Rishi shrugs a shoulder playfully. Her black wing looses a handful of feathers. Something in my mind clicks, and I reach out with my power. Rishi gasps as the wings bind together, longer and fuller.
“Oh, Alex!” She spreads her arms wide and jumps on me.
I ignore the twinge in my spine where the recoil grips me like a vice. The throng of dancing Meadowkin spin and glide around us. It’s a chaotic waltz, everyone moving together but separately around the flames.
Rishi twists her hands in the air. The long, dark waves of her hair sway over her shoulders. Her skirt billows when she spins, and when I look at her, I consider that magic can be a beautiful thing.
Overgrown dandelions perk up from the ground, like they wait for the cover of darkness before showing themselves. I reach for one. Hold it up to my lips and blow. The glowing white seeds disperse in tiny bursts of light.
“I could stay here forever,” I say. “My power feels different here. It feels right. I’ve never had that before.”
The music slows like a caress. Rishi takes my face in her hands. Her long, black lashes create spidery shadows down her cheeks. Her midnight eyes flick down to my lips, and when she sighs, I know she was eating peaches. My heartbeat multiplies, like there’s a tiny heart at the end of all my fingers and toes, between my clavicles, inside my ears, and at the tip of my nose.
“Hey!” Nova’s cheery, booming voice cuts across the meadow. He zigzags between the fairy people. He slings his arm around our necks.
Rishi’s face scrunches up, irritated.
“Ladybird, where have you been?” He grabs me around my waist and lifts me into the air.
When he tries to go for Rishi, she spins around and says, “I’m going to get us more wine.”
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask him.
Nova’s playful. He pinches my cheek and seems to be dancing to a rhythm in his own head. In the firelight, his bipolar eyes look like they’re glowing.
“Isn’t this great?” he asks. “It’s like Christmas dinner. Not at my house, but probably at your house. My Christmas dinner is a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. Some years, I put bacon on it. Maybe, if I wish it, the magic tree table will give it to me. I’ll make one for you. It’ll change your life. We can share with Rishi, but I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“Pardon.” An ada with a blue face and silver hair bumps into Nova. She clutches her stomach and makes a run for the line of trees, a rank smell trailing behind her.
Look, a little voice whispers in my ear.
I shut my eyes and try to focus. My mind feels like cotton. Cotton candy. Pretty cotton candy, pink and fluffy and melty on my tongue.
“Earth to Alex,” Nova says, squeezing my nose.
I slap his hand away. “What?”
“Look at me,” he says. Maybe Nova was the voice I heard just now. Maybe I’m imagining things. “Look at what the meadow is doing to me.”
Nova holds his arms out. The black burn marks I mistook for tattoos are changing. His glossy eyes are full of hope. “They’re getting smaller. Can you believe that? This means I might have a chance.”
“What do you mean ‘a chance’?”
His smile falls, and he jerks back, like he can’t believe he just said that. “I—I can’t remember.”
Look harder! the voice yells.
I whip around to search for the source when a cold splash hits my face. Red berry wine trickles down my neck. I wipe it out of my eyes and spit the droplets that make their way into my mouth.
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.
A collective gasp falls across the meadow. The adas retreat, the same way they appeared, into nothingness. Blink. They’re gone.
“I told you,” Rodriga hisses, her salamander skin changing to solid black as she gets on her knees, bowing to the shadow that cyclones at the center of the field.
I beg Nova to get up. I beg Rishi to run, but I’m losing them. Fear slithers into my body, pushing away at my magic. I can feel my power recoiling, hiding in the comfortable place I’ve always kept it.
“Agosto, help me!”
He can’t. He’s on his knees, hands splayed forward in submission as the great black cloud takes shape. Shadows curl like tentacles around a figure cloaked in a bloodred dress. The material hugs her like death, and a helmet of bone and metal hides her face.
She takes small steps, practically walking on air, and stops where Agosto is crouched. “You never learn, do you?”
Then she pulls out a spear and drives it through the center of his hand.
25
Hide me in your sombra,
mother of the dark.
—Rezo de La Oscuridad, Lady of Shadow and Dark Deeds
Agosto’s screams fill the silence of the Meadow del Sol.
The Devourer walks past him, her movement like the rattle of a snake, each footstep reverberating in the deepest parts of my heart. She advances toward me like a turbulent storm.
“You’re the one causing all the trouble,” she says, stopping a couple of yards from me. Her posture is calm, the same stoicism I found in Madra but none of the patience. I can feel the magic that fractures around her. I can feel that it’s stronger than me. “Speak, child.”
