Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(26)

I see my mother’s face when I close my eyes. I bring the dagger over my head. This is for every time I wasn’t strong enough to believe. Now belief is all I have left.

My blade slices into the bark. A brilliant light splits the tree open. I can feel its center connecting to me. My body isn’t my own, like something greater is wrapping its arms around me and pulling me into the black hole.

I grab on to the sides. He expects me to jump into that?

Nova doesn’t give me a chance. His hands press on my shoulders. He shoves me into the portal.

I scream into the void, down, down, down, into a pitch-black sky. I scream even as I feel Nova’s hands holding mine. Can I still call it the sky if we’re falling down? Whatever it may be—sky, space, a black hole—the wind is warm, and after a few moments, I relax into the fall. We’re a tangle of limbs flailing in the wind. It’s a relief to hear him screaming too. I catch glimpses of Nova as we pass by what can only be stars. He’s staring right at me, smiling triumphantly. We’ve done it. We’ve created a portal and thrown ourselves blindly into it.

The sense of calm goes away when a light erupts below us.

His hands start to let go.

“Don’t!” I shout, but the wind carries my words away.

We spin and turn over until I can’t tell which direction we came from or if we’re ever going to stop. All I know is our black hole seems to shrink, the walls closing in until we’re in a tunnel made of space and starlight.

“Let go!” Nova says.

I hold on by the tips of my fingers. “Are you crazy?”

“Trust me!”

How can I trust him when he pulls his hands from mine and lets me go?





Part II


   The Fall





13


La Mama and El Papa shaped Los Lagos to their liking.

A place for all souls and a home for the banished.

—On Los Lagos, Book of Cantos

Falling was the easy part.

Trying to open my eyes is not. Like there’s a weight on top of them. When I try to sit, my body sends pinpricks of pain through my sides. My magic pulses weakly. I can hear it whisper to the surrounding trees.

I don’t remember hitting the ground, though I’m cushioned by curly, dark-green grass that tickles my cheek. The copper taste of blood fills my mouth from where I must’ve bitten my tongue. I lean back on my elbows and take in the scenery.

The scarlet trees are so tall their lush, black leaves form a protective barrier that blocks out the sky. There’s an energy here that feels as old as time itself. Whispers come from the wind weaving between branches, the trickle of water down tree trunks, and the chirping of insects foreign to me. Giant, heart-shaped plants shoot up from the ground, like natural shelter for the lazy snails dragging their shells on the rain forest ground.

It’s familiar but not. The colors are all wrong. Like I was wearing a dull filter my whole life and now there are only the brilliant hues, raw and dark all at once.

“Nova?”

I stand through the pain. I give thanks to El Terroz by taking a bit of dirt and pressing it to the center of my forehead.

“Nova?” I say a little louder.

I clutch my crescent moon necklace for some sort of comfort, but it doesn’t help. I don’t know what I was expecting from Los Lagos, but a rain forest wasn’t part of it. A whooshing noise catches my attention, like when the windows are open and my mom is driving down the highway. I move slowly toward a great big hole in the ground where a tree has split in two. Thick roots shoot out of the ground, as if the tree tried to pick up and walk away. I touch a root and feel the familiar warmth of the tree in my backyard. The black hole sucks in dirt and leaves and tiny worms, like an insatiable mouth. Its pull makes me lean toward the swirling void. Slowly, it starts to shrink. If Lula were here, I’d tell her it reminds me of my screensaver, and then she’d snicker and Rose would laugh.

Hands fall on my shoulders. I kick back. He grunts.

“We just fell through that,” Nova says, pulling me back a dozen steps. “You do not want to go back out that way.”

“Why not?” I ask, a wave of vertigo crashing over me. There’s a black spot in my line of sight from staring at the portal. I shake it off and focus on Nova. “We can’t just go home that way?”

“The portal is a one-way deal. It’ll close on its own. You’d be falling with nowhere to go, Ladybird.”

I punch his arm. “Stop calling me a bird.”

He rubs his bicep, though I doubt it hurt. “I can’t help it. You remind me of a flightless bird.”

“Flightless birds are penguins and ostriches. And a ladybird is a bug, genius. That’s not endearing.”

“Fine. You’re a falcon. You just haven’t learned to fly yet.”

For the first time, I notice the bruise on his cheek from the fall. It looks painful, yet it doesn’t stop him from smiling. Does he think everything is funny?

“Come on,” he says when I fail to respond.

Behind him is a small camp. There’s a clear patch on the ground and a fallen tree trunk blanketed by black moss, where he’s spread out our map, the mace, and a couple of water bottles. I’m suddenly incredibly thirsty and drink mine in almost one gulp. Nova chuckles, then refills it from a curled leaf.