“I’m sure we can share a bed.”
“’Course.” He grips his crimson doorknob and looks at me. “You sure you’re sure?”
I nod because the doraditos in my belly won’t let me speak. Then he twists it a tick, so it turns bronze.
He goes inside to gather a couple of things before following me to my room. Our room.
Okay, that does sound weird.
“I can sleep on a couch downstairs,” he says, lingering in the doorway. “I don’t mind—”
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, spinning away so he’ll quit reading me, and my eyes land on the bed. It’s probably full-size. We’re going to be pretty close.
I grab the oversized green tee I’ve started sleeping in and go into the bathroom to change and wash up. When I come out, the room’s lighting is dimmer, and Tiago is in cotton-like shorts and a white tee, sitting on the bed, reading a wrinkled paperback.
I perch beside him and peek at the book. “What’s that?”
“The Chocolate War.”
“Sounds delicious.” My shoulder bumps his arm as I try to get a closer look at the forlorn football player mired in mist on the cover.
“It came out in the 1970s,” says Tiago, twisting toward me so our arms are touching and our faces are inches apart. “I found it downstairs. Just finished, if you want to check it out.”
His velvety voice makes my skin extra sensitive, and I lock my gaze on the paperback to keep my thoughts from straying. “What’s it about?”
“An all-boys high school ruled by a secret society of pranksters. Basically, one kid refuses to do their bidding, and he’s bullied by his classmates for trying to change things.”
“Why’d he refuse?”
“He read a T. S. Eliot quote.” Tiago’s arm presses into mine, and I look up into his oceanic eyes. “Do I dare disturb the universe?”
I lower my gaze to the shadows that cling to his cheekbones. “Sounds instructive.” Then something clicks. “Wait, is this a human book like the ones in your cave, or a remastered edition where the humans have been replaced with Septimus?”
“All the books here are human originals. There’s more of them boxed up in the basement than what’s out on the shelves, in every language and genre, even religious texts.” He presses the paperback into my hands.
While Tiago goes to the bathroom, I climb under the covers and thumb through the book’s first few pages. But I set it down the instant he walks out.
Tiago strokes the agate wall with his fingertips, until the dimness fades to darkness. Then he lies beside me.
The space is so tight that I can feel the heat of his body.
I stare at the black ceiling. I’m used to sleeping on my side, but there’s barely any room to move. Besides, the adrenaline of lying in bed with Tiago is burning off my drowsiness.
My pulse grows louder in the lengthening silence.
Tiago’s fingers fold around mine, his warmth relaxing my breathing. Then I roll onto my side, and he turns to face me too. We’re close enough that I inhale his minty breath.
His nose brushes mine, and our mouths are at once drawn together. When I part my lips and our tongues touch, it’s like I drank a bouquet of Lunaris flowers and every color is rushing to my head.
I dig my fingers in Tiago’s tangle of hair and barely contain a moan when he presses against me. He cradles my neck with his fingers, his other hand sliding under the covers, until it slips beneath the hemline of my oversized tee.
I feel something blossoming inside me, the way I did when Tiago touched me in Lunaris. Like my body is ready to be closer to him.
Even if I’m not.
“Solazos,” he murmurs. “We don’t have to do anything.” His fingers rest on my hipbone. “Just kissing you transports me.”
“It’s just…” I clear the roughness from my voice. “You have so much more experience than I do.”
I can’t believe I said that.
“This is new to me too,” he says, and I frown in protest. Does he think I don’t know he’s dated all the girls of El Laberinto?
“I’ve never been in a relationship.”
Now he’s the one who looks like he wasn’t expecting the words that came out of his mouth. Or word.
“I’m sorry,” he hastens to add. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh.” Pain cleaves my chest. “No worries.”
“What I mean is,” he says, pulling me closer, “I haven’t asked you.” He looks into my eyes, as serious as a proposal, and I think I’m having a stroke.
“Manu … would you be my girlfriend?”
