weep from joy. They embrace each other. They kiss my hands and feet.

They run past the circle of trees and shout at the top of their lungs.

“Now,” I tell Agosto, “show me the path to the labyrinth.”

27

I believe the Deos fight as fiercely as they love.

- Philomeno Constancio Cruz, Book of Cantos

Before we go, the adas surround me. They want to touch my hair and

hands and feet. They cry and pinch themselves to make sure they aren’t

dreaming.

“Bless you,” an older ada tells me. Her hair is silver as

starlight and her dark skin is wrinkled like a raisin. “Bless you a

thousand times, encantrix.”

“You are the visage of La Tormenta, wife of El Cielo,” another

tells me.

I want to pull away, to tell them that I’m still far away from

winning, that this is too much. But their hope is pure, and I’ve let

myself go without it for too long.

Then it’s time to go, and I wave my final good-bye. I fight the

exhaustion in my bones. Mama Juanita used to tell us the story of La

Vieja Tollussa, who put herself in a hundred-year sleep to outlive her

enemies. But when she woke, her body had kept aging and ached too much

to move. She used the last of her power to turn herself into a

caterpillar because her journey was still not complete. As we leave

the Meadow del Sol and take a path east, I carry that thought with me.

Agosto leads the way, followed by Rishi and Nova. I bring up the

rear in case we have any surprise attacks. Though from what Agosto

says, this place is deserted. We cut through dry weeds and patches of

scorched woods. It’s colder here than in the other places we’ve

traveled. Thorny vines, like black barbwire, wrap around the base of

trees. Agosto calls this place the Wastelands del Este, what once was

the Forest of Lights. The ground here is dry ash littered with tiny,

gray pebbles, every tree an unmarked grave.

“Why are we going east?” Nova asks. He’s been moody and suspicious

of everything the Meadowkin have said since I freed them. Granted, he

has his reasons. I ate fruit and drank the wine, but it wasn’t nearly

as much as Nova and Rishi. It made me forget where I needed to be. It

made Nova think that his marks were healing. He walks with a

semipermanent frown to my left while Rishi is unusually quiet to my

right.

Agosto looks over his shoulder at Nova. “Because Kristiсe hid the

path to Las Peсas. I do not have the power to find it, but I believe

the encantrix can. I will take you to the Alta Bruja’s temple.”

“You’ve been in that meadow a long time,” Nova says. “Sure you

remember which way to go?”

The faun doesn’t answer. As we walk by, he lets his hands touch

the burned tree trunks until the palms of his hands are as black as

Nova’s.

“Long ago,” Agosto says, “the trees were majestic and white as the

moon. When the fires came, they consumed everything. It was a living

flame, out for blood.”

“What are these symbols?” I ask, tracing a rune in the bark.

Agosto hobbles over to me. “It is the mark of the starlarks. They

lived in the Forests of Lights before.”

“It’s hard to imagine anything living here,” Rishi says.

“All lands change for the worse when the people do not fight back.

Now there is nothing left.”

“But if the Devourer drains the land dry,” Rishi says, “what’ll

she do for power?”

“Move on to the next realm,” Agosto says.

A dark thought grips my heart. It is my turn to shape the

galaxies. “If she had enough power, could the Devourer leave Los

Lagos?”

Agosto nods.

From here, the scenery starts to take shape. The trees give way to

a steep downward slope covered in tall, yellow grass. The land

undulates in rolling, purple hills that stretch into the flat lands of

the horizon. Polished stones jut out of the ground, like the crooked

teeth of the earth. Off in the distance, there’s a ring of enormous

pillars that remind me of Stonehenge. The Alta Bruja’s temple. There’s

so much grass around the stone pillars that it looks as if the earth

has begun to swallow it up.

The sky is a powdery blue with swirls of purple clouds. The breeze

carries the scent of lavender and wildflowers. It’s amazing that the

same land that is home to the River Luxaria and the Wastelands can

also be home to this. I wonder, if we return home after being gone for

so long, will it look different to me?

But one look at the worry on Agosto’s face takes my smile away. We

get closer to the edge of the forest where we reach a dead end.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“The land,” he says. “It’s different.”

“Are you sure we didn’t go the wrong way?”

Rishi bites her bottom lip. “You said it’s been a while since you

left the meadow. Maybe we did go the wrong way.”

I grab the map from Nova’s back pocket. It’s been folded and

unfolded so many times, the edges are starting to fray. I find where

we are on the map. The edge of the Wastelands, west of Laguna Roja.

North of us should be Las Peсas, and beyond that, the heart of the

land-the labyrinth. But it isn’t.

“It seems Kristiсe hid more than the path,” Agosto says. “She hid

the entire mountain.”

28

The Deos don’t act for us.

The Deos act through us.

- Patricio Mortiz, Book of Cantos

“How do you move a mountain?” Nova asks.

“You know how they say if the mountain won’t go to you,” Rishi

says, “then you go to the mountain? Maybe the mountain really did go

this time.”

I smile, and Nova gives her a long look.

The wind whips around us, like it’s pushing us back to where we

came from. My stomach is in a thousand tangled knots. I wet my dry

lips, savoring the crisp air. The earth is dry in patches and bright

green in others. Stone paths cut across the land, creating a patchwork

quilt. As much as I want to laugh at Rishi’s joke, I have to wonder:

Where is this mountain?

“When I was little,” I say, “my dad used to say, if he ever lost

me, he’d just follow the starlight we leave behind.”

Rishi turns to me with sad eyes. “You never talk about your dad.”

“I don’t know where that came from. He was talking about us

running around the supermarket or the mall. Still. I just remembered.”

Rishi takes my hand in hers but lets go when Nova wedges himself

between us. “Well, Captain, it’s not dark enough for starlight.”

I purse my lips. “Says the boy made of light.”

“I’m not made of light,” he counters. “I conjure it.”

I roll my eyes and step closer to the edge of the cliff. The way

down is steep and rocky but not unmanageable. It’s quiet here except

for the rush of wind and Agosto’s heartbeat in my ears. I can still

feel his essence from healing him, a side effect of touching someone

with my power. Like when I tried to hurt Nova back home. It makes me

think of what the Devourer said to me, that she could hear me because

of the fear in my heart. Why can’t I feel a trace of her power?

“It’s strange,” I say.

“Which part?” Rishi asks.

I point to the horizon. “It’s not hot here, but the air on the

horizon ripples like there’s a heat wave.”

“Wouldn’t that be the Bone Valle?” She squints and holds her hand

like a sun visor over her eyes. “If I didn’t want someone to come into

my lair and I was this powerful bruja, I’d make sure no one would see

it.”

Look twice . Nothing in Los Lagos is what it seems. The land is

fluid, yes, but even if the Devourer destroyed the mountains of Las

Peсas the way she’s destroyed so many other things, we’d still be able