Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(67)

She conjures a glass vial on the palm of her hand. It glows red like lava and has tiny gold flecks inside.

“Nova,” she says, “be a dear, won’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. I can hear the regret in his voice.

Nova won’t look at me. He stares at the ground. Then at the Devourer’s hand. He takes the vial and goes to Rishi’s side.

“Nova?” I hate the way I sound. Hurt. Childish. The Devourer watches every movement of my face. She grins wide, taking pleasure in all of this.

“My dear, Nova,” she says. “You chose her well.”

I hate the way she says his name. Hate the way he moves when she tells him to. Hate the way he doesn’t put up a fight. Mostly, I hate that I didn’t see.

I didn’t want to.

Look twice.

Nova stands at the Devourer’s right-hand side. She rests her hand around his throat, like she’ll snap it in two. Then, all she does is rake her fingernails softly down his neck.

“You remember this potion, Alejandra, don’t you?” the Devourer asks.

“No.”

“Liar’s tongue, feathers of a golden bird,” the Devourer singsongs. “I have to thank you. You’ve helped my boy so much. It’s a pity you didn’t fall in love with him like the others. You’re losing your touch, Nova.”

Nova won’t look at me. Look at me, I will him with my mind. My power whimpers in response, and so Nova just stands there.

“No matter.” The Devourer walks around us like she’s corralling her prey. “I have this sweet, sweet girl. Her love for you is so strong she threw herself into another galaxy to be with you. That’s the kind of magic I can’t fabricate anymore. Surrender, Alejandra Mortiz, or Rishi dies. I will open her mouth and empty this vial down her throat. Do you know what the Forbidden Canto does?”

Rishi’s eyes are shut. Fat tears carve their way through the dirt on her face. She shakes her head. When she squeezes her lips, the vines get tighter and blood drips from every puncture wound.

“What?” I growl.

“You really should study your cantos, dear,” the Devourer chides me. “The Forbidden Canto breaks the heart. It’s meant as a form of poetic suicide. It’ll attack all her tender human organs, saving the heart for next to last. In those moments, she will endure lifetimes of agony. You see, she will stay alive long enough to watch you watch her die. Then, her brain will give out, and that is the last thing Rishi will ever see.

“Nova’s grandmother wrote this particular canto and created the draught. Your world is full of so many possibilities. I can’t wait to rip a hole through it. Now, surrender your power, or I will pour this down Rishi’s throat.”

With a wave of the Devourer’s hand, the vines around Rishi’s face come undone. Blood drips from the holes around her lips. She cries out once.

“Don’t,” Rishi tells me. Her midnight eyes are locked on mine. “Don’t.”

Nova uncorks the vial. He brings the glass to Rishi’s lips. She tries to keep them closed, but the Devourer forces them open.

“Nova,” I say his name. “You don’t have to do this.”

His voice is hard, and when he looks at me, he says, “Yes I do.”

The red liquid slides down the glass, a red bead pools at the tip. I stop breathing. It’s as if El Corazón has ripped my heart right out of my chest. How can I watch Rishi die?

“I surrender,” I scream.

Nova drops the vial on the ground. It spills into the dirt.

The Devourer raises her hands, and I feel her magic seize me. My chest burns as I struggle to breathe. I kick the air, try to pry the force from around my neck until I feel a terrible pain stab at my heart. Warm liquid drips from my ears, my nose; blurry, dark tears sting my eyes. I’m choking. I’m dying. My heart flutters like the wings of a hummingbird. My mind is heavy as the sea. I feel like I’ve aged a hundred years and now I’m brittle and broken.

I stop struggling.

My arms drop to my sides. The force around my neck releases, then drops me on the ground. A light floods from me and into the Devourer’s palm. My power pulses like a star in her hand. She blows on it, and the orb travels directly to the labyrinth, to the Tree of Souls.

The realization hits me like a gunshot to the heart. Tears spill down my face. She took my light. She took my magic.





33


Sometimes, the Deos choose wrong.

There was an encantrix who broke the laws of nature.

She claimed herself a god. So the Deos

banished her to a land forgotten.

They should have known, wild magic can’t be tamed.

—The writings of Alta Bruja Kristi?e

“Noveno Santiago,” the Devourer says. She takes her nail and drags it across her palm. Scarlet blood bubbles from the wound. “I free you from our contract. From my blood to yours. I bless you with the lives of the banished. Rise, no longer servant, but child of my darkness.”

He stands taller, tilting his face up to the heavens. She squeezes her palm over his head. The blood drips down his forehead, over his closed eyes, down his lips.

The black marks on his chest and arms light up. His chest expands, then shudders. His light is blinding. I force myself to watch. To remember the way this feels, so I can never feel this way again.