“Please,” I say. “My name is Al—Alejandra Mortiz.”
“I know who you are,” she says. “And I know your tale is a lie. I can smell it on you the way I smell your fear and hear the rattle of the dead that trails at your feet. Now, tell me, Alejandra Mortiz. Why are you here?”
Footsteps echo through the cave, but the aviana still waits for my answer. The guards behind us flaps their wings as a girl pushes past them and onto the dais.
I feel cold from head to feet. It can’t be her.
“Madra,” she says, putting a hand on the aviana’s shoulder.
Madra, the leader of the avianas, turns around and opens her arms to let her wings open to their full span.
“I told you to stay in your nest,” Madra hisses.
It can’t be her. It’s a spell. A mirage. She twists hers hands, freshly painted in henna, and smiles nervously. I want to run to her, but find I can’t move. She gets past Madra’s wings and throws her arms around me. The air escapes my lungs, and as my thoughts spin, I find it hard to breathe.
Rishi.
And she’s got wings.
18
On the wings of hope I fly!
—Rezo de El Cielo, Deo of all the Skies
“It’s really you!” I hold Rishi so tight, she grunts and asks for air. I have so many questions I don’t even know how to start. I step back and hold her face gently. Her nose isn’t swollen anymore, and the bruise around her eye is covered by makeup. “I can’t believe it.”
“Rishi,” Madra says, more like a scolding mother. “You were to wait until I questioned the intruders.”
Rishi lets go of me and turns to the aviana. Rishi’s in a long, lace black dress, tattered all along the bottom, and her purple boots. Then there’s the small matter of her wings. I reach out and touch them. They’re long and black and soft. And totally fake. I can see where the elastic loops are for the arms, but her long, black hair covers that.
“I told you, Madra. She’s not an intruder. She’s the one I was telling you about. The girl I was looking for.” Rishi talks to the bird as if they’re longtime friends.
Then again, Rishi does have a way of taking strangers and making them feel like they’ve known each other for years. She did the same thing to me on the first day of freshman year when she found me crying in the girls’ bathroom. I’d gotten myself lost and then found the nearest hiding place. She walked me to class and then showed up afterward to help me find the next one. Now she’s here, and even though I know it isn’t safe for her, a part of me thanks the Deos she is.
“What about the man?” Madra asks.
Rishi shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe if we back off a little, Alex can fill us in on the rest.”
“Us?” I ask. “Rishi, how did you get here?”
She hooks her arm around my shoulder. “Same way you did.”
The ruffle of feathers interrupts her, followed by the heavy thud of an aviana falling forward. She tries to push herself up but her body shivers.
Madra runs to the guard and examines her face. “Jesla? What is it?”
All over the cave, the bird women flap their wings and hoot and caw for their fallen sister.
Rishi holds on to my hand, and I squeeze. A sense of familiarity and comfort washes over me.
“Madra,” two more avianas whimper before falling to the ground.
Madra lifts her face to the dark endlessness of the caves. Her mouth shifts into the golden beak of a hawk. Her cry is loud and full of pain.
Now’s my chance to take Rishi and get out of here. But then, what about Nova? How will we find him? How will we get out?
Madra sweeps the first aviana that fell, the one she called Jesla, into her arms. She gives instructions to take the others into the caves below.
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—”
An involuntary shiver passes over me. “The Devourer.”
“Yes,” Madra says, flying around us until she lands on the dais. “That is the creature who’s ravaged these lands for her own power. That is the creature you seek, isn’t it?”
“It is.” There’s something about Madra that makes me want to stand perfectly still. Nova was right. There’s something about their eyes.
“Are the others okay?” Rishi asks.
Madra turns to the statue of El Cielo and bows her head. My mom does that with the statue of La Mama when she’s asking for strength to deal with three daughters. Madra shuts her eyes and mouths a silent rezo.
When she finally turns to me, her shoulders sag with defeat. “I beg you. Nothing is worth journeying to the Devourer. Her cruelness has conquered many souls across Los Lagos. Those who refuse her remain hidden, scavenging to live. You will only find death.”
“I have to,” I say. “She has my family.”
Madra is quiet for a bit. She takes to pacing again, then comes to a stop in front of me. “What do you know of these lands, bruja?”
I shake my head. “Only the notes in my family’s Book of Cantos. My friend has our map. Can you let him go? We mean you no harm.”
“He will be released when I give the word. Men are not allowed in the Caves of Night.”
“What about this guy?” Rishi says, pointing to El Cielo. “He looks like he has all the man parts.”
“Rishi,” I say through gritted teeth.
Madra actually smiles. “The Deos are more than male or female. They are both and neither at the same time. They are the creators and destroyers of the worlds. Tell me, Alejandra Mortiz, what does your witch book say of my kind?”
