Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas, #1)

by Zoraida Córdova

Mom says Lula’s power comes from the goodness of wanting to do good.

For beings that don’t bleed, the gods sure ask for a lot of it, I think.

If you can’t learn to sacrifice the small things, you’ll never get the thing you’re after.”

Sometimes it’s hard to find the good memories.

Love is Lula. Love is my mom. Love is Rose. Love is in this power that I never asked for but courses through my veins like the blood of my ancestors.

“All lands change for the worse when the people do not fight back. Now there is nothing left.”

It is my turn to shape the galaxies.

I hold her hand and walk with her, a promise that I won’t let go. In turn, she stays close and whispers, “I would follow you into the darkest dark.”

Her love for you is so strong she threw herself into another galaxy to be with you.

The thing that drew me to Rishi was her happiness, the way she wore it on her sleeve, the way it lit her up like the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Now, in the most hopeless of places, she gives me that light.

I’m not the encantrix everyone thought I would be. Right now, I’m just a girl, and there is also magic in that.

I realize it’s a girl’s name. He says it over and over in a gruff voice, like it’s the only word he remembers, the only word that matters beyond years and life and death.

The dark has teeth, I think. The dark has teeth.

“Please don’t break my heart, Alex.”

What matters is that it wasn’t my time. That’s what everyone says, don’t they? Everyone thinks they have another day, month, year to keep going. As if all of this world and the others were designed for them alone.” “Maybe,” I say. “But you were the world to a lot of people. To me.” “That’s why we mourn.”

“Death is the most sure but unexpected part about life. It’s almost up there with love. It’s bound to happen, but how and when—now that’s the tricky part.”

never trust a boy with star eyes. They blind you like a deer in headlights.”

“That’s the thing, my love. Even if you don’t think of the dead, the dead are thinking of you.”

“Never, ever could you be weak. We all think about leaving, Alejandra. We all get scared and want to turn away, but it isn’t always strength that makes you stay. Strength is also making the decision to change your destiny.”

She ate the stars and swallowed the earth. She is the girl with all the power. —Witchsong #5, Book of Cantos

For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to be ordinary. As we run through the changing paths of this maze, I realize I was never ordinary to begin with. We are built a certain way, and the only thing I regret is that it took me so long to see that.

Even plants have feelings, after all.

“I am loved.”

Your magic is your anchor.

Wild magic can’t be tamed,

I understand now. Magic is a living thing. It’s part of me.

Given the gifts of the Deos, the encantrix has a choice in the worlds. To heal it. Or destroy it. —The Creation of Witches, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz

“This is over four hundred years of my family,” I say. “And these witches are pissed.”

La Mama gave her heart to El Papa. They lived in the Kingdom of Deos for all their days, chasing each other across the skies. —History of the Deos, Book of Cantos

“You know,” Rishi says, sitting up to stretch. “If you’d have said you loved me like ten minutes ago, I would’ve probably woken up sooner.”

She is the light in the hopeless places. She is the sky when the night blazes. —Rezo de La Estrella, Lady of Hope and All the World’s Brightness

because we’re alive and it’s a beautiful thing.

“I’ll give you stars,” I tell her.

and I thank the Deos for making me who I am. An encantrix, a bruja, a girl.

Not all loves are meant to last forever. Some burn like fire until there is nothing left but ash and black ink on skin.

but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the idea of family as identity.

Finally, for all the girls and boys: you are enough.

Pain will never stop searching for a way to get stronger.

“The Deos ask too much. The Deos have always asked for too much.”