“Shocker.”
Cata says the word under her breath, but we all hear her. She hasn’t had much time to process Saysa’s involvement in the illegal sale of Septis.
“We’ll have to steal it,” says Saysa, looking directly at Cata. “And I think we’re best off breaking the law in a place that’s already breaking it.”
Cata doesn’t answer, and Saysa crosses her arms in annoyance. “We’re out of ideas and semillas, and we need help. Gael must have contacts from his Fierro days. If anyone knows about the Coven, it’s him. It’s a risk, but we’ll wear masks, size things up, and go from there. What’s wrong with that?”
“Assuming Tiago isn’t spotted on the way, and we don’t get arrested for stealing a highly regulated plant,” says Cata—and from the tone of her voice, it’s clear she’s not in support of this plan—“then we’ll show up to La Rosada with masks on, and we probably won’t be the only ones. Since the Septimus who own these masks are all older by now, Yamila won’t look for us among the faceless. It might work.”
Speechless, Saysa stares at Cata, as stunned by her twist ending as the rest of us. I breathe a little easier now that our plan has met with Cata’s approval, but my stomach still feels knotted.
I can’t lose my father.
Not when I only just found him.
* * *
Kukú is a shadowy village built of dark cobblestone, with narrow passageways and pointy rooftops. The little hairs on my skin are electrified as soon as we step out from the arboledo, and every part of me wants to turn around. But we have a little over an hour left before my—before Gael—
“There it is.”
If Saysa weren’t pointing to it, I never would have noticed the store. All I see is a copper doorknob protruding from the cobblestone wall.
“You can’t come,” she tells her brother. “Brujas only.”
“You two are not going in alone,” he argues. “They’ll have security—”
“They won’t be alone,” I say, and it’s hard to tell if he looks more or less worried now.
“Keep your face down,” Saysa tells her brother before we cross the street toward the store. My stomach flips, like I skipped a step, and I want to look back to make sure Tiago is still there, but I know better.
When Saysa twists the knob, a camouflaged door swings inward. I bite back my disbelief as we step indoors, into a forest of black trees that’s swathed in a purple night. The full moon shines overhead like a silver sun.
Our eyes are as bright as the glow-in-the-dark plants, making both us and the merchandise easy to spot. I feel like I’m in a game of Pac-Man when the ghosts turn blue. “Is everything with your kind an adventure?” I whisper.
“Everything worth pursuing.”
The way Cata says it makes Saysa look at her. They hold each other’s gaze for long enough that my presence feels intrusive. I push on, threading a path through the inky black trees and scanning for signs of movement. My friends walk in my wake, inspecting the foliage closer to the ground.
The brightest blooms must be the most powerful plants because their glow casts deeper shadows around them. I think back to my first lesson in Señora Lupe’s class, when she assigned us to pluck a single petal from a dozen flowers, and I wonder what will happen if we do that now. Will an alarm go off? How exactly is this a store? Shouldn’t there be a shopkeeper or customers or price tags?
“Go right,” says Saysa, her eyes alight with magic, like pools of chlorophyll calling to the plant we need. Cata sticks close to me as we pad across the soft soil, zigzagging through the woods, until at last Saysa stops in front of a desiccated-looking plant.
Before she can say anything, a pair of icy blue eyes materializes from the darkness.
“Hundred semillas,” says the Congeladora in accented English. She must have heard us speaking.
“We’re just looking around,” says Saysa.
“And yet you took a very particular path.”
“Well, I hate to be obvious.”
“One hundred semillas.”
“One hundred don’t-give-a-fucks.”
“Excuse me—?”
“She doesn’t mean it,” says Cata, shoving her way in front of Saysa and flashing the bruja an innocent smile. “She’s just in a mood, so we thought bringing her into your beautiful shop would soothe her.”
Behind Cata’s back, Saysa’s eyes swirl with lime-green light.
“You can’t be in here unless you’re buying,” says the sales witch, not noticing that the desiccated plant beside her is starting to shed.