The question sounds so innocent after all he’s given up to be with me. Looking into his sapphire orbs, I can still hardly believe this isn’t Other Manu’s life, but mine.
And I say, “Obvio.”
11
Tiago and I make out all night long, until we pass out, limbs entangled. I feel like I’ve been asleep only minutes when the walls start rumbling around me, and from behind my closed eyelids, I sense the room’s lights flickering on and off.
It’s the Coven’s wake-up system. The alarm goes off at three intervals of the morning. This was a short tremor, so it must be the first alarm.
I blink my eyes open to find I’m nestled into the crook of Tiago’s shoulder, gazing at his scar. Pablo’s ink tattoo doesn’t come close to capturing the real thing. The thick, dark gashes stick out, like scales or dragon hide.
My bare chest is pressed against his, and I suddenly remember my shirt coming off too.
“Morning, girlfriend.”
Tiago’s sleepy mouth meets mine before I can check my breath. “Sleep okay?” he asks, his fingers combing back my mane of hair.
I nod into his chest, too embarrassed to speak because his hand just got stuck in a thicket of my hair.
“Hold on,” he says, freeing his other arm. I keep glued to his chest as he detangles the knot, my eyes rolled up to watch him work.
“I know you don’t like all the attention,” he says, brow knit with concentration, “so we can go down separately.”
“Yes, please,” I say, eager to avoid gossip. And I’m going to need a while with my hair.
When he’s freed himself, Tiago reaches for the sheets and pulls them up to my shoulders. “I’ll be quick.”
He kisses my forehead and heads to the bathroom. I admire his cut upper body until he disappears.
That’s my boyfriend.
The thought is almost as unbelievable as I’m a lobizona. And I’m overcome with the urge to gush to Ma about Tiago.
I want to know what she thinks of him—and Saysa and Cata and the Septimus and Gael and the fact that I’m a werewolf. I asked Cata about sending Gael a message here in Kerana, and she said it’s not safe because it could be intercepted. She thinks that since he used to be one of the Cazadores’ best trackers, they must have tasked him with finding me.
She also said that since I’m his blood, we might be able to establish a connection if we plug into el Hongo at the same time.
I hear the shower running. I feel around for my shirt, then I fix the bed, and when I look up, Tiago is in front of me. He’s in indigos and a hooded sweater, his hair windswept and dry. He looks like he’s headed for a photo shoot.
“That wasn’t quick. It was hypersonic.”
He flashes that roguish smirk from the night we met, and I know I’m in trouble. “I’ve been thinking about something. You were raised as a human for so long that whenever you’re not in lobizona form, your wolf stays dormant.”
He lopes toward me, and my body grows alert. “I feel it’s my duty to help you find your inner wolf … even if it’s difficult for you.”
“Why difficult?” I ask, twisting my neck to follow him as he walks around me.
His mouth brushes my ear. “You have to know when to quit thinking and let your body lead.”
I lean back, until I feel him against me, and my breathing shallows. “Don’t think,” he murmurs, and I shut my eyes, waiting for
his hands to touch me. “Just know. What do you hear?” Tiago’s song of a voice. “What do you smell?” Tiago’s intoxicating scent. “What do you feel?” Tiago’s hard body against mine.
A shiver runs through me, and I spin around to reach for him—but he’s already out the door.
* * *
I wait until the second alarm to head down, and as I walk toward the stairs, something about this morning starts to feel different.
It’s quiet, and there are no lobizones leaping from balcony to balcony.
When I get to the ground floor, it looks like the place emptied out overnight. All I see are a couple dozen Septimus, most of them meditating on mats.
The bruja with the peachy eyes brings me the star-studded mate, like she has every morning.
“Gracias, Rocío,” I say, accepting the calabaza gourd. We were introduced a few nights ago, and she told me she’s infertile. Apparently, it’s a rare condition among Septimus, and many manadas are superstitious about it, so she’s ostracized back home. She tries to spend as much time at the Coven as she can.
I’m infuriated for her, but I’m glad she has this place.
