Cata looks like she’s considering this answer, and I wonder if she’s also thinking about what she read in el Hongo. If the Coven is real, Lunaris must be complicit.
“Where do your manadas think you are?” asks Cata, landing on a new challenge.
“Visiting a friend, working on a project, going on an adventure, any excuse we can think of. At most, we’re able to spend a few days here each moon, so crews are constantly rotating.”
Sounds a bit Lunaris-ish.
“Manu,” says Zaybet, and my throat parches as the room refocuses on me. “We won’t ask you to tell us anything about your past until you’re ready. But there’s one thing we have to know—”
“Who’s Fierro?” shouts someone from the crowd, beating her to it.
I almost forgot that Yamila’s way of baiting me was using my father’s identity.
“It’s a lie,” says Saysa, jumping in before I can speak. “Same as they lied about me.” She looks at Zaybet, and from the way her friend nods, it’s clear Saysa was right about Yamila spreading rumors. “They’re coming after Manu because she dares to be different. And she’s stopped being afraid. We all have.”
There are cheers from the Coveners, and Zaybet is clapping as hard as the others. “We can protect you,” she says to me. “We know how to open our own portal to Lunaris, and we have the numbers to do it. You’re safe here.”
I can hardly process how quickly our situation has shifted. My friends look back at me with the same blank amazement.
“You all are making me sad,” says Laura, her sweet cadence cutting through the heaviness. “Respiren. Everything is going to be fine.”
So I do as she says. I breathe.
I inhale enough oxygen to illuminate every cell in my body, even the ones that thrive in darkness, so they don’t forget how warmth feels. Then I blow out the light.
That’s how Perla taught me the breathing exercises when I couldn’t sleep the first night Ma and I moved into her apartment. I was eight. I haven’t thought of those words in so long, yet now I find myself in a new home, with what could be a new family. If they truly accept me.
The real me.
Not Manu la lobizona.
Manu la ilegal.
PHASE II
10
The next few days at the Coven are a spectacle of magic and music and parrilladas and infinite introductions.
Just like Zaybet said, Coveners constantly cycle in and out, dropping by as their schedule allows. Only not enough of them seem to be leaving. Each new crew is bigger than the last, and soon we’re testing the place’s capacity.
The best part about new arrivals is they bring stores of food and supplies. The perishables get delivered to the kitchen, where Encendedoras sear a sampling of the meats and veggies on the spot, and Congeladoras freeze the rest for storage. Once the Encendedoras prepare the trays, Invocadoras fly the food around for a tasting.
During the day, Jardineras climb up to the crawl spaces beneath the Coven’s ceiling, where nests of vampiros hibernate while the fake sun shines overhead, and tend to them. Wolves take advantage of the vampiros’ retreat to stretch their muscles by leaping up and down the balconies.
As more and more Septimus flood the Coven, our energy thrums through the rock, vibrating within us, seeking an outlet.
“This is Oscar,” says Zaybet, introducing me to a lobizón who towers over us in six-inch heels. “She’s our only royalty,” Zaybet goes on, and at my expression, she clarifies, “Self-anointed.”
I blink as Oscar gives me a low bow, and not knowing what else to do, I return the gesture. “I would kiss you,” she says, “but I don’t want to smudge my lipstick.”
Zaybet and I crack matching smirks, and I look to my other side to see that Cata and Tiago are smiling too. My friends have faithfully stuck by my side through an avalanche of these greetings, and the only one who seems to be losing patience is Saysa. She’s nearly gnawed off her bottom lip. She looks beyond ready to socialize on her own.
“Your makeup is perfection,” I say, admiring the detail that went into Oscar’s shadowy eye.
“Thanks, cariño. One day, I’ll walk the streets of Kerana with my true face.”
I remember the way I felt hiding behind my sunglasses in Miami, how I dreamt of one day stepping out as myself, without worrying about stares or strangers asking me what I am, and I say, “I’ll walk beside you.”
