rishi tries to run for it, but the archway disappears and she hits a wall.
There’s no way out.
“You should’ve gone home,” Nova says, appearing in front of us.
“You’re moving on up,” Rishi tells him. “The Devourer got you a new wardrobe and everything. Tell me, who are you wearing?”
“Shut up,” he snaps. His broad torso is covered in a black material that looks as slick as oil but as hard as metal. It’s trim and simple and makes his eyes that much brighter. He says my name.
I pull my arm back and punch him. His head snaps back and blood gushes from his nose. My knuckles throb and my arm hurts like hell, but I want to do it again.
“Don’t,” he tells me.
“Why are you here?” I ask him. “You got what you wanted. You’ve got a power boost and it only took how many sacrifices?”