by Rena Barron
Eli lay on his belly in the bushes to my left. “Are those giant snakes?”
To my right, Frankie straightened her glasses. “They are definitely giant snakes.”
As we waited for our plan to unfold, we gnawed on berries that Zeran had found after we left the bog. I was too nervous to eat, but we needed to keep up our energy. Zeran squatted nearby and never took his eyes off the palace. He watched the junior recruits run drills behind the gate. He kept searching face after face, looking for his brother.
“Do you see him?” I asked.
Zeran’s shoulders slumped. “Not yet, but he has to be in there. I know it.”
“You’ll find him,” I said, hoping that his little brother was okay. “Remember: distract and divide.”
“Give me a few minutes.” Zeran climbed to his feet. “That’s all I’ll need.” He disappeared into the trees.
Eli squeezed my staff as he entered ghost mode. “Here we go.”
Zeran emerged from another part of the forest. I cringed as he called out to the palace. “Hey, is there anyone home?” he said in my voice. “I’m here to get my father’s soul back.”
I blinked several times. It was weird seeing Zeran pretending to be me. He had locs that swept just past his shoulders, the staff, and even my limited-edition Oya backpack. Did I really sound that whiny? I was going to have to work on that.
When Zeran got closer to the gate, a light shimmered around the whole palace. The air teemed with magic, and I wondered if that was the ward that had stopped me from opening a gateway here.
Here was the plan. If the Lord of Shadows wanted me, then we would make him work for it. Right on cue, soldiers in black uniforms and patrol officers in gray swarmed the grounds. The junior recruits moved so that they were behind the senior soldiers. Dozens more flew up to the ledges around the five crystal towers to take point.
“Bet you can’t catch me,” Zeran yelled as the backpack melted away and he sprouted purple wings instead. Nice touch, I thought, not that I was paying attention. He shot into the sky—a blur of brown and purple.
Nulan appeared from out of nowhere. She pushed through the crowd and swung open the gate. “Leave the godling to me!” Her iridescent wings fluttered against her back, and she launched into the sky after him. I swallowed hard. He had to make sure she didn’t catch him for this to work.
“Now!” Eli shouted, squeezing my staff.
Dekala and his ghosts rose from the ground—hundreds of them, gray and in tattered clothes. Some had a missing eye or limb, or blood dripping between their teeth. They moaned and wailed. The soldiers and patrol officers looked terrified at the sight of the ghosts. Had I not known the plan, I’d have been scared too. When Dekala glanced over his shoulder at Eli, I worried that the ghosts would turn on us, but they kept their word.
The ghosts rushed the wrought-iron gate and swarmed the palace grounds. The soldiers and patrol officers fought back, but the ghosts quickly overtook them. Frankie, Eli, and I ducked inside the gate. We moved around the edges of the grounds to stay away from the fighting. I concentrated hard, but I couldn’t feel the ward that had blocked me from opening a gateway outside of the palace. So it was true. The ward only stopped someone from entering the palace grounds using magic. It didn’t work once we were already inside.
“No turning back,” I said as the first sparks appeared in the air in front of me. Now it was time to open a gateway that would get us closer to my father’s soul.
“Ready,” said Eli.
Frankie’s hands crackled with energy. “Flying giant snakes at twelve o’clock!”
I did a double-take. The green serpents that had been peacefully slithering up the towers soared through the sky, headed straight for us. It was definitely time to go.
My knees were shaking as the three of us entered the gateway side by side. It was pitch-black, and the spinning god symbols on the walkway pulsed with a weak light. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. This didn’t feel right. We landed in a gloomy, half-lit corridor swathed in hissing shadows. We could still hear the battle raging outside, but we already had our hands full here.
In a matter of moments, soldiers filed into the hallway on either side of us. I groaned under my breath. Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. It never was. Frankie raised her hands, preparing to blast them. But before she could let off a shot, some of the ghosts melted through the walls. They split into two halves to block the soldiers. Dekala appeared, picking his teeth with a straw.