No sooner are the words out than I feel a hard kiss on my cheek. I couldn’t move that fast even without the heels.
“I always identified as a lobizona on the inside,” says Oscar softly, her vivid makeup growing heavy on her features. “I just didn’t dare say the word out loud … until now.”
Like all the other Septimus I’ve met, Oscar doesn’t ask about my past. Not a single Covener has made me feel like I owe them any answers.
“This is Paloma,” says Zaybet, and I meet a bruja in a shirt that says Septima ≠ Bruja.
I offer her my left cheek for a kiss while I rub off Oscar’s hot pink lips from my right one. “Septima does not equal bruja,” I read out loud. “I never heard that term before,” I add, tossing Cata back the towel she blew my way, my cheek raw.
“Obvio,” says Zaybet, short for obviously. “That’s why you’re so important.”
“Regardless of our powers, not all of us identify as brujas,” Paloma explains.
“I know I don’t,” I say with a grin, making Tiago and Zaybet chuckle.
As someone who’s been raised to keep hidden, the most startling part of these introductions is how easily everyone hands over their secrets to me. Secrets that could harm them beyond the Coven’s walls. I wonder if that’s because in this manada, what makes you different is what makes you fit in … Or maybe this is the only place where Coveners can take pride in who they are.
From what I’ve seen, they’re strong-minded, nonconforming individuals with every variety of worldview. The only thing that seems to unite them is they all seek the freedom to choose their own lifestyle.
Most want to unlink power and gender. The brujas—Septimas—want equal representation in government and higher pay for their magic and more priority given to curing the debilitating postpartum depression that plagues every new mother. Yet I wasn’t expecting some of the other reasons why Septimus feel ostracized.
Some of them long to be free to see the planet beyond Lunaris’s manadas. They don’t think it’s fair that humans get to run the world, while Septimus stick to just a few settlements. They want to come out of hiding.
It’s hard to imagine what that universe would look like: Humans living side by side with witches and werewolves who drink mate every morning and get grouchy if there’s not enough dulce de leche.
Yet there are some parts I can predict.
Humans have a hard enough time sharing the planet among themselves, so I don’t see them being gracious about sharing land with the Septimus. If people discovered magic is real, and that potions and pills capable of all sorts of enchantments exist, they would want in on that.
Even still, I can’t help wondering—if humans and Septimus were to share the same borders, would there be a place for me?
* * *
It’s our fourth night here, and by now my throat is sore from so much talking. I’ve never been this social in my life. The last quarter moon glows overhead, and the vampiros are out, putting an end to the lobizones’ balcony workouts.
“¡La loba!” calls out a jovial wolf named Ezequiel who’s been calling me that since we met a couple of days ago. The she-wolf.
I wave back to him and watch longingly as he sits down to dinner, while I’m stuck standing here, with my friends as some kind of royal guard, as Zaybet calls the next Septimus forward to meet me. “This is—”
“I’m done!” Saysa grabs Cata’s hand and declares, “We’re going to eat.”
To my surprise, Cata’s fingers don’t unlace from Saysa’s as the latter leads her through the throng. It’s the first time I
’ve seen them show any kind of public display of affection. They join a group of brujas who’ve been waving Saysa over all night.
“I’m amazed she lasted as long as she did,” says Zaybet.
“Me too,” adds Tiago, stuffing his hands in his indigo pockets.
Since we’re too large a group to eat meals together, we have to rotate. A smoky aroma teases me, and I sneak glances at the plates of entrañas and mollejas and alas de pollo and papas a la provenzal and palmitos con salsa golf. My stomach grumbles.
“Are you kidding me?” roars a lobizón, slamming his plate with a clatter, the food spilling over. “They’d wipe us off the planet, like they’ve done nearly every species! Have you forgotten our beginnings?”
“We’re past that,” says another wolf. “We’re powerful now.”
