Perla turned to her, face stricken and tears tracking down her cheeks.
Risa shouted, “You shouldn’t have been forced to place Madros under a spell. You were a child—you didn’t know better. He was your father. He should have been looking out for you.”
The Sanguines, littered across the chapel, all turned to Risa. “She’s a witch!” Carlos reminded them, stumbling farther back to get away from Risa. “She’s putting a spell on us!”
“Grab her!” General Sur pointed at Risa.
Risa swerved out of El Gib’s way, even as he brandished his knife and it slashed her side. But she hardly noticed the sting of it slicing through her shirt and skin as she barreled on. “It’s not your fault you’re a witch. But you can’t let a greedy man use your power for his own gain even if he’s your father. You have to forgive yourself.”
Risa had almost reached the girl’s side when General Sur thrust Perla to the floor. She crumpled at his feet, white dress fanning out around her like the wings carved into the doors of the chapel.
Her father stepped over her and advanced on Risa. Another surge of magic pulsed from Perla, crashing against the advancing Sanguines and dragging most of them under her control, stilling their movements. Even El Gib slowed, hardened face going slack.
“I can’t,” Perla sobbed, her voice breaking at the end.
But General Sur raged on, unaffected.
Risa dodged the pistol he raised and aimed at her. “You must!” she screamed at Perla, tracking the general’s every move. She swerved as he swung the weapon at her head. “That’s the only way to break the curse. To free everyone. To help Amina!”
Perla shook her head and another spurt of power frizzled out of her. The new wave nearly flattened Risa to the ground. She bit her lip and planted her heels into the tile, refusing to budge.
“I cannot be forgiven,” Perla whimpered.
Looking at Perla was like peering into a mirror and seeing all her own mistakes. All the disasters Risa had caused, all the people she’d hurt without meaning to. Risa had spent a lifetime being told she was at fault for all the bad things that happened around her. Perla had spent a lifetime tellingherselfshe was at fault, paying for the crimes of her own father.
“I forgive you!” Amina wailed.
The magic receded for a breath. The current slowed. Risa felt the change and followed the magical stream in her mind, wading into its thick murk until she found the source of Perla’s power and curse. And there, instead of trying to unravel the knots that held everyone, instead of pulling on the vines and weeds and picking at the thorns until there was nothing left, she fed it.
She fed it itself. She urged the curse placed on the guests, the guards, even the Sanguines, to return from whence it came. She pulled at their knots and pushed the magic back to its source, all the while thinking of every time she wished someone had forgivenher.
She was tired of unraveling things. Of breaking them. Risa wanted to try her hand at fixing something instead.
How different would life have been if Risa had heard someone say they didn’t blame her for the river overflowing with rainwater? If her parents had assured their daughter she had nothing to feel sorry for, that bad things happened to anyone and everyone, not just because some little girl existed nearby? If the town of Barrow hadn’t decided that a girl born on a Bad Day must also be a Bad Thing?
So she forgave Perla for the things she couldn’t forgive herself for.
At first, nothing happened. Then, a rush of air swept over the chapel, rattling the chairs and the stained glass window behind the dais. Risa watched as magic seeped out of the dazed guests, the muddled guards, the affected Sanguines, and wormed its way toward Perla.
Weapons clattered to the floor. Guests stood from their seats and glanced around them in bewilderment. The Sanguines stumbled away.
But the curse did not collapse the way she’d hoped. Instead, it centered around Perla, gorging on the guilt she still felt, content to grow until it was unleashed again.
“You have to forgive yourself,” she told the witch of Madros. “Or it will eat you up from inside and never let you go.”
“I can’t,” Perla cried, her crumpled dress the broken wings of a dead bird.
“You’re the only one who can,” Risa told her, rushing to Perla’s side to take her hands. The curse tried to snap at her, too, but instead, Risa shouldered some of Perla’s guilt. Like she thought a friend might do. Like Amina and Javi had tried to do. “Not your dad. Not Amina. Just you.”
“I just wanted to make him happy,” Perla sniffled.
“You’re his daughter,” Risa said. “It’s not your fault that that’s not enough for him.”
Perla sighed, and something shifted beneath Risa’s feet. She felt the curse recede again, for good.
The general stared at Perla, then Risa, realizing that the magic had loosened its hold.
“You!” General Sur roared, anger turning his entire face beet red.