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.”

What am I supposed to do with Nova and Rishi helpless on the

ground? I could run. I could leave them behind. Nova would do it if it

came down to us versus him. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

The Devourer looks at my friends and clucks her tongue as if we’re

a joke to her. “This is what you’ve brought to challenge me? You don’t

know the way of Los Lagos, Alejandra Mortiz. Power comes at a great

cost, yes. But what is the price of banishing it? Did you stop to

think that your power is connected to your blood-the living and the

dead that are tied to you? I thought I was getting your power, but

then, they tried to protect you. I can feel their essence in the Tree

of Souls. What can you give me in exchange for your family?”

My life.

I don’t say it aloud, but it’s all I have. She knows it. She mocks

me when she says, “Would you like to make a trade? You for them? Why

would I when their power is so delicious ? Why would I when I can have

all of you?”

Nova pushes himself to his knees. He looks up at the Devourer like

he’s in a dream. He starts to crawl to her. I grab him by his

shoulders and pull him back.

The Devourer laughs darkly, moving past him and over to where

Agosto is whimpering from the spear through his hand. The Devourer

pulls the spear free and Agosto’s scream is so loud, every bird hidden

in the circle of trees takes flight.

“Come on, encantrix,” the Devourer says. “Show me what you’ve

got.”

I reach for the mace handle in my backpack. It’s too cumbersome

and heavy to be comfortable, but it’s all I’ve got now that my powers

have recoiled from me.

The demon witch tilts her head to the side and says, “Curious.”

“Alex,” Rishi groans on the ground. “I feel sick. I can’t see.”

“Get down!” I shout at her.

I step forward and swing the mace. The Devourer is quick as a

shadow and moves back before I can complete my swing. She laughs and

hits me in the gut with the butt of her spear. I fall to my knees, the

wind knocked from my lungs until it burns.

“Pathetic,” she spits. “You are the encantrix descendant of the

Great Mama Juana Mortiz?”

Her movement is frantic. Her hands shake. There’s something wrong

with her. A tick to her face, like she’s talking to someone I can’t

see.

I take this moment of distraction and swing the mace at her

kneecaps. She falls forward, catches herself on her palms, growling.

She throws her spear on the ground. As she stands, she pulls on her