I wrap my hand around Nova’s wrist. His fingers ball into a fist. His magic pushes against mine. It’s a weird feeling to recognize it.
“Girl,” the duende says to me. “You saw it before.”
I step onto the pier. I get on one knee to look closer. Nova says my name in warning, but I’m not in any danger. Not from this distance at least. I was right. I did see a face in the water before. When I inhale the salty breeze, I’m overcome with a wave of yearning. I have the overwhelming sensation that I might break down and cry, so I take several steps back and blink against the sting in my eyes. I realize the salt in the air isn’t sea spray. They’re tears.
“It’s a river of souls,” I say.
“Takes some travelers ages to figure that out,” the duende says. “Your heart must be calling out for long-lost ones. These souls take the shape of water, tangled forever as one. With each splash and wave, they try to break free.”
One soul leaps from the mass, and a silver hand slaps the pier right at my feet. She pulls herself up with one arm. Her beautiful and ghastly face is covered by a wet tangle of matted hair. She tilts an open mouth to the sky and howls. She breaks a hand off of the undulating mass of souls around her. Her elbows are sharp like spikes, and she digs them into the pier to pull herself farther up, long, pale fingers reaching for me.
I kick, and the rubber of my sole melts when it touches her head. My power is on alert, sensing my despair. It swells in my chest, but something stops the magic from coming forward.
Not yet, a voice whispers.
Oros’s heavy feet run up behind me. With a swing of his golden staff, he knocks the soul back into the mass making its way downstream.
“Why are they like this?” I ask. “I thought souls pass on eventually.”
“You’d think that, girl,” Oros says. He pulls on a golden rope to bring the vessel closer to the pier. “These end up here because they’re unable to let go of their human lives. When they try to harm the living, Lady de la Muerte herself sends them here.”
“Are you trying to tell me that this entire giant river is made up of souls that can’t let go of their…loves?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?” The duende puts a foot on the boat to keep it steady. “You’re seeing it with your own eyes.”
“She’s a hard one to impress,” Nova says.
Oros’s smirk is a terrible, dark thing that makes me want to turn back and jump into the infinite portal that leads to nothing. “What brings you young travelers to the Selva of Ashes?”
Nova and I exchange looks. My whole mouth feels dry. Lie faster, I tell myself.
“We’re hunting for supplies in the Poison Garden,” he says with a smirk.
“All this way? I do hope your dealer is making it worth your while.”
“Listen, old man,” Nova says, “as long as those things don’t touch us and we can get across, I’m good.”
Oros ponders, tapping a black nail on his chin. “Used to be people paid me to cross the Luxaria with a promise of their firstborn or the tears of their first love. Even a little taste of magic. My services are costly, after all.”
Taste of magic?
“Well, we don’t have firstborn children,” Nova says irritably, “or the tears of our first loves.”
“Not yet you don’t,” Oros says, like a warning.
A silver wave rises high into the air. Arms and faces try to pull away from the imprisoned mass, but an invisible force pulls them back down.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the duende says. He smiles, and the gold in his teeth is blinding. When his cloak parts, I get a good look at the reason for his limp. He’s got a gold foot that stops at the middle of his calf.
His eyes fall to the pendant around my neck, the tiny gold crescent moon necklace I’ve worn my whole life. I grab it protectively.
“What’s wrong, girl?” Oros snaps. His patience is running short. “The man who gave you that wasn’t worthy of your love—what’s left of it, at least.”
My father gave this to me when I was five. I was obsessed with the night sky. I’d take my mother’s silver eyeliner and draw stars on my cheeks and a crescent moon on my forehead. Then, on my birthday, my father gave me a tiny box. He told me that I could wear the moon forever.
My father left. I know the truth. I’m not like Lula or Rose or my mother. I don’t believe that he’ll return. And this duende knows, like I do, that every day, some of that love slips away a little at a time.
Suddenly, he’s right in my face. His dark-gold eyes are expectant.
“Hold up, hold up,” Nova says, pulling at his earlobe. El duende turns an irritated glare toward Nova. “My moms gave them to me for my thirteenth birthday.”
He looks back and forth between us, weighing the diamonds on his palm. The duende smiles when they twinkle.
“It is nearly satisfactory,” he says finally. “But she wears a truly remarkable piece, and it’s been so long since I’ve had the opportunity to help lost travelers.” Oros’s eyes fall on my necklace again. He licks his lips with his dark tongue. I wonder what will happen when the rest of him turns to gold and how that happens in the first place.
“Plus,” Nova says, taking off his prex, “my family’s not powerful like hers, but you can feel how long our lineage is.”
“Nova!”
“Stop,” he whispers. “I got this.”
Something about this pleases the creature. Because he’s not a man—he’s a hideous, greedy creature that belongs in this ashen, cold land. It’s a hateful thing, and this is a hateful place.
“We have a deal.” He snatches the prex from Nova’s hand. “Now get onboard.”
Nova helps me get on, straddling the pier and the edge of our boat. It moves under my weight and then again when Nova sits in front of me.
Then, Oros unhooks us from the pier and gives us a push with his staff.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“I do not cross, girl.” He shakes his head. “I cannot cross.”
“You little sh—”
“You said you’d take us!”
He shakes his head in that slow way. The oars start slipping from their metal rings. I grab on to them before they fall into the silver river.
“I said I provide crossing. And I have.” He waddles farther up the pier and waves. “Give the boat a push back if you get to the other side.”