I spot my friends at one end of a long, empty table, and as I walk over, I think of what Tiago said. And instead of listening with my human ears, I hone my hearing until I feel a veil of silence extend to the sounds nearest me, attuning me to farther frequencies.
“Just let me tell her—”
“Shhh.”
Saysa’s voice cuts out, and they don’t say another word until I’m at the table.
Enzo and Laura slide apart, patting the space between them on the bench. I sit down across from Zaybet, who’s yet to take her eyes off me.
“Morning, Manu.”
“Hi.”
Tiago sits to her right, and from his alarmed expression, he looks blindsided. On Zaybet’s other side, Cata’s wrapped in her usual air of disapproval, but Saysa’s lime-green eyes are so bright that she looks like the girl I first met. I’d almost forgotten she had dimples.
At the center of the table are a stack of plates and a brown pouch that’s tied off with a rope. A beaming Saysa slides me a clean plate, and Enzo passes me the basket of facturas. I get the feeling no one’s going to speak until I’ve finished my mate, so I drain it quickly.
Today’s silence is such a stark contrast to the past few days that I feel like the world is on mute. As I suck on the metal bombilla, I think about how Perla taught me that energy can’t be created or destroyed. There’s no way all that excitement just disappeared. The buzz is still here, but different. Focused.
Like it’s been channeled into something.
“We’ve been concerned about your legal predicament,” says Zaybet once I set down the drained calabaza gourd. Cata blows it away. “The past few days, we consulted with all the Coveners who came through, and we agree the best way to protect you is with a preemptive strike. If we wait in fear of the Cazadores, we’re wasting time we could be using to win over the public.”
“Widespread support will be your weapon,” says Saysa, leaning into the table, like a match catching flame. “We need to make you too much trouble to have as an enemy.” While she’s entitled to her opinions, I wish she would wait to find out how I feel before endorsing whatever this plan is.
The facturas sit untouched on my plate. “And how do we do that?”
“By doing what Fierro did best,” says Zaybet, and my heart skips a beat at the name. “Public demonstrations.”
“We have to take a stand so the tribunal can’t brush you under the rug,” insists Saysa. “And fast.”
I know she’s not just talking about my being a lobizona anymore. She means my other, heavier secret.
“What do you mean by public demonstrations?” asks Tiago.
“All of us have heard you’re a lobizona, but few have actually seen you in your transformed state,” says Zaybet, answering me as if I’d asked the question. “So what if we visit one of the busiest places in Kerana—el Centro Comercial in el Bosque Blanco—and you transform in front of a large crowd? We’ll have Coveners planted among the commoners, so we can control things.”
“Sounds dangerous,” says Tiago.
“Sounds like Manu’s choice.” Laura’s voice verges on unpleasant.
While I’m moved to know they’ve been strategizing ways to protect me, I can’t help feeling I’ve just become a pawn in someone else’s game again.
“So I visit this manada, transform in front of a crowd, then I run to safety?”
“It’s not as simple as you make it sound,” says Zaybet, her expression more serious than I’ve seen it. “This is about sending a message that you’re up to meeting the Cazadores’ challenge. That you’re not ashamed of your identity because you’ve done nothing wrong. You’re showing those Septimus who think the status quo is their only choice that they have another.”
When she puts it like that, it’s hard to turn her down. If I’m going to be a Septimus, I need to learn how to start thinking as an us. I’ve been taken in by the Coven, and now I have to play my part.
A dark liquid leaks through the bottom of the brown sack, onto the table. It looks like blood.
“Of course, we’ll have to find a way to magnify your identity,” says Zaybet, steepling her hands together. “A rallying cry for your followers. Something to make this moment bigger, so it lingers.”
“She could carve Fierro’s F,” suggests Enzo.
“Manu needs her own symbol.”
“I have one,” I hear myself say, and they all turn to me. “An M that’s two sevens that don’t meet. I carved it into Lunaris before taking the portal to Kerana.”
There’s silence at the table again, only this time it’s more of the speechless variety. Tiago’s gaze is bright with awe, and I remember him telling me Lunaris hadn’t invited a Septimus to do that in a while.