This is why I’m here—to confront this creature and save my family. But standing before her, I’ve lost my nerve. My mouth is dry and my body is frozen. I can’t even reach for my magic.
The Devourer floats up from the ground and flies a lap around me. The black tendrils of her hair lick at the air around me. She breathes deep, a wolf memorizing her prey.
“I have something that belongs to you,” she whispers.
“They aren’t things,” I snap.
“So you do have a tongue,” she laughs, standing closer to me still. The sky is lightening into a brighter blue. The moon and sun show themselves. “I’m going to enjoy ripping it out.”
What am I supposed to do with Nova and Rishi helpless on the ground? I could run. I could leave them behind. Nova would do it if it came down to us versus him. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The Devourer looks at my friends and clucks her tongue as if we’re a joke to her. “This is what you’ve brought to challenge me? You don’t know the way of Los Lagos, Alejandra Mortiz. Power comes at a great cost, yes. But what is the price of banishing it? Did you stop to think that your power is connected to your blood—the living and the dead that are tied to you? I thought I was getting your power, but then, they tried to protect you. I can feel their essence in the Tree of Souls. What can you give me in exchange for your family?”
My life.
I don’t say it aloud, but it’s all I have. She knows it. She mocks me when she says, “Would you like to make a trade? You for them? Why would I when their power is so delicious? Why would I when I can have all of you?”
Nova pushes himself to his knees. He looks up at the Devourer like he’s in a dream. He starts to crawl to her. I grab him by his shoulders and pull him back.
The Devourer laughs darkly, moving past him and over to where Agosto is whimpering from the spear through his hand. The Devourer pulls the spear free and Agosto’s scream is so loud, every bird hidden in the circle of trees takes flight.
“Come on, encantrix,” the Devourer says. “Show me what you’ve got.”
I reach for the mace handle in my backpack. It’s too cumbersome and heavy to be comfortable, but it’s all I’ve got now that my powers have recoiled from me.
The demon witch tilts her head to the side and says, “Curious.”
“Alex,” Rishi groans on the ground. “I feel sick. I can’t see.”
“Get down!” I shout at her.
I step forward and swing the mace. The Devourer is quick as a shadow and moves back before I can complete my swing. She laughs and hits me in the gut with the butt of her spear. I fall to my knees, the wind knocked from my lungs until it burns.
“Pathetic,” she spits. “You are the encantrix descendant of the Great Mama Juana Mortiz?”
Her movement is frantic. Her hands shake. There’s something wrong with her. A tick to her face, like she’s talking to someone I can’t see.
I take this moment of distraction and swing the mace at her kneecaps. She falls forward, catches herself on her palms, growling. She throws her spear on the ground. As she stands, she pulls on her magic. She raises her hands to the sky, and the wind picks up and howls around us.
“I was promised the power of a savior,” she says, “but all I g
ot is a girl.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to my family. I backpedal, scramble on my elbows to get away from her. “I’m sorry.”
But the blow never comes. Agosto stands behind the Devourer. He pulls on his chains, slings them around the witch’s throat, and pulls tightly. The clouds above us start to shrink as she scratches his arms with her long, hooked nails.
The Devourer makes a terrible choking sound. The rest of the meadow is completely still, the other adas hidden except for Rodriga. She pulls her chains on top of Agosto’s. Together, they keep the demon bruja restrained. I can see her eyes glow red with fury beneath the bone mask.
“Go!” he shouts. “I can’t hold her for long.”
“Agosto—”
I drag Rishi to the edge of the meadow before my arm muscles burn and I can’t go any farther. Nova staggers toward us, and I fear I truly will have to leave them behind.
Fight, the voice in my head growls.
Lula’s done all my fighting for me. Ever since we were little, she was the one to step forward and punch girls or boys who threatened me. Rose fights the visions in her head every day. My mother—my mother is the strongest woman I know, battling the sadness and grief that comes with raising children alone. All I’ve ever done is run from things that scare me.
A deep growl shudders through the trees. The Devourer has recovered, and then there is a terrible crunching sound. Agosto’s and Rodriga’s screams pierce me right down to my bones. I tell myself that they were trying to keep us there for the Devourer. But I saw the desperation in Agosto’s eyes. The chains that make him a slave to the creature. They’re trying to help me.
There might be hope yet, Rodriga said.
I pull Rishi and Nova behind a tree. I cover them with giant leaves and then run back into the meadow.
The Devourer flips Agosto and Rodriga over her shoulders. The adas are tangled in their own chains. I raise the mace to strike, but when I swing, it slips out of my grip. The Devourer’s blast slams into my chest and I land on my shoulder.
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