Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(77)

Mama Juanita steps forward. She puts her hand on my cheek. “I’m proud of you, nena.”

I lower my head. They surround me now, the way they tried to do on my Deathday.

An old man steps forward. In his withered old face, I see my father’s eyes. Lula’s eyes.

“Alejandra Mortiz,” Papa Philomeno says. “You have my blessing now, then, and always. Do you accept?”

“I accept.” I hold out my bleeding wrist. He touches the blood and uses it to trace our symbol—the crescent crowning the sun—on my forehead.

I can feel their hands, all of the Old Ones, encircling me, repeating, “You have my blessing, now, then, and always.”

? ? ?

I didn’t expect a being as old as the Devourer to go out without a fight.

And she doesn’t.

She shakes with magic, blasting away the ring of avianas and Meadowkin. When she turns to me, I don’t recognize her.

Her skin is aged like cracked desert. Her body is doubled over like a question mark. Talons and nails have bloodied her arms and face. But still, she’s a fighter. She pulls at the magic of the earth, the roots of the tree. My family has escaped, and so are other souls, floating away into the air in silver wisps. She tries to draw them back, but they fight like fish swimming upstream. Those who were captured alive stand ready to fight.

“We’re not finished, Alejandra,” she says.

“No, we’re not, Xara.”

“Don’t you dare use my mortal name. Xara was weak and afraid, just like you will always be.”

But I’m not afraid anymore. “The Deos don’t take kindly to false names.”

An unusual sense of calm settles in my body. I can feel them, all of them, the lines of my family crisscrossing, not just living beside my magic but merging together to create something more. I know why everyone was so excited when they found out what I was.

Encantrix. The one chosen by the Deos.

“I will destroy you,” she tells me. “I will drink the magic from your bones and then spit them out.”

“You should be careful who you threaten,” Mama Juanita says, clicking her cane at my side.

One by one, they come forward. I can see Xara counting. Her eyes grow wider with each person she sees.

“This is over four hundred years of my family,” I say. “And these witches are pissed.”

I thought I was ready, but I’m not. My family channels their power through me all at once. I can see our lifelines twisting like sinew, like DNA, like roots in the earth. When I can breathe again, I direct the flow of magic. It floods in prisms of color that can only exist in between the realms. It is pure, undiluted power, and I fire it at the Devourer.

She lashes out with everything she’s got. It feels like she’s throwing stones while I wear Kevlar. Together, our magic fills the skies with blinding lightning. I hold it in my hands and throw. It cuts through the Devourer until there is nothing left but the ghost of her scream and a shower of ashes.





39


’Round the twisting paths of eternity, o’er the bridge of forgetting.

There, you’ll find the Kingdom of Deos.

—Book of Deos

The gash on the tree spreads, sucking up anything and everything around it. Creating a portal through the tree was the only way to free it from the Devourer.

“We have to go!” I shout.

One by one, the spirits of my deceased family members disappear into the ether, back to rest until the next time they’re called upon. The ones that are still alive wait for me. Then there are the others, strangers, who were trapped against their will. Their souls fly around me, they touch me, thank me, and then they vanish.

“Alex!” My mom’s voice cuts through the howling wind. I run into her open arms and hold on tight. “We have to go. The portal is going to seal itself.”

“Wait!” I pull out of her embrace. I run to where Agosto and Madra are weary from the battle. Black clouds circle and twist, ready to form a tornado at the center of the labyrinth.

“You must go, encantrix,” Agosto says.

“I’m making sure everyone gets back.”

There’s so much to say. It’s too much to convey with a simple embrace. Madra gives me one of her feathers; Agosto, one of the throwing knives from his belt.

Aunt Ro pulls me back to the tree. “Go, Alejandra.”

She’s different too. The symbols of the sun and crescent moon are marked on her forehead. She glows with a light that comes from deep within.

“What happened to you?” I ask.

“The Deos have a plan. They always have a plan!”

When my mom sees my aunt, she nearly faints. “Rosaria?”

Aunt Ro’s dark skin glows with a different kind of blessing. A balance. The Devourer is gone and someone needs to take her place. This is why the Deos gave her a second chance. The sisters embrace. My mother shudders in her little sister’s arms. Aunt Ro kisses my mother’s wet cheeks, then forces herself to let go.

“Okay, head count,” Lula says.

One by one, they jump in—Lady, Rose, my mom, and so on.

I watch the labyrinth crumble as the fire dies and leaves the skeleton of branches. Funnels of clouds swirl across the hills and carry the ashes away. The Meadowkin and the avianas wave from a distance. Rishi takes my hand and squeezes.