No, it wants to eat me alive. The dark is moving. I roll over to

the side as the ground opens up in a red, red mouth. A black, forked

tongue comes up and licks at the air.

The dark has teeth , I think. The dark has teeth.

I roll again and push through the ache in my legs. When I turn

around, Rishi is gone. I head back the way I came, but it’s all the

same: black hedges and dark earth.

“Rishi!”

The light we were following has disappeared. The labyrinth walls

change around me. They retract like curtains to reveal Rishi. She’s on

the ground with her hands around her knees.

She whispers, “It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

I run to her. Push her head back. Her face is dirty with sweat and

tears.

“Rishi, it’s me.”

“No, it’s not!” She pushes me to the ground.

I get up and reach for her, hold her by her shoulders. “Look at

me. Remember what Madra said? Look twice. So look at me. What do you

see?”

She hiccups with every breath. Her fingers reach out for my face.

“There’s something in here. It showed me-I don’t want to say.”

“You don’t have to.”

I pull her into my arms to stop her from shaking. I get that

feeling again, that dread that crept along my skin before the ground

opened up to swallow me whole. I let my embrace warm her cold skin.

She presses her forehead against mine.

“Whatever was in here showed me you,” Rishi says. “You were dead,

Alex! You were dead in my arms.”

“I’m right here. You have to know that.”

Rishi presses her hands on my face. “I do know. You gave up your

magic for me. I couldn’t stand it if I lost you.”

“You won’t.”

“Please don’t break my heart, Alex.”

I feel like my heart will beat right through my rib cage. “I have

all these feelings that I can’t sort out. I think I’ve felt it since

the day you found me. But when this is all over, we’ll figure it out,

okay?”

Even in the dark, she finds my lips. They’re warm despite the air

around us. I press my lips against hers, softly and slowly, like

stepping into a wide, unknown ocean one foot at a time.

The labyrinth rumbles around us. A slithering shadow undulates

beneath the ground. The ball of light returns. It pulses weakly, and

we follow it to another dead end.

“This isn’t right,” Rishi says, pressing her weight against the

hedge.

“Alejandra!” Aunt Ro’s voice is clear as a summer’s day. “The

moon!”

I look up at the clouded sky. The mammoth clouds part for a moment

to reveal the crescent moon. It is inches away from eclipsing the sun,

but for now, its moonlight shines down on my necklace. The prism of

light returns, revealing a hidden door on the hedge.

Then the clouds gather with more force, and the light is gone.

“There,” I say, and swing my mace. The hedge twists and writhes,

but I bash my way through.

Rishi has to hold me up because I feel like I’m falling.

It’s Aunt Ro. I reach out for her smiling face. Her black

corkscrew curls billow around her head in a wild halo. She’s really

real.

“You’re alive.”

35

Once, the brujas fought the shadows and won.

Twice, the shadows pushed back.

- from the Journal of Juana Luz Sartre de Mortiz

“Mostly alive,” Aunt Ro says. The hedge shuts behind us, and the

ball of light pulses weakly in our circle.

“You mean you’re like a zombie?” Rishi asks.

Aunt Rosaria smiles at her, and in that moment, my whole world

makes sense. “I died in our world. There is no going back. But the

Deos, they can make mistakes.”

I know she died. Her dead body fell on me. We mourned her for

days. Then, I see something my seven-year-old self wouldn’t have

noticed: the thick, red scar across her neck. I touch the keloid.

“You were-” The word is so ugly I can’t even say it. Murdered.

“It’s not something I ever wanted you to know.”

“My mom said that it was a canto that went wrong.”

“Oh, it did,” she says, laughing darkly. “When they found me, no

one was more surprised than me.”

“Who found you?”

She frowns. “That is a story for another day. What matters is that

it wasn’t my time. That’s what everyone says, don’t they? Everyone

thinks they have another day, month, year to keep going. As if all of

this world and the others were designed for them alone.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But you were the world to a lot of people. To

me.”

“That’s why we mourn.” A sad smile appears on her face. “Death is

the most sure but unexpected part about life. It’s almost up there

with love. It’s bound to happen, but how and when-now that’s the

tricky part.”

“Tricky isn’t the word I’d use.”

She brushes my hair from my face.

“Who broke your heart, nena? That boy you were with? I wish I

could have been there to tell you to never trust a boy with star eyes.

They blind you like a deer in headlights.”

I make a face and motion to where Rishi is standing with her arms

crossed. “It’s more than that.” Then I realize something. “Why can I

talk to you now?”

She settles into a cross-legged position. That’s when I see her

feet are shackled to the ground. “Because your magic is gone. I’ve

been trying to contact you for a long time. I’m your godmother, after

all. I should have been there to guide your powers when they came. I

should have been there to stop you from doing what you did.”

I swallow the bitter guilt in my mouth. My body craves water.

Rain. My veins itch. She puts a hand on my arm where I’m scratching.

“Withdrawal.”

“So soon?”

“You’re never the same without it.”

“So now that I’m not a bruja, you can talk to me?”

“Don’t sass me.” She slaps the back of my head and Rishi snorts.

“The reason I couldn’t talk to you was you . You kept your ears

closed.”

“Me?”

“You didn’t want to listen. That’s why our bond was broken.”

“It didn’t help that every time you materialized, you looked like

a corpse.”

“That was your fear making you see me that way.” She brushes her

fingers through my hair, which is caked in blood and mud and La Mama

knows what else.

“I didn’t want to think about you dead.”

“That’s the thing, my love. Even if you don’t think of the dead,

the dead are thinking of you.”

“Sorry, but why are you trapped here?” Rishi asks.

“And what do you mean the Deos made a mistake?” I add.

Aunt Ro throws her arms up in mock surrender. The gesture is so

familiar that I could cry. “You ignore me for years and now you want

all the answers. Listen here, girl, the Deos gave me this chance. Even

they believe I was meant for something great. Perhaps not in our

world, but there’s still hope in this one.”

“You live in a literal prison inside the labyrinth of a demon

witch who is about to kill our entire family. How can there be any

hope?”

“We found each other, didn’t we?” She smiles, and it makes my

heart break. I’ve missed her so much. This whole time, all I did was

push her away. “Your godmother is supposed to guide you through your

magical journey.”

“As in the fairy variety?” Rishi asks, and it feels so good to

hear her voice twinkle with happiness.

“I could see glimpses of Alejandra throughout the years,” Aunt Ro

says. “But Los Lagos isn’t like the realm of the dead or the paradise

fields where the Deos live. It’s harder, almost impossible, to break

out of here. I always wondered why they chose this land for me. The

moment I woke here, I was in chains. I was furious. After everything

they put me through. After everything I saw you go through. When I