“Wait, Alex, please.”

“Don’t say my name.”

“Fine,” he snaps. He gets back on his feet. “ Encantrix , let me

explain.”

I call my borrowed power to the surface. I’m not going to kill

him. I’m going to make him hurt the way he hurt me.

He meets my power with his own. I fall back on my ass. “Alex,

don’t.”

“ Don’t say my name.”

He makes a frustrated gesture at the air. “We don’t have a lot of

time. I’m trying to help you.”

“Then get me to the Tree of Souls.”

“I’m trying. You just-you have to know. I was just doing my job. I

wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“You didn’t have to try.” I take a step away from him. “You just

did. You made me think you were on my side. You made me think I could

trust you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go down this way. There’s more I wanted to

tell you. I just couldn’t do it in front of Rishi.”

“Why?”

He’s quiet. I can see the indecision in his face. He takes several

steps away from me, hugging his body. He looks up to where the moon is

touching the outline of the sun. When he turns around, he moves so

quickly, I don’t have a chance to react-my hands are still raised in

the air, and he stops inches from me. I can feel the hum of his

heartbeat. Like the time I stole his life force, like the time he

carried me in the mountain pass.

“The job was to gather power for the Devourer. I scouted you for

weeks.”

I shut my eyes. I see him walking in front of the car that day. I

see him crossing the street while looking back at me.

“It wasn’t hard to find you. There aren’t many of us left, you

know? Everyone knows someone, but none of them had your potential. A

score that big, I could get the Devourer to keep up her end of our

bargain. To set me free. All I had to do was swap out your Deathday

ingredients with mine, and your power would get sent here. It was easy

to do when I dropped off my delivery. I didn’t expect your whole

family to get in the way to protect you. I didn’t know what would

happen, Alex. The Devourer still wanted you. Without you, none of this

would work.”

“You created the portal. You made me think I banished them.” I

shut my eyes for a moment, and tears run down my face. He starts to

touch my hand. “ Don’t .”

“There’s more.”

I turn to run through the hedge, but something grips me from

behind. White-hot pain sears my skin. Magic floods my veins, and then

we’re on the ground together. Pure magic flares through me so quickly

that my head spins. His memories flood into my mind. I see my face the

way he sees me, hear his heart slamming against his ears like fists

against the wall.

There’s Nova as a kid, beating his knuckles bloody on a wall of

exposed brick. His tortured back cut up in cruel, bloody gashes.

There’s a little boy hiding in a closet while guns go off in the

next room.

There’s a police officer throwing him into a bus like a criminal.

There’s home after home. Monstrous hands that come out of the

shadows. His heart beating and beating until it creates a spark. The

magic finds him and burns a woman’s face.

There’s Nova, older, bolder.

There’s a boy who never got the chance to be a child. He roams the

streets all night and sleeps in the nooks and crannies of the subway,

the park, the construction site of a million-dollar high-rise. He’s so

hungry he steals and steals until he’s just another shadow in the

city.

The black marks start to spread every time he uses his magic. At

first, he measures the progress, but soon enough he stops caring. He

calls them tattoos.

People look at him a certain way. Fear. Awe. It’s the same thing,

I guess. He’s older still, pulling his hood over his face so people

won’t ask him what he is. Brown skin and light eyes, like the world’s

biggest mystery.

He finds friends on the streets. Lost boys and girls surviving by

any means necessary. There’s an accident. A girl screaming. A man with

a gun. Nova uses his magic to scare away an attack. The girl runs in

fear, not of the attacker but of him. There are blue and red and white

lights, and accusations.

There’s juvenile detention. There are men there with magic too.

They smell like steel and blood and fire. They whisper of a creature

who can help. They call her the Devourer. She appears like a succubus

in his dreams, all red lips and promises.

There’s hope. For the first time in so long, there’s hope.

He’s a pied piper of souls. He leads power to the woman with the

mask of death. He hears their screams as she consumes. He wants to

break away, but he’s bound to her. He longs for her promise to make

him strong. He searches for more. He’s walking to a job. He almost

gets hit by a car. There’s a girl. He sees her fear. Her power. He

knows her from around the way. He loves her anger and her fight. He

loves the way she holds her fears close to her heart. The Devourer

sees her too. That’s the girl. Watch her. Wait. She’s the One.

He leads her down the dark. He holds her. She saves him. He saves

her. He wants her. He loves her. But the human girl loves her too.

He betrays them. He doesn’t want to die.

The sound of rushing blood roars in my ears. Our connection

breaks.

I sit up, shaking in his arms.

“There’s nothing I can do to make things right with you,” he tells

me. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”

He holds out his hand.

It’s a stranger’s hand, a traitor’s hand.

“This doesn’t change a thing,” I tell him.

As the sky breaks above us with pouring rain, Nova creates a long

passage through the hedge. There, at the end of the narrow path, is

the Tree of Souls.

37

Find me where the sun meets the moon.

Past the wicked trees,

past the desert dunes.

- Witchsong #2, Book of Cantos

Nova and I run through the maze. The hedges try to shift, try to

trick me, but I barrel forward. I smash at the dead hands that reach

from the black leaves with my mace. I can smell fire and smoke. It

starts on the outer rings of the labyrinth and races toward the

center.

“How did you do this?” Nova asks me.

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” I hope Aunt Ro and Rishi are

safe out there.

I stop at the base of the Tree of Souls and land on my knees. I

feel dwarfed by its grandeur. Its long, thick branches reach for the

sky, barren of any foliage. Instead of leaves, the branches are filled

with hundreds of cocoons. The cocoons pulse with white light, and when

I touch the tree trunk, I get impressions of the powers trapped in

there.

Alex! I hear Lula shout.

She made it , another voice.

Encantrix , a united whisper.

“I’m here,” I say, then a sharp pain digs into my side. The blast

sends me flying back, away from the tree and crashing into Nova.

Black, sinewy smoke surrounds us, toys with us. I pick myself up

and get ready for another attack. The smoke settles in front of me and

materializes into the Devourer. Her eyes are a deeper red now, almost

black. Dry, red lips smirk. Her neck twitches, as if something inside

of her is fighting to get out.

“Nova. I’m surprised,” she says. “I thought human

self-preservation was better than that. I suppose not.”

“I’m used to being a disappointment,” he says without a trace of

irony.

“I’m taking my family back,” I tell her.

“How?” she asks. “Kill me? You can’t. You’re alone. You’ll always

be alone. I have your power, your family. Now, I’m going to take your