Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(52)

The bracelet in the ada’s hand changes, and I see it for what it really is.

I break into a run, but I know I won’t make it in time. I hold my arms out and blast a shot of raw power at the ada. She flies back into an invisible barrier between two oak trees. The air fractures like a crack in a windowpane. Her bracelets are replaced by rusty manacles.

Blink. The glamour returns and they’re bracelets again.

Blink. I can see the adas for what they truly are—gaunt, thin, wrinkled. I wave my hand over the banquet table and find the glamour. I tear it down so the table reveals itself to all. The creatures wail and scream and cry. Nova squeezes his temples with his palms. Rishi gets on the ground and heaves.

“No!” The adas turn away from the banquet. “We cannot see! We cannot see!”

The table is nothing but rotting wood, the plates of rank food covered in slick, fat maggots.

The flute in Agosto’s hands disappears.

“You keep them here,” I tell him. “Why?”

The faun ambles toward me. His muscles ripple in the break-of-day light. The Meadowkin behind him cower.

“Is that what you see?” Agosto asks me. He is no longer the wild king of the forest I first saw. It’s as if all the wonder and hope has drained from his voice.

“You said you brought your people here for a better life, but you’re torturing them!”

Agosto tries to grab for me, to stop me, but I smack away his touch. My magic collides with him. He’s glamoured too. I can feel the magic around his aura. He shakes his head, but I’ve already gone too far. I break away his facade, revealing the shackles around his own wrists. The chain drags from the roots of the tree at the center of the meadow. Agosto sinks to his knees, like the weight of his horns is too much.

“Encantrix,” he says. “I’m trying to save us all.”

“By trapping me here?”

“I had no choice. She instructed us to keep you here. The way you saw the meadow when you arrived—that is how we used to be. Before we defied her. Before we lost. She will come for you. She will take everything you love. Your power can change everything. Your power—”

Agosto snaps his head toward the hiss coming from the trees. The winds change, bringing a terrible cold with them. Shadows whisper in my ears.

“She is coming.” Agosto jumps to his hooves and grabs me by the shoulders, pushing me to the border of the meadow. “Run to the Wastelands. Just run!”

“I can’t leave without them!” I try to shove the faun out of my way but he’s too solid. I scream for Nova and Rishi, but they’re too sick to understand, eyes glazed and smiles plastered on their faces. They don’t know we’re in danger. They stumble in my direction, listening to the ghost of the adas’ songs.

“Fix them,” I tell Agosto.

He shakes his head. “The only way is to purge the poison.”

“Poison?”

I grab Rishi’s arm first and wrap it around my shoulder. I turn and Nova trips over his own feet. I can carry one, but not the other.

A collective gasp falls across the meadow. The adas retreat, the same way they appeared, into nothingness. Blink. They’re gone.

“I told you,” Rodriga hisses, her salamander skin changing to solid black as she gets on her knees, bowing to the shadow that cyclones at the center of the field.

I beg Nova to get up. I beg Rishi to run, but I’m losing them. Fear slithers into my body, pushing away at my magic. I can feel my power recoiling, hiding in the comfortable place I’ve always kept it.

“Agosto, help me!”

He can’t. He’s on his knees, hands splayed forward in submission as the great black cloud takes shape. Shadows curl like tentacles around a figure cloaked in a bloodred dress. The material hugs her like death, and a helmet of bone and metal hides her face.

She takes small steps, practically walking on air, and stops where Agosto is crouched. “You never learn, do you?”

Then she pulls out a spear and drives it through the center of his hand.





25


Hide me in your sombra,

mother of the dark.

—Rezo de La Oscuridad, Lady of Shadow and Dark Deeds

Agosto’s screams fill the silence of the Meadow del Sol.

The Devourer walks past him, her movement like the rattle of a snake, each footstep reverberating in the deepest parts of my heart. She advances toward me like a turbulent storm.

“You’re the one causing all the trouble,” she says, stopping a couple of yards from me. Her posture is calm, the same stoicism I found in Madra but none of the patience. I can feel the magic that fractures around her. I can feel that it’s stronger than me. “Speak, child.”

This is why I’m here—to confront this creature and save my family. But standing before her, I’ve lost my nerve. My mouth is dry and my body is frozen. I can’t even reach for my magic.

The Devourer floats up from the ground and flies a lap around me. The black tendrils of her hair lick at the air around me. She breathes deep, a wolf memorizing her prey.

“I have something that belongs to you,” she whispers.

“They aren’t things,” I snap.

“So you do have a tongue,” she laughs, standing closer to me still. The sky is lightening into a brighter blue. The moon and sun show themselves. “I’m going to enjoy ripping it out.”