I saw others, peeking around corners, hiding in their doorways, and Raúl and I remained where we were. I didn’t want Julio to see me.
It rumbled into the square, a covered wooden cart that wobbled from side to side over uneven dirt, the wood creaking and groaning as it came upon us. I had never seen one as tall as this one, but I had seen the person who clutched the reins.
Emilia.
Her jet-black hair draped over her shoulder like the expensive silk wraps you could buy in Obregán, and it ran down to her lush leather boots. She wore them well; they suited her.
I hated her. I hated that she did everything Julio told her to, that she didn’t protest anything he did. She was a conqueror like him, wasn’t she? She played her part in all of this, and our interaction days earlier had soured her even further in my eyes. But the fact that she did nothing, that she never intervened? That made her unforgivable to me.
She stepped down from the cart and joined her father at his side, a scowl twisting up her sharp mouth as she looked up at him. She seemed to be thriving.
“Empalme has been mine,” Julio announced, and his voice rang out in the square. “And I am done with it. It is time to return it to all of you.”
“What does he mean?” Raúl whispered. “‘Done’?”
I shushed him and watched Julio walk over to Manolito, reach down, hoist him up. “Manolito, you stole something from me.”
I don’t know whose guilt ripped a chasm in me. My stomach dropped, a stone that pulled me toward the ground and compelled me to give up their stories to You.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.
“I didn’t do anything,” croaked Lito, and he wiped something from his mouth. Redness. Blood. “Please, let me go.”
“Will you tell me the truth?”
Lito looked up. Then he looked out at us.
Then he looked at me.
He was broken. His brows shot up.
I shook my head. I had not told his secret to anyone! How did Julio know?
Lito let his breath out. “I don’t know what you mean. Please.”
Julio shook his head. “I want everyone to see that I gave Manolito a chance. You cannot say I am not fair.”
“How is any of this fair?” Raúl whispered.
I ignored mi hermano. My attention was rapt on the terror unfolding.
“Manolito,” Julio said, and then he knelt before him, his hand out, stretching toward Lito’s head, “tell me a story.”
No.
No.
“What?” Manolito jerked away from Julio, but one of his men held him in place.
Julio’s hand rested on Lito’s forehead.
“Tell it to me.”
It wasn’t a request.
It was a demand.
And Lito’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he started choking, and then the screaming filled the square, something guttural and primal and terrible, and then he suddenly stopped.
His eyes focused on Julio.
And he started talking.
His words were without emotion. Without the playful, singsong tone I was used to.
“I dropped your shipment,” Lito said, and his face was lifeless. “And I saw what was inside it. After I read the note that came with it, I took it all out into the desert, and I burned it.”
Lito collapsed.
Julio smiled.
“Gracias,” said Julio. “For telling me the truth.”
Raúl swatted at me. “Xo!” he whispered, my name sharp on his tongue.
I looked down. I had been squeezing Raúl’s arm so hard that I left a mark behind.
I knew then how Julio had done this. How he conquered the places he’d been.
He had figured out how to use his power as a cuentista to steal stories.
And if he was able to get that out of Lito …
“Whom else did you tell?”
Julio’s words chilled me. I fell back onto the dirt, and I tried to scramble away, but—
“Only our cuentista,” Lito said. “And she always gives our stories back. I promise.”
The pall of silence was unbroken. I saw nearly everyone. Omar. Lani. Ofelia. Ramona. La señora Sánchez. We watched. We waited.
“Please, just let me go,” Lito begged.
Julio shoved him toward the wooden cart. “I will,” he said. “I’ll give you a head start if you want.”
Manolito studied Julio’s face. “Are you serious?”
Julio nodded, all smiles again. “One last thing before you go,” he said. “I grow tired of being defied. And as my final gift to you, Empalme, I will show you what I am capable of.”
He slammed an open palm on the side of the cart. “¡Libéralo!”
The rear creaked open as one of Julio’s guardias yanked on it. It leapt out, striking the ground, its paws thundering in a terrible chorus. The muscular bestia dug into the earth, its snout long and terrible and upraised, sniffing, growling, snarling. There were two gnarled horns protruding from its head, and its fur was thick, black and gray, and Julio knelt down before it and pulled something from a pocket in his breeches. Lito tried to scramble backwards and out of the way, but one of Julio’s men held him in place.
It flashed. Your light shimmered off it, Solís. I had never seen one of them myself, but I knew it was the vial that Lito had told me he destroyed in a fire. How? Had Lito told me a lie?
Julio reached over, pulled out Lito’s arm, and slammed the end of the vial into it. He screamed in agony, and then—it was over. Lito breathed heavily on the ground.
Then Julio reached out to the creature, and he held up the vial.
Red.
It was now full of Lito’s blood.
“Mi sabueso,” he said. “Are you hungry? Are you aching for the blood?”
He twisted something on the end of the vial, tipped it forward, and el sabueso jumped up, lapped at the blood that it could, the rest of it plummeting to the dirt. Julio stood, holding the vial upside down, Lito’s blood dripping to the dirt.
“Run, Manolito,” said Julio.
Lito did not hesitate. He pushed himself upright, and he ran, so quickly that his arms