“Oh, okay,” says Cata, faking disappointment with a shrug. I count four large, billowy petals dropping soundlessly to the dirt. “Anything on sale?”
“Follow me,” says the Congeladora, her icy blue gaze jumping to me, pausing like she’s placing my element, then searching for Saysa, who just then steps out from behind Cata. Her eyes are no longer illuminated.
“Keep your eyes in view at all times,” says the bruja, her own gaze glowing with magic as she freezes a path of roots by our feet. Then she stands guard over the desiccated plant, watching our faces as we walk past her down the crystal carpet she laid out for us. When she blinks, I reach out and swipe the four fallen petals.
Since I don’t transform, my eyes don’t light up. Still, everything down to my breath freezes with guilt as I’m passing her, and I spy her blue gaze narrowing.
I wasn’t fast enough.
She must have spotted me—
“Jardinera, right?”
I jerk a nod, exhaling, and move along at a quicker clip, eager to get out of here. We have what we need. I don’t know how long has passed. Gael is going to be unmasked soon, and I need to be there. Where is the exit?
The icy path ends in a part of the woods that seems malnourished or poisoned. The trees here aren’t black but gray, and they look like ghosts in the purple night. Their branches jut out at odd angles, making them seem broken.
“Everything here is on sale,” says the Congeladora, crossing her arms. “Fifteen semillas or less.”
“Fewer,” Cata corrects her, then she bites her lip, catching herself too late.
Now the sales witch looks as annoyed with her as with Saysa, so she turns to me. “You all seem young enough to be in school.”
“I—uh—we get that a lot.”
Her gaze hardens with suspicion. “Show me your semillas.”
“Excuse me?” asks Saysa.
“Prove you can pay.”
“Forget it, we don’t need this,” says Cata with a wave of her hand. “We’re not going to buy from a place that treats us this way. We’re leaving.”
“I don’t think so.”
The Congeladora tips her head, and three witches come out from the surrounding woods. There’s no way they were there a second ago, or I would have seen them.
There must be hidden doorways.
“See, we have a new deal with the Cazadores,” says the Congeladora, moving toward us. Saysa and Cata step back, and I pull them closer to me. “They leave us alone most of the time, and we agree to alert them of any shady new characters visiting our manada.”
We don’t have time for this.
“What do you find so threatening about us?” asks Saysa as the three other witches close ranks, boxing us in. I can tell by their eyes that all four are different elements.
“You wish you were a threat,” says the Congeladora. “You’re merely a curiosity.”
Her blue gaze flicks to me.
“And I have a feeling the Cazadores will agree.”
It’s natural to be drawn to the unnatural.
Attention breeds scrutiny.
Discovery = Death.
Ma’s warnings flood my mind. She was right—my eyes were too interesting to ignore in the human world, and now they’re too interesting for the Septimus.
The shop brujas’ irises light up at the same instant as Cata’s and Saysa’s, and I shriek as four metaphysical walls manifest, blocki
ng everything from view.
One wall is sizzling red smoke, the second is cool purple clouds, the third is humid gray steam, and the fourth is brown dust.
I extend my arm to reach through the steam, but Saysa yanks it down. “Don’t touch it! That’s pure power.”
“They’re containing us!” says Cata, her pink eyes lighting up and fizzing out quickly, like a match trying to ignite in a room without oxygen.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re canceling our magic,” explains Saysa, looking smaller than usual, her eyes also flashing and failing to illuminate. Her short brown strands are damp with sweat from the effort of trying to summon her power. “You need to—”
“No,” Cata cuts in. “Manu can’t. It’s too risky. If she hears about it, she’ll know we were here, and she could figure out our plan.”
She being Yamila.
“It’s either that, or we get arrested right now!” snaps Saysa.
“How are they doing this?” I ask.
“They’re powerful, they outnumber us, and they represent all four elements—so they’re containing us,” says Cata. The word sounds like it means something more. “It’s a magical cage that doesn’t last long—”
“Just long enough for the Cazadores to arrive,” finishes Saysa.