Eli cocked his head to the side. “I thought you said you wouldn’t help us once we got inside the palace.”
“I changed my mind,” Dekala growled as he dodged a soldier, then tossed another one through a window.
The ghosts battled the soldiers as darkness fell over the corridor. The temperature dropped, and I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. Purple and black ribbons crawled up the walls and ceiling. They filled every crack and crevice, hissing and snapping at everyone in their path. These weren’t the shadows that had possessed Sue at the Field Museum, or the shadows that attacked us in the forest. These shadows belonged to the man from my nightmares. I braced myself, my staff ready.
“Welcome, daughter of Elegguá,” the Lord of Shadows said in his menacing voice. It came from all around us, like a weight bearing down on our shoulders. Some of the darkbringers cringed at their master’s approach. I stumbled back, knowing one thing for sure. I couldn’t let him catch me. “You are the key to my freedom.”
No way, I thought, as I opened another gateway. We ran again and again, in and out of endless rooms, searching for my father’s soul. I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like, but I had to believe that I would recognize it.
Everything and everyone was a dizzying blur as I opened gateway after gateway. My legs gave out more than once, and Frankie and Eli helped me across the bridges of spinning god symbols. We’d only be in a room for mere minutes before soldiers or patrol officers rushed in to attack.
I almost dropped to my knees when we landed in a shadowed chamber with a glass coffin in the middle. Above it hung a glass orb suspended in the air by magic. Inside the orb was light threaded through with sparks of silver. It was Papa’s soul. I could feel its warmth and familiarity, his laugh, and his stories all wrapped up inside it. I pushed back tears. We weren’t done yet.
“Now,” I said, and Eli tossed the staff to Frankie. She created a force field around the whole room to keep out the darkbringers. The symbols rearranged themselves on the staff, growing brighter. Thousands of them flew from the staff to reinforce Frankie’s barrier.
I ran to the coffin, intending to use it to climb up to the orb, but I stumbled when I saw what was inside the glass. It was a sleeping girl who looked a lot like me.
TWENTY-NINE
Hey, that girl sort of looks like me
Seeing a girl who looked like me in a glass coffin in the Crystal Palace was next level weird. She wasn’t dead—that much was clear. The girl was lying on her back with her hands at her sides like someone straight out of a fairy tale. She wore furry slippers and a green dress that looked like leaves sewn together. Amber curls fanned out around her face. I noticed the points at the tips of her ears and how her brown skin had a golden hue that shimmered in the light.
Eleni reminded me of Nulan—the only other aziza I’d met. They had the same oval faces and high cheekbones. Sometimes it really sucked to be right, and this was one of those times. I’d thought that Eleni was helping the Lord of Shadows, but I never guessed that she was his prisoner. Had she been like this for a thousand years? I was relieved that she wasn’t on his side, but this was worse.
“Whoa,” Eli said, his eyes big and round. “She’s pretty.”
Frankie grimaced as she studied the glass coffin. “That looks like a stasis pod . . . to um, preserve her.”
I shook my head, half in denial and half in disbelief. Papa believed that the Lord of Shadows killed his first family. He was going to be so ups
et when he found out that Eleni had been trapped in a box for a thousand years.
“We have to take her back.” I pressed my palms against the glass. “We’ll wake her first, then get Papa’s soul.”
“Maya, hold on, we don’t know what might happen,” Frankie warned.
I tried to pull away from the pod, but magic glued my hands to the glass. I could feel heat and energy fleeing my body. I squeezed my eyes shut, and I saw a sharp tear in the fabric of the world. It was a wave of immense energy with no mass, no dimension, almost invisible. I was in the chamber with my friends, but I was also at the center of the veil. It was like my mind had been split in two.
Layers of silvery light moved around me. It hummed with energy. Buzz. Buzz. Bu. Bu. Buzz. I picked up on an interruption in the hum that sounded like a hiccup. Buzz. Buzz. Bu. Bu. Buzz. Something was wrong with the veil.
