Page 16 of No Greater Sorrow

The front door was unlocked—the long foyer empty. A Spanish guitar played somewhere in another room, and she recognized the melody as one of her great-great-granduncle’s. A large painting of him and his brothers with the Knowing One looming behind them was the focal point of a living room filled with opulent furniture.

“Where are we headed?” Garm asked, as took the lead.

“A bedroom on the second floor.”

“Why?”

Aleja took a breath. “Because I know who we’re looking for. She’ll be there.”

Empty hallways. Empty rooms, filled with slowly moving smoke as if candles had just been blown out. She hulked forward on instinct, with a desire to escape this place once and for all, but when she reached the broad oak door that led to her old room, she could hardly bring herself to try the knob.

What if I can’t do this? she asked the voice in her head.

You have a choice. Do it or die. Which do you want?

Aleja placed her hand on the knob and twisted it.

Inside, a girl sat on the floor with an enormous book in her lap. Aleja recognized it. It was a catalogue of the Prado Museum in Madrid written entirely in Spanish. Back then, she couldn’t understand more than a few words of it, but there was only one TV in the house, and that was usually crowded around by her cousins. And her uncle—the current patriarch of the Ruizes—did not approve of young witches reading fiction.

“Oh! I didn’t realize anyone was home,” said the girl who looked no more than sixteen. She was at the mid-point of a tiresome journey she didn’t know she was on—her grandmother’s death a few years behind her and the path to escape a few years ahead.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Aleja said.

“Is that apuppy?” the girl asked, pushing the book aside. “Oh my god, I’ve always wanted a dog. What’s his name?”

Garm dove into her lap before Aleja could stop him. The girl laughed as he licked her face.

“That’s Garm. One day, he’ll be yours,” Aleja said.

“Are you serious? I thought I wasn’t allowed to have a dog.”

“Not yet, but soon.”

“That’s amazing! Are you one of my cousins? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, but there are so many of us. People are always coming and going.”

The other facsimiles of Aleja had been like versions of herself she only knew secondhand. But sherememberedthe small person sitting in front of her. She remembered the scratchiness of this rug against her bare feet when she stumbled out of bed in the mornings. She remembered the pictures on the walls, cut out of travel magazines that her cousins brought back from their vacations. Glossy images of Florentine streets, globs of gelato, cathedrals, and long lines of sunburnt tourists waiting to enter museums.

“Hey,” Aleja said quietly. “I’m looking for a piece of glass. It’s red and smooth, except for one jagged edge. Have you seen it around the house somewhere?”

A strand of hair fell over the girl’s eyes as she tilted her head. “I know what you’re asking about, but…”

“Where is it?”

“It’s here.” She pulled her collar aside. What Aleja saw reminded her of Nicolas’s tattoo, but instead of black, it softly glowed red. The veins on the girl’s chest flared in time with her pulse.

Garm’s forehead wrinkled as he looked at Aleja. “What does it mean?”

Aleja couldn’t feign ignorance. The final piece of the heart was less metaphorical than the others, buried deep within this girl’s body. So far, the Trial had been about destroying Aleja’s past selves, which was easier to do when she didn’t share their memories.

“Is there any way to get the shard out?” Aleja asked, already knowing the answer.

“Get it out? I can’t. It’s my heart,” the girl said.

Aleja closed her eyes. The nerves in her shoulder felt like fraying electrical cords, sending jolts that made her spine seize. “This is fucked up. I’m not doing this,” she whispered.

The Second demands it. Do you want to be trapped here forever?

“Fuck the Second.”

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