No, I think. She won’t.
We stop at a fork in the labyrinth.
“Remember what I said,” Aunt Ro tells me. “Don’t stand in one place for too long. If you get taken by the vines, stab the thickest part closest to the ground. Even plants have feelings, after all.
“Get to the tree, Alejandra,” she tells me.
“Keep Rishi safe,” I tell her.
Rishi kisses my cheek, and then they’re gone. A hedge separates 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.