“Help me,” I heard a voice whisper. “Please.”
I whirled around toward the voice, but then a sharp pain ripped through my belly. At almost the same time, black lightning cut through the veil and the silvery light fell silent.
“No,” I screamed, realizing what was happening. Flames spread across the veil, burning it away. And it was my fault.
The stasis pod was a much more powerful version of my staff. It was using my magic combined with Eleni’s to tear the veil. Was this why the Lord of Shadows needed me alive? With Eleni’s and my powers together, he could bring down the veil for good.
Eleni materialized in front of me. She had iridescent wings of blue, green, and gold just like Nulan. I was beginning to think that their resemblance wasn’t a coincidence.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my dream?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said. Long, complicated, and a little awkward. “I’m Maya. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Eleni frowned and rubbed her forehead. “It feels like I’ve been dreaming forever.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I moaned. “Can you wake yourself?”
“I’ve been trying, but it never works,” she said. “My little brother is going to be so mad if I miss his first day of school.”
Her words hit me square in the chest. She didn’t know about her siblings or her mother. The Lord of Shadows would’ve taken her first and put her in stasis. I pushed back the tears threatening to break free. I had to hold it together if I was going to save her and Papa’s soul.
“Take my hand,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’ll see if I can wake you.”
Eleni smiled as she reached out to me, but everything went black as soon as our hands touched. I blinked once, and Frankie’s and Eli’s faces came into focus. I was lying on the floor next to the pod, shaking, every muscle in my body on fire.
“What happened?” Frankie asked as they knelt beside me.
My head was swimming, and nothing felt quite real. I squeezed my eyes shut to fight back the dizziness. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I thought about Eleni, imprisoned her entire life for a mistake. The Lord of Shadows had tricked her. Now he was using her to start another war, maybe the final battle between the Dark and orishas.
“We’re the key.” I forced my eyes open. I couldn’t hide from the situation. I had to face it. Frankie looked at the pod and me again, and then she frowned.
Eli looked back and forth between us. “What? I don’t get it.”
“Maya is the key to bringing down the veil,” Frankie said.
From somewhere in a dark corner of the room came a slow clap. I jumped to my feet, even though it made me dizzier. Frankie gave me the staff to lean on.
Nulan melted out of the inky shadows. Zeran was with her in his regular form, no longer a copy of me. When I saw him walking in front of her, my heart dropped. He couldn’t have betrayed us. He was our friend. But then I saw the bruises across his cheek and the metal collar around his neck to neutralize his magic.
“Congratulations, Maya,” Nulan said, a faint smile on her lips. “You’ll be spending the rest of your short life in this room beside your sister.”
“You knew!” I spat, remembering when Nulan had taunted Papa about losing his family. “You knew she was alive and trapped here.”
“Our lord killed the other two because they did not have Elegguá’s ability to manipulate the veil.” Nulan stared at the pod with a look of pity, then she shook her head like she was brushing off a memory. She was talking about my father’s other children—Eleni’s little brother, Genu, and her older sister, Kimala. “Look at her: a confused thirteen-year-old girl who was only trying to help her auntie.”
“Lutanga was your sister?” I said, finally understanding why Eleni and Nulan favored each other. The realization of it and horrible truth hit me at once.
“She picked the wrong side.” Nulan pushed Zeran so that he was next to us.
“I’m sorry,” Zeran mouthed, his eyes sad. “I tried to get far away, but she caught me.”
“It’s okay,” I said, then glared at the aziza. “It’s not your fault that Nulan got her sister killed, along with countless other people.”
“Enough talk,” came another voice peeling from the shadows. His words pulsed in the walls as purple and black ribbons wriggled out of a corner of the chamber. First a few, then dozens, then hundreds.
I sucked in a short breath and held it so long that it burned my lungs. The Lord of Shadows glided from the dark as gracefully and deadly as a spider. He was every bit as frightening as I remembered, except he’d shrunk himself to a normal height. He was a head taller than Papa, with skin the color of the moon and violet eyes that glowed.
