I shut my eyes. I see him walking in front of the car that day. I see him crossing the street while looking back at me.
“It wasn’t hard to find you. There aren’t many of us left, you know? Everyone knows someone, but none of them had your potential. A score that big, I could get the Devourer to keep up her end of our bargain. To set me free. All I had to do was swap out your Deathday ingredients with mine, and your power would get sent here. It was easy to do when I dropped off my delivery. I didn’t expect your whole family to get in the way to protect you. I didn’t know what would happen, Alex. The Devourer still wanted you. Without you, none of this would work.”
“You created the portal. You made me think I banished them.” I shut my eyes for a moment, and tears run down my face. He starts to touch my hand. “Don’t.”
“There’s more.”
I turn to run through the hedge, but something grips me from behind. White-hot pain sears my skin. Magic floods my veins, and then we’re on the ground together. Pure magic flares through me so quickly that my head spins. His memories flood into my mind. I see my face the way he sees me, hear his heart slamming against his ears like fists against the wall.
There’s Nova as a kid, beating his knuckles bloody on a wall of exposed brick. His tortured back cut up in cruel, bloody gashes.
There’s a little boy hiding in a closet while guns go off in the next room.
There’s a police officer throwing him into a bus like a criminal.
There’s home after home. Monstrous hands that come out of the shadows. His heart beating and beating until it creates a spark. The magic finds him and burns a woman’s face.
There’s Nova, older, bolder.
There’s a boy who never got the chance to be a child. He roams the streets all night and sleeps in the nooks and crannies of the subway, the park, the construction site of a million-dollar high-rise. He’s so hungry he steals and steals until he’s just another shadow in the city.
The black marks start to spread every time he uses his magic. At first, he measures the progress, but soon enough he stops caring. He calls them tattoos.
People look at him a certain way. Fear. Awe. It’s the same thing, I guess. He’s older still, pulling his hood over his face so people won’t ask him what he is. Brown skin and light eyes, like the world’s biggest mystery.
He finds friends on the streets. Lost boys and girls surviving by any means necessary. There’s an accident. A girl screaming. A man with a gun. Nova uses his magic to scare away an attack. The girl runs in fear, not of the attacker but of him. There are blue and red and white lights, and accusations.
There’s juvenile detention. There are men there with magic too. They smell like steel and blood and fire. They whisper of a creature who can help. They call her the Devourer. She appears like a succubus in his dreams, all red lips and promises.
There’s hope. For the first time in so long, there’s hope.
He’s a pied piper of souls. He leads power to the woman with the mask of death. He hears their screams as she consumes. He wants to break away, but he’s bound to her. He longs for her promise to make him strong. He searches for more. He’s walking to a job. He almost gets hit by a car. There’s a girl. He sees her fear. Her power. He knows her from around the way. He loves her anger and her fight. He loves the way she holds her fears close to her heart. The Devourer sees her too. That’s the girl. Watch her. Wait. She’s the One.
He leads her down the dark. He holds her. She saves him. He saves her. He wants her. He loves her. But the human girl loves her too.
He betrays them. He doesn’t want to die.
The sound of rushing blood roars in my ears. Our connection breaks.
I sit up, shaking in his arms.
“There’s nothing I can do to make things right with you,” he tells me. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
He holds out his hand.
It’s a stranger’s hand, a traitor’s hand.
“This doesn’t change a thing,” I tell him.
As the sky breaks above us with pouring rain, Nova creates a long passage through the hedge. There, at the end of the narrow path, is the Tree of Souls.
37
Find me where the sun meets the moon.
Past the wicked trees,
past the desert dunes.
—Witchsong #2, Book of Cantos
Nova and I run through the maze. The hedges try to shift, try to trick me, but I barrel forward. I smash at the dead hands that reach from the black leaves with my mace. I can smell fire and smoke. It starts on the outer rings of the labyrinth and races toward the center.
“How did you do this?” Nova asks me.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” I hope Aunt Ro and Rishi are safe out there.
I stop at the base of the Tree of Souls and land on my knees. I feel dwarfed by its grandeur. Its long, thick branches reach for the sky, barren of any foliage. Instead of leaves, the branches are filled with hundreds of cocoons. The cocoons pulse with white light, and when I touch the tree trunk, I get impressions of the powers trapped in there.
Alex! I hear Lula shout.
She made it, another voice.
Encantrix, a united whisper.
“I’m here,” I say, then a sharp pain digs into my side. The blast sends me flying back, away from the tree and crashing into Nova.
Black, sinewy smoke surrounds us, toys with us. I pick myself up and get ready for another attack. The smoke settles in front of me and materializes into the Devourer. Her eyes are a deeper red now, almost black. Dry, red lips smirk. Her neck twitches, as if something inside of her is fighting to get out.
“Nova. I’m surprised,” she says. “I thought human self-preservation was better than that. I suppose not.”
“I’m used to being a disappointment,” he says without a trace of irony.
“I’m taking my family back,” I tell her.
“How?” she asks. “Kill me? You can’t. You’re alone. You’ll always be alone. I have your power, your family. Now, I’m going to take your life.”
“Enough, Xara!”
I turn around at the sound of his voice. Agosto, the Faun King, is flanked by his people. They wear armor made of tree bark and metal, their weapons are ready to charge. Madra stands beside the faun and bows her head in my direction. The avianas flap their wings and caw a warning. There are so many of them, even creatures I don’t recognize.
The Devourer takes a step back. It’s a single step, but it’s enough to show she didn’t expect this.
“The tribes of Los Lagos,” she says, recovering easily. “We’ve been down this road before. It never ends well for any of you.”
“Maybe this time it will,” I tell her.
“Look at you,” she says. “I love it. A few days ago, you were scared of your own shadow. Now, you’re ready to lead a rebellion.”
I’m still not ready, I think. My heart pounds. My legs shake. But I have to be.