“You’re foolish and dangerous if you really believe that!”
I frown. “What’s that about?”
“That’s Joaquín, remember him?” asks Zaybet, and I nod, recognizing the wolf who slammed his plate. He wants the Septimus to come out of hiding. “Sergio—the guy with the buzz cut—gets under his skin because he wants us to take over as the planet’s apex predators. You’ll meet him at some point.”
Suddenly I’m not hungry. I’m nauseous.
“Anyway, like I’ve said three times now, this is Nuni.”
“Oh—yeah. Hi,” I say, kissing the cheek of a young, gray-haired bruja, while stealing glances at the back of Sergio’s head to try to glimpse his face.
“As you probably know, Nuni is one of—if not the—top potion makers of our times,” says Zaybet, and I swing my gaze back to the small girl who’s about Saysa’s size. There’s a heaviness in her caramel-colored eyes that, coupled with her gray hair, makes her seem older than she is.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say. It’s clear from her skin and features that she can’t be more than twenty, but her hair is dry and brittle and her eyes are sunken in—like some parts of her have aged more than others.
“I brought you something.” Instead of opening up about herself, she hands me a glass vial. “Invisibility spell. My own recipe.”
The irony that I now need magical aids to become invisible isn’t lost on me.
Zaybet’s eyes are wide on the vial, and Tiago peeks over my shoulder for a closer look.
“That’s one of the most powerful Jardineras in the world,” says Zaybet as Nuni marches away; I get the sense she isn’t big on crowds. “Her potions are among the priciest and top ranked, and they always have her signature aftertaste. A plant no one else has been able to find or replicate.”
I wrap my fingers around my new treasure and slip it into my pocket.
“So, you’re the first lobizona.”
The voice prickles the back of my neck, and I look up at Sergio. A wiry werewolf with burgundy eyes and a buzz cut who would assert the Septimus’ dominance over humans—even though Septimus don’t make up even one tenth of one percent of the human population.
He’s younger than he seemed from the back. Early twenties at most.
“Manu, this is Sergio,” says Zaybet.
He starts to lean in for a kiss, but I stay stiff, so he plays it off like he’s greeting Zaybet. Then he says to me, “Let’s see you transform.”
More like demands.
“Another time,” I say, as I’ve repeated countless times to other Coveners.
“Why?”
I feel Tiago tensing beside me, so I speak first. “Because I’m not comfortable shifting right now.”
“It’s our natural form,” says Sergio, and from his locked-in stance, it’s clear he’s not budging. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t do tricks on command.”
His burgundy eyes widen like he wasn’t expecting this much resistance, and then Enzo appears and says to Sergio, “Come talk to me a moment.”
I didn’t realize he was keeping such a close watch on things.
“Where do you stand on the issue of Septimus coming out of hiding?” Sergio continues interrogating me.
“I don’t like borders,” I say, and in my peripheral vision I notice Tiago’s chin tilt toward me in surprise. “But I don’t like bullies either.”
Sergio’s smirk freezes on his face.
As I’m being introduced to a bruja, I make sure to keep Sergio and Enzo in my view. The two of them disappear by the stairs, then they pop up on the fifth-floor balcony.
“You must be famished,” Zaybet tells me, and I realize I haven’t registered the faces of the last few Coveners I’ve met.
“Yeah, actually.”
“Let’s eat.”
“Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll fill your plates?” offers Tiago.
“How many bites will that cost me?” I ask, alluding to the time at the academy when he offered me room on his plate for the price of a bite.
Tiago grins, but Zaybet looks confused. I can tell she’s torn between accepting his chivalry and asserting her independence, so I answer for both of us. “That would be great, thanks!”
She and I sit at the end of a packed table, and the others look at us. I’m relieved when they don’t try to rope us into conversation.
“Don’t worry,” says Zaybet. “No one expects you to remember their names.”
“I’m a bit confused by this place. Is it a safe house or a rebel base?”
