He’d never tell her, but he forgave her then. Right there on the wet grass.

The sky behind Mateo’s head was a yellow blaze. The sun was rising. But something about the sun was wrong. Maria tried to understand, but she couldn’t think fast enough.

Something was happening.

She felt it radiating down from the sky. Crawling up from the ground.

The spirits.

A bell rang.

Mateo turned to look, but he couldn’t figure out where it came from. There was no one around.

Something lit up the sky to the west. Something unnatural. It was far away, but getting closer fast.

When he looked back at Maria, she’d stepped away from the goalpost. Her head was tilted as she stared at him.

That’s when he saw the glint of light coming off something in her hand.

“What the hell is that?” he said.

He took a step back, stumbling on his bad ankle. He gripped the post for support.

The thing in Maria’s hand was long and shiny. Like a knife.

Maria turned to look at her hand too, as if she didn’t know what she was holding any more than he did.

It was a knife, with a long blade. Old-fashioned-looking. Like something out of a fairy tale.

He was starting to shake. He couldn’t let her see his nerves.

All he’d thought about was coming here. Finding her. Getting her to tell him the truth.

How could she have something that—

Did this mean she’d actually try to—

Fear rippled up his spine. He tried to back up farther, but he was already standing flush against the goalpost.

He’d forgiven her. Now she was going to kill him.

This is how it ends, a voice he didn’t recognize whispered in his head.

A crack sounded above them. Thunder. Louder than any thunder he’d ever heard before.

It wasn’t just overhead. It was all around them. Ringing through the metal bleachers. Louder than he imagined the voice of God would sound.

Without thinking, he grabbed onto the goalpost to get his balance and shoved Maria away from him. She fell back onto the grass.

She’ll be safe there, Mateo thought, for some reason he couldn’t name.

That was when the pain came.

Mateo’s eyes were wide. Too wide. It scared her.

Maria opened her hand and let the dagger drop. The ground shook, as if it were opening up to take the blade inside it. She hoped it was.

Mateo shook too.

Lightning.

A gift. From the spirits.

She should’ve known. The light in the west—it hadn’t been the sun at all.

At Dunsinane. When the sun rises in the west.

Were the spirits sending the bolt for her or for Mateo?

No.

What the spirits wanted didn’t matter. What mattered was what she chose to do.