If the way Tiago’s looking at me makes my stomach flutter, Zaybet’s stare is a cold shower. I feel like she’s Morpheus from The Matrix, and she’s convinced I’m the One.
“When you transform, claw your M into the wall.” Her metallic eyes glint with whatever vision she’s seeing. “That’s how you go from maverick to movement.”
Her words bring to mind everything Saysa said to me before the Septibol championship. Of course she would support this plan. It’s everything she believes in. And I already know Tiago will back me on whatever I choose. “What do you think?” I ask Cata.
“I think it’s risky and reckless,” she says with a sigh. “And it’s not just a bad option, it’s your only option. I can’t come up with anything better.”
Apparently, Tiago and I can’t either.
“We have a couple of days, so we’ll set up a course here and do some practice runs,” says Laura, her dulcet tone lightening the mood. “As soon as those guys come back from el Hongo, we’ll start.”
I look at the wolves and witches she’s pointing to and ask, “Aren’t they meditating?”
“No,” says Zaybet. “They’re plugged into el Hongo.”
“How?” asks Tiago. Judging by Cata and Saysa’s nonplussed reactions, I assume they’ve already investigated this.
“We can’t open an access point into the web from el Mar Oscuro,” explains Enzo. “So we have to ingest it.”
It sounds like he just said they eat mushrooms.
“Just shavings,” says Laura, waving her hand like it’s nothing. “It’s illegal to eat them in Kerana because the network can overwhelm our mind, since we’re tethered to the soil there. But that can’t happen here, so it’s less dangerous.”
“I want to try it,” I say, thinking of the possibility of connecting with Gael.
“Sure,” says Zaybet as she reaches for the brown pouch. “One last thing.”
She lifts the sack, and it drips blood onto the table.
“You may have noticed that everyone at the Coven has one of these.” She holds up her wrist, showing off the black band. “They’re called horario
s. It’s a living creature that grows here, in el Mar Oscuro, just like the vampiros. It’s part plant, part parasite. It feeds off our blood and forms a symbiotic attachment with its host.”
I try not to let my revulsion show, but Cata doesn’t bother. “Gross,” she says. Saysa rolls her eyes.
“The horario only sucks a tiny bit of blood, so it doesn’t hurt,” explains Zaybet. “But we can use it to communicate with one another and transmit our locations—or warn one another of danger. It’s also the only way to locate the Coven. We’d like to offer you each your own, if you want it.”
Now Cata looks at the horario like it’s a bracelet cut of the finest diamonds. I’m still less than eager to attach a parasite to my body, but I recognize a lifeline when I see one.
Zaybet hands the bag to Saysa first.
We all watch as Saysa pulls out a wriggling, leathery band that looks like a flat shoelace, then gently lays it on her wrist. The horario starts crawling up her arm, like a worm, and Cata leans away from her. Then the plant-parasite returns to Saysa’s wrist, where it loops in a circle and tightens.
“Does it hurt?” asks Cata.
Saysa shakes her head slightly, like she’s attuned to a different conversation. Her eyes have a soft glow, and she seems to be bonding with the horario because the band starts to lighten from black to deep brown, matching the exact shade of her skin.
“It will camouflage whenever you’re not in el Mar Oscuro,” says Zaybet, “so it will only surface here.”
I go last.
The horario feels somewhat thin and rubbery. It wriggles between my fingers, and I hold my breath as I lay it on my arm. Unlike the others—whose horarios crawled all over before settling down—mine goes straight to my wrist and clamps down. Like it’s been waiting its whole life to bond.
I feel a tightening of my skin, and a slight sting as it sucks my blood, but that’s nothing to the sudden rush of breath in my lungs. As though the horario just released oxygen right into my veins. I don’t sense a second consciousness or anything like that—but I feel connected to something larger.
Maybe I’m the one who’s been waiting to bond.
“This is the only way to locate the Coven,” emphasizes Laura. “Without it, you couldn’t hope to return on your own.”
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