“This is a day of celebration,” he said, his voice slippery. “I will finally put the world back to the way it should be.”
I shook my head, clutching the staff hard. “I won’t help you.”
“Eleni didn’t want to help me either, and look what happened to her.” The Lord of Shadows glanced at the pod. He clutched his fist so hard that it shook. “I am so close after all these years. I will not let you stand in my way.”
“How could you do this?” Zeran’s eyes filled with tears. “We trusted you to protect our world, but you only want to start a war for petty revenge.”
“Revenge is only petty to those who have no chance of exacting it,” the Lord of Shadows hissed at him. “You are too young and idealistic to understand.” Then he added after a pause, “You will be punished for helping the godlings. Captain Nulan will see to it.”
Nulan’s lips curled into a smug smile at the news of her promotion. She’d finally gotten what she wanted. “It would be my pleasure, my lord.”
“I bet it would.” Eli poked out his tongue at her. She growled. Then he turned to me and whispered, “I’m going to try something, okay? It’s going to be weird.”
“Don’t do anything brave,” I warned. Neither the Lord of Shadows or Nulan would hesitate to kill my friends. Now that the Lord of Shadows was so close to getting what he wanted, he’d be more dangerous than ever. But I was counting on his overconfidence.
“Your antics will not work this time.” The Lord of Shadows laughed. “Captain Nulan, take care of the two godlings and the traitor.”
“You know we have names, right?” Frankie said, speaking up. “I’m Frankie, and he’s Eli. That’s Zeran. We’re people, okay? You don’t get to hurt us to satisfy your personal goals—that’s pretty shady.”
“Shady or not,” the Lord of Shadows snapped at her, clearly missing the point, “I am righting a great wrong.”
“With another wrong,” I said, “which means you’re just as bad.”
The Lord of Shadows recoiled as Dekala appeared at Eli’s side. He looked more ticked off than scared to see the ghost among the ranks of the undead. “You dare rise from your grave to challenge me again?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” I said, stepping toward the Lord of Shadows. “None of us will ever stop fighting. We’re not going to let you destroy either of our worlds.”
&nbs
p; “Are you sure?” Dekala asked Eli.
“Yup,” Eli answered, and Dekala disappeared.
Frankie frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“I do,” I said, remembering all the times that Eli talked about ghost possessions.
While the Lord of Shadows and Nulan focused on Eli, Frankie touched the collar around Zeran’s neck. Sparks of electric current jumped from her fingers. Zeran cringed, gritting his teeth, but the lock cracked open on the collar. If he moved a muscle, it was going to fall off. I caught Zeran’s eyes and looked between him and Nulan, hoping that he got my message. He winked at me.
“So, I have Dekala’s power now.” Eli flexed his fingers. “Telekinesis.” He reached his hand toward the orb that contained my father’s soul, and it dropped from the air.
“No,” I said, but luckily the orb didn’t break. It landed on the stasis pod, which had cracked a little. Eli might have Dekala’s power, but he couldn’t control it well yet.
Eli ducked his head. “Sorry—I was trying to get it for you.”
Nulan launched to grab the soul, and I yelled, “Now!”
Taking my cue, Zeran flew straight into Nulan. They crashed and rolled on the floor. One of her magical blades materialized out of thin air, and she aimed it for Zeran’s heart. But he was quicker. He pulled the collar from his neck and snapped it around Nulan’s throat. Her blade instantly disappeared. Captain Nulan clawed at the collar right before Zeran head-butted her and knocked her out cold.
The Lord of Shadows advanced on Eli, but a third of his writhing ribbons froze in place.
“Nice try,” Eli said, wagging his finger, “but I don’t think so.”
Frankie tried to add energy to hold back the other ribbons, but her magic was spent from the force field. Eli’s nose started to bleed, and his whole body was shaking again. He wouldn’t be able to hold Dekala’s power long.