Now that the food is gone, the birds have returned to their nests, but their eyes are still cast down at us. So much for a speedy getaway.
“There’s a story about the daughters of El Cielo,” I say, like I’m reciting from a history textbook. “He was Deo of all the Skies. The avianas were made to protect the riches of the world from being stolen. But they failed and were banished from the mortal realm.”
“Failed,” Madra repeats. “I did. I let a man whisper in my ear. I let him into the caves. I let him have the treasures of El Cielo. For that, my curse is to never change. Never age, never die. But not my sisters. They can grow old and sick and hungry. I do the best I can, but the land around us is dying. I can only hunt so much without the saberskins coming for us.”
“What about the others you were talking about?” Rishi asks. She turns to me and elaborates. “There are these tribes that live underground and refuse to give their lands to the Devourer.”
“There are few tribes of creatures left who still fight,” Madra says. “The rest of the land is filled with ghosts and others who gave up long ago. If you continue on your path, you may lose more than your life.”
“I’m the reason my family was taken,” I say. “I have to make things right. No matter what happens to me.”
“Why don’t you come with us, Madra?” Rishi suggests. “Alex is going to free her family, and you can free your lands.”
Madra shakes her head. “My duty is to my people. Their survival is all I live for.”
“But, Madra!”
I take Rishi’s hand to pull her away from the aviana. “Rishi, drop it. Let’s just take Nova and go.”
A sharp whistle pierces the air. Madra turns away from the statue of El Cielo and to the right, where a group of avianas hold Nova by the wrists. A dirty cloth has been shoved in his mouth.
“What are you doing?” I start to run to him, but Madra’s wings expand and push me onto the ground.
The avianas bring Nova forward. His eyes widen when he sees me. Then he frowns when he sees Rishi. He shakes his head and screams through his gag. The avianas speak in sharp cries back and forth.
“Madra, please,” I say.
Madra puffs up her chest. Her face is inches from mine. “Do not plead with me for a boy who does not know the meaning of honor. If you would plead, plead for yourself, Alex Mortiz.”
“What happened?” I start to step forward, but Madra’s wing knocks me back again.
“I have allowed you into our home,” she says, her body shaking with anger. “I have saved you from death. I have made an exception to keep this man in our caves.”
The avianas empty Nova’s pockets. Dozens of glittering crystals and gold fall at his feet.
Madra’s black eyes are endless. She grabs my shoulders with her clawed hands. “But I cannot abide thieves!”
19
Sana, sana, the body endures.
Cura, cura, the soul of the pure.
—Healing Canto, Book of Cantos
The avianas grab the three of us in their talons and throw us into the
one of the highest nests. Dried leaves and branches are woven into a makeshift mattress, and a fire burns in a stone bowl.
“What did you do?” I punch Nova’s chest.
He grabs my wrists to pull me off him. “How was I supposed to know the gems weren’t up for grabs?”
I yank my hands free from his hold. I point my index finger, like the barrel of a gun, at his face. “You just ruined everything! How are we supposed to get out of these caves? They could have helped us.”
He turns away from me and sits on the makeshift mattress. “How? A bunch of starving birds are going to storm the labyrinth with us?”
“You’re the one who told me not to touch shiny things. But you think with your pockets, don’t you?”
“I didn’t think they’d see me take a few gems in a cave full of them!”
“Shut up, Nova. You’re not even sorry.” I kick a stone away from us. It flies off the side of the nest. We listen to it fall, hitting the sides of the caves like a penny in an empty jar. I count ten seconds before it lands.
“Let me talk to Madra,” Rishi says. “I think she’ll listen to me.”
“Who the hell is this?” Nova thumbs at Rishi.
“Relax, protein shake,” Rishi says. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at Nova like he’s a fly that drowned in her soup.
“Stop,” I hiss. I stand between them like a shield—though I’m not sure who I’m more afraid for, Rishi or Nova. “Nova, this is Rishi. She’s my—she’s my best friend. She jumped into the portal after us and wound up with the avianas. Rishi this is Nova. He’s a witch, like me. He’s my guide.”
“I am a brujo,” Nova corrects me. “And this isn’t going to fly. It’s one thing that I have to look out for you. I’m not about to babysit some sinmaga.”
“What did you call me?” Rishi closes the space between them.
My head throbs at the temples. I turn my back to them while they bicker. How does my mother put up with Lula and me when we get like this?
“How sweet,” Lula says, clear as a bell. “They’re fighting over you.”
“Did you hear that?” I whip around to find her face, but she isn’t there. I know I heard her. It was like she was standing right beside me.
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