The Lord of Shadows propelled himself through the doorway, the darkness peeling back from his moon face. He floated on his hundreds of ribbons. “I don’t need both you and Eleni alive.”

I tried to pull back from the fence as the Lord of Shadows drew closer, but I was stuck in place. I remembered what Papa said last summer.

Maya, listen to me. If you ever see the Lord of Shadows again in your dreams, run and find a place to hide.

But what can he do in a dream? I’d asked.

He can kill.

“It is really a shame that you must die.” The Lord of Shadows was halfway across the yard, gliding forward on a pile of his ribbons. “I wouldn’t have gotten this far without your help. In a way, I owe you my gratitude.”

“You have a funny way of showing you’re grateful,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm. “How about you stop trying to kill everybody, and we’ll call it even? Deal?”

“Perhaps if you weren’t my enemy’s spawn, I would consider sparing you,” the Lord of Shadows said, brushing off my offer. “But it gives me great pleasure to break your father little by little.” His lips curled into a snarl, and his violet-colored eyes darkened. “Elegguá will be devastated to lose his baby girl.”

The way he spat out the words baby girl made my skin crawl. As if I hadn’t realized before now that the Lord of Shadows didn’t have a remorseful bone in his body. That was if he even had bones. It was more likely that under those ribbons was a sack of cow dung.

“I am doing the world a favor,” he droned on without pause. “You are a dangerous girl, Maya Janine Abeola. The celestials just don’t know it yet. I can sense that you have the potential to reshape the universe, if not destroy it altogether. How ironic.”

His ribbons struck me. It happened so fast that I stumbled, dazed. Instinctively, I curled my hand, thinking I had my staff, but my fingers only dug into my palm. I was so cold, like someone had thrust me into a deep freezer. The pain came at once. Stabbing, excruciating pain. My leg buckled, but before I could hit the ground, the Lord of Shadows had wrapped his ribbons around my chest.

I couldn’t breathe.

I gasped for air, my lungs burning, but nothing came.

“It’s a mercy that I kill you now,” the Lord of Shadows croaked as my vision faded in and out. “Goodbye, Maya.”

“Put her down,” someone shouted.