Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(72)

“I get it, okay? I’m afraid to face her now. She’ll know what I did. She’ll know about dad—”

“What happened with Miluna, with your father—that was not your fault! I’m going to tell you something about your mother, but you can’t tell her.”

“She’s being held captive by an evil witch,” Rishi says. “Alex couldn’t tell her even if she wanted to.”

“You certainly have a mouth, don’t you?” Aunt Ro winks at her.

“What about my mom?”

“You know, Alejandra, you’re just like your mother when she was your age. Impatient and bossy. Magic was different then. It was the eighties. Brujas were coming over from the islands to practice freely. We were wild back then. Careless. A lot of people we knew died from using too much or getting into nasty business. We were hunted. We went underground. Your mother wanted nothing to do with her gift after our dad was killed by hunters.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought Papa Renaldo died of a heart attack.”

“Caused by a hunter,” she says bitterly. “It was a different time. There’s a truce, a treaty now. The Thorne Hill Alliance they call themselves. But back then, your mom told me we were going to run away to the middle of nowhere. We could hide and never use our powers again. It was the day before my Deathday, and I was scared. Treaty or not, my powers were wild. The elements called to me. She feared for my life. Rightfully so, I suppose.”

“What made you stay?” I ask.

“Your father.” She looks pleased with the shock on my face. “That same night, we were at a social circle. We had to make the rounds, so our mom wouldn’t suspect anything. You always had to be one step ahead of her. She had the Sight, like Rose.

“So at the circle, there’s this handsome guy with big, gray eyes and creamy, light skin. Real fresh, you know? He spoke about all these hopes for all magical kind. How we needed to come together with not just brujos and brujas, but with the half-beings. I thought he was cute.”

“Gross.”

“But your mom, man. She loved him even before he started speaking. She loved him even more when he walked up to her and introduced himself. I knew I couldn’t leave. If I left, Carmen would have come with me, and I just couldn’t do that to her.”

“Do you think you made the right choice?”

She looks at my face for a long time. “I don’t regret staying. I regret a lot of things, but staying, being part of your lives, I never regretted that. I want you to know that we could have left. The thought was there. You weren’t the only one who felt like the magic was too much.”

“I wish she’d told me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so weak.”

She grabs my face in her palms. “Never, ever could you be weak. We all think about leaving, Alejandra. We all get scared and want to turn away, but it isn’t always strength that makes you stay. Strength is also making the decision to change your destiny.”

“But look at what I did! My powers are gone.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She stands and dusts off her white dress. She holds out her hands for me to take.

“What do you mean I’m wrong?” I ask.

“The Deos act through us. Only my own blood can free me, and here you are. You were born a bruja, Alejandra.” She looks at the big sky. “Your powers are at the Tree of Souls, but your body is still a conduit. Your body is made to hold your personal brand of magic. It’ll always be yours. That’s why the Devourer constantly needs to feed to accumulate power. With every bit she consumes, it takes a toll on her physical body because the power is stolen. What happens when you don’t feed a fire?”

“It burns out,” Rishi says.

“What do I do in the meantime?” I ask.

Aunt Rosaria grips my hands tighter. I jump with the shock of power. “You’re going to borrow some of mine.”





36


She ate the stars and swallowed the earth.

She is the girl with all the power.

—Witchsong #5, Book of Cantos

Aunt Ro’s power floods my body. It’s familiar but foreign all at once, like listening to my grandparents speak in the Old Tongue and understanding what they say even if I can’t pronounce the words myself.

Every time I look at her, I’m filled with more wonder. She’s alive. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. I’m not sure if this will work, but Aunt Ro says to trust her, and I do. The first step is breaking her free. I pull the borrowed magic and rip the chains from the ground. I think of Agosto and the Meadowkin. I whisper a prayer to El Guardia for their safety. The chains break apart and melt into the ground. I hiss as the recoil hits me harder, and my hands glow as black marks burn farther along my skin.

The labyrinth shudders around us. For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to be ordinary. As we run through the changing paths of this maze, I realize I was never ordinary to begin with. We are built a certain way, and the only thing I regret is that it took me so long to see that. The Devour tried to take that from me when she took my family. I’m going to get it back.

“Has the Devourer seen you here?” I ask. “I mean, the Deos put both of you here.”

“The Devourer was put here by her crimes in her realm, your human realm,” Aunt Ro says. “I have a different path. When Xara discovered she could make herself stronger by feeding off the Tree, she thought she could become so great, no Deo could imprison her here. She recruits vulnerable creatures in other realms and uses them to bring others she feeds off here.”