us. I run. With Aunt Ro’s magic, my strength is renewed. I skid on the

ground as a wall appears in front of me. The labyrinth blocks my way,

creating a perfect square around me.

“Alejandra,” he says.

The ground swims beneath me as I look at his face.

He hasn’t aged a day. It’s like looking into a mirror when he

smiles-same teeth, same smile, same shape of our eyes. His are gray

like Lula’s. His hair is combed back. I can smell the gel he used

every morning, the spice in the aftershave he used after making his

face silky smooth and trimming his mustache. I remember the way his

mustache tickled my skin when he’d kiss me good night.

“It’s all right,” my father says.

“It is not all right.”

He looks around him. “I can take you to the others. I know how to

get us back home.”

I find myself breathing hard. I can’t stop my heart from racing in

my chest. Can’t stop the questions from racing through my head. Why

did you leave?

“You’re not real,” I whisper.

I can feel the shadows surround us.

Look twice. Look twice. Look twice.

“Listen to me, Alejandra,” he says.

It sounds just like him, I think. It even has the scars on his

hands. The laugh lines around his eyes. It looks just like him.

“Listen to me, nena,” my father says. “I had to leave. Leaving was

the only way your power would become as great as it is now. From the

moment Rose was born, I knew my children would have a bigger destiny

than I ever did. Me? I thought I’d change the world. But I couldn’t. I

was never good enough for you, for your mother. You made me

feel…inadequate. I couldn’t look at you without remembering my own

failure. I tried to make the world better for you, and I couldn’t.”

“Stop it.” I shut my eyes and stumble back.

“I left because I could never love you,” he says. His body becomes

straighter. The smile fades. “No one can.”

A shudder passes over me. I’ve wanted to believe this for so

long-that there is something inside of me that is so wretched, no one

can love me. But that can’t be true. My whole family, living and dead,

protected me from the Devourer. Rishi followed me into a black hole. I

touch the moon pendant between my clavicles. I feel a weight lifting

off my chest, a truth I didn’t want to see in my own heart.

“My father loved me.”

I see his eyes flash dark. He advances on me.

Then, the winds change, wrapping around me like wings. I can feel

them-my family. All of them. The Tree of Souls is so close. I can feel

their love brushing against my skin. It banishes the shadows that

crawl all over me. Even if they’ll never forget what I did to them, I

know in my heart that they still love me.

“I am loved.” I push against the shadow and fear that surround me.

He staggers, snarling. The dark moves around us. Shadows gather,

taking the shape of a person. The gray skin of the dead. One human

leg, the other a stump, replaced by gold. Like Oros, the duende of the

Luxaria. A swollen belly marked with bites and bruises. Bony arms with

sagging flesh. Its face, misshapen and contorted. Teeth covered in

black and green decay. It looks at me, and there is no looking away

from eyes so black it’s like staring into the terror of the unknown.

“You are the one with all the power,” it tells me, limping around

me.

“You’re a duende,” I say, turning to keep him in my sights. “What

do you want? Gold? This?” I touch the crescent moon around my neck.

The duende grins, tapping his long, thin fingers against each

other. He’s missing two on each hand. He deeply inhales the air around

me.

“I want to hear you scream,” the duende says.

It waves a hand, and for a moment, I feel like the space around us

spins. The hedges turn over. The sky is beneath me, then above me

again.

I blast the duende with my magic, but it goes right through him.

He tsk tsks at me.

“You’re supposed to be the chosen girl. You should know that

wouldn’t work on me. I am fear. I am the shadow of your mind. I have

no name. I am everything you hide, and I cannot be defeated.” Then

slowly, the missing fingers of his hands start to grow back.

The duende snaps his teeth in my direction, hungry for more. Then

it sees something behind me.

“Be gone,” Nova commands him. “The Devourer sent me for her.”

“I am never gone, girl,” the fear duende says, bowing to Nova.

“Remember that.”

Nova walks around me like a hawk. He presses his palms to his

temples and screams. “Why are you doing this, Alex?”

“If it bothers you so much,” I shout, “then stop following me. Go

back to your master.”

“I can’t!” He takes a step toward me, and I blast out a shield. He

presses his hands on it. His perfectly healed hands. “I can’t watch

you die.”

I let my shield down. “But you can watch my whole family die,

right? You’re so noble.”

“I’m trying to make this right.”

“Try harder!” I shove him to the ground.

When I turn around to run, there’s a snarling shadow beast at the

end of the path. The maloscuro’s snarling teeth are wide open and

coming for me.

“Get down!” Nova shouts, blasting his light. The labyrinth starts

to change again. He grabs my hand. “Come with me.”

“I’d rather take my chances with the maloscuros.” I pull my hand

out of his.

Nova shoots a blast of burning light at the maloscuros running

toward us. I swing the mace like a baseball bat and slam it into the

shadow creature’s face. Blood sprays my skin. My hands tremble as I

pull my weapon back just in time to swing at the next one.

We’re surrounded in seconds. The blind giants turn a corner, their

feet shaking the earth. Nova creates spears of light in his hands. He

slings them at the giants, piercing the tender, unprotected skin of

their eyes. When the giants scream, it echoes all through the

labyrinth.

I look up just in time to see a saberskin ready to pounce on me. I

push my borrowed magic into a shield. It’s weak and it flickers, but

it keeps the beast away long enough for me to get a better grip on my

mace. I conjure flame in my hand and light the head of my weapon.

Then, I bash it into the creature. Its oily skin catches fire. I blast

a horde of bat-like creatures that attack overhead. Nova burns them to

a crisp.

There are too many of them.

I can hear the Devourer cackle. It sounds like it’s coming from

all directions. I concentrate on singling it out, then take the open

path to my right when a light blinds me. I don’t have time to scream.

His hand clamps down over my mouth. Nova pulls me into a pitch-black

corner.

“Sh,” he whispers in my ear. He’s holding me around my waist. The

hands of a stranger. They seem empty without the black marks covering

his skin. The Devourer is on the other side of the wall. She’s

speaking to herself nonsensically. Every now and then, she stops and

laughs, then screams and cries out for blood. She curses at the moon

and the sun and tells them to hurry up.

“Withdrawal,” Nova whispers.

“No, I had withdrawal,” I whisper back. “That’s something else.”

“She gets this way toward the end, when she hasn’t fed since the

last eclipse.”

We’re boxed in my black, trimmed hedges. I remind myself of Nova’s

betrayal. I remind myself I can’t trust him. I throw my elbow back and

dig it as hard as I can into his gut. Slam my boot against his foot.

He grunts and falls, and I lift my hands into the air to-kill him? Can

I?

“Take me to the tree ,” I tell him.