Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(68)

When the light fades, Nova stands still. The boy who crossed my path on the street, the boy who found me, the boy who lit up the dark for me is dead to me. I realize he never existed, and I’m just a fool for thinking he did.

You chose well this time, the Devourer said. You’re losing your touch.

How many others has he led down here? Does he think of them now as he looks down at his hands? There is no recognition in his eyes, only awe. They’re unmarked. Perfect. New. He touches his chest where the marks were spreading around the sacred heart of his tattoo. They’re all gone.

As if noticing I’m still standing here, he jumps.

A bit of metal glints in the black grass. My dagger.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warns me.

“Like think I could trust someone like you?”

Hurt flashes across his face briefly.

I try to stand tall and defiant, but I can’t. My muscles cramp and burn until I double over.

“What you’re feeling is going to get worse, Alejandra. If you try to fight me without your powers,” the Devourer tells me, “you will die with the rest of your family. You’re only human now. If you’d like to go home, Nova will create a portal.” She glances at the moon and sun, and a broad smile fills her face. They’re nearly lined up perfectly. Today. The eclipse happens today. “Though I suspect I’ll be seeing you on the other side soon.”

The Devourer presses her hand on her chest. Something is wrong with her. A thin line of blood trickles from her nostril. She wipes the blood away. Licks it off her finger. She starts to glide across the field covered in fog, back into the labyrinth. Then she stops. She turns to look over her shoulder. “Nova.” She says his name the way a mother would, urging her child to come along, to follow.

“If you stay here, I will kill you with my bare hands,” I tell him.

He nods and disappears with her.

When she’s gone, I sink to the ground. I curl into fetal position. I spent so many days and nights in my room like this, begging La Mama to take the power from me. Now that it’s gone, I feel a void. A cold sweat bubbles on my skin. I shiver uncontrollably and dig my fingers into the earth. I can’t hear the pulse of the land or hear the words in the wind. I can’t feel my family anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Alex,” Rishi cries. “Alex, please get up.”

Rishi needs me, I tell myself. The vines are still squeezing her. I hear the crack of a rib, followed by Rishi’s scream. I push myself up and find my dagger. I slice the vines, but it’s a hydra. Everywhere I cut, the vines multiply and grow. I start digging around Rishi’s feet until I find the root. I stab the core of the plant over and over until it lets go of Rishi and dries up.

I catch Rishi as she falls. She wraps her arms around my neck and we cling to each other. The land here is gray and bleak, cast in the shadow of the labyrinth. I search for the magic inside of me but it’s gone.

“I failed them,” I say.

Rishi shakes her head into my shoulder. “You’re still alive.”

“Sh.” I brush her hair out of her face. She’s covered in her own blood. I reach for my power to heal her and come up empty. The void inside me grows bigger by the second. I try to conjure a spark between my fingers, and when I can’t, I pound my fists against the ground. “You know when you want something so badly, but when you get it, it’s not what you expected?”

She nods, stroking her thumb over my cheekbone.

“That’s what it felt like when I gave her my power. Only a thousand times worse. When we were back home, I thought it was the magic that made me do terrible things. I’ve always blamed the magic. I hid behind it. But here, magic was the only thing that made sense. Now it’s gone.”

Alejandra, a voice whispers to me.

Rishi turns to the labyrinth. She heard it too. It’s different from the voice I was hearing in my head. That was the voice of my power guiding me. This voice is different. It sounds like my aunt Rosaria.

“I want you to take the mace,” I tell Rishi. “Find a place to hide.”

She makes a very loud noise that lets me know she’s not going to listen. “I heard that too.”

“I don’t have my power to protect us, but if the Devourer thinks I’m going to turn around and go home, she’s wrong.”

“She can’t feed from the tree until the eclipse,” Rishi says. Her lips are swelling, but she refuses to stay quiet. “You heard her. She’ll have your family’s power. She’ll come into our world.”

I think of what Agosto said. She’s nearly drained Los Lagos dry. She needs somewhere else to go. With our combined power, she could break free of Los Lagos and into my world.

“You were right before when you said the answer is in the Tree of Souls. Nova was just trying to make you second-guess yourself because he was working for her.”

That stings more than it should. I’ll deal with Nova later on.

The tree. The answers lie in the tree.

“We have to get through the labyrinth. What would Lula do? Without my powers, they can’t reach me. I wish I could ask them.”

“Do you know what I ask myself sometimes?” Rishi takes my hand in hers. “What would Alex do?”

I press my forehead to hers. The thing that drew me to Rishi was her happiness, the way she wore it on her sleeve, the way it lit her up like the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Now, in the most hopeless of places, she gives me that light.