“I know,” I said softly, my heart pounding against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence. “I know who you are, Luzia. Or at leastwhatyou are.”
All the warmth vanished from her face. She took a half step back, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. Her voice was a barely audible whisper. “You do?”
I nodded, my gaze holding hers, a silent acknowledgment of the shared secret hanging heavily in the air between us. “I’ve heard stories. Legends. About the Encantado.”
A wave of relief washed over her face, the tension easing slightly, the lines around her mouth softening. “Then… you understand?”
“I’m trying to,” I said, my voice gentle, wanting to reach out, to bridge the distance between us, but holding back, unsure of how to navigate this strange, uncharted territory. “And I want to help you find this flower. But there’s so much I don’t know. There’s a museum in Leticia. Well, near here. It has other artifacts like theSeolais. Things that maybe belonged to your people. Maybe they hold some clues.”
“How…” Luzia’s voice was barely a breath, confusion etched onto her face.
“My family put them in the museum,” I said, feeling a pang of inadequacy. “For safekeeping.” I met her searching gaze, my pulse quickening. “We can go there. See them up close. Maybe they can tell us something.”
“Buthowdid your family get them?” she countered immediately, the question sharp.
“They came from Luzia,” I clarified. “The one my mother knew.”
“My great-aunt,” she whispered, understanding dawning but bringing more questions than answers. “My namesake. Whyentrust them to humans?” The thought seemed alien to her. “It doesn’t fit.”
“I don’t have that answer,” I confessed. “But it’s a place to start. We can go there. Now.”
Luzia seemed to file the question away, her focus snapping back to the present danger. “It’s theflowerthat is more important right now,” she insisted, leaning slightly closer, her desperation clear on her face. “Do you know where it is?” The urgency in her voice mirrored the frantic pounding in my chest.
A wave of helplessness washed over me. “If your sister is very sick…” I offered, the words feeling inadequate, hollow, “… bring her here, and I can try to heal her.”
“No,” she said, her voice sharp, her eyes flashing with a fierce protectiveness that both intrigued and intimidated me.
“I’m a healer,” I insisted, my voice rising slightly. “I can heal her.”
“Only the flower can,” she stated firmly, her gaze unwavering. “It is the only hope.”
I sighed heavily, the weight of her conviction pressing down on me.
She was adamant.
“You don’t understand our ways,” she added quickly, her hand reaching out to rest on my arm, her touch sending a shiver down my spine, a strange mix of comfort and unease. “The flower will save her.”
I hoped, for her sake and her sister’s, that it would. But I knew too much about medicine, about the limitations of the human body, even the potentially magical body of an Encantado, to believe that a single flower held the key to life and death.
But then, what did I really know about her world—the magic that flowed through her veins, the connection she had to the river, the ancient spirits that whispered through the trees? Looking at her, so human in her borrowed clothes, yet soundeniablyother, I felt the chasm between our worlds, vast and unbridgeable.
“Let’s go,” she said, her voice regaining its quiet strength, pulling me back from the swirling vortex of my thoughts. “Do you know where we can find the flower?”
My heart sank. “I don’t,” I admitted, my voice heavy with disappointment. “But while we look at the museum, I’ll ask if anyone there knows. And I’ll email some people I know. They’re botanists and experts in Amazonian flora. Maybe they’ll have some ideas.”
I just hoped it would be enough. The logical part of my brain, the part steeped in science and reason, screamed that it wouldn’t be. But looking at Luzia, at the desperate hope shimmering in her eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish that fragile flame.
CHAPTER 12
Luzia
The sun beat down, the humid air thick and heavy. I trailed behind Caio, my heart hammering against my ribs as we approached the vehicle. It was a battered Jeep, scarred and dented, looking like it had survived a war.
A wave of apprehension washed over me. Suddenly, the river felt miles away, and the museum, with its promise of lost artifacts, seemed a distant, insignificant goal. My sister’s face flashed before my eyes, a stark reminder of what truly mattered.
“It won’t hurt you,” Caio said, his voice close to my ear.
I flinched, his nearness sending a jolt of awareness through me. The queen’s warning echoed in my mind.