“Can’t it be both?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, considering it. “There are just so many of you with competing agendas that you could never move in one direction.”
“You’re confusing progress with politics,” she says, leaning into the table. “We have no platform because we’re not trying to build a new system. We’re trying to tear down the existing one.”
She reaches for a tray of clean silverware and pulls it closer to us. Then she takes out a handful of knives and begins to fuse them together with ice, like she’s making popsicle-stick art. Once she’s finished, the Septimus Z symbol is standing upright on the table, the metal gleaming like her eyes.
“To build something, you have to puzzle pieces together. That means knowing where everything goes, and what the design should look like when it’s done.”
She snaps off the middle knife—the bar between the inverse 7s—and without the support, the top 7 clatters to the table too. All that remains is a solitary, upside-down 7.
“But dismantling something doesn’t require a consolidated vision. We just need to prove the current system is flawed. There are too many leftover pieces for this to be the right design.”
I think of the spare ace the last time Ma and I played chinchón. Zaybet is telling me there’s a spare in every match, but if all of us leftovers band together, we can create our own winning hand.
She sees the enlightenment dawning on my features and says, “We’re going to force them to draw a more inclusive picture.”
“So you’re like a catalyst, a force for change—”
“No, you are.” Her eyes fill with energy. “Your existence is change. You’re a wrench in the machine, Manu. That’s why you have the power to bring hope to so many—because the system can’t ignore you, and that means it can’t ignore us.”
Tiago sets a pair of plates down, like punctuation to Zaybet’s declaration. While he goes to fill his own, I scan the room for Saysa and Cata. I spot them on a couch, surrounded by the group of brujas from earlier.
“Not surprised they found Saysa so soon.”
I look at Zaybet, who’s just shoved five fries into her mouth. I wait for her to chew, then I ask, “What do you mean?”
“She emanates power. You’ve been here just a few days, but ever since Saysa started tending to the vampiros, they’re producing forty percent more oxygen.”
“Oh” is all I can say.
“It’s a good thing she has all of you. I don’t know if it’s like this in your manada too, but in Marina, some Jardineras are revered as goddesses because their touch can bring someon
e back from the brink of death. But there’s a cost for so much power. If their emotions destabilize, their magic can turn deadly. It’s rare, but some can twist their ability so far, they’ll drain a Septimus of their life force.”
I blink back images of Nacho and the sales witch in Kukú, both of their faces graying as Saysa sucked their energy. “So, um, who are the Septimas she’s talking to?” I ask to change the subject.
“They’re part of a choice to be child-free movement. They’re among the most powerful Coveners, and they’re very selective about who qualifies into their clique.” Something about Zaybet’s tone tells me she didn’t make the mark.
By the time I’ve devoured every last bite of meat and vegetables, I’m so full of food and so drained of energy that I’m not sure I can trust my feet to hold me up. “I think I’m going to sleep,” I say as an Invocadora sends our empty plates zooming to the kitchen.
Cata and Saysa are still sitting with those brujas, only now the group has grown. I’d like to go over to say good night, but their couch feels too far away, and I have to reserve my energy for the stairs.
“I’m going too,” says Tiago, and as we both stand, Zaybet climbs onto the tabletop.
Lightning flashes in her eyes, and a light mist kisses our heads. The place quiets down as the Septimus take note of her.
“I’ve been informed we are officially over capacity. So if you don’t have a roommate, get one—we’re doubling up!”
I’m suddenly aware that Tiago is right next to me.
“We need to bring up more blankets and pillows. Who’s helping me?” a wolf calls out. A handful of lobizones—including Enzo—and a few brujas follow the guy to a basement storage space.
Meanwhile, Tiago and I head up the stairs. Neither of us says anything as we walk down the vampiro-laced balcony, and when we reach our adjacent doors, I blurt, “We slept next to each other in Pampita.”
“That’s right.”
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