Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(48)

Nova and Rishi take the empty seats between two winged adas. The only seat left open is the one to the right of Agosto. He motions to the empty toadstool with his ornately decorated hand.

“I’m sure your journey has been exhausting,” he tells me. “The path to the mountain is not an easy one.”

I nod. Words. Where are my words? Looking at Agosto is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. He is perfect in his beauty and strangeness. He’s a wild, horned forest king and an angel all at once.

“I hope you find rest here,” he says.

The Meadowkin don’t need to be told twice to eat. They dig in to heaping piles of plump, purple fruits and down sweet mead. White, fluffy cakes drizzled with honey and sprinkled with fat, sparkling sugar crystals. Roasted meat sizzles, surrounded by tender root vegetables the color of blood and bone.

“Are you serious?” Rishi shouts from the other end of the table. A stack of fluffy roti appears in front of her. She rips it up and dips it into a cast iron pot of dal. “It tastes just like my mom makes it.”

Agosto leans back in his twisted throne, an ornate wooden goblet in his hand. His full lips curl up, showing he’s pleased. “We have everything you could ever dream of having.”

“That right?” Nova leans over the table. I’m afraid he’s going to say something offensive or rude. Instead he says, “Then I dream of a fat ass steak.”

“I’m so glad you said ‘steak,’” Rishi says with her mouth full.

And sure enough, a sizzling hunk of prime rib appears in front of him complete with disco fries.

A frail man with the head of a mouse leans over Nova’s plate. In his thin voice, he says, “Ooh! Looks good. Is that what you eat where you’re from?”

“Nah, I usually eat whatever’s on the dollar menu.”

The mouse man grins and stuffs his mouth with cake. His wrists are too small for some of his bracelets, and when one of them slips, I notice black-and-red wounds ring his wrists.

“Something the matter?” Agosto asks me.

I shake my head, trying to mask my worry when Rishi gets up from her seat and comes over to my side. She curtsies to Agosto, then sits with me. We barely fit on the same stool but that doesn’t stop her from trying.

“I want you to try this,” she tells me, holding a slice of fruit shaped like a perfect star. “These are my favorite in all the worlds.”

I take the sticky star in my hand. It’s perfectly green with a single seed wedged in the center. When I take a bite, juice rolls down my chin, and then we’re in a fit of giggles at our messiness. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand.

This place is a dream, a voice whispers. This place isn’t real.

But I want it to be real. I want to feel this happy always. I want to be in the light.

“I’m glad I’m here with you,” Rishi tells me.

This place brings out the warm brown in her skin, her shining eyes. Rishi has impossibly long, black lashes and perfect eyebrows I’ve not so secretly coveted.

“I wanted to tell you something else,” she says, “but it’s the strangest thing…the thought fell out of my head.”

Rishi’s always distracted. She’s like a magpie, searching for shiny, pretty things. She gives me a quick peck on the cheek and goes back down the table, making new friends.

When Rishi leaves, Agosto returns his attention to me. He leans his face toward me with total interest.

“Go on,” he tells me. “I know there’s something you want to ask me.”

There are tons of things I want to ask him. Like, where does this food come from? Why do they all wear the same bracelets? Why does Rodriga the salamander girl seem to hate me? Even as she tilts her bowl of soup to her lips, her eyes never leave my face. What does Agosto know of the Devourer?

He waves his hand and a second wooden goblet appears. The liquid is dark and smells bittersweet, like berries gone too ripe. My tongue is so parched, and my belly makes hungry noises. The journey is catching up with me, pressing down on my shoulders with a terrible ache. Why can’t I be like Rishi and Nova, happily eating and telling stories about where we come from? They make the streets of Brooklyn sound magical and wondrous. Why does it take being far away from home to finally miss it?

I drink from the wooden goblet. I’ve tried wine once, on a dare from Lula. It was Lady’s Alta Bruja wine and they were blessing a newly married couple. Just like that time, this wine causes me to scrunch up my face at the tartness. I look down the table to see if Rishi or Nova want some, but they seem to already have their own goblets, complete with rose petals floating atop the liquid.

Agosto finds my reaction to the wine amusing and laughs. I decide I rather like his laugh and the way tufts of pollen float around him. One gets stuck on his long lashes. I reach for it and free it. He watches me. Blinks. His smile is a riddle. His face is a dream. I can’t seem to take my hand away from his face. My fingers trace one of his horns.

I jerk my hand back.

“It’s okay,” he tells me. “You’re curious.”

I fear I’ve turned as red as my wine. “Why aren’t you in the Kingdom of Adas?”

He thinks on the question. Even his serious face is beautiful. He looks into his goblet like he’s searching for the right answer. I realize maybe that wasn’t the right thing to ask. In a world wholly new to me, that seems to hold so many secrets, what is the right thing to ask?