“Fine, I’ll trans—”
“You can’t,” says Cata, dropping her voice like she’s afraid the brujas can hear us. “You’re drawing too much attention as is.”
I flash back to the cave in Lunaris when we faced off with Yamila and Nacho, only this time it’s not Saysa’s power I’m thinking of, but mine.
Something else happened in that cave that even my friends don’t know about. When Yamila tried to bind my wrists with fiery handcuffs, I shook off her heat before it could burn me. I stopped her magic.
Only I don’t know how I did it, or even if I really did it, and besides, this time there’s four brujas, not just one.
But maybe I don’t need to fight off their magic. If I could just bring down one of these walls, the cage would break, hopefully killing the spell.
The roots breaching the soil beneath us are still frosted with the Congeladora’s ice. I feel around on the ground for a weapon I can use, like I used to do in my lunaritis dreams. My fingers close around a heavy rock about the size of my palm.
I squint at the wall of gray steam, and I’m able to make out the faint outline of the Congeladora’s body. Aiming for her torso, I hurl the stone as hard as I can.
“Ah!”
She cries out as it knocks into her chest, and the misty wall dissolves as she falls to the ground.
The sudden breaking of the spell causes the other brujas to fall too, and as their walls come down, Saysa’s eyes light up and the world starts to quake. I take her and Cata’s hands, and I run.
Cata sends a blast of air behind us in case the brujas are following, and we weave between the black trunks. “How do we get out of here?” I ask.
“They have hidden passages … but I can’t access them,” says Saysa, her breaths coming in bursts. “They have some kind of … enchanted lock.”
I slow down so she and Cata can manage better. “Then what do we—?”
The Congeladora appears in front of me. She has dead leaves in her hair and dirt on her clothes and her expression is deranged with rage.
As her blue eyes fill with light, I feel winter’s touch in my chest, like my heart has frostbite. I bend over in pain, and Cata and Saysa do the same. It feels like my lungs are freezing over, and soon I won’t be able to catch my next breath—
Cata and Saysa fall to the ground like they’re about to pass out. If I drop too, we’re done.
I concentrate and try calling up my inner wolf, until I feel the light pooling in my eyes. The start of the transformation generates enough heat in my bones that I break free of my paralysis and I launch myself at the bruja before my body shifts.
She topples to the ground, and, now free of her spell, Saysa and Cata scramble over. Cata pulls me up. The Congeladora tries to rise too, but Saysa’s eyes are pure light as she grips her wrist.
“How do we get out?” she demands.
The bruja doesn’t answer, and her brown features begin to grow gray. Veins protrude from her face as the skin tightens around her skull.
“Stop,” says Cata, keeping a wide berth of Saysa. “I’m serious!”
The bruja looks more corpse than alive, but Saysa doesn’t seem to care. “Good night then—”
“Okay.”
The word is barely more than a broken breath, but it’s enough to make Saysa’s eyes dim.
The Congeladora feebly lifts her other hand, and her eyes flicker as a line of ice forms along the dirt, disappearing into the underbrush. I hear the sounds of the other brujas approaching, and Cata dashes to the point where the foliage swallows the ice. She ducks down, and Saysa and I hurry after her.
I close my eyes as prickly plants scratch at my face.
When I open them again, the purple night has dawned into a golden day.
5
We’re back on the cobblestone road. Tiago is at our side in an instant, and from the glassiness of his gaze, I can tell he’s been worried. “All good?”
“We need to hurry,” I say, thinking of Gael. “How long do we—?”
“Ten minutes.”
We rush to the arboledo, and as soon as we’re ensconced in a private tunnel, Tiago asks, “Did you get it? What took so long? I was about to go in—”
I pull the four petals from my pocket, and Saysa reaches out for them. But Cata moves between us.
She’s staring at Saysa like she doesn’t know her.
“If you do that again, we’re through.”
She sounds like she’s fighting back tears, but it’s hard to tell. Cata’s not much of a crier. “If you want to talk to me about what you’re going through, I’m here. But if you keep going like this, I won’t be.”
She doesn’t wait for Saysa’s response and just starts walking forward. Tiago and I follow her, and he looks at me curiously while Saysa lags behind.
“So, what’s the plan?” I ask.
“We embed ourselves with faceless crowds so we’ll get lumped in with them, and we try to work our way as close as we can to where Gael is.” Tiago sounds like he’s on the Septibol field discussing a play. “But, Manu—”
“I know,” I say, my heart thumping too loud. “If they have him, there’s nothing we can do.”
Yet even as I say the words, my thoughts betray them. If I dodged Yamila’s fire before, I should be able to do it again.
“We’re close,” says Saysa. “Let’s put on the masks.”
She goes up to her brother first, and he bends his knees so she can reach his face. Saysa places the white petal over his features like it’s a sheet mask, and the plant begins to meld with Tiago, expanding over his entire head. He opens his mouth, but the mask stretches like latex, and I doubt he can breathe—
Saysa pops the hole, and the exposed edges curl around his lips. The petal has somehow even sucked in his tousled hair, making him look bald. He turns to me and grins. He looks like a creepy mannequin.
“Can you see?” I ask.
“You’ll see,” he says, as Saysa comes over to me. “Or not.”
I roll my eyes as I shut them, and the petal stretches across my face. I feel my hair bunching up closer to my head, as a cool, velvety texture presses into my features, like a new layer of skin. I can breathe through my nose just fine, but I open my mouth so Saysa can puncture the mask, and it wraps around my lips.
When I open my eyes, it’s like looking through a veil of white mesh. Everything is slightly muted but still visible.
Saysa steps up to Cata last. Though she doesn’t move away, Cata keeps her gaze averted and jaw clenched.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
Saysa’s admission is as fragile as a snowflake.
Cata finally looks at her, and her stoic expression c
racks with pain. “That’s up to you.”
Saysa doesn’t say anything else as she tenderly places the petal on Cata. I turn away and meet Tiago’s eerie faceless stare. “How bad?” he mouths.
“Bad,” I mouth back.
Tiago turns to his sister, who’s about to put on her own mask. “Wait,” he says, and my foot starts tapping the ground. Yamila’s announcement will be any second now.
“Say, we can’t keep tiptoeing around you. I attacked Nacho too, remember? I dug my claws through his throat.” Tiago’s voice fades on the last word. “We’ve all been pushed beyond our limits. Whatever happened back there, it wasn’t us. We have to let it go.”
There’s something so big brotherly about his voice and the way he’s looking at her that it makes me ache for a sibling of my own.
“Good talk, bro,” says Saysa in her flatlining tone. “Can we go now?”
Tiago doesn’t answer, and his expression is veiled by the mask.
“No speaking when we get outside,” warns Cata as Saysa presses the petal to her face. “We stick together and try to blend in. No heroics.” She looks in my direction. “We don’t act until we’ve worked out a plan.”
I nod, but it’s a lie.
The truth is, I don’t know what I’ll do.
* * *
La Rosada lives up to its name.
We step onto a pink sidewalk crowded with Septimus, all going in the same direction. I blow out a long breath when I see that about half the crowd is faceless, and we get nods of welcome as we join. Strange how such a creepy sight can be so comforting.
Even creepier is the contrast our ghastly masks make against the Valentine’s Day surrounding us.
The capital of Kerana is what I imagine a Hallmark movie set in the Roman empire would look like. Up and down the street are stately and ornate stone structures with rose-laced columns, arches, and domes. The flowers are everywhere—bordering buildings, bursting from windows, breaking through cracks in the pink gravel.
I look up at a tree-sized red blossom that offers shade to half the block. The trunk-thick stem is armored with deadly thorns, and as I study the crown, I notice that instead of the soft folds of a rose, these petals have pointy ends. They look like a cross between roses and Argentina’s national flower.
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